DR. Plot[20] tells us, That about Twenty Years since, two Persons were employed to dig a Well in the Parish of North-Leigh in
Oxfordshire, but upon being taken ill, left off the Work: Whereupon it was undertaken by two others of Woodstock; who, before they could do any thing considerable in it, sunk down, and died irrecoverably in the Well: Which being perceived by a Miller hard by, and he coming to their Assistance, fell down dead upon them. Another also venturing to do the same, with a Rope tied about him, fell from the Ladder just in the same Manner; and though presently drawn up by the People above, yet he was scarcely recover’d in an Hour or more. And since then, upon a Bucket’s falling into a Well in another Part of the Town, a Woman perswaded a strong lusty Man to go down a Ladder to fetch it, who, by that Time he had got half way down, fell from the Ladder into the Well; upon which, the Woman called another of her Neighbours to his Assistance, who, much about the same Place, met with the same Fate, without giving the least Sign of Change; so fatal (says the Doctor) are the Damps of that Place. Dr. Boot[21] tells a Story that happened at Dublin in Ireland, just of the same Nature. And
in the Philosophical Transactions[22], there are the like Relations of Damps in the Coal-Mines belonging to the Lord Sinclair in Scotland.
THE most surprizing Effect of these subterraneous Effluvia that I ever met with, is in a Relation of Dr. Bernard Connor, of certain Persons in Paris digging deep in a Vault or Cellar, who were so suddenly transfixed by some subtile Vapour, that when a Servant-Maid came down to speak with them, she found them in Postures as if at Work; one with his Pick-Ax advanced, another with his Shovel full of Earth, half lifted up, and a Woman sitting by with her Arm upon her Knee, her Head leaning upon that Hand, with manifest Expectations in her Countenance of what they were in Search after.
THE same Author, from his own Knowledge, gives a very exact Account of a Grotta in Italy, much talked of, and commonly called la Grotta de cani, by this Author, Crypta Κυνιχυς; But Dr. Mead hath
since, from his own Knowledge also, given a very particular and rational Account of this Place, and the Manner of its killing; to whom therefore the Reader may turn for further Satisfaction.
ANOTHER, and more general Cause than any hitherto mentioned of these Maladies, is some bad and unwholsome Constitution of Air. Such Constitutions may arise from several Causes, which although they affect us in different Manners, yet as they are equally fatal, we call them all Malignant or Pestilential: In Order therefore to understand the better how we are differently affected by those different Constitutions, it will be proper to consider them somewhat distinctly, under these general Heads, viz. A dry hot Air, hot and moist, cold and moist, and cold and dry; to which most Variations of Air may be reduced.
THAT from the several Constitutions of Air, our Bodies are differently affected; and that most Diseases are in some Measure more or less influenced thereby, is quite out of Dispute. Hippocrates, in a great many Places declares himself of this Mind: His whole third section of Aphorisms is a Proof
of it; and in several Places[23] he discovers his Opinion, that Pestilential Diseases have their Rise from hence. Galen, his best Interpreter, understood his το θειον, which some will have to be meant of somewhat Divine, or the immediate Hand of God, to be nothing else but a particular Constitution of Air arising from natural Causes; and that he was of the same Mind himself, is very plain from his own Writings[24].
IT is almost endless, as well as altogether needless, to cite all the Authorities for this Opinion, that might be collected from the most remote Antiquity down to the present Age. We shall therefore proceed to consider the different Constitutions of Air, according to the forementioned Distinction; premising only, that the Terms Hot, Cold, &c. are used in a twofold Sense, the one is Absolute, and the other Relative; by the former, viz. Absolute Heat, Cold, &c. is understood one simple Property of the Air only, as it is different not in Degree, but in Quality from others: By the latter, that is, Relative Heat, &c. is meant certain Degrees of those