Loimologia: Or, an Historical Account of the Plague in London in 1665 / With Precautionary Directions Against the Like Contagion

by Nathaniel Hodges; John Quincy

ALTHOUGH therefore, in the Beginning of epidemical Diseases, and during the Subsistence of their common Causes, particular Regard is to be had to these Causes, and the Manner whereby they affect the People; yet when it is come to this pass, that the Fever it self is productive of a Poison, or somewhat intirely disagreeable, that communicates the same Impressions upon others,

without any Concurrence of the first Cause, then such a Fever is truly a Pestilence by Contagion, and all precautionary Regards ought peculiarly to be suited, to prevent its Infection or Spreading; either by keeping the well Subjects clear from the sick, or destroying the Influence of the poisonous Exhalations, or fortifying the sound against it. But to these Ends, it is necessary to have some tolerable Notion of the Manner how these secret Destroyers are continued, and conveyed to great Distances.

THE most common Manner of conveying and spreading a Contagion, observable in the preceding historical Collections, and which also is the Case of our present Apprehensions from Abroad, is by infected Persons, and Merchandize; it being attested by too many Facts to admit of the least Doubt, that even Packs and Bails of Goods carry the poisonous Miasmata about with them; and from the Nature that we here suppose this Poison to be of, nothing is more likely to preserve it than animal Substances, as Hair, Wool, Leather, Skins, &c. because the very Manner of its Production, and the Nature of its Origin, seems to give it a greater Affinity with such Substances than any

other, and to dispose it to rest therein until by Warmth, or any other Means of Dislodgement, it is put into Motion, and raised again into the ambient Air.

TO know how these Effluvia come to have such fatal Influences over Mankind, and to understand their Progression from the first Seizure, to the End of that Distemper they gave Birth to, requires too many Precognita from the Mechanism of the animal OEconomy, and the Agency of such minute Instruments, to be particular about, in the Compass here limited. And a Reader who is duly fitted for such Enquiries, will find the utmost Satisfaction from Bellini of Fevers, and Dr. Mead of Poisons; how the Blood, and all the Secretions therefrom, are affected, and changed by such Causes.

WE shall here therefore only suggest some Hints concerning the Suddenness of their Seizure, and their Energy of Operation. And this will not be difficult to conceive by those who are acquainted with that universal Property of Matter, whereby it is more or less determined to draw, and unite again, when separated into Parcels, according to the greater or lesser Affinities of their Figures, Solidities, and Quantities of Motion.

As nothing therefore in Nature is supposed to bear a greater Similitude, than in this Case the natural animal Salts do with what hath been subtilized and set on Float in the Air, it can be no Wonder that when the Ambient is sated with the latter, they readily join with the former, as soon as they are received into the Body. And this is supported by the Authority even of Bellini, who allows, in the Beginning of his XXVIIIth Proposition, that the Antecedents to a pestilential Fever do sometimes vitiate the Spirits immediately in Quality.

AS the ordinary Course therefore of producing Fevers is by disordering the Blood first in Quality, with such Mixtures as coagulate it, that is, as make it unequally fluid, some Parts being thinner, and others thicker than natural; so by these extreamly subtile Effluvia, in a Contagion, the Spirits are destroyed in their natural Texture, and the more rigid and saline Parts, by a Combination with the venomous Spicula, changed into Dispositions destructive of that Constitution they were before destined to preserve. Whosoever then considers what must be the necessary Consequences of such an immediate Depravation and Change in that Fluid, which

is an absolute Requisite to all animal Action, will not at all wonder at any of the Affections which are commonly enumerated as the Concomitants of a Contagion; and a tolerable Acquaintance with the OEconomy, by the Help especially of the Authors before referred to on Fevers and Poisons, will enable any one to account severally for their Production.

THIS then being the Case of a Contagion, that a Person having a Fever, critically throws off poisonous Effluvia, which were generated during such irregular Motions of the animal Fluids, insomuch as to diffuse for some Distance round, what will infect other Persons within their reach; and that so many have got this Infection, that no Part of the Air, for some Tract of the Country together, is free from them; the poisonous Atmospheres, if they may be so termed, of the infected, extending and mixing into one universal, common Contagion; this, I say, being the Case here under Examination, why any at all survive, must be owing either to the Goodness of their Constitution, or to proper Means to defend against its Infection, or to conquer it when received; which naturally brings us to consider these two important Ends, of Preservation and Cure.