From friends infected, children, wives,
Let all men scamper then, for lives;
The wretches shun like Charon’s ferry,
And leave the dead themselves to bury.
’T is true some simpletons have said
A kind of fever may be bred
By heat conjoin’d with putrefaction,
Which suits contagionists to a fraction.
They tell you, if these causes may
Produce the plague in Africa,