Printed, and Sold by W. Boreham, at the
Angel in Pater-noster Row. 1721.
Dr. MEAD’s
Short Discourse
EXPLAIN’D.
Many and various are the Opinions about the Design, as well as about the Meaning and real and true Sense of the short Discourse lately writ by the Celebrated Dr. Mead, for preventing the Plague. The various Turns of the Heads of different Men, their different Capacities, and the Sublimity of the Doctor’s Style may, no doubt, occasion all this Variety in understanding Him and his Book. Some, and if we may judge by the great Run and Demand for his Book, the greatest Number of the People of all Ranks expected some Esculapian, but easy Rules, whereby they might govern and conduct their Life against so silent an Enemy as the Pestilence, which walketh in Darkness. This seems to be more than a Conjecture, because this great Demand ceas’d of a sudden, as the Plague it self commonly does, after they found the Physician had no hand in it, or that his Rules were locked up for the Favourites of his Faculty. And as the People commonly make the best Judgment of Things after a little Experience, so we find this Judgment of the Town confirmed, by what his Friends, Adepts, and other Officers, who only understand or declare what Dr. Mead would have believed; and accordingly they labour to declare, that the genuine Meaning and Design of the Celebrated Doctor was, to give a Politick Account, how the Plague may be staved off by Force of Arms.
I grant this Authority is very cogent; yet, on the other hand, if we either consider the Title Page of the Book, the great Accurateness and Veracity of Dr. Mead, as well as his signal Humility, I must crave leave to dissent, at this time, from the Reports of these Men, tho’ they carry his daily and hourly Orders: for how do such Reports sute all those his known good Qualities, the last more especially. Can any Man think it consistent with his singular Humility, to teach the Secretary of State, what has been practised in our own and other Countries for some hundred of Years: Quarantines and Pest-Houses, or if the Doctor pleases, Lazarettoes, are not unknown to English Lawyers, nor English Ministers. And therefore I think it much the fairest Course, to consider the Discourse well, because it is short, and from thence to draw the Sense of its Author.
To do all imaginable Right to Dr. Mead, we will begin with the Title-Page, that nothing material may seem to be neglected. There we find it is to be a Discourse concerning Pestilential Contagion, and Methods to prevent it. Turning next to the Dedication, he tells his Patron that he rather chuses to put down the principal Heads of Caution, than a Set of Directions in Form. This Head he seems to suggest chiefly to consist in performing Quarantines, and other things that may be collected from History. The next (Head I suppose) is concerning the suppressing Infection here; which he tells us is very different from the Methods taken in former times among us, and from what they commonly do abroad; but (as he very modestly perswades himself) will be found agreeable to Reason. This Account differs very much from the Rumours and Opinions now prevailing in the World; for we are to be entertain’d with a preventing Method, as far as Physick and Politicks extend, and on that Account cannot fail to be very new when finished; because all former Accounts are very defective, the silent Attacks of the Pestilence having been hitherto undiscover’d by all former Physicians. And therefore is there any Person so hard-hearted, or so stupid, that does not rejoyce and prick up his Ears at those ravishing Expressions, who does not desire to be instructed in this Method of preventing this unmerciful Enemy to Mankind. Come on then, and listen to the Celebrated Dr. Mead, who brings Death to Pestilential Contagion; as he is said to have promis’d while he was composing this Work. But we will next follow Dr. Mead into the Book it self, where we find that he thinks it necessary to premise somewhat in general concerning Contagion, and the Manner by which it acts. But alas! we are to meet with nothing but Disappointments, so soon are we fallen from all our Hopes and Expectations: Nothing to be found either of Contagion, or the manner of its acting, tho’ the Title of the Book promises it, and the first entring upon the Discourse declares it to be necessary; This is the very Soul of the Book, the subject Matter upon which every thing turns, the Cause of the Plague, and the Indication for preventing and curing the Plague, are to be drawn out of it.
Besides, the most ancient and best Physicians knew nothing of Contagion, and far less of Pestilential Contagion; Words only brought in by Physicians in later times, and of Ignorance; and therefore such suspected Words ought to be well described and defined before they are made use of; either in discovering the Nature of abstruse Diseases, or when we are to found Methods of preventing or curing them, upon such Discoveries.