For as dull as these Conceits may appear to be; such as never dropp’d before from any Man in his Senses; yet our Author, who has hitherto shewn himself Blind in every kind of Argument, is now become so Sharp-sighted of a sudden, when you are to take his Word for it, that he boldly asserts, That this Remark alone (of Sympathy and Antipathy) may serve to lead us a little into the true Nature of Contagion. What! this Nature of Contagion, that is still unknown, after all Dr. Mead’s Endeavours; nay, Sweats and Labours, to be drawn at length from Trifles that bear no Relation to Contagion.
There is no Accounting for this Attempt upon Mankind: The Doctor, I doubt not, has often made Trial, how far their good Nature could carry their Belief: but this obtruding on Scholars, and Physicians too, is no less exposing Physick than Physicians. Such Credulity is the very Reverse of the Incredulity our Saviour complains of, and no less Marvellous. It is indeed Marvellous, how People were Unbelievers after the greatest Evidence of Reason and Miracle: Yet we cannot forbear admiring, if People should swallow all this Trifle and Contradiction, against all Sense and Reason. We are, indeed, at a loss to explain this lazy Credulity; and therefore we must have Recourse to the general Infection, that has wrought so strong Delusion, of late Years, all over Europe; when we find Men have become wonderfully Credulous, even to Infatuation. Upon this Supposition a very tolerable good Account may be given of the mentioned Attempts, for fathoming the Credulity of Men, let that be found to be ever so deep. If we hove our Lead in the South Sea, we could sound to an hundred Fathom, and bring up yellow Sand upon the Lead. Some Doctors have often sounded fifty Fathom for yellow Sand; and Doctor Anodyne Necklace almost as deep for the same. The South Sea Pilots have now run us a-ground, notwithstanding the Depth of Water; and Men begin to recover their Senses by the Surprize, Terriculamenta being often found useful to Children: And, I hope, now they are awake, they will never hereafter subject either their Lives or Fortunes to Directors of any kind.
But as we are, at present, got into the Metaphors of Trade and Navigation, it has been no small Omission, in every kind of Director, that they have lately forgot the Genius of England; of its being a Country of Merchants. Had Dr. Mead remember’d the Place of his Education, he might likewise have saved himself much Labour in explaining a groundless Phænomenon, and spoke more Truth. Was not Dr. Mead bred, if not born, within the Smoak of Black Wall and Wapping, where both Church and Conventicle have long been a safe Retreat to foreign Goods, that were not to stand the awful View of a Custom House Officer? Yet, in all that Time, and ever since, there have not appeared any Degrees of a Plague. Have not Merchandize been brought from many Parts of Turkey, all which have very deservedly an ill Name for the Pestilence, that very commonly rages among them. And how comes it to pass, That during this constant, and uninterrupted Commerce, when soft and porous Goods, the proper Fomes, have been brought from Smyrna, Scanderoon, Aleppo, Constantinople, and other Parts, the Pestilence has never taken a Journey hither, in all Appearance, those Fifty five Years? In all that Time Turkey Goods have not served a Quarantine, nor visited any other Lazaretto’s, besides the Companies Cellars; a certain Proof that Goods very seldom, or ever, bring a Plague into a Country; and oftner find it there than propagate it.
It is very remarkable, That our Commerce with Swedeland, Poland, and other Parts of those Eastern Countries, has been very considerable, when Plagues have been raging among the mentioned People; and yet we have not found any Attempts from this silent Enemy on this our happy Island. Nay, we must more especially observe, that in the Year 1708 and 1709, a most destructive Pestilence made great Waste in Dantzig; and, that there were some Hundreds of British Ships bound up in Ice, the whole Winter through; yet we had no other Visit from it, than the supposed fag End of it, by the Dunkirk Fever; which happen’d four Years after the former had expir’d. And therefore this Opinion, of a Pestilence being preserved, and convey’d to distant Places in Goods, as a Fomes, is not sufficiently supported; a particular Care ought to be taken to suppress such ill-grounded Notions, so prejudicial and hurtful to the People, and Trade of an Island Country.
The Account Dr. Hodges gives us of the Behaviour of the People of London, after they returned to Town in Winter 1665, is an undeniable Experiment against a Pestilence being propagated from a Fomes, and almost from one Body to another. He tells us[[6]], The Houses which before were full of the Dead, were now again inhabited by the Living; and the Shops, which had been most part of the Year shut up, were again opened, and the People again chearfully went about their wonted Affairs of Trade and Employ; and even what is almost beyond belief, those Citizens, who were before afraid, even of their Friends and Relations, would, without fear, venture into the Houses and Rooms where infected Persons had a little before breathed their Last: Nay, such Comforts did inspire the languishing People, and such Confidence, that many went into the Beds, where Persons had died, even before they were Cold, or cleansed from the Stench of the Disease. I would gladly know of Dr. Mead, if this, and the mentioned Histories, are Experiments that come home to the Purpose. In this Account of Dr. Hodges, there is no want of a Nest or Fomes, for here is Wool, Linnen, Silk, and, perhaps, even treacherous Cotton it self, the most secure Plague-Keeper of all the rest; yet no further Contagion appeared, but Men eagerly pursued their Business, and thought only how to repair the past Mortality, and that with more than ordinary Success, as Dr. Hodges tells us in this Place, and his Relation is fully confirm’d by the Bills of Mortality.
It is now very manifest, that Dr. Mead has not given any tolerable, or probable Account of his propagating Causes; and that every Thing he has offer’d, in his own Way, is a Corruption of what has been said by many Physicians. Moreover, he does not yet seem to understand Matters of Propagation, for he makes his Causes propagate by themselves, contrary to the common and known Methods of Nature. In this he is not only unnatural, but I am afraid, that this his Method must be very defective, tho’ it carries his peculiar mark of Excellency, in differing from the Methods taken in former Times among us, and from what they commonly do Abroad. For formerly here in England, and the People abroad, thought it necessary that the Seeds of the Plague should, like other Seeds, have a proper Matrice to receive them, to cherish them, and to rear them up for their proper and peculiar Uses, consonant to their Nature. They could not see how a Plague could more thrive out of its proper Ground, than a Grain of Wheat, or the Seed of an Apple. So that it was incumbent on Dr. Mead, to have shewn the Disposition that may be in every Man to receive, and entertain the Plague, and with all the Variety in which it palpably affects them. For a Plague has often laid its devouring Hands on Children and Young Men, when it has spared the Old; and, on the contrary, it has proved fatal to Age, when Youth has been excused: Nor has a Pestilence that afflicted Men hurt Women. At other Times Men and Women of all Ages have felt its Strokes promiscuously, and some have conversed boldly among the Sick of the Plague with Safety, while others are quickly punished for their Rashness.
It was very remarkable, that there was not a British Subject, that wintered in Dantzig in that hard Frost, and Time of Pestilence, received any Hurt, while Thousands of the Natives fell on their Right Hand, and Ten Thousands on their Left: This happen’d in the Year 1713. But it is recorded by [[7]]Utenhovius, that in a cruel Plague that raged in Copenhagen, all Strangers, English, Dutch, Germans, were not affected with it, when at the same Time it made Havock among the Inhabitants; yet those Foreigners went freely every where among the infected People, and into the infected Houses.
What could Dr. Mead mean by so gross an Oversight, in an Article, too, so material for preventing pestilential Contagion? This Disposition, to be affected peculiarly by the Plague, is not neglected by Hippocrates, Galen, or any good Author of succeeding Ages; tho’ they had the same Reason to profess their Ignorance, as Dr. Mead has to conceal his at this Time; for he is sure to make no Confession of this kind, howsoever it may otherwise appear. I hope he will not call this a great Digression, as we find he did formerly, on a like Occasion. Fernelius declares, that it is very hard and difficult to know, what it is that renders every Body obnoxious to the Plague. And Platerus makes this ingenuous Confession, That as I would gladly learn what this Disposition of an Object may be; so I very readily confess, that I know nothing of it, though I am not ignorant, that this Poison acts very differently, according to the various Dispositions of the Body. And, what Hurt had it done Dr. Mead’s Character to have owned, That no Agent can do any Thing without a fit Disposition in the Patient? But, how dares he undertake to give Rules for preventing a Pestilence, and proceed in corrupting the Means of Knowledge that are common among other Physicians, and absolutely neglect this Disposition? It is for this Reason, that we hear them speaking another Language than Doctor Mead does, even while they talk of what he calls his propagating Causes. Hear the excellent, and learned Fracastorius[[8]]. Contagion, says he, takes its Rise, often from the Air; it often passes from one Person to another; it is often receiv’d by a Fomes; and it sometimes has its first Origine and Beginning in our selves. Hence it is we find Dr. Hodges, in the common Language of Physicians, asserting, that [[9]]four Things are necessary to a Contagion. First, That there is an Efflux of the contagious Seminium, or Seed. Secondly, That there is a convenient Medium for the contagious Particles to move through, and be conveyed by. Thirdly, A Fitness in the Subject to receive and cherish the contagious Effluvia. And, Fourthly, A due Stay of this Seminium. So that it is much to be feared, that Dr. Mead will suffer grievously in explaining his darling Phenomena, to which we are next to return; and no less in teaching us, in the following Part of his Discourse, how to prevent the silent Approaches of the Pestilence, and to suppress its Poison, if it should appear among us: All which he graciously promises to perform, and that in a newer and perfecter Method than was ever done before.
I have followed Dr. Mead with great Patience, into his real and propagating Causes of the Plague; because they are the Principles and Ground-work upon which he is to build the Explication of his Appearances, and the Method of preventing and curing the Plague; and if that should prove defective, the whole Work will fall into Ruins of it self, without doing it the least Violence: And thereby I shall neither tire my Reader, nor trouble my self, and only touch upon those Things very slightly, where he has either departed from the Truth, or contradicted himself. For, after the Foundation of any Position is over-turned, there is nothing more to be done, but merely to repeat what is already proved, and that as often as the Position is offered and assigned. And therefore it must not be expected that any one will spend, and waste his Time, in the pursuit of every Trifle, with the like exactness and fullness: That may be, perhaps, the Business of an Orator, but never of a Philosopher. I have been purposely thus prolix, that I may be shorter in putting an End to the remainder; nor have I leisure to animadvert on all the Blunders of this Author.
I have already shewn the Impotency of Dr. Mead in managing an Argument; and, at the same Time, I have over-turned and exploded some common Opinions, that were by him weakly defended; and that, because it is of great Use and Importance that Mankind be rightly apprized of them. How easily are any Man’s Fears dispell’d? What real Security does he acquire, when his Reason is convinced, that the Plague of Pestilence is not begot by any Contagion, properly speaking? That this Plague is not propagated from the Body of a Sick Person into the Body of the Sound: That it makes no Nest, is not cherished, nor nursed in soft or porous Bodies, that its Seeds may be propagated and conveyed into far distant Countries. And therefore, as we are to follow Dr. Mead in the remaining Part of his Short Discourse, we must go back to consider some Phenomena, he thought fit to premise to his Inquiries about Contagion, but what, I hope every Reader will think, are most properly considered in this Place, if he will pardon the considering them at all.