But if I may guess by the Cant Name we find this Fever bears, of the Dunkirk Fever, I may believe the Doctor means that Schelick Fever that happened in 1715; but I will not answer for the Time: This Fever was then called the Galloping Fever, because too many Physicians knew not a more proper Name for it, and it was a new Disease to them. This Fever indeed lasted 3 or 4 Days, and often went off with a gentle Sweat, but killed no body, whatever Method they took for curing it, or that they did not any thing for its Cure. Now, with Submission to the great Dr. Mead, I cannot find the Relation and Likeness this Galloping Fever has to the Sweating Sickness, Native of England, in the very beginning, and the end of the Reign of Henry VII.
One Observation I would make from the foregoing Accounts, and that is very comfortable to Patients and their Physicians; that, hereafter, neither of these will think themselves ill used, for Dr. Mead’s saying, that a Physician (especially if he hates or fears him more than the Plague) has mistaken his Disease, and has prescrib’d improperly on that, or any other Account: and that because we find him little acquainted with the Descriptions of Diseases, and not over-faithful in relating them. Let this Corollary, Scholium, or which of this Language he affects, never depart from the Memory of a judicious; reasonable Patient, or his or her Physician.
I ought not to remark further in this first Part, if he did not expect I should not omit what he says of the Fury of the Plague in 1665. This Scene is prepared by calling in a Disposition to Contagion that is in every, the very best of, Air; and hereby we felt this Calamity of a Plague in this Year. He says, It continued in this City about ten Months; and swept away by Computation 97306 Persons. He will have it allowed, that the Disease came by Cotton; and he charges the Duration of it on the Government, by their ordering to shut up the Houses. But this is the Unhappiness of this Physician, that he makes every Relation either incredible, or frivolous, when he would point out its Greatness, and make us feel it. I cannot tell where he pick’d up this Account; but he makes it less terrible than it was truly, by misrepresenting the Fact. Dr. Hodges tells us, that some computed the Loss by the Plague to have been One Hundred Thousand; and herein he is followed by Doctor Rosary, alias Anodyne-Necklace: but no body can tell Dr. M’s Voucher.
But if we consult the Bill of Mortality of that Year, we find only fifty Thousand one Hundred and 22; and if we add 1/4 Mr. Graunt proves to be suppressed in the Account, there will be sixty six Thousand six Hundred and 96 died of the Plague in 1665. But if we consider that it began about the 27th of December, 1664. and ended the 26th of September, 1665. we find it did not last above nine Months. Consider likewise, that from the 27th of December to the 6th of June inclusively there only died 92. and therefore the Mortality is to be reckoned from the 13th of June, 1665. to the 26th of September in that Year. Now if we take the Mortality to have been equal (as it was not) from the 13th of June to the 26th of September, the Mortality did not last above 16 Weeks: So that the Mortality was really greater than if there had died equally 100000 in ten Months; for in this Case there only died 2500 each Week: but by the true Account there died 4162. a far greater Mortality, and far more terrible, than what is brought on the former Supposition, about the time the Plague lasted, and the Havock that it made in that time.
It is not only the Numbers that fall by the Plague that strike Terror into Men, but the Suddenness and Manner of Dying heighten our Fears, and make every thing more terrible; for Physicians have been Strangers to the Disease, nor have their Remedies been able to give any Check to its Fury. The People die with Medicines and without them, and those that have seemed to be useful in one Case, have seldom failed to prove hurtful in another. No body is found strong enough to resist it, neither they who had the best Constitution, nor they who have been treated in the best Method. But what is most grievous, on those Occasions, is the great Despair that seizes the Infected, who are so far from submitting to the most proper Endeavours that may be made for their Cure, that they abandon, and give themselves up as helpless, and out of the Power of any Relief: while the Disease gets Ground, acquires new Strength, and lays desolate the most populous Cities.
I shall end my Remarks on the first Part of the short Discourse, in the Words of the late Bishop of Rochester[[14]], who describes this terrible Article very pathetically.
Here, lies a Mother and her Child;
The Infant suck’d as yet, and smil’d;
But strait by its own Food was kill’d:
There Parents hugg’d their Children last;