LITMIR.BIZ

      Published by Good Press, 2019

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      EAN 4064066144258

Table of Contents

       PART I.

       Of the Plague in general.

       CHAP. I.

       Of the Origine and Nature of the Plague.

       CHAP. II.

       Of the Causes which spread the Plague.

       PART II.

       Of the Methods to be taken against the Plague .

       CHAP. I.

       Of preventing Infection from other Countries.

       CHAP. II.

       Of Stopping the Progress of the Plague, if it should enter our Country.

       CHAP. III.

       Of the Cure of the Plague.

PART I.

       Table of Contents

Of the Plague in general.

       Table of Contents

CHAP. I.

       Table of Contents

Of the Origine and Nature of the Plague.

       Table of Contents

      My Design in this Discourse being to propose what Measures I think most proper to defend the Nation against the Plague, and for this End to consider the Nature of Pestilential Contagion as far as is necessary to set forth the Reasonableness of the Precepts I shall lay down; before I proceed to any particular Directions, I shall enquire a little into the Causes, whence the Plague arises, and by what Means the Infection of it is spread.

      In the most ancient Times Plagues, like many other Diseases, were looked upon as divine Judgments sent to punish the Wickedness of Mankind: and therefore the only Defence sought after was by Sacrifices and Lustrations to appease the Anger of incensed Heaven.[15]

      How much soever may be said to justify Reflexions of this Kind, since we are assured from sacred History, that divine Vengeance has been sometimes executed by Plagues; yet it is certain, that such Speculations pushed too far, were then attended with ill Consequences, by obstructing Inquiries into natural Causes, and encouraging a supine Submission to those Evils: against which the infinitely good and wise Author of Nature has in most Cases provided proper Remedies.

      Upon this Account, in After-Ages, when the Profession of Physick came to be founded upon the Knowledge of Nature, Hippocrates strenuously opposed this Opinion, that some particular Sicknesses were Divine, or sent immediately from the Gods; and affirmed, that no Diseases came more from the Gods than others, all coming from them, and yet all owning their proper natural Causes: that the Sun, Cold, and Winds were divine; the Changes of which, and their Influences on human Bodies, were diligently to be considered by a Physician.[16]

      Which general Position this great Author of Physick intended to be understood with respect to Plagues as well as other Distempers: How far he had reason herein, will in some measure appear, when we come to search into the Causes of this Disease.

      But in order to this Inquiry, it will be convenient, in the first place, to remove an erroneous Opinion some have entertained, that the Plague differs not from a common Fever in any thing besides its greater Violence. Whereas it is very evident, that since the Small-Pox and Measles are allowed to be Distempers distinct in Specie from all others, on account of certain Symptoms peculiar to them; so, for the same reason, it ought to be granted, that the Plague no less differs in Kind from ordinary Fevers: For there are a Set of distinguishing Symptoms as essential to the Pestilence, as the respective Eruptions are to the Small-Pox or Measles; which are indeed (as I have mentioned in the Preface) each of them Plagues of a particular kind.

      As the Small-Pox discharges itself by Pustules raised in the Skin; so in the Plague the noxious Humour is thrown out either by Tumors in the Glands, as by a Parotis, Bubo, and the like; or by Carbuncles thrust out upon any part of the Body. And these Eruptions are so specific Marks of this Distemper, that one or other of them is never absent: unless through the extreme Malignity of the Disease, or Weakness of Nature, the Patient sinks, before there is time for any Discharge to be made this way; that Matter, which should otherwise have been cast out by external Tumors, seizing the Viscera, and producing Mortifications in them.

      Sometimes indeed it happens, by this means, that these Tumors in the Glands, and Carbuncles, do not appear; just as a bad kind of the Small-Pox in tender Constitutions sometimes proves fatal before the Eruption, by a Diarrhœa, Hæmorrhage, or some such Effect of a prevailing Malignity.

      The French Physicians having distinguished the Sick at Marseilles into five Classes, according to the Degrees of the Distemper, observed Bubo’s, and Carbuncles, in all of them, except in those of the first Class, who were so terribly seized, that they died in a few Hours, or at farthest in a Day or two, sinking under the Oppression, Anxiety, and Faintness, into which they were thrown by the first Stroke of the Disease; having Mortifications immediately produced in some of the Viscera, as appeared upon the Dissection of their Bodies[17]. And this Observation of the French Physicians, which agrees with what other Authors have remarked in former Plagues, fully proves, that these Eruptions are so far from being caused solely by the greater Violence of this Disease, than of other Fevers, that they are only absent, when the Distemper is extraordinary fierce; but otherwise they constantly attend it, even when it has proved so mild, that the first Notice, the Patient has had of his Infection, has been the Appearance of such a Tumor: as, besides these French Physicians,

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