Part 3

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.

The first Thing we are presented with, is a heavy Charge against the Winds, for not doing their Duty; but that Æolus himself is an Aider and Abettor of Plagues, by not sending his Winds Abroad, and thereby stagnating the Air; for we are taught in this curious Discourse, That the Use of Winds is to purify the Air by their Motion. But this Charge is altogether false, and ill grounded, because, Wind in England is put to many Uses; it not only blows cold, but it blows hot; it fans our Ladies, and our Corn too; it dries Linnen, and sails our Ships, &c. Besides, this Charge is absolutely false, for the Physician that has left an Account of the Winds Behaviour in 1665, tells us, That it was very dutiful, and, that the whole Summer was refreshed with moderate Breezes, sufficient to prevent the Air’s Stagnation and Corruption, and to carry off the pestilential Steams: The Heat was likewise too mild to encourage such Corruption and Fermentation as helps to taint the animal Fluids. And therefore howsoever fond Dr. Mead is of Stagnation, through any failure of the Winds, it is certain that they were then very blameless, let the Doctor find his Stagnation where he can. Moreover, the Physicians were not of Opinion, at that Time, that the Air was infected, and therefore Doctor Hodges tells us, That they were against making Fires, for the Reason of this Purity of Air; and, that Fires are only proper when it is impure and corrupted. After this Account of Things, who will question Dr. Mead’s great Acuteness and Accuracy in making Observations; or, whether am not I more to be blamed for observing those Trifles of the Doctor? Yet I cannot avoid making one short Observation more, which may proceed from the small Regard the Doctor has to Memory; for at two Pages off he assures us, That our Air is not disposed to receive such (contagious) Impressions; then what need we mind the Stagnation of the Air? Is there a Man in England, that will not forgive him this Contradiction, if he will make the last part of it good?

But we are immediately to have more Comfort of this Kind; for he assures us, That Plagues seem to be of the Growth of the Southern and Eastern Parts of the World; and I am sorry that they only seem to be so; because what follows may seem only to be true, That there is not in this Island particularly, any one Instance of a pestilential Disease among us, of great Consequence, that we have not received from other infected Places. Here is another Draw-back upon us again: A pestilential Disease of any Consequence! Is any Plague in a Country without Consequence? Surely many Widows and Orphans find it otherwise. But the Doctor will make amends for Families brought to Ruin and Poverty, by the loss of Parents and Husbands; by ridding us of a vulgar Error, of the Plague visiting us once in Thirty or Forty Years. So that if a Plague brings a mighty Calamity along with it, we may comfort our selves, that it comes but seldom.

This was the very Purpose for which he gave us, with great Assurance, the Origine of Plagues; because he would charitably rescue us from an Opinion propagated by Authors of great Name, that we are visited with the Plague once in thirty or forty Years; which is a mere Fancy, without any Foundation either in Reason or Experience. I cannot assign any Reason for the Plague thus visiting us; but Experience is not of the side of the terrible, but common Opinion, as Hodges assures us, and the Bills of Mortality confirm; for there we find it has visited us oftner, with all its Tokens, Buboes, and Carbuncles, and more than once since that Time, if Dr. Mead’s pestilential Diseases, of smaller Consequence, are admitted.

Now if the Plague of Pestilence has thus frequently shewn it self, in its most terrible manner, and very often not so terribly, how can People prevent taking Fright at the King of Terrors? Or, with what Face can Dr. Mead call terrible Death, vain Fears? Can a reasonable People, relying on History, and their own Experience of Things, be delivered from their Fears, by a bold Assertion, that can proceed from no other Cause, than great Ignorance, or the worst Opinion of the Reason and Experience of Mankind, that they are subject to so gross an Imposition, as to take Comfort in the most lamentable Danger, exposed to Death, and forsaken by their dearest Friends; and all upon an Assertion, that is neither grounded on Knowledge, nor Integrity? It may be a pia Fraus, a well meant Cheat, but it cannot be of any manner of Use.

The truest Comfort arises from an Opinion, That an Adviser knows what he says; and says, what in his Conscience he believes to be true. How much greater is the Comfort we take, from a Perswasion that the Plague seldom, or never, passes from one Body into another, as was lately proved? As also, that Observations rather inform us of the Seeds of a Pestilence, seldom, or never, being brought over to us in foreign Goods; and besides these two Perswasions, founded on Reason and Experience, we have the Authority of the best Physicians in all Ages, that the Plague, nor any other Disease, is speedily generated. By the first of those Accounts, we have fewer Chances for being sick; and we are sure, by the second, that we have Time to prevent it, or to take the Distemper early, before it is settled into a Habit, or confirmed in a Disease. Such Reasoning, such Observation, is proceeding on good and firm Ground; the other, altogether depends on the Knowledge and Honesty of the Insurer, which can never be depended on, if we have any doubt about his Sincerity, or Understanding.

What Doctor Mead has already said, is contrary to the Experience of Mankind, and is purely supported on his bare Assertion; and therefore, I am afraid no great Comfort can be reasonably taken from it.

His next Assertion, about the Sweating Sickness, labours under all the Defects imaginable. He will not allow it to be of British Original; nay, that it is a Plague abated in its Violence by the mild Temperament of our Climate. He, afterwards, brings it from France, and clears the French of its being bred among them; for they, says he, brought it from the Siege of Rhodes. Can any Man equal this Doctor in Assertion? Or in quoting History absurdly? For it carries the Name of Sudor Anglicus, and our Country charged for having produced it. All foreign Physicians declare it peculiar to England; and, that a parcel of it went into Holland; but neither French, nor Italian Physician, heard any Thing of it, in their own Country, nor among the Greek Islands; and the Dutch fix the Scene of the Sweating Sickness in England. So the Sweating Sickness was four Times in England, and no where else; yet it is the Fag-end of the Plague brought from Rhodes, and thither God knows how, or from whence: But all this supported by much foreign Reading.

He calls this Distemper a Plague with lessen’d Force, because the Symptoms of it were of that Kind, tho’ in a less Degree, as great Faintness and Inquietudes, inward Burning, Pains in the Head, a Delirium, &c. I am glad we have Dr. Mead’s Description of a Plague, it being the first Time he has ventur’d to mention it; and, to do him Justice, he has touched upon it very gently: But, if this is the Plague, we are not seldom, but often visited with it. So there ends our Comfort.

Is this truly a Plague, feeble and week thro’ travelling? And did infinite Persons die suddenly of it? And that in Twenty four Hours. Pray, what can we think happen’d to the Nations that felt the sharp end of it, and those that came under its Fury, long before it reach’d us? Surely more than infinite Persons of them must have perished, and in infinitely shorter Time than Twenty four Hours, so that great Tracts of Country must have been dispeopled in one Day. Can any Man think an Æra as remarkable as the Deluge, could pass in History without Observation? Or, that all Historians should overlook so great a Wonder, the very Soul of an Historian, and all to fix a Calumny on our English Air, and to call a monstrous Disease a British Fever? It must be owned, that the Doctor is the greatest Traveller that ever was; for he has entertained us with the most admirable and surprizing Relation of the Feats and Travels of a Plague that ever was told.

This sufficiently shews the great Candor of our Author, and his great Judgment in comparing Diseases, as has been already noted by another Hand; for if a Plague kills infinite Persons in Twenty four Hours, I cannot see how properly it can be called Feeble; nay, if a true Judgment is made of it, the Plague in France is not to be compared to it for its Strength; and, God knows, the French find its Power too great, and God grant that we may never try its Feebleness. Our Author’s Judgment is no less conspicuous, in comparing what he calls the Dunkirk Fever, with the Sweating Sickness, for that was neither an Ephemera of one, nor of more Days; neither did it terminate in Twenty four Hours. How then are those two Diseases alike, that have nothing of the same Features or Resemblance, no more than the Time of their Duration was the same. Besides, this was not the Fag-end of any Plague, but a Fever we find to be very common in all the Marshy Places in the Low Countries; and what the Dutch call a Fever from the POLDERS, and that happens in the end of a hot Summer, or in the beginning of the Autumn.

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, 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; Here, prating Lovers last embrac’d; But yet not parting neither: They both expir’d, and went away together. The Friend does hear his Friend’s last Cries; Parts his Grief for him, and then dies; Lives not enough to close his Eyes. The Father, at his Death, Speaks his Son Heir, with an infectious Breath: In the same Hour the Son does take His Father’s Will, and his own make. The Servant needs not here be slain, To serve his Master in the other World again; They languishing together lie; Their Souls away together flie: The Husband gasps; his Wife lies by: It must be her turn next to die: The Husband and the Wife Too truly now are one, and live one Life: That Couple, who the Gods did entertain, Had made their Prayers here in vain: No Fates in Death could them divide; They must, without their Privilege, together both have dy’d.

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PART II. Explained.

It is with the greatest Pleasure we enter upon the Method of preventing, tho’ not of curing this insidious Enemy of Mankind, which very justly has filled the World with Fear and Horror. For this Reason, and that Matters may proceed not only in greater Order, but also with greater Truth, Dr. Mead has gone through much Philosophy and Theory in Medicine, with great Labour and Fatigue; even to fainting away, despairing often in doing any thing to his own Satisfaction, knowing by much Experience, that the World is not so hard to please.

And therefore, he begins this second Part, by telling us, how great a Satisfaction it is, to know that the Plague is no Native of our Country. I hope he is satisfy’d with this Conceit, but I am afraid few People find any new Assurance, and Courage, springing up in them, upon this Assertion; or that they can have a better Heart to face the Plague more boldly, if it should be our Misfortune to have a Visit from it at this time.

But in what Page does this Demonstration lie? He has only told us, hitherto, that the pure Air is only infected with pestilential Steams, that rise out of Bogs; or out of Men that have died of the Plague; or else that these Steams were packed up in Goods, and with them carried from one Country into another: and tho’ this be bravely told, without any Reason assigned for it; yet we know not where they first have their Origine, and of what Country they are Natives. We have seen an Original English Plague, that came from no Place in the World, and took up its Abode altogether here; and whether all the rest, that have afflicted our Island, are Natives or Foreigners, is nothing so clear, as to build any great Satisfaction upon. And therefore, I do think, with the Doctor, that all Means should be found out to keep our selves clear from it; tho’ we can find no great Encouragement from what he yet has told us.

This Caution, as he tells us, consists of two Parts: The preventing its being brought into our Island; and, The putting a stop to its spreading among us. But, as the Doctor has a very ill Memory, and seldom performs what he promises, give me leave to put him in mind of a Promise, in his Preface; that his Method will be different from that taken in former times among us, and from what they commonly do abroad: Tho’ we have no Encouragement to think, that it will prove agreeable to Reason.

The Doctor is very full on this first Head of Caution, and bestows no fewer than nine Pages about Quarantines, and Lazarettoes; but as there is nothing newer said of them than what has been known, these two hundred Years; I leave that Affair to the Civil Magistrate, whose Care can never exceed, when it’s employed for the Good of the People. But as far as we may depend upon the first, and Philosophical Part of this Discourse, there is no great Occasion for either of them: We live a great way from the South of France, and the Doctor has assured us, that the Plague cannot reach us, by some hundreds of Miles. For, to our Satisfaction be it remember’d, that Air it self is very pure and harmless; nor can it otherwise be infected, than by pestilential Steams issuing out of Bodies, at the end of the Disease; as also, that they cannot travel any length, if there is not a Disposition in the Air, which it only has when supposed. And therefore, we are very little obnoxious to a Plague, and consequently have no great Occasion for Lazarettoes or Quarantines.

I cannot omit, without incurring Displeasure, the pretty Expedient the Doctor recommends, for discovering when the Plague has forsaken a Parcel of Goods; and that because he might foresee a Question might arise, about the Time they should serve their Quarantine; and whether forty Days were sufficient. His Answer is fine! why; we must set little Birds upon the exposed Goods. But, may not the Attempt prove dangerous, and as dangerous as to set a lighted Match to a good large Barrel of Gun-powder. The Reason for this Experiment, is, because it has been observed in times of the Plague, that that Country is forsaken by the Birds; and for this he quotes Diemerbroeck.

How beautifully are such Presages related by Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, and other Poets; but how insipidly are they misapplied on this Occasion. Physicians have carefully observed and recorded, every thing considerable and extraordinary that preceded the Pestilence; and that in order to provide themselves against it, and to give the Alarm of its first Approaches, that People may provide for their Safety in time. Some of these Presages are taken from the Heavens; some from the Air; others from the Earth; and many from the Waters.