Part 9

And to be Assistant to so great a Work, the Neglect of which the Lives of the Nation being at stake, we have some the most eminent of the Physicians now in Vogue, who from that Duty to their Profession, and their Zeal to the Publick Good, have publish'd some Essays, not only of the Nature, Cause, Symptoms, Prognosticks, and Affections of this fatal Distemper; but likewise of the proper Means to be used in preventing, and fortifying against, with the proper Applications of recovering those that are seiz'd by this fatal Enemy to Mankind. Books of this kind lately published are, a short Discourse concerning Pestilential Contagion, by Dr. Mead. The Plague of Marseilles consider'd by Dr. Bradley. Dr. Hodges's Loimologia of the Plague in London, Anno 1665; reprinted by Dr. Quincy: To which is added, an Essay of his own, with Remarks of the Infection now in France. To those worthy Gentlemen are we indebted for their ready Help, to their philosophical Enquiries, their learned and analytical Explanations in all the Stages of this raging Ill; and farther, by what physical Power it corrupts the Blood, destroys the Spirits, and is follow'd by Death at the last.

The Apologies that are made in their Preface, viz. of a short Warning, of their little Leisure, the Uncorrectness of Style, and the Typographical Errors should be favourably construed from so great an Aim of doing the Publick so great a Good; and it would be esteemed a base Ingratitude, meerly for the sake of Contradiction, to quarrel with the Hand that directs, and may support us in the greatest Extremity.

But where there may be a sufficient Reason to undeceive, or amend such Errors, as might otherwise be prejudicial to their intended Purpose of preserving the Common Weal, or advancing some other necessary Instructions which they have omitted; I can't but perswade myself that I shall have their Approbation, if not their Thanks in prosecuting the Advancement of that good End they so greatly have desired in their Publications.

It is very certain, that Essay of Doctor Hodges de Peste, is the best of any hitherto publish'd of that Kind; and if the Gentleman who has annex'd his Treatise to that of his own, has taken Care to remove the most affected Peculiarities, and Luxuriances of his Enthusiastick Strain, he should have avoided that Contagion himself, which are discover'd in his crabbed and dogmatical Terms of Formulae, Miasms, Miasmata, Nexus, Moleculae, Spicula, Pabulum, &c. Such Terms being too abstruse and difficult to be understood by the People in general, for whose Instruction and Benefit we have the Charity to believe he undertook his Publication. Nay, it cannot be doubted, and will need no Confirmation by those that carefully peruse Dr. Hodges, but will find that there is scarcely any advanced Method in what they have writ, or but what may be found in his Treatise, unless in this one Hint of Quincy, from the Use of Pulvis Fluminans in dispersing the stagnate Air instead of the fucing of great Guns, &c. And he is no ways out in his Policy by tacking his own Remarks with those of the good old Doctors, which are the best Recommendations of their passing to his own Advantage.

Hodges in his Introduction tells you, "That the first Discoveries of the late Plague began in Westminster, about the Close of the Year 1664, for at that Season two or three Persons died there, attended with like Symptoms as manifestly declar'd their Origin; that in the Months of August and September, the Contagion chang'd its former slow and languid Pace, having, as it were, got Master of all, made a most terrible Slaughter, so that three, four or five thousand died in a Week, and once eight thousand: Who can express the Calamities of those Times! None surely in more pathetick and bewailing Accents than himself, who gives us so melancholly a Description of their dismal Misery, as affects the Mind with the same Passions and despairing Sorrow they were then overloaded with; and as Virgil has it,

Horror ubique Animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent. Haerent in fixi pectore Vultus.

The British Nation wept for the Miseries of her Metropolis. In some Houses Carcases lay waiting for Burial; and in others, Persons in their last Agonies; in one Room might be heard dying Groans, in another the Raveings of a Delirium, and not far off Relations and Friends bewailing both their Loss and the dismal Prospect of their own sudden Departure; Death was the sure Midwife to all Children, and Infants passed immediately from the Womb to the Grave; Who would not burst with Grief to see the Stock of a future Generation hang upon the Breasts of a dead Mother? or the Marriage-Bed changed the first Night into a Sepulchre, and the unhappy Pair meet with Death in the first Embraces? Some of the Infected run about staggering like drunken Men, and fall and expire in the Streets; while others lie half dead and comatous, but never to be waked but by the last Trumpet; some lie vomiting, as if they had drank Poison; and others fall dead in the Market while they are buying Necessaries for the Support of Life.

Not much unlike was it in the following Conflagration; where the Altars themselves became so many Victims, and the finest Churches in the whole World carried up to Heaven Supplications in Flames, while their marble Pillars, wet with Tears, melted like Wax; nor were Monuments secure from the inexorable Flames, where many of their venerable Remains passed a second Martyrdom; the most august Palaces were soon laid waste, and the Flames seem'd to be in a fatal Engagement to destroy the great Ornament of Commerce; and the burning of all the Commodities of the World together, seem'd a proper Epitome of this Conflagration: Neither confederate Crowns, nor the drawn Swords of Kings could restrain its phanatick and rebellious Rage; large Halls, stately Houses, and the Sheds of the Poor, were together reduced to Ashes; the Sun blush'd to see himself set, and envied those Flames the Government of the Night which had rivall'd him so many Days: As the City, I say, was afterwards burnt without any Distinction, in like Manner did this Plague spare no Order, Age, or Sex; the Divine was taken in the very Exercise of his priestly Office, to be inroll'd amongst the Saints above; and some Physicians, as before intimated, could not find Assistance in their own Antidotes, but died in the Administration of them to others; and although the Soldiery retreated from the Field of Death, and encamped out of the City, the Contagion followed and vanquished them; many in their old Age, others in their Prime, sunk under its Cruelties; of the female Sex, most died; and hardly any Children escaped; and it was not uncommon to see an Inheritance pass successively to three or four Heirs in as many Days; the Number of Sextons were not sufficient to bury the Dead; the Bells seem'd hoarse with continual tolling, until at last they quite ceased; the Burying-places would not hold the Dead, but they were thrown into large Pits dug in waste Grounds in Heaps, thirty or forty together; and it often happened, that those who attended the Funerals of their Friends one Evening, were carried the next to their own long Home."

------Quis talia fundo temperet a lacrymis?----

About the Beginning of September the Disease was at the Height, in the Course of which Month more than Twelve thousand died in a Week but from this Time its Force began to relax; and about the Close of the Year, that is, at the Beginning of November, People grew more healthful, and such a different Face was put upon the Publick, that although the Funerals were yet frequent, yet many who had made most haste in retiring, made the most to return, and came into the City without Fear; insomuch that in December they crowded back as thick as they fled; and although the Contagion had carried off, as some computed, about One hundred thousand People; after a few Months this Loss was hardly discernable.

The Doctor himself comes to no determinate Number of those that died of this Distemper, but in the Table that he has writ of the Funerals in the several Parishes within the Bills of Mortality of the Cities of London and Westminster for the Year 1665, he tells you, 68596 died of the Plague. Dr. Mead in the same Year 1665, that it continued in this City about ten Months, and swept away 97306 Persons. Dr. Bradley, in his Table from the 27th of December, 1664/5, takes no notice of any buried of that Distemper, but of one on the 14th of February following, and two on April the 25th, and in all, to the 7th of June, 89. The next following Months, to October the 3d, there were buried 49932, in all 50021. Why he should here break up from giving any further Account may be from the Weakness of his Intelligence, which so widely differs from all other Accounts; and in this one, with Dr. Hodges, who tells you, that about the Beginning of September, at which Time the Disease was at the Height, in the Course of which Month, more than 12000 Persons died in a Week: Whereas in Bradley, the most that were buried in one Week, i. e. from the 12th of September to the 19th, amounted to no more than 7165. But computing after the Manner of Dr. Hodges, we find (taking one Week with another, from August the 29th to the 27th of September, the Time of its greatest Fury) the exact Number of 6555; which falls short very near to one half of the Number accounted to be buried of that Distemper by Dr. Hodges; and we have abundant Reason to believe, that the greatest Account hitherto mentioned, may be short of the Number dying of that Distemper. If we do but observe the strict Order then published to shut up all infected Houses, to keep a Guard upon them Day and Night, to withhold from them all Manner of Correspondence from without; and that after their Recovery, to perform a Quarentine of 40 Days, in which Space if anyone else of the Family should be taken with that Distemper, the Work to be renewed again; by which tedious Confinement of the Sick and Well together, it often proved the Cause of the Loss of the Whole.

These, besides many other great Inconveniencies, were sufficient to affright the People from making the Discovery, and we may be certain, that many died of the Plague which were returned to the Magistracy under another Denomination, which might easily be obtained from the Nurses and Searchers, whether from their Ignorance, Respect, Love of Money, &c.

And if they vary so much in their Computation of those that died; we shall find them as widely different in the Time when 'tis said the Plague first began.

The great Dr. Mead on this important Subject, may establish by his Name whatever he lays down, with the same Force and Authority as the Ancients held of that ipse dixit of Aristotle; but as that great Master of Nature was not exempt from slipping into some Errors, & humanum est errare, it can be no Shock to the Reputation of this Gentleman, if we shall find him no less fallible than of some others of the Faculty who has treated on this Subject; and to this part of the time when 'tis said the Plague first began. Doctor Mead, by what Information he has not thought fit to tell us, does affirm, That its Beginning was in Autumn before the Year 1664/5; whereas Dr. Hodges says, in the very first Page of his Liomologia, that it was not till the Close of the Year 1664; at that Season two or three Persons died suddenly in one Family at Westminster, of which he gives a further Light from his visiting the first Patient in the Christmas Holidays, and fully confirmed by the Weekly Bills of Mortality, whose first Account of those who died of the Plague were from December the 27th, 1664/5.

As those Gentlemen have forfeited their Infallibility by what I have proved hitherto against them, we have further Reason to suspect, whether or not the late Plague in 1665 was occasioned by that Bale of Cotton imported from Turkey to Holland, and thence to England, as Dr. Hodges makes irrefregable, and Dr. Mead's Authority indisputable; which is no less a Subject of Wonder and Admiration how many Years we have escaped from the Plagues that have happened and are frequent in so many Parts of Turkey; as at Grand Cairo, which is seldome or never free from that Distemper, at Alexandria, Rosetta, Constantinople, Smyrna, Scanderoon, and Aleppo, from which Places we have the most considerable Import of any of our Neighbours, and of such Goods as are most receptive of those infectious Seeds, such as Cotton, Raw Silk, Mohair, &c. And though Coffee may seem less dangerous, from its Quality of being more able to resist its pestilential Effluvia, yet from the many Coverings the Bales are wrapped in, it is not hard to conceive the contagious Power might be latent in some Part of the Packidge; which Escape is the more surprising and to be wondred at from the great Encrease of our Trade and Shipping which yearly arrive from those Countries; and yet to be preserved from the like Misfortune near to this 60 Years.

Gockelius informs us, "That the Contagion in the same Year 1665 was brought into Germany by a Body of Soldiers returning from the Wars in Hungary against the Turks, spread the Infection about Ulm and Ausburgh, where he then lived, and besides the Plague, they brought along with them the Hungarian and other malignant Fevers, which diffused themselves about the Neighbourhood, whereof many died.

And with Submission to the wise Judgment and Opinion of these learned Triumviri, who have cited no fuller Authority for this Assertion than a bare Relation of it from Hodges de Peste; it may be no unreasonable Conjecture to have its first Progress from Hungary, Germany, and to Holland, from which last Place they all have agreed we certainly received the Contagion; and that we have had the Plague convey'd to us by the like Means may be found in the Bibliotheca Anotomica, being brought to us by some Troops from Hungary sent thither against the Turks by Henry VI. King of England.

Dr. Mead, who thinks it necessary to premise somewhat in general concerning the Propagation of the Plague, might, to the three Causes he has laid down, of a bad Air, diseased Persons, and Goods transported from Abroad, have added the Aliment or Diet, because affording Matter to the Juices it does not less contribute to the Generation of Diseases: And it may be observed, that in the Year before the pestilential Sickness, there was a great Mortality amongst the Cattel from a very wet Autumn, and their Carcasses being sold amongst the ordinary People at a very mean Price, a great many putred Humours might proceed from thence; and this, in the Opinion of many, was the Source of our late Calamities, when it was observed this fatal Destroyer raged with greater Triumph over the common People: And the feeding on unripened and unsound Fruits are frequently charged with a Share in Mischiefs of this Kind. Galen is very positive in this Matter, and in one Place accuses his great Master to Hippocrates with neglecting the Consequence of too mean a Diet: From this 'tis generally observed, that a Dearth or Famine is the Harbinger to a following Plague. And we have an Account from our Merchants trading to Surat, Bencoli, and some other Parts of the East-Indies, that the Natives are never free from that Distemper, which is imputed to their low and pitiful Fare. The Europeans, especially the English, escaping by their better Diet, by feeding on good Flesh, and drinking of strong generous Wine, which secures them from the Power of that Malignancy.

Their Hypotheses as widely differ in the very Substance or Nature of the Pestilence; and Dr. Hodges, Mead, and Quincey, have asserted, that it proceeds from a Corruption of the Volatile Salts, or the Nitrous Spirit in the Air.

Dr. Bradley, from the Number of poisonous Animals, Insects, or Maggots which at that Time are swimming or driving in the circumambient Air; and being sucked into our Bodies along with our Breath, are sufficiently capable of causing those direful Depredations on Mankind called the Plague. Both these Opinions are supported by the Authorities of Learned Men.

And if Hodges, &c. have the Suffrages of the greatest of the ancient Physicians, with those of Wolfius, Agricola, Forestus, Fernelius, Belini, Carolus de la Font, &c. Bradley may challenge to him the famed Kirchir, Malhigius, Leeuwenhooch, Morgagni, Redi, and Mangetus.

It is almost endless as well as altogether needless, to cite all the Authorities for the different Opinions, that might be collected from the most remote Antiquity down to the present Age.

And although it is yet to be contested, and might be held an occult Quality with those learned Gentlemen, we shall find, each Doctor passes his favourite Opinion upon the World with as much Infallibility as a Demonstration in Euclid.

And for that Opinion of the famous Kirchir, about animated Worms, (says Hodges) 'I must confess I could never come at any such Discovery with the Help of the best Glasses, nor ever found the same discovered by any other; but perhaps in our cloudy Island we are not so sharp-sighted as in the serene Air of Italy; and with Submission to so great a Name, it seems to me very disconsonant to Reason, that such a pestilential Seminium, which is both of a nitrous and poisonous Nature, should produce a living Creature.' And he is well assured, that he is in the right, when he says, 'Every one of those Particulars are as clear as the Light at Noon-Day; and those Explications are so obvious to be met with in the Writings of the Learned, that it would be lost Labour to insist upon any such Thing here.'

Dr. Mead chimes in here very tuneably with Hodges, and is pleased to say, 'That some Authors have imagined Infection to be performed by the Means of Insects, the Eggs of which may be conveyed from Place to Place, and make the Disease when it comes to be hatch'd. As this is a Supposition grounded upon no Manner of Observation, so I think there is no need to have Recourse to it.'

Dr. Bradley, who hatches this Distemper by the smaller Kind of Insects floating in the Air, is greatly jealous of his favourite Egg, from which that fatal Cockatrice breaks forth and disperses Death in every Quarter: He may be seen to promote this Hypothesis in that Discourse of his new Improvement of Planting, &c. and with no less Pursuit in his late Pamphlet on the Plague at Marseilles; where in his Preface, p. 13, he tells you, 'That to suppose this malignant Distemper is occasioned by Vapours only arising from the Earth, is to lay aside our Reason, &c.'

And it may be farther observed, That they are as remote from their Consent to one another, as in the distant Place from whence they would trace its Origin.

Dr. Mead, from a bare Transcription of Matthaeus Villanus, does affirm, That the Plague in the Year 1346, had its first Rise in China, advancing through the East-Indies, Syria, Turkey, &c. and by Shipping from the Levant, brought into Europe, which in the Year 1349. seized England. This is directly against Dr. Bradley, who suggests the Plague is no where to be found in India, China, the South Parts of Africa and America, and has taken the Pains in filling up three Pages in the Defence of this Assertion.