on particular occafions, bring upon him fome inconveniencies and fufferings. Salus populi fuprema lex eft. Does any body complain of ill ufage upon his houfe being ordered to be blown up, to stop the progrefs of a fire which endangers the whole street; when he reflects that his neighbour, who by this means efcapes, muft have fuffered the fame lofs for his fake, had it fo happened that each had been in the other's habitation ? But in truth, there is no cruelty, but on the contrary real compaffion in thefe regulations, with the limitations I have made and I am fully perfuaded, that whoever with judgment confiders the nature of this disease, will eafily fee that the rules here laid down are not only the beft, but indeed the only ones that can effectually answer the purpose. And therefore I fhould not doubt but that, if this calamity (which God avert!) fhould be brought into our country, even the voice of the people would cry out for help in this way: notwithstanding wrong notions of their liberties may fometimes over poffefs their minds, and make them, even under the best of governments, impatient of any restraints. PART PART I. OF THE PLAGUE IN GENERA L. M CHA P. I. Of the origin and nature of the plague. Y defign in this difcourfe being to propofe what measures I think moft proper to defend the nation against the plague, and for this end to confider the nature of peftilential contagion as far as is neceffary to fet forth the reafonableness of the precepts I fhall lay down; before I proceed to any particular directions, I fhall inquire a little into the caufes whence the plague arifes, and by what means the infection of it is spread. In the most ancient times, plagues, like many o. ther diseases, were looked upon as divine judgments fent to punish the wickedness of mankind and therefore the only defence fought after was by facrifices and luftrations to appease the anger of incenfed heaven *. How much foever may be faid to justify reflections of this kind, fince we are affured from facred hiftory, that divine vengeance has been fometimes executed by plagues; yet it is certain, that fuch fpeculations pushed too far, were then attended with ill confequences, by obftructing inquiries into natural caufes, and encouraging a fupine fubmiffion to thofe e * Celfus de medic. in præfat. Morbos ad iram deorum immortalium relatos efle, et ab iifdem opem pofci folitam. vils; against which the infinitely good and wife author of nature has in moft cafes provided proper remedies. Upon this account, in after-ages, when the profeffion of physic came to be founded upon the knowledge of nature, Hippocrates ftrenuously oppofed this opinion, that fome particular fickneffes were divine, or fent 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 caufes that the fun, cold, and winds. were divine; the changes of which, and their influences on human bodies, were diligently to be confidered by a physician Which general pofition this great author of physic intended to be understood with refpect to plagues as well as other diftempers: how far he had reafon herein, will in fome measure appear, when we come to fearch into the caufes of this difeafe. But in order to this inquiry, it will be convenient, in the first place, to remove an erroneous opinion fome have entertained, that the plague differs not from a common fever in any thing besides its greater violence. Whereas it is very evident, that fince the fmall-pox and measles are allowed to be diftempers diftinct in fpecie from all others, on account of certain fymptoms peculiar to them; fo, for the fame reafon, it ought to be granted, that the plague no lefs differs in kind from ordinary fevers: for there are a fet of distinguishing fymptoms as effential to the peftilence, as the refpective eruptions are to the fmallpox or measles; which are indeed (as I have men*Libr. de morbo facro ; et libr. de aëre, locis, et aquis. tioned in the preface) each of them plagues of a particular kind. As the fmall-pox difcharges itself by puftules raifed in the fkin; fo in the plague the noxious humour is thrown out either by tumours in the glands, as by a parotis, bubo, and the like; or by carbuncles thruft out upon any part of the body. And these eruptions are fo fpecific marks of this diftemper, that one or other of them is never absent: unless through the extreme malignity of the difeafe, or weakness of nature, the patient finks, before there is time for any discharge to be made this way; that matter, which fhould otherwife have been caft out by external tumours, feizing the vifcera, and producing mortifications in them. Sometimes indeed it happens, by this means, that these tumours in the glands, and carbuncles, do not appear; juft as a bad kind of the fmall-pox in tender constitutions fometimes proves fatal before the eruption, by a diarrhoea, hæmorrhage, or fome fuch effect of a prevailing malignity. The French physicians having distinguished the fick at Marseilles into five claffes, according to the degrees of the diftemper, obferved bubo's and carbuncles in all of them, except in thofe of the first clafs, who were so terribly feized, that they died in a few hours, or at fartheft in a day or two, finking under the oppreffion, anxiety, and faintnefs, into which they were thrown by the firft stroke of the difcafe; having mortifications immediately produced in fome of the vifcera, as appeared upon the diffection of their bodies *. * Obfervat. et reflex. touchant la nature, &c. de la pefte de Marseilles, pag. 47. et fuiv. And And this obfervation of the French phyficians, which agrees with what other authors have remarked in former plagues, fully proves, that thefe eruptions are fo far from being caufed folely by the greater violence of this difeafe, than of other fevers, that they are only abfent, when the diftemper is extraordinary fierce ; but otherwife they conftantly attend it, even when it has proved fo mild, that the firft notice the patient has had of his infection, has been the appearance of fuch a tumour; as, befides these French physicians, other authors of the best credit have affured us. From whence we muft conclude, that thefe eruptions are no less a specific mark of this disease, than thofe are by which the fmall-pox. and measles are known and diftinguished. And as in the firft clafs of thofe attacked with the plague, fo likewife in thefe two diftempers we often find the patient to die by the violence of the fever, before any eruption of the puftules can be made. This circumftance of the plague being mortal before any eruptions appeared, was attended with a great misfortune. The phyficians and furgeons appointed to examine the dead bodies, finding none of the diftinguishing marks of the disease, reported to the magiftrates that it was not the plague; and persisted in their opinion, till one of them fuffered for his ignorance, and himself, with part of his family, died by the infection this affurance having prevented the neceffary precautions *. And this in particular fhews us the difference between the true plague, and thofe fevers of extraordinary malignity, which are the ufual forerunners of it, * Journal de la contagion à Marseilles, p. 6. E and |