and are the natural confequence of that ill ftate of air we thall hereafter prove to attend all plagues. For fince all thofe fevers from which people recover without any difcharge by tumours in the glands, or carbuncles, want the characteristic figns, which have been fhewn to attend the flighteft cafes of the true plague; we cannot, upon any juft ground, certainly conclude them to be a lefs degree only of that diftemper: but, as far as appears, they are of a different nature, are not ordinarily contagious like the plague, nor yet have any fuch neceffary relation to it, but that fuch fevers do fometimes appear, without being followed by a real peftilence.

On the other hand, I would not be underflood to call every fever a plague, which is followed by eruptions refembling thofe here mentioned: for as every boil or puftule which breaks out upon the skin, is not an indication of the finall-pox, nor every fwelling in the groin a venereal bubo; fo there are carbuncles not peftilential, and other fevers, befides the plague, which have their crifis by tumours and abfceffes, and that fometimes even in the parotid or other glands. There is indeed ufually fome difference between these fwellings in the plague, and in other fevers, especially in the time of their coming out for in the plague they discover themfelves fooner than in most other cafes. But the principal difference between these difcafes is, that the plague is infectious, the other not; at leaft not to any confiderable degree.

And this leads me to another character of this difcafe, whereby it is diftinguished from ordinary fevers, which is the contagion accompanying it. This is a very ancient obfervation. Thucydides makes it a part

of

of his defcription of the plague at Athens *; and Lucretius, who has almoft tranflated this defcription of Thucydides, dwells much upon it t Ariftotle makes it one of his problems ‡, how the plague in

* Lib. 2. "Οτι έτερον ἀφ' ἑτέρα, θεραπείας ἀναπιμπλάμενοι, ὥσπερ τὰ πρόβαλα ἔθνησκον καὶ τὴν πλείτον φθόρον τέτο ἐνεποίει· ἔτε γὰρ μὴ θέλομεν δεδιότες ἀλλήλοις προσιέναι, ἀπώλλυντο ἔρη 1201, 19 οἰκιαι πολλαὶ ἐκενώθησαν ἀπορίᾳ τῇ θεραπεύσαν, είτε προσίοῖεν, διεφθείροντο, καὶ μάλισα οἱ ἀρετῆς τι μεταποιέμενοι. The beginning of this paffage, as it here ftands, though it is found thus in all the editions of Thucydides, is certainly faulty, θεραπείας ἀναπιμπλάμενοι being no good fenfe. The fentence I fhall pretently cite from Aristotle fhews that this may be rectified only by removing the comma after ἑτέρω, and placing it after θεραπείας ; for προσω avarians in Ariftotle abfolutely ufed fignifies to infect. With this correction, the fenfe of the place will be as follows. The people took infection by their attendance on each other, dying like folds of fheep. And this effect of the disease was the principal caufe of the great mortality for either the fick were left deftitute, their friends fearing to approach them, by which means multitudes of families perifhed without affiftance; or they infected thofe who relieved them, and especially fuch whom a fense of virtue and honour obliged moft to their duty.

The fenfe here afcribed to the word vaníμranu, is confirmed yet more fully by a paffage in Livy, where he defcribes the infection attending a plague or camp fever, which infested the armies of the Carthaginians and Romans at the fiege of Syracufe, in fuch words, as fhew him to have had this paflage of Thucydides in view; for he fays, aut neglecti defertique, qui incidiffent, morerentur; aut affidentes curantefque eadem vi morbi repletos fecum traherent. Lib. xxv. c. 26.

+ Lib. vi. ver. 1234.

-nullo ceffabant tempore apifci Ex aliis alios avidi contagia morbi.

Et ver. 1241.

Qui fuerant autem præfto, contagibus ibant. † Set. 1. Διατί πολε ὁ λοιμὸς μόνη τῶν νόσων μάλισα τῆς πλησιάζοντας τοῖς θεραπευομένοις προσαναπίμπλησι ;

E 2

fects

fects those who approach to the fick.

And what is

of more confequence, Galen him felf is very clear in it; for he has thefe words: or ourdiatighur tots λ06μώτεσιν ἐπισφαλές, ἀπολαῦσαι γὰρ κίνδυνος, ὥσπερ ψάξεις Tvos, &c. that it is unfafe to be about those who have the plague, for fear of catching it, as in the itch, &c. Indeed this is a thing fo evident, that we find it at prefent the current opinion of all mankind, a very few perfons only excepted, who have diftinguished themselves by their fingularity in maintaining the oppofite fentiment. And it is fomething strange that any one fhould make a queftion of a thing fo obvious, which is proved fufficiently by one property only of the disease, that whenever it feizes one perfon in a house, it immediately after attacks the greatest part of the family. This effect of the plague has been fo remarkable at all times, that whoever confiders it well, cannot poffibly, I think, have any doubt remaining, or require any stronger argument to convince him, that the difeafe is infectious. For this very reafon the fmall-pox and meafles are generally allowed to be contagious; because it is obferved, that when either of these diseases is got among a family, it ufually feizes fucceffively the greatest part of that family, who have not had it before; at least, if fuch in the family hold free communication with the fick. by the fame argument the plague must be concluded to be infectious likewife. It cannot be pretended, that this is occafioned in the plague from this only, that the found perfons are rendered more than ordinarily obnoxious to the unhealthy air, or whatever be the common caufe of the difeafe, by being put into Περὶ διαφορᾶς πυρετῶν, βιβ. ά.

*

And

fear

:

fear and difpirited,, upon feeing others in the fame houfe taken fick for if this were the cafe, children, who are too young to have any apprehenfions upon this account, would efcape better than others, the contrary of which has been always experienced.

It is true, fome have not been attacked by the dif eafe, though conftantly attending about the fick. But this is no objection against what is here advanced : for it is as easily understood how fome perfons, by a particular advantage of conftitution, fhould refift infection, as how they should conftantly breathe a noxious air without hurt. An odd obfervation of Diemerbroeck deferves notice in this place: That part of a family removed into a town free from the plague, was observed by him to be taken ill of it foon after the part left behind in the difeafed town fell fick : which certainly would fcarce have happened, unless a communication between the healthy and the fick, by letters or otherwife, was capable of causing it *. Of the fame nature is a circumitance recorded by Evagrius of the plague, which he describes, and what, he owns, furprised him very much that many of those who left infected places, were feized with the plague in the towns to which they had retired, while the old inhabitants of thofe towns were free from the disease +. But to multiply proofs of a thing fo evident is needlefs; innumerable are at hand, and feveral will occafionally occur in the following parts of this difcourfe, when we come to speak in particular of the ways by which this infection is conveyed about. I fhall therefore fay no more in this place, but only, that all the appear

:

* De pefte, c. 4. annot. 6. + Evagrii hiftor. ecclef. lib. iv. c. 29.

ances

:

ances attending this difeafe are very easily explained upon this principle, and are hardly to be accounted for upon any other. We learn from hence the reafon why when the plague makes its first appearance in any place, though the number of fick is exceeding fmall, yet the difeafe ufually operates upon them in the most violent manner, and is attended with its very worst fymptoms. Now, was the disease produced not by imported contagion, but from fome cause, which had its original in the difeafed place, and confequently from a caufe gradually bred, the contrary muft happen the diseased would at first not only be few in number, but their fickness likewife more moderate than afterwards, when the morbific caufes were raifed to their greatest malignity. From the fame principle we fee the reafon, why people have often remained in fafety in a difeafed town, only by fhutting themfelves up from all communication with fuch as might be fufpected of giving them the difeafe. When the plague was last in England, while it was in the town of Cambridge, the colleges remained entirely free by using this precaution. In the plague at Rome, in the years 1656 and 1657, the monafteries and nunneries, for the most part, defended themfelves by the fame means *: whereas at Naples, where the plague was a little before, these religious houfes, from their negle& herein, did not efcape fo well t. Nay the infection entered none of the prifons at Rome ‡, though the naftinefs of thofe places expofes them very much. But, to avoid prolixity, I fhall give only one. inftance more. I think it cannot be explained in a*Gaftaldi de avertenda et profliganda pefte, p. 117. † Ibid. P. 118. Ibid. p. 117.

4

ny