A Discourse on the Plague by Richard Mead (early readers txt) 📕

Indeed other hurtful Qualities of the Air are more to be regarded than its Heat alone: for the Plague is sometimes stopt, while the Heat of the Season increases, upon the Emendation of the Air in other respects. At Smyrna the Plague, which is yearly carried thither by Ships, constantly ceases about the 24th of June, by the dry and clear Weather they always have at that time: the unwholsome Damps being then dissipated that annoy the Country in the Spring. However, the Heat of the Air is of so much Consequence, that if any Ship brings it in the Winter Months of November, December, January, or February, it never spreads: but if later in the Year, as in April or afterwards, it continues till the time before mentioned.

But moreover, what was said before of some latent Disorders in the Air having a share in spreading the Plague, will likewise have place in these Countries; as the last Plague in the City of London remarkably proves, the Seeds of which, upon its first Entrance, and while it was confined to a House or two, preserved themselves through a hard frosty Winter, and again put forth their malignant Quality as soon as the Warmth of the Spring gave them force: but, at the latter end of the next Winter they were suppressed so as to appear no more, though in the Month of December more than half the Parishes of the City were infected.

A corrupted State of Air is, without doubt, necessary to give these contagious Atoms their full force; for otherwise it were not easy to conceive how the Plague, when once it had seized any Place, should ever cease but with the Destruction of all the Inhabitants: Which is readily accounted for by supposing an Emendation of the Qualities of the Air, and the restoring of it to a healthful State capable of dissipating and suppressing the Malignity.

On the other hand, it does not appear, that the Air, however corrupted, is usually capable of carrying Infection to a very great distance; but that commonly the Plague is spread from Town to Town by infected Persons and Goods: for there are numberless Instances, where the Plague has caused a great Mortality in Towns, while other Towns and Villages, very near them, have been entirely free. And hence it is, that the Plague sometimes spreads from Place to Place very irregularly. Thuanus[59] speaks of a Plague in Italy, which one Year was at Trent and Verona, the next got into Venice and Padua, leaving Vicenza, an intermediate Place, untouched, though the next Year that also felt the same Stroke: a certain Proof that the Plague was not carried by the Air from Verona to Padua and Venice; for the infected Air must have tainted all in its Passage. We have had lately in France one Instance of the same Nature, when the Plague was carried at once out of Provence several Leagues into the Gevaudan. Usually indeed the Plague, especially when more violent than ordinary, spreads from infected Places into those which border upon them: which probably is sometimes effected by some little Communication infected Towns are obliged to hold with the Country about them for the sake of Necessaries, the Subtlety of the Venom now and then eluding the greatest Precautions; and at other times by such as withdraw themselves from infected Places into the Neighbourhood.

I own it cannot be demonstrated, that when the Plague makes great Ravage in any Town, the Number of Sick shall never be great enough to load the Air with infectious Effluvia, emitted from them in such Plenty, that they may be conveyed by the Winds into a neighbouring Town or Village without being dispersed so much as to hinder their producing any ill Effects; especially since it is not unusual for the Air to be so far charged with these noxious Atoms, as to leave no Place within the infected Town secure: insomuch that when the Distemper is at its Highth, all shall be indifferently infected, as well those who keep from the Sick, as those who are near them; though at the beginning of a Plague to avoid all Communication with the Diseased, is an effectual Defence. However, I do not think this is often the Case: just as the Smoak, with which the Air of the City of London is constantly impregnated, especially in Winter, is not carried many Miles distant; though the Quantity of it is vastly greater than the Quantity of infectious Effluvia, that the most mortal Plague could generate.

But, to conclude what relates to the Air, since the ill Qualities of it in these Northern Countries are not alone sufficient to excite the Plague, without imported Contagion, this shews the Error of a common Opinion, countenanc’d by Authors of great Name[60], that we are necessarily visited with the Plague once in thirty or forty Years: which is a mere Fancy, without Foundation either in Reason or Experience; and therefore People ought to be delivered from such vain Fears. Since the Pestilence is never originally bred with us, but always brought accidentally from abroad, its coming can have no relation to any certain Period of Time. And although our three or four last Plagues have fallen out nearly at such Intervals, yet that is much too short a Compass of Years to be a Foundation for a general Rule. Accordingly we see that almost fourscore Years have passed over without any Calamity of this kind.

The Air of our Climate is so far from being ever the Original of the true Plague, that most probably it never produces those milder infectious Distempers, the Small-Pox and Measles. For these Diseases were not heard of in Europe before the Moors had entered Spain: and (as I have observed in the Preface) they were afterwards propagated and spread through all Nations, chiefly by means of the Wars with the Saracens.

Moreover, we are so far from any Necessity of these periodical Returns of the Plague, that, on the contrary, though we have had several Strokes of this kind, yet there are Instances of bad Contagions from abroad being brought over to us, which have proved less malignant here, when our Northern Air has not been disposed to receive such Impressions.

The Sweating Sickness, before hinted at, called Sudor Anglicus and Febris Ephemera Britannica, because it was commonly thought to have taken its Rise here, was most probably of a foreign Original: and though not the common Plague with Glandular Tumors, and Carbuncles, yet a real Pestilence from the same Cause, only altered in its Appearance, and abated in its Violence, by the salutary Influence of our Climate. For it preserved an Agreement with the common Plague in many of its Symptoms, as excessive Faintness and Inquietudes, inward Burnings, &c. these Symptoms being no where observed in so intense a Degree as here they are described to have been, except in the true Plague: And, what is much more, it was likewise a contagious Disease.

The first time this was felt here, which was in the Year 1485, it began in the Army, with which King Henry VII. came from France and landed in Wales[61]: and it has been supposed by some to have been brought from the famous Siege of Rhodes by the Turks three or four Years before, as may be collected from what Dr. Keyes says in one Place of his Treatise on this Disease[62]. Besides, of the several returns which this has made since that time, viz. in the Years 1506, 1517, 1528, and 1551, that in the Year 1528 may very justly be suspected to have been owing to the common Pestilence, which at those times raged in Italy[63] as I find one of our Historians has long ago conjectured[64]: and the others were very probably from a Turkish Infection. If at least some of these Returns were not owing to the Remains of former Attacks, a suitable Constitution of Air returning to put the latent Seeds in Action before they were quite destroyed. It is the more probable that this Disease was owing to imported Contagion; because we are assured, that this Form of the Sickness was not peculiar to our Island, but that it made great Destruction with the same Symptoms in Germany, and other Countries[65].

I call this Distemper a Plague with lessened Force: because though its carrying off thousands for want of right Management was a Proof of its Malignity, which indeed in one respect exceeded that of the common Plague itself (for few, who were destroyed with it, survived the Seizure above one Natural Day) yet its going off safely with profuse Sweats in twenty four Hours, when due care was taken to promote that Evacuation, shewed it to be what a learned and wise Historian calls it, rather a Surprize to Nature, than obstinate to Remedies; who assigns this Reason for expressing himself thus, that if the Patient was kept warm with temperate Cordials, he commonly recovered[66]. And, what I think yet more remarkable, Sweating, which was the natural Crisis of this Distemper, has been found by great Physicians the best Remedy against the common Plague: by which means, when timely used, that Distemper may sometimes be carried off without any external Tumors. Nay besides, a judicious Observer informs us, that in many of his Patients, when he had broken the Violence of the Distemper by such an artificial Sweat, a natural Sweat not excited by Medicines would break forth exceedingly refreshing[67].

And I cannot but take notice, as a Confirmation of what I have been advancing, that we had here the same kind of Fever in the Year 1713, about the Month of September, which was called the Dunkirk Fever, as being brought by our Soldiers from that Place. This probably had its Original from the Plague, which a few Years before broke out at Dantzick, and continued some time among the Cities of the North. With us this Fever began only with a Pain in the Head, and went off in large Sweats usually after a Day’s Confinement: but at Dunkirk it was attended with the additional Symptoms of Vomiting, Diarrhœa, &c.

To return from this Digression: From all that has been said, it appears, I think, very plainly, that the Plague is a real Poison, which being bred in the Southern Parts of the World, is carried by Commerce into other Countries, particularly into Turky, where it maintains itself by a kind of Circulation from Persons to Goods: which is chiefly owing to the Negligence of the People there, who are stupidly careless in this affair. That when the Constitution of the Air happens to favour Infection, it rages there with great Violence: that at that time more especially diseased Persons give it to one another, and from them contagious Matter is lodged in Goods of a loose and soft Texture, which being pack’d up and carried into other Countries, let out, when opened, the imprisoned Seeds of Contagion, and produce the Disease whenever the Air is disposed to give them force; otherwise they may be dissipated without any considerable ill Effects. And lastly, that the Air does not usually diffuse and spread these to any great Distance, if Intercourse