t: 30.

But in cafe it be too difficult constantly to comply with thefe cautions, washing the mouth frequently with vinegar, and holding to the noftrils a fpouge wet with the fame, may in fome meafure fupply their place.

This is the fum of what I think moft likely to stop the progrefs of the disease in any place where it shall have got admittance. admittance. If fome few of these rules refer more particularly to the city of London, with finall alteration they may be applied to any other place. It now remains therefore only to lay down fome directions to hinder the diftemper's fpreading from town to town. The best method for which, where it can be done, (for this is not practicable in very great cities), is to caft up a line about the town infected, at a convenient distance; and by placing a guard, to hinder people's paffing from it without due regulation, to other towns: but not abfolutely to forbid any to withdraw themselves, as was done in France, according to the ufual practice abroad; which is an unneceffary feverity, not to call it a cruelty. I think it will be enough, if all who defire to pass the line, be permitted to do it, upon condition they first perform quarantine for about twenty days in tents, or other more convenient habitations. eft care must be taken, that none pass without conforming themselves to this order; both by keeping diligent watch, and by punishing, with the utmost feverity, any that shall either have done fo, or attempt it. And the better to discover fuch, it will be requifite to oblige all who travel in any part of the country, under the fame penalties, to carry with them

But the great

certificates

certificates either of their coming from places not in fected, or of their paffing the line by permission.

This I take to be a more effectual method to keep the infection from spreading, than the abfolute refufing a paffage to people upon any terms. For when men are in fuch imminent danger of their lives where they are, many, no doubt, if not otherwife allowed to escape, will ufe endeavours to do it fecretly, let the hazard be ever fo great. And it can hardly be, but fome will fucceed in their attempts; as we fee it has often happened in France, notwithstanding all their care. But one that gets off thus clandeftinely, will be more likely to carry the distemper with him, than twenty, nay, a hundred, that go away under the preceding restrictions; especially because the infection of the place he flies from, will by this management be rendered much more intenfe. For confining people, and fhutting them up together in great numbers, will make the diftemper rage with augmented force, even to the increasing it beyond what can be easily imagined as appears from the account which the learned Gaffendus * has given us of a memorable plague, which happened at Digne in Provence, where he lived, in the year 1629. This was fo terrible, that in one fummer, out of ten thousand inhabitants, it left but fifteen hundred, and of them all but five or fix had gone through the disease. And he affigns this, as the principal cause of the great deftruction, that the citizens were too clofely confined, and not fuffered fo much as to go to their countryhouses. Whereas in another peftilence which broke out in the fame place a year and a half after, more *Notitia ecclefiæ Dinienfis,

liberty

liberty being allowed, there did not die above one hundred perfons.

For these reasons, I think, to allow people with proper cautions to remove from an infected place, is the beft means to fupprefs the contagion, as well as the most humane treatment of the present fufferers : and, under thefe limitations, the method of investing towns infected, which is certainly the most proper that can be advised, to keep the difeafe from fpreading, will be no inconvenience to the places furrounded. On the contrary, it will rather be useful to them; fince the guard may establish fuch regulations for the fafety of thofe who fhall bring provifions, as fhall remove the fears which might otherwise discourage them.

The fecuring against all apprehensions of this kind, is of fo great importance, that in cities too large to be invefted, as, for example, this city of London, the magistrates muft ufe all poffible diligence to fupply this defect, not only by fetting up barriers without their city, but by making it in the moft particular manner their care to appoint fuch orders to be observed at them, as they shall judge will be most fatiffactory to the country about. Though liberty ought to be given to the people, yet no fort of goods must by any means be fuffered to be carried over the line which are made of materials retentive of infection, For in the prefent cafe, when infection has feized any part of a country, much greater care ought to be taken, that no feeds of the contagion be conveyed about, than when the diftemper is at a great diftance : because a bale of goods, which shall have imbibed the contagious aura when packed up in Turky, or any

remote

remote parts, when unpacked here, may chance to meet with fo healthful à temperament of our air, that it fhall not do much hurt. But when the air of any one of our towns fhall be fo corrupted, as to maintain and spread the peftilence in it, there will be little reafon to believe, that the air of the rest of the country is in a much better state.

For the fame reafon quarantines fhould more ftrictly be injoined, when the plague is in a bordering kingdom, than when it is more remote.

The advice here given with refpect to goods, is not only abundantly confirmed from the proofs I have given above, that goods have a power of fpreading contagion to distant places; but might be farther illuftrated by many inftances of ill effects from the neglect of this caution in times of the plague. I fhall mention two, which happened among us during the laft plague. I have had occafion already to obferve, that the plague was in Poole. It was carried to that place by fome goods contained in a pedlar's pack. The plague was likewife at Eham in the Peak of Derbyshire, being brought thither by means of a box fent from London to a tailor in that village, containing fome materials relating to his trade. There being feveral incidents in this latter inftance, that will not only ferve to establish in particular the precepts I have been giving in relation to goods, but likewife all the reft of the directions that have been fet down for flopping the progrefs of the plague from one town to another; I fhall finish this chapter with a particular relation of what paffed in that place. A fervant, who first opened the forefaid box, complaining that the goods were damp, was ordered to dry them at the fire; VOL. II.

N

but

but in doing it was feized with the plague, and died: the fame misfortune extended itfelf to all the rest of the family, except the tailor's wife, who alone furvived. From hence the diftemper fpread about, and deftroyed in that village, and the reft of the parish, though a fmall one, between two and three hundred perfons. But, notwithstanding this fo great violence of the disease, it was restrained from reaching beyond that parish by the care of the rector; from whose fon, and another worthy gentleman, I have the relation. This clergyman advifed, that the fick fhould be removed into huts or barracks built upon the common; and procuring, by the intereft of the then Earl of Devonshire, that the people fhould be well furnished with provifions, he took effectual care, that no one fhould go out of the parish and by this means he protected his neighbours from infection with complete fuccefs.

:

I have now gone through the chief branches of prefervation against the plague, and fhall conclude with fome general directions concerning the cure.

IT

T appears, from what has been faid in the beginning of this difcourfe, that the plague and the fmall-pox are diseases which bear a great fimilitude to each other; both being contagious fevers from Africa, and both attended with certain eruptions. And as the eruptions or puftules in the fmall-pox are of two kinds, which has caufed the diftemper to be di