Page:A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).djvu/241

 It was very ſad to reflect, how ſuch a Perſon as this laſt mentioned above, had been a walking Deſtroyer, perhaps for a Week or Fortnight before that; how he had ruin’d thoſe, that he would have hazarded his Life to ſave, and had been breathing Death upon them, even perhaps in his tender Kiſſing and Embracings of his own Children: Yet thus certainly it was, and often has been, and I cou’d give many particular Caſes where it has been ſo; if then the Blow is thus inſenſibly ſtricken; if the Arrow flies thus unſeen, and cannot be diſcovered; to what purpoſe are all the Schemes for ſhutting up or removing the ſick People? thoſe Schemes cannot take place, but upon thoſe that appear to be ſick, or to be infected; whereas there are among them, at the ſame time, Thouſands of People, who ſeem to be well, but are all that while carrying Death with them into all Companies which they come into.

This frequently puzzled our Phyſicians, and eſpecially the Apothecaries and Surgeons, who knew not how to diſcover the Sick from the Sound; they all allow'd that it was really ſo, that many People had the Plague in their very Blood, and preying upon their Spirits, and were in themſelves but walking putrified Carcaſſes, whoſe Breath was infectious, and their Sweat Poiſon,; and yet were as well to look on as other People, and even knew it not themſelves: I ſay, they all allowed that it was really true in Fact, but they knew not how to propoſe a Diſcovery. My Friend Doctor Heath was of Opinion that it might be known by the ſmell of their Breath; but then, as he ſaid, who durſt Smell to that Breath for his Information? Since to know it, he muſt draw the Stench of the Plague up into his own Brain, in order to diſtinguiſh the Smell! I have heard, it was the opinion of others, that it might be diſtinguiſh’d by the Party’s breathing upon a piece of