Page:A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).djvu/243

 Place, till the 9$th$ of February; which was about 7 Weeks after, and then one more was buried out of the ſame Houſe: Then it was huſh’d, and we were perfectly eaſy as to the publick, for a great while; for there were no more entred in the Weekly Bill to be dead of the Plague, till the 22$nd$ of April, when there was 2 more buried not out of the ſame Houſe, but out of the ſame Street; and as near as I can remember, it was out of the next Houſe to the firſt: this was nine Weeks aſunder, and after this we had No more till a Fortnight, and then it broke out in ſeveral Streets and ſpread every way. Now the Queſtion ſeems to lye thus, ''where lay the Seeds of the Infection all this while? How came it to ſtop ſo long, and not ſtop any longer?'' Either the Diſtemper did not come immediately by Contagion from Body to Body, or if it did, then a Body may be capable to continue infected, without the Diſeaſe diſcovering itſelf, many Days, nay Weeks together, even not a Quarentine of Days only, but Soixantine, not only 40 Days but 60 Days or longer. It’s true, there was, as I obſerved at firſt, and is well known to many yet living, a very cold Winter, and a long Froſt, which continued three Months, and this, the Doctors ſay, might check the Infection; but then the learned muſt allow me to ſay, that if according to their Notion, the Diſeaſe was, as I may ſay, only frozen up, it would like a frozen River, have returned to its uſual Force and Current when it thaw’d, whereas the principal Receſs of this Infection, which was from February to April, was after the Froſt was broken, and the Weather mild and warm.

But there is another way of ſolving all this Difficulty, which I think my own Remembrance of the thing will ſupply; and that is, the Fact is not granted, namely, that there died none in thoſe long Intervals, viz. from the 20$th$ of December to the 9$th$ of February, and from thence to the 22$d$ of April.