Page:A practical method as used for the cure of the plague in London in 1665.pdf/26

 meet with some Disregard; however, I doubt not, but by a tract of Time, and further Observation, it will gain such Credit in the World, as will give Praise to him, as his Merits deserve.

But I will put an end to these Controversies about the Seat and Cause of a Pestilence, and other contagious Diseases, which have from Antiquity, to these present Times, been warmly debated: It being more necessary to change the Consideration into an Enquiry of our Author's Prescriptions, and in what Method he treated the Sick, during the late Visitation in London.

In the beginning of the said Plague, he says, that he used all the known Antipestilential Medicines, both of ancient and modern Physicians, which he found would provoke Sweats, to throw out the Infectious Venom as soon as possible; to which all must have a Regard, that will save Life, as to a sacred Refuge. Yet no Aiexipharmicks would prevail, without the help of Cloaths; where a great Burning generally was, before the Sweats appeared. By reason, therefore, Nature being tired by such a forcible way of acting, could not be enough assisted to the extirpation of that Contagion, so as to dissolve Buboes without Maturation, or ripen Blanes, or Carbuncles, but by a great Length of Time, and such Struggles in Nature, that Rh