where they lay sick.
This I could not see rational. My friend Dr Heath allowed, and it
was plain to experience, that the distemper was as catching as ever,
and as many fell sick, but only he alleged that so many of those that
fell sick did not die; but I think that while many did die, and that at
best the distemper itself was very terrible, the sores and swellings very
tormenting, and the danger of death not left out of the circumstances
of sickness, though not so frequent as before; all those things, together
with the exceeding tediousness of the cure, the loathsomeness of the
disease, and many other articles, were enough to deter any man living
from a dangerous mixture with the sick people, and make them as
anxious almost to avoid the infections as before.
Nay, there was another thing which made the mere catching of the
distemper frightful, and that was the terrible burning of the caustics
which the surgeons laid on the swellings to bring them to break and to
run, without which the danger of death was very great, even to the
last. Also, the insufferable torment of the swellings, which, though it
might not make people raving and distracted, as they were before, and
as I have given several instances of already, yet they put the patient to
inexpressible torment; and those that fell into it, though they did
escape with life, yet they made bitter complaints of those that had told
them there was no danger, and sadly repented their rashness and folly
in venturing to run into the reach of it.
Nor did this unwary conduct of the people end here, for a great
many that thus cast off their cautions suffered more deeply still, and
though many escaped, yet many died; and at least it had this public
mischief attending it, that it made the decrease of burials slower than
it would otherwise have been. For as this notion ran like lightning
through the city, and people’s heads were possessed with it, even as
soon as the first great decrease in the bills appeared, we found that the
two next bills did not decrease in proportion; the reason I take to be
the people’s running so rashly into danger, giving up all their former
cautions and care, and all the shyness which they used to practise,
depending that the sickness would not reach them – or that if it did,
they should not die.
The physicians opposed this thoughtless humour of the people with
all their might, and gave out printed directions, spreading them all
over the city and suburbs, advising the people to continue reserved,
and to use still the utmost caution in their ordinary conduct,
notwithstanding the decrease of the distemper, terrifying them with
the danger of bringing a relapse upon the whole city, and telling them
how such a relapse might be more fatal and dangerous than the whole
visitation that had been already; with many arguments and reasons to
explain and prove that part to them, and which are too long to repeat here.
But it was all to no purpose; the audacious creatures were so
possessed with the first joy and so surprised with the satisfaction of
seeing a vast decrease in the weekly bills, that they were impenetrable
by any new terrors, and would not be persuaded but that the bitterness
of death was past; and it was to no more purpose to talk to them than
to an east wind; but they opened shops, went about streets, did
business, and conversed with anybody that came in their way to
converse with, whether with business or without, neither inquiring of
their health or so much as being apprehensive of any danger from
them, though they knew them not to be sound.
This imprudent, rash conduct cost a great many their lives who had
with great care and caution shut themselves up and kept retired, as it
were, from all mankind, and had by that means, under God’s
providence, been preserved through all the heat of that infection.
This rash and foolish conduct, I say, of the people went so far that
the ministers took notice to them of it at last, and laid before them