we ordinarily made use of on this terrible occasion – I mean we that
went frequently abroad and up down street, as I did; much of this was
talked of in the books and bills of our quack doctors, of whom I have
said enough already. It may, however, be added, that the College of
Physicians were daily publishing several preparations, which they had
considered of in the process of their practice, and which, being to be
had in print, I avoid repeating them for that reason.
One thing I could not help observing: what befell one of the quacks,
who published that he had a most excellent preservative against the
plague, which whoever kept about them should never be infected or
liable to infection. This man, who, we may reasonably suppose, did
not go abroad without some of this excellent preservative in his
pocket, yet was taken by the distemper, and carried off in two or three
days.
I am not of the number of the physic-haters or physic-despisers; on
the contrary, I have often mentioned the regard I had to the dictates of
my particular friend Dr Heath; but yet I must acknowledge I made use
of little or nothing – except, as I have observed, to keep a preparation
of strong scent to have ready, in case I met with anything of offensive
smells or went too near any burying-place or dead body.
Neither did I do what I know some did: keep the spirits always high
and hot with cordials and wine and such things; and which, as I
observed, one learned physician used himself so much to as that he
could not leave them off when the infection was quite gone, and so
became a sot for all his life after.
I remember my friend the doctor used to say that there was a certain
set of drugs and preparations which were all certainly good and useful
in the case of an infection; out of which, or with which, physicians
might make an infinite variety of medicines, as the ringers of bells
make several hundred different rounds of music by the changing and
order or sound but in six bells, and that all these preparations shall be
really very good: ‘Therefore,’ said he, ‘I do not wonder that so vast a
throng of medicines is offered in the present calamity, and almost
every physician prescribes or prepares a different thing, as his
judgement or experience guides him; but’, says my friend, ‘let all the
prescriptions of all the physicians in London be examined, and it will
be found that they are all compounded of the same things, with such
variations only as the particular fancy of the doctor leads him to; so
that’, says he, ‘every man, judging a little of his own constitution and
manner of his living, and circumstances of his being infected, may
direct his own medicines out of the ordinary drugs and preparations.
Only that’, says he, ‘some recommend one thing as most sovereign,
and some another. Some’, says he, ‘think that pill. ruff., which is
called itself the anti-pestilential pill is the best preparation that can be
made; others think that Venice treacle is sufficient of itself to resist
the contagion; and I’, says he, ‘think as both these think, viz., that the
last is good to take beforehand to prevent it, and the first, if touched,
to expel it.’ According to this opinion, I several times took Venice
treacle, and a sound sweat upon it, and thought myself as well
fortified against the infection as any one could be fortified by the
power of physic.
As for quackery and mountebanks, of which the town was so full, I
listened to none of them, and have observed often since, with some
wonder, that for two years after the plague I scarcely saw or heard of
one of them about town. Some fancied they were all swept away in
the infection to a man, and were for calling it a particular mark of
God’s vengeance upon them for leading the poor people into the pit of
destruction, merely for the lucre of a little money they got by them;
but I cannot go that length neither. That abundance of them died is