492 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l68l. 



I 



The Way hy which the Author preserved himself in this Contagion, 



Because no alexiphartnic is sufficient in this contagio», therefore grounding 

 my judgment on the principles of Harvey about the motion of the heart, and 

 the circulation of the blood, and some other of Bartholine and others, I con- 

 cluded this pestiferous venom, attracted by the breath or pores by the circulation 

 of the blood, to be carried to the axillary and inguinal glandules, &c. where if 

 it long stagnates it concretes into buboes which tend to maturation ; but if it 

 opens itself a way, and passes with the natural motion of the blood, and so is 

 carried to the heart, then death ensues. Therefore not only for myself, but 

 for two other friends, I made incision with a lancet, in inguine dextro et sinistro, 

 and put in a seton, to the end that by this artificial way the venom might find 

 a passage. This I often tried with good success, great quantity of matter always 

 voiding that way, but more notably when I was any ways touched with pestilen- 

 tial strokes or alterations. By the help of which I kept myself in good 

 health.* 



^n Universal natural Preservative against Infection, published for the common 

 Good. By Jacobus Johannes JVenceslaus Dobrzensky de Nigro Ponte, Doctor 

 and Professor of Philosophy and Physic, Prague, 168O. Philos. Collects 

 N° 2, p. 20. 



This universal natural preservative is this : That whoever converses with 

 f>atients affected with any disease whatever, if he would preserve himself from 

 infection, must be sure so long as he abides within the sphere of their steams 

 never to swallow his spittle, but to spit it out. For he conceives that to be the 

 part which first and most easily imbibes the infection ; and by that swallowed, 

 the infection is carried as by a proper vehicle into the stomach, where it works 

 those dismal and fatal effects. 



The infection of pestilential fevers (he observes) proceeds from a seminal 

 ferment, which is emitted by the patient in ihe form of steams into the incom- 

 passing air, and so infects all things within a certain sphere or distance. This 

 drawn into the mouth by the breath is apt to infect the saliva or spittle, which 

 being swallowed infects the stomach, and so the rest of the body ; but being 

 spit out frees the body from infection. And therefore he conceives that strong 

 smelling and strong tasting substances kept in the mouth, and chewed to pro- 



* Issues and setons have been much commended as preservatives from pestilential contagion by 

 other medical writers 5 but it is peculiar we believe to the author of these observations to make 

 them in the places here mentioned} where they must always be extremely troublesome. 



