454 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1720. 



situation of the heart, for several hours, until it becomes red and inflamed. It 

 is also useful to apply a slice of hellebore root to the emunctories. Chickens 

 and pigeons, either alive or cut into halves, have been applied with good effect 

 to buboes and carbuncles, as well as to the region of the heart ; they should be 

 frequently renewed and not kept on the parts aifected longer than half an hour. 

 Oil of amber and extract of juniper have proved beneficial. Every part of 

 Diemerbroeck's method of treatment is applicable to the plague at Constanti- 

 nople. This author has certainly written well on the plague, if we except his 

 laboured disquisition into the cause of this disorder. Barbette may also be 

 consulted with advantage. 



In 1712 the plague at Constantinople spread with increasing prevalency at 

 the end of May,* and arrived at its height towards the end of July. A person 

 whom I employed to make observations, counted above QO dead bodies in one 

 day. The Etesian winds blew strongly; afterwards the wind changed to the 

 south. The first week after this change in the wind, viz. to the south, he 

 counted only about 40 dead bodies per diem; the second week about 30; the 

 third week not so many as 20; which last is not more than the ordinary number 

 of daily deaths at that time of the year, in healthy seasons. Thus, in that 

 year, 1712, the plague ceased in the autumn; whereas it generally rages with 

 the greatest violence at that season, increasing and gathering strength in the 

 middle, or towards the end of the summer. In other places, too, it has been 

 observed that a plague which begins in the spring ceases in the summer. The 

 plague, be it ever so violent, always ceases in Egypt after the summer solstice; 

 and this in some measure holds good with regard to Smyrna, the isle of Chios, 

 and even the Straits of the Hellespont. [The author then points out the dif- 

 ferent qualities of the Etesian and the south winds. The former, the Etesian 

 or north-east winds, blowing across the Euxine sea, are, he says, not only 

 loaded with moisture, but are moreover impregnated with nitrous particles, 

 which he supposes to favour the spreading of the contagion; whereas the latter, 

 the south winds, which blow from Egypt, are extremely rarefied and destitute 

 of saline particles, and thus, he thinks, are suited to check the progress of the 

 contagion.] After considering whether the blood be coagulated or dissolved in 

 the plague, the author proceeds to state, that as the solids and fluids are vari- 

 ously aff^ected according to the diversity of constitution, so as to give rise to 

 various and even opposite symptoms, it follows that the plague is not to be 

 cured by any one remedy; but that great judgment is required on the part of 

 the physician to adapt the treatment to the diversities of constitutions and 



* It began, as appears from the preceding part of the narrativej in the spring. 



