VOL. LIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, 1G3 



It is beyond dispute, that the plague appears in a different manner in different 

 countries; and that it appears differently in the same country in different years: 

 for it is found that most other diseases alter more or less, according to the con- 

 stitution and disposition of the air in the same climate: for, some years fevers are 

 epidemic, and very mortal : other years they are epidemic, but not mortal; the 

 small pox the same; &c. And so the plague is some years more violent, and has 

 some symptoms different from what it has in other years; which he takes for 

 granted, must be the reason of any difference that may appear in the remarks of 

 the celebrated authors already mentioned. There is one extraordinary symptom, 

 ■which the most of these authors mention, though none of them prove it, or pre- 

 tend to have seen it; which seemed to him inconsistent and incompatible with 

 the animal economy. What he means is, that a person cannot die of the plague 

 (such as it appears at Constantinople) instantaneously, or in a few hours, or even 

 the same day, that he receives the infection. For all that have the plague there 

 conceal it as long as they can, and walk about as long as possible. And he pre- 

 sumes it must be the same in all countries, for the same reason, which is the 

 fear of being abandoned and left alone; so that when they struggle for many 

 days against it, and at last tumble down in the street, and die suddenly, people 

 imagine that they were then only infected, and that they died instantly of the in- 

 fection; though it may be supposed, according to the rules of the animal eco- 

 nomy, that the noxious effluvia must have been for some time mixing with the 

 blood, before they could produce a fever, and afterwards that corruption and 

 putrefaction in the blood and other fluids, as at last stops their circulation, and 

 the patients die. This was the case of the Greek, who spoke with the master of 

 horse Knightkin, at the window, anno 1752, and went and died in an hour 

 afterwards in the vineyards of Buiuk dere; and it was said he died suddenly, 

 though it was very well known to many that he had the plague upon him for 

 many days before this accident happened. 



Mrs. Chapouis found herself indisposed for many days, anno 1758, and com- 

 plained pretty much, before she was suspected to have the plague. Captain 

 Hills was infected in Candia 1736; was a fortnight in his passage to Smyrna, as 

 the Captain swore to Dr. M.; yet he was 5 days in the hospital there before he 

 died. Mr. Lisle's gardener was indisposed 12 days before he took to his bed, 

 and he laid in bed 8 days before he died, in July 1745. 



It is true that Thucydides, in his account of the plague at Athens, relates that 

 some were said to die suddenly of it ; which may have led others into the same 

 way of thinking: but Thucydides (with all due regard to him) must be allowed 

 to have known very little of the animal economy, for he was no physician, though 

 a very famous historian ; and he owns moreover, that when the plague first at- 

 tacked the Piraeus, they were so much strangers to it at Athens, that they ima- 



