VOL. LIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 107 



4 nations who are infected ; but when the plague gets once among them, they 

 suffer most by it, because they take the least care and precaution, and their 

 families are much more numerous. The plague, as well as all other epidemical 

 diseases, has its rise, progress, state, and declension, when it begins to lose its 

 virulence, and many of the sick recover. Some years it is felt sporadically all 

 the winter ; and some accidents were then heard of in the Phanar, among the 

 Greeks, among the Jews, Turks, and Armenians; and even among the Franks; 

 it is remembered that Pera was not clean all the winter 1762. Some years it 

 lodges in the villages on the Bosphorus ; but during the winter it is never of any 

 great consequence. 



As to the cure of this disease, some are for bleeding plentifully, as Leonardus 

 Botallus and Doctor Dover, &c. But in Turkey it is reckoned infallible death 

 to open a vein, and therefore bleeding is never used : but Dr. M. was of 

 opinion that a medium between these 2 extremes might prove more to the pur- 

 pose ; for, as it is an inflammatory disease, bleeding and emetics might be of 

 lise in the beginning, as soon as the patient is taken with the fever, especially if 

 the fever is very hot, and attended with a delirium or any violent head-ach ; 

 but after there begins a separation of the morbific matter, which the strength 

 of nature, and the agitation of the fever, drive upon the surface of the body in 

 buboes or carbuncles, bleeding or purging must prove very prejudicial ; but 

 gentle vomits might be of service even then, as they might drive out those 

 cutaneous eruptions more powerfully than nature could do it without any help. 

 The vomits likewise might prevent the return of the morbific matter into the 

 blood, which frequently happens, when the buboes, &c. disappear, and the pa- 

 tient infallibly dies in a very short time. As the pestilential fever has many 

 remissions, he is of opinion that the use of the bark in the remissions might be 

 of great service; as it proved anno 1752, when the French ambassador's ser- 

 vant was saved at Buiukdere, by means of some bark and ipecacuanha ; and he 

 was the only person that recovered of all those who were then taken ill in the 

 village. 



The practice in the hospital is after this manner : when any person is sus- 

 pected, they give him a large dose of brandy with a dram of Venice treacle ; 

 and afterwards they cover him very well, that he may sweat : for the first 3 days, 

 he eats nothing but vermicelli boiled in water, with a little lemon juice. On 

 the 4th day they give him rice and water ; which diet they observe strictly till 

 the 15th or 20th day, when they begin to allow him very thin chicken broth, 

 commonly called brodo longo, and they give him from first to last nothing but 

 warm water to drink. They apply first to the buboes and parotides a cataplasm 

 of mallows and nog's lard, to advance maturation ; and, after they are ripe and 

 open, they dress them with basilicon ointment. They apply caimack and sugar 



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