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                            _Doctor MEAD_’s

                            Short DISCOURSE

                               EXPLAIN’D.

                                BEING A

                           _Clearer_ ACCOUNT

                                   OF

                        Pestilential Contagion,

                                  AND

                             _PREVENTING_.


            _Nec satis est dixisse, ego mira poemata pango._

                             [Illustration]

                               _LONDON_:

               _Printed, and Sold by _W. BOREHAM_, at the
                  Angel in _Pater-noster Row_._ 1721.




------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             [Illustration]




                              Dr. _MEAD’s_
                            Short Discourse
                               EXPLAIN’D.


Many and various are the Opinions about the Design, as well as about the
Meaning and real and true Sense of the short Discourse lately writ by
the Celebrated Dr. _Mead_, for preventing the Plague. The various Turns
of the Heads of different Men, their different Capacities, and the
Sublimity of the Doctor’s Style may, no doubt, occasion all this Variety
in understanding Him and his Book. Some, and if we may judge by the
great Run and Demand for his Book, the greatest Number of the People of
all Ranks expected some _Esculapian_, but easy Rules, whereby they might
govern and conduct their Life against so silent an Enemy as the
Pestilence, which walketh in Darkness. This seems to be more than a
_Conjecture_, because this great Demand ceas’d of a sudden, as the
Plague it self commonly does, after they found the Physician had no hand
in it, or that his Rules were locked up for the Favourites of his
Faculty. And as the People commonly make the best Judgment of Things
after a little Experience, so we find this Judgment of the Town
confirmed, by what his _Friends_, _Adepts_, and other _Officers_, who
only understand or declare what Dr. _Mead_ would have believed; and
accordingly they labour to declare, that the genuine Meaning and Design
of the Celebrated Doctor was, to give a Politick Account, how the Plague
may be staved off by Force of Arms.

I grant this Authority is very cogent; yet, on the other hand, if we
either consider the Title Page of the Book, the great Accurateness and
Veracity of Dr. _Mead_, as well as his signal _Humility_, I must crave
leave to dissent, at this time, from the Reports of these Men, tho’ they
carry his daily and hourly Orders: for how do such Reports sute all
those his known good Qualities, the last more especially. Can any Man
think it consistent with his singular Humility, to teach the Secretary
of State, what has been practised in our own and other Countries for
some hundred of Years: _Quarantines and Pest-Houses_, or if the Doctor
pleases, _Lazarettoes_, are not unknown to English Lawyers, nor English
Ministers. And therefore I think it much the fairest Course, to consider
the Discourse well, because it is short, and from thence to draw the
Sense of its Author.

To do all imaginable Right to Dr. _Mead_, we will begin with the
Title-Page,