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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, that nothing material may seem to be neglected. There we
find it is to be a Discourse concerning _Pestilential_ Contagion, and
Methods to prevent it. Turning next to the Dedication, he tells his
Patron that he rather chuses to _put down the principal Heads of
Caution, than a Set of Directions in Form_. This Head he seems to
suggest chiefly to consist in performing Quarantines, and other things
that may be collected from History. The next (Head I suppose) is
concerning the _suppressing Infection here_; which he tells us is _very
different from the Methods taken in former times among us, and from what
they commonly do abroad; but_ (as he very modestly perswades himself)
_will be found agreeable to Reason_. This Account differs very much from
the Rumours and Opinions now prevailing in the World; for we are to be
entertain’d with a preventing Method, as far as Physick and Politicks
extend, and on that Account cannot fail to be very new when finished;
because all former Accounts are very defective, the silent Attacks of
the Pestilence having been hitherto undiscover’d by all former
Physicians. And therefore is there any Person so hard-hearted, or so
stupid, that does not rejoyce and prick up his Ears at those ravishing
Expressions, who does not desire to be instructed in this Method of
preventing this unmerciful Enemy to Mankind. Come on then, and listen to
the Celebrated Dr. _Mead_, who brings Death to Pestilential Contagion;
as he is said to have promis’d while he was composing this Work. But we
will next follow Dr. _Mead_ into the Book it self, where we find that he
thinks it _necessary to premise somewhat in general concerning
Contagion, and the Manner by which it acts_. But alas! we are to meet
with nothing but Disappointments, so soon are we fallen from all our
Hopes and Expectations: Nothing to be found either of _Contagion_, or
the manner of its acting, tho’ the Title of the Book promises it, and
the first entring upon the Discourse declares it to be necessary; This
is the very Soul of the Book, the subject Matter upon which every thing
turns, the Cause of the Plague, and the Indication for preventing and
curing the Plague, are to be drawn out of it.

Besides, the most ancient and best Physicians knew nothing of Contagion,
and far less of _Pestilential Contagion_; Words only brought in by
Physicians in later times, and of Ignorance; and therefore such
suspected Words ought to be well described and defined before they are
made use of; either in discovering the Nature of abstruse Diseases, or
when we are to found Methods of preventing or curing them, upon such
Discoveries.

To leave this Enquiry about Contagion to another Occasion, we will only
observe, that