N A T U R A L fluid to circulate, that, by a wife oeconomy, as little as poihble may be loll: of the parts of this PFCCIOUS fluid.

M. Bertin has promifed a fur-

ther infight into this important 111M131’.

Jr: account of t/ze plague at Can/Ian- tinople ; in a letter from Murder/a Mackenzie, Ill. D to Sir Yame: Porter, bi: lllafl/Iy’: Elm/v] P18- nipotentiary at Bra/fish, and F-RJ‘. Cantairzing marry new and curious oQ/iwvatiou: on t/Jat dreadful dif- zemper, newer égfore taken notice rf l) zbe my? eminent writer: upon t/Jat/itbjefl.

From (be Pbilqfiipbical Trarg/Zzfiionr, V 0/. LII’.

S I R, -

T is beyond difpute, that the

plague appears in a different manner in diiierent countries; and that it appears differently in the fame country in different years; for we find molt other difeafes alter more or lefs, according to the con- ititution and difpofition of the air in the fame climate: for fome years, fevers are epidemic, and very mor- tal; other years they are epidemic, but not mortal; the fmall-pox the fame, &c. And f0 the plague is fome years more violent, and has fome fymptoms difierent from What it has in other years. There is one extraordinary fymptom, which molt authors mention, tho’ none of them prove it, or pretend to have feen it, which feems to me inconlillent and incompatible with the animal ozconomy ; making {till proper allowance for Omnipotence and divine vengeance, as in that

HI ST o R Y. 99 of Sennacherilfs numerous army, and many other fuch plagues, men- tioned in Scripture. What I mean is, that a perfon cannot die of the plague (fuch as it appears among us) inltatitaneoufly, or in a few hours, or even the fame day that he receives the infection. For you know, Sir, by your long expe- rience in this country, that all fuch as have the plague conceal it as long as they can, and walk about as long as pollible: and I prefume it mull be the fame in all countries, for the fame reafon, which is the fear of being abandoned and left alone; and f0, when they flruggle for many days againit it, and at lall: tumble down in the llreet, and die fucldenly, people imagine that they were then only infelfted, and that they died inltantly of the in- fection; though it may be fuppofed, according to the rules of the ani- mal ceconomy, that the noxious eliluvia mull: have been for fome time mixed with the blood before they could produce a fever, and d"- terwards that corruption and putte- faétion in the blood and other fluids, as at lall flops their circulation, and the patients die.

It is true that Thucydides, in his account ofthe plague at Athens, relates, that fome were faid to die fuddenly of it; which may have

led others into the fame way of

thinking: but Thucydides (with all due regard to him) mull: be al- lowed to have known very little of the animal orconomy; for he was no phyfician, (though a very famous hillorian) and he owns moreover, that, when the plague firfi; attacked the Pirzeum, they were f0 much flrangers to it at Athens, that they imagined the Lacedzrrnonians, who then belieged them, had poilbned

H. z their