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CHAP. XII. How such as undertake the cure of the Plague ought to arme themselves.
FIrst they must thinke and hold for certaine, that they are not called * 1.1 to this office by men, but by God, so directing the counsels and a∣ctions of men as he thinketh fit. Therefore they shall confidently enter into the cure thereof, for that our lot, life and death are in the hands of the Lord: but notwithstanding they ought not to neg∣lect remedies, which are given to men for prevention, lest by neg∣lecting the gifts of God, they may seem to neglect him also that is the giver of so many good and excellent benefits. Therefore first let them by pur∣ging and bleeding evacuate the humours subject to putrefaction, and to conceive the seeds of the pestilence. Let them make two fontanella's by application of Cau∣teries * 1.2 to bee as rivelets to evacuate the excrementitious humours which are daily by little and little heaped up in us; let one of them bee in the right arme a little below the muscle Epomis, the other the space of three fingers under the knee on the inside of the left legge. This is found by experience a very certaine meanes of prevention. Let them wash their whole bodies with the following lotion. ℞. aquae ros. aceti ro∣sati, aut sambucini, vini albi aut, malvatici, an. lb. vi. rad. enulae camp. angelicae, gentian. bistortae, Zedoar. an. ℥iii. baccar. juniperi, & hederae, an. ℥ii. salviae, rorismar. absinth. rutae, an. m. i. corticis citri, ℥ss. theriacae & mithridat. an ℥i. conquassanda conquassent. bulliant lento igni, & serventur ad usum ante commemoratum. The Epithemes, unguents * 1.3 and bags formerly described shall be applyed to the region of the heart. I have read it noted by John Baptist Theodosius, that amongst other things, Arsenick may be pro∣fitably * 1.4 applyed to the region of the heart, that so it may by little and little accustome it selfe to poysons, that afterwards it may bee lesse harmed by their incursion, first making their assault upon it.
Let their garments be made of Chamelet, Dutch sarge, Satin, Taffaty, or the like. * 1.5 Or else if they cannot of these, let them be of some other handsome stuffe, but not of cloth, frieze or the like, that may take the venenate Aire, and carry it with them to the infection of the sound. They shall oft-times change their clothes, shirts and o∣ther * 1.6 linnen, and perfume them with aromaticke things; let them warily approach to the sicke, more warily speake unto him, with their faces looking away from him, rather than towards him, so that thy may not receive the breath of his mouth, neither the vapour nor smell of any of his excrements.
When as I upon a time being called to visit one that lay sicke of the plague, came * 1.7 too neare and heedlesly to him, and presently by sudden casting off the cloathes, laid him bare, that so I might the better view a Bubo that hee had in his right groine, and two Carbuncles that were on his belly, then presently a thick, filthy and putride va∣pour arising from the broken abscesse of the Carbuncle, as out of a raked puddle, ascended by my nostrils to my braine, whereupon I fainted and fell down senselesse upon the ground; raised up a little after, all things seemed to me to run round; and I was ready to fall againe, but that I stayed my selfe by taking hold of the bed poste. But one thing comforted mee, that there appeared no signes that my heart was affe∣cted, either by paine or panting, or the strong and contumaciou failing of my pow∣ers. An argument that the animall spirits were only dissipated by a venenate vapour, and that the substance of the heart was no way wronged, was a sneesing which tooke me so violently, that I sneesed ten times, and then fell a bleding at the nose; which excretion, I beleeve freed me from all the impression of the malignity. Let others warned by this mine example, learne to be wiser and more wary in this case, lest they come to a worse mishap than befell mee.