Page 832
CHAP. XIII. Of the signes of such as are infected with the Plague.
WEE must not stay so long before wee pronounce one to have the Plague, untill there be paine and a tumour under his arme holes, or in his groine, or spots (vulgarly called Tokens) appeare over all the body, or carbuncles arise: for many dye through the venenate malignity, before these signes appeare. Wherefore the chiefest and truest signes of this disease are to be taken from the heart, being the mansion of life, which chiefly and first of all is wont to be assailed by the force of the poison. Therfore they that are infected with the Pestilence, are vexed with often swounings and fainting; their pulse is feebler and flower than others, but sometimes more frequent, but that is specially in the night season; they feele prickings over all their body, as if it were the pricking of needles; but their nostrils doe itch espe∣cially by occasion of the maligne vapours rising upwards from the lower and inner, into the upper parts, their breast burneth, their heart beateth with paine under the left dug, difficulty of taking breath, Ptissicke, Cough, paine of the heart, and such an elation or puffing up of the Hypocondria or sides of the Belly, distended with the a∣bundance of vapours raised by the force of the feaverish heat, that the Patient will in a manner seeme to have the Timpany. They are molested with a desire to vomit, and oftentimes with much and painfull vomiting, wherein green and black matter is seen, & alwaies of divers colours, answering in proportion to the excrements of the lower parts, the stomack being drawn into a consent with the heart, by reason of the vicinity and communion of the vessels; oftentimes bloud alone, & that pure, is exclu∣ded & cast up in vomiting; and it is not only cast up by vomiting out of the stomack, but also very often out of the nostrils, fundament, and in women out of the wombe; the inward parts are often burned, and the outward parts are stiffe with cold, the whole heat of the Patient being drawn violently inward, after the manner of a Cup∣ping-glasse, by the strong burning of the inner parts; then the eye-lids waxeblew, as it were through some contusion, all the whole face hath a horrid aspect, and as it were the colour of lead, the eies are burning red, & as it were, swoln or puffed up with Bloud, or any other humour, shed teares; and to conclude, the whole habit of the bo∣dy is somewhat changed and turned yellow.
Many have a burning feaver, which doth shew it selfe by the Patients ulcerated jawes, unquenchable thirst, dryness and blackness of the tongue, and it causeth such a phrensie by inflaming the braine, that the patients running naked out of their beds, seeke to throw themselves out of windowes into the pits and rivers that are at hand. In some the joynts of the body are so weakned, that they cannot goe nor stand, from the beginning they are as it were buried in a long swoune and deepe sleep, by reason that the feaver sendeth up to the braine the grosse vapours from the crude and cold humours, as it were from greene Wood newly kindled to make a fire.
Such sleeping doth hold him especially while the matter of the sore or Carbuncle is drawne together, and beginneth to come to suppuration. Oftentimes when they are awaked out of sleepe, there doe spots and markes appeare dispersed over the skin, with a stinking sweat. But if those vapours be sharpe that are stirred up unto the head, in stead of sleepe they cause great waking, and alwayes there is much diversitie of ac∣cidents in the urine of those that are infected with the Plague, by reason of the divers temperature and condition of bodies: neither is the urine at all times, and in all men of the same consistence and colour: For sometimes they are like unto the urine of those that are sound and in health, that is to say, laudable in colour and substance, because that when the heart is affected by the venemous Aire, that entreth in unto it, the spirits are more greatly grieved and molested than the humours: but those, i. the spirits, are infected and corrupted when these do begin to corrupt.
But Urines onely shew the dispositions of the humours or parts in which they are made, collected together, and through which they passe.