A treatise of the small-pox and measles describing their nature, causes, and signs, diagnostick and prognostick, in a different way to what hath hitherto been known : together, with the method of curing the said distempers, and all, or most, of the best remedies : also, a particular discourse of opium, diacodium, and other sleeping medicines : with a reference to a very great case / by Gideon Harvey ...

CHAP. V. Proving the Original of the Small-pox and Measles to be in the Air; and the explaining the manner of falling into those Diseases.

1. SInce then it appears, that the Foe∣tus receiveth its Nourishment and Growth from the purest Blood, and from the most refined Air, strai∣ned through the most subtle Pores of all the membranous coverings it's wrapt up in, and through the Pores of those thick walls of the Uterus, within all which it's cherisht with a most temperate warmth of the Mo∣ther; when aftewards it happens to launch out from its little World into the great, it must necessarily encounter with a Cold (in respect from whence it came) sharp, and rough Air, pricking it round in all its external and internal most ten∣der, and sensible parts, like Needles,

and Darts (no wonder it cries upon its first arrival) I say it's prickt and annoyed by the Air, filled with in∣sensible corpuscles or particles of all manner of Composition, Constitu∣tion or Mixture, and of all sorts of Figures; some crooked, contorted or skewd; others straight, globular; some sharp-pointed; others blunt; some are benign in quality and ef∣fects, others more or less Malign, ma∣ny of those Particles are Saline, o∣thers Sulphurous; as they are all va∣rious in mixture and figure, so in their Motions, and Positions. Those immediately upon its Birth crowd through the Pores of its tender soft Skin, and other Ambient mem∣branes into all its Juices, and the most retired parts of its Body, so that inevitably its Humours, and all its Parts must be rendred very rough, extreamly alter'd by being disturbed in their Positions, Motions, and Fi∣gures; and most certainly here it is, it admits the Semina of several im∣purities,

which soon after break out in red Gum, a running at the Ears and Arm-pits, and sometimes into the Measles or Small-pox (though rarely) into the Thrush, and many others, according to the Powers and Qualifications, the admitted foreign Particles are indued with: So that all the impurity an Infant brings with it, is only a little black Matter in the Gut of the Fundament, a little slime about the Mouth, Nose, and Ears, except what its stained with in the passage in coming forth.

2. On the other hand were the Infant to be nourisht with such pure Juices, and benign Air in the great World, as it was in the little, where from the bigness of a Nutmeg, in less than nine Months it attains to the dimension of a Peck, it might according to that proportion of time grow in a few years to the bigness of an Elephant, did not the Determi∣nation of Nature put a stop to its growth.

3. To my self I establish this fol∣lowing as a Rule, by which I do not only desume my Indcaitions success∣fully, but can also give my self a So∣lution to many Queries touching the Measles, Small-pox, and indeed all other contagious Diseases, and with∣out which I can give my self in those particulars no manner of Satisfacti∣on, viz.

The Air in all places inhabitable is always filled with all manner of Particles; namely, such as I have mentioned in the foregoing first Pa∣ragraph, though in some places, and at some times more with one kind than another; but this wants some probable Proof, and a further Illu∣stration: Suppose a piece of ground Eight or ten Foot in Dimension; in digging hereof you may possibly discover either Gravel-stones, Marl, Clay, Iron-stones, Brimstone, or what else; these do all consist of sensible parts: you cannot imagine but of each, some of their insensible Parti∣cles

are always steaming into the Air, which must make a strange Variety; or suppose a small piece of uncultivated Ground, where you commonly may discover hundred of different sorts of Vegetables, it may be Wolfsband, Henbane, Time, Savory, Ashen-trees, &c. each of these must emit different Particles into the Air, and likewise you must appre∣hend, they spring up out of different Juices of the Earth, which makes it possible, that every handful of Earth may differ from each other; the same may be thought of the water, that gives its Original to thousand sorts of Plants, and to innumerable little Animals (discernable by the Micro∣scope) and to great ones, as Frogs, Leeches, Water-Snakes, great and small Fish, &c. all which do likewise emit steams into the Air; so that each Pailful of water, for what I know, may differ from another; the like Variety may be instanced in the Fire; also a vast proportion of steams

must be communicated to the Air from all sort of Cattle, Vermin, little Animals engendred out of Putrefa∣ction; in fine, every animate and inanimate Body upon the Surface of Earth doth exhale Clouds of parti∣cles into the Air, which Particles are always in Motion. Such a vast den∣sity of Millions of variety of Par∣ticles, must by Action and Re-acti∣on, by the Rays of the Sun, and other Motions from above, cause a Change every moment in the Activity, Force, Motion, Position and figure of Particles, whereby they become sometimes benign, some∣times more or less malign, at one time ready to cause a malign Fever, at another the Small-pox, at another a pestilential Fever. These Particles be∣ing most in motion, and agitated Spring and Fall by the Rays of the Sun, are a Cause, why at those Sea∣sons contagious Distempers, and o∣ther Diseases also are most frequent.

4. The Small-pox and Measles, are either Sporadick, or Epidemick; the former is when Persons at any time are scatteringly, that is, here and there surprized with either of these Diseases; which wherever they happen to seize many Persons in the same Country, about the same Sea∣sons, and Times, become Epidemick, as they have proved lately for seve∣ral Months.

5. How some happen Sporadick∣ly to fall into the Small-pox, many others Epidemically, I apprehend in the manner you will read after I have premised, that it's only such I mean as never had the Small-pox, or had them imperfectly, it may be but once, and that not many, and not those that have had them tho∣roughly either at once, or twice, who are no longer subject to the Small-pox. The manner will be best ex∣plain'd by an Instance of one in per∣fect Health, who never passed thro' this Distemper; coming out of the

Country, or from his Habitation elsewhere, to some House or Street, meets with a Cloud of variolous Par∣ticles; these environing of him, enter the Pores of his Skin, and by Inspi∣ration his Lungs; the Person returns home, falls ill, and has the Small-pox in such wise, as you will read hereafter. Had this Patient escaped that Street, or House, or any other, where such variolous Clouds do float, in all probability he would have de∣fer'd catching this Distemper. Tho' the variolous, or half pestilential Particles are more frequently float∣ing in or about Cities, and Towns, it's not very rare to meet with them in scattered Villages, arising out of Church-Yards, standing Pools, stink∣ing Ditches, or Morasses, and places where Garbage, Carrion, and other Nastiness is thrown, so that it's some∣times equally possible to fall into that Disease in the Country, as in

Cities, or Towns. Secondly, There must be a Disposition in the Person, that may be infected, who never had that fort of Contagion, or else it's possible enough for one to escape both a sporadic and epidemic Small-pox, that hath thorowly had them before. A proper disposition requires,

First, Fulness of Humors, whose Pores the insufficiency of Spirits being incapable of filling, are the readier enter'd and possest by the half pestiferous Particles.

2dly, Fitness of the Figures of the Pores, to receive the Figures of the said Particles.

3dly, Feebleness and poverty of the Spirits; laxity of the ambient Membranes and Humors, besides several other Concurrents.

5. Many are precipitated into an Epidemic Small-Pox, because as in the Sporadic, only small clouds or parcels of demipestiferous Particles are dispersed here and there through∣out a whole Country, Town, or City

only, or may be transported from one place to another by one, that is lately recovered of them, through particles still evaporating through his pores out of his body, or inhe∣ring in this cloaths; so in an Epide∣mic Pox, those clouds are more thick∣ly and to a greater extension spread over the whole tract of Air, which consequently many that are predis∣posed must inspire.

6. Here a Question proper enough may be moved, viz. all inspiring the same Air in an Epidemic Season, Why should not those, that have under∣gone the Small-pox thorowly, re∣lapse into the same Contagion with those that never have been under it? After may way this is easily answer'd; The suffering of that Distemper, I look upon as a seasoning to the de∣mipestiferous Air; for as a new ear∣then Pot is seasoned, by letting the particles of the Fire gradually enter its pores, whereby they are by little and little widened, and then the Fire

entring with a full force, and finding no straitness or resistance, passeth through without any injury to the Pot; whereas should it at first be committed to a vigorous Fire, it would soon be crackt by the fiery particles forcing the pores asunder, and this is called a Seasoning. So in like manner the demipestiferous particles having formerly shaped the figures of the pores of those, that have thorowly been afflicted with the Small-pox, and finding free egress and regress, do not, or cannot fasten on their humors, or parts. From what is premised, it must necessarily follow, that an Epidemic Small-pox doth in many degrees exceed a Spo∣radic Pox in danger, the Air being in the former much more, and that universally loaded with demipestife∣rous particles, and such as are more acute or sharp pointed than the o∣ther. And in good truth most other Distempers, as putrid Fevers, Con∣sumptions, Pleurifies, and other In∣flammations,

internal of the Bowels, and external, whether of the glan∣dules, or other parts, are observed to receive such an intension and pejoration by those forementioned particles, that they very frequently prove malign; as for instance, com∣mon swellings of the glandules about the neck, and under the arm pits, do most of 'em at those Seasons turn to the Kings-Evil, Coughs, to a Con∣sumption, &c.

8. It is very remarkable, that those Distempers, whose original is usually attributed to taking or catch∣ing of cold, which doth not always terminate into Coughs or Hoarsnes∣ses, but into any other Distemper, which the particles of the Air do de∣termine it to, according to the figure and other accidental predispositions of the external membranes, and inter∣nal parts, which the said various par∣ticles floating in the Air find adapted to give them entrance, especially at the reigning of any Epidemic Di∣stemper;

for where Diseases are on∣ly Sporadic, the malign particles of the Air are much qualified by the intermixture, action or motion of other various particles.

9. Therefore the several sorts of Air ought not to be chiefly distin∣guisht by grossness, thinness or clear∣ness, but by the greater proportion of such or such particles it's endued with, as will appear by this following instance: The Mariners and Super∣cargo's of the Ships of Europe, that trade on the Coast of Guiney, lying on Board, fell themselves well, but passing a night or two's sleep on shore, are commonly seized with a malign Fever, that oft proves mor∣tal. No doubt but Air in point of clearness or thinness, doth not much differ in a quarter of a League, or if it doth, it's probable to be clearer a shore, and notwithstanding it's much more insalubrious.

Notes

• I do here take those Particles, that cause the Small Pox, to be half Pestilential.