Doctor Mead's Short discourse explain'd E-Book

Various

• Herausgeber: Science & Technology Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 79

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Doctor Mead's Short Discourse Explain'd is an 18th-century treatise that delves into the medical theories and practices of its time, offering a detailed exploration of the ideas presented by the renowned physician Dr. Richard Mead. The book serves as an accessible explanation and expansion of Dr. Mead’s original Short Discourse, which addressed the nature, causes, and prevention of the plague and other contagious diseases. Through clear and methodical exposition, the author breaks down complex medical concepts, making them understandable to a broader audience beyond the medical profession. The text covers a range of topics, including the transmission of infectious diseases, the importance of public health measures, and the role of environmental factors in the spread of illness. It discusses the significance of quarantine, sanitation, and personal hygiene, reflecting the growing awareness of disease prevention in the early modern period. The book also examines the use of various remedies and treatments, weighing their effectiveness based on contemporary scientific understanding. In addition to its medical content, Doctor Mead's Short Discourse Explain'd provides valuable insight into the social and cultural attitudes toward disease in the 18th century. It highlights the challenges faced by physicians and public officials in combating epidemics and underscores the need for rational, evidence-based approaches to health and medicine. The work stands as both a historical document and a testament to the enduring quest for knowledge in the face of public health crises. Rich in historical context and practical advice, this book is an essential resource for anyone interested in the history of medicine, the evolution of public health, and the legacy of Dr. Richard Mead’s influential ideas.

Leseprobe

Doctor MEAD’s  Short DISCOURSE  EXPLAIN’D.

BEING A

ClearerAccount

OF

Pestilential Contagion,

AND

PREVENTING.

Nec satis est dixisse, ego mira poemata pango.

LONDON:

Printed, and Sold by W. Boreham, at the

Angel in Pater-noster Row. 1721.

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 this necessary Article is overseen and neglected by the Accurate Dr. Mead, for Reasons well known to himself, and easily to be guessed at by every body. It must be acknowledg’d that the Doctor’s way of writing and inquiring is very singular, the remaining part of his Book being carried on without Principles, or any known thing with which his Subject to be explained has any relation.

But, as I have now undertaken to make this short Discourse more intelligible, I will pursue my Design in Dr. Mead’s Method, as far as that does not obscure the Subject: In that Case I will take the Liberty to keep the Thread of our Discourse as much in our view is it is possible. Dr. Mead then having taken leave of Contagion, tells us, that this unknown Contagion is propagated by three Causes, The Air, diseased Persons, and Goods transported from infected Places. What a propagating Cause may be, shall be left to those that deal in Metaphysicks, to determine; it matters not what it appears to be, while the begetting Cause is unknown.

As to Air, he now undertakes to shew us how it becomes Infectious, and how it communicates its noxious Quality to other Bodies. The first, by the Authority of Hippocrates and Galen; but in this he mistakes his Authors, as he commonly does when they do not come up to his Purpose; for Hippocrates is thought, by many Authors, not to treat of the Plague, in this third Book of his Epidemicks; Galen, in the Commentary quoted by Dr. Mead, is so far from thinking that Hippocrates was resolved to give us Cases of the Plague, that he thought quite otherwise: And for the Truth of this Assertion, take an irrefragable Authority, instar omnium, the learned Dr. Friend, who says at the Remark [1]Λοιμωδης, hic non est proprie pestilens & contagiosus, siquidem in his morbis ab Hippocrate descriptis, nullum est contagii vestigium: Sed ut Galenus innuit aliud non est, quam Επιδημια ὀλέθριος. And a little after, sed ipse titulus Galeno paululum suspectus est.

We will not insist upon this Sense of Hippocrates; but suppose he there truly treats of the Plague, and that he has observed such a Temperament of Air to have preceded it, what is this to Contagion and Infection, which neither Hippocrates nor Galen ever dream’d of. Besides, Hippocrates calls the Plague a Fever, and in his Opinion several Affections of Air, to him, and us, perhaps, unknown, produced Plagues, or Fevers (for these Words are synonimous with him) and the greatest Part of other Diseases. So that it is manifest from Hippocrates, that this, and many other Alterations of the Air do not make it Infectious.

The following Paragraph is of no Force, after what is now said concerning Hippocrates; the best Historian, that is not a Physician, is never presumed to go beyond an Account and Relation of Matter of Fact, as he apprehends it; and so far went the great Thucydides, in relating the Plague of Athens. We will rather consider what the Doctor alledges for strengthning his Conjecture about Contagion. [2]Stinks of stagnating Waters, in hot Weather; putrid Exhalations from the Earth; and above all, the Corruption of dead Carcasses being unburied, have occasion’d infectious Diseases. Let us now suppose this Account to be true, yet his chief Article about Carcasses is absolutely false, as may be prov’d by one of the best Physicians in any Age; what is all this to Contagion breeding the Plague: For suppose again, some or all of them occasion’d infectious Diseases, the Consequence is not, Ergo, the Plague; there being many contagious Diseases that are neither Plague nor Mortal.

Yet, as if all this were Demonstration, he asserts, That the Plague is produced by a Concurrence of Causes; and their first Effect is a Degree of Stagnation in the Air, which is follow’d by Corruption, and Putrefaction. It is needless to enter upon this Hint of a new Hypothesis