after the manner that the degrees of heat and cold are marked on the common sort, the whole scale of female characters, from the most inviolable modesty to the most abandoned impudence. It is of a commodious size to wear at a watch: the liquor within the tube is a chemical mixture, which being acted on by the circulation of the blood and animal spirits, will rise and fall according to the desires and affections of the wearer. He will very shortly publish a large assortment of them, to be sold at his shop on Ludgate-Hill: and I flatter myself, there are many women in England, who will be glad to purchase such an effectual regulator of their passions. Every lady, therefore, may avail herself of the instructions of this pocket monitor; a monitor, who will give her the most profitable lessons, without the usual impertinence of advice. It will be of equal efficacy, if worn by the men. But expect my friend will have but little of their custom; for as the mere reputation of chastity is the utmost aim of a fine lady, to preserve even that, in a fine gentle man, is accounted mean and unmanly. I N° 5. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1754, Σκηψας ἐλαυνει λοιμος έχθιστος πολιν. SOPHOCL, A plague has seiz'd us, and the tainted city SIR, TO MR. TOWN. Batson's Coffee-House, Feb. 26, 1754 I Must beg leave to trouble you on a most serious and melancholy subject; a subject, which I fear will be attended with the most dreadful consequences to the whole nation. Notwithstanding the last mail brought the college positive assurances from the French King's physicians, that the late plague at Rouen was entirely ceased, I have the strongest reasons to apprehend, that the contagion is already spread to this city. My own practice daily furnishes me with lamentable in stances, that manifestly indicate a pestilential disorder in the blood and humours. I was first induced to suspect, that some epidemical distemper was taking root among us, from my being called in to a noble patient, who (as the public prints have informed you) has lately been afflicted with a violent boil on his back. From this patient there have issued continually great quantities of corruption of a yellow hue. His complaint seems to be in some sort constitutional, as it commonly breaks out with extraordinary virulence every seven years; and as this is the crisis, we cannot pronounce our noble patient out of danger, till he has got over the ensuing spring. It is moreover to be feared, that the contagion has likewise reached Ireland; where we hear that the best physicians are using the most forcing medicines, and are of opinion that nothing can relieve the unhappy people, till they have voided a Stone. A great man there labours also under the abovementioned complaint of having a violent Boyle on his back*. I shall now proceed to give you the history of some other cases, which have fallen under my notice, and are to me an indisputable proof, that the plague has got footing among us. Its malignancy shews itself particularly about the court; and we are assured, that some parts of the country are also tainted with it. I have had the honour to attend several members of parliament, whose cases are very desperate. Some I found in a declining way, given over by all their friends: others are so weak, * Alluding to some disputes in Ireland. that they cannot stand alone; and many are so restless, that they are continually turning from side to side. As I found they had great need of support, I have advised them to drink plentifully of strong liquors, and guard against the ill consequences of a return. I visited the other day a young gentleman, who has lately been promoted to a command in the squadron designed for the East Indies. I found him in a most languishing condition; his spirits were quite depressed; he had a violent palpitation of the heart; and the whole nervous system was relaxed. I would have prescribed the well known diet-drink brought into prac tice by the late Bishop of Cloyne; but he told me, every thing went against his stomach, that savoured of tar. However, I at length prevailed on him to submit to a long course of sea water. I have observed the same prognostics in some of our land officers; to whom I have recommended the frequent use of exercise, together with a course of steel, and a powder composed of nitre and sulphur. A friend of mine, one of the common-council men of this city, is infected to a strong degree with the present pestilence. His chief complaint is a canine appetite; and his wife assures me, she has often felt the wolf in his belly. The seat of this distemper is originally in the palate, and discovers itself by a watering of the mouth from the salival glands, and a grinding of the teeth as in the action of mastication. This disorder being very common in the city, and likely to spread among the livery, I have directed him to perform quarantine for forty days, by abstaining from flesh during the present Lent. I know another, a very worthy alderman, who now lies in a most deplorable condition. He is swelled to a most enormous size; his whole face, and particularly his nose, is crusted over with fiery pustules of the confluent kind. He is afflicted with an insatiable thirst, VOL. XXX. and is very subject to falling-fits. I was sent for last night, when one of these fits had just seized him. He lay to all appearance dead on the floor, wallowing in the midst of a fetid mass, partly solid, partly fluid, which had issued from his mouth and nostrils with repeated eructations. I would immediately have administered to him a proper dose of Aq. Font. tepefact. but on offering him the draught, he shewed the strongest symptoms of a confirmed hydrophobia. I went out of charity to see a poor tragic author, (no reflection upon any of the profession, Mr. Town) who has been obliged to keep his room all the winter, and is dying by inches of an inveterate atrophy. By his extravagant ravings, sudden starts, incoherent expressions, and passionate exclamations, I judged his disorder to be seated in the brain, and therefore directed his head to be blistered all over. I cured another, a comic author, of a lethargy, by making a revulsion of the bad humour, from the part affected, with stimulating cathartics. A short squabby gentleman of a gross and corpulent make was seized with a kind of St. Vitus' dance, as he was practising Harlequin for the masquerade: his whole body was convulsed with the most violent writhings and irregular twiches; but I presently removed his complaint by applying blisters to the soles of his feet. The plague, as I observed before, puts on different appearances in different subjects. A person of quality, one of the club at White's, was seized with the epidemical phrensy raging there, which propagates itself by certain black and red spots. He had suffered so much loss by continual evacuations, that his whole substance was wasted; and when I saw him he was so reduced that there were no hopes of a recovery. Another nobleman caught the infection at Newmarket, which brought upon him such a running that he is now in the last stage of a galloping consumption. A reverend divine lately made a dignitary of the church, has unhappily lost his memory; and is so blind withal, that he hardly knows any of his old acquaintance: the muscles of his face are all contracted into an austere frown, his knees are stiff and inflexible, and he is unable, poor gentleman! to bend his body, or move his hand to his head. I have observed others seized at times with a strange kind of deafness; and at certain intervals, I have found them so prodigiously hard of hearing, that though a tradesman has bawled ever so loudly in their ears, it has had no effect upon them, By what means this plague has been introduced among us, cannot easily be ascertained;-whether it was imported in the same band-box with the last new head, or was secretly conveyed in the plaits of an embroidered suit:-But that it came over hither from France, plainly appears from the manner in which it affects our people of fashion, (especially the ladies,) who bear about them the most evident marks of the French Disease. This is known to affect the whole habit of body, and extends its influence from head to foot. But its strongest attacks are levelled at the face and it has such an effect upon the complexion, that it entirely changes the natural colour of the skin. At Paris, the face of every lady you meet is besmeared with unguent, ceruss, and plaster; and I have lately remarked, with infinite concern, the native charms of my pretty country-women destroyed by the same cause. In this case I have always proposed calling in the assistance of a surgeon to pare off this unnatural epidermis or scarf-skin, occasioned by the ignorance of empirics in the immoderate application of alteratives. From what I have been able to collect from observations on my female patients, I have found little variation in the effects of the plague on that sex. Most of them complain of a lassitude, a listlesness, |