Countrey which abounding with veins of Cinnabar was probably by their expirations preserved from the Pestilence And our Hypothesis will perhaps appear somewhat the more probable if we reflect on what I lately mention'd of the sudden check that is almost every Summer given to the Plague which at that time is wont to reign at Grand Cairo For since 't is generally observ'd and complain'd of that Morbifick Causes doe their work much more effectually than Sanative ones It seems very probable that Exhalations ascending from under-ground into the Atmosphere may be capable of producing pestilential Fevers and the Plague it self since those Corpuscles that impregnate the Egyptian Air upon the swelling of the Nile are able to put a speedy stop not onely to the contagiousness but to the malignity of the Plague even when 't is assisted by the Summer Heat which at Grand Cairo is wont to be excessive But having insisted perhaps too long on this Egyptian Pestilence I shall onely add by way of Illustration of the Conjecture that invited me to mention it that the accession even of Expirations that are not themselves wholsome may sometimes serve to correct the Air and put a sudden check to an Epidemical Disease For Corpuscles of differing kinds may by their Coalitions acquire new Qualities and each sort of them lose some of those they had before as suppose there wander'd in the Air a great many Effluvia which by their determinate shape and bulk were apt to corrode or irritate the Lungs or the Membranes of the Brain c. as those of Nitre are to corrode Silver it may happen that another sort of Reeks though in their own nature unwholsome may by associating themselves with the first sort and composing with them Curpuscles of new qualities abolish or much weaken the noxious ones they had before in reference to this or that part of the Humane Body Though the Spirits of Salt-peter will readily corrode Silver yet if you add to them as for some purposes I am wont to do about half as much or less of the spirituous Particles of common Salt which yet are corrosive enough and will fret asunder the parts of Iron Copper Antimony c. there will emerge a Body that will not at all corrode pure Silver PROPOSITION IV. T is very probable that most of the Diseases that even Physicians call New ones are caus'd either chiefly or concurrently by Subterraneal Steams THE Product of my first Endeavours to bring credit to the foregoing Proposition appearing to have miscarry'd when I came to send to the Press the things I had written about it that at least what can be preserv'd of it may not be lost I shall substitute in stead of it the following Account At the entrance of my Discourse I observ'd that the Term new Disease was much abused by the Vulgar who are wont to give that Title to almost every Fever that in Autumn especially varies a little in its Symptoms or other Circumstances from the Fevers of the foregoing Year or Season And therefore I declared that by new Diseases I meant onely such whose Symptoms were so uncommon that Physicians themselves judged them to deserve that appellation Such for instance as the Sudor Anglicus or Sweating Sickness that Disease which the learned Wierus and others call in Dutch Die Varen an unheard-of Disease describ'd by Ronseius that in the Year 1581 invaded and destroy'd many in the Dukedom of Lunenburg to which many Physicians add the Rickets and others generally the Lues Venerea Having clear'd the Terms I next consider'd whether there were really any new Diseases properly so call'd and gave some reasons to suspect that some Diseases which among Physicians themselves have pass'd for New were extant before in rerum natura though not in the Countrey wherein even the learned judg'd them to be new And I intimated that to examine this Suspicion throughly 't is not safe to acquiesce in the Books of Physicians onely but 't is fit to consult the Writings of Geographers whether ancient among whom I particularly recommended Strabo or Modern together with the Relations of Historians Navigators and other Travellers And here I inquired without determining any thing whether the Lues Venerea be as most Physicians are wont to suppose a Disease wholly new or onely new to our European World and brought hither from some African or other remote Region where it may be probably suspected to have long been Endemical But taking it for granted with the generality of Physicians that some new Diseases are to be admitted I advanced to consider some of the Causes to which they may be imputed And to give some reasons why I do'nt acquiesce in their Opinion though very general that derive them onely or chiefly from the varying influences of the Heavenly Bodies For the most powerfull of those namely the Sun and Moon act in too general and indeterminate a way to afford a sufficient account of this affair And as for the other Lights the fixt Stars besides their being universal and indefinite agents their scarce measurable remoteness makes it justly questionable whether they have any sensible Operation upon any part of our Bodies save our Eyes And though I deny not that great intemperateness of the Air as to the four first Qualities as Heat Cold Driness and Moisture are wont not over justly to be call'd may dispose mens Bodies to several great Distempers and may also be concurrent causes of those we are speaking of yet neither can I acquiesce in these when I consider how much more frequently they happen than new Diseases do and that their action though various is too general and indeterminate to perswade me that they can be the adequate causes of effects so rare and anomalous as Diseases odd enough to deserve the Title of new But now the Subterranean Region of our Globe besides that it is always near us abounds with variety of noxious Minerals and probably conceals great quantities of differing sorts of them that are yet unknown to us And since we have elsewhere proved that there want not causes in the Bowels of the Earth to make great and irregular and Sometimes sudden Confluxes Conflicts Dissipations and other considerable Changes amongst the Materials that nature has plentifully treasured up in those her secret Magazins And since in making out the three former Propositions we have manifested that the Subterraneal parts of the Globe we inhabit may plentifully send up Noxious Effluvia of several kinds into the Air it ought not to seem improbable that among this Emergent variety of Exotick and hurtfull Steams some may be found capable to disaffect Humane Bodies after a very uncommon way and thereby to produce new Diseases whose duration may be greater or smaller according to the lastingness of those Subterraneal causes that produce them On which account it need be no wonder that some new Diseases have but a short duration and vanish not long after there appearing the Source or
of mentioning this last Disease that he but borrowed his Encomium of Mercury from Begninus But however what has been related has invited me to consider whether there may not be some virtue as well as some danger in Amulets of Quicksilver that are by many extoll'd against the Plague But this onley upon the bye PROPOSITION III. It is Likely that divers Epidemical Diseases are in great part produc'd by Subterraneal Effluvia I Am very well aware that divers Diseases that extraordinarily invade great numbers of people at the same time and were therefore by the Greeks called Epidemical may be rationally refer'd to manifest Intemperatenesses of the Air in point of Heat Cold Moisture or some other Obvious Quality And therefore the Proposition speaks but of some Epidemical Diseases and imputes those it speaks of to Subterraneal Effluvia not as total but as partial and sometimes as principal Agents in the production of them In favour of the propos'd Conjecture thus explain'd I shall offer two things to Consideration I. And first it seems not very improbable that divers of those Morbifick Excesses especially if they be sudden that are observ'd in the Air may proceed from the unusually copious ascent of hurtfull Exhalations that mingle with the Air and diffuse themselves through it We are greater Strangers than we commonly take notice of to the Subterraneat part of the Globe we inhabit and if I had leasure and thought it necessary I could shew that there are a great many odd and surprizing things to be met with in the Structure and disposition even of those parts of the Earth that lie but a little way beneath the surface of it and partly have been and partly may easily enough be actually penetrated by the industrious Labours of men And as for the deeper Subterraneal Regions we are so much more unacquainted with them that we are scarce fit so much as to conjecture how far they extend or what kind of Materials they contain and what is the gross and if I may so speak the Mechanical Fabrick of the greater Masses whether solid or fluid they consist of And least of all can we determine what Motions whether periodical or others these Masses or other Portions of deeply lodg'd Matter may have On such grounds as these I conceive it possible that among the many and various Effluviating Bodies that the terrestrial Globe may conceal in its Bowels there may be some whose reeks ascending plentifully into the Air may occasion in it an excess of Heat Cold Moisture thickness or some other manifest Quality So that sometimes not to say many times even those manifest Intemperatenesses of the Air to which an Epidemical Disease is wont to be wholly imputed though perhaps not very justly may in part proceed from Subterraneal Bodies for I elsewhere shew that these by their Conflicts or Mutual Actions on one another may excite great and sudden Heats and on that account send up such copious Steams into the Atmosphere as may produce there sudden and excessive Heats Lightnings Thunders c. And I shall now add what perhaps will appear somewhat strange that I think sudden and unseasonable Refrigerations of the Air may proceed from the action of Subterraneal Bodies upon one another for Tryal purposely made has inform'd me that there are certain Minerals whereof some may be employed in their crude Simplicity and the other requires but a slight Preparation such as it may have in the Bowels of the Earth which Minerals being put together will produce by their Reaction an intense degree of Cold not onely as to sense but when examined by a seal'd Weather-glass The Changes of the Air that produce Epidemical Diseases are sometimes so great and sudden that they cannot in my Opinion with probability be imputed to the action of the Sun or the Moon which are causes that act in too general and too uniform a way to have those particular and anomalous Effects attributed to Them as probably as they may be to Subterraneal Bodies that often act with more suddenness and impetuosity and without any regularity at least that is known to us The difference we find in Seasons that bear the same name and should be alike in temperatureâ— is oftentimes very great and sometimes also very lasting It is proverbially said in England that a Peck of March Dust is worth a King's Ransom So unfrequent is dry Weather during that Month in our Climate And yet in some years and particularly the last 't was a rare thing to have a shower either in March April or May sometimes in the Month last named there are Heats greater than in the Dog-days of that same Year though usually here in England divers Mornings of that Month are cold and some of them frosty And now and then I have observ'd in the same Months and Days at no great distance from one another that the Weather has been sultry hot and has also produc'd a great Snow We have seen Summers like that which is remember'd for the Siege of Colchester that for almost the whole Season where more dark and rainy than several Winters have been observ'd to be To which purpose I remember that when I was about to write the History of Cold I was fain to watch almost a whole Winter to find two or three frosty days to make an Experiment or two I had need of that requir'd not a Cold that was either lasting or very intense But Instances of this kind are so obvious to those that are at all heedfull Observers that I may safely pass them by and inculcate that the Sun being in the same Signs at the same Times of the Year it does not appear how He should produce so great a disparity of the temperature of the Air in Seasons of the same denomination as the Winters or the Summers of differing and yet perhaps immediately consecutive Years And therefore I do not so much wonder that many Learned Writers fly to Astrology for an account of these irregular Phaenomena and ascribe them to the influences of certain Stars notwithstanding what divers eminent Philosophers and some great Astronomers too have said to prove the vanity of Judiciary Astrology I shall not now stay to discuss the Question whether the Stars have any influence distinct from their Light and Heat because my Opinion about it being somewhat peculiar I have discoursed of it in a Paper by it self But this I shall now say that the fixt Stars being but general and if I may so speak indefinite Agents almost unimaginably remote from us 't is nothing near so likely that such Effects as besides that they happen very suddenly and irregularly are oftentimes confin'd to a Town or some other narrow Compass should be produc'd by certain Stars as that they should be so by Subterraneal Bodies which are near at hand of very various natures and subject to many irregular and differing Motions commixtures reactions and other alterations I have known a great Cold in a
day or two invade Multitudes in the same City with violent and as to many Persons fatal Symptomes when I could not judge as others also did not that the bare coldness of the Air could so suddenly produce a Disease so Epidemical and hurtfull and it appear'd the more probable that the cause came from under ground by reason that it began with a very troublesome Fog That there may be many Subterraneal Bodies which by their commixtures may produce a sudden Heat will be easily granted by those that know what I elsewhere purposely make out that there are Subterraneal Menstruums and are acquainted with Chymical Operations such as the great effervescence made when Oil of Vitriol is put upon filings of Iron or Spirit of Niter upon Butter of Antimony to which I might add many other of the like kind that I have tryed as when Spirit of Niter is put upon filings either of Iron Copper or Tin or upon crude Quicksilver which I shall content my self to have nam'd because I have another Instance that comes closer to our present purpose For whereas I have shewn above that there is in many places great store of Marcasitical matter beneath the surface of the Earth and sometimes very near it I shall now add that I have purposely tryed that putting a little Spirit drawn from Niter with which Salt the Earth in many places abounds or a litle Oil of Vitriol upon powder'd Marcasites which being hard Stones are more difficultly wrought upon than many other Subterxaneous marcasitical Bodies of a looser texture there presently ensued a strong reaction between the Liquid and the Solid Bodies whereby was produc'd much heat not without visible fumes and Strongly Scented though not visible Exhalations And such kind of Odorous Effluvia were emitted upon the putting a little Spirit of Salt upon our Powder'd Marcasites And because Sulphur is a mineral that either pure or copiously mix'd with others is to be plentifully met with in the Bowels of the Earth and in many places burns there I shall add that I have found acid Spirit of Sulphur made the common way to work sensibly upon marcasitical matter hard enough coagulated An experienc'd German Chymist relates that in some parts of his Country he met with Vitriol Stones or Marcasites that by the action of mere common Water resting a competent time upon them will grow so hot as to enable the Liquor to retain a sensible Heat when it had pass'd a pretty way from them And as I elsewhere shew that many Accidents may occasion the breaking out of Waters or the change of their course in Subterraneal Places So that common Water may produce in a very short time considerable degrees of Heat in Mineral Bodies may appear by mixing with two or three pounds of fine Powder of common Brimstone a convenient quantity for now I remember not well how much I took of filings of Iron for this mixture being thoroughly drench'd with common Water did in a short time grow intensely hot and send up such a thick Smoke as good quicklime is wont to doe whilst men Slake it with Water It is observable to our present purpose what account was given me by a Domestick of mine that liv'd in the North part of England of a certain Mineral Groove which he had often occasion to resort to for when I ask'd whether the Damp that place was molested with did frequently recurr he answer'd me that at the time he was there it would annoy the workmen if they did not take good care of themselves more than once in one day And by Enquiries that I made of others that were conversant in Mines I learn'd that in divers places they were molested with Damps that came not at stated Periods but irregularly sometimes with much greater and sometimes with far lesser Intervals between them the times of their duration being also not seldom unequal So that supposing such noxious Effluvia to be plentifully emitted from the lower parts of the Soil it need be no wonder that an Epidemical Disease should be rise in this or that particular Town or part of a Country without spreading much farther and that it should begin suddenly in places where it was not expected for besides that these swarms of Effluvia being produc'd by casual concourses of Circumstances may oftentimes be excited and invade this or that place without giving the Inhabitants any warning besides this I say 't is not always necessary that these noxious Effluvia should be generated just under the places they molest since the motion of the Air especially when the Wind sits favourably may suffice to carry them to the Town or other place that feels their ill effects and yet they may seem to be almost confin'd to those places sometimes because the neighbouring places are not inhabited enough to make their ill qualities taken notice of but more frequently because by being diffus'd thorough a greater tract of Air they are more and more disperst in their passage and thereby so diluted if I may so speak and weakn'd as not to be able to doe any notorious mischief And here I Consider too that 't is not always necessary that the harm that is done by these morbid Constitutions of the Air should proceed onely or precisely from these Subterraneal Exhalations we are speaking of by virtue onely of their own qualities which they bring with them from under ground For 't is very possible that these Effluvia may be in their own nature either innocent enough or at least not considerably hurtfull and yet may become very noxious if they chance to find the Air already imbu'd with certain Corpuscles fit to associate with them for though these sorts of Particles were perhaps neither of them a-part considerably hurtfull yet there may from their Combinations result Corpuscles of a new and very morbifick nature This may be somewhat illustrated by considering that the spirituous steams of Salt-peter are not wont sensibly to work on Gold nor yet the spirituous Parts that the Fire raises from Sal-armoniac and yet when these two sorts of Particles convene there results from their Coalitions certain Corpuscles of a new nature that compose the Liquor Chymists call Aqua Regis which by its fretting quality corrodes and dissolves Gold By Analogy to this we may conceive that sometimes the Subterraneal Effluvia may find the Air already impregnated with such Corpuscles that by associating themselves therewith they may compose Corpuscles far more capable than themselves were whilst apart of having ill Effects upon the Mass of Bloud or some determinate Parts of Humane Bodies and consequently of produceing Diseases there And this Instance may appear the more apposite because it may be said that as though Silver and Gold and Diamonds and Rubies c. be put together and Aqua Regis be pour'd upon them it will leave all the rest uncorroded and fall onely upon the Gold so the newly produc'd Corpuscles that I have been speaking of whether
malignity of the Plague yet I doubt they are not sufficient for so wonderfull an effect unless we take in some new Exhalations that then impregnate and correct the Air. And we shall scarce doubt of the great interest these have in the effect produc'd if we give credit to what the recentest Writer I have met with of Voyages into Egypt has lately publish'd about the annual Pestilence at Grand Cairo a City he much frequented This Authour in the account he gives of the present state of Egypt relates that a little after the middle of our June and usually upon the very seventeenth day there begin to fall towards the last quarter of the night near the morning certain drops of a kind of Dew which causes the River to be fruitfull and purifies the Air from all the Infection of Camsims by which I presume he means the Pestilence for after some lines interpos'd he subjoins The Drops or Dew purifies the Air for as soon as it falls the Plague ceases to be mortal none dies of it the Air is wholesome all Distempers cease and if any person grows sick he never dies And then he adds This Dew gives life to every thing and when it falls upon the Wheat it causeth it to continue many years without corruption or Worms and is far more nourishing than that Corn on which it never falls For this cause they never house the Corn of the Grand Seignior in the Barns till this Dew is fallen upon it that it might keep the longer without Worms As well this Conjecture as some other things deliver'd here and there in this Paper about the Salubrity of the Air may probably gain the more credit if I here subjoin what I learn'd by inquiry from a very ingenious Gentleman who was owner of one or more of the Mines that afford the Phaenomenon I am to mention Which is this That in the Tin-mine Countreys in Devonshire it sometimes happens as perhaps I may have elsewhere noted to another purpose that upon a sudden a Spot of ground and that not always narrow will be as 't were blasted by the ascending hurtfull Fumes insomuch that not onely the Grass Fern and other more tender Vegetables will be turned black and as it were burnt or scorched up but now and then Trees also without excepting Oaks themselves will be blasted and spoil'd by the powerfull Operation of these subtil and poisonous Effluvia It will probably be here expected that among the Epidemical Diseases that our Hypothesis derives from Subterraneal Effluvia I should particularly treat of the cause of Pestilential Fevers and the Plague it self But though some such Fevers may not improbably be in great part imputed to the noxious Expirations of the Globe we inhabit yet as to the true Plague it self I freely confess I am at a loss about it's Origine The sacred Writings expresly teach that some Plagues and particularly that which in David's time swept away in three days 70000 Persons have been in an extraordinary manner inflicted by God And to me it appears either scarce possible or far more difficult than those that have not attentively enough considered the matter are wont to think it To deduce the abstruce Origine strange Symtomes and other odd Phaenomena of some Plagues that are recorded in History from merely Corporeal Causes On the other side it seems unphilosophical and perhaps rather seems than is very pious to recur without an absolute necessity to Supernatural Causes for such Effects as do not manifestly exceed the power of Natural ones though the particular manner of their being produc'd is perchance more than we are yet able clearly to explicate And I think it the more questionable whether all Plagues are Supernatural Exertions of God's Power and Wrath against the Wicked because I observe that Brutes which are as well uncapable of moral Vice as moral Vertue are yet oftentimes subject to Murrains such as may without incongruity be lookt upon as the Pestilences of Beasts And 't is the less likely that these sweeping and contagious Maladies should be always sent for the punishment of impious men because I remember to have read in good Authours that as some Plagues destroy'd both Men and Beasts so some other did peculiarly destroy Brute Animals of very little consideration or use to Men as Cats c. Upon these and the like Reasons I have sometimes suspected that in the Controversie about the Origine of the Plague namely Whether it be Natural or Supernatural neither of the contending Parties is altogether in the right since 't is very possible that some Pestilences may not break forth without an extraordinary though perhaps not Immediate interposition of Almighty God provok'd by the Sins of Men and yet other Plagues may be produc'd by a Tragical concourse of merely Natural Causes But though the difficulties that incumber each of the opposite Opinions keep me both from Dogmatically asserting that All Plagues have a Supernatural Origine and from denying that Any have it yet to say something on such an occasion though I can speak but very hesitantly I shall venture to add that whether or no the true Plague be said to descend to the Earth from a higher Sphere than that of Nature yet its Propagation and Effects are at least for the most part carry'd on mainly by a malignant disposition in the Air without which some Plagues could never have been so catching as they were nor so suddenly mortal and that in divers Pestilences this malignant Disposition in the Air may probably be in great part imputed to some kinds of Subterraneal Expirations I am prone to think and that chiefly upon two Accounts The first thing that induces me to this Conjecture is that not any of the several Causes to which the Plague is wont to be imputed seems to me to be sufficient Those that fetch it from the malevolent aspects and influence of the Celestial lights besides that they suppose some things very difficult to be prov'd have recourse to Agents too remote too general and too indeterminate to be acquiesc'd in as the Causes of such particular Symtomes and Phaenomena as oftentimes accompany Pestilences And as for those other Sects of Physicians that confidently derive the Plague some from Internal Putrefaction and others from excessive Heats noisome Stinks Corrupt aliments and such other Celebrated Causes though each party alledges plausible Reasons for its own opinion yet their objections against their adversaries are much stronger than their arguments are for themselves And the Learned Diemer-broeck though his own Hypothesis seem to be more Theological than Philosophical has much enervated the Arguments brought for the several opinions lately nam'd and by him dissented from The Reasons he employs to refute all the receiv'd opinions about the Origine of the Plague except his own are divers of them worthy of so learned a man to whom though I had leisure to transcribe them I should refer the Curious my present design being onely
the peculiar modification of the others motion THough the Experiments delivered in the foregoing Chapter have I presume sufficiently manifested that the modification given to the motions of the Air by sonorous bodies may have considerable effects upon Animals in whose organized bodies the curiously contrived parts have an admirable connexion with and relation to one another and to the whole Symmetrical fabrick they make up yet I fear it will scarce seem credible that sonorous motions of the Air not very loud should find even in bodies Inanimate and Inorganicall such congruous Textures and other Dispositions to admit their action that even more languid Sounds peculiarly modified may sensibly operate upon them and much more than sounds that are louder and more vehement but not so happily modified To make this good by particular Experiments I shall begin with that which though the effect may seem inferiour to that of most of the others I judge fittest to manifest that the produced motion depends upon the determinate modification of that of the impellent Fluid That a certain impulse of Air made by one of the Unison-strings of a Musical Instrument may suffice to produce a visible motion in another is now become a known experiment of the Cause and some unobserved Phaenomena of which I elsewhere more fully discourse But that it may not be suspected in this case that the shake of the untouched string is communicated to it by the propagated motion of the Instrument it self to which the string that is struck is also fastned I shall add that according to what I elsewhere relate I found by trial purposely made that a string of Wire which you will grant to be a more solid body than an ordinary Gut-string may be without another string brought to tremble by a determinate Sound made at a distance which produced but such an impulse of the Air as could neither be seen nor felt by the By-standers nor would communicate any sensible motion to the neighbouring strings 'T is true that in this case the string in which the trembling was produced was a single long slender and springy body fastned at both ends to a stable one and therefore it may seem altogether groundless to expect that any thing like this effect should be by the same cause produced in bodies that do not appear so qualified But as we elsewhere shew that a certain degree or measure of tension is in order to this Phaenomenon the principal Qualification without which all the other would be unavailable perhaps 't will not be absurd to enquire whether in bodies of a very differing appearance from strings the various Textures Connexions and Complications that Nature or Art or both may make of the parts may not bring them to a state equivalent to the Tensions of the strings of Musical Instruments whereby divers of the mentioned parts may be stretched in the manner requisite to dispose them to receive a vibrating motion from some peculiar Sounds And whether these trembling parts may not be numerous enough to affect their neighbours and make in the body they belong to a tremulous motion discernible though not by the Eye yet by some other sense This conjecture or inquiry you will I hope have the less unfavourable thoughts of when you shall have considered the following Experiments I remember that many years agoe I found by trial that if a somewhat large and almost hemispherical Glasse though not very thin were conveniently placed a determinate sound made at a convenient distance from the concave surface of the Glasse would make it sensibly ring as a Bell does a while after it has been struck But this noise was the effect of a determinate sound for though the voice were raised to a higher tone or if the sound were made louder the same effect would not insue I remember also thâ—â— some years after I observed that large empty drinking-glasses of fine white metal had each of them its determinate Tension or some disposition that was equivalent as to our purpose For causing the strings of a Musical Instrument to be variously screwed up and let down and briskly struck we found as I expected that the motion of one string when 't was stretched to a certain note or tone would make one of the Glasses ring and not the other nor would the sound of the same string tuned to another note sensibly affect the first Glasse though perhaps it might have its operation upon another And this Circumstance is not on this occasion to be omitted that after we had found the tone proper to one of the Glasses and so tuned the string that I say when that was struck the Glasse would resound Having afterwards broken off a part of the foot of the glass yet not so much but that it continued to stand upright the same sound of the string would no longer be answered by the Vessel but we were obliged to alter the tension of the string to produce the former effect The Learned Kircherus as I have been informed somewhere mentions a correspondence between some liquours and some determinate sounds which I suppose may be true though the triall did not succeed with me perhaps for want of such accommodations for so nice an Experiment as I could have wished but could not procure But if you can you will oblige me to make the trials so as to satisfie your self and me whether the agitation of the liquour be caused immediately by the motion of the Air or be communicated by the intervention of the tremblings of the Vessel An Artist famous for his skill in making Organs answered me that at some stops of the Organs some seats in the Church would tremble But because I suspected by his Relation that the greatness of the sound chiefly effected it because when that Pipe which they call the open Diapason sounds the chair or seat on which the Organist sits and perhaps the neighbouring part of the Organ trembles I shall add that I have divers times observed certain sounds of an excellent Organ to make not onely the seat I sate on in the Church tremble under me but produce an odd tremulous motion in the upper part of my Hat that I could plainly feel with my hands And that which makes me apt to believe that this effect depends upon the determinate tone rather than upon the loudness of the sound is that I have oftentimes felt and diligently observed such a kind of motion in the upper part of my Hat upon the pronouncing of some words in ordinary discourse in which case the effect could not with probability be referred to the greatness of the Sound but its peculiar fitness to communicate such a motion to a body so disposed Nor is it onely in such small and yielding bodies as Hats and Strings that Sounds that are not boisterous may produce sensible effects for if they be congruous to the Texture of the body they are to work on they may excite motions in it though it
in the production of divers difficult Phaenomena of nature that are wont to be referred to less genuine as well as less intelligible Causes FINIS AN Experimental Discourse Of some UNHEEDED CAUSES OF THE Insalubrity and Salubrity OF THE AIR Being a Part of an intended Natural History of AIR LONDON Printed by M. Flesher for Richard Davis Bookseller in Oxford 1685. THE Preface HAving heretofore had occasion to draw together under certain Heads divers unpublish'd Observations and Experiments of my own and some of other men by way of Memorials for a Natural History of the Air I thought fit by more largely treating of two or three of the Subjects distinctly mention'd in my Scheme of Titles to give a Semplar or Specimen of what may be done upon the other Heads of the designed History Vpon this account I treated somewhat largely of the Salubrity and Insalubrity of the Air as a Subject which for the importance of it to Mens healths and lives I thought deserv'd to be attentively consider'd and have its Causes diligently inquir'd into And having observ'd that among the six principal Causes of the healthfulness or insalubrity of the Air namely the Climate the Soil the Situation of the Place the Seasons of the Year the raigning winds and Contingencies whether more or less frequent and especially Subterraneal Steams having I say observ'd that among these Causes there was one viz. the last nam'd about which I thought I could offer something that I had not met with in the Books of Physicians that treat of it I was thereby invited to set down my Thoughts and Observations by way of Conjectures which I was made to believe would appear uncommon and would not prove useless These Observations and Reflexions I referr'd for clearness and distinctions sake to four Propositions But when I had gone thorough the three first and made some progress in the fourth being hinder'd by divers Avocations to make an end of it I laid by the whole Discourse in a place which I thought a safe one but when afterwards I had some opportunity to dispatch what remain'd I found all the diligence I us'd to retrieve the entire Manuscript unsuccessfull At this surprizing Accident I confess I was somewhat troubled because whatever may be thought of the discursive part of those Papers the Historical part contain'd divers matters of Fact that I did not meet with in Books nor can now distinctly remember and will not perhaps be lighted on by even Physicians or such Naturalists as derive their knowledge onely from them 'T is upon this consideration that having afterwards met with many Papers that belong'd to most parts of the unhappy discourse I thought fit to put them together in the best order I could that I might not loose what might give some light to so important a Subject as the Theory of Diseases And this course I the rather pitch'd upon because before the Papers about the Salubrity of the Air I miss'd two other of my Manuscripts whereof the former contain'd a Cellection of Medicinal things and the second a defence of the Mechanical way of Philosophizing about Natural Things as it respects Religion And I remember'd that having formerly lost a Manuscript I was much concern'd for I purposely made a noise of it whence I suppos'd the Plagiary would conclude himself unable to make it pass for his And in effect the Book was in a while after privately brought back so that I found it laid in a By-place where I had before as fruitlesly as carefully sought it AN Experimental Discourse Of some Unheeded CAUSES OF THE Insalubrity and Salubrity OF THE AIR c. THE sixth and last thing upon which the Salubrity and Insalubrity of the Air depends is the impregnation it receives from Subterraneal Effluvia And though this be a cause not wont to be much heeded by Physicians themselves yet I take it to be oftentimes one of the most considerable in its effects The Effluvia that pass into the Air may be distinguish'd into several sorts according to their respective Natures as has been elsewhere shewn wherefore I shall now only take notice of the differences that may be taken from place and time upon which account we may consider that some of them arise from the Crust if I may so call it or more superficial parts of the Earth and others have a deeper Original ascending out of the lower parts and as it were Bowels of the Terraqueous Globe And to this difference taken from place I must add another perhaps no less considerable afforded by Time which difference relates chiefly to the second sort of Steams newly mentioned Of the Subterraneal Effluvia some are almost constantly or daily sent up into the Air and those I therefore call Ordinary Emissions and others ascend into the Air but at times which are not seldom distant enough from one another and those I call Extraordinary Emissions whether they come at stated times and so deserve the title of Periodical or else uncertainly sometimes with far greater sometimes with far smaller intervals and so may be called fortuitous or irregular But though I thought it might render what I am about to say more clear if I made and premised the two foregoing distinctions yet because in many cases Nature does not appear solicitous to observe them but at the same time imbues the Air with Steams referable to divers Members of these distinctions I shall several times though not always take the liberty to imitate her and consider the Effluvia of the Terraqueous Globe in the more general Notion that they are so I know 't is frequently observed and usually granted that Marrish Grounds and wet Soils are wont to be unhealthfull because of the moist and crude vapours that the stagnating waters send up too copiously into the Air. And on the other side dry Soils are because of their being such generally lookt upon as healthy Nor do I deny that these Observations do most commonly hold true but yet I think that besides what can be justly ascribed to the moist vapours or dry Exhalations we have been speaking of in many places the healthfulness and insalubrity of the Air may be ascribed to other sorts of Effluvia from the Soil than those that act merely or perhaps principally as these are either moist or dry PROPOSITION I. TO deliver my Thoughts about this matter somewhat more distinctly I shall lay them down in the four ensuing Observations or Propositions whereof the first shall be this It seems probable that in divers places the Salubrity or Insalubrity of the Air considered in the general may be in good part due to subterraneal Expirations especially to those that I lately call'd Ordinary Emissions For in some places the Air is observ'd to be much more healthy than the manifest qualities of it would make one expect and in divers of these Cases I see no Cause to which such a happy Constitution may more probably be ascrib'd than to friendly Effluvia
in Ireland where they are so rise as commonly to pass under the name of the Countrey Disease That these Endemical or if we may so call them Topical Distempers do in many places proceed from some excessive Heat Moisture or other manifest quality of the Air from bad Diet vulgar Intemperance and other Causes that have little or no connexion with Subterraneal Reeks I readily grant But that in some places the Endemical Disease may either be principally caus'd or much fomented by noxious Effluvia I am enclin'd to suspect upon the following grounds 1. There are some places in which the Endemical Disease cannot be probably imputed to any manifest Cause as he may perceive that shall consider how often it happens that the Causes which are assign'd of such Diseases if they were the true ones must produce the like Distempers in many other places where yet it is notorious that they are not Endemical 2. That Subterraneal Bodies may send up copious Steams of different kinds into the Air has been already made out 3. It has been also shewn that the Matters that send up these Effluvia may be of a large extent And I remember on this occasion that I have sometimes observ'd and that in more Countries than one a whole tract of Land that abounded with Minerals of one kind and within no great distance as perhaps a Mile or a League another large tract of Land whose Subterraneal part abounded with Minerals of a very differing sort 4. We have also above declar'd and 't is highly probable from the nature of the thing it self that those copious steams Saline Sulphureous Arsenical Antimonial c. that impregnate the Air may very much conduce to make it hurtfull to a humane body in the way requisite to produce this or that determinate Disease as I not long since related from the Chymist that visited the Hungarian Mines that in some places he found the Reeks ascending from them into the Air though in an elevated place and expos'd to the Winds make him as it were Asthmatical and give him a troublesome difficulty of Respiration And here let me add an Observation which perhaps will not be thought fit to be slighted by Physicians namely that some parts of the substance of the Air for I speak not of its Heat Coldness or other such Qualities do not onely affect humane bodies or at least many Individuals among them as they are taken in by Respiration but as they outwardly touch the Skin and the Skin being as I have elsewhere shewn full of Pores and those perhaps of different sizes and figures those Corpuscles that get in at them may have their operation even upon the most inward parts of the body To make this more clear and probable because 't is a thing of importance I desire these things may be observ'd 1. That when I speak of the Air I do not in this place understand that Air which I elsewhere teach to be more strictly and properly so call'd and to consist of springy Particles but the Air in its more vulgar and laxe signification as it signifies the Atmosphere which abounds with vapours and exhalations and in a word with Corpuscles of all sorts except the larger sort of springy ones and many of them may be so small and so solid or so conveniently shap'd as to get entrance at some of the numerous Orifices of the minute or miliary Glandules of the Skin or at other Pores of it Thus though paper be not pervious to the uncompress'd elastical parts of the Air yet it may be easily penetrated by other Corpuscles of the Atmosphere for I remember I have for Curiosities sake prepar'd a dry body out of a substance belonging to the Animal Kingdom which being lapt up in paper would without wetting or discolouring or any way sensibly altering it pass in a trice through the Pores of it in such plenty as to have not onely a visible but a manifest operation on bodies plac'd at some distance from it And though a bladder almost full of Air having its neck well tyed be held near the fire in various postures the elastical Air though rarefied or attenuated by the heat will rather burst the bladder as I have more than once found than get out at the Pores yet we have often made a certain substance belonging to the Mineral Kingdom that if a bladder were wet or moist as the Skins of living Men are wont to be would readily pervade it and have a sensible operation even upon solid bodies plac'd within it This Experiment that I can repeat when I will is therefore the more considerable to our present purpose because in the bladder of a dead Animal the Porosity may be well suppos'd to be much less than it was in the Animal when alive in which state the parts of the humane body are much more perspirable than one would easily believe partly because of the heat that is continually diffus'd from the heart and partly because of the copious steams that are in perpetual motion and keep the parts warm moist and supple And it is not to be pretermitted in our present instance that the bladder of Urine consists not of a single Membrane and is probably of a stronger texture by reason of the subtile salt liquor it is instituted to contain than many another Membranes of the body or the Epidermis And this is the first thing I would have noted The next is that whereas in the Instances newly recited and some others that are by and by to be mention'd the effects were produc'd when the ambient Air impregnated with Mineral Corpuscles had but a very short time perhaps not many minutes to work upon the bodies expos'd to it In those Countries that are very subject to Endemical Diseases the Inhabitants are wont to live all the year long and perhaps during their whole life expos'd to the action of the vitiated Air and how much a far shorter time will serve to make the Corpuscles that rove in the Air penetrate into bodies of no very close contexture may be guess'd by the breaking even of the bigger strings of Lutes and Vials by the numerous though invisible vapours that get into them in rainy weather and much more by the effects of such vapours when insinuating themselves in swarms into the Pores of a Rope they shorten it so forcibly as to enable it by shrinking it self to lift up and keep suspended considerable weights as I have elsewhere shewn by tryals purposely made These things may render it probable that though in a small compass of time the noxious Effluvia that rove in the Air may be too thinly dispers'd in it to insinuate themselves in any considerable number at the Pores of the Skin yet by reason of the continual contact of the Air especially as to the Face Hands and some other parts which may last day and night for many months or perhaps years there may be opportunity for a considerable number of morbifick
to deliver some few things that seem more favourable to my Conjectures than to his Opinion and were suggested to me partly by my own Thoughts and partly by the informations that to examine those Thoughts I procur'd by consulting some uncommon Authours and asking Questions of great Travellers and Navigatours By this means I came to learn that divers great Countries are usually free from the Plague that according to the vulgar Hypotheses ought to be as much subject to it if not more than England France Italy and those other parts of Europe and Asia where that fatal Disease rages from time to time in the parched Regions of Africk to which the Excessive Heats would make one expect that the Plagues should make far more frequent visits than to our temperate European Countries Leo Africanus informs us that some parts are so seldom afflicted with that dreadfull Disease that it usually spares the Inhabitants 29 or 30 years together And he expresly records that in Numidia it self if I much misremember not the Countrey 's name notwithstanding the raging heat of the Climate the Plague is wont to be produc'd but once in a hundred years Our Purchas informs us that in the Land of Negro's it is not known at all And to omit what some Travellers and Navigatours relate of Japan as if it were seldom or never invaded by the Pestilence I do not remember that in New England which contains a great extent of Land though I have had both Curiosity and opportunity to inquire after the Diseases of that Countrey I ever heard the English take any notice of the Plague since their setling there above threescore and ten years ago And as for the East Indies Sir Philibert Vernatti a Virtuoso of great fame and authority at Batavia where he resides in his ingenious Returns to the Queries sent him by the Royal Society of Naturalists answers thus to the fifteenth Pestis morbus est Indiarum Incolis incognitus The Plague is a Disease unknown amongst the Indians And of the Countries that lie yet more remote as the great Empire of China and the Kingdoms of Tunquin and of Cochinchina that great Traveller Alexander de Rhodes who spent 30 years in those parts affirms that the Plague is not so much as spoken of there And yet the same Jesuit does upon grounds probable enough estimate the number of the people of China alone to be two hundred and fifty millions a number I take to exceed by far that of all the Nations of Europe Now when I consider how vast Tracts of Land are compriz'd in those Countries some of which the Plague does not at all and others but exceeding unfrequently invade this Immunity seems to me very unfavourable to most if not all the opinions receiv'd among Physicians as also that of Diemerbroeck himself who derives the Plague from a Supernatural Cause the wrath of God against the sins of men For in Regions of such extent and divers of them very populous which are seated under very differing Climats and which are some of them inhabited by Nations that make war with numerous Armies fight bloudy battels leave heaps of unbury'd Bodies expos'd to the putrefying heat of the Sun are sometimes forc'd as well as others to live upon very unwonted and unwholsome foods that worship stocks and stones and beasts and some of them Devils whom they know to be such that are at least as guilty as Europeans of Assassinats Poisonings Rapes Oppression Sodomy and other crying Sins in these Regions I say 't is not imaginable but that great Intemperatures of the Air especially in point of Heat Stench of dead Bodies kill'd in fights unwholsomness of Aliments malevolent aspects of Celestial Bodies high provocations of the divine Justice and in short all the Causes to one or other of which the several parties of Physicians are wont to refer the Plague should be wanting any more than in our Europe and yet the Plague which is presum'd to be the Effect of one or other of those Causes is not here observed to be produc'd I know that it may be said that the Historical things I have been reciting do not onely oppugn the several receiv'd Opinions of Physicians about the cause of the Plague but disfavour my Conjectures too But if this be said I desire it may also be consider'd that my Judgment about the Plague consists of two Parts One that 't is exceeding difficult to assign the true and adequate Cause of the Origine of the Pestilence and the Other that whatever be the Cause of its First Eruption its Propagation and divers of its Symptomes may be probably enough refer'd to the depravation of the Air by Subterraneal Steams and their Effects If this be duly consider'd the Historical Observations will appear not to overthrow the First member of our Hypothesis but rather to confirm it and 't is upon this account that I have mention'd them in this place And as to the Second member it may be said that since in the East Indies and the other Countries I have nam'd as privileg'd from this raging Disease it is not observ'd to break out as it cannot be said that Subterraneal Effluvia do in those Countries promote the Propagation of it so it cannot be prov'd that they could not doe it incase the Plague were begun by other Causes But in regard I think it not improbable that sometimes the Plague is not onely fomented but begun by noxious Expirations of the Terrestrial Globe I shall add that this supposition though I confess it be somewhat disfavour'd by some of the lately mention'd Observations yet is not absolutely inconsistent with them For First it may be said that some of the Countries I speak of may be destitute of those noxious minerals to which we impute some Plagues it holding true in Minerals as well as in Plants Non omnis fert omnia tellus and to omit what I have not without some wonders observ'd of the Limits of differing sorts of Mines and Mineral Veins in very bordering parts of the same tract of Land I cannot but here take notice that though Sulphur be in many Countries usually found and that in plenty where there are other Metalline Veins insomuch that Chymists make it one of the three Principles of all Metals yet in the Mines of England more strictly so call'd I do not remember I ever met with so much as an Ounce of Native Sulphur and I could not find by divers Mineralists of whom I purposely ask'd the question that they had met with any among the various Mines they had frequented It may also happen that there may be hurtfull Minerals in a Countrey and yet not capable of often producing or promoting Pestilences there even upon moderate Earthquakes For 't is possible that these Orpimental or other Noxious Minerals may have their Beds or Veins lying so deep in the Earth that they are not ordinarily able to send up Effluvia strong and copious enough to make
the same motive Philanthropy I am induc'd to add on this occasion that having had some opportunity to oblige an ancient and very experienc'd Physician to whose care was committed a great Pesthouse where the Contagion was so strong that he lost three Physicians that were to be Assistants to him and three Chirurgeons of four that were to be subservient to him I disir'd to learn of him if he counted it not too great a secret what Antidote he us'd to preserve himself from so violent and fatal an Infection This request he readily granted but withall told me that his method would not seem to me worth mentioning if I were one that valu'd Medicines by their Pompousness not their Utility For besides ardent Prayers to God and a very regular Diet his constant Antidote was onely to take every Morning fasting a little Sea-salt dissolv'd in a few spoonfulls of fair Water which he made choice of both because it kept his Body soluble without purging or weakning it and for other Reasons which I must not now stay to set down I know this Medicine may appear a despicable one but yet in my Opinion it ought not to be despis'd after such Experience as I have related has recommended it For I think it desirable that notice be taken of all Remedies that have been found by good Trials not bare Conjectures or uncertain Reports available against the Plague For since Pestilences as we have lately noted are exceeding various in their kinds 't is very possible and not unlikely that their Appropriated Remedies may be so too And therefore I would not easily lay aside every Medicine that this or that Learned Physician may speak slightly of or even may declare that he has found it unsuccessfull against the Plague since the same Medicine may be available in a Pestilence of another kind in which perhaps the Remedies commended by the Physician we speak of will be found inefficacious This Consideration forbids me to pass by what happen'd to me in the great London Plague above-mention'd namely that a very Learned Physician having once recommended to me an Herb little noted in England as a most effectual and experienced Antidote against the Plague I caus'd it to be cultivated in a Garden as I still do every year and when the Pestilence raged most having some of it by me made up with a little Sugar in the form of a fine green Conserve I sent it to two infected Persons who by the Divine Benediction on it both of them recover'd But having made but those two Trials I dare not ground much upon them onely though I usually keep the Plant growing in a Garden partly because both the Taste and Colour one or other of which in most Antidotes is offensive are in this pleasant and partly because some little Experience has invited me to believe the Commendations that I have found given of it against the Bitings of venomous Creatures whereof I remember a notable Instance is recorded by Petrus Spehrerius of a Roman who having with his Staff pierc'd or crush'd a Viper that he took to be dead had so strong a Venom transmitted along the Staff that the insuing Night he had a very great Inflammation in both his Lips to which superven'd an exceeding Ardent Fever and strange Tortures from all which Serianus Pacyonius a noted Physician that was call'd to him free'd him as it were by Miracle by the Juice of Goats-rue or as others call it Galega that grew copiously in that Place It may without disgust be taken somewhat plentifully and so it ought to be in its entire substance as a Salad or else one may give its Conserve its Syrup or which is better its Juice newly express'd 3. It likewise agrees with our Hypothesis that sometimes the Plague ceases or at least very notably abates of its Infectiousness and Malignity in far less time than according to the wonted course of that ravenous Disease Physicians did or rationally could expect For sometimes it may happen that though the Temperature or Intemperateness of the Air continues the same the matter that afforded the Pestiferous Exhalations may be either spent under ground or so alter'd by combination with other subterraneal Bodies or by some of those many Accidents that may happen altogether unknown to us in those deep and dark Recesses And if once the Fountain of these noxious Effluvia be stopt so that those that are in the Air cease to be recruited the Wind and other causes may in a short time dissipate them or at least dilute them with innocent Air so far as to keep the Disease they produc'd from being any thing near so mischievous as before And here I consider that it may several times happen that though the Minerals that emit the hurtfull Expirations remain where they were under ground and be not considerably wasted yet their fatal Effects may not be lasting because the Effluvia were generated by the conflict of two or more of them which vehemently agitated one another and sent up fumes which ceas'd to ascend at least in great plenty when the Conflict and Agitation ceas'd As I have try'd that by putting good Spirit of Salt upon Filings of Steel or Iron in a conveniently shap'd Glass there will be made a great conflict between them and without the help of external Heat there will be sent up into the Air store of visible Fumes of a very Sulphureous Odour and easily inflammable which copious elevation of Fumes will lessen or cease as does the tumultuous agitation that produc'd them And so likewise if you pour Aqua fortis upon a convenient proportion of Salt of Tartar there will be at first a great ebullition produc'd and whilst that continues store of red and noisome Fumes will be elevated but will not long outlast the commotion of the mixture whose active parts will in no long time combine into a kind of nitrous Salt wherein the noxious parts of the Menstruum are as it were pinion'd and hinder'd from evaporating or ascending though really they retain much of their pristine nature as I elsewhere shew It may also happen that soon after that commotion of subterraneal Matter which sent forth pestiferous Exhalations a more intense degree of subterraneal Heat or perhaps the same latent Fire extending it self farther and farther may force up Fumes of another sort that being of a contrary nature may be if I may so speak antidotal against the former and by precipitating them or combining with them may disable them from acting so mischievously as otherwise they would To countenance which I shall tell you that I have sometimes purposely made Distillations in which one part of the Matter being after the operation ended put to the other there will ensue a sudden and manifest conflict between them and sometimes an intense degree of Heat And that mineral Exhalations though otherwise not wholesome may disable pestiferous Effluvia may be gather'd from what I lately noted about a