Mordach Mackenzie

“ Next, the patient has a violent head-ach and giddiness, with some slight convulsive motions: he breathes hard; his breath and sweat stink; his eyes are ruddy, he looks frighted, sad, and pale; he has an insatiable thirst; his tongue is yellowish, with a red border; he has a total loss of appetite, restlessness, great inward heat, and more than could be expected from the fever, which is sometimes pretty moderate, but grows stronger frequently towards night; the patient very often bleeds at the nose. ”

“ Some persons are of opinion, that the air must be infected, and that it is the principal cause of these plagues; whereas I presume, that the ambient air is not otherwise concerned, than as the vehicle, which conveys the venomous particles from one body into another, at least in such plagues, as I have seen hitherto at Smyrna and Constantinople; allowing always, that the different constitution of the air contributes very much to propagate the plague: for the hot air dilates and renders more volatile and active the venemous steams, whereas cold air contracts and mortifies them. ”

“ The plague is now more frequent in the Levant, than it was, when I came first into this country, about 30 years ago; for then, they were almost strangers to it in Aleppo and in Tripoli of Syria, and they had it but seldom at Smyrna; whereas now they have it frequently at Aleppo, and summer and winter in Smyrna, tho' never so violently in the winter; which must be owing to the great communication by commerce over all the Levant, and more extended into the country villages than it used to be. I take the plague to be an infection communicated by contact from one body to another ”

“ The person having the plague may be said to have a contagious and poisonous air in his room and about him, while at the same time the open air is free from any dangerous exhalations; so that I never was afraid to go into any large house, wherein a plaguy person lived, provided that he was confined to one room. ”

“ The plague, as well as all other epidemical diseases, has it's rise, progress, state, and declension, when it begins to lose it's virulence, and many of the sick recover. Some years it is felt sporadically all the winter ”

“ When the cutaneous eruptions appear and grow sensibly, the patient finds himself better, and somewhat relieved from the great oppression he laboured under before. Some persons in the above state have a very violent fever, sometimes attended with a delirium and phrenzy; others are stupid, sleepy, and complain of nothing: as one of Captain Hill's men mentioned before; and the young fellow, who died of the plague last year, which he had in our palace ”

“ Such as are furious and delirious, seldom live so long, as they who are sleepy and stupid; but if they live long enough to have the cutaneous eruptions push plentifully, and their phrenzy begins to abate afterwards, they may recover more probably than such as are sleepy and have a moderate fever; tho' I have known some of them likewise die ”

“ The vomits likewise might prevent the return of the morbific matter into the blood, which frequently happens, and the buboes, &c. disappear, and the patient infallibly dies in a very short time. As the pestilential fever has many remissions, I am of opinion, that the use of the bark in the remissions might be of great service ”

“ All this time they give the sick no medicines, besides Venice treacle for the poor, and some doses of bezoar for such as can afford to pay for it; and they never can be persuaded to change their method ”