are swimming or driving in the circumambient
Air; and being sucked into our Bodies along with our Breath, are
sufficiently capable of causing those direful Depredations on Mankind
called the Plague. Both these Opinions are supported by the Authorities of
Learned Men.

And if _Hodges_, _&c._ have the Suffrages of the greatest of the ancient
Physicians, with those of _Wolfius_, _Agricola_, _Forestus_, _Fernelius_,
_Belini_, _Carolus de la Font_, _&c._ _Bradley_ may challenge to him the
famed _Kirchir_, _Malhigius_, _Leeuwenhooch_, _Morgagni_, _Redi_, and
_Mangetus_.

It is almost endless as well as altogether needless, to cite all the
Authorities for the different Opinions, that might be collected from the
most remote Antiquity down to the present Age.

And although it is yet to be contested, and might be held an occult
Quality with those learned Gentlemen, we shall find, each Doctor passes
his favourite Opinion upon the World with as much Infallibility as a
Demonstration in _Euclid_.

[13]And for that Opinion of the famous _Kirchir_, about animated Worms,
(says _Hodges_) 'I must confess I could never come at any such Discovery
with the Help of the best Glasses, nor ever found the same discovered by
any other; but perhaps in our cloudy Island we are not so sharp-sighted as
in the serene Air of _Italy_; and with Submission to so great a Name, it
seems to me very disconsonant to Reason, that such a pestilential
Seminium, which is both of a nitrous and poisonous Nature, should produce
a living Creature.' And he is well assured, that he is in the right, when
he says, '[14]Every one of those Particulars are as clear as the Light at
Noon-Day; and those Explications are so obvious to be met with in the
Writings of the Learned, that it would be lost Labour to insist upon any
such Thing here.'

[15]Dr. _Mead_ chimes in here very tuneably with _Hodges_, and is pleased
to say, 'That some Authors have imagined Infection to be performed by the
Means of Insects, the Eggs of which may be conveyed from Place to Place,
and make the Disease when it comes to be hatch'd. As this is a Supposition
grounded upon no Manner of Observation, so I think there is no need to
have Recourse to it.'

Dr. _Bradley_, who hatches this Distemper by the smaller Kind of Insects
floating in the Air, is greatly jealous of his favourite Egg, from which
that fatal Cockatrice breaks forth and disperses Death in every Quarter:
He may be seen to promote this