y_ in the two
great Plagues before the Year 1665, and recommended by Dr. _Quincey_[20]
for the Dissipation of Pestilential Vapours, _&c._ And without all manner
of Dispute, Dr. _Bradley_[21] must be wholly on his Side, when he tells
us, 'That the Year 1665, was the last that we can say raged in _London_,
which might happen from the Destruction of the City by Fire the following
Year 1666, and besides the destroying of the Eggs or Seeds of those
poisonous Animals that were then in the stagnating Air, might likewise
purifie the Air in such a Manner as to make it unfit for the Nourishment
of others of the same kind, which were swimming or driving in the
circumambient Air.'

What has been said of Fires is likewise to be understood of firing of
Guns, which some have too rashly advised. Says Dr. _Mead_[22], 'The
proper Correction of the Air would be to make it fresh and cool.' And here
quotes from the Practice of the _Arabians_ out of _Rhazes de re Medica_,
&c. Dr. _Quincey_[23] 'That as the Air being still and as it were stagnate
at such Times, and as it favours the Collection of poisonous Effluvia, and
aggravates Infection, thinks it more effectual to let off small Parcels of
the common _Pulvis Fulminans_, which must afford a greater Shock to the
Air by its Explosion than by the largest Pieces of Ordnance.' In favour of
which last Assertion, the Experience both of Soldiers, will justifie the
firing of great Guns and Ordnance, which is frequently used in Camps, for
the Dissipation of the collected pestilential Atoms, which by Concussion
as well as its constituent Parts of Nitre and Sulphur, tend greatly to the
Purification of the grosser Atmosphere within the Compass of their
Activity; and by the Seamen in their Voyages in the Southern Parts of the
World, when sometimes the Air is so gross, and hangs so low upon them, as
to be almost suffocated. And in the late Plague at _Marseilles_ the
constant firing of great Guns at Morning and Evening, by the Appointment
of _Monsieur le Marquis de Langeron_ their Governour, was esteemed of
great Relief to the Inhabitants.

Nay, their Contest will not end in a Pipe of Tobacco, against which Dr.
_Hodges_[24] declares himself a profess'd Enemy: 'But whether (says he)
we regard the narcotick Quality of this _American_ Henbane; or the
poisonous Oil which exhales from it in Smoaking, or that prodigious
Discharge of Spittle which it occasions, and which Nature wants for many
other important Oc