it was incredible, and scarce to be imagined, how the posts
of houses and corners of streets were plastered over with doctors'
bills, and papers of ignorant fellows quacking and tampering in physic,
and inviting people to come to them for remedies, which was generally
set off with such flourishes as these; viz., "INFALLIBLE preventitive
pills against the plague;" "NEVER-FAILING preservatives against the
infection;" "SOVEREIGN cordials against the corruption of air;" "EXACT
regulations for the conduct of the body in case of infection;"
"Antipestilential pills;" "INCOMPARABLE drink against the plague, never
found out before;" "An UNIVERSAL remedy for the plague;" "The ONLY TRUE
plague water;" "The ROYAL ANTIDOTE against all kinds of infection;" and
such a number more that I cannot reckon up, and, if I could, would fill
a book of themselves to set them down.

Others set up bills to summon people to their lodgings for direction and
advice in the case of infection. These had specious titles also, such as
these:--

An eminent High-Dutch physician, newly come over from Holland,
where he resided during all the time of the great plague,
last year, in Amsterdam, and cured multitudes of people that
actually had the plague upon them.

An Italian gentlewoman just arrived from Naples, having a
choice secret to prevent infection, which she found out by
her great experience, and did wonderful cures with it in the
late plague there, wherein there died 20,000 in one day.

An ancient gentlewoman having practiced with great success in
the late plague in this city, anno 1636, gives her advice
only to the female sex. To be spoken with, etc.

An experienced physician, who has long studied the doctrine of
antidotes against all sorts of poison and infection, has,
after forty years' practice, arrived at such skill as may,
with God's blessing, direct persons how to prevent being
touched by any contagious distemper whatsoever. He directs
the poor gratis.

I take notice of these by way of specimen. I could give you two or three
dozen of the like, and yet have abundance left behind. It is sufficient
from these to apprise any one of the humor of those times, and how a set
of thieves and pickpockets not only robbed and cheated the poor people
of their money, but poisoned their bodies with odious and fatal
preparations; some with mercury, and some with