was a certain set
of drugs and preparations which were all certainly good and useful in
the case of an infection; out of which, or with which, physicians might
make an infinite variety of medicines, as the ringers of bells make
several hundred different rounds of music by the changing and order or
sound but in six bells, and that all these preparations shall be really
very good: 'Therefore,' said he, 'I do not wonder that so vast a throng
of medicines is offered in the present calamity, and almost every
physician prescribes or prepares a different thing, as his judgement or
experience guides him; but', says my friend, 'let all the prescriptions
of all the physicians in London be examined, and it will be found that
they are all compounded of the same things, with such variations only
as the particular fancy of the doctor leads him to; so that', says he,
'every man, judging a little of his own constitution and manner of his
living, and circumstances of his being infected, may direct his own
medicines out of the ordinary drugs and preparations. Only that', says
he, 'some recommend one thing as most sovereign, and some another.
Some', says he, 'think that pill. ruff., which is called itself the
anti-pestilential pill is the best preparation that can be made;
others think that Venice treacle is sufficient of itself to resist the
contagion; and I', says he, 'think as both these think, viz., that
the last is good to take beforehand to prevent it, and the first, if
touched, to expel it.' According to this opinion, I several times took
Venice treacle, and a sound sweat upon it, and thought myself as well
fortified against the infection as any one could be fortified by the
power of physic.

As for quackery and mountebanks, of which the town was so full, I
listened to none of them, and have observed often since, with some
wonder, that for two years after the plague I scarcely saw or heard of
one of them about town. Some fancied they were all swept away in the
infection to a man, and were for calling it a particular mark of
God's vengeance upon them for leading the poor people into the pit of
destruction, merely for the lucre of a little money they got by them;
but I cannot go that length neither. That abundance of them died is
certain--many of them came within the reach of my own knowledge--but
that all of them were swept off I much question. I believe rather they
fled into the country and tried their practices upon the people the