ny Eruptions
appeared, was attended with a great misfortune. The Physicians and
Surgeons appointed to examine the dead Bodies, finding none of the
distinguishing Marks of the Disease, reported to the Magistrates that it
was not the _Plague_; and persisted in their opinion, till one of them
suffered for his Ignorance, and himself, with part of his Family, dyed
by the Infection: this Assurance having prevented the necessary
Precautions[18].

AND this in particular shews us the difference between the true
_Plague_, and those _Fevers_ of extraordinary Malignity, which are the
usual Forerunners of it, and are the natural Consequence of that ill
State of Air, we shall hereafter prove to attend all _Plagues_. For
since all those Fevers, from which People recover without any Discharge
by Tumors in the Glands, or by _Carbuncles_, want the _characteristic_
Signs, which have been shewn to attend the slightest Cases of the true
_Plague_; we cannot, upon any just Ground, certainly conclude them to be
a less Degree only of that Distemper: but as far as appears, they are of
a different Nature, are not ordinarily _Contagious_ like the _Plague_,
nor yet have any such necessary relation to it, but that such Fevers do
sometimes appear, without being followed by a real _Pestilence_.

ON the other hand, I would not be understood to call every _Fever_ a
_Plague_, which is followed by Eruptions resembling these here
mentioned: For as every _Boil_ or _Pustule_, which breaks out upon the
Skin, is not an Indication of the _Small Pox_, nor every Swelling in
the _Groin_ a _Venereal Bubo_; so there are _Carbuncles_ not
Pestilential, and other Fevers, besides the _Plague_, which have their
Crisis by _Tumors_ and _Abscesses_, and that sometimes even in the
_Parotid_ or other Glands. There is indeed usually some difference
between these Swellings in the _Plague_, and in other Fevers, especially
in the time of their coming out: for in the _Plague_ they discover
themselves sooner than in most other Cases. But the principal difference
between these Diseases, is, that the Plague is infectious, the other
not; at least not to any considerable Degree.

AND this leads me to another Character of this Disease, whereby it is
distinguished from ordinary Fevers, which is the _Contagion_
accompanying it. This is a very ancient Observation. _Thucydides_ makes
it a part of his Description of the _Plague_ at _Athens_[19]; and
_Lucretius_, who has almost translated