THE first time this was felt here, which was in the Year 1485, it began in the Army, with which King _Henry_ VII. came from _France_ and landed in _Wales_[61]: and it has been supposed by some to have been brought from the famous Siege of _Rhodes_ by the _Turks_ three or four Years before, as may be collected from what Dr. _Keyes_ says in one Place of his Treatise on this Disease[62]. Besides, of the several returns which this has made since that time, _viz._ in the Years 1506, 1517, 1528, and 1551, that in the Year 1528 may very justly be suspected to have been owing to the common _Pestilence_, which at those times raged in _Italy_[63] as I find one of our Historians has long ago conjectured[64]: and the others were very probably from a _Turkish_ Infection. If at least some of these Returns were not owing to the Remains of former Attacks, a suitable Constitution of Air returning to put the latent Seeds in Action before they were quite destroyed. It is the more probable that this Disease was owing to _imported Contagion_; because we are assured, that this Form of the Sickness was not peculiar to our Island, but that it made great Destruction with the same Symptoms in _Germany_, and other Countries[65]. I call this Distemper a _Plague_ with lessened Force: because though its carrying off thousands for want of right Management was a Proof of its Malignity, which indeed in one respect exceeded that of the common _Plague_ itself (for few, who were destroyed with it, survived the Seizure above one Natural Day) yet its going off safely with _profuse Sweats_ in twenty four Hours, when due care was taken to promote that Evacuation, shewed it to be what a learned and wise Historian calls it, _rather a Surprize to Nature, than obstinate_ to _Remedies_; who assigns this Reason for expressing himself thus, that _if the Patient was kept warm with temperate Cordials, he commonly recovered_[66]. And, what I think yet more remarkable, _Sweating_, which was the natural _Crisis_ of this Distemper, has been found by great Physicians the best Remedy against the common _Plague_: by which means, when timely used, that Distemper may sometimes be carried off without any external _Tumors_. Nay besides, a judicious Observer informs us, that in many of his Patients, when he had broken the Violence of the Distemper by such an artificial _Sweat_, a natural _Sweat_ not excited by Medicines would break forth exceedingly refreshing[67].