Man gets Diseases by lying with Diseased Persons, and in unclean Beds, and others not. It is a general Custom, when Men go abroad or travel, to desire clean Sheets, imagining them to be a sufficient Bulwark to defend them from the pernicious Fumes and Vapours of old stale Beds; but it is too short. For, it is certain, that most or all Beds do perfectly stink, not only those in Inns and Houses of Entertainment, but others: Not but that every ones Bed does smell indifferent well to himself; but when he lies in a strange Bed, let a Man but put his Nose into the Bed when he is thorowly hot, and hardly any Common Vault is like it. Now this sort of Uncleanness, which does proceed from old Beds, is not only the greatest, but also the most injurious to the Health and Preservation of Mankind, and the least care is taken to prevent it: Every one that can, will have plentiful Changes both of Linen and Woollen Garments; for if they have not, Experience does shew, that the Excrements and Breathings of the Body will generate Vermin. Also do not most People take care that their Furnitures are daily brushed and rubbed, and their very Floors washed, as though they were to eat their Food on them? But all this while they lie on Beds that have not been changed, or hardly aired, in several Years. Let any indifferent Person judge, which is most pleasurable and healthful, to have a clean Floor to tread on, which costs many hard days Labour to keep so, and is dirtied in a Moments time; or to have a clean sweet Bed to lye on. There is no Comparison to be made, the difference is so great; the one being essential either to Health or Sickness, the other an indifferent thing. If there was but the tenth part of the Care taken to keep Beds clean and sweet, as there is of Clothing and Furniture, then there would be no Matter for the getting of Diseases, nor for the Generation of Bugs. I would have all Housewifes, and others, consider the Reasons of these things. Are not Lice, that troublesom Vermin, bred from the Breathings of the Body, for want of often Change both of Linnen and Woollen? And will not Fleas breed from the very Dust of Chambers where People lie? Also any Woollen that hath been used about Beds, although the cold Winter hath destroyed them, yet if these Clothes lie in any close place, where the Air hath not its free egress and regress, these very Garments will generate Fleas the Summer following: but if these Clothes had never been used about Men and Women, they would never have bred Fleas: for there is no Matter of Element in Wooll or Cloth for the Generation of such Creatures; but Wooll, Cloth, Furs, and Hair are chiefly the Element of Moths, and sometimes of small Worms; that is, if such things are kept in Places where the refreshing Influences of the Air have not their free egress: for all such Places do contract great store of Moisture, which, when hot Weather comes, causeth Putrifaction, whence all such Vermin do proceed.