This account of the most malignant form of the pestilence differs considerably from that of Dr. Hodges, who seems to think that the _tokens_, as he calls them, very generally were to be found on the bodies of those who died suddenly. He mentions indeed a young man who was suddenly seized with a violent palpitation of the heart, and thus continued till his death, which took place in a few hours. In this case the Doctor supposed that there might be a carbuncle broke out on the heart. Dr. Russel has considered the description of the tokens given by Dr. Hodges, and compared it with that of others called by Diemerbroeck _maculæ mortis_, _spots_ or _tokens_ of _death_; and by this comparison it appears that the former has spoken somewhat indistinctly on the subject, confounding two different kinds of eruptions together. Dr. Hodges, however, as we have already seen (p. 10) asserts, in his _Loimologia_, that the tokens rise from within, and are broadest at their bases, where he also supposes the pestilential poison chiefly to lie. To the same purpose, in his Letter to a Person of Quality he says, “The tokens have their original and rise from within, and afterwards externally show themselves; which is evident, because the basis of them is larger than their outward appearance, and the internal parts are found very often spotted, when there is no discoloration visible on the skin.” Dr. Russel, after quoting Diemerbroeck, makes the following observations: “The author (Diemerbroeck) is diffuse on this subject, and thinks it a mistaken though prevalent notion, that the maculæ are merely superficial in the skin, proceeding from putrefaction, ebullition, &c. in the blood or humours: on the contrary he affirms, they arise from the internal parts, even the periosteum, broad at the base, and tapering to their termination in the skin, being produced by the _extinction_ and _extravasation_ of the vital spirits. Now (says Dr. Russel) this answers exactly to one species of the tokens described by Hodges, which therefore may be reckoned the same with the _maculæ mortis_, and was probably the only one observed at Nimeguen,” &c. On the same subject he quotes a book entitled _Medela Pestis_, in which the author says that by careful dissection the _tokens_ may be traced half-way deep in the flesh, and some, in the muscles of the breast, have been followed by the incision knife even to the bone. By the directions given by authority to the searchers in 1665, they were ordered to look narrowly for these tokens, which were described as “spots arising on the skin, chiefly about the breast and back, but sometimes also in other parts. Their colour is something various, sometimes more reddish, sometimes inclining a little towards a faint blue, and sometimes a brownish mixed with blue; the red ones have often a brownish circle about them, the brownish a reddish.”