But to return to _Damps_; he allows they approach the first Original of Contagion, so that if they are not the first, they may very well be the second Original of Contagion; for where there is a first, there is always a second in every Order and Number of Things. Now, as _Fires_ are manifestly useful in the Damps of Coal Pits, and Goals, why not in the raw Damps of Contagion? And if that is a true Experiment, why does Dr. _Mead_ forsake _Hippocrates_, and the antient Sages of Physick, for an Error that is not new; and, perhaps, not agreeable to Reason? And _Ovid_ tells us, _Temporibus Medicina valet_. As to the Story of the _Black Assize_ at _Oxford_, it shall not be carelessly neglected. The last Member of Novelty mentioned, is the keeping our _Houses and Streets clean from Filth, Carrion, and all manner of Nusances_; and I hope every Body will readily admit, that this was never done before, neither _here_ at Home, nor _Abroad_ in other Countries; and I’ll swear for him, this Time, that it is highly _necessary_. His Inference is strong; for if all these _new_ and _reasonable_ Instructions _take effect, there will be no need of any Methods, for _CORRECTING_ the _AIR_, _PURIFYING HOUSES_, or of Rules for _PRESERVING PARTICULAR PERSONS_ from _INFECTION_._ Yet in this very instant there follows a fresh Contradiction, if I understand him; but least I do not, I shall give you his own Words, in order to be better inform’d. _To all which, if the Plague get head, so that the Sick are too many to be removed, Regard must be had._ Now, as far as I understand the Doctor, the Plague may get Head against all these infallible Methods, but I cannot for my Life tell, what we are to Regard; but as these Methods are both fallible and infallible, at the same Time, the Doctor has fallen into another gross _Contradiction_. But, which is a more melancholy Story, this seems to be the whole of _Preventing_ we have hitherto expected; so that all the Philosophy he brought forth, in the first Part of his Discourse, has only been to make us _Constables_ and _Scavengers_, to set the Watch, and clean the Streets. A fine Account, indeed, of _Preventing_. This Discourse never look’d as if it were to live long, its first _Stamina_ were so rotten, and defective; and any one, with half an Eye, might see it would die of an Apoplexy, or first die and then have an Apoplexy, as the Fashion of Dying has been of late.