When I formerly observed the great Neglect of the _Disposition_ and _Aptness_ of a Subject to receive and cherish the Disease, I was then very much afraid that the celebrated Dr. _Mead_ must suffer, when it was his Business to teach us how to preserve our selves from Infection; which has, at this Time, befallen him with a witness; for now our Security consists in the former. But if the Plague should chance to force his Lines, it is very plain, that we must surrender at Discretion to this most cruel Enemy. Our Generals taught the _French_, some Years ago, how slender a Defence Lines were; and the Plague has taught them, to their sad Experience, how insufficient they are to restrain its Violence; for it has nor only marched over their Lines in Defiance of their Guards, but even _Eastwards_ and _Southwards_, to the Contempt of _Matthæus Villanus_, and our Doctor, his zealous Follower. But I am, again, afraid that the Case at present is much the same as it was in the beginning of his _short Discourse_; for he then proposed to treat of _Contagion_, but he quickly dropp’d it, without so much as telling us what is meant by the Word. Here now we should _prevent_, but he knows as little of this as he did formerly of Contagion: For when he [19]_is to consider by what Means particular Persons may best defend themselves against Contagion_; he adds, _for the effectual doing of which it would be necessary to put the Humors of the Body into such a State, as not to be alterable by the Matter of Infection_. What Physician ever said so before Dr. _Mead_? And if an Impossibility of this Nature was expected from the Faculty of Physick, I hope they would acknowledge and confess their Ignorance. It is the same Thing, as if the Government should expect, that Physicians are to cure the Subjects of any one Disease, so that they should never feel it hereafter; the _Curative_ Part of _Physick_, in that Sense, must be as impossible as the _Preservative_. Mankind is more easy, and not only bears with what is not possible, but even with Blunders, that proceed from Ignorance and Stupidity. All that is expected from Physicians, is to have such Rules, whereby our Health may be secured to them, as far as it is consistent with Human Nature, and the known Means: And if Dr. _Mead_ would have communicated some of those wise Rules, that are to be found in Books of Physick, even without deducing them from any Principle of Reason, he then had done them the greatest Good, and what they seem to want and desire. [Footnote 19: Page 48.]