We will not insist upon this Sense of _Hippocrates_; but suppose he there truly treats of the Plague, and that he has observed such a Temperament of Air to have preceded it, what is this to Contagion and Infection, which neither _Hippocrates_ nor _Galen_ ever dream’d of. Besides, _Hippocrates_ calls the Plague a Fever, and in his Opinion several Affections of Air, to him, and us, perhaps, unknown, produced Plagues, or Fevers (for these Words are synonimous with him) and the greatest Part of other Diseases. So that it is manifest from _Hippocrates_, that this, and many other Alterations of the Air do not make it _Infectious_. The following Paragraph is of no Force, after what is now said concerning _Hippocrates_; the best Historian, that is not a Physician, is never presumed to go beyond an Account and Relation of Matter of Fact, as he apprehends it; and so far went the great _Thucydides_, in relating the Plague of _Athens_. We will rather consider what the Doctor alledges for strengthning his Conjecture about Contagion. [2]_Stinks of stagnating Waters, in hot Weather; putrid Exhalations from the Earth; and above all, the Corruption of dead Carcasses being unburied, have occasion’d infectious Diseases._ Let us now suppose this Account to be true, yet his chief Article about Carcasses is absolutely false, as may be prov’d by one of the best Physicians in any Age; what is all this to Contagion breeding the Plague: For suppose again, some or all of them occasion’d _infectious_ Diseases, the Consequence is not, _Ergo_, the Plague; there being many contagious Diseases that are neither _Plague_ nor Mortal. [Footnote 2: _Page 3._] Yet, as if all this were Demonstration, he asserts, That the Plague is produced by a _Concurrence_ of Causes; _and their first Effect is a Degree of Stagnation in the Air_, which is follow’d by _Corruption_, and Putrefaction. It is needless to enter upon this Hint of a new _Hypothesis_; for if his Machine of Contagion, or Infection, be good, these are unnecessary. But alas! the celebrated Doctor has, in the Conclusion, destroy’d the whole Fabrick he had rear’d with so much Trouble, after he had borrow’d Brick from one, Mortar from another, and Timber from a third; and only because he became, against Nature and his own Genius, a Master-Builder. Is a Concurrence of all the supposed Causes necessary to make a Plague? Then there never was a Plague in the World; and that because these Causes never all met together: A hopeful Conclusion! and which at once delivers the World of insufferable Fears, they hitherto groan’d under, by a vulgar Error; which is now contrary to Experience, because it is so to Dr. _Mead_’s Reasoning.