BUT how much soever these deep Marks were the sure Fore-warnings of Death, yet sometimes they would be out from the fourth Day before, and remain all that while as terrible Admonitions both to the Sick and others. SECTION VI. _The Prognostick Signs of the late Pestilence._ AS that Pestilence which of late made so great Havock amongst Mankind, was so full of Shiftings and Changes in its Attacks and Progress, that very little Certainty could be had of its Event; it highly concerns the Credit and Honour of the Faculty, not too hastily in such Cases to prognosticate either Recovery or Death: In Order therefore to remove, as much as possible, such Difficulties for the future, it is with Cheerfulness that I can leave with Posterity those Observations which I have been able to make in my daily Attendance upon the Infected, to the utmost Hazard of my Life, through the Course of this late Sickness. THE prognostick Signs then regard either the Pestilence it self, as to its Origin, Heighth, and Declension, or the Recovery or Death of the Patient. _FROM certain and undoubted Signs, for some time foregoing the manifest Eruption of the Plague, may its Degrees of Severity be prognosticated._ AS sharp and immoderate Pains apparently denote a pestilential Constitution, and likewise Tumours breaking out again upon Parts before affected: For it is a Case that I have often met with, that those who have had Buboes and Carbuncles in the Sickness well cured, to break out again afterwards, from some Remains of the pestilential Venom yet lurking in the Constitution, and not to be conquered. WHENSOEVER chronick Diseases are changed into acute ones, it may be concluded that the Infection is not far off; For Valetudinarians are more sensible of any approaching Disorder than those who are strong and healthful: And from a natural Cause may it be accounted why infirm Constitutions can certainly foretel several Changes in the Air, and be forewarn’d of other external Inconveniencies; and the more virulent any Infectious _Miasmata_ are, the sooner do they affect such Habits; and it seems peculiar to the Plague to be preceded by its pernicious _Effluvia_, like so many Officers seizing the Weak and Helpless first; and such it tyrannizes over by converting the morbid Humours into its own Nature, in subtilizing those which are gross, acuating the dull, heating the cold, changing the natural Ferments, and in short, by inducing opposite Qualities into the whole Constitution. MOREOVER, in this Regard we may consider the frequent Mortalities amongst Cattle, which foregoe an Infection amongst Mankind; for these Creatures living for the most Part, both Night and Day, in the open Air, not only are more influenced by it when tainted, but are also hurt by the infectious Venom which gathers upon the Herbage; as likewise they are more liable, on other Accounts, to feel its first Approaches, because its freest Progress is in open Places.