Loimographia : an account of the great plague of London in the year 1665 / by William Boghurst... edited by Joseph Frank Payne.

  • Boghurst, William, 1631-1685.
Date:
MDCCCXCIV [1894]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Loimographia : an account of the great plague of London in the year 1665 / by William Boghurst... edited by Joseph Frank Payne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    this Learned man consider tliat hee must make the Serpent none of God's Creation ; but wee find this venomous Beast in Paradise before man's apostasy and fall, and if poysonned animalls were created ab initio, why not poysonous vege- tables and mineralls ? Therefore this Learned man mistakes the meaning of this word Good, which hee might have learned from every common writer of metaphysicks. Good is a relative or respective terme, and denotes an agreablenese in anything to the nature or to the ends or intentions of some being besides it selfe. Now what was principally in God's intentions when hee reared up this Fabrique of the world but the forming of man ? Man was to. bee his Image and representative, and wherein doth man most resemble God but in wisdome and understanding whereby hee beares Dominion over and makes use of all the rest of the Creatures, for Te^Q/r] Kparovfiev wv <pvaet vtKcojueda, saith the old Poet. If God had not made venomous and hurtfuU Creatures as well as others, man would have wanted objects whereon to exercise his reason and prudence; this quality which renders him soe like his Maker would have beene invisible and unseene, yea idle and uselesse. Now, because I will not be too tedious about these nicetyes about what and whence the plague ariseth, but rather to passe on to tliose things more certaine and necessary, I will only sett downe a catalogue of these many little Peccadilloes which hitherto by most people and Physitians in the world have beene reckoned for absolute causes of the plague, which the most of them at least can bee but only furthering occa- sions, not originall causes, and they are such as these, viz., thickness of inhabitants ; those living as many familyes in a house; living in cellars; want of fitting accomodations, as good fires, good dyett, washing, want of good conveyances of filth ; standing and stinking waters ; dunghills, excrements, dead bodies lying unburied and putrifying, churchyards too full crammed, unseasonable weather, south and west winds, much dry weather coming together, over watching the body, overcharging the body with nourishments, hott and moyst constitutions, overheating the body with too much venery, increase of vermin, as Frogs, Toades, Spiders, Mice, Flies, wormes, buggs, serpents, locusts, ants, butterflyes, etc. Furring and stopping up of conveyances, as Channells, Pypes, gutters, want of scouring ditches and pooles, vaults, Fens, and Marshes ; hempe, flax, asphaltum, and sweet herbes, steeped long in standing waters, expiring out of putrifyed lakes and nasty Denns and Dungeons, venomous herbes, putrifying above the ground, fumes of metalls and mineralls. 2
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