Volume 2

Fumifugium : now reissued as an Old Ashmolean reprint in the year of the refacing of the Old Ashmolean museum / by John Evelyn.

  • Evelyn, John, 1620-1706.
Date:
1930
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fumifugium : now reissued as an Old Ashmolean reprint in the year of the refacing of the Old Ashmolean museum / by John Evelyn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    attemper’d, as is by moft efteem’d to be the reafon of the fame dangerous hahtus of Char-Coale, not fully enkendl’d. But to come neerer yet. New Cajlle Coale, as an expert Phyjician f affirms, caufeth* Conjumptions, Phthiftcks, and the Indifpofition of the Lung?, not only by the fuffocating aboundance of Smoake; but alfo by its Virulency: For all fubterrany Fuell hath a kind of virulent or Arfenical vapour rifing from it; which, as it fpeedily deftroys thofe who dig it in the Mines; fo does it by little and little, thofe who ufe it here above them: Therefore thofe Difeafes (faith this Do&or) moft affli£t about London, where the very Iron is fooner confum’d by the Smoake thereof, than where this Fire is not ufed. And if indeed there be fuch a Venemous quality latent, and fbmetimes breathing from this Fuell, we are lefle to trouble our felves for the finding out of the Caufe of thofe Pejlilential and Epidemical SicknefTes (Epidemlorum Caufa enim in Aere, fays Galen) which at divers periods, have fb terribly infefted and wafted us: or* that- it fhould be fb fufceptible of infe&ion, all manner of Difeafes having 1q univerfal a vehicle as is that of the Smoake, which perpe¬ tually invefts this City: But this is alfo noted by the Learned Sir Kenelme Digby u, in confirmation of the doc¬ trine of Atomical Effluvias and Emanations, wafted, mixed and communicated by the Aer, where he well obferves, that from the Materials of our London Fires, there refults a great quantity of volatile Salts, which being very fharp * Boetius a Boot, u Difcourfe of Syrapathetick Powder. and