was to warn and caution the People, not to entertain in their Houſes, or converſe with any People who they knew came from ſuch infected Places.
But they might as well have talk’d to the Air, for the People of London thought themſelves ſo Plague-free now, that they were paſt all Admonitions; they ſeem’d to depend upon it, that the Air was reſtor’d, and that the Air was like a Man that had had the Small Pox, not capable of being infected again; this reviv’d that Notion, that the Infection was all in the Air, that there was no ſuch thing as Contagion from the ſick People to the Sound; and ſo ſtrongly did this Whimſy prevail among People, that they run all together promiſcuouſly, ſick and well; not the Mahometans, who, prepoſſeſs’d with the Principle of Predeſtination value nothing of Contagion, let it be in what it will, could be more obſtinate than the People of London; they that were perfectly ſound, and came out of the wholeſome Air, as we call it, into the City, made nothing of going into the fame Houſes and Chambers nay even into the ſame Beds, with thoſe that had the Diſtemper upon them, and were not recovered.
Some indeed paid for their audacious Boldneſs with the Price of their Lives; an infinite Number fell ſick, and the Phyſicians had more Work than ever, only with this Difference, that more of their Patients recovered; that is to ſay, they generally recovered, but certainly there were more People infected, and fell ſick now, when there did not die above a Thouſand, or Twelve Hundred in a Week, than there was when there died Five or Six Thouſand a Week; ſo entirely negligent were the People at that Time, in the great and dangerous Caſe of Health and Infection; and ſo ill were they able to take or accept of the Advice of thoſe who cautioned them for their Good.
