Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 054.pdf/105

This page has been validated.

[ 69 ]

XI.An Account of the Plague at Constantinople: In a Letter from Mordach Mackenzie, M. D. to Sir James Porter, His Majesty's Envoy Plenipotentiary at Brussels, and F. R. S.

SIR,

Read Feb. 23,
1764.

SO many great men have written upon the Plague already, as Prosper Alpinus, Sydenham, Hodges, Diemerbroeck, Muratori, Mead, &c. that it might be justly thought presumptuous in me to touch upon that subject after them. But as I find, that they differ in some circumstances, and that some of them have had an opportunity of seeing only one year's plague; I may be allowed to write to you such remarks, as I have made for almost thirty years, that I have lived in this plaguy country, without any quotations or confirmations from other authors; which I hope will help to reconcile the different opinions of the above-mentioned famous authors. Which task I would choose rather, than to contradict them; for I am persuaded, that each of them wrote according to the best of his knowledge (as I do myself) without any intention of imposing in the least upon mankind.

It is beyond dispute, that the plague appears in a different manner in different countries; and that it appears differently in the same country in different years: for we find most other diseases alter more or

less