Medicina Flagellata Part 5

A DISCOVERY Of some Remarkable ERRORS In the late WRITINGS of Dr. _Mead_, _Quincey_, _Bradley_, &c. on the Plague.

The great Apprehensions that all _Europe_ has received from the dreadful and raging Plague which has lately destroyed the greatest Part of the Inhabitants of _Ma.r.s.eilles_, has given that just Alarm to our Ministry, who under the Direction of His Majesty, by their wise and prudent Management, to the Duty of Publick Prayers, with that of a General and Solemn Fast throughout the Kingdom, have not been wanting, as much as possible, to prevent that direful Contagion which now threatens, and might be brought amongst us by the Sailors, or by Merchandize comeing from Places that are infected; and have ordered a strict Quarentine to be observed by all s.h.i.+ps in all the Maritime Ports liable to that Invasion.

And to be a.s.sistant to so great a Work, the Neglect of which the Lives of the Nation being at stake, we have some the most eminent of the Physicians now in Vogue, who from that Duty to their Profession, and their Zeal to the Publick Good, have publish'd some Essays, not only of the Nature, Cause, Symptoms, Prognosticks, and Affections of this fatal Distemper; but likewise of the proper Means to be used in preventing, and fortifying against, with the proper Applications of recovering those that are seiz'd by this fatal Enemy to Mankind. Books of this kind lately published are, a short Discourse concerning Pestilential Contagion, by Dr. _Mead_. The Plague of _Ma.r.s.eilles_ consider'd by Dr. _Bradley_. Dr. _Hodges_'s Loimologia of the Plague in _London_, _Anno_ 1665; reprinted by Dr.

_Quincy_: To which is added, an Essay of his own, with Remarks of the Infection now in _France_. To those worthy Gentlemen are we indebted for their ready Help, to their philosophical Enquiries, their learned and a.n.a.lytical Explanations in all the Stages of this raging Ill; and farther, by what physical Power it corrupts the Blood, destroys the Spirits, and is follow'd by Death at the last.

The Apologies that are made in their Preface, _viz._ of a short Warning, of their little Leisure, the Uncorrectness of Style, and the Typographical Errors should be favourably construed from so great an Aim of doing the Publick so great a Good; and it would be esteemed a base Ingrat.i.tude, meerly for the sake of Contradiction, to quarrel with the Hand that directs, and may support us in the greatest Extremity.

But where there may be a sufficient Reason to undeceive, or amend such Errors, as might otherwise be prejudicial to their intended Purpose of preserving the Common Weal, or advancing some other necessary Instructions which they have omitted; I can't but perswade myself that I shall have their Approbation, if not their Thanks in prosecuting the Advancement of that good End they so greatly have desired in their Publications.

It is very certain, that Essay of Doctor _Hodges de Peste_, is the best of any hitherto publish'd of that Kind; and if the Gentleman who has annex'd his Treatise to that of his own, has taken Care to remove the most affected Peculiarities, and Luxuriances of his Enthusiastick Strain, he should have avoided that Contagion himself, which are discover'd in his crabbed and dogmatical Terms of _Formulae_, _Miasms_, _Miasmata_, _Nexus_, _Moleculae_, _Spicula_, _Pabulum_, &c. Such Terms being too abstruse and difficult to be understood by the People in general, for whose Instruction and Benefit we have the Charity to believe he undertook his Publication. Nay, it cannot be doubted, and will need no Confirmation by those that carefully peruse Dr. _Hodges_, but will find that there is scarcely any advanced Method in what they have writ, or but what may be found in his Treatise, unless in this one Hint of _Quincy_, from the Use of _Pulvis Fluminans_ in dispersing the stagnate Air instead of the fucing of great Guns, _&c._ And he is no ways out in his Policy by tacking his own Remarks with those of the good old Doctors, which are the best Recommendations of their pa.s.sing to his own Advantage.

_Hodges_ in his Introduction tells you, "That the first Discoveries of the late Plague began in _Westminster_, about the Close of the Year 1664, for at that Season two or three Persons died there, attended with like Symptoms as manifestly declar'd their Origin; that in the Months of _August_ and _September_, the Contagion chang'd its former slow and languid Pace, having, as it were, got Master of all, made a most terrible Slaughter, so that three, four or five thousand died in a Week, and once eight thousand: Who can express the Calamities of those Times! None surely in more pathetick and bewailing Accents than himself, who gives us so melancholly a Description of their dismal Misery, as affects the Mind with the same Pa.s.sions and despairing Sorrow they were then overloaded with; and as _Virgil_ has it,

_Horror ubique Animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent.

Haerent in fixi pectore Vultus._

The _British_ Nation wept for the Miseries of her Metropolis. In some Houses Carcases lay waiting for Burial; and in others, Persons in their last Agonies; in one Room might be heard dying Groans, in another the Raveings of a Delirium, and not far off Relations and Friends bewailing both their Loss and the dismal Prospect of their own sudden Departure; Death was the sure Midwife to all Children, and Infants pa.s.sed immediately from the Womb to the Grave; Who would not burst with Grief to see the Stock of a future Generation hang upon the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of a dead Mother? or the Marriage-Bed changed the first Night into a Sepulchre, and the unhappy Pair meet with Death in the first Embraces? Some of the Infected run about staggering like drunken Men, and fall and expire in the Streets; while others lie half dead and comatous, but never to be waked but by the last Trumpet; some lie vomiting, as if they had drank Poison; and others fall dead in the Market while they are buying Necessaries for the Support of Life.

Not much unlike was it in the following Conflagration; where the Altars themselves became so many Victims, and the finest Churches in the whole World carried up to Heaven Supplications in Flames, while their marble Pillars, wet with Tears, melted like Wax; nor were Monuments secure from the inexorable Flames, where many of their venerable Remains pa.s.sed a second Martyrdom; the most august Palaces were soon laid waste, and the Flames seem'd to be in a fatal Engagement to destroy the great Ornament of Commerce; and the burning of all the Commodities of the World together, seem'd a proper Epitome of this Conflagration: Neither confederate Crowns, nor the drawn Swords of Kings could restrain its phanatick and rebellious Rage; large Halls, stately Houses, and the Sheds of the Poor, were together reduced to Ashes; the Sun blush'd to see himself set, and envied those Flames the Government of the Night which had rivall'd him so many Days: As the City, I say, was afterwards burnt without any Distinction, in like Manner did this Plague spare no Order, Age, or s.e.x; the Divine was taken in the very Exercise of his priestly Office, to be inroll'd amongst the Saints above; and some Physicians, as before intimated, could not find a.s.sistance in their own Antidotes, but died in the Administration of them to others; and although the Soldiery retreated from the Field of Death, and encamped out of the City, the Contagion followed and vanquished them; many in their old Age, others in their Prime, sunk under its Cruelties; of the female s.e.x, most died; and hardly any Children escaped; and it was not uncommon to see an Inheritance pa.s.s successively to three or four Heirs in as many Days; the Number of s.e.xtons were not sufficient to bury the Dead; the Bells seem'd hoa.r.s.e with continual tolling, until at last they quite ceased; the Burying-places would not hold the Dead, but they were thrown into large Pits dug in waste Grounds in Heaps, thirty or forty together; and it often happened, that those who attended the Funerals of their Friends one Evening, were carried the next to their own long Home."

------_Quis talia fundo temperet a lacrymis?_----

About the Beginning of _September_ the Disease was at the Height, in the Course of which Month more than Twelve thousand died in a Week[4] but from this Time its Force began to relax; and about the Close of the Year, that is, at the Beginning of _November_, People grew more healthful, and such a different Face was put upon the Publick, that although the Funerals were yet frequent, yet many who had made most haste in retiring, made the most to return, and came into the City without Fear; insomuch that in _December_ they crowded back as thick as they fled; and although the Contagion had carried off, as some computed, about One hundred thousand People; after a few Months this Loss was hardly discernable.

The Doctor himself comes to no determinate Number of those that died of this Distemper, but in the Table that he has writ of the Funerals in the several Parishes within the Bills of Mortality of the Cities of _London_ and _Westminster_ for the Year 1665, he tells you, 68596 died of the Plague. Dr. _Mead_ in the same Year 1665, that it continued in this City about ten Months, and swept away 97306 Persons. Dr. _Bradley_, in his Table from the 27th of _December_, 1664/5, takes no notice of any buried of that Distemper, but of one on the 14th of _February_ following, and two on _April_ the 25th, and in all, to the 7th of _June_, 89. The next following Months, to _October_ the 3d, there were buried 49932, in all 50021. Why he should here break up from giving any further Account may be from the Weakness of his Intelligence, which so widely differs from all other Accounts; and in this one, with Dr. _Hodges_, who tells you, that about the Beginning of _September_, at which Time the Disease was at the Height, in the Course of which Month, more than 12000 Persons died in a Week: Whereas in _Bradley_, the most that were buried in one Week, _i. e._ from the 12th of _September_ to the 19th, amounted to no more than 7165.

But computing after the Manner of Dr. _Hodges_, we find (taking one Week with another, from _August_ the 29th to the 27th of _September_, the Time of its greatest Fury) the exact Number of 6555; which falls short very near to one half of the Number accounted to be buried of that Distemper by Dr. _Hodges_; and we have abundant Reason to believe, that the greatest Account hitherto mentioned, may be short of the Number dying of that Distemper. If we do but observe the strict Order then published to shut up all infected Houses, to keep a Guard upon them Day and Night, to withhold from them all Manner of Correspondence from without; and that after their Recovery, to perform a Quarentine of 40 Days, in which s.p.a.ce if anyone else of the Family should be taken with that Distemper, the Work to be renewed again; by which tedious Confinement of the Sick and Well together, it often proved the Cause of the Loss of the Whole.

These, besides many other great Inconveniencies, were sufficient to affright the People from making the Discovery, and we may be certain, that many died of the Plague which were returned to the Magistracy under another Denomination, which might easily be obtained from the Nurses and Searchers, whether from their Ignorance, Respect, Love of Money, _&c._

And if they vary so much in their Computation of those that died; we shall find them as widely different in the Time when 'tis said the Plague first began.

The great Dr. _Mead_ on this important Subject, may establish by his Name whatever he lays down, with the same Force and Authority as the Ancients held of that _ipse dixit_ of Aristotle; but as that great Master of Nature was not exempt from slipping into some Errors, _& humanum est errare_, it can be no Shock to the Reputation of this Gentleman, if we shall find him no less fallible than of some others of the Faculty who has treated on this Subject; and to this part of the time when 'tis said the Plague first began. Doctor _Mead_, by what Information he has not thought fit to tell us, does affirm, That its Beginning was in _Autumn_ before the Year 1664/5; whereas Dr. _Hodges_ says, in the very first Page of his _Liomologia_, that it was not till the Close of the Year 1664; at that Season two or three Persons died suddenly in one Family at _Westminster_, of which he gives a further Light from his visiting the first Patient in the _Christmas_ Holidays, and fully confirmed by the Weekly Bills of Mortality, whose first Account of those who died of the Plague were from _December_ the 27th, 1664/5.

As those Gentlemen have forfeited their Infallibility by what I have proved hitherto against them, we have further Reason to suspect, whether or not the late Plague in 1665 was occasioned by that Bale of Cotton imported from _Turkey_ to _Holland_, and thence to _England_, as Dr.

_Hodges_ makes irrefregable, and Dr. _Mead_'s Authority indisputable; which is no less a Subject of Wonder and Admiration how many Years we have escaped from the Plagues that have happened and are frequent in so many Parts of _Turkey_; as at _Grand Cairo_, which is seldome or never free from that Distemper, at _Alexandria_, _Rosetta_, _Constantinople_, _Smyrna_, _Scanderoon_, and _Aleppo_, from which Places we have the most considerable Import of any of our Neighbours, and of such Goods as are most receptive of those infectious Seeds, such as Cotton, Raw Silk, Mohair, _&c._ And though Coffee may seem less dangerous, from its Quality of being more able to resist its pestilential Effluvia, yet from the many Coverings the Bales are wrapped in, it is not hard to conceive the contagious Power might be latent in some Part of the Packidge; which Escape is the more surprising and to be wondred at from the great Encrease of our Trade and s.h.i.+pping which yearly arrive from those Countries; and yet to be preserved from the like Misfortune near to this 60 Years.

_Gockelius_ informs us, [5]"That the Contagion in the same Year 1665 was brought into _Germany_ by a Body of Soldiers returning from the Wars in _Hungary_ against the _Turks_, spread the Infection about _Ulm_ and _Ausburgh_, where he then lived, and besides the Plague, they brought along with them the _Hungarian_ and other malignant Fevers, which diffused themselves about the Neighbourhood, whereof many died.[6]

And with Submission to the wise Judgment and Opinion of these learned _Triumviri_, who have cited no fuller Authority for this a.s.sertion than a bare Relation of it from _Hodges de Peste_; it may be no unreasonable Conjecture to have its first Progress from _Hungary_, _Germany_, and to _Holland_, from which last Place they all have agreed we certainly received the Contagion; and that we have had the Plague convey'd to us by the like Means may be found in the _Bibliotheca Anotomica_, being brought to us by some Troops from _Hungary_ sent thither against the _Turks_ by _Henry_ VI. King of _England_.

Dr. _Mead_, who thinks it necessary to premise somewhat in general concerning the Propagation of the Plague, might, to the three Causes he has laid down, of a bad Air, diseased Persons, and Goods transported from Abroad, have added the Aliment or Diet, because affording Matter to the Juices it does not less contribute to the Generation of Diseases: And it may be observed, that in the Year before the pestilential Sickness, there was a great Mortality amongst the Cattel from a very wet Autumn, and their Carca.s.ses being sold amongst the ordinary People at a very mean Price, a great many putred Humours might proceed from thence; and this, in the Opinion of many, was the Source of our late Calamities, when it was observed this fatal Destroyer raged with greater Triumph over the common People: And the feeding on unripened and unsound Fruits are frequently charged with a Share in Mischiefs of this Kind. _Galen_[7] is very positive in this Matter, and in one Place accuses[8] his great Master to _Hippocrates_ with neglecting the Consequence of too mean a Diet: From this 'tis generally observed, that a Dearth or Famine is the Harbinger to a following Plague. And we have an Account from our Merchants trading to _Surat_, _Bencoli_, and some other Parts of the _East-Indies_, that the Natives are never free from that Distemper, which is imputed to their low and pitiful Fare. The _Europeans_, especially the _English_, escaping by their better Diet, by feeding on good Flesh, and drinking of strong generous Wine, which secures them from the Power of that Malignancy.

Their Hypotheses as widely differ in the very Substance or Nature of the Pestilence; and Dr. [9]_Hodges_, [10]_Mead_, and [11]_Quincey_, have a.s.serted, that it proceeds from a Corruption of the Volatile Salts, or the Nitrous Spirit in the Air.

Dr. [12]_Bradley_, from the Number of poisonous Animals, Insects, or Maggots which at that Time are swimming or driving in the circ.u.mambient Air; and being sucked into our Bodies along with our Breath, are sufficiently capable of causing those direful Depredations on Mankind called the Plague. Both these Opinions are supported by the Authorities of Learned Men.

And if _Hodges_, _&c._ have the Suffrages of the greatest of the ancient Physicians, with those of _Wolfius_, _Agricola_, _Forestus_, _Fernelius_, _Belini_, _Carolus de la Font_, _&c._ _Bradley_ may challenge to him the famed _Kirchir_, _Malhigius_, _Leeuwenhooch_, _Morgagni_, _Redi_, and _Mangetus_.

It is almost endless as well as altogether needless, to cite all the Authorities for the different Opinions, that might be collected from the most remote Antiquity down to the present Age.

And although it is yet to be contested, and might be held an occult Quality with those learned Gentlemen, we shall find, each Doctor pa.s.ses his favourite Opinion upon the World with as much Infallibility as a Demonstration in _Euclid_.

[13]And for that Opinion of the famous _Kirchir_, about animated Worms, (says _Hodges_) 'I must confess I could never come at any such Discovery with the Help of the best Gla.s.ses, nor ever found the same discovered by any other; but perhaps in our cloudy Island we are not so sharp-sighted as in the serene Air of _Italy_; and with Submission to so great a Name, it seems to me very disconsonant to Reason, that such a pestilential Seminium, which is both of a nitrous and poisonous Nature, should produce a living Creature.' And he is well a.s.sured, that he is in the right, when he says, '[14]Every one of those Particulars are as clear as the Light at Noon-Day; and those Explications are so obvious to be met with in the Writings of the Learned, that it would be lost Labour to insist upon any such Thing here.'

[15]Dr. _Mead_ chimes in here very tuneably with _Hodges_, and is pleased to say, 'That some Authors have imagined Infection to be performed by the Means of Insects, the Eggs of which may be conveyed from Place to Place, and make the Disease when it comes to be hatch'd. As this is a Supposition grounded upon no Manner of Observation, so I think there is no need to have Recourse to it.'

Dr. _Bradley_, who hatches this Distemper by the smaller Kind of Insects floating in the Air, is greatly jealous of his favourite Egg, from which that fatal c.o.c.katrice breaks forth and disperses Death in every Quarter: He may be seen to promote this Hypothesis in that Discourse of his new Improvement of Planting, _&c._ and with no less Pursuit in his late Pamphlet on the Plague at _Ma.r.s.eilles_; where in his Preface, _p._ 13, he tells you, 'That to suppose this malignant Distemper is occasioned by Vapours only arising from the Earth, is to lay aside our Reason, _&c._'

And it may be farther observed, That they are as remote from their Consent to one another, as in the distant Place from whence they would trace its Origin.

[16]Dr. _Mead_, from a bare Transcription of _Matthaeus Villa.n.u.s_, does affirm, That the Plague in the Year 1346, had its first Rise in _China_, advancing through the _East-Indies_, _Syria_, _Turkey_, _&c._ and by s.h.i.+pping from the _Levant_, brought into _Europe_, which in the Year 1349.

seized _England_. This is directly against Dr. _Bradley_,[17] who suggests the Plague is no where to be found in _India_, _China_, the South Parts of _Africa_ and _America_, and has taken the Pains in filling up three Pages in the Defence of this a.s.sertion.

It would be well if their Opposition ended here; but when it affects us more near, when their Difference becomes more wide in the very Means of our Preservation, and what by one is laid down as a soveraign and real Good, to be returned by another as the most fatal and destructive, is a Weight of no small Consequence, nor a less melancholly Reflection, if it should please G.o.d to inflict us with the same Calamities.

And as to those preservative Means which the Government have only a Power to direct, the making of large Fires in the Streets, as has been practised in the Times of Contagion, is a Point largely contested.

Dr. _Hodges_[18] seems inveterate against this Custom, and tells us, 'That before three Days were expired after the Fires made in 1665, the most fatal Night ensued, wherein more than 4000 expired; the Heavens both mourn'd so many Funerals, and wept for the fatal Mistake, so as to extinguish even the Fires with their Showers. May Posterity, (says he) be warned by this Mistake, and not like Empericks, apply a Remedy where they are ignorant of the Cause.'

And Dr. _Mead_[19] has an Eye to this Remark, when he tells us, 'The fatal Success of the Trials in the last Plague is more than sufficient to discourage any farther Attempts of this Nature.' Whereas on the contrary, the making of Fires in the Streets were practised from the greatest Antiquity, and supported by _Mayerne_, _Butler_, and _Harvey_ in the two great Plagues before the Year 1665, and recommended by Dr. _Quincey_[20]

for the Dissipation of Pestilential Vapours, _&c._ And without all manner of Dispute, Dr. _Bradley_[21] must be wholly on his Side, when he tells us, 'That the Year 1665, was the last that we can say raged in _London_, which might happen from the Destruction of the City by Fire the following Year 1666, and besides the destroying of the Eggs or Seeds of those poisonous Animals that were then in the stagnating Air, might likewise purifie the Air in such a Manner as to make it unfit for the Nourishment of others of the same kind, which were swimming or driving in the circ.u.mambient Air.'

What has been said of Fires is likewise to be understood of firing of Guns, which some have too rashly advised. Says Dr. _Mead_[22], 'The proper Correction of the Air would be to make it fresh and cool.' And here quotes from the Practice of the _Arabians_ out of _Rhazes de re Medica_, &c. Dr. _Quincey_[23] 'That as the Air being still and as it were stagnate at such Times, and as it favours the Collection of poisonous Effluvia, and aggravates Infection, thinks it more effectual to let off small Parcels of the common _Pulvis Fulminans_, which must afford a greater Shock to the Air by its Explosion than by the largest Pieces of Ordnance.' In favour of which last a.s.sertion, the Experience both of Soldiers, will justifie the firing of great Guns and Ordnance, which is frequently used in Camps, for the Dissipation of the collected pestilential Atoms, which by Concussion as well as its const.i.tuent Parts of Nitre and Sulphur, tend greatly to the Purification of the grosser Atmosphere within the Compa.s.s of their Activity; and by the Seamen in their Voyages in the Southern Parts of the World, when sometimes the Air is so gross, and hangs so low upon them, as to be almost suffocated. And in the late Plague at _Ma.r.s.eilles_ the constant firing of great Guns at Morning and Evening, by the Appointment of _Monsieur le Marquis de Langeron_ their Governour, was esteemed of great Relief to the Inhabitants.

Nay, their Contest will not end in a Pipe of Tobacco, against which Dr.

_Hodges_[24] declares himself a profess'd Enemy: 'But whether (says he) we regard the narcotick Quality of this _American_ Henbane; or the poisonous Oil which exhales from it in Smoaking, or that prodigious Discharge of Spittle which it occasions, and which Nature wants for many other important Occasions, besides the Apt.i.tude of the pestilential Poison to be taken down along with it; he chose rather to supply its Place with Sack.'

Dr. _Bradley_[25] redeems it from this low Character, and represents it as a great Antidote in the last Plague _Anno_ 1665. 'The Distemper did not reach those who smoak'd Tobacco every Day, but particularly it was judged best to smoak in a Morning: He farther gives you an Account of a famous Physician, who in the pestilential Time took every Morning a Cordial to guard his Stomach, and after that a Pipe or two, before he went to visit his Patients; at the same time he had an Issue in his Arm, by which, when it begun to smart, he knew he had received some Infection (as he says) and then had recourse to his Cordial and his Pipe.' By this Means only he preserved himself, as several others did at that Time by the same Method.

I could heartily wish those worthy Gentlemen had struck in with greater Harmony to the Satisfaction and Security of the People, whose Expectations were greatly raised by the Hopes of their a.s.sistance, by gaining a greater Light into the Nature, Quality, Symptoms, and Affections of this definitive Ill, to have promoted their Safety, by giving the necessary Indications relating to the Cure, as well as the necessary Precautions in order to guard us from that secret Attack which may approach us by very minute and unheeded Causes; the which, from their different Notions and positive Contradictions, lay too deep from the narrow Re-searches of those Philosophizing and Learned Gentlemen, and for the Manner whereby it kills, its Approaches are generally so secret, that Persons seiz'd with it seem to be fallen into an Ambuscade or a Snare, of which there was no Manner of Suspicion. And there are very few Discourses relating to the Pestilence but what abound in many Instances of this kind: And the Learned _Boccace_, in his Admirable Description of the Plague at _Florence_ (quoted by Dr.

_Mead_[26] _Anno_ 1348) relates what himself saw, 'That two Hogs finding in the Streets some Rags which had been thrown off from a poor Man dead of the Disease, after snuffling upon them, and tearing them with their Teeth, fell into Convulsions, and died in less than an Hour.'

The Misfortune which happened in the Island of _Bermudas_ about 25 Years since, which Account is from Dr. _Halley_; A Sack of Cotton put ash.o.r.e by Stealth, lay above a Month without any Prejudice to the People of the House where it was hid; but when it came to be distributed among the Inhabitants, it carried such a Contagion along with it, that the Living scarce sufficed to bury the Dead.

And Dr. _Quincey_[27] has somewhere read a strange Story in _Baker_'s Chronicle, 'of a great Rot amongst Sheep, which was not quite rooted out until about Fourteen Years time, that was brought into _England_ by a Sheep bought for its uncommon Largeness, in a Country then infected with the same Distemper.'

_Fracastorius_[28], an eminent _Italian_ Physician, tells us, 'That in the Year 1511, when the _Germans_ were in Possession of _Verona_, there arose a deadly Disease amongst the Soldiers, from the wearing only of a Coat purchased for a small Value; for it was observed, that every Owner of it soon sickned and died; until at last the Cause of it was so manifestly known from some Infection in the Coat, that it was ordered to be burned.'

Ten thousand Persons, he says, were computed to fall by this Plague before it ceased.

And _Kephale_, in his _Medela Pestilentiae_, printed _Anno_ 1665, acquaints us, That the following Plagues were produced from the following Causes.

That in the Year 1603, the contagious Seeds were brought to _England_ amongst Seamens Clothes in _White-Chappel_; and in that Year there died of the Plague 30561.

That in the Year 1625, was bred and produced by rotten Mutton at _Stepney_; of which died 35403 Persons.