Omniana/Volume 2/The Plague
192. The Plague.
Antes has some remarks upon the plague which are well worthy the consideration of philosophical physicians. It always ceases in Egypt when the weather becomes very hot; and extreme heat eradicates it more certainly at Cairo, than cold abates it at Constantinople. "They are always (he says) pretty sure when the plague will cease, for it seldom remains after the 24th of June; this has given occasion to the following superstitious notions, not among the Turks only, but particularly among the Cophtic Chris- tians. They say, and firmly believe, that angels are sent by God to strike those people who are intended as a sacrifice. All those who receive the stroke must inevitably die, but those that receive the infection through fear only escape or recover. When they feel themselves infected, they say, anna matrubbel cuppa! which signifies, I am struck, or smitten, by the plague. As the 17th of June, according to the Cophts, is the festival of the Archangel Michael, on which day he lets a drop of water of such a fermenting quality fall into the river, as occasions its overflowings; they say that, at the same time, he, as the chief of all the other angels, orders all those occupied in striking the people to retire. The Cophts add, that if any of them should still lurk about in the dark after that day, they must absolutely fly before St John on the 24th of June. A thinking mind, though it acknowledges the hand of God in every thing, cannot content itself with reasons of this kind; for God, who has all the elements and everything in nature at his command, can employ a thousand means to obtain his aim without working miracles. The natural cause of the plague ceasing at that time in Egypt is the great heat; Fahrenheit's thermometer at that time standing generally at 90 or 92 degrees in the shade. It has several times fallen under my own immediate observation, that vessels came to Alexandria from other parts of Turkey, with many people on board affected by the plague, after that period, but the infection never took, and even the patients who came on shore infected with that disorder frequently recovered."
This very diffident, and yet very sagacious Moravian observes, that "this has made him think whether the same degree of artificial heat, so as to occasion a constant perspiration, might not be of more benefit, even to those infected by the disorder, than heating medicines applied to the same purpose?" I smiled upon reading this hint, for I remembered a dream which might easily have tempted a Mahommedan physician to try the experiment. It stands thus in a diary or rather noctuary of dreams, which would have been exceedingly curious if the writer had not been as liable to forget them as Nebuchadnezzar, and without the advantage of having a Daniel to remember them for him. "Dec. 15, 1806. I was reading in my dream of a Doctor Bocardo who had discovered a mode of curing fevers, by putting the patients into what he called one of his Burning Hells. It was a place heated to the greatest degree that life could bear, and the extreme heat decomposed the matter of the disease."
The Friars de Propagandâ Fide at Cairo, appoint two of their number to visit the sick and to administer extreme unction to those of their persuasion who are dying; and these visitors so seldom die of the plague that they make a miracle of it. "The only precaution they take, (says Antes, p. 47,) is to drink a great quantity of brandy, as much, and often more than they well can bear without dishonouring their profession. A Venetian Doctor, long resident at Cairo, never performed quarantine, and even visited people who were sick of the plague, but never caught it himself. His antidote was likewise to take so much brandy, that he was seldom free from its effects. Perhaps the increase of perspiration occasioned by the use of the liquor might be the cause. It seems that brandy supplies in this case, what a great degree of heat would naturally do. A timorous person, who is in constant fear and apprehension, will be much more liable to have it. It is well known that fear acts the contrary way, and will prevent or obstruct perspiration."