and Surgeons may be ſaid to have tortured many poor Creatures, even to Death. The Swelllings in ſome grew hard, and they apply’d violent drawing Plaſters, or Pultices, to break them; and if theſe did not do, they cut and ſcarified them in a terrible Manner: In ſome, thoſe Swellings were made hard, partly by the Force of the Diſtemper, and partly by their being too violently drawn, and were ſo hard, that no Inſtrument could cut them, and then they burnt them with Cauſticks, ſo that many died raving mad with the Torment; and ſome in the very Operation. In theſe Diſtreſſes, ſome for want of Help to hold them down in their Beds, or to look to them, laid Hands upon themſelves, as above. Some broke out into the Streets, perhaps naked, and would run directly down to the River, if they were not ſtopt by the Watchmen, or other Officers, and plunge themſelves into the Water, wherever they found it.
It often pierc’d my very Soul to hear the Groans and Crys of thoſe who were thus tormented, but of the Two, this was counted the moſt promiſing Particular in the whole Infection; for, if theſe Swellings could be brought to a Head, and to break and run, or as the Surgeons call it, to digeſt, the Patient generally recover’d; whereas thoſe, who like the Gentlewoman’s Daughter, were ſtruck with Death at the Beginning, and had the Tokens come out upon them, often went about indifferent eaſy, till a little before they died, and ſome till the Moment they dropt down, as in Appoplexies and Epelepſies, is often the Caſe; ſuch would be taken ſuddenly very ſick, and would run to a Bench or Bulk, or any convenient Place that offer’d it ſelf, or to their own Houſes, if poſſible, as I mentioned before, and there ſit down, grow faint and die. This kind of dying was much the ſame, as it was with thoſe who die of common Mortifications, who die ſwooning, and as it were, go away in a Dream; ſuch as died thus, had
