Scrutinium Physico-Medicum Contagiosae Luis quae Pestis Dicitur

...so that they might observe with studious inquiry and communicate to me those symptoms, both singular and exotic, which they discovered in the afflicted, along with other matters worthy of being known; a task they performed excellently, with no small willingness of spirit. Added to these, and by no means to be overlooked, were the counsels of Doctor James Alban Gibbes, a man not only renowned for his expertise in the medical faculty, but also a singular figure among the few philologists of this age. Having finally compared all these things duly among themselves with those [accounts] which I had found in the annotations of very many authors regarding the various events of the plague, I began the dissertation of this present little work, and, with GOD as my inspiration, I completed it sooner than I had expected. Finally, so that in a matter most abstruse, and even among the very princes of physicians, Hippocrates and Galen, still undefined, I might not seem to favor the products of my own wit too rashly, [I have dedicated] this Physico-Medical Scrutiny, such as it is, to the most excellent physicians of the City (the first of whom

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