e of them (who fed their fears, and kept them always alarmed
and awake on purpose to delude them and pick their pockets), so they
were as mad upon their running after quacks and mountebanks, and every
practising old woman, for medicines and remedies; storing themselves
with such multitudes of pills, potions, and preservatives, as they
were called, that they not only spent their money but even poisoned
themselves beforehand for fear of the poison of the infection; and
prepared their bodies for the plague, instead of preserving them against
it. On the other hand it is incredible and scarce to be imagined, how
the posts of houses and corners of streets were plastered over with
doctors' bills and papers of ignorant fellows, quacking and tampering in
physic, and inviting the people to come to them for remedies, which
was generally set off with such flourishes as these, viz.: 'Infallible
preventive pills against the plague.' 'Neverfailing preservatives
against the infection.' 'Sovereign cordials against the corruption of
the air.' 'Exact regulations for the conduct of the body in case of an
infection.' 'Anti-pestilential pills.' 'Incomparable drink against the
plague, never found out before.' 'An universal remedy for the plague.'
'The only true plague water.' 'The royal antidote against all kinds of
infection';--and such a number more that I cannot reckon up; and if I
could, would fill a book of themselves to set them down.

Others set up bills to summon people to their lodgings for directions
and advice in the case of infection. These had specious titles also,
such as these:--

'An eminent High Dutch physician, newly come over from Holland, where he
resided during all the time of the great plague last year in Amsterdam,
and cured multitudes of people that actually had the plague upon them.'

'An Italian gentlewoman just arrived from Naples, having a choice secret
to prevent infection, which she found out by her great experience, and
did wonderful cures with it in the late plague there, wherein there died
20,000 in one day.'

'An ancient gentlewoman, having practised with great success in the late
plague in this city, anno 1636, gives her advice only to the female sex.
To be spoken with,' &c.

'An experienced physician, who has long studied the doctrine of
antidotes against all sorts of poison and infection, has, after forty
years' practice, arrived to such skill as may, with God's blessing,
direct persons how to prevent