On malaria in general, as he was an observant naturalist, he was enabled to turn to good account his experience in Italy and his knowledge of the ancients, and his estimation of the subordinate causes, with regard to which he takes up the same position as Agricola, who was also a good naturalist, is likewise on the whole worthy of approbation[797]. The immoderate use of beer, amongst the English, was considered by many as the principal reason why the Sweating Sickness was confined to this nation. On this subject he enlarges even to prolixity, with evident English predilection for this beverage which manifestly contributed to the morbid repletion of the people; and he himself acknowledged this as a principal cause of the Sweating Sickness. The injurious quality of salt-fish, as alleged by Erasmus and the German physician Hellwetter[798], he would not altogether have ventured to reject[799], for it caused constant and abundant fetid perspirations, and might thus have contributed to pave the way for the Sweating Sickness. A similar source was to be found in the dirty rush floors in the English houses[800], and other subordinate causes of the disease of which mention has been made in the course of this treatise.
As a zealous advocate of temperance, it were to be wished that he had met with more attention; but the words of a good physician are given to the winds, when they are directed against vices and habits of sensual indulgence; people require from him an infallible preservative, and not a lecture on morality. His precepts on food and beverage are circumstantial, after the manner of the ancients, and he recommends such a variety, that it is difficult to make a choice; while nothing but the greatest simplicity can be of any avail. _Purifying fires_, which were kindled everywhere in times of plague, are also much lauded by him, and we here learn incidentally, that the smiths and cooks remained free[801] from the Sweating Sickness. Fumigations with odoriferous substances of all kinds, even the most costly Indian spices, were everywhere employed in the houses of the rich, and no one stirred out without having with him some one of the thousand scents recommended from time immemorial during the plague. The medicines which he recommends are those that were then in vogue; among which Theriaca, Armenian Bole, and Pearls, occur in various combinations, yet most of the prophylactics which he advises for obviating any defect in the constitution are not very violent.