The Third Class contains the two preceding; seeing we have attended,
during the Course of this terrible Sickness, a great Number of Persons
that have been attacked successively with the different Symptoms
enumerated in the two former Classes, in such a manner, that the most part
of the Signs described in the Second, were commonly the Forerunners of
those which we have mentioned in the First; and the appearing of these
latter Symptoms denounced an approaching Death.
In these sorts of Cases we varied our Method according to the diversity of
Indications, or of the most urgent Symptoms; so that without our being
obliged to enter into farther Particulars, a Judgment may be formed of the
Event of this Malady, and of the Success of the Remedies, from what we
before observed on the Subject of the diseased of the two preceding
Classes.
Before we pass on to the Fourth Class, we believe it will not be improper
to observe, that a very great Number of different Kinds of diseased
Persons contained in the preceding, had very moderate Symptoms, whose
Force and Malignity appeared to be much less, than in those of the same
Accidents daily observed in inflammatory Fevers, or in the most common
putrid ones, or in those that are vulgarly called Malignant, if we except
the Signs of Fear or Despair, which were Extream, or in the highest
Degree; insomuch, that of the great Number of infected Persons who have
perished, there were very few, who at the very first Moment of their being
seized, did not imagine themselves lost without Relief, whatever Pains we
took to encourage them: And though many amongst them seemed to us, before
the first Access of the Distemper, to be of a firm and courageous
Disposition of Mind, and resolute under all Events, yet as soon as they
felt the first Strokes, it was easy to know by their Looks, and their
Discourses, that they were convinced that their Sickness was Incurable and
Mortal, even at the Time when neither the Pulse, nor the Tongue, nor the
Disorder in the Head, nor the Colour of the Face, nor the Disposition of
the Mind, nor lastly, the Lesion of any of the other natural Functions
mentioned above, gave any fatal Indication, or before there were any
Grounds to be allarmed.