What can you do to avoid the plague? the answer is: very little. although there are no fewer than twenty-three medical treatises dedicated to it by 1600, including hundreds of recipes for medicines, none of them will help you. nor will perfuming your room and airing it with fire save you—despite this being the official advice of the college of physicians. –the time traveler's guide to elizabethan england, ian mortimer what tone does the passage most clearly convey?