blood slides indeed within the stems or threds of the Muscles and is made flesh but it doth not easily transcend unto the Bowels that are to be nourished and to the threds or fibers of the flesh For an infirm man being extenuated by a long disease a recovering even after youth doth easily retake the former state of his flesh but he which is waxen lean by the vice of a certain Bowel doth not therefore likewise rise gaain unto his former state And this is the difficulty of healing the Consumption and of healing the Ulcers of the Bowels whereas in the mean time external Ulcers being far worse are healed by Medicines taken in by way of the mouth although they are at a farther distance from the mouth than internal Ulcers Because the Bowels and inward Membranes are nourished by Arterial blood more than by Venal blood But life hath received its bound from God Therefore also whatsoever things are nourished by vital bloud they stop their increase at a certain number of dayes Whereas the while the flesh of the Muscles which is nourished onely with venal bloud and the fibers of the Mufcles which are nourished with Arterial blood doth uncessantly increase as oft as it faileth and groweth up to a hugeness to the destruction of some So also broken bones are made sound by a bonie callous matter at any age But seeing the Bowels do cease to increase all the spermatick fibers also and those of the first constitution do cease from growing For which of you shall adde a Cubit unto his stature For I have observed that women with child being long afficted with notable grief have brought forth the less Young First of all therefore I do not admit of a Livery spirit to be in the venal bloud And then neither do I distinguish the Animal spirit from the vital For truly in one onely ship one only Pilot stands at the Stern neither do more suffer themselves to be together without confusion Neither do I admit of a new Digestion for animal spirits in the bosom of the brain Like as also that the spirit doth not differ in the species from it self in all the particular Organs of the Senses and Executers of Motions Although the senses dirfer among themselves in the Species as also from motion So I think it to be a confused argument that deviseth many Archeüsses to be in a man For although the Gas shall draw a singular disposition from the instrument yet this doth not prove a specifical diversity Therefore in the Fourth and fifth Digestions there are no excrements nor unlike things or parts nor do they proceed from them And therefore it is false That in every nourishment there is an excrement For the arterial bloud and spirit do agree in a simple and vitall unity But if any superfluities of the former Digestions do rush into or are ingendred into the Arteries let that be a diseasie turbulent and confused government I now speak of the ordinary Digestions At length the sixth and last Digestion is perfected in all the particular Kitchins of the Members And there are as many stomacks as there are members nourishable Indeed in this Digestion the in-bred spirit in every place doth Cook its own nourishment for it selfe under which Digestion as there are divers dispositions incident so also divers errors of those dispositions do happen And so the diseases which the Schools do attribute unto their four feigned humours should rather be owing unto things tranchanged But I call things transchanged dispositions which afterwards do in the Arterial blood consequently succeed into the true nourishment of the solid parts The Schools divide these transchanged things into four successive coursary dispositions and as if in these no errour could offer it self they have forgotten the diseases which from hence ought to be attributed to a rank or order Indeed they say the first is because the venal bloud doth within the extremities of the veins obtain the Muscilaginous substance of a raw seed Presently in manner of a dew it is diffused or falls out into the empty spaces of the flesh Thirdly When it is now applyed to the solid parts And lastly When it is assimilated or made like to the thing nourished and is truly informed hereby it assumeth the nature of a solid part which to be the dross of the Schools surely they do not diligently mind For in the first place Neither the Arterial or Venal bloud do wax white in the extremities of the Veins seeing the extream or utmost parts are not potent with any other power of ashop or office which its whole more former Channel of the Vein hath not And so the Vein although it be the vessel of the prepared nourishment for the Kitchins of the solid parts yet the Vein is not the Kitchin of the solid parts Indeed all particular solid parts do nourish their own and proper Kitchin within Therefore the venal and arterial blood are not altered unless they be applyed to the solid parts Because they are diverted by the property of the solid parts into a raw seed but not of their own free accord in the utmost part of the veins Secondly The spermatick Muscilage is not be-dewed by the veins in a solid Member For a Muscillage is badly consonant to a dew But the thin and fluid arterial and venal bloud slideth along within the Kitchins of every part which are only transchanged by the ferment of the place Thirdly Neither are there empty places of flesh which are devised to be greedy of a dew Fourthly Neither is nourishment applyed to the sound or solid parts in manner of a dew which but a little before was a Muscilage Fifthly Neither at length is this dew united and assimilated to the solid parts but what soever happens to be assimilated unto them this is within the yeers of growth but afterwards as the venal and arterial blood have throughly crept into the solid members by a continued sucking of nature so they are there digested and suited and at length expulsed by transpiration Therefore these four Dispositions feigned by the Schools and badly harmonized I meditate to be digested into a Quaternary number for peradventure a hundred Dispositions do interpose before of an Egge of a Chick a solid part I say be constituted of Arterial blood with the blemish of the blindness or giddiness of the Schools wherein nothing is right or true but they do behold the very history of the matter bespotted and to them it is a truth because they have no nourishment of truth without the excrement of Fables Therefore also the veins themselves as they are nourished only with the Arterial blood of the first constitution even so also in this respect perhaps an Artery doth every where accompany a vein For from hence it comes to passe that through the more cruel issuings of bloud at last not venal blood but a whiteness flowes forth or the immediate nourishment of the veins by reason of the
Meats Yea which is more The Blood which is avoided in or presently after delivery is not Menstruous through the defect of its condition because it is not superfluous from a fore-going course of the Moon And then also because it is not heaped up fleshy not aluminous or tart not staining linnen Cloathes nor separated from the whole nor banished unto the places of the Womb for expulsion For that bloud which is plentifully voided in time and after delivery and the which being retained a doating Fever doth soon after threaten death is indeed venal blood yet not the Menstrues of the Mother For it is left by the Young who seeing from his quickening he lived in his own Orbe had a kitchin out of himself in the Vessels of the Womb. Wherefore it hath taken to it self another property than that of the Mother and than that of the Menstrues For that guest hath indeed the shape of Menstruous Blood Yet being an adoptive of another Family and become a forreigner to the Mother it is seriously to be expelled surely no otherwise than as the Secundines themselves But being omitted and left behind it is corrupted and brings on death But seeing that in a Woman great with Child there is no Menstrues at all by consequence neither is that Young nourished but with the pure arterial blood of the Mother and afterwards with pure venal blood being also first refined in its kitchins Therefore the Schools are deceived who teach That the small Pox or Measels are due almost to every mortal man by reason of the tribute of Menstruous nourishment For they observed that there was seldom any smitten twice with that Disease and perhaps seldom excused from it Wherefore they searching into the common Cause from whence the Young should be nourished in the beginning have referred the Effect on the Menstrues But in all things they without the knowledge of things have mutually subscribed to each other and have slidden into Fables and Conjectures For first of all they have not considered that it is almost impossible for any one to be made free from that Disease if all are alike indifferently nourished with Menstrues And then because they should be afflicted as it were at one certain and appointed term of the Crisis I confess indeed that the Measels do spring from a Poyson and draw a Poyson with them infect the blood with their ferment and defile others that stand by but especially Children and that the internal essence of Poysons is not demonstrable by a former Cause and therefore we measure the Property of a Poyson by the Effects even as a Tree by his Fruits 1. Therefore The Poyson of the Measels is proper onely to humane kind 2. That Nature is prone to the framing of that Poyson 3. But that it is kindled about the Stomack and so in the Center of the Body 4. That the parts being once besieged with this Poyson do most swiftly repulse that Poyson from themselves towards the superficies of the Body 5. That the shops of that Poyson after that they have once felt the tyranny thereof being afterwards thorowly instructed with a hostile averseness and horror do with great fore-caution prevent or hinder the generation thereof even from the very beginning least they should even at first unwarily fall thereinto Therefore the Poyson is made in Man but not co-bred in him from the Menstrues But of what quality that Poyson may be cannot be described by name because it hath not a proper name out of its effects It is sufficient in this place that the Menstrues cannot be drawn into a Cause for the Distempers aforesaid At first therefore The Menstrues offends in its matter by reason of its abounding alone And then it undergoes a degree that the first may be wherein that blood is superfluous from the foregoing course of the Moon But a Second degree is as soon as it is separated from the rest of blood But a Third degree is while as designed it hath resided about the Vessels of the Womb. A Fourth is that which hath stuck some good while in the same place and hath entered into the way of death At length the last degree is while as it now hath slidden forth as a dead Carcass and into the Air. Therefore the Schooles offend while as by cutting of a Vein they are busied in succouring of Virgins who in respect of their Menstrues do feel an heart-beating or trembling without distinction For although the Menstrues of the first degree appeaseth heart-beatings or pantings by a revulsive blood-letting yet in the third degree of the Menstrues I have fore-told it to our chief Physitians to be a destructive Remedy Because that the Veines of the Arme or Hams being emptied I have observed the Menstrues to be drawn backwards from the neighbouring places into the Veins And truly those Veins which do not remain emptied but which are filled again by a communion of continuation So also after great heart-beatings and pauses of intermitted pulses or after most sharp paines of the sides following from the Womb to wit by reason of an aluminous Poyson of the third degree Virgins have suddenly died by reason of Phlebotomy by me instituted at unawares In the first degree indeed the abundance of venal blood is taken away But it is the less evil although a part of the barren blood be left surviving Truly I had rather to help Nature in her sequestration and expulsion than by drawing of undistinct blood to have weakened Nature Moreover that is to be noted That although I have distinguished Diseases by the Ranks of Digestions yet I have scarce made mention of the Menstrues Because the Menstrues is neither digested nor is it a superfluity of Digestion and so is of another condition For at first it offends with a good abundance and then with a burdensom superfluity presently after it is deprived of Life and becomes a Poyson yet it cures Swine which are inclining into the Leprosie even as Horses straightway which were contracted or convulsive from unseasonable Drink if they drink up but a small quantity of Menstrues And likewise the poysonsom and true Menstrues of another Woman being administred in a few drops hath presently strangled a Woman labouring with a Flux of the Womb. But the blood which is at length avoided in plenty in Fluxes of the Womb being drunk in a few drops stayeth those Fluxes Furthermore because Woman only the Ape perhaps excepted doth suffer Menstrues and although the Menstrues do accuse of an abundance alone yet that the Cow her Dug being dried suffers not Menstrues otherwise she flowes down with very much Milk denoting that the abounding of venal blood is indeed the material Cause but not therefore the final and the which therefore I have not reduced among natural Causes For that the Almighty alone encloseth all the final Causes of all things within himself who sweetly disposeth of all things according to the unsearchable Abysse of his own Judgements
its coming not to come and that a strange-born creature and monster is substituted in its place Of the contingencies whereof daily and unvoluntary experiences are full which power is granted to be given to a woman great with child yet not that therefore in other women the images of conceipts are not likewise brought unto the womb wherein an embryo doth not inhabite For I have taught in a particular treatise that the disturbances of men are framed in the midriffs about the mouth of the stomach to wit that in men they from thence ascend unto the heart but in a woman that they are more readily sent unto the womb because a woman doth naturally appoint vital inspirations for her Young And so every commotion of the midriffs in a woman hath continually respect unto the womb whether a Young be present or not Whosoever therefore much disturbs a woman with grief c. from a deliberate minde he willingly sends into her a disease And he that molests a woman great with young let him know that he hurts the mother and off-spring Hence maides about the years of maturity if they are vexed with the conceipts of difficulties they are wont continually to decypher the sides of their womb with the vain Idea's of conceptions and for the most part they are made unto themselves the Aâ—â—horesses of various sumptoms for inordinate lusting Because the womb doth not suffer its tranquility to be taken away by forreign images without punishment But a man formes his images in his midâ—iffs as well those of the desirable as of the wrothful faculty so that madnesse is therefore not undeservedly called hypochondrial and that thing happens no otherwise than as in a woman but he transmitts the Idea's of conceipts more freely unto the heart and brain For a certain man exspecting that on the morrow morning a Major would be sent for his houshold goods sitting sorrowful all the night with his head leaned on the palm of his hand in the morning had that side of his head grey in what part his temples had touched his hand And so the hand of a woman with child translates her own exorbitances unto her womb and the hand of a man his feares even into the skin of his head At leastwise from hence it is manifest that there is a true growth and nourishment of the haires and not a vain signature of colours but that they are not in-bred by an application expelling from behind and then that the perturbation in men is much akâ—â— to that of a woman although far more infirme I have taught also elsewhere that the efficacy of disturbances consisteth in the spleen Wherefore antiquity hath accounted Saturn the principle and parent of the starry gods also the highest of the wandring stars to wit the which should cast his influence downwards on the rest but that the rest should in no wise reflect upwards because the stars are believed to conspire for the commodities of sublunary things but not upwards Therefore they called Saturn the origina of life and the beginning of conceptions or generations yea and they named him the devourer of a young child poynting out hereby that the images framed by the desirable faculty do make seeds fruitful and also the Inns of digestions in us even as when they are exorbitant they consume the new or tender blood and enforce very many diseases on us Therefore the imagination of the spleen hath the first violent assaults which are gâ—aâ—tted not to be in our power Saturn therefore was feigned to be as it were without a beginning but Jupiter the chief off-spring thereof casting down his father from his seat signified the brightnesse of reason subduing the first assault of imagination But an image formed by imagination is presently in the spleen cloathed with the vital spirit and assumeth it whence an Idea is fortified for the execution of works for what person is he who hath not sometimes felt disturbances anguishes and the occasions of sighing about the orifice of his stomach in which part the spleen is most sensitive even as also the touching in the fingers ends Is not the appetite taken away from an hungry man by a sorrowful message Be it observeable in this place that although the essential disposition of things aprehended in time of the perturbation be plainly unknown unto the woman with child yet she wholly formeth and figureth the same in her young while as without the trunk of the trees she frameth a cherry in the flesh in an instant conteining the internal essence and the knowledges of a seminal cherry It s no wonder therefore if that a terrour from the plague frameth an Idea of the plague from whence the plague it self doth presently bud although the sensitive soul of man be ignorant of the essence of the plague Heer an open field is made manifest to prove that the knowledges or Idea's of all things are formed in us by the power of the sensitive soul yet that they lay obscured in the immortal mind which we believe to have been present with Adam while as he put right names on the bruit beasts For if the conceipt of a woman being allured by the overflowing of some certain perturbation can decypher the inward dispositions of plants or animals yea sometimes with a total transmutation of her young it must needs be that in the mind it self as in the essential engravement of the divine image an essential notion at least of sublunary things doth inhabite only being depressed and deformed in the impurity of nature and spot of original sin otherwise the sensitive soul cannot do strange things which it knows not and hath not and so there is need for the immortal mind to have a conflux hereunto it being stirred up by perturbations It is a very obscure and difficult way whereby Adeptists by no help of books do strive by seeking to obtain some former light of sciences And therefore also they call it the labour of wisdom and Paracelsus esteems it to be ten-fold easier than to have learned Grammer Yet Picus is of opinion that unlesse the operater makes use of a mean he will soon die of a Binsica or drynesse of the brain That the spirit of life will be diminished by reason of a daily continuance of speculations Whatsoever that may be at leastwise the ignorance of causes hath neglected most things and the helpings of the sick have been exspected in vain But I have discussed in this place of images or likenesses bred in the imagination whereby it may be manifest after what manner every corporeal body proceeds from an invisible and incorporeal Beginning the which they of old affirmed to be fetcht from the intelligible world by the imagination of the foregoing parent in imitating after a certain similitude the creation of the world being from the command of the incomprehensible word Fiat once made of the infinitenesse of a nothing The which afterwards obtained its continuation from the gift of the
by a sharp or soure thing and so that a ferment doth inhabit in the stomack which should change all things cast into it although sweet presently into a sowreness Wherefore also all things are sharp which are given to drink to him that wants an appetite as are Oyl of un-ripe Olives Vinegar juice of Citron of Orange Mùstard also Salt and Salt-peter as it hath a spirit in it that causeth hunger and most pleasingly sharp And likewise the Berbery Rasp Cherries Quinces c. In this respect they give content to silk folks that want digestion or concoction Therefore the contemplation of this ferment is so necessary that it is chief in the Government of life and therefore it is to be grieved at that the knowledge thereof is hitherto suppressed in the Schools And although the dryth of the whole body waxeth strong with old age yet we do not wax old unlesse by the penury poverty and extinguishing of some ferments For truly the Stag Crow or Raven Eagle Goose c. in their first yeers of youth are far more dry than we yet they remain alive for some ages yea Youth is voluntarily renewed to the Eagle and Stag. But that digestive ferment is not placed in any kind of sharpness only For neither doth Vinegar or the Broth of Citron leaven or ferment the meal yea neither is leavened meal therefore the ferment of the stomack but this is a sharp hungry stomatical specifical and humane ferment Indeed so specifically distinct throughout all the species of Bruits that it is appropriated to themselves For Mice Dormice and Swine do sooner perish with hunger than they do eat of a Ring-Dove or Wood-Culver But in a man it for the most part aspireth to the largeness of a general kind In the mean time many do abhorr Cheese Wine Milk or do despise other things because they do not digest them And therefore what things soever do strive with our digestion are specifically contrary to the property of that Ferment and do endeavour to oppress the Ferment Therefore the Digestive Ferment is an essential property consisting in a certain vital sharpness or soureness mighty for transmutations and therefore of a specifical property For the Falcon dyeth before he will eat up Bread I have already said elsewhere that if the venal bloud be stilled by whatsoever degree of heat yet it is alwayes thickned waxeth dry and leaves a Coal behind it yet that and the same venal bloud doth wholly exhale by our Ferments with an unsensible transpiration Seeing therefore heat doth alwayes univocally or singly operate it cannot by digesting change the meat into Chyle into bloud into a nourishable liquor and at length banish it by an unsensible efflux without any remainder of it self One only heat cannot I say in a Youth change venal bloud into bones and likewise in the breaking of a bone constrain the venal bloud into a callous matter which in those of ripe yeers and likewise in healthy people doth wholly fly away into exhalations unless besides heat there are other powers knowledges and perceivances the chief effectresses of these things For truly it is proper and natural to heat to consume moisture and to retain the thicker part by drying up For Mice are fed only with meal without drink and do resolve it into their own Juice or Chyle which thing surely is far diverse from the scope of heat Therefore heat is not the Authour of digestion but there is a certain other vitall faculty which doth truly and formally transchange nourishments And that I have designed by the name of Ferments But there are many Ferments in us even as I shall by and by explain concerning digestions But seeing the Stomack doth now and then want a Ferment it is manifest from thence that its own Ferment is not proper to it selfe but that it flowes thither from elsewhere and is inspited And therefore the Spleen doth so rest upon the stomack that Hens have their spleen most unitedly heaped about their stomack and therefore do they also the more strongly digest I do here lay open the blindness of the Schools exceedingly to be admired and bewayled with tears of bloud who have dedicated that Noble bowel of the Spleen for the sink of the worst melancholious excrement by the assistance of which one Bowel we live and do possess life and the golden Kingdoms of Saturn But they have devised that the sharp and black excrement which being now and then seasoned with too much Ferment is rejected by the Spleen by reason of the indisposition of the Bowel is therefore black Choler which things shall hereafter in out Duumvirate and likewise concerning Digestions be made more cleer Moreover before the conclusion of this question we must note that among Physitians there are only four degrees of heat and as many of cold in Simples to wit from the temperate degree even unto Causticks and Escharrers because they treat only of a virtual and potencial quality the which I shall sharply touch in its place elsewhere For therefore the fourth degree of heat is with Physitians in the nature of things and temperate as to the touching But the Phylosophers do measure heat according to the sire and so even to the fire they feign eight degrees whereof the fifth sixth and seaventh they have not yet designed because men are wont to believe their positions They will have the eighth to be only in the Elements and into this they have believed the passage of the Elements to be for they supposed to have proved something in the fire as if Kitchin-fire were an Element and never elsewhere But I have already before demonstrated this whole opinion to be of no value First of all it is ridiculous that they have made the degree of heat in the fire equall to the cold of the water to the moisture of the air and to the dryth of the earth Wherein they being notably deluded neither therefore have they bravely shewn the same degrees to be so violent elsewhere as in fire Indeed in this eighth degree they affirm That the Elements do destroy devoure and consume each other no otherwise than as fire doth consume wood And then he Chymists after the custome of Physitians have made only four degrees in the fire it self taking little care to themselves touching the other Elementary qualities because they had enslaved themselves only to the Art of the fire which degrees indeed they distinguished so that the first is from a luke-warmth under a wandring Latitude even unto the fire of sublunation or cleering up of Oylie spirits But the other from hence even to the sublunation of dry spirits And then a third is even unto an obscure fierynesse But the last is even unto the utmost power of the flame of a Reverbery or striking back But I for a more cleer doctrine do in Chymicals distinguish the degrees that the first may be where the greatest cold is more remiss or slack For I who conceive
was compelled to depart from the method and doctrine of the Schools that I may shew the foolishnesse of the Maxims whereby the world is deceived as well by the drinking of purgative things as by an estimation that diseases are made and freed by the ejection of liquors which the Schools do perswade to be the constitutive ones of us and those erring in their due quantity and quality Therefore it hath not â—ked me hitherto to refer and to repeat the same beginnings of my repentance I being a young man and about to take my leave of a certain Gentlewoman held her glove and hand for some little while which laboured with an hidden and dry Scab But I thereupon presently contracted not indeed a dry but a thin watery Scab to wit onely and that by a sober touching And then I observed many times that hand-towels have brought forth the manginesses of scabbed persons and the hairs of moathy cloths moaths as also the contagions of leprous and lecherous diseases to have been propagated by a participated ferment and that thing the Proverb related to incorrigible persons signifies to wit that one onely little bird infects a whole flock with his scabbinesse For such kind of vices being transplanted by a poisonous fuel are notwithstanding reckoned by the Schools without distinction in the guilt of the Liver and to be stirred from an unseasonable or disordered heat of the same As if the contagion of the Skin of one Sheep doth distemper the Livers of the other Sheep Truly this one onely Consideration was unto me the first beginning of light Adeptical From whence indeed the Maxims of the Schools were with me manifested to be a Scab and they forced me to another matter after that I saw the remedies of the Schools to be vain and the Maxims of the same to be frivolous Truly I called to me two of the more famous Physitians of our City almost rejoycing that I might now understand in my self whether their Studies might answer to their practise But the Physitians having seen the mattery Scab presently judged that adust or burnt choler did abound in me together with salt phlegm and so that the faculty of making blood in the liver was distempered I rejoyced presently because those things which Authors had sung unto me were confirmed by most expert Masters Because I who had learned that in Science Mathematical all Speculations were most exceeding true did believe that thing to be likewise common and unseparable to the rules or maxims of healing I thinking that they were that which they ought and did promise to be And presently according to my antient credulity I asked what that distemper of the Liver should be which at one and the same act should enflame yellow choler more unjustly than was meet and also engender more phlegm than was meet seeing an act of the same root or of the same sanguification could not be at the same time and in the same bowel a two-forked or double generation and so unlike to wit that which should abundantly send forth a fiery choler and also a cold and watery phlegm The most expert Masters doubted and being amazed with their eye-brows bent they long beheld themselves and at length the Junior of them answered that the same distemper of an inflamed Liver did not therefore afford true phlegm but an abounding salt phlegm but that the temperature of salt was hot and dry To whom I replied Should therefore the Salt of the Urin be made through the vice of the Liver and heat abounding but the broaths of fleshes that are not salt not put on salt although they should boil with heat The Senior answered These things were to be proposed by me in the Schools but not in times of practise wherein the family had appointed hours for gain But he presently asked me what Authors I had consulted with or what I had learned was to be done I said for the cooling refreshment of the Liver and blood the vein of the right arm under the Cephalical or head-vein was to be cut and then that we must proceed by cooling Apozems in regard of burnt choler yet so as that cutting and extenuating temperate things were to be mingled by reason of the saltnesse of the phlegm I shewed out of Rondoletius an Apozem or decoction which might perhaps contein 50 ingredients tending to a most plentiful hope of accomplishing both ends And seeing they knew not in their readings a daily diligent noter of all things they would that I my self should describe all things for my self Therefore after a sufficiently plentiful letting forth of blood made in the Spring-time of my youth and otherwise in the fulnesse of health I took for three dayes together the aforesaid Apozem whereinto on the fourth and fifth morning I put a sufficient quantity of Rhubarb and Agarick to wit that Nature might begin to obey the calling purgative medicine and that both the peccant humors might be rendred pliable unto it They praised all things and especially because I was greedy of learning and obeying But on the fifth day in the evening I took pills of Fâ—mitary because Cordo who was afterwards unto me Codrus writeth that they do draw together or are profitable in both the peccant humours for I had not then as yet known by a feigned name to impose pills on the sick as though they provoked Stools by reason of the Fumitary and not by reason of the cruelty of poisonous Solutives Therefore on the sixth day I had at least fifteen Stools in the mean time they praised my providence whereby I had made or prepared my body so fluid Presently after two dayes from thence because the Scab had not laid aside any of its cruelty I took the same medicine with a notable loathing of my stomach and the like Stools succeeded They said that the flourishing age of eighteen years was apt for the breeding of choler And when they saw that for all that the itching and wheals were nothing diminished they decreed that two dayes after I should take the purging medicine the third time But then a little before evening my veins were now exhausted my cheeks had fallen my voice was hoarse the whole habit of my body going to ruine had waxed lean also it was difficult for me to descend from my chamber and to go because my knees did scarce support me These things had befallen me who was in health from the touching of a scabbed hand Indeed at the first turns I rejoyced when I observed so large filth and such stinking ones But I considered too late that before the purging medicines I was well in health in my bowels but now that through a dejected appetite and digestion I had contracted much leannesse but that the scabbednesse remained safe or firm with a sharp and hoarse voice Lastly that I might see how much choler and how much phlegm I cast forth I had made water in an Urinal and I certainly found that by a thrice
doth flow But none that I know of hath hitherto reached to the Thorn and foregoing motive sharpness as neither to the convulsiue pain from whence notwithstanding comfort ought to be hoped for It might justly be doubted why the Pleura slackening a little while from its contracture doth not again drive back the venal blood contained within it unto the places from whence it came But it is already manifest that the venal blood doth from the sharpness presently wax clotty and hath learned also constantly to stick in this place After another manner Tumours do often disperse els-where because their venal blood is not estranged by a sharpness Furthermore the Dysentery or bloody-Flux differs from the Pleurisie not so much in the sharpness of the material cause as in the variety of the subject For neither have the Bowels flesh behind them for a kitcihn And therefore a Bowel hath its own Thorn fastened in its own coats For besides a double coat of a Bowel or intestine a third is entrenched with the Gown of the Mesentery And because it hath not without it self a kitchin in the flesh therefore the membrane thereof doth not bring an Apostem wherefore the blood comming to it for ease of the gripings or wringings it is not hardned or waxeth clotty neither hath the blood as yet obtained the Fibers of the Mesentery whereby it may be coagulated or swell into an Apostem Wherefore in the bloody-Flux that blood following to the place for an easement of the pricking pain arising from the sharpness flows forth without being made clotty But in the Pleurisie in one respect a bloody Spittle not coagulated because not yet sharp as it were hastening being sent for an easment of the pain neither that nor such Spittle is the occasional cause of that disease but in the other respect sharp blood is stayed between the Pleura and the Ribs waxeth clotty is Apostemized and therefore is made corrupt Pus Therefore very much blood hastening for an ease of the pain where pain is thither bloud hastens beyond or thorow the Pleura doth pierce into the Breast which is reached out by Spitting with a most troublesom Cough Wherefore a Pleurisie differs not from a Peripneumonia or Inflammation or Imposthume of the Lungs in its occasional causes as neither in its Remedy For blood is poured into the substance of the Lungs according to the pleuritical thorn For in a mattery Imposthume although the Lungs do contain venal blood divers hostile things in them yet through want of a sharp Thorn there is not a Peripneumonia but there are other defects proceeding from the Excrements of their own Digestion Therefore many diseases do not differ in their occasional matter but in the diverse agents and properties of members and functions The which for the most part do not so much vary the Remedies as adjacent things depending on the powers of properties For it is thereby manifest how vain the Remedie of Clysters is in the bloody-Flux because the bloody-Flux is only of the slender Bowels which are some ells distant from the more gross ones which are capable of Clysters Therefore in the Pleurisie and Peripneumonia they make use of Blood-letting for a necessary remooval as they say of the causes as if the abounding of blood alone the which nevertheless they say is the one only and suitable betokener of cutting of a Vein were their mother But besides therefore they have prescribed Ecligmaes not indeed for remooval of the Thorn but for a more easie expectorating of Spittles to wit lickings or Ecligmaes of Colts-foot of Fox-lungs c. For seeing this living Creature is almost unwearied they have thought that dying for without thinking the strong authority of the Schools faileth he had bequeathed the Remedie of curing difficult breathers to his Lungs although the Bowel the author of the Thorn in us doth remain badly affected the Apostem which threatneth snotty corrupt matter persisting And the which unless as Galen is authour it be wholly cured by a set number of dayes an undoubted Consumption of the Lungs is to be expected Wherefore the whole study of the Schools doth not aime so much to cure as only to prevent its increase ' that is not in respect of the radical cause but by viewing of the latter product to wit that it decline not into a worse State For the Schools have this faculty always to leave their burden to nature to hope for and defer the time for a critical day For seeing that they scarce acknowledge Remedies besides purging and letting out of blood they proceed only unto things which diminish the liquor and strength and only unto a cloakative cure being busied about the effects and latter products to wit that they may banish the remainder into the Hucksterries of the kitchin and a prescribed diet whether it be those whom a more blessed disposition of strength preserveth or otherwise have rushed into more difficult diseases and being destitute of hope they have reduced into the number of incurable ones For as I have said concerning the Lohoch of Fox-lungs they likewise in the Palsey commend the brain of a Coney and Hare because they are swift in running the Yard of a Stag for those that are cold because he is a wild Beast very much inclined to Leachery If therefore a country man shall eat the boyled hand of a Musitian shall he perhaps artificially strike the Lute But the Schools do require that Ecligmaes be swallowed by a slow drawing and therefore are they endowed with the name of lickings-in that the Remedie may materially descend unto the place of the Cough I wonder in the mean time why they have not likewise prepared Lohoch sanum of a Horses taile which is stirred all the Summer for brushing off the flies But nothing hath been thought of by the Schools for taking away the Thorn of the Pleurisie by reason of one only Fault to wit because they have not known the same and have neglected diligently to search being content with subscribing to each other In the mean time they render the strength of a weak man weaker and pull it back as if they were willing to destroy him by repeated cuttings of a Vein as if the strength being prostrated some commodious thing is afterwards to be hoped for I bewail in the mean time the condition of mortals who have gotten such helpers in so painful a disease who being ignorant of the cause do attempt any absurdities so they have first weakened the Sick through a Penury of venal blood and strength in the mean time they have left nature swimming with her one Oars But if in the mean time a proper strength shall help the infirmity of Youth they require and ascribe honour that is in effect a reward to be due unto themselves And they declare that they have gotten the priviledge of killing two hundred others by the same meanes or if the strength being wearied out by the emptying Chrurgion doth fail
tenfold more Diseases at least possible in us than there are particular kinds thereof in Animals Plants Minerals and Stars to wit as many as there are particular kinds of Salts Sulphurs and Mercuries and of those folded together in nature He moreover giving a caution by an Edict that any one do not rashly put forth himself to Medicine who hath not sealingly certainly properly and distinctly known all things most inwardly and most outwardly by their causes essences particular kinds or species properties proportions interchangeable courses and defects That every one may believe that Paracelsue himself who teacheth these things had also thus sealingly known all these things Furthermore he will have us bring back the Microcosme or little World unto the Rule and therefore that the three beginnings of our Body doth bring forth as many Diseases in us as there are particular kinds of created beings Fot he drives the knowledge of Medicine and young beginners head-long into a thousand confusions obscurities ignorances and impossibilities by reason of one only fault to wit that he may seem to be skilful in all things and that his dreams may be thought true He indeed easily knew that the Medicine of the Schools was supported by false foundations for neither therefore as he supposed might it be hard for him utterly to overthrow the Schools Wherefore he meditated for himself of the Name of Monarch in healing but when as he thought it an easie way for destruction or throwing down at least wise for the building up of so great a principality strength was wanting unto him in so great idiotism He therefore hath brought the three beginnings into Diseases It is thus Those three things are found indeed in many Bodies or as I may more distinctly speak the three things are at least separated out of many Bodies But he being bold a certain absurdity of that which was unconsidered hath deluded the man because he hath not considered the impossibility of the matter for Diseases Because those are never separated or to be separated whether in us or elsewhere but with a corrupting of the whole Body and that indeed by the fire Whose sequestred Family-administration notwithstanding he hath judged to bring forth Diseases in us Because the Essences of the first things are co-knit in us by the middle life of the same under the dominion whereof they notwithstanding are restrained and do alwayes remain that which they are For first of all Salt it self hath deceived him that he might become unsavory because it confirmed to Paracelsus his own conceit in the Urine sweat and tears he nothing heeding that that Salt is not of the three first things of our body but a meer excrement of transchanged meats and drinks From hence therefore he being raised up into a credulity by thinking was led aside into Errors For he had well marked that a Wound being badly healed doth pour out salt water the proper Latex of the body begotten with child by a strange Salt or that the blood it self doth degenerate throughout its whole as in an Ulcer Dropsie c. and hence he hath collected a plenteous Harvest of Ulcers Diseases for Salt which he being deceived thought to be one of the three things or beginnings and not the whole blood at once converted into a salt water without a separation of the Sulphur Mercury by erroneous transmutations He thought therefore that as much falt â—â—â—here was so many turns of Mercury and parts also of Sulphur there were and being confident that his Houshold-stuffe would be sufficient he had willingly designed the predicament of Diseases unto them But remaining unfit for the burden he dyed But he had discovered his own Error if he had not been deceived by a bold attempt of great matters For he ought without the hope of ambition and head-longness of preventions to have examined where the remaining Sulphur should stay if the salt in Ulcers in the Dropsie c. should by so plenteous a separation be plucked away from the whole and its other two companions He ought also to have been mindful of his own although erroneous Doctrine whereby he calls the Salt which is fluide out of us and present within us a meer expressure of the Salt-peter of an evil Star or Cagastral And so he endeavours to perswade that not only fleshes and blood but also that the whole Body is with the life of Salt-peter and that Cagastrical For the blood as the water yeelds all fruits is wholly similar or alike which being seasoned with a poysonous or strange ferment doth sometimes degenerate into divers off-springs of Salt but another time into divers off-springs of Dungs without any memory of a Posthume Mercury or Sulphur In the next place that Paracelsus may find out his own cause for Diseases he for example doth oft-times define a Feaver to be an Earth-quake of the Microâ—osm which trembling of the earth he sometimes defines to be our Falling-fickness But elsewhere he attributes the trembling of the earth to tremblings sprung from burnt or smoaking Mercury In another place again he defineth a Feaver to be a Disease of Sulphur and Nitre boasting that the Cause and also the Remedy are in that his essential definition For truly under an ulcerared Imposthume the whole Body being in it self fat is made as it were a Sceleton neither doth it expel any thing besides corruptions So through the force of loosening Medicines the whole habit of the Body doth oftentimes suddenly melt into putrefaction The which is brought to pass by the Art of Physitians but this other in a Flux through a defect But at leastwise the same poyson on both sides is only applyed and co-tempered after a different manner A Dropsical man indeed hath a girdle of eight foot but by an Emperick in one day that by a drink he is loosed from his Dropsie and the water weighed perhaps 40. pound but verily his belly even presently again swelled up into its antient bigness and after few hours ne dyed Indeed the remainder beats a resemblance before it of nothing but skin and bones because his flesh and blood had presently at once wandred into the salt water of the Dropsie And that wonder I saw in this Man That to day his belly had plainly asswaged and that the morrow it again returned unto its former pitch of swelling extension and hardness and then he dyed If therefore that brine of salt had been one of the three beginnings of necessity likewise 40. pound of Sulphur had remained beholdable An ulcerous Oak weeps continual salt water and waxeth lean with rottenness but if that salt were one of the three beginnings of the Oak surely the Oak should wax fat like the heart of the Pine Tree neither should it wax lean as being unjuicy rotten and almost divorced from the Kitchins Therefore diseasie destructions do not testifie to these beginnings but that the whole body is diversly affected doth melt and is made to putrifie according
Life and Soul of soulâ—fied Creatures For in that those Words did differ to say Let it be made and to make For in the sixth or last day Adam was formed But on the seventh day God rested At length he afterwards translated Adam from the Earth into Paradise and deliberated to make Woman of the Rib of the Man but not of his Reins Thigh or Belly Therefore on the eighth day that it might be the Beginning of a new week for a new and super-natural Generation of an off-spring to come Wherefore it may be collected that Woman being wholly an Out-law ascended into a new heap of Choiceness as being a Vessel of Choiceness or Election But we may after some sort conjecture of the quality of humane generation in Eve a Virgin before the Fall by the most glorious Incarnation of our Lord For indeed the Father unto whom every name of Paternity is singularly and solely due and whom his Son as a Father doth alwayes adore hath indeed alwayes generated his Son from Eternity who yet is not read to be the Father of his Incarnation The which thing I even reverence for a vast mystery and the rather after that I understood the insinite goodness of the same as well from the first virginal conception of Creation as in the restoration by the regeneration of Man Indeed the Father Almighty would that the glorious incarnation of Christ should be conceived of the Person of the holy Spirit the which it self to wit therefore was not generated but proceeded from eternity from the Father and the Son For the Spirit of God had caused a humane conception of off-springs in the Arterial Blood of the Heart of the Virgin Eve it being the Image of the Divinity with all its free Gifts without the pleasure of the Flesh But the Mind being thus in the garment of Arterial Blood conceived in the Womb of the Virgin in a humane Shape had took an increase and full maturity from thence For he who the Womb being shut and the Gates being closed came into the World and unto his own also out of the Case of the Heart wherein he was conceived was by a foregoing consent brought unto the Womb of the Virgin and kept even unto the maturity of his Body For he piercing all Members was brought into the Womb For therefore our Lord's Incarnation happened altogether besides the order of Nature now accustomed For 1. The Incarnation of the Lord happened not first in the Womb but in the very Sheath of the Heart of the Virgin 2. Of the most pure and most lively Blood of the Heart but not of the Seed of the Virgin For truly the God-bearing Virgin in that singular respect was not only cleansed from Original Sin but was conceived altogether free from Sins to wit that she might be so much the more void of all Seed than a Child that is newly born For Seed is composed of a mixture of Venal and Arterial Blood or from a co-mixture of Bloods which mixture was no manner of way not so much as materially in the conception of the Son of God who was conceived not of Bloods nor of the Will of the Flesh or of Man but of God alone and born of a Virgin 3. He had not a Man to his Father nor a masculine Matter from whence he should be made which thing surely confirms that a feminine Matter was the more excellent governess or deputy and alone fore-elected from the Beginning 4. He fore-elected the most chast and unspotted Virginity of a Mother which he formed with a divine Hand 5. He was materially conceived onely and of most pure Arterial Blood To wit whereinto the seal of the holy Spirit inspired an humane Mind and a most pure Image of it self made or framed by his Father God 6. That conception was brought from the Heart into the Womb of the Virgin with a piercing of Dimensions 7. Lastly He exspected an increase and just maturity of Nativity as it were in the celebration of a Sabbath Furthermore that the knowledge of Good and Evil signifies nothing but the Concupiscence of the Flesh the Apostle doth manifestly testifie calling it the Law and Desire of Sin From whence to wit the first Bruital and Original Sin the fewel of the other Sins hath immediately issued and is hereafter to endure for a continued Seed of Mortals In the 8th to the Romans God sending his Son into the likeness of the Flesh of Sin hath also concerning Sin condemned Sin in the Flesh that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us Original I say because it is the Beginning of the original of a humane Generation whereby all contagion of Impurity is derived on Posterity and Death became natural unto Man even as unto Beasts So that although the eating of the Apple did contain a note of distrust and ingratitude and the which also is a Companion unto every Sin Yet therefore even every Sin afterwards ought with the same Punishment of necessity also to descend unto Posterity unless the unwonted transgression of a loving Admonition should not so much consist in the disobedience of eating or abstaining as in the horrid Distrust of doubting and confidence of Faith given unto the Devil And so that the generation of the Flesh of Sin which is an effect of the Concupiscence of the Flesh hath of necessity defluxed into Death even unto all Posterity For it pleased the Lord of things to insert in the Apple an incentive of the Concupiscence of the Flesh to wit from which he was able safely to abstain by not eating the Apple therefore diswaded from For otherwise he had never at any moment been tempted by the Flesh or his genital Members the which I will hereafter shew to be therefore called the North in the holy Scriptures Therefore the Apple being eaten Man presently from a natural property of the Apple conceived the lust of being luxurious and from thence was made an Animal Seed which hastening into the previous or foregoing Dispositions of a sensitive Soul and undergoing the Law of other Causes reflexed it self into the vital Spirit of Adam which therefore like an ignis fatuus or foolish fire presently receiving an Archeus or ruling Spirit and animal Air I say a houshold Thief it conceived a Power of propagating an Animal and mortal Seed ending into Life At the arrival whereof at length the immortal Mind putting off the Rains of the Life and government of the Body substituted the sensitive Soul as its Chamber-maid From hence therefore we are conceived born and do die after the manner of Beasts For the day before the immortal Mind acted all in all and was the very immortal Life it self in the whole Body because it was solely and wholly immortal in the whole Body But that very so great Beauty of Nature was presently vitiated in our first Parent after that he was cloathed with the similitude of a bruital generation For then the immortal Mind being moved
eighty Year old and yet he easily extends his Life unto one or two Ages In the next if the Moisture ceaseth to be radical because it reacheth not the end or Application unto the Root That indeed is to the moisture by accident and therefore it doth not change the Essence thereof For neither doth the Heat of the Fire cease to be propagated in the Neighboriag Wood although the burning Wood shall not receive a fewel of fatness from without Neither in the next place doth the aforesaid excuse subsist For truly for every Event the solid Parts shall have themselves in manner of a Lamp or Torch which is sufficiently able to burn in what part Oyl is supplyed unto it and so that Oyl being supplied from without the Fire should be able to live for ever For they teach that the Heat of the solid Parts is from the Element of Fire the which they think to be for the mixture of Bodies and to be enflamed in the fatness of the radical moisture or humour First of all that Moisture is spermatick and muscilaginous but not Oylie And then if the Fire passeth out of the solid Parts unto the Moisture which it enflameth it shall be sufficient for the Moisture to be consumed and alwayes to be applyed from without nor to be incorporated in the Root throughout the whole Because if it pass out of the solid Parts unto the unsolid Parts applyed unto it during the whole life time it shall alwayes be able to pass thorow the un-solid Parts applyed unto it neither doth that excuse availe that it ceaseth to be radical while it is no longer United unto the innermost Root Because then prefently after growth the vital Vigour should be extinguished because the Moisture doth not then any longer receive a Union with the solid or sound Parts But why do I stay any longer in refuting of Absurdities It hath been so sufficiently and over-shewn that the Fire is not an Element that the mixture of the same for the Subsistence of all Bodies whatsoever is false because those of mixt Bodies are meer and antient Fables The Fire therefore if there were any in us should be primarily in the vital Spirit for the which enough Moisture doth alwayes supply it self out of the venal Blood Wherefore indeed I grieve that they have hitherto so sloathfully stumbled in the Subject of Life and Doctrine of Integrity or Health For I after the time of my Youth conjectured that there was an Errour altogether shamefully committed and omitted in the Consideration of Defects and Diseases Because none truly knows that which is crooked who hath not first known that which is right This therefore is the feigned Doctrine of the Schools concerning Life which they endeavour to establish by the supposed Authority of a little Book feigned on Hippocrates concerning humane Nature Which saith That we on the first day of our Birth are most hot and likewise at length on the last day most Cold As if there should be a different Condition of our Heat from that of any other things For whatsoever things do arise from elsewhere do presently after assume an increase and that without ceasing and at length decline and fail Wherefore if according to the Mind of the Old-man Heat should most greatly abound on the first day yet neither is the Life tied up to Heat For truly I have demonstrated that Heat is rather an Effect of Life in hot living Creatures than the Life it self or the Cause of Lise and therefore Fishes can most safely want Heat and now for that very Cause it commits an Errour in arguing of not the Cause as for the Cause Truly I am alwayes wont to behold search into believe and measure Heat as Heat and as a Quality neither also to implore any other Witnesses or Judges besides the Sense of Touching and an Instrument of Glasse which I have afore taught for the searching out of Degrees and Moments of Heat in the encompassing Air In which Sense I have found a Man of thirty Years of Age to be hotter than any Child however in the mean time they may doat about the diverse particular Kinds of Heat For let them dispute of Qualities known by Sense as of Fables and under potential Considerations but I have accustomed my self to divide open look into and esteem of things even as they are in themselves But moreover Paracelsus being ignorant of the radical Moisture of the Schools doth now and then confound that with the Mummy of our Body but elsewhere he reputes it to be as it were the inward shadow of our Body from whence he would have shadowie Flames to shine round about us To wit that the radical Moisture is the Image of the Man extended throughout the whole Man and deferring or prolonging his Life In another place also he judgeth the radical Moisture to be the Mercury or one of his three Beginnings not divideable in living Persons which is equally participated of throughout the whole For the Life being extinguished by the Plague for Death takes away the Mummial Goodness the Mummy indeed hath very cunningly failed or forsaken the same Moisture in the Body At length although the Schools confess that younger People are oft-times extinguished the radical Moisture being not yet consumed as neither through Penury of Heat and in this respect they are not very careful for their own Position whereby they may equally measure the Life by Heat and radical Moisture yet they remain in the Bounds of their Ancestours by reason of a custom of Assenting a sloath of diligent Searching and despair of Learning For indeed they have been ignorant of lightsome Lights of Life but that they are indifferent by reason of the distinction of the two greater Lights For that they may be hot like as also cold That is they have not Learned that Forms and Lives are Synonymals But I have alwayes greatly pitied the confused Tradition of this Moisture which is of so great Moment although in the Moisture of the Root they confess both the Hinges of Medicine to be rouled I bestowed much Iabout in my younger Years by the Resolutions of Bodies that I might find some certain Messenger of the radical Moisture And at length through the Favour of God I was at last more assured that not any of those things were in Nature which with a lofty Brow are promised by the Schooles in this respect I acknowledge indeed that there is a seminal Original Moisture which is the constitutive Moisture of us but altogether of the same Species Property and Identity with that whereby we grow and are afterwards uncessantly nourished And so that the Bones Bowels Nerves Tendons of Children do consist of an un-different and do increase from a like Moisture whereby young Folks their Increase being now finished are nourished According to the Maxime of the Schools We are nourished by the same thing whereof we consist But we consist of Original or first-born Moisture therefore we
less may be washed off So also the Infant growes and waxeth of ripe Years without Diseases and is made capable of a Remedy for a Life of long continuance Therefore also according to the Letter it is not badly read concerning the thrice glorious Messias being incarnated That he shall eat Butter and Honey For truly the one contains the Glory of a Dew together with the extraction of Flowers But the other is the Magistery almost of all Herbs Therefore he shall eat Butter but not Milk From whence the discerning of the Good from the Evil and the sharpness of Judgment is promised But the strength of dayes increasing let our Child accustom himself to the more vigorous and hard Meats yet I fitly praise a Mean or Moderation But let him take twice every day four Drops of the Tree of Life CHAP. CXV The Arcanums or Secrets of Paracelsus BUt moreover we believe by Faith that the Life of men was by the divine Will shortned but that the Sins of mortal Men gave an occasion hereunto The Will or Command of the Lord hath entred into Nature and the Reasons of Death which it found not it made before the Floud as it were in a successive order the Life was continually changed by Off-springs at length it was extended unto the hundred and twentieth Year And last of all the Dayes of a Man were seventy Years which moreover is a Misery except in the Powers which he would should attain unto eighty Years This therefore is a short Life an ordinary Life unto which Man necessary supplies being brought unto him doth by the free will of Nature flow and come the which was by a divine Testimony out of the holy Scriptures appointed The Roots therefore of short Life have henceforward a place in Nature First of all the Mind which knowes not how to die waxeth not old But the sensitive Soul although it be at length extinguished like Light yet the Light it self doth not wax old because it cometh not unto it by Parts or Degrees For if the sensitive Soul or the vital Light it self should wax old seeing nothing can be added unto this perishing which may be of the Disposition thereof I should meditate of long Life in vain Therefore the vital Powers only wax old which are implanted in every Organ under the Beginnings of Generation The which I do not contemplate of as naked Qualities but I behold them as Governours failing by degrees in an aiery Body and therefore also that the Powers of the Spirits do follow the Nature of that Body which is worn out by little and little For Sorrow gnawes the Life no otherwise than as the Moath doth a Garment So also the Inordinacies of Living do violently overthrow the Life In the next place Man is a Wolfe to Man Which things surely do mow down the Life in many being as yet in its flourishing estate Neverthelese these are not the natural Reasons of a short Life as neither the necessities of a connexed Species or of an inbred shortness Surely besides accidentary Contingences we do bear about with us the Cause of short Life in the middle of our delights For first of all the memory decays and then the sight taste hearing and walking wax dull For to savour doth not undeservedly signifie as well tasting as a judgment of the Mind without distinction because they oftentimes die together but the Taste first fails in the Stomack by reason of the Spleen Wherefore I have elsewhere sufficiently distinguished the tasting of the Tongue and the tasting of the Stomack Presently by reason of the unequal strength of the Parts the inbred Ferments of the Shops do here and there by degrees fail but the Ferment of the Spleen being astonied the Power of the first Conceptions goes to decay And old Men are said to become Children For the Schools grant a lively Memory to be in Children by reason of the tenderness of their Brain easily receiving any kinde of Seales but that the Brain being the harder through dryness the Impressions of the Seals should be by so much the harder by how much the more stubborn they are from dryness to retain the marks of Conceptions But the Comparison of the Schools is frivolous that the Brain should have it self after the manner of Wax as neither do the cogitations express the interchanges of a Seal For first of all there should scarce be a fit place for ten Seals For if those kind of Seals should be so corporeal as that they ought to follow the disposition and alterations of the Brain they shall of necessity square themselves unto the extension of the place because Place is more difficulty sequestred from a Body than to be hard or moist And therefore let the Schools shew how great an extension all particular Seals of Conceptions in the Brain may require Doth the Memory for the seal of a Conception require a bigger place in the Brain of an Horse than that which is of a Mouse or Flie Therefore also consequently the extension of place in the Brain for a Horse should be also ten thousand times bigger than for a Mouse and so the whole Brain should scarce suffice for the remembring of two Horses That since place should fail I should rather remember the good things of the middle half than of the whole Yea I should far better remember things past for one Year agoe than those things which at sometimes happened unto me in my Childhood For I have seen a Boy who at the second time had learned the Aeneides of Virgil by way of Memory who scarce understood the hundredth Verse And so every particular Word did require as many Seales and Places of these But if the Seals of Conceptions should require no place nor do occupy an Extension of themselves in the Brain Therefore nothing is sealed and there is no Seal and also the Comparison of the Schools is dull For the Schools are too muddy who ascribe the Offices of the vital and principal Powers unto the first or second Qualities But what will the miserable Schools do if they scarce dare to withdraw their Finger from these accidents of Bodies Therefore Scholastical Respects of hardness dryness and tenderness being neglected I descend unto the Cause of short Life I have said indeed that from a decaying Vigour of the vital Powers the Life is of necessity and proportionably diminished From whence I will truly repeat that the Powers themselves wax old as it were with a covered Rustiness and do by little and little cease because the Arterial and Venal blood are at length successively transchanged into the nourishment of the Parts to be nourished and the growth of youth being finished truly the Juice that is prepared from thence is bedewed or besprinkled on all the solid Parts and a certain muscilaginous and spermatick or seedy Liquor is glewed unto them but it doth no more long remain with them but being consumed and concocted by the Ferment of the parts
or is joyned to water perisheth and is reduced into nothing For if the Schools had brought the vital spirit or sky-le air instead of fire they might have seemed worthy of pardon But they had rather become foolish in the dream of Epimenides than not to have found an Humour like unto fire that according to lying conceptions a quaternary of Humours might arise For for air they have feigned a priviledged Humour which should not be excrementitious after the manner of its two companions And therefore they now and then call these nourishing ones yet for the most part superfluous ones if not also liquid dungs But profitable ones especially in that respect not indeed as if they do nourish the spermatick parts besides the Cases of the Gaul-chest and Spleen but at least they are most miserable members which are constrained to be fed only with excrements and to yield to the priviledge of the kidneys But they note a ridiculous profit of yellow Choler that it spurs up the fundament and urine when as in the mean time pale urines are more incontinent than tinged ones Yea the belly of those that have the jaundise which they say is deprived of Choler by reason of a thy excrements is ordinarily loose enough But seeing the three Humours which are feigned to be in the blood differ not from themselves being rejected but only in the infamy of supersluity the radical moisture it self could not but be nourished by excrements if both the Cholers and phlegm were for nourishing But that a plenty of Choler which they say is daily may after some sort be supposed There is at least every other day in a Tertian ague a large quantity cast up by vomit also besides its daily consuming which they say is necessary for nourishing Yea the plenty of this feigned Choler more cleerly appears in the jaundise which they define only from a stoppage of the Chest of the Gaul So that then th◠urine is nothing but meer Gaul and the whole habit of the body and also the internal parts the most inward and the most outward to be Gauly The which since they are accounted nothing besides Gaul it being no longer ejected through the paunch Hence it is discerned that threefold more of Choler at least is daily generated than of blood being connexed of the three other Humours together They being badly mindful that sixfold more of tincture departs through a jaundisie urine alone than otherwise in an healthy person the belly and urine do utter together whence at least it followes that the jaundise is not the obstruction of the Gaul alone as they think For the orifice of the Gaul being shut presently the Gaul say they exceeds the whole blood in quantity For neither is a leeky and cankery tincture such as frequently proceedeth out of the stomach very frequent in the jaundise Moreover they say that phlegm is carried with the blood thorow the veins and at length changed into blood So that they constitute the proper shop of the blood and its promiscuous efficient as well in the veins as in the Liver But at leastwise a quaternary of Humours fagleth if yellow Choler differs out from black that only in the thickning of re-coction and if phlegm differs not from blood but but 〈◊〉 in a lukewarmth and cherishing For roasted flesh is not wont to be distinguished from raw in kind wherefore neither should phlegm dissagree from blood but only in its maturity as unripe Apples do from ripe ones But they could never shew phlegm in the veins except fibers which seperate themselves in warm water by cutting of a vein and so neither do they begin to be or to be seen before the death of the blood For as long as the blood is profitable for nourishing of the parts the more solid part thereof was undistinct from the rest of its body Because it was a true and entire composure For that thing is one every side obvious in the frame of nature For since nature acteth for ends known unto her Authour one-part always more readily receiveth the impressions of the Archeus than another For the end of the venal blood was a nourishing of the solid members And therefore it by little and little breaths after and attaines the degrees of solidity The blood therefore as soon as it is perfected in the Liver it assumeth in its more mature and more spermatick part white fibers or threds and the beginnings of a desired homogeneal curd which at first it had not in the veins of the mesentery as is manifest in those have the bloody flux Indeed it is therefore the best and most-perfect part of the blood which the Schools call phlegm and the which I know to be akin to a more solid and spermatick constitution The Schools I say name phlegm the daughter of crudity old age and defects even in a child a youth and a man For I dissent also in this from the Schools because for the proving of phlegm they offer nothing but snivel meer filths and liquid dungs to be beheld such as is oftentimes cast forth by vomit the kitchin of the belly being defective For oft-times that which is shaved of by a cruel draught as also the snivel of the nostrils and that which is spit out by reaching from any vice of the lungs whatsoever are the meer phlegm of the Schools which filths indeed are prepared by diseasifying causes through the errours of the last digestion And so great is the dulness of the Schools that with their own Galen they condemn the food of sinewes membranes tendons c. Because they think them to be the mothers of phlegm Neither do they heed that the similar parts and those of the first constitution are of a spermatick or seedy nature and those altogether by an undistinct confusion they call phlegmatick ones As being ignorant or at leastwise unmindfull that we are most nearly or immediately nourished by the same things whereof we consist And so if the homogeneral similar parts and those of the first constitution are condemned by the Humourists as phlegmy Surely one of these two must needs be true Either that the Schools know not now to distinguish phlegm from a secondary and spermatick Humour or plainly that there is no phlegm at all in the blood And that that which they have supposed to be phlegm in the blood is the beginning and foundation of the secondary and immediate nourishment of the solid members Now I must speak of yellow Choler which is supposed to be in urines with the admiration and grosse ignorance of fore-past ages CHAP. IV. The signification of the urine according to the Antients 1. The division of Urines 2. No unfit observation of Paracelsus 3. The Authours aime 4. It hath been erred hitherto in judgment concerning the circle of the urine 5. From whence the circle in the urine is 6. A childish opinion of Galen 7. It is proved that Gaul is not in the urine 8. The unconsiderateness
age but not that there is any conjoyned material cause of a man besides his body it self which is the very product of generation to wit from a material cause and seminal internal efficient which things have hitherto been vailed from the Schools and so they have reputed the internal occasional causes of diseases to be the immediate and conjoyned ones being as yet plainly distinct from the disease produced Wherefore that is also next to be repeated in this place which I have taught in my discourses of Natural Phylosophy to wit that there are six digestions in us For in the three former that there are their own Retents and their own excrements the which seeing every one of them are in themselves and in their own Regions troublesom yea by a co-inâ—olding and extravagancy they have become hateful they degenerate into things transmitted and transchanged and do from thence induce divers diseases occasionally But in the fourth and fifth digestion I have shewn that not any perceiveable excrement is admitted But in the sixth digession which is that of things transchanged that very many voluntary dungs do through the errour of the vegetative faculty offer themselves Moreover that some are transmitted from some other place as also that not a few do degenerate through a violent command of things suscepted or undergone which things have been hitherto unknown by the Schools and therefore also have been neglected and the which therefore have wanted a proper name and the diseasie effects of these have been ridiculously translated and adjudged unto the four feigned humours of the Liver Wherefore although I as the first have expelled the diseasifying causes of Tartar yet least I should seem to make new all things from animosity I will here call these filths the Tartar of the blood although by an improper Etymology because for want of a true name Such excrements therefore whether they are brought into the habit of the body from elsewhere or next made under transchanging by a proper errour of the faculties or lastly through a violent command of external things being there degenerated I name them the Tartar of the blood 〈…〉 that in very deed they are Tartars in the matter and manner of the Tartar of Wine but because of good nourishment being now defiled that which before was fruitful and vital hath afterwards become hostile And these things I have therefore fore-admonished of that ye may know that the Tartar of the blood is the product of the plague and that that is easily made from efficient pestilential causes And moreover it is not yet sufficient to have said that the Tartar of the blood is the product of the Pest but besides I ought to prefix the place thereof For I will by and by teach that the Plague is a poyson of terrour and therefore I have noted that the Seat or primitive Nest thereof is in the Hypochondrial or Midriffs to wit where the first conception of humane terrour is whether it happen from external disturbances or next of its own accord from the motions of things conceived Wherefore there are present in the plague vomiting doatage headach c. the which in its own place I have decyphered in the Commonwealth of the Spleen Therefore if the Schools had put this Tartar of the blood for a conjoyned cause we had as yet notwithstanding been differing from each other as that which with them had been a connexed cause is with me a product of the plague for the Pestinvades us after an irregular manner neither is it s conjoyned matter a certain solid body or visible liquor as neither therefore any putrefaction plainly to be seen but only a Gas separated and degenerated from the substance of the Archeus But whatsoever visible thing offers it self as vitiated in the Plague is not of the matter of the plague it self nor of the matter whereof but it is either the occasional matter of which before or it is the product or off-spring wherein the plague sits as it were in a nest Wherefore the Carbunole Bubo or Escharre are not the original matter of the Pest but the effect and product which the Pest â—ath prepared to it self For the plague is for the most part so cruel and swift that as soon as it is introduced into the Archeus it cannot omit but that it subjecteth some part of the nourishable humour unto its tyranny and dwells therein Wherefore if the putrified humour should be the immediate cause of the plague truly it had been putrified before it had putrified To wit seeing the Pest it self prepares that vitious product for it self which the Schools call humours they being as yet undefined For Fernelius would be a little more quick-sighted than the Schools and therefore he knew that the plague was not bred or did conâ—ist of the putrefaction of four seigned humours as neither of the heat of the air or of the cold thereof but of a certain poyson the foster-Foster-child of hidden causes Again we must take notice that when the 〈◊〉 of the blood or dross of the last digestion being vitiated hath received a pestileâ—â—â—â—ment it hath a priviledge of exhaling through the pores no less than other transchanged excrements without any residence left behind it or remaining dead-head So the Chymists call the dreg which remains after distillation to wit if the humours shall be alimentary but not if the substance it self of the solid parts be scorched into an Escharre or Carbuncle for so the much more hard dungs of the Lues Venerea being as it were equal to bones the counsel of resolving being snatched to them do wholly vanish But although the Tartar of the blood doth also rejoyce in the aforesaid prerogative as oft as it is banished as infamous out of the family-administration of life yet while it is transchanged into a corrupt mattery or thin sanious poyson it gnaws the skin into the shape of an Escharre before that it can sweat thorow the pores in manner of a vapour And that indeed by reason of the imprinted blemish of a strange ferment whereby it degenerated into a formal transmutation But if indeed the Tartar of the blood shall draw the odour of the ferment but is not yet transchanged Glandules Buboes c. are made which are oftentimes ended by a plentiful Flux of sweat without opening of the skin whereas the other aforesaid products cannot obtain that and almost all these are by the Schools banished into Catarrhs The whole Tartar of the blood therefore is indeed bred at home but it is a Bastard which is intruded by force destruction and errour But since the remedies of Nature are subject unto so many Courts of digestions and bodies of so eminent an excellency do possess a violence and strength of acting and likewise have filths admixed with them or difficult bolts truly the art of the fire is never sufficiently esteemed which now and then graduates one Simple to that height that it persecutes with revenge all the excrementitious
Medicine had in part raised this discord the which had recalled the more young godly studious and other Reverencers of the Truth out of the long and obscure night into the dawning of the Day that they might believe that a Light more perfect nor hitherto learned did remain from whence this dawning did shine unto them and by how much the more thorowly they looked into the aforesaid little Book by so much the more they were glad because they found therein the promises of the coming of a more perfect desired Light it being that which did so heighten their Mind that a certain one of them did not fear publickly to propose this Parable with a shrill Voice unto some eminent famous Professors of Universities and Christians yet ungrateful ones with Interrogatives and Admonitions It is no wonder that these our Words do seem the more hard to the Flesh seeing they are spiritual whereof the Flesh cannot give Judgment even as he spake who had never looked against the Light by reason of the sickness of his Sight and when he saw the least Light he detested it relating among other things that it was the worst of Poysons because it brought an intollerable Pain upon him so that therefore he remained uncurable who could not through his obstinacy endure any mention of curing seeing that he loved Darkness before Light and so was made a Son of the same Darkness Some of the Professors took notice that this similitude was uttered concerning them and not knowing how to moderate themselves as being possessed with fury they flung out this Ye Novices and seditious Seeds-men of Heresies ye ought to be burnt alive together with your Abettors These Words being spoken they in a rage rushed forward toward the House of the Seniour Professor and there called a company together by night that they might foresee among themselves what might be taken in hand whereby this new Doctrin might be subverted The Patron of this Family was a most covetous old Man as also very aged who after he had received them all with a solemn Salutation began his Speech saying My fellow Brethren and my sworn Sons of our Profession it is very well known unto you that our Doctrin hath been firmly established whereof nothing is to be doubted seeing it is so antient nor ever hath sustained any adversity of the Nations which might brand it with a blemish In our dayes it is least of all to be granted that by this Schismatical Doctrin it can go to the wall or that the glory esteem and the things suggested by us eminently appearing in print can altogether perish for the preserving of them let us earnestly endeavour with all our Might by which deed we shall render our selves immortal unto our successours and shall bear away a solemn reward for our famous Deeds let us be unanimous then shall we perform many things I will first produce my Opinion If any one of us shall be adverse to our purpose let him be imposed upon with a Fine by a plurality of voices agreeable to every ones Wealth or Ability I as the first will bind my self to this by a Copy and assoon as any one shall come to be fined let the money rebounding from hence he laid aside for the use of suppressing the Enemies and least discord should grow among us for the future and that we may fitly reach our seasonable conclusion it is needful that all things which shall here be dispatched be committed to writings whom they presently obeyed in every thing and committed it to the Effect besides they incited him that he might proceed as he had begun saying Both these Propositions are just and equal for truly all of us have by this our Doctrin gotten our wealth And so also it is meet and just that the Goods gotten thereby should have respect unto our Doctrin and should defend it whereby we may as yet attain to be more wealthy The aforesaid Seniour hearing these Words with a very grateful and pleasant Countenance and Gesture adjoyned thereto I hold it most exceeding necessary and also to procure other Wealth of the Schools that they may joyn with us and enter into a mutual Covenant because the Matter toucheth them also which being obtained we will presently implore the Magistrate to condemn that seditious little Book to the Fire under a further injunction that they which should make use of it shall pay the punishment of Goods and Body Secondly it should be diligently endeavoured by us that we presently setting upon the one only Son of the Author of the aforesaid little Book by subtilty who possesseth his other Writings by an hereditary right should promise him a certain summe of Money some third man interceding as for a congratulation or restoring of his Fathers Books unto us the which we should allege were to be committed to the Press as feigning to take part with his Father that by his means we at least might understand where he might keep them in secret whereby we might obtain the same to be burnt by the Fire for when these Books shall behold the Light we shall suffer greater things neither should any other Remedy avail than procure a Book to be set forth in the Authors name containing perverse Doctrin or hellish Arts and to disperse it throughout the whole World also that this thing might the better succeed the said Heir should be taken out of the way least he should hinder our purpose all which things it is lawful freely to commit without Sin seeing that we are able to demonstrate and confirm these things by a received custom and Doctrin of very many famous Writers of a certain predominating Order These sayings being ended he intreated the chief Doctor next unto himself no less to endeavour with all his might to abolish so gainsay-ing a Doctrin and to preserve the profitable one whereto he as the second to the first replyed he was at this command He was otherwise an honest and sincere Man who had secretly recalled many miserable Sick from the Grave through his Integrity whereby as oft as opportunity gave leave he chastised Forms or Sorts of Remedies from the quantity and violence of his said Collegiates This Man also understood of and expected the present coming of Elias the Artist the which he vehemently desired and had learned many Years before from a certain studious Man of the Brethren of his Profession and besides he excelled in the strength of reason and in a firm health of Body who dying seemed to know something beyond the common sort of Men. He once before his Death went to minister to the Poor freely out of Charity he wrought many Works of Mercy in the Hospitals and Prisons until he brought back with him a common Disease who presently sent for his Professours who much rejoyced that he himself would make tryal of the Fruits of their professed Theory these Professours calling a wonted counsel withdrew Blood largely from him they gave him Purgative
Medicines to drink and so they plainly prostrated his strength But it opportunely happened that his remaining strength and youth overcame the Disease he appeared to have received his lost strength whereby he was confirmed that Professours and Licensed Persons were true Physitians reckoning from their relation that he had deserved or was in danger of Death and that he owed his Life unto their Torments hence they took of him a double reward but not according to their deserts The young Man renewing his former pious steps was the second time oppressed with the very same malady and he hoped by their endeavour again to escape the same cruelty but alass his spirit failed him and from sound Reason and a knowledge of the Truth he cryed out unto this his Brother It hath befallen me as to all others and it shall so long continue untill Physitians so called do in very deed feel and see this present time to be for Eternity but now they forget the time past believing that they possess the present time they deny the time to come seeing they cannot see that and so they take no care for a longer Life for they have never been destitute thereof even as of any other frail or mortal good whereof there is made a repairing but they possessing one only Life and loosing that all shall be ended It is a vain thing to employ ones self in Studies when no necessity is urgent upon us The Servant who ought readily to serve us is beaten which doth perpetually provoke this Man whom he shall name his Master by all his qualities he shall be ignorant of his thraldom although all Men except a few are bound up by his Servitude the which for the most part deprives of Life both now and hereafter I despair of a temporary Life for they who are said to bring help do want the knowledge thereof and they are first constrained to obtain it by brawlings and discords which will arise among them through hatred and envy wherewith those called Doctors or Teachers have never laboured seeing they are but few who by running up and down day and night do excel in Wealth whereby they scrape together an abundance of Money as well among the Healthy and Sick as those that are dead and so they might continue in concord the which shall remain so long until the last times appear which thou shalt discern by that when thou shalt see the number of Junior and Licensed Doctors of Medicine so to increase that they shall scarce have employment The Seniours shall be offended with the Juniours and Young Beginners because their dayly revenues shall be diminished and because they shall find forreign or accidentary Juniours being constrained to learn more sure Principles for to get their living to cure some Sick whose like being under their care did undergo Death which thing the Seniours shall envy wishingly desiring that all the Sick-folks might die unto whom the Juniors should be called Lastly they shall reproach them publickly before all the People saying These wicked young Men do cure by Enchantments they should of necessity be forbidden to practise By these and the like means they shall labour to subvert them and and they shall offend God that it may add courage unto other godly and industrious Juniours to perfect that which they shall propose to the Seniours in these Words When we have invited you to suffer us publickly to cure some Sick of an Hospital appointing a Prize or Wager for the benefit of the Poor ye also to be solicitous or diligent on the other hand and that they who had not answered the effect should pay the reward thereof ye have refused that thing ye seek not the Poor but Give Ye ye resemble Beggars in that thing who disdain their fellow Beggars and are unwilling that their number should increase for they have a confidence in some rich Mens houses and places where a larger bounty befel them for their deceitful Words and Tricks that so they may leave their Arts and these Houses to their Children for a Dowry which very thing also ye cherish in your Mind but it shall have a bad success because through this publick discord which shall spring from Covetousnesse that dayly Deceit shall be made known to the World and they shall receive only true Doctors who may be discerned by their good Fruits and who shall imitate the steps of the Samaritan These Words being finished he felt his Life to fail therefore lifting up his eyes towards Heaven he with sorrow subjoyned Oh most merciful Lord abbreviate thou the term of Mans Salvation and change thou the frail Doctrine of the Doctors their Flesh into the natural or peculiar Love of the Spirit that the Innocent may finish their Life to thy Glory I pray thee oh my Saviour do not thou impute my Death to the Doctors hereafter for an Offence for truly they know not what they do commit but vouchsafe thou to open their eyes that they may assent to the truth and that the People may publish those things of them as in times past of holy Paul Which saying being ended he wholly committed himself to the Divine Will and breathed forth his last Breath in the armes of this his Brother who did alwayes ponder these Words aforesaid This Man in his turn uttered these following Words We are all of us being Brethren in Christ engaged to patronize the truth the which is not better perfected than by opposing and defending Hence we will prosecute two things one is that the strength of our Enemies may be made known unto us the other is that we may add more strength to our own and so that we may be the more confirmed in our purpose After that they had heard all these Words they compelled him to undergoe this charge with the threatning of a Fine for so much as he had taken this voluntary Office on himself And he alleaged I being the second of the Seniours am desirous to be instructed by any one in this difficult matter I being a Servant of truth do after some sort yield to the two former Propositions but unto the third I can in no wise assent to wit to subvert the aforesaid Books by interdictions and brands of Censures for if we should endeavour that we should act altogether rashly we thinking to extinguish them in one place should also again raise them up in a thousand other places Men are no longer so ignorant and unwary as in times past when as all Examples or Patterns of religious obedience were published by favour which thing is chiefly manifest in Printers and Booksellers they making gain here and there and it cannot be forbidden and hindered Doth not the thing it self bespeak that we need not go far That Author himself set forth a Discourse inscribed Of the Magnetick or Attractive cure of Wounds which was stoln from him and about five hundred of them printed in Letters by his Enemies whereupon they divulged three divers