seen how dangerous it is to shake foundations without erecting more firm in their room and I wish these new Undertakers would before they discountenance the old set us up a new body of Physick that might as well satisfie our judgments as tie our hands But I have yet never been so happy to meet with two of them that agreed in the same Method but every one pretended himself to be the most skillful and possessed of the most Universal Medicine of any other One pretends to have an Universal Powder another a Salt another an Oyl a fourth a Spirit and he that is possessed of one of these shall generally as much decry all the rest as they shall all agree to deery the Rational Physicians when in truth their aim is to cure onely their own Covetousness that by disgracing others they might set up themselves Immediately after his demand of liberty of profession of Physick from the alteration and change of the nature of Diseases he falls upon Hippocrates tells you he took a liberty by strength of Reason to judge and condemn the opinions and practices of such as went before him That he writ a body of Physick I allow and such a one as hath been approved by the whole world but that he condemns the opinions and practices of such as went before this confident Assertor should have done well to have shewed us till when this must be lookt upon as a Calumny he makes use of to fit his turn for his greater end of disgracing the Art of Physick except one of his own setting up then he goes on and saith He may be called the Father of the four Elements and of the four fancies called Humors which our Hippocrates as some call him Doctor Harvey approves not and allows but one How candidly he dealt with the old Hippocrates we have had occasion to speak before let us now see if he deal any better with the New one as he terms him He after he had in his 50. Exercitation asserted against Aristotle that the Blood and not the Heart was Prima particula genitalis itaque neque Aristoteli ipsi assentiri possum qui Cor esse particulam hanc primam genitalem animatam statuit in his 51. Exercitation he handles it as it is pars principalis shews that before any thing else of the body is discernable that the Blood hath both its birth and increase backs this with the authority of Aristotle of whom by the way no man was a greater admirer than Dr. Harvey who hath often to my self said who had the honor to know him many years that he was the most rational and acute Philosopher that ever lived that his writings were neer divine that he never met with any thing in Philosophy of which he met not some track in him Aristotle I say in his book De histor anim cap. 19. hath these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the blood always beats in the veins of living creatures that t is the only humor that disperseth it self all over the body and always lives as long as the body lives That it is first begot in the heart before the living creature is perfected After this he falls upon that controversie whether the office of the Blood be onely for the Aliment of the body saith Aristotle and all the School affirm it The words though long I must transcribe Nec de alter â controversiâ num sanguis sc nutriendo solum corpori inserviat hic anxiè disputandi locus est Aristoteles quidem plurimis in locis sanguinem esse ultimum alimentum contendit eidemque tota medicorum schola suffragatur Plurima tamen explicatu ardua maléque cohaerentia hanc illorum sententiam consequuntur Cum enim Medici in Physiologicis suis agunt de Sanguine atque hunc solum ejus usum finem docent ut alimentum corpori suppeditet eum ex quatuor succis seu humoribus compohunt argumentum ejus rei à quatuor humorum combinationibus deducentes ac proinde asserunt massam sanguinis ex utraque bile flavâ nempe atrâ pituitâ sanguine propriè dicto componi Ideoque quatuor humorum genera recensent quorum frigidus humidus Pituita dicitur frigidus siccus Melancholia calidus siccus Bilis denique calidus humidus Sanguis nominatur Porro ex singulis eorum generibus alios Nutritios unde totum corpus constet Excrementitios alios statuunt Praeterea ex nutritiis illis seu partibus heterogeneis Sanguinem constare autumant ita tamen ut Pituita sit pars crudior quam calor nativus validior possit in Sanguinem laudabilem convertere Bilem vero in Sanguinem transire posse negant licèt Sanguinem facile in Bilem atque hanc in Melancholiam nempe à caloris concoquentis excessu mutari affirment Quae si vera sunt nullusque in iis regressus conceditur scil de Melancholia in Bilem de Bile in Sanguinem oportet fateantur dictos omnes succos esse in ordine ad Melancholiam atque hanc esse principale maximè concoctum nutrimentum Quin etiam duplicem Sanguinem agnoscant necesse est nempe totam simul in venis massam ex quatuor illis humoribus compositam partem ejus puriorem florentiorem magisque spiritalem quam strictiori sensu Sanguinem nominant quamque aliqui in arteriis separatim contineri contendunt Ideoque ex eorum sententia Sanguis purus non est alimentum sed commixti succi sive potius Melancholia ad quam tandem reliqui humores pertendunt The question he handles in this is nothing at all concerning the number of the Humors but whether the Bloud serve onely for the nourishment of the body and whether it be the last aliment tells you that the whole School of Philosophers and Physicians affirm it tells you there are some things hard to be explained saith that Physicians who make its office be to supply nourishment to the body compose it of the four Humors Pituitose Choler Yellow and Black and Bloud to wit pure that those Humors cannot have any return unto Blood though the Blood may easily be changed into Choler and that into Melancholy and then assumes If these things be so and that it be true that there be no regress from any of the Humors into pure Bloud again neither of which he positively affirms that these things will then follow that Melancholy is the most concocted nutriment and next that there are two sorts of Blood one most pure the other composed of the four Humors and that pure Blood is not alone the aliment of the body but the commixed Humors or rather Melancholy to which the other tend I confess I see not here nec volam nec vestigium of the denial of the Humors nor any absurdity either in the affirmation of the Schools or incoherence in his assumption from what they say He that saith that Blood consisting of the
of Learning yet who from some disjoynted passages in several both Antient and Modern Writers and some uncontroverted truths would make us believe that the Art of Physick lay sick and almost desperate except supported by his helping hand but indeed in stead of a Cordial presents us a Purgative potion which if taken would soon send her to the grave and leave nothing to arise from her ruines but ignorance and contempt I must however give him thanks for his pains and labor Saepe etiam olitor est opportuna locutus but truely shall advise none to buy his Medicine who from some scattered Collections out of good authors endeavors to violate the memories of those noble Artificers and to shake the foundation which with so much wisdom hath been laid by them and since happily built upon by others Perhaps I shall find it a less easie task to answer him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than some man at the first reading his Book may imagine and that chiefly for two Reasons First Because it will be always found a more easie task to dispute with any Adversary than with him whose confidence makes him adventure at the denial of those very Principles upon which the Art is built and that have passed the approbation of the learnedst of many Ages and that upon full consideration and as most of the world hath since judged a full confutation of what then was or since is for I find little materially new urged against them I mean the composition of bodies from the four Elements the doctrine of the Humors and the combination of Qualities of which I shall have occasion to speak hereafter because such a man cannot be confuted without telling over again those Reasons that induced the Antients both to believe them rational and lay them down as things fit to be believed and are like those Eccentrick Circles and Epicycles in Astronomy which are not necessarily true yet serve to reconcile appearances and therefore are of equal value as if they were undoubtedly so since by them we are brought to a certain knowledge of that truth we seek for at least such a knowledge as the nature of the thing sought for is capable of Secondly Because I find this Author make use of many laudable sayings both of Ancient and Modern Writers inverting them to clean different senses than what they were produced for as I shall in their examination I hope make very manifest Insomuch that I have very much doubted whether this Writer be not somewhat of kind with those persons whom Aristole speaks of in his 30. Problem Sect. 1. who being otherwise sober and grave yet through some passion that transports them are taken with such fits and fancies that t is hard to distinguish whether they owe this to any acquired indisposition or rather to a natural temperature of the body his words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And truely had not this irregular work of his been in some measure of general concern I should unwillingly have been drawn to have awaked him out of so pleasing a rapture but have allowed him that return which the Emperor if I mistake not Commodus is reported to have thought him worthy of who in the pastime of darting at a Bull used by the Romans had unfortunately missed his mark many times the Emperor caused money to be given him with these words That t was praise-worthy to be excellently ill But let me now come to a little neerer consideration of the book it self and in it begin with his first Chapter whose title is That it is for the good of mankind there should be a liberty allowed in the profession of Physick What he means by this equivocal word Liberty in the Profession of Physick I well understand not t is capable I think but of three interpretations The first is that it should be free for all men to make that their Study and Profession and use all reasonable endeavors to make themselves capable of that faculty The second is a liberty in the examining and judging the dictates of those went before us and adhere to them so farr as they do to Reason A liberty in these two senses was that I know of never denyed to any nor a greater than this ever contested for by any Learned man This and no more will his quotations out of Galen Pag. 3. out of Langius my Lord Bacon and all the rest warrant who in all their quotations and the design of all whose writing was no more than to encourage all men in the enquiry after truth and new discoveries thereof in which he is so far from having me his adversay that I shall embrace him and his design and approve of them to my utmost power so that with modesty he propound his notions and not magisterially deliver them as dictates capable from his single authority and less experience to overthrow all that hath been laid down before him But that the overthrow of all before him is part of his meaning I am the rather induced to believe from his rash censure upon those who did not at the first proposition embrace the new doctrine of Ticho Helmont Harvey Quercetane and others as you may see from the twelfth Page to the end of the first Chapter Is not this against his own rule quoted out of my Lord Bacon p. 6. Antiquity deserves that men should make a stay a while and stand thereupon c and doth not he live to see every one of these men possessed of their due honor and their truths such of them as are found to be so embraced with gladness Who is more famous or esteemed all the world over than the most learned Dr. Harvey whose statue set up in the publike College and Anniversary Oration upon his account will preserve his memory perhaps longer than the numerous more noble progeny deduced from other branches of that ancient and deserving family whose notions have been more improved and whose writings in their kind more admired Why doth he so much blame the censure of the Physicians at Paris upon the Spagyrical works of Quercetane when as in truth there was no more than a prohibition of the use of them till after a convenient stand made upon them they had past their tryal and with their Author both received the one as good Medicines the other as a learned man We must allow something to the heat and passion of men who being exasperated have not always that temper and moderation required the like may be said to their censure upon Sir Theodore de Mayern whose rough language is more condemned than any thing else and it soon appeared to the world what estimation they both deservedly had and were both as great admirers and followers of the rational way in the practice of Physick as any that went before them Certainly this Writer if he have any ingenuity cannot but acknowledge that t is not reasonable to make use of any new remedy
infectious by taction but to transmit their poison at a distance by communication breathing and the like so that upon this account he must bring the world to a solitary and single conversation or the matter will not be helped Pag. 211. He dislikes the distinction of Rational and Empirical and then tells you the great benefit he hath reaped from the collections made from them and old Women I shall transcribe his words though they are long But lest you should think that I like this Distinction in the common use of it let me tell you that I who for many years have conversed with such Professors of Physick as some in scorn term Empiricks and observed their various ways and thought it no shame to make Collections from them and from all the Old Women I could meet with which pretended to any thing of Physick could seldom find any of them so irrational as not to give some tolerable reason and so much as satisfied me that for the most part they had reason for what they did and though perhaps their Discourse came not from them cloathed with such delicate Terms of Art as pass current among the Schools yet giving them some grains of Allowance I concluded they spake reason and that their Method was right because it was sitted to the Medicines they used and both Method and Medicines so well agreed as to make Cures in many desperate Cases left as incurable by others And I must profess that by observing the Practices of these I have had opportunities to see more of Nature in her naked appearances and operations as to the condition wherein she now stands in this present Age than ever I could discover in all the Volumes that I have read Therefore call men Empiricks or what you will because they are neither graduated nor incorporated I shall ever esteem such to be most Rational as make Art to follow Nature rather than strain Nature and her Anomalies to general Rules of Art and who seeing Nature degenerated into Extravagancies never known heretofore do endeavor to find out new ways and Remedies to deal with her which he that adheres to that old Philosophy which is usually made the entrance into Physick will never be able to do I confess this Writer hath had good luck to receive such light from the reasoning and receipts of sage women I have for the best part of twenty years been perhaps as curious as another in the perusing and examining what I have met with in that kind from any of them but could yet either never or very seldom discover any good thing in any of them but generally found they were the prescriptions of some Physician which he appointed for some particular occasion and Patient and after being transcribed into their receit books have become of universal appointment to all bodys all constitutions and all tempers which by the Authors thereof were not intended to have their operations to so large an extent and hardly one of their Chymical preparations but ordinary drinks or decoctions for which he onely contends for their sake would overthrow all other Physick both in its foundation and method But in this place lest he should seem to speak without book he draws in Hippocrates to be of his party In his ΠΑΡΑΓΓΕΛΙΑΙ at the beginning of his book where he gives directions to Physicians how to demean themselves he commends ratiocination that is joyned with exercitation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then tells you that Ratiocination is a kind of memory that compounds and puts together what are obvious to the Senses He then soon after hath these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which words I must thus render Simul etiam approbo ratiocinationem licèt ex fortuito casu originem sumpserit impetum vel morbum dirigit methodicè ex apparentibus his meaning is this that he approves of their ratiocination notwithstanding it had its beginning for some accidental chance provided their reason be directed according to the appearances of the disease Mercurialis renders the words thus Collaudo quidem igitur etiam ratiocinationem si ab experientia principium facit comprehensionem ex apparentibus dirigit The difference is not great if by experientia he meaneth casus fortuitus to wit a Medicine found out by chance for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies and was taken up by Empiricks for any Medicine they fell upon by chance or accident so that experientia is by Mercurialis no more but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a trial and by comprehensio he understands that lapsus or impetus by which the man is overtaken for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies or a disease Then after the interposition of some lines he tells you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is that a garrulous asseveration is unsafe and subject to error he subjoyns those words quoted by our Author 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That a Physician should not be backward to hear the discourses of ignorant persons if they knew any thing profitable for the cure of the disease So that t is clear that Hippocrates here joyns Empirical Medicines with Rational discourses tells you that reason is to compound and assume one thing after another that being divided garrulous asseverations are unsafe and erroneous whereas our Author dislikes the distinction between Rational and Empirical and undoubtedly would reduce all Physick to the last to wit of hazardous trials grounded upon every mans fancy and humor and the application of all Medicines to all at random What Hippocrates advises all Physicians in this will willingly be allowed Why do we otherwise read books stuffed with Medicines and Receipts but that we might ground our selves upon the experience of others and then use our own reason and judgement Pag. 14. He tells us that Regius has reduced all Physick unto the knowledge and curation of diseases whereas t is evident that Regius under the knowledge of diseases comprehends all Physiology and though he disapprove the common doctrine of the manner of the composition of bodies by the four Elements yet he lays down another kind of Philosophy following the Method of Descartes and whosoever shall read him will find the knowledge of his Physiology will be as necessary to the right judging diseases as that of the Ancients is by others now esteemed and though peradventure the knowledge what the disease is with which a Patient may be troubled may many times be obvious to the Standers by as where an intense heat a high-water and a quick pulse meet t is ordinarily judged that a Fever is there for which part of knowledge they are yet beholding to the preceding directions of Physicians and the often return of like sicknesses yet what kind of Fever it is whether boni or mali moris whether Idiopathical or Symptomatical upon what accident it did invade the body requires many times the use of our best reason and not presently upon the knowledge of it run upon the general cure
of a Fever as this man aims at by his so much commending Ignorance and Empiricks Pag. 17. He tells you Fernelius speaks but lightly of Anatomy and in another place Galen of Herbs T is true Plantius tells you in the life of Fernelius that he disliked those that did ad extremum usque senium desudare in evolvendis anatomicis libris in cognoscendis simplicibus medicamentis nullum interim aegrum inspicientes nec quae à veteribus prodita sunt in aegris observantes He dislikes the spending a mans whole time in reading Anatomy of which he saith there are as many and as discrepant as there are diseases and spending your whole time in that employment without visiting the sick and taking notice of the observations of the Ancients but advises you to read diligently some one of the best both in Anatomy and re herbaria since a mans life is not sufficient to read all men What slighting is here of Anatomy of which he himself writ a Tractate T is true he advises men not to lose the end of Physick the easing of sick persons by standing altogether upon circumstances and things precedaneous to it I need not here enlarge my self in the commendation and necessary knowledge of Anatomy every days experience makes it evident that he that goes about the cure of diseases without a competent knowledge therof goes wildly and absurdly to work which way had Galen cured a lame foot by applying his Medicines to the back had he not known that the Nerves that run down from the sixt Vertebre of the spina dorsi had there their rise How can any Surgeon with safty so much as let blood or make an issue that knows not how the Arteries Tendons and Muskles lye And certainly the Art is exceedingly beholding to those persons whose industry and inclination gives them time and will to enquire more curiously into these things He that shall read Harveys works Dr. Glissons Book de anat hepatis Dr. Wharton de glandulis Pecket de vasis chiliferis and others will find how much the world is beholding to them for their pains therein and the Art enriched by their discoveries I must needs say of Anatomy and Botanicks what I have often thought of the general Study of the Mathematicks Without the knowledge of Astronomy we should in a short time lose the account of Time Navigation the knowledge of the Stars the foretelling Eclipses and many other things of most necessary use would be soon lost with mankind So without Geometry the measure of all things would be forgotten Surveying Architecture both Civil and Military and many other things insomuch that were their knowledge of as particular an use as it is of general concernment those professions must be the onely rich and admired of the world But the misery is that the Learning of some few men in those Studies is able to supply the necessities of a whole Nation T is just so in Anatomy and Botanicks the curious and useful speculations of some few are able to give a competent stock of knowledge to all others without wholly taking them off from their more necessary employment in the cure of diseases It shall suffice to have marked these things in transitu by which it may appear how unjust his dislike of that distinction of Rational and Empirical is and may serve to shew the venome that lyes scattered through his whole Book and ease me of some labor hereafter in the answering the rest of it and having thus shewed you what liberty in the profession of Physick was taken by the Ancients and allowed by all others and how unjust and noxious to mankind an Empirical and Tentative way is I might here make an end of the consideration of his first Chapter did he not call me into the lists again from a new Topick not yet by me taken notice of though at the very beginning That t is a matter out question that diseases of this present time are of another nature than they were in former times and undertakes to prove this and if that be once proved then it cannot be denyed we must proceed by other definitions of their nature and indagations of their causes and invent other remedies reasons and rules of curation than have been delivered by the Ancients I must acknowledge hoc magnum quid sonat if he make this good he and I must shake hands and be no more adversaries Let me examine his words Of another nature By nature here he cannot understand some circumstantial change or alteration in the subject as for the purpose a Fever in Peter may differ from that of Paul for this will not put us to new Definitions new indagations new Aphorisms new precepts and in sum of a general new Method and he cannot be ignorant of that trite Maxim aliud est curare morbum aliud curare Petrum Paulum He must therefore understand that either those diseases which were known to the Ancients are wholly lost in the world and New sprung up again in their room or that those which were known heretofore are now quite changed to another sort and nature I ask therefore whether Apoplexies Fevers Catarrhs Epilepsies diseases of the Ears Eyes Teeth and all other treated of by Hippocrates Galen Avicenna and the rest and now frequently invade mankind stand in need of new Definitions and new Curations from any alteration of their nature If he say yes I then ask from what cause this change can come for if the Disease be in this manner altered in nature it must necessarily follow that the Bodies of all Men and Beasts which are the subjects of them are altered in their nature as it must likewise follow that all Meats Drinks Fruits Herbs and all things that serve for the nourishment of mankind are altered likewise in their nature for it is unreasonable to believe that the same natural agent doth not act alike at all times caeteris paribus and consequently that all distempers that arise from the inordinate use of those things that should nourish the body or from any other disorder in the use of the six natural things are the same still not altered in their nature and so not standing in need of new Definitions c. Nay would it not be considered whether this new Doctrine doth not introduce a Transmutation of Species for perhaps it will be as easie to change the Species of mankind as his Nature and so a Mans body become that of an Ass as Pythagoras thought of the Soul Does he mean that many persons now adays in respect of the Complication of one disease with another require a different way of treating them than formerly they ought to have had in the same cases If he mean so t is absolutely false for where there is the same Complication the same method in the cure which hath been successfully used heretofore may undoubtedly be used again But in this I would not be mistaken as if we were
four Humors doth supply the ultimum alimentum to the body doth not say any one alone of them separated from the rest doth supply any aliment at all no more than he that shall say Bread doth nourish is bound to affirm that any one constitutive part of it or any res contenta in it separated from re composita doth so for that may be true in toto composito which is not true in any one of its parts separated from the rest so that that part of Dr. Harveys assumption will be easily granted that Pure Bloud alone is no nutriment to the body but the whole mass as it is conjoyned with the Humors that is as he calls them the commixti succi In the next place he doth truly assume that if there be no regress of any of the Humors into Blood back again and that Melancholy be the last it will truly follow that it is the most concocted but not that it is the best concocted for 't is over baked nempe ex caloris consequentis excessu so not the principal and chiefest nutriment as he seems to affirm though it be the last acc to Aristotle but doth not follow from the Opinion laid down by the Schools But pray what is here against the Four Humours Doth he that saith Melancholy is the last and most concocted and to which the other Humours seem to tend doth he say there is but one nay doth he not the contrary rather Or if they tend to that Humour do they tend thither to be swallowed up by it or as they may stand together in composito Yet by the way 't is to be observed that neither Dr. Harvey or any other by Composition do understand the Humours to be Principia Sanguinis for that were to confound them with the Elements whereas they knew or at least thought they did so that every one of those Humours were compounded of the four Elements and were Mixt bodies but by Composition they understood onely they were there or things contained in the whole So that for ought I see the later Hippocrates doth not at all fight against the first but leaves him to justifie himself upon his own Reasons largely deduced in his Book ΠΕΡΙ ΦΥΣΙΟΣ ΑÎΘΡΩΠΟΥ which Book I wish this Author had well read before he had taken upon himself the liberty to call the Four Humours Fancies or any book of Hippocrates Vain as he doth that learned book of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 243. and in another commends that saying of Helmont who calls Galen the great Corrupter of so much as was tolerable in Hippocrates Pag. 240. words too big for the mouth of such a Mushrom as he is in respect of Galen in all parts of Learning but I shall onely say this of him that 't is much easier to revile a man that is dead than to have met him in the Schools living I might here very well take occasion to examine the ancient Doctrine both of the Composition of bodies out of the four Elements as that of the Humour and Combination of the four Qualities but that I shall have a sitter opportunity for that purpose when I come to examine his Seventh Chapter The Examination of his Second Third and Fourth Chapters I Shall consider these Chapters together because their Subjects are not much different being onely subservient to prove the necessary alteration of the Precepts of the old Physick and the pulling up the Foundations thereof from the alteration of Diseases now from what they were anciently and that in respect of Worms that of Worms I shall consider in the first Chapter Fevers Womens diseases the Scorbute Pox and some other In which I would have it observed that if he had done all this he pretends yet the Shooe would be too short for his foot since these Diseases would still remain the same in their nature and the alterations require onely a difference of Remedies in their Composition not either in their substance or nature and so would not put us to new Precepts and new Foundations but onely to raise some Superstructure upon the old But I believe we shall find him fail in all his attempts His first instance is in Agues These he tells you give the baffle to Physicians being distempers quite of another nature insomuch that the old Rules and Remedies for the curing them are quite out of doors seldom doing good but generally hurt as for instance Bloud-letting which should we in these days administer in all Putrid Fevers as Galen directs and too many follow we should make mad work with our Patients c. And then hath a fling at Avicenna who gives the same precept if the Vrine be thick and red Against all these Directions of the Ancients he onely opposes a new sort of Quartan in the year 1662 which had tokens of Malignity and some others in the years 1657 and 1658. both in the Spring and Fall of the year and in the Autumnal quarter of the other in which are these words Pag. 30. Whereas I have observed generally in former years and particularly in this Spring that bodies either ill-habited or scorbutically inclined being phlebotomiz'd for Agues have grown very much worse upon it c. Then follows a mis-translation of Sennertus his words Plurimae febres quae hîc aegros infestant omnes notas febrium à Graecis Arabibus descriptas non obtinent by him thus rendered Most Agues which insest men in this age do not agree with the description of Agues made by the Greeks and Arabians Very good For the first part of it viz. that Agues are altered we have his word and observations in the years before mentioned that the ancient Remedies generally hurt particularly Bloud-letting as he generally observed in former years and particularly in this Spring To this I need make no other Reply than that other Practisers as much in credit and far more judicious have not made the like observatitions that if he hath found Bloud-letting so dangerous in his Patients he ought rather to mistrust his own preposterous application of that remedy without preparation of the Peccant humour before hand if the Fever were free from Malignity if Malign perhaps his using that remedy after the Malignant humour was too much dissused by which the veins being emptied drew poison instead of good bloud from the greater vessels and so transfused the Malignity all over the body more than it was before with many other cautions fit to be observed In the Precepts of the Ancients two things are to be taken notice of First that they are given as Directions to Physicians not Mountebanks that the first shall seldom miss the last as rarely hit in the pursute of them Secondly that as to the matter of Bleeding we are to consider that they framed their directions according to the constitution of the Inhabitants in those Countries where generally drinking Wine their bodies were more easily inflamed I wish this London-Physician would
is not at all material to enquire into the Causes of this change nor whether the Ancients knew them or not but certainly he is very far from having proved either a total or a partial alteration of Men or Diseases in their natures All Ages have produced as great mortality and as great rebellion in Diseases as this and Complications with other Diseases as dangerous What Plague was ever more spreading or dangerous than that writ of by Thucidides brought out of Attiea into Peloponnesus What Complication now caused by the presence of the Pox or Scurvy in a sick body can make a greater alteration in any diseases than the Complication of the like disease with the Leprosie heretofore Doth he not believe there is as great a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the bloud by the Leprosie as the Pox yet those diseases were cured by the ancient Method why not these So that for ought I see we need not be put to the necessity of establishing new Doctrines Pag. 204. new Methods and Rules of Curation agreeable to the new frame of Humane nature and to the new Phaenomena of Diseases The old Notions and old Remedies may be good enough not that I shall discourage him or any man for increasing the Materia Medica with any new piece of Knowledge but dislike they should pretend to what they have not as many do to the dishonour of others far more knowing than themselves These things being considered this Chapter is not so hard but it may be read over without a Festuke or spelling-book and by those that have set up their rest without any new going to school by them Pag. 206. and yet the saying of prudent Celsus the Plagiary of Hippocrates may be true too Vix ulla perpetua praecepta ars medicinalis recipit which saying hath not relation to the Method or Art but to the Medicine and Person for though general Precepts may be given curare morbū they cannot be curare Petrum Paulum and I dare confidently averre that no man has been lost by the adhering to the Precepts of Physick though some may have by the misapplication of them in reducing them to use and practice whereas hundreds daily are cast away by the preposterous use of Remedies especially Chymical ones slovenly prepared by these Mountebanks and as immethodically appli'd at adventure In his next Breach he endeavours to draw to his Cause by the shoulders Mr. Boyle whom he often quotes and would fain induce the world to think him of his party the passage he tells you is in his Experimental Philosophy part 2. essay 5. he should have done well to have given us a little nearer guess at the place for that Essay consists of twenty large Chapters near half the book and I believe he hath particularly concealed it lest something might be found not to make for him Perhaps that Physician might think that Method fair which in it self was not and the party not killed by a fair but a foul Method But this Gentleman would from hence have us look upon Mr. Boyle as an Enemy to Method but pray hear himself Exper. Philos part 2. essay 5. cap. 18. pag. 266. speaking of the nature and causes of Diseases he hath these words Nor is the Method of curing divers particular diseases more settled and agreed apon that depending chiefly upon the knowledge of those causes which as I was saying are controverted 'T is not that I am an enemy to Method in Physick or an undervaluer of it but I fear the generality of Physicians for I intend not nor need all along this Essay speak of them all have as yet but an imperfect Method and have by the narrow principles they were taught in the Schools been persuaded to change their Method rather to the barren principles of the Peripatetick School than to the full amplitude of Nature You see with what caution this Learned Gentleman delivers his sense First the Method of curing divers particular diseases to wit as they may be in Craso or Celsus not that the general Method of curing diseases is unsettled Secondly that he intends not all but some Physicians though perhaps what he saith may fall upon the greatest part of them Thirdly that himself is no Enemy to Method though its Precepts do not answer to the sull amplitude of Nature What can be more cautelously laid down What is here to favour a casting away old Methods erecting new Foundations new Aphorisms and I know not what which our M. N. drives at Touching his opinion of Chymists and their costly application of Chymical Medicines in slight cases see what he saith chap. 6. pag. 147 148 c. 152. the words are too long to transcribe but in general he blames the Chymists as well in their unskilful preparations as not dexterous applications of their Medicines and is so far from tying up Physick to that Sphere onely that he propounds many great Cures performed by simple Medicines taken from Vegetables and Animals without any Chymical preparation at all As to that Noble Person himself I must tell the world I have had the honour to have been particularly acquainted with him now upwards of twenty years that I know him to be a Scholar and Valuer of Learning where he meets it he hath spent all his time from his very youth amongst Men of Learning and much of it in our Universities and therefore I am sure will give him little thanks that endeavours to bring him in as a Patron to those that decry Universities Degrees Learning and Arts endeavouring to bring in thereby Ignorance in the Professors and Contempt upon the Professions themselves I shall further adde I have frequently been in his Laboratory seen and been from him made partaker of many of his Preparations before the world knew them in Print have received from his own hand not onely the manner of the Preparations but the Medicines themselves which I have often used with success and have returned to him some of my own which he hath taken kindly from me But in all the course of this my knowledge of him have ever found him Free of a Communicable and Noble nature a Friend to Scholars free from that arrogance and pride of his Own Knowledge above Others whose Pots and Glasses these petty fellows who with so much boldness cry up themselves are not worthy to clean after him To this he hath added the communication of many excellent Preparations and other Medicines whereas this Writer and many other of his Complices pretend onely to a secret and concealed kind of Knowledge And in many other places of his book quotes this Noble Person very little to the purpose of which I shall take no further notice the Character here by me knowingly given of him being able to silence all Calumnies that by Consequences of their own drawing out of his words contrary to his meaning may be pinn'd upon him of which 't is none of the least that by this
that both Plato and Aristotle who in many things disagreed yet in this accorded that from this Materia prima were produced the four Elements of Fire Air Water and Earth Plato ascribing to them their several forms The next sort of Philosophers we are to deal with are Democritus Epicurus and those of that Sect. Not that I am ignorant that Democritus lived before the time of Aristotle contemporary with Hippocrates and that Epicurus succeeded Aristotle Democritus Empedocles Anaxagoras and Parmenides lived about the 80 Olympiade and were lookt upon as defenders of a different sort of Philosophy then what was generally by others of their age thought most probable and most received some holding one opinion some another concerning the beginning of things as you may see them recited by Aristotle in sundry places in his Physicks his Book de Coelo and other of his Writings Amongst them all Democritus or perhaps one ancienter then he Leucippus broach'd that opinion that all things were at first made of Atoms though I confess I find not that word used before the time of Epicurus who flourished much about the time of Aristotle they maintained that the beginning of all things came from Atoms flying about in vacuo and that by their motion concourse all bodies were made They agreed not well what to call them some called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unities others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 little bodies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 plena densa 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first matter of all things And Epicurus saith as Plutarch relates it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it was called an Atom not because it was the least bodie but because it could not be divided being uncapable of vacuitie See Gassend Phys sect 1. lib. 3. cap. â— Then they farther added they were aspera levia rotunda angulata hamata rough light round angled and hooked Plutarch tells you that Democritus allowed them magnitude and figure and Epicurus allowed them weight so that it seems they were both heavie and light Vid. Lactan. de ira Dei pag. 784. edit Hacky 1660. However be they what they will from these as the beginning of all things was the Universe made This opinion seemed so unreasonable that for nigh 2000 years it lay buried and forgotten till at last it was revived by Gassendus a learned Philosopher and Divine Regius Professor of the Mathematicks at Paris whom my self had the honour particularly to know and frequently converse with there and often about this subject I found him a man very communicable but to me would never declare his opinion to agree with that of Epicurus onely resolving to write his Life and Philosophie thought fit to propound fairly what might be said on that subject This opinion in my judgment labours under many and great improbabilities First they admit of no first Causes beyond the sphere of Nature and are disputed against by Lactantius as deniers of Providence They held there was no difference between Materia prima and Elementa That Atoms were both and had their beginning ab aeterno from no other cause but Nature or themselves against Aristotle who affirms Exelementis eterna fieri impossibile Secondly They were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 little bodies that they had figure and weight so there was locatum but there was no locus for they did volitare in vacuo for in vacuo there can neither be space nor extension and a Body cannot be without both neither can we have any other Idea of a Body but what we have of Space Besides in Vacuo there can be no terms of motion Thirdly There is less absurditie to make maeximum divisibile the beginning of things then Minimum Nature might as well make a great bodie of nothing or let it be from eternitie as make many little ones out of them to make one great one for Maximum and Minimum differ not specifically and divide a bodie into what particles you please the matter is still the same and the magnitude would be the same could you restore the figure and a thing is called Maximum in respect of the matter not the figure Fourthly There can be no solid reason given for the passion of any bodie from this Doctrin for if the first Man were made from the voluntary concourse of Atoms they being impassible and eternal why is not the compositum so too There is in them no contrarietie and so can be no fighting between contrarie qualities which should cause either pains or death their difference being onely in figure This argument is used by Hippocrates in his book de naturâ humanâ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If a man be but one that is to say of one principle he could not feel pain Fernelius tells you in his Book de Elementis lib. 2. cap. 4. His argumentis tanquam fustibus vis illa turbulenta concursu atomorum immutabilium per inane volitantium in exilium relegata de naturâ mundoque depulsa videri possit Fifthly Aristotle in his Physicks demonstrates that a continuum cannot be made of indivisibles because in them there is nothing first nor last in regard there are no parts the Chapter is well worth reading over and confuted by those that think themselves able to do it Sixthly How comes it that all things are made with so great ornament if they came by a voluntary concourse of Atomes at first why have we not still the same things An infinitie of Atoms cannot be exhausted nor can any reason be given why there are not every day new Machines made equal to the frame of the world Why need we â—eeds of any thing that which brought them at first may continue them still 'T is strange to think this Machina mundi could be made by a concourse of Atoms and yet we never saw a poor Cottage so made Or at least whence comes it to pass that some new concourse of Atoms doth not disjoint and put this already made out of frame To say that here is a transition from Mathematical to Physical lines is but a meer effugium or cavil for what ever is Mathematically true is Physically true too if you take it under a Physical consideration and the line or Atom a c take it under what consideration or notion soever will be still shorter then a d c and so a d c not the minimum divisibile Again An Atom must be considered under the notion of a Quantity let it be the least But Diophantus will teach you lib. 4. Arithm. quaest 33. that an Unit that is to say the least quantity is in its own nature divisible To say that an Atom is divisible in its own nature but that nature never did proceed to the dividing it is to speak this not intelligible for how is it possible to consider a thing divisible in its own nature and yet not to have its beginning from something less then it self Neither can you have any other Idea of it then
the matter they called Mercury sometime the whole matter crude and undigested without any previous preparation was called Mercury and this on purpose that they might conceal their Art from such as they held unworthy to know it The nexus utriusque to wit of Sulphur and Mercury they called Salt which by many Philosophers is left out and indeed in the Philosophical work appears not but as a vehiculum to set the other two at work that so superius haberet naturam inferioris inferius naturam superioris But there is nothing more clear from all their Writings that they admitted the four Elements of Fire Air Water and Earth this is very plain by Raimund Lully in codicillo cap. 33 34 c. among the later Writers Sendivogius throughout his Book In tract de Sulph he hath these words Sunt autem principia rerum praesertim metallorum secundum antiquos Philosophos due Sulphur Mercurius secundum Neotericos vere tria Sal Sulphur Mercurius Origo autem horum principiorum sunt quatuor Elementa Sciunt ergo studio si hujus scientiae quatuor esse elementa c. And in another place of the same Author Duplex est materia metallorum note he saith not rerum omnium but metallorum proxima remota proxima est Sulphur Mercurius remota sunt quatuor Elementa c. By which it is manifest these ancient Philosophers did not intend that these Principia of Sulphur and Mercury should justle out the Doctrine of the four Elements but held that of Sulphur and Mercury distinct from them and in the same Treatise handles the natures of them all distinctly and apart The Author of that little Tractate called Physica restituta Can. 58. tells you That all mixt bodies are made of two Elements which answer to Earth and Water in the which the other of Air and Fire are virtually included In Arâ—an Hermet Philosoph Can. 76. â—e tells you That the other Elements are circulated in the form of Water He tells you of Ignis â—â—aturae in mixtis and a Humor raâ—â—calis which are both immortal and inseparable from any subject explains his meaning by the example of glass made out of ashes which could not be made fluxile except there were in those ashes a radical moisture so of Salts In summe I know not one of them but admit that in all bodies there is something answerable to the four Elements of Fire Air Water and Earth which we feel and handle and by the mixture of which they are all or at least some of them composed For by the way I would not be understood to say that necessarily every body whatsoever must be composed of all the four Elements for a mixture may be made and some body for ought I know framed out of the conjunction of two or three of them and 't is enough for the support of that Doctrine that there are four to deducâ— rationally that any one body is composed of them By what hath been already said it is evident that the ancient Philosophers did conceive and hold that their Sulphur and Mercury is something that lies hid in the heart of that matter which is compounded of the four Elements See Phys restitut Can. 224. That Sulphur answers to the Calidum innatum which is the spiritual fire and Mercury to the humidum radicale So that by those names sometimes they understand what â—n mixt bodies hath some analogy with the Elements of Fire Air and Water for under humidum radicale both Air and Water in their sense are comprehended At other times by Sulphur they understand the fixed matter after the circulation of the Elements through eveâ—y degree of their Zodiack and by Mercury the volatil part which â—auses that circulation to be made informa aquae and in ventre aëris till at last all ends in rupem illumiâ—â—tam as they are pleased to phrase it which of it self is a powerful remedy for all diseases and hath an ingress to the solution of all imperfect Metalls and as they say after some succedaneous preparations and repetition of the same work will cause a transmutation of them But they never understood that any of these Principles should destroy and put out of doors the four Elements which themselves always maintained Some of the Chymists I confess as Monsieur de Clave and others have denied an Elementary Fire not distinguishing between the material Fire we see in its effects and that central we see not So by their laborious operations of the ancient Philosophers they have corrupted their sense and merited what Sendivogius saith of them Si hodie revivisceret ipse Philosophorum pater Hermes subtilis ingenii Geber cum profundissimo Raimundo Lullio non pro Philosophis sed potius pro discipulis à nostris Chemistis haberentur Nescirent tot hodie usitatas distillationes tot circulationes tot calcinationes tot alia innumerabilia artistarum opera quae hujus saeculi homines ex illorum scriptis invenerunt excogitarunt That is to say If those ancient and profound Philosophers Hermes Geber and Lullius were alive they would rather be accounted Disciples then Philosophers who would not understand the meaning of those many Distillations Circulations Calcinations and innumerable other laborious operations found by these Artists out of their Writings contrary to the meaning of them What reason therefore have we to believe that these men have by their fiery and destructive trials found out the Principles or Elements from which mixt bodies have their composition when they have so much mistaken the sense of those Authors from whom they first took their names and notions of Sulphur Salt and Mercury I shall onely touch at many unreasonable deductions which in my judgment will follow out of this Doctrine First Entia non sunt multiplicanda nisi propter necessitatem So that all those parts in which humidity is prevalent may be well comprehended under the Element of Water such are insipid Phlegm perhaps Spirit and Oyl except you had rather reckon them of the Element of Fire because of their inflammability The drier parts under that of Earth in which Air and Fire are included which two likewise insinuate themselves into all other compounded bodies for I believe Air is in the most rectifi'd Spirit and natural heat in all water whatsoever which causes first a fermentation and then a corruption The different savours and viscosity may well be believed to proceed from the different wombs of the Earth in which the elemental mixture or matter produceth various off-springs to wit of Metalls Marcasites Stones Plants and the like endued with those several qualities and tastes we find in them participating in their nature of that part of the Earth whence they had their beginnings Beside if this opinion should be admitted we must fancie as many Sulphurs as there are different sorts of Oyls produced out of any body so of the rest Neither do I see what more reason they have to say
safest pleasantest and most effectual means both for conservation of health and cure of all diseases whatsoever I would ask M. N. how he can engage to improve the Science of Physick Onely by Hermetick and Chymical Medicaments except he understand the use of them exclusive to all others whether Simples or Specificks What ever is Chymically made or otherwise may be called according to its nature an Extraction a Salt a Spirit an Oil or what you will but certainly 't is not a Medicament but in its use and application and I cannot believe M. N. did intend onely to know Chymical preparations and not in like manner onely to make use of such and no other at least at that time when he subscribed that Engagement But perhaps between the publishing his Book and his subscription he had changed his mind or warily considered that every Clyster Apozeme or distilled Water from any Simple or Specifick may be as well called a Chymical Medicament as their Salt Oils or Spirits which are all made by the Fire some in a close some in an open one and therefore the Preparers as deservedly called Pyrotechnists as any of these If in this I have mistaken his meaning I shall be willing to ask his pardon when he makes me understand it But that the Reader may know where this Engagement is he shall find it printed at the end of a Book called The Poor man's Physician put out By Thomas Odowde as he calls himself Esquire one of the Grooms of the Chamber to his Sacred Majesty King CHARLES the Second Now that at the same time you may know the jugling of these kind of dealers and how likely this Esquire is to make his Boy do such strange Cures which it seems a sworn Physician of the Kings could not as appears by a Letter of his page 75. of his book Be pleased to understand that by the omission of three Letters he hath confounded one of the most honourable employments about the King with one of the most inferiour I think of any above stairs for had he called himself Groom of the Bed-chamber to his Majesty it had been one of the most honourable Places about his Person as it is Groom of the Chamber you may understand his Office is to wait in the Guard-chamber to go of such errands as any of the Gentlemen-Ushers of the Presence-chamber nay though they be but Quarter-waiters shall think fit to employ him in Now he had this Subtilty to make such Readers as could not distinguish between Groom of the Chamber and Groom of the Bed-chamber believe he was some great Officer whereas in truth there is no such matter nor â—e likely to take such an employment were he such a proficient in Physick as he would have the world believe I could shew the falshood of most of those Cures he pretends in that Book to have done but that is not my task who am already weary but shall close up all this discourse with the words of Mr. Boyle who speaking of the great difficulties in the Art of Physick and consequently that perhaps without presumption some innovation might be made in the Methodus Medendi goes on Yet Exper. Philos p. 2. cap. 9. pag. 202. Pyrophilus I am much too young too unlearned and too unexperienced to dare to be Dogmatical in a matter of so great moment And the Physicians are a sort of men to whose learned Writings on almost all Subjects the Common-wealth of Learning is so much beholding that I would not willingly dissent from them about those Notions in their own Profession wherein they seem generally to agree And do very much disapprove the indiscreet practise of our common Chymists and Helmontians that bitterly and indiscriminately rail at the Methodists in stead of candidly acquiescing in these manifest Truths their observations have enrich'd us with and civilly and modestly shewing them their errors where they have been mistaken Let me advise you hereafter M. N. to write with such modesty and candor as this both Learned and Honourable Person doth and you will quickly learn to have a less esteem for your self and the world put a greater value upon your Writings and Endeavours FINIS ERRATA PAge 3. line 22. dele smattering page 7. line 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 leg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 page 21. in tit dele all page 23. in tit leg Natures appearances page 25. line 8. leg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ib. line 20. leg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 page 40. line 3. leg could page 33. tit leg M. N. confident asserting page 56. line 15. leg next page 67. line 4. leg popularis page 70. line 4. after chapter adde is page 79. line 4. leg dolosus page 97. line 3. leg Pharmacopaeas page 103. line 23. leg Pharmacopaeas page 106. line 19. after therefore make a period and let In begin a line page 115. line ult leg Crat. page 145. line 6. leg things page 161. line 10. leg which page 166. line 16. after the word operations adde and mistake page 169. line 22. leg then I to say they are c. page 189. line 20. leg Leo Suavius page 203. line 5. leg Laboratory