in the frontispiece Your Dedication smelt somewhat of Gratitude which is still well but when I found this demonstration was to be turn'd upon Acid and Alkali or a thing we do not understand I began to suspect your knowledge yet I thought it possible that new lights might be discovered even by you in this matter and surely you had not the Impudence to promise us a Demonstration of a thing we know nothing of after a great deal of enquiry and really when I lookt first into your Preface you wou'd make us expect no less than Revelation but all this soon vanish'd into Dreaming Asserting Defaming downright all foreign Physicians then the lesser half of the College it self and next the greater for really the praise you give them is so invidiously turn'd that t is one of the worst pieces of Satyr The Scene thus odly chang'd very strangely at least as to my expectation rais d in me quite other apprehensions my Church thoughts were not the very same my passion grew almost into fury to see my Masters so ill us'd and one whom Nature had laid asleep and forbid us to remember him to his disadvantage yet his Ashes were to be rais d for your trifle about the Gout I confess I cou'd hold no longer but the duty that s incumbent upon every man to defend his own or his friend s Reputation made me find some time from business to become an Author tho' that was when I had attempted a second reading and after ten days 'T is the defence of all foreign Physicians and a great many of our own that I have undertaken a task I acknowledge too bold for me with any one but your self and ev n these few that are excepted must fall too when you are out of the apprehensions of an Answer or any other inconveniency from them this is no forc d and unnatural conclusion for notwithstanding your turning over Books to no purpose as you say very well foreign Physicians and my Masters are agreed in most things of Physick so that if your design were to destroy Opinions and lay under no fears of Men you might have as easily run down all the College as Ignoramus's as you have done the learned men abroad all these foreigners since the beginning of the World all our dead Gentlemen and a third of what 's alive surely my living Masters that are spar'd cannot have better pretences than They nay I le answer for them that they re asham'd on your behalf and angry too that you have parted them from so good company but esprcially that you huve join'd them to your self Have not you done Dr. Cole a great deal of honour in obtruding upon him your ridiculous jargon and to call them his Opinions Opinions he was very familiar with or because you are the first that vends em opinions that he has lenrn't from you Is there any such stuff in his Book de Secretione Animali his letter of an Apoplexy or his Book of Agues if my memory fails me not he s among one of your Dunces that make that Disease proceed from the Acidity of the Blood as Dr. Jones does and yet you may make him say here that 't is an Alkali that 's the Original of that sickness old People men say are twice Children yet he is not quite so old as to forget what he said lately to chatter after you but since you use your Friend your Patron no better I think your Doctors you make War upon have no reason to complain In this Preface of yours you have got into a Cant of Experimental knowledge Experiments upon the Blood and such things you understand and use the very same way that Enthusiasts do the Scripture these are the best help to Natural Knowledge as the Scripture are to Divine but all this meer Jargon Cant and Nonsense in your mouth who cannot understand them and in my opinion the only way of proselyting you must be the same that the Church-men take with their Enthusiasts to despise you Are not you a rare Fellow to pretend to make an Experiment who after all your toyl all your reading and all your Disquisition are pleas'd to tell us that Physicians have hitherto unanimously agreed that Acids have abounded in all Diseases this is as wonderful an advantage as you have gain'd by reading of them for 't is manifestly false and if we were to look into the state of Physick in former Ages or ev'n in our own time we can find no such Vniversal Consent but now when I think of it you only said if turning over of Books wou'd do it that you shou'd rest satisfied but that will not do nay distilling and combining of Liquors so long as your eyes are open will never make one Experiment without some Book-learning which to you is a bug-bear You see how well an accomplish'd Gentleman you are like to prove for making Experiments and so you have very good reason to say that in your Introduction you have made use of a Familiar and easy Experiment to confirm the truth of your New Hypothesis and if any one shall take upon them to answer what you have said in this or any of your former Pieces you expect that they should back their Arguments with Experiments or you shall take no notice of them What good service your Familiar Experiment is like to do you turn the leaf and there you ll find it but pray if one may ask questions tell me what Syrup of Violets it self is Acid or Alkalin according to this Familiar Experiment 't is nothing for Syrup of Violets added to Syrup of Violets dissolv d in an aqueous Body may augment the quantity but will still be blue Ergo tis nothing because neither Acid nor Alkali the next time you write be sure to make a Syrup of Violets principle h. e. every thing that does not change the Colour is Violaceous and find some Disease to be made or Cur d by it so there will be Three and Musae gaudent Numero Impari the principles of Sal Sulphur and Mercury are Three Des Cartes's are Three and yours are Three but this I 'm affraid you won't like because you affect singularity And as for answering your pieces I know no body will be at the pains but a Porter nay I 'le promise you that when I had done I had a great dispute with my self if I shou'd do you the honour but a little for my Masters and helping off the Bookseller with the damn d Copy did prevail but here I faithfully promise and swear that no more of my Stoln time from other business shall be employ'd that way But pray Why are all your Books Pieces nothing but Artillery sounds with you since you was in Flanders the Preface before was Powder and Ball and now Pieces for the Powder and Ball not so good Member your Pieces are harmless things enough any body may attack them and that more easily and with more safety
with and these are both of a sort yet you cannot tell us how to manage them but there s more in this matter Diseases don 't always appear with the same face no not in the same person at different times Oh then what can I do nay any thing and take a Fee Now in short Mr. Member I le tell you that Physick was neither begun nor can be promoted by such Observations And thus having made a hopeful Introduction we must expect a learned and useful practice which I now will follow him into and leave him singing his Io triumph's over the learning of the Introduction by which he has baffled all Foreign Physicians some Dead ones and all living ones without names CHAP. I. Of the GOVT He begins first with the Names the Gout has obtain'd among Physicians when they would tell any one of its having seiz'd upon any one part of the Body tho' this sorting by-name he seems to arrogate to himself but pray Sir do you know that the most of the Names you have told us are all Greek Heathen Greek and how came they by those names without ranging this Disease into the same order you pretend to They gave name to the Sciatica too but you have forgot it But not to insist too long upon Names where the thing is so plain especially since you have afforded me more matter to reflect upon than really I can be at the trouble to consider that I will tell you that 't is no other than to read your Book and to write an answer for I have no other before me but your own And now to begin you tell us p. 16. § 3. of the different opinions Authors have vented about the seat and original of this Disease but I will delay speaking any thing to that subject now because its proper place is a little after this but since you now begin your description I will tell you that I will have no consideration about that since your owing it to Dr. Sydenham which is more than you confess has miraculously obtain'd him from you the Character of a fair and honest man and I will content my self to attack you where you first begin to shew your Learning in p. 16. § ult I cannot agree say you with those Gentlemen who will have all pain to proceed from a solution of Continuity which in plain English is either a Wound or Ulcer Now for my part I can't see why we should not be made sensible of any thing that injures us which whatsoever causeth pain doth without destroying the Integrity of the parts and it 's plain whatever causeth a solution of unity must destroy the Integrity of them Further Malbranche tells us that our Sences were given us to guard ourselves from injuries and that they never fail to answer the end for which they were given us They are never guilty of Deceiving us as for instance our Taste c. and all these proceed from a placid vellication of the Membranes Pain proceeds from a Contraction of the Fibres and Pleasure from a pacid relaxation of them which being granted c. My Masters the Physicians I assure you do not care whether you agree with them or not but why the pox won't you agree with your self for you say that a solution of Continuity in plain English is a Wound or an Ulcer then in the very next paragraph that a Blow with a blunt thing upon any part which only bruiseth it will occasion greater pain than if the same part were cut with a sharp instrument although the one only compresseth the parts and the other divides them asunder and so makes a perfect solution of Unity Now good Mr. Member did ever any one but your self call a Contusion by the name of Wound or Vlcer Nay I 'm convinc'd you will not say so neither and I 'll undertake to prove to you that pain is a solution of Unity and then you ll see that not only Contusions but even Wounds and Ulcers that make more sensible solutions of Unity may make pain yet still there comes another inconvenience upon the heels of this for we see that the pain of a Contusion is greater by your own confession than the pain by a sharp instrument yet this pain in a Contusion is not so great at least not greater than the pain of the Gout and this you tell us only comes from the sharp pointed particles that may affect the membranes of the Toe and do you think then that those particles have more points and are sharper than the Knives and Saw that Surgeons use in amputations but this en passpant Now for the other part that we ought to be made sensible of any thing that injures us which whatsoever causeth pain doth without destroying the Integrity of the parts What he means by this I cannot understand neither is it true English and I don't know any body but will acknowledge that pain makes him sensible with a vengeance but why should we be made sensible without destroying the integrity of the parts For a Wound and an Ulcer by his own confession causes pain and yet he says too that in Wounds and Ulcers there is a solution of Vnity or the Integrity of the parts broke off But what a Devil brought Father Malebranche hither was it to let us know he has seen his Book de la recherche de la verit More of his works he pretends not to have seen and even that I 'm convinc'd he never read in the Original or English translation for this proves nothing to his purpose But I 'll tell you good Mr. Member that the great design of that part of the Book you quote is to prove to us the real design and use of our senses ho tells you that they are made serviceable to our design of living and that in a due distance in a proper Medium and when there 's a Mens sana in Corpora sano we are never deceiv'd by them in what they represent to us he tells you that beyond a due distance a House that is square will appear round The reason he gives you but you don't understand it yet he maintains that tho the House is really square and we apprehend it to be Round our sences are not deceived because the object is not round at a proper distance but why it appears round rather than of any other Figure he makes very plain after the same manner he tells you that if you put your black Stick with the white Head for so much only you have of a Fop Doctor into clear Water your Stick will appear bent yet when you pull it out you find it as straight as it was and notwithstanding this Paradox your Eyes perfectly well if you but saw as Pere Malebranch did your reason wou'd tell you all the time It is in the water that 't is very strait But how comes all this authority in to condemn poor solution of Unity Is it because he tells
AN EXAMINATION OF A Late Treatise OF THE GOUT Wherein John Colbatch's Demonstrations are briefly Refuted the College cleared from his scandalous Imputations And a short Account of His Vulnerary Powder By S. W. no inconsiderable Branch of the College Efficiam posthác ne quenquam voce lacessas Virg. LONDON Printed for the Author and sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster 1697. To the President and other Members of the Royal College of Physicians London Gentlemen OUR Countrey is the most fam'd of any in the World for the Liberty we enjoy and the security we have made to our Property by its excellent Laws Yet I think Societies are upon some occasions so very strict that to less discerning Eyes they may seem meer Monopolies I must complain of my own hardships in this matter especially but to whom I know not for t is from You that all my misfortunes flow and since this Error of the first Concoction cannot be so easily retrieved among you by Reason of the fault and defect in the Constitution that hinders People of singular parts tho' now of a mean Office at last to arrive to the liberty of being admitted a Fellow among you to be a Licentiate will not go down since Colbatch s admission I confess I did once resolve to have suppress'd all those aspiring thoughts with considerations of Religion but when I see scandalous Libels thrown about against you and these so fitted to the Capacity of the Mob that you think their Author below your wrath I must perswade my self that my Religion obliges me to secure my Neighbour's good Name and that the following defence of my old Masters may entitle me a great deal better to a Diploma than any thing this feigned friend of the College can pretend to and may also prevent my Petitioning the King and Parliament to oblige you to do me Justice But if we look into the merit of the Cause it must be allowed me that I who have seen so many Dissections heard so many Lectures over-heard so many Examinations of Young Physicians I who have kept the Books written by our learned Members and have very often carried their Gowns and Caps must be a great deal more knowing in all the difficult parts of Physick than He. Did I not hear the learned Dr Harvey talk after so lively a manner of the Blood 's Circulation and his Generation ex Ovo that I vow and swear I have thought I have seen the Drunken Heart spew out its Blood into the great Artery and I could trace its Stages thro' the whole Body then for the business of the Valves I have so lively an Idea of them that I can show you them only by looking upon you Skin But as for the Generation that did so tickle me when I was a Young Man that I easily apprehended the false Notions of former Physicians upon that Subject I can yet give a very plain description of that genital liquor attacking the ripe Egg in the Ovarium and a great deal more that I saw at some diffections he made to King Charles II. nay for my part I thought all this matter was so clear that I wonder the Dr never found the way to get a Male-child at one bout of a Consummation Action We have Sir George Ent's Book too that defends his Circulation contra omnes mortales for as easy a matter as Colbatch thinks it but had he had to do with Parisanus the old fellow wou'd have plaid the Devil with him and his Ligature too then came Dr Glisson with his Livers Stomachs and Guts so nicely prepar'd that the Secretion of the Gall the Digestion the business of the Chyle and the Excrements were so familiar to me that I had no difficulties left me in that affair But as for Dr Willis he was the first that taught us to dissect the Brain that we might see all its parts when Physicians before him were content to slice it down like a piece of Pudding and when Des Cartes did see his Glandula Pinealis sticking in a slice like a Plum he was a great Master who could hit upon it once in five times but our Dr cou'd show you any thing and when you pleas'd he trac'd out all the Nerves and describ'd nobly the whole Brain I have heard him talk of his Anima Brutorum his Books of Fermentation Vrins Fevers c. with that exactness that I must own that I have had sometimes the Vanity to think my self as learned a Physician as himself Dr Wharton began first to number the Glands and to undeceive the World of a fancy they had about Parenchymatous substances Next came Dr Lower who told us of the Hearts being Muscular and put it under the same laws he tells us in the same Book of putting Blood out of one Animal into another and what advantage that may be in curing some Diseases Dr Havers gives us a Book of the Make of the Bones and Dr Riddley gives us a Lecture upon the Brain tho' a Frenchman one de Vuyssens had made Dr Willis's way more clear yet not so much neither but that the Dr has done it in greater order Dr Garth read very finely upon Respiration and the use of the Lungs Dr Lister has oblig'd us with the Anatomy of Snails and Dr Cockburn with an O Econom Animalis Of Botanaists we have had a vast number and lately Dr Sloan has given us an excellent account of the Plants of the Leeward Islands Pharmacians a great many and lately Dr Bates But for the Theory and practice of Medicin no Countrey has exceeded us in my time Willis both for the Theory and the Practice Dr Charleton Sir Theoder Mayern Dr Bates Dr Morton and Dr Cockburn who first told us how they are sick at Sea Now can any Man think that I can be such a blockhead as to have liv'd among all these Masters in Medicin to be bred up as it were at the foot of Gamaliel and for so long a time and not to be better qualified for my Admission than a fellow that either cannot think or at least cannot tell us what he thinks and yet is so vain as to esteem himself more knowing than any of your worthy and learned Members one of whom he attacks because he s Dead one still alive and by Name and another he has only the courage to hint at tho' he has told his story so plainly over the Town that 't is now no great difficulty to know him and therefore I may hope that my thus proving a dutiful Servant in giving my self all this trouble may give me greater pretences to a Diploma and to be more and more Gentlemen Your most Obedient Humble Servant S. W. THE PREFACE TO John Colbatch SIR YOVR Book fell first into my hands on Ash-Wednesday after I came from Church and I was glad to think you had hit upon an absolute Cure of the Gout a demonstrative one at least as you please to call it
than nail d up Cannon and you see the following Sheets are an Attempt of an Ordinary fellow AN EXAMINATION OF A New Treatise OF THE GOUT SEmper ego auditor tantum nunquamne reponam Vexatus toties rauci Theseide Codri Or for our better understanding as Mr Dryden and I with a little liberty will sing it Still shall I hear and never quit the score Stunn'd with Colbatche ' s nonsence o're and o're I have been quiet these forty years because I was always hearing something that inform'd me but now to have Libels upon our learned Members by one who has not learn d his Institutions is insupportable and however he may be below their notice as he really is yet he cannot escape me who have been charm'd so long with their Learn ing But to do this as shortly as his want of method useless repetitions and ridiculous malice will allow me I will only consider the strength of his pretences and discover their weakness from such solid maxims as I have either heard or read that my Masters do suppose and reserving his Preface for mine the first thing we shall consider shall be his Introduction which I shou d take to be the most modest thing of the whole Book were it not that he pretends his principles are so very obvious that they are to be seen thorow by any body and yet they have been remov'd from the eye of Physicians The familiar experiment is That all Acids such as Oyl of Vitriol Oyl of Sulphur per cam panam Spirit of Nitre Spirit of Salt Vinegar c. being poured into Syrup of Violets in any aqueous Vehicle will immediately turn it from a Blue to a very Red Colour and as the Acid is more or less strong so will the Red Colour be of a deeper or paler Dye On the other hand all manifest Alkalies such as lixivious Salts all the volatile Spirits and Salts such as Spirit and Salt of Hartshorn Spirit and Salt of Sal Armoniac Salt of Vipers c. will turn the Syrup of Violets or a solution of it either in Spring Water or in any other aqueous Vehicle from a Blue into a Green Colour and as the Alkali is more or less strong so the Green Colour will be of a paler or a deeper Dye From this he concludes that if the Serum of the Blood change this solution of Syrup of Violets into a Red it must be Acid and if it changes it into a Green colour positively Alkalin and confirms this farther with a piece of Logick which shews sufficiently that he has nothing of the University breeding without his telling us so and notwithstanding the expence of Money he has been at in acquiring this Learning all he shews is the Ergo strangely brought in But pray Mr Member of the Royal Colledge of Physicians do you think that because you were an Apothecary and made up the Doctor 's Hysterical Juleps and Gargarisms and saw sometimes Spirit of Hartshorn added to the Waters which dissolv'd some of the Syrup of Violets or at other times Spirit of Vitriol Niter c. added to some such Tinctures and to make this Red or Green Colour Do you think I say that these Physicians had never seen these changes as well as you That must not be suppos d even among foreign Physicians for those and such as are dead or want a name you only are pleas'd to expose but how came it that they never fell upon this demonstration of yours surely 't is not so much out of reach but the reason you may have when I 'll show you immediately that you have discover'd nothing at all First some Physicians and those most Foreigners have said that the principles of mixt Bodies were an Acid and an Alkali tho they have had vast difficulties even to describe them so that we cou'd know what they wou'd be at and truly yours is no better for of all the mixt Bodies how many are there that will give your Water and Syrup of Violets a Red or a Green Colour not the thousandth part and consequently not the thousandth part of mixt Bodies are Acid or Alkalin or the thousandth part of mixt Bodies have no compounding Principles h. e. they are something and nothing Yet 't is very natural to think with one â—f my nam'd Masters that if Acids and Alkalies are the true Ingredients or Components of Bodies and that they concur as principles in their action and bear Contre-parts in this action then because the Influence of either upon the other may be augmented diminished or lost and this is to be faulty or vitious therefore or ergo t is evident that either of em may have its defects and consequently that the blame should not be laid upon one h. e. supposing the principle of Alkali and Acid Dr. Blankard and the Member are both wrong tho I confess if Acid and Alkali were any thing Dr. Blancard is most in the right for the serum of the Blood in the healthiest People makes either no such alterations of Red or Green and when it does in that circumstance 't is always to the Green and consequently the Blood in healthiest People is Alkalin and because that Constitution of the Blood that gives us Health can never be the same when we are Sick and since the Blood when we are in Health is Alkalin it must not be supposed so when we are sickly but rather something of a different and opposite temper and because that is to be Acid ergo our sicknesses do all proceed from an Acid according to Dr. Blankard against the Royal Member now hehimself has given judgment upon such ridiculous inferences as he makes that they ought to be kickt out of a Commonwealth for endeavouring to impose upon Mankind And truly this is the only thing in the whole Book he and I seem most agreed upon only I think we shou'd begin with him But supposing that that were an Acid which changes a solution of Syrup of Violets with Water into a red Colour and that an Alkali that changes it into Green and that all mixt bodies made those changes and none else h. e. let us have this Hypothesis in its best light yet it is so precarious and obscure that it cannot help us in the understanding one Phoenomenon we know not their properties and powers nay one of them he supposes more useless than a Cypher pray what knowledge can we attain to by knowing that a Triangle is a Figure that has three angles or a Chiliogonum has a thousand without knowing any of its properties and relation to other Figures in practice for the use of Man We don't apprehend by this that the three Angles of any Triangle are equal to two right Angles and that the whole thousand Angles in an Chiliogonum are but equal to four right Angles and much less do we gain all the advantages and knowledge that the Doctrine of plain and Spherical Trigonometry affords us by canvassing Triangles upon
charge the Head others the Liver and your Dear Friend Helmont the Stomach for troubling us with this Disease 't is below you to charge either But why did not you tell us who they were that accused the Liver and Head as well as him who accused the Stomach Was it that you do not know or is it that you 'l let the World see that your Devoirs are only paid to Truth and in that respect down must go Friend and Foe all alike very Ingenious indeed But how do you Refute those old Gentlemen your first Argument is from the general Disorders that precede a Fit Is this an Argument to make us fall upon our Friends Don't you know that a Fit of the Stone makes us vomit makes our Heads ach our Limbs as if they were paralitical makes us Feaverish dry and makes us sweat this is a pretty general piece of Disordor and pray you did any one carry the Stone further than the Kidneys Ureters or Bladder Again as you say afterwards an unclean Stomach makes Impure Chyle ill Chyle base Juices base Juices the Gout ergo an unclean Stomach makes the Gout Moreover do you know that for a long time the Blood the very Blood the Store-House of the other Juices was believ'd to be made in the Liver and if this be true as I doubt you can't prove the contrary we ought to go to the first thing since we are digging for the Fountain But still Malbranch another Friend of yours tells us that all Pain is in the Brain and not at all in any part because after a Man has lost his Leg he frequently puts down his Hand to scratch the Toe of that Leg that he had lopp'd off some time before and if so we ought to place our Disease in the Head 'T is evident that all these three cannot be the Original of this Disease and I don't tell you how far any of them are so All that I pretend to say is that any of those old Gentlemen may enjoy their Opinion notwithstanding this your first Argument and now we will see if the Second is any better and that is From the condition of the Blood and Juices during the time of the Fit Under which Head I shall make it appear that the Blood and Juices during the time of the Fit abound not with Acid Particles but on the contrary with Alkalious ones Ha! this a dangerous point to meddle with here comes in again the Infallible Experiments demonstaative Ergo's nay as he tells us afterwards as Demonstrative as any of Euclid s Propositions Is not this a rare Fellow A rare Promoter and Discoverer of Truth here 's a new one indeed the poor People before him never thought any piece of Learning so demonstrative as any of Euclid s Propositions take any of his and because You may have lookt over or overlookt the first Book take the 5th or Pythagoras's 48th and let us see the same certainty in your Argument as there is in any one of these you think the easiest and most uncertain I have made some considerable Doubts about your Demonstration but I cou'd never about his Demonstration in any of these following Propositions This second Branch he defers till afterwards and proceeds now to illustrate further his first Argument but instead of doing that begins already to be jealous of his Acids and Alkalies and leaving the Proof of this general Disorder or that such a Disorder is peculiar to this Disease as he ought to prove he only tells us that these disorders are different according to the different Constitutions and then going to tell us that Alkalies are always the cause of Feavers but never Acids he falls again into a mad Fit could he think that the old Gentlemen were to be justled our of their Seats by so small a touch tho' he thought he had set them upon rotten Chairs altogether fit for that purpose I dont know how much in the right or in the wrong any body supposes them to be but 'm sure every body will say that you never attempt to destroy their Opinions otherways than by an old trick of your own a positive Assertion which is not only unmannerly enough and like a young University Man but you are even pleas'd to grace such Assertions with the Title of Demonstration and you won't stop there neither but they are as evident as Euclid's Demonstrations But again I 'll suppose that you understand the Business of Constitutions and that a Feaver is always one of those general Disorders how the Devil came in Acids and Alkalies in the proof of general Disorders proceeding a Fit of the Gout you did always and evidently prove that the Juices and Juices alone were the source of the Disease but if you think that you had made a cunning Retreat into your Circle 't is done so ill that I will not follow you at this time your safety there after what has been said in the Introduction being sensible and obvious even to your self but we shall have an occasion afterwards to talk upon this matter Only I must tell you that I ll always suppose after this that 't is the damn d Alkalies that makes all the Fermentations and that the Acids check them and I do assure you that this Foundation will go a great way against you Your History Sir which you now begin very abruptly and like an ill Taylor sowing together two pieces of Cloath you joyn things very scurvily you follow Dr. Sidenham close but you bring him in by the Head and Shoulders I told you before I had nothing to say to that great Man and therefore I 'll begin with another Botch of yours after you have done with him where p. 23. § ult you are so afraid of your Alkaline Particles that you carry them always in your Pocket lest at any time you might misplace them and just after you have ended Dr. Sydenham's History you begin so The Blood abounding with too great a quantity of Alkalious Particles is the general Cause of this Distemper in order to which there are several other things which concur As first c. Is not this handsomly added to the Tail of your History but these things you dispise that is an University Gloss yet even that is necessary for those that would play the plagiary and not be so easily discovered for whether I ever had read Dr. Sydenham or not I must see this is a Wen in your Book but you being too wise to be instructed and I seeking information every where and thinking to find it with you who are a promoter of new Truths one who would have the World to take nothing upon your Authority but Demonstrates every thing I intend to try if I can discover any greater certainty in your concurring Causes than I have found in the rest But to begin I think a way of Aphorism in tbis matter wou'd have becom d your asserting design better than to tell us you are to say
nothing without a Reason and at the same time not one reason you give for any thing First say you too moist a State of Air which hinders free Transpiration by which means the Excrementitious Alkaline parts which should be thrown out by the Cutaneous Pores are retained and the quantity c. Now since you are talking of Magick pray tell me dear good Learned Member of the Royal College who it is that manages matters so exactly within that only these Excrementitious Alkalies are thrown out and why not rather the Acids who you say are sharp half Pikes Spades and Mattocks surely I wou d think that a Body of armed Men are better for breaking into an Encampment that I may speak so since you have brought those fine words out of Flanders than a parcel of Boors sluggards and heavy fellows that have no Arms at all besides a Master of mine in a Latin Book of his treating about this business of perspiration as he calls it thinks it a strange Paradox to assert that the heaviest Bodies are easiest mov'd or to your understanding that the most Volatile things are the least apt to rise or be sublim'd and the most earthly things the easiest but to say no more of this Paradoxical nonsense I must tell you that perhaps the Transpiration is not so free in moist as it is in clear weather yet you give us no reason for it on the contrary because you are a wonderful fellow at experiments I 'le tell you that the Transpiration ought to be more free in moist weather than in clear if you 'll only grant me that if there are two fellows meeting at a Door and by plain force the one keeps the other not only out but makes his way forward too this fellow is to be thought the strongest now only grant me this and then I 'le add that because you say in clear weather our steems can get clear thorow the pores these doors of our Skin that they 'll much more easily get through in moist weather because by a certain experiment which at this time shall be nameless the Air is a great deal heavier justles more and presles against our departing steems with greater force than when it is moist You see now How well you demonstrate I have no time to insist upon your Prophane and ill made parallel that follows neither much to the second Article since you neither prove why variety of Meats or a great deal of any one sort is hurtful and again you make a most experimental paralel betwixt the Stomach and the Root of a Tree It may be good Enthusiasm but 't is far from a Man of so nice experiments as you pretend to be The third concurring cause is astonishing but especially for the wonderful way you have in managing it we must drink Wine and not drink it We must not drink it because the Spirits of the Wine meeting with the Volatile Alkalious salt of the Blood by a mutual combination of them they are turn'd into Helmont's Offa abba which can by no means Circulate with the Blood I can smell the Experiment this your assertion depends upon but I 'le tell you that it wants a little Laboratory-work before that is done for especially you ought not to have talk'd of Wine but Spirit of Wine which has other affections properties and powers than Wine it self then you ought to prove that this Alkalious salt is so plentiful and in so great an abundance in the Blood and I peremptorily challenge you to answer me upon all the integrity you have left you whether or no you can by the help of your Fire show me a real volatile Salt or Spirit from any kind of sickly for out of healthy Blood is allow'd to be impossible Blood new let out of the Vessel without any sort of Digestion and if this be but true your reason will not debar us from drinking of Wine but again you say that Wine drank in any great quantity makes them lose their Tensity and if so they are more Relax and when they are more Relax they are in the circumstances you place them when they are to be the Instruments of our pleasure but at this time they are the Causes of the Gout and before of pleasure and therefore Wine must not be drank because it makes the Gout a pleasure or a pleasant delightful desirable Gout O brave Member Is this the result of your reasoning Yet 't is not fair dealing to remember what was said a Page or two before and therefore I 'll leave this part and see why we must drink it a small quantity of Wine saith the Member drank at convenient seasons doth raise the Spirits and invigorate the Nerves Now supposing all this to be true how are the Vinous Spirits hindred and kept from combining and taking counsel with the Alkalious Particles so as not to make that damnable immoveable Offa Alba they will not do it now because you will not have it so but you are so fond of this Tensity and Relaxation that nothing can be more must I tell you that I 'm told because I 'm no Book Learned Gentleman that this was an oversight of Des Cartes's and perhaps you have seen it in Malbranch they tell you indeed that a Rope stretch'd and bent a hundred Yards in length cannot be struck at one end but 't will move at the other yet can any Man be so blind but he must see that this is not the condition of the Nerves for they are seen no where to be so but just where they come out of the Brain but if you will try an Experiment that will come nearer the Condition of the Nerves take a Rope of what length you please nail it hard to a Beam then stretch it out in a Spiral or any other Figure half a Foot more then nail it again at the end of that half Foot and so all a long 'till you have nail d Forty Yards if you will that this may be liker the Nerves implanted so firmly in Muscles that they make but one Substance only I must desire you to leave a Yard or a Yard and a half after the last nailing fitted with a Nooze for your Neck then go in and swing so long that one that you may think a fair judge may cut you down when he observes the end that was first nailed begin to move vibrillat and shake then indeed when you give me an account of this Experiment you shall be allow'd to talk of Tensity and Relaxation as you think fit Fourthly say you the immoderate use of venereal exercises for that it spendeth the Spirits and decayeth Natural heat and so procureth a weakness to all the parts of the Body c. Good Member if I had but time and patience enough I cou'd show you that there is not one sentence in this whole Paragraph that 's either consistent and agreeable not only with common Sense but ev'n your self too yet not to pass it