fluid so that they make another form of Mixture and unite among themselves into the resemblance of a Milky Cream after which together with the thicker Mass with which they are yet involved by the Constriction of the Stomach they pass down to the Guts where by the Mixture of the Bile and Pancreatick Juice they are by another manner of Fermentation quite separated from the thicker Mass and so are received by the Lacteal Vessels as the thicker is ejected by stool After the purer part of the Chyle hath been thus strained thorough the narrow and oblique Pores of the Milky Veins by the continual and peristaltick motion of the Intestines it is yet further attenuated and diluted with a very thin and clear Lympha from the Glands of the Mesentery to expedite its passage through those Numerous Meanders into the common Receptacle from whence by the constant supply of such like Lympha from the small Glands of the Thorax it is safely conveyed through the Ductus Chyliferus Thoracicus subclavian Vein and the Vena Cava into the Heart The Chyle now mingled with the Blood passeth with it through the Arterys of the whole Body and returns again with the Blood by the Veins to the Heart undergoing many Circulations before it can be Assimilated to the Blood for every time the new infused Chyle passeth through the Heart with the Blood the Particles of the one are more intimately mixed with those of the other in its Ventricles and the Vital Spirit and other active Principles of the Blood work upon the Chyle which being full of Salt Sulphur and Spirit as soon as its Compages is loosned by its Fermentation with the Blood the Principles having obtained the Liberty of Motion do readily associate themselves and are Assimilated with such parts of the Blood as are of a like and suitable Nature After the Chyle hath been thus Elaborated it becomes fit as well to recruit the Mass of Blood as to Nourish the whole Body seeing it consists of divers Principles and Parts of a different Nature therefore according to the various Use and Necessity of every Part and also that it may conform and fashion it self to the different Pores and Passages so it is severally appropriated the most volatile and subtil part is separated in the Brain and adapted to refresh the Animal Spirits the Glutinous to nourish the Body and the Sulphureous to revive the Native Heat And in its passage with the Blood through all the parts of the body all the mass of Chyle that is capable of being turned into Blood is sanguified the serous and saline part precipitated by the Kidneys and evacuated by Sweats or insensible Transpiration the Bilious is deposited in the Liver and the rest of its Excrements retire to the several Emunctorys of the Body Thus it comes to pass by the wonderful Sagacity of Nature such extraordinary Provision is made that the purer part of the Chyle by these ways and means is more purified and when it is thus purified and sublimed it is more capable of reinforcing the Blood and Spirits as also of corroborating the Tone of every particular Part Whereas when the Chyle is sowre and dispirited the blood necessarily becomes vappid the Animal Spirits that reside in the System of the Nerves are infected with a Morbid Disposition and all parts of the Body begin to flag and waste For indeed there is no other way to recruit the dayly Expence of Blood and Spirits but by a continual Influx of laudable Chyle into the blood-vessels which Chyle is made by the Fermentative Juice of the Stomach and this Fermentative Juice supplyed from the Mass of Blood so that there plainly appears to be a fixt Correspondence betwixt the Blood and Chyle and a necessary Dependance all the Humours in the Habit of the Body have on the Stomach from whence it is reasonable to infer That if the Chylifying Faculty of the stomach be depraved the Blood and Humours must necessarily sympathize therewith and in a manner proportionable to the Distemper of this part The immediate Cause of a Consumption of the Lungs is store of sharp malignant waterish Humours continually distilling upon the soft spongy Substance of the Lungs stuffing inflaming impostumating and exulcerating them whereby their Action which is Respiration or a receiving in and driving forth Air is depraved as will more clearly appear by the following Description of these Parts It may not be impertinent to our Discourse if we should usher in the Description of the Lungs with a short account of the Trachea Aspera Arteria or Wind-pipe The Trachea or Aspera Arteria is a long Pipe consisting of Cartilages and Membranes which beginning at the Throat or lower part of the Jaws and lying upon the Gullet descends into the Lungs through which it spreads into many Branchings and is commonly divided into two parts the Larynx and Bronchus the Larynx is the upper part of the Wind-pipe the Bronchus is all the Trachea besides the Larynx as well before as after it arrives at the Lungs The Substance of the Lungs is soft spongy and rare curiously compacted of most thin and fine Membranes continued with the Ramifications of the Trachea or Wind-pipe which Membranes compose an infinite number of little round and hollow Vesicles or Bladders so placed as that there is an open Passage from the Branches of the Aspera Arteria out of one into another and all terminate at the outer Membrane that investeth the whole Lungs These little Bladders by help of their muscular Fibres contract themselves in Expiration and are dilated in Inspiration partly by the pressure of the Atmosphere and partly by the Elastick power of the Air insinuating it self into these Vesicles through the Wind-pipe and its several branches Their Lobes are two the right and left parted by the Mediastinum each of which is divided into many lesser Lobules according to the Ramifications of the Aspera Arteria they have all sorts of Vessels that are common to them with other parts as Arterys Veins Nerves Lympheducts but peculiar to themselves they have their Bronchia or the Branches of the Wind-pipe for bringing in and carrying forth Air so necessary to Life that we cannot Live without it And when we consider their admirable Structure as well as the structure of every individual part of our Body how ought we to Adore the infinite Wisdom of our Creator Now when these small Vesicles or Bladders are repleat with Extravasated Serum or purulent Matter the Natural Tone of the Lungs is so weakned that we cannot enjoy the Benefit of free and full Respiration hard scirrhous Tumours or Tubercles are bred attended with a dry and troublesome Cough Oppression of the Breast difficult and short Breathing preternatural Heats Exulcerations and other deplorable Symptoms according to the Degrees of Obstruction and different Nature of the included Humours The External Procatartick Cause of a Consumption of the Lungs is cold Particles of Air constipating the Pores
as well as Charges and render their Lives comfortable to themselves and serviceable to others The Warmness of these Medicines which is the only Objection that ever I met with in the use of them is so far from being a real Discouragement as that upon serious and judicious Considerations it becomes a Notable Argument to enforce the taking of them for otherwise they would be too weak to engage the Original Cause of Hectick burning and Putrid Feavers whereas by this active Principle of Heat they work so effectually upon the whole mass of Chyle as to separate the sharp and dispirited from the Nutritious Particles thereof thoroughly insinuate themselves into all the Avenues of the Adversary cut and divide the tough viscous Humours that distemper the Veins Arteries and Nerves destroy the Acidity of the Nervous Juice recover the Natural Temper of the Animal Spirits sweeten the mass of Blood by separating the Impurities thereof by the Cutaneous Glands gently forcing a Transpiration of the Feaverish Particles of the whole and so banish that Preternatural Heat which is Proof to all common Remedies And that Diseases which carry in their outward appearance a shew of preternatural Heat are thus to be treated with warm Medicines is indeed observable to every discerning Eye For the most malignant Feavers are attackt and conquered by the briskest and warmest Alexipharmacks and the most violent Erysipelas or St. Anthony's Fire is discussed and breathed out by strong and Spirituous Fomentations but are both of them exasperated by refrigerating or cooling Medicines and their preternatural Heat more and more increased till the one at length terminates in the cold sweats of Death and the other in a compleat Mortification To multiply Instances of this kind is remote from my intended brevity therefore take this remarkable one for all The Wife of Mr. Fowles who belongs to the Mint in the Tower of London in the beginning of November 1695. sent for me to open a Vein after a lamentable Complaint that she was nothing the better but the worse for all the Physick she had taken I took leave wishing her to Exercise Patience and continue in the use of those things the Dr. had prescribed though I also told her if she found no Benefit I would do her all the Service I could if she sent for me About the middle of January following she did send for me again and told me Dr. H. her Physician and Mr. W. Apothecary had given her over therefore desired some Assistance according to my Promise I found her in a very low Condition under a Hectick Feaver troublesome Cough tedious Asthma Colliquative Loosness with a Complication of Convulsive and Epileptick Fits of which she had sometimes to the Number of Eighteen or Twenty in a day Total Deprivation of Appetite having for some Months together received no other sustenance from Food than what a Glass of Sack with a Toast afforded whereby all the Parts of her Body were wasted and consumed to the highest degree of a Marasmus that ever I saw resembling a walking Ghost or a perfect Skeleton invested with nothing but Skin For my part I was not very forward to do any thing fearing a few days would put a period to her Life neither indeed was the Season any ways inviting However the good Opinion she was pleased to entertain of my Endeavours encouraged me more than I could her and with the Blessing of God on both Method and Medicines without any assistance from the Bark or Mineral Waters she was quite freed from her Hecticd Heat her Fits abated almost every day her Stomach returned her Bones wire cloathed with Flesh and her Strength so far recruited as that she was able to walk several Miles together without a Supporter though she could not exchange the unwholsome foggy Tower Air at this time more than ordinarily polluted with store of nasty black Particles from the smoak of Coals for the fresh clear Country Breezes till the latter end of Summer Before and since this prosperous Event I have given these Remedies to others and taken them my self several hundreds of times and have always found then Operations in offensive for the most part successful and sometimes wonderful FINIS
of the Body whereby the Serum which ought to expedite the Motion and temperate the Heat of the Blood is separated from it and thrown upon the Glands of the Larynx and the spongy substance of the Lungs themselves For as the Lympha furthers the Motion of the Chyle so the Serum accelerates the Circulation of the Blood being carryed about with it through the smallest Capillary Vessels and remotest parts of the Body least it should be inflamed with a burning Heat or stagnate by excessive thickness during which circular motion they are both called by the same common Name but when some Portion of Serum is separated from the mass of blood and retreats to some one or more of the Emunctorys according to their various Dispositions it derives a Name from those particular Parts on which it seizeth as when it distils upon the Eyes we call it Opthalmia when upon the Nose Coryza and when upon the Thorax it goes by the proper Name of a Catarrh Now for as much as there is nothing makes a Separation of the blood more commonly than the want of usual Transpiration so nothing more conduceth to the Preservation of Health than that the Pores of the Body should continually let forth the hot Steams and Vapours that arise from the Ebullition of the blood but when after taking Cold the Skin and Habit of the body are on a suddain stopped up that the sulphureous and waterish Excrements of the blood cannot pass through the Pores they are again resorbed into the Mass of Blood from whence proceeds a Feaverish Disposition and unless they are carryed off by Stool or precipitated by the Kidneys are sometimes translated to the Glandulous Parts of the Lungs where by Degrees contracting more and more Heat and Sharpness they inflame and exulcerate these tender parts Nevertheless though a Consumption of the Lungs is sometimes thus caused by taking Cold yet this comes to pass but seldom unless in such Bodys whose mass of blood being rendered Cachectick through frequent Influxes of dispirited Chyle is predisposed to receive and unable to free it self from this New Influx of Catarrhous rheum For suppose two Persons in like manner deprived of the benefit of usual Transpiration by some great Cold which though troublesome in the beginning because of a violent and continual Distillation of Extravasated Serum upon the Glandulous Coat of the Wind-pipe and other adjacent Glands yet in the one of these it survives not the accidental Feaverish Disposition of the Blood occasioned by the stoppage of the Pores For as soon as the Ferment ceaseth the separated humours partly for want of a new Influx of Serum and partly by the Natural Heat of these parts are concocted into a thick sort of Phlegm and coughed up after the Expectoration of which separated Serum the Glandulous parts presently recover their Natural Tone without any Remains of a Tumour Cough Shortness of Breath or other Inconvenience but in the other this Feaverish Ferment occasioned by taking Cold is not transitory but so Habitually fixed by means of some previous Indisposition as to increase the Effervescence and colliquation of the Blood and Spirits from whence all the Glands which are seated in the upper part of the Larynx as also the Glandulous Coat of the Wind-pipe it self are overflown with a Deluge of hot distempered Humours the substance of the Lungs distended with hard Tumours the Branches of the Wind-pipe comprest and the Wind-pipe it self from these Swellings irritated to Cough by a continual tickling which promotes a frequent spewing out of hot sharp Humours all along the Aspera Arteria till at length these Tubercles growing very large begin to inflame and suppurate immediately upon the breaking or opening of those Apostemes sometimes such a flood of corrupted Matter is poured out of their Baggs or Cavitys into the Branches of the Trachea as compleatly suffocates and choaks the Patient but at other times this Purulent Matter mixt with streaks of Blood and some thin Phlegm that is continually discharged from the Glandulous Coat of the Wind-pipe is coughed up by degrees and then this deplorable Case requires Specifick Medicines to cleanse and heal these Ulcers Such kind of Consumptions whose Original is store of malignant acrimonious Humours which are most apt to inflame and putrifie may be termed Acute when compared to others that proceed from Humours more mild and benign There may be likewise some difference made by omitting Bleeding and committing some egregious Errors in Dyet Exercise Passions of the Mind or any other of the Non-Naturals However all Consumptions of the Lungs ought to be reckoned in the number of Chronical Distempers because they are contracted and augmented by degrees and no other way to be remedied yet this doth not prove them incurable in their own Nature for Reason and Experience both teach the contrary And indeed I must confess it was from the marvelous Success of these Remedies that I first imbibed this Notion viz. Ulcers of the Lungs are in themselves curable Sometimes a Feaver or other Acute Distemper may be jugulated when either Nature or Art carrys off the Morbifick Matter by a suddain Crisis or plentiful Evacuation but all hopes of dispatching a confirmed Consumption of the Lungs instantly are groundless seeing many inveterate Obstructions must be removed abundance of tough glutinous Humous attenuated and evacuated the whole Mass of Blood and Spirits rectified the Habit of the Body meliorated and the Tone of Several parts recovered before we can eradicate this fixed Distemper What will be the Issue and Result of this Consumptive Disease may rationally be prognosticated from its several Stages or Degrees For when the Mass of Blood by a continual Influx of sowre dispirited Chyle is reduced to a sharp and Hectical state and the Serum which is separated from this corrupted Blood only stuffs the Bladders and Glandules which are dispersed through the body of the Lungs this Distemper may be said to be in its Infancy or beginning and if soveraign Remedies were then presented they might obtain an easie Conquest but the increase is attended with a greater Distention of the Glands and Bladders as also an Inflammation of these Tubercles tending to suppuration For when the Animal Spirits which are necessary to the Natural Fermentation of the Blood are vitiated with unwholesome Particles of a Foggy and thick Air and the Humour which for a long time hath been contained in the Baggs or Cavitys of the Lungs is over-heated by some extraordinary Ebullition or Fermentation of the Blood with a total suppression of Expectoration the Cough becomes more violent the Feaver inflammatory and all parts more tabid In its further progress or state all Symptoms advance apace towards their Extremity Suppuration now succeeds the Inflammation of these Tubercles for that the Purulent Matter is either breeding or already made the Inflammatory Hectick is changed into a putrid Intermitting Feaver attended with an Universal Colliquation of the Nutritious Juices and plentiful Separation