way from whence we have a little erred seing that the vitiated Tone may hurt as we have said the internal actions it doth not properly belong to that kind of Symptom which is wont to be called by the name of a changed quality Thirdly we say That this vitiated Tone seing it is neither a Morbifical caus nor a Symptom and yet is somthing preternatural must needs be the Diseas it self Moreover the same is clearly proved by the very definition of a Diseas For this vitiated Tone is a preternatural Constitution primarily or immediatly hurting the internal action therfore it is a Diseas For to what the definition is competible to that also the thing defined is competible That it is a preternatural Constitution is manifest by this because it is inherent in the solid parts of the body that it likewise depraveth the Internal actions is manifest from hence because an extream laxity lubricity and flaccidity of the parts being granted presently the agility is weakned no other cause approaching and a certain sluggishness deadeth the irritation of the vital Spirits In agility the matter is plain seing that firm and stretched bodies other things being answerable are more active and so on the contrary that the same thing also happeneth in the dulness of the irritation shal be shewed in its place for the present we labor to prove no other thing then that the vitiated Tone in this affect is a Diseas We say fourthly That this vitiated Tone in this Diseas is not any simple affect having an existence apart by it self but that it is so conjoyned and compounded in those same parts with the primary Essence that the whole Essence of the Diseas wherof we dispute may be said to consist of many Diseases united together in themselvs indeed simple if they be considered asunder and therfore that the vitiated Tone is only a part of the whol Diseas And this needeth no other proof then because the first Essence proposed above and the said vitiated Tone are both found in those same parts For that is properly called a compound Diseas which is produced by many simple Diseases conjoyned in the same Part. Fifthly We affirm that the vitiated Tone is not only a part of the whole Essence but such a part as hath some dependance upon the primary Essence and therfore that it is a secondary part of the Essence Before we proceed to the proof of this Proposition two grants or concessions are to be premised We grant first That the said Tone may be even immediatly vitiated in other causes perhaps and likewise by other causes although that happen not in this present Diseas For the inherent Tone of the Parts may be primarily loosned in the Animal Constitution and that suddenly as may be observed in the dead Palsy For the natural tensity and not the Animal only of the Paralytical member is loosned and indeed suddenly without any conspicuous intervention of any part of the aforesaid primary Essence After the same manner in a Lipothymy or defection of the mind loosness and languishing suddenly attatcheth al the parts Now we cannot in either of these two causes refer the cause of the loosness to the cold and moist distemper of the natural Constitution seeing that cannot be so suddenly and so sensibly changed Which let them consider that we may give warning of it by the way who wil have these common qualities to be always second and dependent upon the first alone yea on the other side let them in that cause observe how a cold and moist distemper doth afterwards by degree follow that loosness suddenly introduced Again as for the flaccidity of the parts that may be immediatly produced by large evacuations as a flux of the belly sweatings and the like immoderate vents the temperament being not yet considerably changed although we deny not but this may easily and doth usually follow Moreover an internal lubricity may be manifestly separated from coldness though very difficultly from moisture Secondly We grant that in the present Diseas the vitiated Tone doth not in any manner depend upon the first admitted Essence nor that in every respect is subordinate unto it For first the qualities of the Tone here vitiated do also ow somwhat to common causes namely to themselves and also to those that are common to the first granted Essence For extream moistening things by one and the same operation are apt to produce both too much moisture and also loosness In like manner from violent evacuations a want of Spirits and withal a witheredness doth arise Also from things too too slippery either outwardly administred or inwardly tataken or both an internal lubricity is augmented together with a moist distemper For there is so great a connexion of the whole Essence hitherto propounded with the common causes that there is scarce any thing which doth augment the first essence of the Diseas but at the same time more or less it hath an influence upon the vitiated Tone These things bring granted We say notwithstanding that in the present affect there is a very great dependance of the vitiated Tone upon the first Essence of this Diseas for which respect alone we have here referred the vitiated Tone to the secondary Essence If any list to contend That the said Tone in another respect may relate more clearly to the Secondary Essence because he may imagine that the primary Essence of every Diseas is necessarily similary and perpetually grounded upon the first qualities alone or because he may conceive that the qualities wherein the Tone consisteth are perpetually secondary and that they follow the first only as the shadow doth the Sun that man may take notice that we purposely decline such questions least we should straggle into an unwarrantable digression It remaineth therefore only that we prove the Dependance of the vitiated Tone upon the first Essence of this Diseas to be very great and that we shal do by parts We wil begin at the laxity We grant indeed that a laxity may be somtimes suddenly produced and in that cause a moyst distemper may often follow upon it Namely when the laxity primarily dependeth upon the fault either of the Animal or Vital Constitution but in this Diseas seing that neither the Animal nor the Vital Constitution are primarily affected there is a necessity that it must flow from other causes Moreover such is the condition of laxity and tensity that they are obnoxious to sudden alterations For the strings of a Lute may almost in a moment be stretched and loosned again the same thing likewise from some causes befalleth the Fibers of the Parts But in this affect the laxity stealeth on by degrees and slowly therfore necessary it is that it must begin be ruled and moderated by some caus leisurely and slowly augmented Although therfore we granted even now that the laxity doth own somwhat to the common causes of the Diseas yet the augmentation therof is chiefly restrained and moderated by
the primary Essence of this Diseas For moistning Medicines although they loosen withal yet they scarce loosen more than they moisten becaus for the most part they loosen by moistning Seing therfore that the common causes of this Diseas do flow into the Tone chiefly by the Mediation of the first Essence of this Diseas And seing that neither the Animal nor the Vital Constitution can here supply the vertue of a caus we may Lawfully infer that the laxity of the Tone doth chiefly depend upon the first Essence of the Diseas This is further confirmed there is of it self a certain proness and tendency of the Body to be through wet so that the fibers of the parts must needs be loosned by it Moreover the defect of the Spirits and the stupefaction of them doth caus a remission of the Tone by diminishing the vigor of the part Therfore we may conclude that the Diseas laxity principally dependeth upon the primary Essence of the Diseas As for the flaccidity because it comprehendeth the laxity it springeth from the same causes as that doth but in as much as it includeth also a subsidence and a certain emptiness it evidently dependeth upon the defect and benummedness of the inherent Spirits the plenty and vigor whereof being augmented the lank and flagging member is easily rendred turgid and swelled In the interim we deny not but that that subsidence doth withal depend upon the extenuation and atrophy of the parts Lastly How the slipperiness doth proceed from these causes is sufficiently manifested by what hath been said above That we may at the length put a period to this matter it may be observed for the higher confirmation of those things already spoken that there is such a strict dependance between the Tone and the first granted Essence that throughout the whol cure of the Diseas they are intended remitted together almost in equal pace For at firstthe Children that are afflictedwith this affect do only go slowly leisurely whilst the Tone of the parts is yet but a little loosned but in the progress they scarce and with much ado trust to their feet then they play only sitting or as thay are carried about Afterwards they can scarce sit upright and at the last when the Diseas hath attained the highest exaltation the feeble neck cannot without much difficulty support the burden of the head all which things as they attest the primary Essence of the Diseas to be gradually augmented so also they make it manifest that the vices of the Tone are intended by an equal pace And so all these things being rightly weighed we refer the viciated Tone to the secondary not the primary Essence of this affect and by consequence we conclude indeed the thing that was in question that that depraved Tone is a secondary part of the Essence of this Diseas CHAP. VIII The Secondary Essence of this Disease in the Vital constitution WE have already propounded that part of the Secondary Essence of this Diseas which is radicated in the natural constitution in as much as it comprehendeth the common qualities it remaineth now that we examin the organical vices and the faults of continuity if any such be found out But seing that no proper faults of continuity do accur in this affect and seing that the organical vices do depend partly upon the Essence above given and partly upon the vital constitution being viciated it seems necessary in the next place to search into these faults of the vital constitution The vital constitution is aptly distinguished into the original or that which maketh an influx and the participative or that which is produced by that influx The subject of the original vital constitution are the Spirits themselvs excited in the blood of the Arteries You will say The heart rather seemeth to be the subject of this constitution But it is not so for the heart it self through the coronary Arteries receiveth the vital Spirits brought down with the Arterious blood from its left Ventricle But it is absurd to suppose the wals of the Heart to be the first subject of the vital heat and in the mean time for those to receiv that heat from the Arteries We must say therfore that the solid substance of the heart is indeed the first principal subject of his natural and inherent constitution but seing that receiveth the Vital Spirits as hath been said it cannot be accounted the first subject of the Vital Constitution which is imprinted in it by those Spirits and continueth no longer than the substance of the Heart is shedded and besprinkled with the Vital Spirits For neither can life subsist in any place without the Vital Spirit Wherfore the substance of the Heart doth so far participat of the Vital constitution as it is wash'd and bedew'd with the Vital Spirits and by Consequence thaâ— Constitution in the substance of the heart is not original or influent but participative or produced by that influx This is also confirmed in that becaus the vital heat of the blood in the hollow Parts or Ventricls of the Heart which heat is at least a part of the Vital Constitution is for greater and more intensiv than that which is within the wals of the Heart as any man may observ by the opening of the Bodyes of living Creatures the Ventricle of the heart being wounded and the Finger presently thrust in For he shall feel a far more augmented heat in the blood than in the very substance of the Ventricle however it be handled Moreover the vital Constitution is a thing transient and consisteth as the Phylosophers Phras is in motu fieri therfore it is rooted In the movable and decaying Spirits such as the Vitals which are contained in the Arterious Blood for som Member being cut off the Life vanisheth almost in a moment and by Consequence the vital constitution but the natural as we have already insinuated continueth though not in such an exaltation as when the Vital remaineth for a while after death And indeed the Life and the Vital constitution is suddenly taken away in the case aforesaid not by any positive contrary Cause But by a meer privation of the Conservant and Continent CAUSE This is most evidently confirmed because the Vital constitution is suddenly intended remitted and altered in al the parts in respect of the model or measure of the Vital Constitution excited in the Ventricles of the Heart so in a Lipothymy the heart fainting the life of the parts presently vanisheth at last languisheth but assoon as the Ventricles of the heart are refreshed with Spirits by some proper cordial applications straight way we behold the vital Constitution to be suddenly in some measure repaired in all the Parts In the suppression of the breath sudden death followeth the torrent of the vital Blood from the right to the left Ventricle being intercepted In the opening of a Vein or in any other immoderate profusion of Blood there happeneth a swouning by the sole
concerning the Animal faculty and otherwise expounding the matter do substitute a somwhat different description we thought good to offer both to the Readers consideration According to the former and vulgarly received opinion and description of the Animal faculty the animal constitution is that affection of the Body which consisteth in the generation and due motion of the Animal Spirits Now by the due motion of the Animal Spirits they understand the excursion of them from the Brain thorow the Nerves like lightning and again their recourse back to the Brain whereby they declare unto it what is perceived by the Organs of the outward Senses Others as we have said do otherwise explicate this matter They grant indeed that the Animal constitution doth include the generation and destribution of the Animal Spirits but they say that that swift motion of the Flux and Reflux of the Animal Spirits like lightning is inconceivable in the Nerves and if it be not unprofitable yet certainly it is very little necessary to establish the animal faculty But instead of this they substitute in time of waking a certain contractive motion of a moving endeavor of the very substance of the Brain of the Spinal Marrow of the Nerves arising from thence and of the parts into which they are destributed And this motion or endeavor produceth say they a certain Tensity in the aforesaid parts by whose force all the alterations imprinted in those parts by any objects are communicated to the Brain For as in a Harp when the strings are stretched to a just pitch if they be stricken in the most gentle manner at either end that motion in a moment at least a Physical one runneth to the other end so they likewise affirm that any Nerve being moved which is duly stretched without the Skull that motion is extended to the Brain it self by reason of the continuity and Tensity of the said parts and there fixeth a certain impression conformable to the caus thereof But in time of sleep they suppose the Brain the Spinal marrow and some of the Nerves to be somwhat loosned And indeed they say perpetually and simply that the foremost connexions of the Spinal Marrow with the Brain remain loos continually during sleep but they grant that the hindermost connexions with the Cerebethi are somwhat extended as in Night-walkers and so by that means they do in some sort discern outward objects but they judg not of them by common sense but as it were reflected from the memory to the Fantasie Neither do they suppose it necessary that all the inferior parts of the Spinal Marrow and therfore the Nerves from thence proceeding should be perpetually loosned during sleep seeing that most Birds sleep standing upon their feet seing that respiration in time of sleep doth presuppose the Tensity of some Nerves and lastly seing where sleep first steals in the uppermost Nerves are wholly loosned before the neathermost As for Dreams they conceive that they proceed from a various and chanceable agitation and commixture of divers impressions treasured up in the memory which are now again freshly perceived by reason of a retained Tensity in som parts of the Brain But when in deep and profound sleeps no dreams are represented then they say that the whol Brain is loosned Now whether the former opinion or this latter be most agreeable to truth for the present we do not much care Neither do we here undertake to determine this Controversie seing that the Animal faculty doth exercise his function both waies from the same causes and that the secondary vice doth happen by this affect in the Animal Constitution almost after the same manner For first as for the generation of the Animal Spirits whether the former or the latter opinion be true it wil be all one becaus we find no fault in the Brain unless perhaps some other Diseas be conjoyned wherin each opinion supposeth the Animal Spirits to be generated For we have shewed above that the Head ought not to be numbred among the first affected Parts and that the internal and proper actions therof are not viciated in this Diseas Then secondly As for the destribution of the Animal Spirits whether it be perfected backwards and forwards by that rapid and sudden motion like lightning or by a motion only made forwards and that too gentle and slow commonly the same fault occurreth in this Diseas For first Seing that that supposed rapid motion of the Animal Spirits is caused by their passage into the first affected Parts namely through the Spinal Martow without the Skul through the Nerves from thence proceeding and through the parts into which those Nervs are destributed and seing that all these parts in this affect do labor with a cold distemper with a paucity and dulness of inherent Spirits the due swiftness of that motion must needs be somwhat retarded For a cold distemper as also a benummedness and penury of Spirits are repugnant to any motion excepting a constrictive some may say that the opinion propounded in the first place doth suppose a wonderful activity and subtilty of the Animal Spirits wherby they can easily overcome this repugnance But however it may be seing that the parts react through which the Spirits have their passage and labor to communicate their coldness and dulness to them they must needs in some degree retard that activity of the Spirits lessen their subtilty and somwhat intercept that expedite transition Wherfore this opinion being supposed as true the Animal Constitution will be viciated in this affect in regard of the retundation of that motion of the Spirits And that secondarily seing that this motion is not interrupted by the primary fault of the Animal Spirits but by the fault of the first affected Parts as hath been said in like manner in the Opinion last proposed wherin the motion of the Spirits is supposed to be peaceable and gentle they must needs whilst they are somwhat slowly transmitted through the first affected parts contract some viciosity from the depraved inherent Constitution of those parts for the same Reasons which we alleaged in the Question immediatly preceding It will be therfore according to this Opinion also a Secondary vice in the destribution of the Animal Spirits Again As for the Tensity of the very substance of the Brain of the Spinal Marrow of the Nerves and the Nervous parts in time of waking which is supposed in the latter Opinion before propounded there must needs be some defect of a due Tensity in the Spinal Marrow without the Skull in the Nerves arising from thence and in the parts unto which they are destributed For first A cold and moist distemper is repugnant and advers to that due Tensitiy so also is that dulness and penury of inherent Spirits wherwith the Parts are without controversie rendred slothful and less apt to perform the Animal Actions the contrary wherof happeneth when the aforesaid parts obtain their due Tensity Secondly It is manifest by what
sawed thorow in a circular Figure and the little cover being removed we have observed these things 1 The Dura Mater hath been more firme and adhered to the Skul in more places then is usual in men of ripe years perhaps the same may be observed in other Children not affected with this evil although as we suppose not in so great a manner for certain it is That in new born Infants there are many and straight connexions between the Pericranian and the Dura Mater which are afterwards broken off and are scarce discernable 2 In some Bodies that we have dissected between the Dura and the Pia mater and in the very ventricles of the Brain we have found wheyish and waterish humours from whence it is manifest That this affect is complicated with the Hydrocephalus 3 We have found the Brain in others that we have opened to be firm and inculpable and not overflowed with any waterish congestions 4 Lastly We have observed in some Bodies lately opened That the Carotides have exceeded their just proportion and so also have the jugulary Veins but the Arteries and the Veins which are delated to the outward parts were of an unusual slendernesse But whether or no this be perpetual in this affect we cannot yet witnesse by an occular testimony yet we conjecture That it happeneth so perpetually but it came not sooner into our minds to examine it since the beginning of our Anatomical enquiries into this subject These things being premised our next Disquisition shall be to find out the Essence of the Disease CHAP. III. Certain Suppositions are proposed for the easier finding out of the Essence of the Disease First of the Essence of Health Secondly of the Essence of a Disease Thirdly of a threefold Division of Health and Diseases The Explication of the third Division and the Vse of the same The Description of a natural Constitution and the exaltation of it The Fourth Supposition of the Combination of three Constitutions in the same parts THat we may proceed the more distinctly and clearly in the finding out of the Essense of this Disease we judged it very advantagious to premise these subsequent Suppositions I That the Essence of Health doth consist in some Constitution of the Body according to Nature But seing this is twofold in the kind one Essential and necessary respecting the tò esse simply which during life continueth immoveable and immutable under various affections and is indivisible The other Accidental having reference to the tò bene esse which in respect of the whole Animal is both moveable and mutable and hath a great latitude and can be present or absent without the dissolution of the whole Health consists not in the former but in the latter Constitution II. That the Essence of a Disease in like manner consisteth not in the Essential Constitution For so the dissolution of the whole would by and by follow But in the Accidental Constitution namely such an one as in respect of the whole can be present or absent without its dissolution We have said and not without reason that this Constitution wherein Health and Sicknesse are founded is moveable and accidental in respect of the whole for even this also in respect of some part may be essential as for example a finger being cut off a Disease ariseth in the defective number of the parts which in respect of the whole is founded upon an accidental Constitution for that finger may be present or absent without the dissolution of the whole but in respect of the lost member it is founded upon an Essential Constitution for this Disease being supposed the Essence of that finger perisheth III. That the Constitution wherein the Essence both of Health and Sickness consisteth admits a threefold manner of division or distinction in the method of Discipline The first is somewhat thick and is resolved into parts altogether Concrete namely It proceedeth Kata topous according to the division of the parts from head to heel The second is purely abstracted and searcheth out all the Elements of the moveable Constitution from whence cometh the division of Diseases into similar organical and common and then again those various subdivisions into distempers faults of figure superficies cavities and passages of magnitude number site and continuity The third is as it were a middle manner and although it hath been hitherto neglected yet we dare avouch That it may have its use and that no contemptible one in the handling of Diseases and the finding out of the causes of the Disease and it is divided into a Constitution Natural Vital and Animal The first is proper to and inherent in every part absolutely competible to it and without any dependance upon the other parts according to the Essence of it simply This remaineth a while after death till it be resolved by Putrefaction Ambustion simple Exiccation Mummification Petrification and the like violent Causes This Constitution in respect of its simple Essence doth not depend upon those Members which minister an Influx but it dependeth upon them both in respect of its Conservation and likewise of its Operation For the vital influx ceasing after death which is as it were the salt and condiment of it quickly perisheth and as long as the creature liveth this is variously affected by the influxes and thereupon the actions are either promoved or interupted The Second is the Vital Constitution which is produced by that continual influx from the heart thorow the arteries into the parts of the whole Body This also it admitteth degrees and is often subject to variations more or lesse and sometimes also seemeth to suffer a kind of eclips as in a swouning a syncope c. yet it persevereth from the beginning to the last period of life at least in its fountain and in some other parts The Third is the Animal Constitution which is derived from the Brain thorow the Nerves into the Organs of Sense and Motion This is many times totally wanting in many parts the life notwithstanding remaining yea it might for a long time together be defective in several parts or all the parts did not respiration which is absolute necessary unto life depend upon it These Constitutions therefore keep such a connexion between themselves that the second doth eternally and continually presuppose the existence of the former and the third of the second but there is not back again so absolute a dependance between them because as we have even now said the former can for some time subsist without the second and the second commonly altogether without the third And these three Constitutions may in most bodies be manifestly perceived yet we affirm not that they may be found in all The Natural indeed and the Vital are wanting to no part but the Animal is defective in the Bones though the teeth will admit some doubt gristles perhaps ligaments and some substances as of the Liver Spleen c. we assert therefore this threefold Constitution to be in all those
yet indeed by degrees and little and little For first the influent heat is manifestly an actual heat but the heat of the natural constitution is only potential wherefore we affirm that a cold distemper in respect of a natural and potential heat may consist with a hot distemper in respect of an actual and influent heat For indeed an actual heat is not so directly averse to a cold distemper which is so called by reason of a defect of the potential heat but it may the cause persevering consist for a good while with it As for example there is an actual heat in Simple Water Barly Water diverse Juleps and the like being made hot although at the same time they are potentially cold So that to be actually hot and potentially hot differ not in the Degree but in the Species neither are they so directly contrary to one another that one must presently expel the other out of a subject Moreover Secondly The influent hot distemper doth not so much correct the inherent cold distemper as by accident it augmenteth it namely by a wast and dissipation of the Natural Spirits wherein chiefly the natural and potential heat resides Just after the same manner as the actual heat introduced by the fire diminisheth the potential heat of the Wine Whereupon any kind of Feaver supervening upon this Disease usually brings more damage than advantage to the sick Secondly We affirm a moist distemper to be lodged together in the parts first affected this is manifest from the laxity and softness of the said parts and this sign likewise doth more strongly confirm the same thing because the said parts are extenuated so that unless there were a redundancy of moisture in them a certain rigidity and roughness would assault the touch again a cold distemper doth very rarely continue long without a moist and lastly things helpful and hurtful attest this truth for drying things are helpful and moistning things are hurtful Thirdly we affirm That in the parts first affected there is a penury of natural spirits This is proved by the very same arguments which we produced to evince it to be a cold distemper For first the unequal and imminute nutrition of the parts first affected doth not only argue a coldness of temper but withal a want of natural spirits for otherwise this defect of nutrition might be easily corrected For the cause of that coldness wherewith the defect of the spirit is conjoyned or some peccaut humor is not impacted is easily cashired and sooner then is wont in this disease as may b◠seen in the parts grown extream cold in the winte season for example sake in the handling of snow the parts so extreamly cooled provided that they be rightly handled wil return to their pristine temperamēt in few hours but wher there is a distemper with the matter of it as a case conjoynd or where ther is a defect of the inherent spirits such a distemper indeed is not so soon nor so easily removed But in the present affect we cannot affirm that a conjoyned or impacted matter of any note is at the least alwise caused in the parts first affected because they are observed to be more withered feeble and extreamly extenuated and seeing this affect is very different from Cachexia and the Virgins disease in the which for the most part it is not the want of Spirits but the conjoyned matter that cherisheth the cold distemper wherefore we may rightly infer that the pertinacity of this evil doth chiefly depend upon the defect of the natural Spirits Secondly The same is proved after the same manner by the second argument before alleadged for the cold distemper namly from sloth and aversness to excercise For activity hath not only a dependance upon the temper but chiefly upon the fulness of the Spirits as may be seen in strong and heathful men who in winter time and hardest frost are more prompt and inclinable to violent exercises then in summer when the inherent Spirits are wont to be somwhat dissolved Thirdly Feavers and long extenuating diseases as they often introduce a cold distemper so they evidently diminish and dissipate the inherent Spirits To these we ad that argument which is deduced from the constitution of the Parents the Parents that are more strong and lusty experience witnesseth it and accustomed to labour seldom bring forth children obnoxious to this disease on the contrary such as are weak sickly idle tender delicate very prone to immoderate premature or decriped Venery such as are troubled with a Gonorrhea c. for the most part beget children subject to this affect Namely because the Seminary principles are furnished only with a deficiency of Spirits We should now proceed to the fourth assertion but must first remove a remora that cometh in the way Object For some may object That the natural cold distemper is subordinated to the want of Spirits and not contradistinguished to it as is here supposed For the paucity of the Spirits seemeth to be the very cause of the cold distemper and the natural heat be it more intense or more remiss seemeth respectively to follow the proportion of the natural Spirits as being radicated in them as their first subject We answer First That the inherent heat is indeed first grounded and subjected in the inherent Spirits Moreover as the inward heat is divided into two par s namely the natural and the acquired heat so the inward Spirit must be also conceived to be twofold the primigenial or seminal derived from the Parents in the seed and the acquired Spirit contracted from a perfect assimilation of the aliment the former Spirit is the basis of the engrafted natural heat the latter of the inward acquired heat we mean not that these heats and Spirits are in themselves distinct in the species but only in their origin and degree of perfection which is sufficient to invest them with a various appellation For in nutrition the assimilation of the aliment proceedeth even to a specifical identity and not an individual although sometimes also it attaineth not the degree of original perfection For which cause it seemed sufficient to us to have named the implanted heat and the implanted Spirit without any higher distinction and therefore we grant that the implanted heat is first subjected and rooted in the Spirits and that it is nothing else then a certain modification of the said Spirits whereby they being irradiated by the vital heat do delight to indeavor to diffuse themselves and to enlarge their dominions by attracting retaining assimilating the aliments like unto themselves by severing the excrements and lastly by disposing the things acquired in due places we say likewise that this endeavor wherin we place the essence of heat by reason that it is diffusive doth somwhat dissipate and wast the implanted Spirits which because of this effect are vulgarly called by the name of radical moisture continually devoured and consumed by the heat Thus far we grant the argument
defect of the Vital Spirits Therefore seing the Vital constitution is transient and fugitive in any of the solid parts and seing it dependeth upon the proportion of the vital spirits flowing into them from the Ventricle of the heart we may rightly infer that in the solid parts it is not original but participative But in the Vital Spirits themselves by whose function the Vital constitution is diffused and transmitted into all the Parts it must necessarily be original For there is no other original subject of it to be found in the Body Yet we grant that the solid substance of the heart by his Natural Constitution especially being watred by the Vital is the assistant caus of the excitation of the Vital Spirits in the blood included their Ventricles although it cannot be the first subject of that same Vital Constitution as we have even now abundantly proved And these things for the present may suffice in general concerning each vital constitution the original and the participative and to prov that that must properly be ascribed to the Vital Spirits this to the solid Parts as the immediate Subjects of the inherence Three kind of vices belonging to this Constitution do stil await our examination The two former wherof relate to the Original And the third pertaineth to the participative Constitution The first vice concerneth the Generation of the Vital Spirits The second hath reference to the distribution of them And the third appertaineth to the participation of the Vital Constitution Of these we shal make enquiry in their order CHAP. IX The vitiated Generation of the Vital Spirits in this Affect and whether that fault be a Part of that Secondary Essence THe Vital Spirits are first excited or generated within the Ventricles of the Heart namely in the very mass of the Blood and properly they discriminate the Blood in the Arteries from that in the veyns after that they are generated they are cherished and conserved within the cavities of the Arteries until they are distributed into the habit of the Parts Yea they are not only cherished in the Arteries but in them also rightly disposed perhaps som new ones are excited though with less efficacy then in the heart This being Preadmonished We say first That in the very Substance of the heart there doth not occur any fault repugnant to the Generation of the Vital Spirits which properly can be a part even of the secondary Essence of this Diseas For the heart it self for his doth rightly perform his function in this Diseas and if any imperfection happen in the Generation of the Vital Spirits it cannot be properly ascribed to the heart but to the ineptitude of the matter to receive the form of the Vital Spirits As the ingested aliment if it be extreamly crude it may frustrate the perfection of a laudable concoction the Stomach being otherwise sound and faultless So the unapt and unprofitable blood exported to the ventricles of the Heart may render the action therof imperfect in respect of the operation and effect how sound soever it may be in it self In which case the ascription of the fault is usually and truly attributed to the indisposed matter and not to the Heart You wil reply a Feaver is somtimes complicated with this affect and at such time the heart doth unaptly Generate the Vital Spirits But that Feaver is a Diseas of a different kind and by no means either the whol or any Part of the Essence of this affect Secondly We affirm that the lesser Arteries inserted into the first affected Parts are in some degree really cooled and benummed by them through their adjacency and contact and for that caus they do unaptly conserv the Vital Spirits contained in them wherupon the Vital Constitution of them is rendred somwhat imperfect before they can be effused into the Parts themselvs And this fault of the little Arteries seemeth by very good right to be ascribed to the Generation of the vital Spirits For although it be not the function of the Arteries to propogate the Vital Spirits according to the first signification of the word yet for this very reason that they are obliged to conserv them when they are propagated namly by such a conservation as in a manner includeth a certain continuate Generation of them their faults are rightly to be referred to the Generation of the Vital Spirits For the Vital Constitution is a certain transient action as we have shewed before which while it lasteth is in a continual flux and motion and which like a flame when the continual fomentation and reparation of it is suspended and suppressed suddenly extinguished Therfore are the Arteries as a continuate Heart to all the parts of the body unto which they transmit and powr out their contained Spirits and what faults soever of the Spirits happen before the effusion of them into the habit of the Parts seing that they necessarily belong to the Original Vital Constitution and cannot otherwise be ascribed to the distribution of the Spirits they must be referred to the very Generation of them namely a continuate Generation in the Arteries wherby they are continually preserved from a sudden extinction Moreover This fault of the Vital Spirits is the depravation of the Vital and Original Constitution and seing that it is somwhat preternatural first hurting the action from whence the participative constitution floweth in like manner depraved and seing that it meerly dependeth upon the primary Essence aforesaid and is complicated in the same parts it will be a part of the secondary Essence of this Diseas Thirdly We say that the matter of the Vital Spirits to wit the Blood of the Veins impregnated with his Natural spirits returning in his circulation from the first affected parts towards the Heart is somwhat disabled by them to admit the form of the Vital Spirit For it is necessary that the Blood whilst it passeth through the parts affected with a cold distemper want and benummedness of inherent Spirits must also thereupon affected with some kind of frigidity benummedness and perhaps with a thickness and viscous quality beyond the usual degree of Nature For as the blood doth give a tincture of his qualities to the parts thorow which it glideth So on the contrary the parts themselves bequeath also as much as they can of their qualities to the flowing blood But here likewise we must grant withal that this indisposition in the parts first affected especially when it is light and smal in the return to the inward parts is very much corrected by their heat before it ariseth at the Ventricles of the heart nay that it is somtimes subdued or if any such contracted fault remain it is commonly totally abolished by the length of the journy before the return of the Blood to the left Ventricle of the heart whilst it floweth down by the right and the substance of the Lungs the same thing also may be thus confirmed becaus if that indisposition should continue till the
parts it be little and slow and in others great and swift that must be reputed unequal and disproportionate And this is the State of the present disquisition It is manifest by what hath been said That the stribution of the Blood thorow the parts first affected is extreamly sparing and slow It remaineth therfore only that we consider whether it be transmitted thorow the other parts with a quicker and more plentifull motion We have already affirmed that the root of this evil is not fixed in the Heart it self and that this Bowel of it self is not primarily il affected in respect of the left Ventricle therof It is credible therefore that the Heart unless perhaps som other Diseas be conjoyned or supervene doth rightly execute his function and expel a sufficient quantity of Blood for our turn by every stroke into the Aorta Seing therfore as hath been already proved that the Blood is niggardly dispensed from the Aorta into the first affected parts a superfluous portion of it must needs be distributed into other parts not so affected for otherwise the Aorta should not sufficiently discharge it self nor disburthen the Blood received from the Heart but it would be obstructed and oppressed with the plenty therof and this repletion upon every slight occasion would fly back even to the left Ventricle of the Heart and there kindle a Feaver And we grant indeed for this very caus among others that in this Diseas a Feaver is easily and frequently produced But seing that the Feaver is another Diseas conjoyned and separable and different from this and seing that this Diseas very often happneth without a Feaver it must needs be granted that by how much more sparingly the Blood is distributed to the first affected parts by so much the more plentifully convâ—â—ed to the other parts at least in the absence of the Feaver For seing that quantity of Blood as we said even now is extruded into the Aorta as may suffice the whole Body and seing al of it must be distributed into several parts it most plainly follows that the less is transmitted into one part the more is dispensed into another And thus it may be perceived that the inequality of the distribution of the Blood is inferred from the sole diminution thereof in the first affected parts above asserted at least probably namly from the smal and slow current of the Blood thorow the parts first affected there may be rightly collected à more quick and plentiful stream of it into the inward parts not so affected Now let us see whether the other appearances relating hither are correspondent to this Discours First It seemeth manifest by what hath been alleadged that the Head the Brain the Liver and the other Bowels are not afflicted with that cold distemper nor that stupefaction and penury of inherent Spirits wherwith the parts primarily affected are opprest For the bowels and the said parts do not receive their Nerves from the Spinal Marrow without the Skul but they are involved in the same condition with the other parts Moreover those parts as far as we can judg by the touch are at least outwardly moderatly hot and as far as we can guess by the sight they retain their native and florishing color besides they are more ful and fleshly then the first affected parts Moreover Children afflicted with this Diseas have an indifferently good appetite they do not il concoct the introsumed aliment and about the Head they retain their senses very acute they see they hear they tast they smel as subtily as others and as for their wit they many times surpass those of equal years with them unless an impediment from some other caus All which things put together do abundantly witness that a cold distemper nor a benummedness or penury of Inherent Spirits hath none or at least a very smal predominancy in those parts These things being granted we must likewise needs grant that a more liberal distribution of the Blood is dispensed to the said parts For as for the heat we have already shewed that that doth both amplify and stir up the Arteries to send forth a stronger pulsation and we have also noted above that the plenty of the Spirits doth not only cherish the pulsificative force of the Arteries and conserv the vigor of the Blood contained in them but that it doth somwhat enliven and excitate both of them and that by so much the more effectually by how much the less the inherent Spirits are affected with a stupefaction Secondly unless those parts were watered with a more liberal circulation of the Blood they would becom more soft loos and feeble then they are even as the parts first affected are observed to be For upon the defect or languishing of the Puls in any part the part presently becoms loos and weak as it happneth to al the Parts in a Lipothymy On the contrary when the Puls beats strongly the Part wherunto it belongeth is seen to be somwhat rigid and swelled For a ful Puls doth presently fil up those parts which were before sunk down by emptiness as the Lypothymy being driven away and the Puls being restored the Parts of the Body which were before loos and languid are not only wel colored but ful of vivacity and turgid seing therfore that those Parts are not affected with that softness loosness and weakness we must conclude that they are actuated with a full Puls Thirdly The very augmented magnitude of thes parts in comparison of the parts primarily affected in this Diseas doth witness that they are more liberally fed with their aliment namly the Blood which is reputed the common and last aliment of the Parts for otherwise scarce any sufficient reason can be imagined why when the first affected Parts are so extenuated these should be especially the Brain and Liver in so good a condition so ful and so plump The same thing is confirmed by the lively color of the same parts For if the Puls languish in any part somwhat of the fresh and amiable color presently retireth from that Part. Fourthly The Arteries called Carotides and the Jugulary Veyn which belong to the Brayn and the parts about the Head are observed to be very broad in this affect but the Vessels tending to the first affected parts to be unduly slender from whence we may clearly infer That the dispensation of the Blood to those Parts is unequal And here we intreat and beseech those who have an opportunity to open such Bodies as this affect hath destroyed that they would accurately contemplate whether the swelling Arteries inserted into the swelling parts of the Bones do more liberally and more commodiously transmit the Blood into those than into the other less nourished parts of the Bones and whether the Arteries of those parts are more broad than of these Although indeed we confess that this enquiry is most difficult both because of the slenderness of those Arteries and in regard of the obscurity of their
hath been said that the Tone of these parts is somwhat viciated in this affect by reason of their exceeding loosness slipperiness softness weakness and internal lubricity which qualities do most evidently enfeeble the just Tensity of the said Parts Although therfore that the Brain in this affect do for his part yield a due and just influx yet it is scarce possible nay it is altogether impossible that it should communicate that Tensity in a sufficient degree to to the Spinal Marrow without the Skull to the Nerves from thence proceeding c. because of the distemper benummedness and penury of the inherent Spirirs Thirdly The Symptoms in this Diseas that relate to the Animal faculty do most clearly confirm the same thing For Children afflicted with this Diseas do from the very beginning therof if they be compared with others of the same age move and exercise themselves very weakly and are less delighted in manly sports but upon the progress of the affect they are avers from any vehement motion as they stand upon their feet they reel wave and stagger seeking after somwhat to support them and can scarce go upright neither take they pleasure in any play unless sitting or lying along or when they are carried in their Nurses Arms Finally the weak Spine is scarce strong enough to bear the burden of the Head the Body being so extreamly extenuated and pined away All which things do abundantly demonstrate that the Tensity of the parts subservient to motion is less rigid in this affect than is justly requisite in time of waking If therfore that due Tensity in time of waking be a part of the Animal Constitution which we here suppose that being viciated must without all doubt necessarily constitute a Diseas in the Animal Constitution and seing that this fault hath no primary dependance upon the Brain it self but upon the inherent Constitution of the first affected parts it ought in all Reason to be reputed a Secondary fault in respect of the Animal Constitution Yet here we meet with a scruple Som may demand Why the sens as well as the faculty of motion is not vitiated in this affect The reason is plain a far greater tensity strength and vigor of the Nervs is required to exercise the motive then the sensitive faculty For almost the gentlest motion of the Nervs is sufficient for sense but not for motion So you may observe in the motion of any Joynt that the Muscles which move it are very hard and stiff but that hardness being remitted yet the sensation is easily performed Nor doth that any way hinder because that somtimes in the Palsy the sense is somwhat stupified and the motion remaineth for the Palsy is an affect very different from this for in that the primary fault resides in the very Animal Constitution therfore it may so fal out that both the sense and the motion may be equally affected Besides when perhaps one Nerve doth want the du influx of the Brain and another which is extended to the muscles of that part doth enjoy it it may be that for this cause also the sense may be abolished and yet the motion may continu although this case is not so frequent and that the motion is more usually taken away the sense remaining But we have said enough concerning this matter And thus at length we have produced those things which we have meditated of the integral Essence both primary and secondary of this Diseas and that with as much perspicuity as a matter so difficult and unsearcht into would bear In the next place we shal address our selvs to the examination of the causes of this Diseas CHAP. XV. The Causes of the Rachites And first those things which concern the Parents WE have largely explained above both the Primary and Secondary Essence of this Disease And indeed we have sufficiently demonstrated in the same place the dependance of the secondary upon the Primary Essence It may not therfore be here expected that we should again purposely and in particular discuss the causes of the secondary Essence which we have handled before It may suffice that we have found out the causes of the secondary Essence Yet if any cause do occur which at once hath an influx as wel into the primary or secondary Essence of the Diseas we shal not refuse to take notice of it by the way as we proceed But omitting al diligent search into the several kinds of causes we purpose to contract this our discours chiefly to two heads The former containeth the Infirmities and the diseased dispositions of the Parents which perhaps have so great an influence upon the Children that they suppeditate at least a proness to this affect and infer an aptitude to fal into it if they have not actually fallen into it from their very birth The latter comprehendeth the accessary causes of this Diseas namly those which happen to children after their birth Concerning the causes of the first kind we meet with a Question at the first entrance How and whether this Diseas may be said to be hereditary That we may the more succesfully proceed in the determination of this question an hereditary Diseas must be distinguished into that properly and that improperly so called And indeed an hereditary Diseas properly so called is ever supposed to be preexistent in both or one of the Parents and from thence to be derived to the Progeny But an hereditary Diseas improperly so called is not supposed to be preexistent in the same kind either in both or one of the Parents yet the same fault must always necessarily precede perhaps altogether of a different kind at least in one of them by vertu wherof a certain disposedness is imprinted in the children wherby they are made obnoxious to fal into this improperly hereditary Diseas Moreover An hereditary Diseas properly so called is twofold either in the conformation as when a lame Person begets a lame a deaf Father a deaf Son or a blind a blind or in the similary Constitution as when a Gowty Father begets a Gowty Child It is to be noted that in the first kind ther is an hereditary fault inherent in the first affected parts of the Conformation But in the latter there is no necessity that a Diseas of the same kind with the Diseas of the Parents should be actually inherent in the Embryon from the first formation But such a disposition imprinted by one or both of the Parents is sufficient which as the life is lengthened may be actuated into the same by the concours of other intervening causes Again an hereditary Diseas improperly so called may be likewise twofold namely either in the Conformation or in the similary Constitution In the formation as when neither of the Parents is blind pore-blind lame c. yet have begotten a Son blind pore-blind or lame by the very fault of the formation For in these cases that very fault which is sensible and conspicuous in the
by a precedent emission of Seed from it self which may imprint a Diseas of the same Species in the adjacent Bodies For we have already often said That the first essence of this Diseas consisteth in a cold and moist distemper and in a dulness and paucity of inherent Spirits which affections if they endeavor to assimilate any Bodies that are neer them they attempt and undertake it by open violence and not by snares and fraudulence or a preimmission of secret little fires In like manner if you reflect upon the Secondary Essence therof neither the viciated Tone nor the depraved Vital nor Animal Function nor the Organical faults are found apt and fit in this affect to insinuate themselves into other Bodies and to propagate their own Species Finally if we will consult experience the matter will quickly be vindicated from all doubt For we frequently observe Children either of the same age or very neer to the same age be brought up in the same House wherof one or other of them is perhaps afflicted with this Diseas whilst a third or many amongst them do escape it Yea We have known Children not only educated under one common Roof and delighting in the continual and mutual society of one another but dayly meeting at one Board and lying together in one Bed wherof one who hath been ill affected with this Diseas hath not infected any of his companions either by feeding or lying together Which could scarce possibly happen in a Diseas properly contagious Wherfore Contagion being excluded from the Catalogue of this Diseas we will address our selves to the finding out of such as are more true and unquestionable We divide the causes which produce this Diseas after Birth into two Classes The first containeth the errors which procure it in the use of the six nonnatural things The latter comprehendeth the precedent Diseases of divers kinds which are wont very often to leave behind them some Inclination to this affect As for the former Classis concerning the abuse of the six non-Natural things so far as they relate to this Diseas seing that children are seldom discomposed with any vehement passions of the mind and can thereupon very difficultly fal into this Diseas Again in regard that the use of Venery appertaineth not unto them we wil reduce and limit these cases to the five subsequent heads To the Air also to what things soever extrinsecally occur or are applyed to the body to meat and drink and such things as are inwardly received to motion and rest to the kind and manner of life to actions and exercise to sleep and watching lastly those things which are preternaturally retained in or severed from the body These several things we shal examine in the propounded order with al convenient brevity Of the Air and such things as happen outwardly A cold and moist Air doth powerfully contribute to this Diseas For seing that it doth more easily steal into the external and first affected parts in this Diseas then into the hidden and fenced bowels it directly helpeth to imprint in those parts that unequal namely that cold and moist distemper The constitution of this kind of Air is chiefly predominant about the beginning of the Spring at which time the Nurses ought to be cautious and circumspect How they too confidently expose their children which are subject to this affect to the injuries of the Air as also when the Air is cloudy thick rainy and ful of vaporous exhalations Hereupon places neer the Sea great Marishes that are obnoxious to much rain and showers and fed with a great number of Springs are wont to be caeteris paribus very fruitful of this affect In like manner houses neer the banks of great Rivers and Ponds or Meers are for this purpose condemned Moreover frequent bathing and washings with sweet water although they be applied actually hot yet in regard that they are potentially cold and moist they are also justly culpable for they do in som sort communicate their distemper unto the parts whereunto they are adhibited and more or less caus a softness and loosness in those parts and make the circulation of the Blood too slippery Hither we may also refer cold and moist liniments as also such as are loose and slippery being too often continued in that tender age especially about the Spine or the Origin of the Nervs lastly soft linnen cloaths if they be not wel dried they cherish the roots of this Diseas For this caus amongst others it hapneth that the Children of poor people are the less obnoxious to this Diseas because namely for the most part they are enwrapped in course cloaths and woolly integuments each of which doth rub and tickle the parts thereby exciting and augmenting the inward heat and irritating a more copious afflux of the Vital Blood unto the habit of the Body and are therefore very effectual to banish this Diseas But the softned fine linnen doth neither irritate the heat into the external parts nor laudably cherish it For if they chance to be for som short space of time removed from the touch of the parts they presently loose their warmth and at the next touch they conveigh a sense of coldness into the parts Wherefore such linnen cloaths being in the number of those things which are dedicated only to extrinsecal application and seing that they are hurtful by their sole coldnes softness we have referred them to this first Classes of causes the first part therof which containeth cold and moist things outwardly occurrent In the second place the Air being infected with any particular infection as noxious Metalline exhalations which for the most part sight against the inherent Spirits of the parts by a kind of venemous malignity and do either extinguish them or drive away and dissipate them withal they dissolve the Bone of the parts and the pulsificative force especially in the parts external where they first happen they at least diminish if they do not weaken it and affect it with a languidness These things are principally caused by exhalations from Lead Antimony Quick-silver and the like Moreover ointments made of the same are almost alike perillous if the first affected parts be frequently and unseasonably anointed therewith although perhaps these things do also belong to the fouth title of this Classis Finally we have observed som Children who have been anointed with Mercurial Unctions for the Scabs to have fallen afterwards into this Diseas In the third place an Air vehemently hot and subtle extreamly attenuant and dissolvent may likewise be numbred among the causes of this Diseas because it allureth forth dissipateth and consumeth the inherent Spirits In like manner hot liniments and especially discussive withal Chymical oils distilled and not sufficiently corrected by the commixture of things temperate for these in such a tender constitution of the parts do easily melt and resolve the Spirits into a volatile and Airy thinness and by consequence infer a penury of
Inherent Spirits Hither also belong sharp saltish hot and discussive Baths especially if they be unseasonably and unmeasurably used for these no less then the former do wast and consume the Spirits Fourthly and lastly An Air filled with Narotical vapors or exhalations and baths fomentations and Liniments made of Soporiferous and Narotical ingredients as Hemlock Henbane Opium Nightshade and the like and externally applied are very fitly reducible also to this Classis For they easily introduce a benummedness into the first affected Parts into which they first conveigh their force Which benummedness is not only it self a part of the first Essence of this Diseas but it also easily dulleth and diminisheth the Vital influx in those parts and consequently is also a caus of that part of the Secondary Essence of this Diseas which consisteth in the Vital Constitution which thing we have already explained more at large And thus much of things outwardly occurring Secondly Of Meat and Drink and things inwardly taken To this Title there belong first aliments of any kind which are too moist and cold for these things manifestly cherish the distemper wherin a part of the Essence of this consisteth Hither therfore we refer most kind of Fish and crude Meats which are not well prepared by Coition also all those things whatsoever they be which caus a defect of concoction in the Ventricle Therfore the feeding upon new Meat before the former Aliment is concocted is very hurtful for Children disposed to this affect and in this respect a plentiful Diet is altogether to be abandoned and a thin spare Diet ought to be observed for too liberal feeding doth overwhelm and choak the heat and therfore must needs accumulate many crude and raw humors And perhaps this one may be reputed among the especial causes why this Diseas doth more frequently invade the Cradles of the rich then afflict poor mens Children In like manner cold moist Medicines taken inwardly and also such as are laxative and endued with an internal slipperiness do manifestly relate hither For these things do not only infer a like distemper but they produce a Relaxation in the Tone of the parts and affect them with an internal slipperiness and in a word they render the current of the Blood through the first affected parts over slippery and easie Secondly Nourishments that are too thick viscous and obstructive belong hither especially becaus they interrupt the equal distribution of the Blood Hither we refer flesh hardned with smoke and seasoned with much Salt in like manner Salt Fish and Cheese almost of any kind plentifully fed on Bread newly taken out of the Oven and not yet cold also almost all sweet things condited with Sugar unless they are withal tempered with Wine or cutting or attenuant Obstructive Medicines likewise of any kind belong hither unto which we may further ad such as are Partotical and whatsoever being drank induce a benummedness into the parts Thirdly Nourishments that are of an extream hot and biting quality sharp corrosive as old strong Wines especially being drank upon an empty Stomach Meats also that are seasoned with much Pepper and aromatical Sawces must be connumerated among the reputed causes of this affect For these things in such a tender consistence of the Parts do easily feed upon and devour the inherent Spirits The same thing is also affective by Medicines that are immoderately hot and discussive yea these are far more powerful to hurt becaus they more quickly and forcibly spoil the inherent Spirits than the prementioned Nourishments Thirdly Of Motion Rest Exercises and Actions Motion and Exercises if they exceed a mean they dissolve the Body of a little Child into a profuse Sweat and withal they somwhat dissipate the inherent Spirits of the Parts and therfore for that reason they may conspire the introducing of this Diseas although we conceive it falleth out exceeding rarely that Boys are infested with this Diseas wherof we discours But a defect of Motion and want of Exercise doth most frequently yea and most effectually concur to the production of this affect For the Spinal Marrow and the Nerves from thence arising and the other first affected parts serve chiefly for Motion and Exercises A stupidity therfore and sluggishness of those parts is a caus that neither their inherent heat is sufficiently cherished nor that heat extenuated nor the cold distemper stealing in banished nor the excrementitious and superfluous moistures expelled by a due transpiration but it permitteth them to be affected with a certain softness loosness and internal lubricity wherupon the Arteries also destributed unto them are faintly irritated yield a dull and slothful Pulse neither do they render the parts somwhat turgid or swelled but leave them lank and subsiding By which means the circulation of the Blood becomes slow and lesned and more slippery than is meet the production also of the vital heat must thereupon be necessarily be feeble and weak all which considerations do sufficiently evince that this is an efficacious caus of this Diseas Fourthly Of Sleeping and Watching We grant that Children should sleep oftner and longer then Men yet if it be excessive even in Child-hood the matter is the same as in defect of exercise and motion For sleep is a certain rest and privation of watchings or of the exercise of the senses But watchings consist in the very exercise of the senses according to Aristotle in his Book de Som. Vigill Wherefore the evils that we have described to arise from the defect of motion and exercises the same also must needs happen from immoderate sleep On the contrary in that tender age inordinate watchings are no less noxious For they do not only retard the concoction of the aliment but they likewise taint the Blood with a kind of acrimony and consequently dissipate the Principals of the Natural Constitution of the first affected parts and without difficulty introduce a defect of inherent Spirits Fiftly Of things preternaturally cast out and retained All the internal causes of Diseases might be perhaps not incommodiously reduced to this title For any thing whatsoever contained in the Body and preternaturally altered as they are preternatural they indicate their ablation and may so far forth be reputed among things to be cast out which are nevertheless preternaturally retained But we more rightly grant that all internal causes may be distinguished into two kinds one wherof containeth those things which are preternaturally retained and cast out the other such things as are contained in the Body being preternaturally altered For these latter are not only taken away by casting out but also by Alteration they may be reduced to an agreeable proportion of Nature However it be there is a great affinity between the Humors vitiated by Alteration and the excrementitious Humors which are retained For there are so many and such various ways of casting out in the Body that scarce any humor can be imaginably produced by Alteration which doth not
Persons of a Chollerick Constitution are lean and of an extenuated habit becaus of the Reasons aforesaid Secondly A Melancholly humor whether you understand the Earthy Portion of the Blood or that saltish or tartar like matter excreted in and with the Urin and when the Urin groweth cold incorporating into little Sands or that sowr humor powred into the Ventricle perhaps by the Spleen though not through that short Veiny Vessel as the Ancients beleeved or those terrene Parts of the assumed Aliment which are evacuated by siege with the other Excrements understand either or any of them if this humor aboundeth and be not purged out after a due manner may be blamed as a caus of this Diseas For first that humor which is the more Earthy part of the Blood if it exceed a just proportion in the Mass of Blood it rendreth it unapt to nourish the Parts especially those that are first affected for the first affected parts are of a more noble texture than the substances of the Bowels or the bony parts and therfore we have already noted how the Parenchymata of the Bowels and the Bones do easily admit nutrition and by a way like unto digestion but those former parts do require a far more exquisite secretion elaborated assimilation And this is the Reason that the fleshy parts of the Bowels are rightly imputed among the impure and grosser aliments namely Becaus they are nourished with a cours Blood and not accurately elaborated before the Union Secondly Any great accumulation of Saltish and Tartar like matter is an Enemy to Nutrition and is rather dissipative and devouring than favoring augmentation Thirdly The sowr Humor of the Ventricle is totally ravenous and as it were hungerstarved and perhaps where it aboundeth it easily communicateth to the Blood such another Depredatory quality Fourthly and lastly The Terrene Dregs of the Belly may if they be inordinately retained taint and infect the Chylus and render it unapt for the nourishment of the part Finally we grant that every propounded kind of Melancholly superfluously coagumented or preternaturally retained doth not primarily properly and directly concur to the production of this evil but nevertheless we are of opinion that indirectly and after rhe manner propounded it may contribute somthing to the generation of it Thirdly Flegm whether it be taken for the moister and colder part of the Mass of Blood or for the wheyish part therof or for the slow humor of the Stomach and Guts or for the Spettle or for the Snot of the Nostrils or Jaws or for that peculiar humor which perhaps the new Vessel of the Sweet-Bread doth use to evacuate however you take it if it be retained or abound in the Body it hath a direct reference to this Diseas and properly deserveth to be called the caus therof For this humor is cold most slow thick benummed little spiritous lost and affected with an internal slipperiness all which things do exactly comply with the primary and secondary Essence of this Diseas as they have been propounded Wherfore upon a superfluous accumulation of this humor seing that there succeedeth a conspiracy to the production of this affect it ought justly to be esteemed a proper caus and a Primary Agent Besides these humors undue Transpiration as also immoderate or defective sweating may be somtimes numbred among the causes of this affect For excessive Sweating as also immoderate Transpiration doth dissipate the Spirits and withal dissolveth the parts especially the external which in this Diseas are the first affected and the inherent Spirits being consumed it easily leaveth a cold distemper behind it For to a just excitation and conservation of the heat of the parts there is required a certain due and regular strife of the exhalations between breathing which if it prove deficient the actual heat also becaus it partly consisteth in this strife becomes very feeble and languid and the parts are easily exposed to a cold distemper But we have already spoken of this matter at large On the contrary Sweat preternaturally restrained as also a very smal or lesned Transpiration doth easily kindle a Feaverish heat and therfore it likewise injureth the Spirits and dissolveth the parts and rendreth them afterwards easily obnoxious to a cold distemper Finally That we may comprehend all in a word Any humor excerned above Reason or Measure doth easily introduce a colliquation of the parts and a dissipation of the inherent Spirits and consequently disposeth the Body to this affect And let this suffice to have been spoken of non-Natural things and the causes of this Diseas thence arising CHAP. XVII Precedent Diseases which may be the Cause of this Disease THese Diseases in respect of their proper Essence ought only to be called by the name of Diseases but in respect of this Diseas they may rightly pass under the notion of causes of Diseases becaus they leave it behind them as one of their Effects Yet although many of them as they relate to the Parents and so imprint a Natural pollution in the Off-spring are rehersed above nevertheless by right they here deserve their consideration yet in a different respect and order These Diseases we reduce to three Kinds or general Heads First To Diseases that have some affinity with this affect Secondly To Diseases that extenuate the Body Thirdly To Diseases inducing a stupor and dulness in the first affected parts Of the First Kind Diseases having an Affinity or holding Congruity with this we call those who at least in part consist in the same with the Essence of this Diseas of this kind are any cold distemper or any moist distemper also any cold and moist distemper For a part of the first Essence of this Diseas includeth a cold and moist distemper and so those distempers do partly agree with this Affect Hither also belong a Phlegmatick Cachocymy a Melancholy and a mixt an obstruction proceeding from such like humors a Cachexia and a Dropsy Yea we may likewise refer hither in regard of their affinity those Diseases wherein the inherent Spirits are somwhat consumed for a part of the Essence of this Diseas consisteth in a scarsity of those Spirits but otherwise they are more aptly referred to the second kind In like manner the Diseases wherin the first affected parts are benummed stupified may likewise in respect of their affinity be hitherto referred although they belong more properly to the third kind of Diseases Moreover those Diseases wherin the Tone of the parts is infeebled and loosned must here be listed for they include a part of this Diseas namely that which consisteth in the loosnesse litherness internal slipperiness and softness of the Tone as they are above described The Philosophers say that the Elements which agree in like qualities are easily changed one into another by the same reason that these Diseases which partly agree in the same Essence do easily admit a reciprocal change from one to the other So we see a quotidian Ague which agreeth
labor with a moist distemper yet it is manifest withal by what hath been said how great a difference there is between this of aged persons that of Yong children Morover that this moist distemper of old men is less Homogeneal to the present affect then that of children appears plainly from hence because it produceth not that softness and tenderness of parts in old men as we see it doth in Children neither doth it equally dispose them to a dissipation or colliquation of the inherent Spirits or any slippery passage either of the Blood or Exhalations which are supposed in this Affect But on the other side it rather rendreth them obnoxious to obstructions and the other evils recited before a comparison therefore being made between the cold and moist distemper incident to Younger Children and that which is wont to affect old men there resulteth a pregnant reason why aged people are not so subject to this Diseas as Children Thirdly Yong Children although they Naturally abound with inherent Spirits yet by reason of the easie transpiration of their Bodies becaus of the laxity tenderness and incoherence of the parts they are much more prone then Elder persons to dissipation and colliquation of the Inherent Spirits and by consequence upon less and slighter causes they fal into a want of them Fourthly Younger Children by reason of that very same weak consistance of the parts are also rendred more obnoxious to an astonishment than the Elder For to the vigor and activity of the parts there is required besides a just plenty of Spirits a strength of their coherence and consistence Fiftly it is not needful for us to ad any thing concerning the Tone of the parts seing we have so often insinuated the weakness of it in Younger Children in respect of the Elder and any man may observe that upon the increase of years the Tone is more and more confirmed Sixthly As for the diminute distribution of the blood to the first affected parts which we have already proved to be a considerable part of the secondary Essence of this Diseas We say that the Elder Children do use more strong and frequent exercises then the Younger and therefore that the pulses of the outward parts are more strongly stirred up in them and that a greater heat is raised and cherished in them and by consequence a cold distemper is more potentially driven out of them Seventhly as for the Organical faults namely the augmented magnitude of the Liver Head and their Vessels it is a known thing that the proportion of the parts is more stable and confirmed in the bigger Children and on the contrary that in the Younger they are easily moved and altered but the augmentation ceasing they are not any more afterwards altered without some unusual and weighty causes So that even in this respect the Younger Children are most subject to this Diseas Let us therefore conclude the parts of the Question That Young Children in respect of their Natural Constitutions and dispositions are more obnoxious to this evil then those that are Elder and so much the more the Younger they are But we must not wave an Objection that here we meet with which also doth very fitly conveigh an occasion of passing to the other comparison namly of Young Children amongst themselves For if Young Children as is manifest by what hath been said are more prone to this Diseas by their Natural Constitution and disposition and the Younger they are the more subject they are How comes it to pass that Children rarely fal into this affect before they are six months old and somwhat more For according to the Opinion delivered Children should seem to be principally subject to this Diseas immediatly after their birth which yet experience disappointeth yea rather indeed it witnesseth the contrary namely that Children before they are nine months old are seldom or scarce ever afflicted with this Diseas Here therefore it wil be needful for us to declare that other comparison of Young Children among themselvs For it cannot be that this Affect should so constantly spare Children chiefly disposed unto it and frequently invade those that are less disposed unless some difference did intervene which did in a diverse manner relate to those ages and which notwithstanding the propensity of Nature doth retard the invasion of the Diseas before the first twelve months were compleatly expired and yet afterwards either doth not at all or not so potently defend Children from this Diseas Here therefore we must find the very reason of the difference between these ages which that we may the sooner do it wil not perhaps be impertinent to take special notice by the way of those ages which upon the authority of experience are observed to be more frequently affected with this Diseas and likewise those ages which are least afflicted with it We affirm therefore that this Diseas doth very rarely invade Children presently after their birth or before they are six months old yea perhaps before the ninth month but after that time it beginneth by little and little daily to rage more and more to the period of eighteen months then it attaineth its pitch and exaltation and as it were resteth in it till the Child be two years and six months old So that the time of the thickest invasion is that whol year which bears date from the eighteenth month two years and a half being expired the Diseas falleth into its declination and seldom invadeth the Child for the reasons already alleadged But the reasons Why Infants newly born are rarely affected and why from the ninth to the eighteenth month they are frequently affected and why after the first eighteen months they are most frequently affected shall now all of them in their order be produced The First Reasons why Children newly born are very seldom invaded with this affect may be these The First is Becaus the Embryon in the Womb is by the equal heat and embracement of the Matrix strongly fortified against this Diseas as we have declared above and by consequence the same being brought to light doth for a time retain som of that muniment defence which it contracted from that equal warmth of the Womb and therfore presently after the Birth it doth not so easily fall into it The Second is Becaus the Midwives and Nurses do handle them so artificially when they are new born that their condition is not considerably different from that which they possessed in the Womb. For they enwrap the whol Body excepting the Head in one continual Covering wherupon the exterior and first affected parts of the Body in this Diseas are fortified against the injuries of the outward cold and the hot exhalations breaking out from any part of the Body are duly and equally retained by reason of that Covering which is two or three times double and bound about with swathing Bands and equally communicated to all the parts of the Body so that they are cherished with an even heat
and proportion of the Parts becomes more compact firm and stable neither doth it easily come to pass that one part doth much grow out more than another by true augmentation Thirdly We say that excepting the two premised conditions and that in that manner as they are propounded this affect according to the other parts of the Essence thereof although indeed very rarely and upon the highest causes only may happen to Boys Young Men Men and old Men. For first a cold distemper without al controversie may befal them though not so easily as Children Secondly A moist distemper may also invade them but yet only by the limitation propounded Thirdly A want of inherent Spirits may also befal them but then it must proceed from the most potent causes For Chronical Diseases and such as consume the habit of the parts or dissipate it into ayr or wast it by long fasting and an Atrophy do necessarily leave behind them a paucity of Natural Spirits We see the outward parts even in those that are grown to ful age when they are extenuated and consumed by such like causes to wax feeble to languish wither and become destitute of al sufficient Spirituosity Yet we grant that in those that are grown to full age the evil which causeth leanness being overcome the wasted Spirits may soon be repaired by the vigor of the Pulses and that the rudiments and impressions of this Diseas may be rooted out within one or two weeks and by consequence that they are seldom affected with it In the interim if it should so fal out that upon that consuming of the Inherent Spirits some impediment should intervene that might retard their reparation it is possible that this diseas may grow from thence in that manner as hath been said But a numbness of the Inherent Spirits must necessarily follow upon a fewness of them Fourthly The parts of the Secondary Essence seing that they have a strong dependance upon the Primary faults where these persevere long the Organical faults being excepted they may supervene in their order So that we do not doubt but this Diseas may happen to any age after childhood the restrictions which we have now propounded being granted and upon the urgency and perseverance of great and weighty causes One amongst us affirmeth that he had a Gentleman in cure about thirty yeers of age who by dayly immoderare use of Wine and Tobacco continued for some whole years having neglected the due receiving of his meat fel into such a weakness of Stomach that continually every morning he vomited and loathed al kind of Meat and if at any time he swallowed any with unwillingness he presently vomited it up again to appease this queziness of Stomach he was at last compelled to a continual use of ordinary Aqua vitae but afterwards his custome was to mingle it with stale Beer and a quantity of Sugar and with this drink alone he preserved himself alive for many months In the mean time all those parts which in this Diseas we cal the first affected were extreamly lean and became soft loose languid and withered so that he could neither turn himself in his bed nor rise nor walk nor stand upright yet he felt no pain neither was there any privation of sens and motion no cough no uneasy respiration his face was well colored and al the parts about his Head were in a good condition and wel habited so that had you judged of him by his countenance only you could scarce have suspected that he was sick As he lay in his bed he would chat with his Companions take Tobacco by turns and drink that mixture of Beer and Aqua vitae aforesaid The event of the Diseas doth not indeed belong to this place yet we shal set it down to gratify them who are desirous to know it The Physitian being sent for he strictly forbad al intemperance and amongst other remedies having given him one grain a half of Laudanum Londinensis he appeased the nauseous infirmity and tumult of his Stomach which part he likewise strengthned with internal and external applications and prescribed him such a diet as was most easy of concoction Instead of exercise he solicited the heat unto the outward parts with rubbing them every morning having first given a smal quantity of strengthning and opening Electuary made up with a little portion of Steel which he drank in two ounces of Wine composed of Wormwood and Mint a little Saffron being hung in it to give it a tincture three ounces of smal Beer being tempered with it and a quantity of Sugar to make the taste of it more pleasant Moreover he purged him by fits with gentle Medicines and in the evening comforted him with cordials Within twenty days he grew to such a degree of amendment that he could walk abroad for the space of an hour and could without any striving or much weariness climb ladders without any help But afterwards by a relaps into the like intemperance he died in the absence of his Physitian But let us return from this degression into the way direct our speech to our intended scope The Affect being now confirmed as it was upon the first coming of the Doctor Besides the faults of the Stomach it seemed to include a great part of the Essence of this Diseas we now treat of For in the parts subservient to motion namely those that are first affected in this Diseas there was a cold distemper either through defect of motion or by reason of the immunite afflux and dispensation of the Vital Blood Again the softness slipperiness laxity and litherness of those parts shewed that there was a moist distemper in them Also the extream leanness of those parts did sufficiently demonstrate a fewness of inherent Spirits and the unfitness to motion and affectation of rest and eas did strongly witness a numbness in those parts The ful and florishing habit of the parts about the Head when the other parts were extenuated was a forcible reason to prove the unequal distribution of the Blood But the peculiar cause of this inequality in this sick man might be his frequent vomiting whereby a more plentiful afflux of the Blood was driven to the parts about the Head the other being almost destitute of it Any man may perceive by what hath been said that at least the greatest part of the Essence of this Diseas was comprehended in this mentioned Affect From whence at length we may probably infer that it is possible for this Diseas to happen to those of ful growth being considered according to the propounded limitations although it very seldom coms to pass because great causes and length of time are required to the production of it And thus at last we have put an end to the search upon the former Question CHAP. XIX The latter Question Why this Diseas happeneth more frequently in England then in other Countreys And whether it be Natural to Englishmen IT is acknowledged by
imprint som mark of a vitious Constitution to the place to which it is ascribed It is impossible that any Diseas can be attributed unto it as properly Common by reason of the commodity of the Region Wherfore that we may comprehend all in a word although this Diseas in respect of the coldness and moistness thereof have a fomentation in the very Constitution of the Country Although also that it borrow three other occasions of invading from the Country Yet seing that those distempers may be prevented by a due observation of the Regiment of Health appropriated to the place and seing that the three other occasional causes are not properly blamable but desirable we must affirm that this Diseas is not properly Common to England And so we have put an end to the search of the causes of this Diseas CHAP. XX. The differences of the Diseas called the Rachites THere are many differences of the Rachites in regard of the concourse of several evils and more than any man would easily imagine some wherof are of great importance and others less considerable we have resolved here briefly to propound the chiefest For the knowledg of them is not only profitable to define the prognostical causes wherby the various events of a Diseas are distinctly fortold according to those differences but it also much conduceth both to the prevention and the cure of a Diseas namly that by a consideration of them apt and fit remedies may be chosen Now these differences arise either from the Essence of the Diseas or from the causes therof or lastly from Diseases conjoyned with it The Essence of a Diseas may vary many ways First By reason of the parts of the Secondary Essence either present or absent Secondly In regard of the magnitude of it Thirdly In respect of the vehemence Fourthly in regard of the Spirits And fiftly in respect of the times We grant indeed That there is a certain agreement between som differences comprehended under these titles yet seing that the formal conceptions of them are distinct it must be confessed that they deserve distinct considerations For although a Diseas even in that very respect may be called greater because it containeth many parts of the Secondary Essence in the same Patient yet this is a different distinct consideration from that of the magnitude of that Affect For the magnitude properly hath respect unto the degree of recess from the Natural State and not to the Nature of the part of the Essence either present or absent for hereupon resulteth more then a gradual difference In like manner some of the other differences do perhaps signify the same thing in ◠concrete and restrained acception which notwithstanding in an abstracted and formal consideration denote a diversity But let us proceed The first difference of this Diseas is that which ariseth from the presence of few or many of the parts of the Secondary Essence therof For although all the parts of the Primary Essence are perpetuà lly present with the Diseas it self yet there is no necessity that all the parts of the Secondary Essence should be always present For these are after-comers to the first Essence and do by degrees come upon it Yea some of them may be so highly intercepted by the intervention of resisting causes that they may not at all appear Hither you may refer that difference which we propounded at the foot of the precedent disputation and which we shewed might possibly though indeed very rarely befal those that were grown to ful age But because our purpose here is only to handle the Diseas as it is incident to Children we shall be content to pass by that difference thus noted by the way But even in Children themselves there somtimes happen some parts of the Secondary Essence which have a most strict conjunction with the Primary Essence at least they succeed them in the order of Nature For the Primary Essence hath the efficacy of a cause which in Nature doth ever go before the effect But in order of time some parts of the Secondary Essence do conspire as it were and concur with the Primary Essence in the invasion and others again do come afterwards these we must here distinguish For the former sort are absolutely inseparable the latter sort separable from this Affect The inseparable parts of the Secondary Essence may be reduced to these Heads First to the afflicted Tone of the first affected parts Secondly to the unequal and imperfect distribution of the Vital Blood Thirdly to the too smal participation of the Vital influx in the first affected parts Fourthly to the Secondary faults of the Animal Constitution These faults are sufficiently unfolded above in our discourse of the Secondary Essence of this Diseas where likewise because of their strict carriage with the Primary Essence any man may perceive with eas though they have a casual dependance upon the Primary Essence that they begin together at the same time But al the Organical faults which we have also already recited are found to be separable and somtimes actually separate from this Diseas For the magnitude of the Head and the leanness of the Joynts the crookedness of the Shank-bone or the Elbow the inflexions of the Joynts the sharpness of the Breast do not necessarily accompany this Diseas presently from the beginning but in process of time they bewray themselves by degrees and supervene upon the Affect And although the Consumption of the parts which in some sort hath an influence into the said faults may be said to be present in some slight degree from the begining of the Diseas yet is it indeed only a Symptom and not a Diseas neither is it able presently to produce those Diseases of magnitude Figure and Place Moreover it is not necessary that these Organical faults should equally and at the same time invade one that hath the Rachites we grant indeed that the extenuation of the first affected parts when the Diseas is of some continuance doth alwaies and necessarily succeed it neither can it afterwards upon the perseverence of the Diseas be removed that it is likewise a principal part of the separable parts of the secondary Essence yea that the extenuation whilst it is making doth immediatly follow the smalness of nourishment of the first affected parts almost no otherwise than the smalness of nourishment immediatly followeth the primary Essence of the Diseas in the said parts but withal we affirm that the extenuation being made which is it self a secondary part of the Diseas wherof we discours doth necessarily presuppose the motion and time of the Diseas and that it cannot be in the first moment of the existence of the Diseas We say moreover that Physitians do not acknowledg any change made in the parts exposed to the sens which doth not yet appear to the sense and by consequence they affirm that extenuation befalleth the first affected parts til it be made obvious to the senses which certainly doth necessarily
rather indeed confirms it For the unity of an Art consisteth in some community which may be attributed to all the parts therof and this union is to be esteemed so much the more firm as all the parts of art are reciprocally conjoyned among themselvs by more communities If therfore there are two general Actions and those common to all the parts of Medicine so much the more firmly will those parts conspire the advancement of the Art Wherfore he contradicts not Galen that affirms conservation also to be a general Action of all Medicine seing that the scope of Galen was only to shew the unity of the Medical art by the community of that general Action namely Correction now he might as easily have shewed it if the nature of the thing had required it by the community of Conservation For in the Hygienal part of the most noble circumstance is the Conservation of the whol concrete action and therupon the whol action is denominated from the more principal part and the Art it self an Art conservative Although otherwise as hath been said it also includes Correction But in the Prophylactical part the principal scope of the Medical Action is preservation namely the correction of the caus of the imminent Diseas yet this is so performed and by such means which the present spirits can allow but in no wise by such things as may destroy them And therfore also in the Prophylactical part regard is had to the Spirits and their conservation is Indicated Now after the same manner the whole concrete Action although as hath been said it also includeth Conservation is called Preservation and Precaution from the more Noble part Finally In the Therapeutical part although in like manner the whol concrete action be called Curation and the art it self a Curative Science from the principal part of the action yet to speak properly and truly all this action of cure may be divided into three abstracted parts and evidently distinct namly into the Cure of the cause the Cure of the Diseas and the conservation of the Spirits For the Vital or Conservative Indication doth evidently and by the unanimous grant of all Physitians belong also to this part of Medicine and must be consulted of in every curative action before it be undertaken From whence it is manifest that this part likewise of Medicine doth perpetutually conserve that is provide and foresee in every Cure least the Spirits should receive more detriment than profit from the prescribed remedies Al these things therfore being thorowly weighed we conclude That a general Indicate is a certain concrete thing and may be properly distinguished into two general abstracted actions which are exercised in every part of Medicine and that in the work of art they pertually make one compleat or complicated action Moreover The general Indicant namely the State of the Body as frail and in motion may be divided besides the parts or obstracted considerations already proposed into three kinds or rather three succeeding kinds equally and alike concrete namely into a sound state a diseased state and a neutrality These three Species are the subjects of the three kinds of Method to Practice namely the sound state of the Hygienal part the diseased state of the Therapeutical and the Neutral of the Prophylactical part These three states are also concrete Indicants and respectively Indicate what is particularly to be done or what the Physitians Duty is in all those Arts namely a sound state indicateth the conservation of health a diseased state the removal of some affect and the Neutral state that the caus of an imminent malady ought to be corrected least it break out into a Diseas Now these three Indicates are alike concrete and each of them as we have proved above abstractively includeth both Conservation and Correction Finally In a Diseased state the action of correcting is dissolved into two Species into the correction of Caus and the correction of the Diseas and so here may be discovered three kinds of abstracted actions For a diseased state brancheth it self into three Species evidently abstracted into the Essence of a Diseas the causes of a Diseas and the Spirits or those things which remain in this state according to Nature For those things which are preternatural and indicate correction in general are here separated as hath been said into two parts namely into the Essence of a Diseas and the Causes of a Diseas and therfore there are three parts of this state each of which do formally and distinctly Indicate Three kinds therfore that we may put an end to this matter of Indications are to be considered in this state namely from the Essence of the Diseas the Curative from the Causes the Preservative and from the Spirits the Vital or Conservative To the Causes we refer all impediments of cure as also vehement Symptoms and such as divert the Progress of the Cure to themselvs for in this respect they are invested with the Nature of Causes And thus much of Indications in general CHAP. XXV Indications Curative WE have already affirmed that these Indications are deduced from the Essence of the Diseas we shall therfore in this place slightly run over all the parts of the Essence of this Diseas that the Reader may perceive what every one insinuates to be done First Therfore the Essence of this Diseas partly consisteth in a cold and moist distemper this Diseas therfore in respect of this part of its Essence Indicateth not only that all those things are to be avoided which are in any wise endued with a faculty to cherish and augment that distemper but also that the aid of such things ought to be implored which may subdue the same namely hot and dry Secondly This Diseas partly also consisteth in the want of inherent Spirits therfore not only all those things are to be avoided which can any further scatter and consume the Spirits but such things must be elected which are vertuous to restore cherish and multiply them Strong discussing remedies are therfore in this case to be declined becaus withal they consume the Spirits in like manner such as are extreamly hot for they caus them to evaporate and vanish into air but much more such as have power to dissolve the parts as violent Catharticks But the best nourishment must be chosen and Medicines that are easy of Concoction as much as may be and amicable and benign to the Spirits Thirdly The Essence of this Diseas consisteth partly in a numbness or astonishment of the Spirits this numbness insinuates a prohibition and abstinence from all such things as vehemently make thick and fix the Spirits or any other waies stupifie them as narotical remidies and many Minerals which participate of the nature of Lead as Cerus Litharge Sinople or Vermilion and all such things as have power to excite the Spirits to expel their stupefaction and to render them active and agile are to be made choice of as exercises motions Frictions
Fourthly The Tone being over soft loos flavid and withered indicateth an avoidance of such things as are wont to mollifie loosen and weaken the parts and that such Medicines are to be outwardly applied and inwardly given as may render them more firm and solid The same Tone as it is internally too brittle brings a suspicion upon all such things as abound much with an inward slipperiness and seemeth to desire some roughness or indeed astriction in those things applied or taken Fifthly The corrupted Vital Constitution on the part of the Generation of the Vital Spirits is not so considerable but on the part of the distribution of the Vital Spirits the inequality therof is of great importance and indicateth a caution to be had of those things which promove the flux of the Blood towards the Head as also of such things as retard the passage therof to the first affected parts but that choice must be made of such things as stir the Pulses of the Arteries in the parts first affected and temper those that are in the Head A slow and diminute current of the Blood through the first affected parts indicateth the same things namely an evocation of the Puls to those parts But an over facile and slippery passage of the Blood through the habit of the parts is coincident in its indication with the slipperiness of the Tone lately recited A defect of the Vital Constitution on the part of the union sufficiently vigorous and pleasant between the Vital and the Natural Spirits indicateth an election of such things as can both nourish and cherish the Spirits and also excite them to a greater activity and that their contraries ought to be avoided The Vital heat as deficient indicates almost the same thing as a cold distemper provided that regard be had withal to the strength of the Heart and Arteries and to the vigor of the Vital Spirits Sixthly The unequal Nutrition Indicateth those things which promove the even and impartial distribution of the Aliment and Heat Or indeed that which is too liberal to the parts that are nourished beyond a due measure the extenuation of the parts requireth a fuller Nourishment The irregular magnitude of the Head chiefly things extenuant and such as are of the flux from the Head The Tumors of the Bones indicate the same thing the crookedness of the Bones require such things as attract the Aliment to the hollow side as moderate rubbings but things repressing chiefly on the gibbous and bunched side as strong bindings The bending of the Joynts insinuateth an Artificial erection of them as much as is possible The narrowness of the Breast pointeth to Pectorals and such things as have a faculty to dilate the Breast but the sharpness therof indicateth such things as have a dilative Vertue Sevently The imperfect distribution of Animal Spirits and somwhat defective in the first affected parts indicateth Cephalicals and such things as facilitate the distribution as exercises rubbings and the like A defect of due stretching in the Nerves or Nervous and Fibrous parts indicateth those things as Corroborate the Nerves and strengthen the parts Thus much of Indications Curative the Preservative follow CHAP. XXVI Indications preservative THese Indications are deduced either from the Antecedent or the present causes of a Diseas Those which flow from the former kind of causes concern the Prophylactical Part here we only propound those which proceed from causes that are present and contained in the Body namly from common causes or such as are proper to this Diseas Now although that common causes do not seem immediatly to attain to the production of the Essence of a Diseas yet even in this respect that they are esteemed an impediment and may retard the cure they Indicate their taking away These causes are either impurities or excrementitious humors collected and impacted in the first passages which unless they be taken away do not only infect the nourishment inward but they somwhat dul or otherwise hinder the appropriate Medicines They indicate therfore an evacuation either by a gentle vomit or by a lenitive purgation as occasion shal rather perswade to this or that or they are common causes deeper imbited into the Parts of the Body and these also require an evacuation But seing that according to this kind of common causes it is at the same time driven away and almost with the same Medicaments as are the causes which are proper to this Diseas we shal conjoyn both the kinds of them in this present consideration The causes therfore which are proper to this Diseas as also the Common causes which have a deeper penetration into the Body may be divided into Blood and Cacochymical humors The Blood indeed although it be rather deficient than redundant in the first Affected parts yet in the Head for the most part it requires a particular evacuation which usually is performed by scarification of the Veins in the hollow of the Ear. Hither likewise we may partly refer blisters raised between the first and second turning Joynt of the Neck although these perhaps may relate over and above in part to the Cacochymical humors Cachochymical humors are divided into those which stil flow in the channel of the Veins and into those which are impacted in certain parts of the Body The causes or humors flowing in the Veins do primarily and intentionally Indicate their evacuation But if they be unapt for motion as to the execution then they require som previous preparation But because it happens for the most part that not al the humors are equally unapt but that som are sufficiently flexible and others not so but resist the Medecines in this case they indicate a less evacuation and then a preparation Moreover These humors in the chanel of the Veyns may be subdivided into Feaverish namly if there be a putrid Feaver and not Feaverish The Feaverish humors are either swelling or not swelling The swelling that is those which are unquiet or impetuously agitated do Indicate a sudden evacuation at least a lesser unless perhaps they are carried of their accord to the external and more ignoble parts as it happens in the small Pox the Meazels and the like Affects But if a Feaver be present and that acute and yet the humors are not swelling they chiefly Indicate that peculiar preparation which they cal coction that by this means they may be obedient to the Medecine to be aftergiven and than evacution but if the Feaver not be acute but Chronical although the matter be not irritated and yet som part of it be sufficiently flexible in this case a lesser evacuation is first indicated at any time of the Diseas and afterwards the coction of the relicts that they also in their time may be evacuated The humors contained in the Veins which are not Feaverish if they are fluxible they first indicate evacuation but because in this Affect slow gross and clammy humors are almost perpetually present preparation at least wher a lesser
But in the second place we affirm that the implanted heat doth differ frō the hot implanted temperament for the implanted heat is only a part of the hot implanted temperament for not only a Spirit but sulphur also and salt or perhaps choler contribute their heat to the constitution of the whole hot implanted temperament wherof the implanted heat is only a part Wherefore it is fasly suggested in the propounded argument that a plenty of Spirits is the sole cause of a hot distemper and a paucity of a cold distemper for a pound of the flesh of an infant containeth more implanted Spirits then a pound of a yongmans flesh yet it is most evident that the temperament of a yong man is far more hot then that of an infant a hot temperament cannot therefore depend upon the sole plenty of the Spirits nor a cold temperament upon a want of Spirits Moreover in many maladies a hot distemper is consistent with a paucity of Spirits as in a Hectick of the third degree in like manner of a cold distemper with a competent plenty of Spirits as in the Green sickness We say thirdly That a plenty or paucity of Spirits is not perpetually a sufficient cause to determine the temperament either hot or cold as on the contrary neither doth a hot nor a cold temperament certainly and necessarily demonstrate a plenty or paucity of Spirits as is manifest from the instance given So that the temperament is no sure sign of the quantity of the Spirits nor the quantity of the Spirits a sure sign of the temperament and therfore purposeth not without just cause these things come to be considered and examined as contradistinct if we wil procure a certain and inconfused knowledge of them Fourthly we answer That although it were granted that the implanted heat is subjected in the implanted Spirits yet notwithstanding that heat is not intended nor remitted according to the sole plenty or paucity of Spirits for the Spirits howsoever sufficiently copious yet if they be too much fixed torpid and as it were frozen they exhibit not any implanted heat worthy of consideration As for example the white of an egge swelleth with copious Spirits yet are they so benummed and the inward heat is thereupon so small that it obtaineth not the formation of a chicken unless it be first excited by incubation or some such other heat therefore we may lawfully conclude that a consideration from the want of Spirits is sufficiently distinct from the consideration of a cold implanted temperament although the objected argument doth seem to insinuate the contrary Moreover from this fourth article of our answer there resulteth a fourth assertion of the essence propounded Namely That beside the distemper and want of Spirits a certain benumdness of them must be added as a distinct part also of the essence of the disease This benumdness of the engraffed Spirits appeareth chiefly by the defective nutrition and aversation from exercise which proceed not primarily as we have proved above from any defect of the influx of the brain It is also manifest from hence because all those things which drive out that stupefaction of the Spirits although they do not altogether drive it away yet they conduce very much to the cure of this disease as exercises of any kind augmented by degrees frictions anoyntings c. and things inwardly taken of a heating cutting purging and gently opening quality But that this benumdness is sufficiently distinct from the want of Spirits besides that which we have said in the 3. article of our Answer is sufficiently manifest from hence because an excessive excitation contrary to a benummednes is often conjoyned with a penury of Spirits as it commonly falleth out in a Hectick feaver in dissolving fluxes and the like diseases in which howsoever there be a want of Spirits yet no benummedness is consociated but on the contrary that vehement excitation propensity to motion must be restrained On the contrary copious Spirits may consist with a benummedness as in wheat or meal For although it may seem to have but little Spirit because the Spirits of it do yet lurk in their fixation and benummedness yet indeed the Spirits do abound in it and may be summoned out by a simple fermentation and excited to a manifestation of their activity As strong Beer made thereof doth plainly declare In like manner juice newly pressed out of immature grapes is very mild and pleasant containing in the mean time plenty of Spirits which afterwards the due fermentation being finished reveal themselves in generous wine Let us conclude therefore that the benummedness of the Spirits in this affect deserveth a particular and distinct consideration CHAP. VI. Of the Part first affected in this Disease WE have already propounded the first Essence of this Disease it remaineth now that we enquire after the first Subject in which that Essence is radicated The heart and the brain do here seem rightly to be excluded for the reasons before alleadged the repetition whereof for brevity sake we shal omit The liver and the Lungs are not as yet exempted from all suspition of this fault we wil therfore examine these bowels apart and first we demand Whether the Liver be the subject of the first essence of this Disease The principal Argument is for the Affirmative because this Disease may seem to proceed from a vicious sanguification the Shop and Work-house whereof at least in probability the Liver is supposed to be but that a viciated sanguification is the first origine of this disease seems to be made manifest by many signs First because this disease for the most part followeth after many other great diseases either acute or chronical which in great measure have beforehand weakned the sanguifical vertue of the Liver Secondly Because this disease doth not only depend upon outward but inward causes namely the vicious humors And seing the vicious humors are generated in and with the mas of blood in the liver the first essence of this affect seemeth to be referred hither Thirdly The Liver is perpetually observed to be bigger than ordinary in this affect which manifestly witnesseth the Liver to be affected Fourthly those internal Medicines which have a faculty to putrifie the blood are requisite to the cure of this disease and being exhibited are found to be very profitable 5. The missian of blood from the veins of the ears which is not the meanest help to vanquish this affect doth more than sufficiently argue some fault to be in the blood which seemeth to be ascribed to the constitution of the Liver in as much as it doth sanguificate These Arguments have so far prevailed upon some very famous Physitians that thereupon they have attributed the first essence of this disease to the Liver alone But we conceive that these things may be sufficiently answered if we shall first grant what can be further or what hath already been rightly said concerning this matter and then dissolve those things
they enjoy a less quantity of Inherent Spirits But because they live perpetually in the waters therfore is their flesh more moist and slippery Whence it most evidently appeareth how effectual the inward lubricity and moisture are to facilitate the passage of the Blood As for those that are invaded with the Green sickness or afflicted with a Cachexia we grant indeed that the circulation of the Blood is difficult in them yet not only through a defect of inherent Spirits but by reason of stubborn obstructions lodging in the whol body Wherefore it must be granted notwithstanding the cold distemper the penury and stupefaction of the Spirits which procure a difficulty to the circulation that such a Mediocrity is imposed upon it by the moisture softness and internal slipperiness that the passage of the Blood may be reduced to a just if not an extream facility But if the moisture softness and inward slipperiness be so considerable to effectuate an easie circulation of the Blood Truly the distribution of it through the parts first affected seemeth to be expected more swift and not more slow We answer that the facility of the transition of the Blood is opposed to the slowness of the motion or to the smalness of the passage For a swift motion may be slow and in a smal Channel But the facility is here opposed to difficulty striving and labor which in this case if the circulation were difficult should happen to the Artery in the passage of the Blood But that the Arteries do undergo some labor in expediting the circulation of the Blood into the first affected parts shall anon be demonstrated we only affirm in this place that the facility of the passage of the Blood doth not sufficiently argue either the swiftness of the motion nor the widness of the passage For two causes do chiefly conspire to hasten the course of the Blood through the habit of the parts One is the aptitude of the part recipient or that through which the blood ought to flow and this cause is meerly passive and slothful the other is the impulsion of the Heart and Artery and also of the Arterious Blood contending to stretch and dilate it self This cause is active and full of vivacity For upon the cessation of this impulsion the distribution of the Blood will presently after totally cease however the passage may be otherwise supposed to be most easie manifest therfore it is that this impulsion is the principal active cause of the swiftnes and slownes and also of the quantity of the distribution of the Blood Wherfore those causes which do any way advance or hinder this impulsion do now come to undergo a more accurate examination For by these we shall know whether the destribution of the Blood in the parts first affected be really more sparing or slow than is meet These causes do chiefly concur to excite that impulsion First the plenty and activity of the Vital spirits contained in the Blood Secondly the perfect soundness of the Heart Thirdly The firmitude heat and just magnitude of the Arteries Fourthly An irritation both of the Heart and Arteries whether extrinsecally or intrinsecally caused These we will run over in their order that it may appear in what condition they are in this present Diseas First As for the plenty and activity of the Vital Spirits we have already shewed that in this affect the imperfect Vital Spirits are frequently excited in the right Ventricle of the Heart Seing therefore that the Blood tainted with these imperfect Spirits must be driven into the Lungs there is a necessity the destribution must there become more sparing and slow by reason of the defect of the Spirits Again seeing that the vital blood as we have also shewed above is somwhat cooled in the Arteries which are terminated in the first affected parts it is necessary likewise that the passage of it through the said parts must be diminished and more dull Secondly The vertue of the Heart unless peradventure by accident through the complication of some other Diseas is seldom seen to be viciated in this affect Thirdly For so much as concerneth the Arteries we cannot accuse their condition of any notable defect in reference to their strength But there is a manifest fault both in their heat and magnitude First in their heat the Arteries inserted into the first affected parts must necessarily by their cold distemper be somwhat affected with the like distemper For seing that a distemper of the parts first affected is active and permanent it is unavoidable but they must more or less introduce a like quality into the parts so neerly bordering to one another For natural agents are busily industrious to assimilate all Bodies placcd within the Sphear of their activity but especially such as are circumambient and neerly adjacent But if any man doubt whether that coldness of the Arteries can retard and lessen the current of the Blood through the first affected parts let him consider that frigidity is of it self an enemy to any kind of motion For it is the quality of cold by its own Nature to arrest Violences and impetuous oppositions to condensate to induce sloth to superinduce Somnolency stupefaction and immobility and when it attaineth a more intensive degree to congeal and mortifie the parts Therfore it must needs cast a Remora to the torrent or the Blood waving through the parts affected with that quality Besides In the opening of a Vein we have often observed upon the cooling of the member that the Blood hath flowed more slowly and sparingly and if the member be warmed again or the pulse be excited by rubbing or any other motion or means that then the Blood floweth again with a more plentiful and liberal current Moreover the application of cold things is sensibly effectual to stop Blood preternaturally bursting out of any part as on the contrary hot things do provoke the ebullition of it It may be objected That the Pulse is many times actuated and intended by the cold outwardly opposed as by the handling and playing with snow we see that not only the Pulse but the heat also is augmented in the hands of those that sport themselves with it We answer Cold things of themselves do alwaies move the passage of the Blood through the habit of the parts but that by accident they may intend the circulation of the Blood if at length they provoke the pulses of the Arteries as in the said case of the snow it happneth to beat stronger marches But this never comes to pass in this present affect For as we have already shewed the circulation of the Blood in this Diseas however it may suffer Immunitior or Retardation yet it continueth sufficiently easy and expedite neither doth any irritation of the puls arise from thence as anon we shal perceiv more plainly For seing it is manifest by what hath been said that the Arteries reaching to the first affected parts become more cold then ordinary or is
prerequire some duration of the Diseas But the improportionat magnitude of the Head doth begin almost at the same time with that extenuation of the first affected parts but it may so fall out if a consuming Phtisick be joyned together with this Diseas that that magnitude of the Head may vanish before death as we have already proved by one example in our Anatomical Observations The Magnitude of the Head therfore is more separable from this affect than the extenuation of the first affected parts for this cannot be removed without the Diseas be cured The sticking out of the Bones appear somtimes sooner somtimes later and they somtimes grow out more somtimes less but upon any long continuance of the Diseas they are seldom if ever seen to be absent The narrowness of the Breast doth not appear but after a long time when the Diseas is confirmed and for the most part is the forerunner of a Ptysick Again the crookedness of the Bone in the Arm and the Shank-bone as also the inflexion of the Joynts may be absent through the whol cours of the Diseas and may be more or less present and indeed is the most chanceable among those things which follow this affect We conclude therfore that these Organical parts of the Secondary Essence are separable after that manner as we have said and as a more or fewer of them are present so the Difference of the Diseas is constituted as being more or less compounded The Second Difference of this Diseas resulteth from the magnitude therof And the magnitude is estimated from the greater or lesser recess from the natural condition of it There is a vast difference in this Diseas in respect of the magnitude For some are so gently affected with it that you would scarce suppose them to be sick They complain of nothing they eat they drink they sleep like those that are sound in health only they play with more unchearfulness and shew forth some other very slight signs of sickness By the only benefit of Nature likewise without any assistances of Art they perfectly recover neither their Parents Nurses nor the By-standers so much as once suspecting that they are affected with this evil On the contrary Others are so vehemently afflicted that they cannot be rescued from death or the danger of imunient death by the most approved remedies The Third Difference is from the vehemence of the affect Now this is valued by the violent motion of the Diseas and the resistance of Nature and also by the sharpness of the conflict of these things among themselves This Diseas although it be otherwise very great yet is it slow in motion unless some fewer or some other urgent affect be conjoyned with it and stir up the Nature of it to a fiercer opposition yet is the motion therof somtimes more vehement and somtimes very dull and thereupon it happeneth to be differenced The Fourth Difference is from the strength of the sick Child or Infant This is estimated by the greater or lesser presence of those things which are according to Nature Hither belongeth the condition of the temperament the plenty of inherent Spirits the activity and strength of the Tone the vigor of the Vital and Animal Constitution and the structure of the Organs For as these are more or less obedient to the prescriptions of Nature so their Spirits ought to be judged more or less strong and according to them the evil must be determined the more or less dangerous For this caus the yonger Children caeteris paribus are more dangerously affected than the elder The Fifth Difference is from the times of the Diseas And this difference in a qualified and limited acception includeth almost all the precedent for what difference soever hapneth to any Diseas must necessarily happen at some time of the Diseas Physitians reckon up four times of a Diseas The Begining the Augmentation the Consistance and the Declination But it must be noted that Physitians are not so exact in distinguishing the seasons of things as the Phylosophers for they do not restrain the beginning of a Diseas to that point of time wherin the Diseas begineth but so far they extend it till there appear so great an alteration of the Diseas that it may be known by certain and sensible evidences For the indivisible begining is not the time wherin the Physitians help is perfected and why should that distinction of a Diseas be profitable which could not be grounded upon any alteration of it known to us Galen therfore hath rightly deduced the times of Feavers and Inflamations from the understandible alteration of them that is The begining from the crudity of the matter causing the diseas the augmentation from the manifest coction therof the state from the Excretion and the Declination he computes from the Reduction of the Reliques to the Natural state and indeed these times do sweetly agree in the general and differ in particular from the crudity and coction of Feavers and Inflamations But the truth is That this distinction of times hath not the like success in many other diseases For in these Nature doth not so regularly proceed from crudity to coction so to expulsion and at last to reduction neither by thes can we truly and safly know the progress of the diseas Other alterations therfore of these Diseases such as are more cleer and easily known must be weighed Yet we grant that even thes diseases when they are directed to health do run thorow those four seasons the begining the augmentation the state or consistence and the declination But when they tend to the destruction of the Patent they scarce attain to the consistance but are daily more and more augmented even to the lest period of life Wherfore in thes the augmentation admitteth the greatest latitude neither doth it deserv a higher difference or a lower subdivision but when an indifferent state of a diseas of the same kind is made the Middle term between the begining and the end of such an augmentation than we can conveniently distinguish The encreas into an augmentation on this side or beyond or beneath or above the consistence An encreas of the first kind about the consistance we may cal a simple encreas in regard that it differeth not from the thing it self commonly received by that name an encreas beyond or above the state we call an encreas excrescent excessive transcendent and desperate Moreover Two kinds of declination may be observed in a Diseas The first is legitamate when the Diseas simply declineth towards health and recovery The later is spurious when a diseas remitting changeth into another of a different kind And so although there are in thos that recover health only four times of a diseas yet in others two more differences may be discerned Yet it must be noted that thes six times are never to be found in the same diseas or the same patient but where there is the same diseas in the Species in divers
Prognostical signs of a diseas that hemay be the better instructed to forsee the several events of it But in general those things which abet the Diseas that is all such things as war against Nature require a contrary consideration and as thes are the stronger and they the weaker so much the more grievous and pernitious is the Diseas But becaus it is not obvious to every one to give an accurate Judgment of Particulars from this General Admonition it will not be impertinent or unprofitable to insert som particular and special Rules and Observations hitherto belonging First This Diseas properly Natural or that which invadeth before the birth is the most dangerous and seldom if ever end in health For it argueth a deprivation of the Seminary principles and by consequence that the Spirits are very infirm besides it insinuateth a vehemency in the causes Secondly The more early the invasion is after the Birth the more dangerous caeteris paribus the Diseas is for the Spirits are so much the weaker In like manner The Elder Children and such as go up and down are more easily cured then yong Infants that cannot use their legs Thirdly A Diseas improperly so called namly that which in part dependeth upon the Natural Inclination is more dangerous than that Which is contracted by the meer error of the Nurse or Mother Fourthly This Diseas proceeding from som other fore-going Affects is more dangerous than that which is introduced by an erroneous Regiment of health For it implyeth a precedent dejection of the Spirits Fifthly Som have observed That Infants who have had red Haird women to their Nurses have been most obnoxious to this Affect Yet we indeed suspect this rule of som fallability Sixthly Some affirm That Girls are more frequently infested with this Diseas than Boys and more easily cured The truth is we have not yet had any unsuspected experience of this Yet we grant that Girls are of a more cold and moist temperament which holdeth the greatest correspondency with this Diseas and for that reason probable it is that the Female Sex may be affected with the lighter causes and for the same reason also be the sooner restored Seventhly This Diseas doth chiefly invade the Cradles of the Gentry especially of those who live at eas and fare deliciously then of the poorer sort by reason of the manifold and various errors which necessity introduceth as wel in the diet of the Parents as the Regiment of their Children but it findeth the most difficult access unto those who are priviledged from such assaults by a mediocrity of fortune and accustomed to undergo some pains-taking and labor and are not destitute of necessary means to sustain life and a healthful competency to prevent indisposition Eighthly By how much the more the first affected parts are extenuated so much the more difficult caeteris paribus is the cure of the Diseas Ninthly The greater the Head is the longer and the harder is the Cure When therfore the Bone of the Forehead sticks much out forwards it portendeth at least a long continuance of the Diseas the same also do the other irregular stickings out of the other Bones of the Head Tenthly The weaker the Back-bone the greater and more dangerous is the Affect Wherfore they which are unwilling to sit upright much more they which are not able to sit upright but most of all they whose feeble Necks cannot underprop the burden of the Head are in hazard of their lives Moreover by the Diuturnal weakness and bending of the Back-bone Children become Crook-back'd or some other waies incuruated and the trunk of the Body is afterwards scarce reducible to its Native Figure Eleventhly Great Swellings in the Bones of the Wrests and the ends of the Ribs presage the continuance of the Diseas Moreover The crookedness of the Shank-bone Shoulder-bone or the Bone in the Arm prognosticate no less Again The greater that the inflexion of the Joints is the more difficult and retarded will the restauration be Twelfthly They whose Thigh and Shank-bones are much encreased rather according to latitude and thickness then according to longitude for the most part becom dwarfs 13ly They who draw their Knees upwards and unwillingly suffer them to be extended recover not without som difficulty 14ly When the Teeth wax black or fal out by pieces there is som danger and so much the more the later they com again that is others in their room 15ly Al they who attain to the consistence of the Diseas escape the danger of it being carefully lookt unto unless perhaps som other Diseas be conjoyned with it or do accidentally com after and disturb the Patient with a higher encreas In like manner the declination of the Symptoms doth assuredly promise a restitution of health 16ly If an Hydrocephalus be complicated with the Rachites it ever importeth great danger But if it prevail far as that the Sutures of the Brain pan do gape and that som water gotten into the middle Spaces doth swell the Dura mater into a waterish and soft Tumor it is mortal 17ly A painful and laborious breeding of Teeth coms somtimes accompanied with most vehement Symptoms and even threatneth death But commonly it is violent and ceaseth in a short time however so long as it is conjoyned it much accelerates the motion of the Diseas But the Dog-Teeth com forth with more vexation than the rest and portend more danger 18ly An Asthma especially the Orthopny when the Patient cannot draw breath but with an erected neck and that difficulty of breathing when he cannot ly on either side is very dangerous For that prompteth to a suspition of som Tumor Imposthum Pleurisie or Inflamation of the Lungs or som growing too of the Lungs with the Pleura all which affects want not their danger 19ly If the Ptisick be complicated with this Affect it is for the most part mortal especially if one and the same ulcer of the Lungs continu above forty days 20. We affirm that if this Diseas be of any long continuance it easily changeth into the Ptysick or a Consumption or at least commonly brings a Consumption to the destruction of the Sick unless som other affect per adventure or grievous symptom do intervene and prevent the Consumption by hastning death as a Convulsion the loud Cough the swelling of the Lungs vulgarly called THE RISING OF THE LIGHTS a continual Feaver a Pleurisie c. In the next place We assert That if a Dropsy of the Lungs or an Ascites be complicated with the Rachites it portends a desperate and deplorable condition Again An Hectick slow putrid and especially a continual Feaver consuming the first affected parts doth vehemently hasten the motion of this Diseas and render it the more dangerous Also If the Venereous Pox be consociated with the Rachites b e it hereditary or contracted by infection it is almost uncapable of remedy The Scurvy likewise conjoyned doth very much retard the cure thoug h less than the Pox.
affirm that one Indicatum only can be insinuated from one Indicant and that in his Method Med. he doth affirm That they vainly attempt the Method of cure who are ignorant that one thing is Indicated from one Indicant and that all who have written of this matter do seem to attest the same thing We answer That Galen must be understood of the three distinct kinds of Indicants which must by no means be confounded nor their Indicates that is the things indicated by them For that which a Diseas doth properly Indicate must not be attributed to the causes or the Spirits In like manner that which the causes Indicate must not be applyed to the Spirits or the Diseas it self Finally that which the Spirits Indicate must neither be ascribed to the Diseas nor the causes For in this respect one Indicate answereth to one Indicant and he that observes not this must unavoydably confound all things and in the employments of art makes an unsuccesful use of this instrument according to the judgment of Galen But it must be considered that in each of these kinds the Indicatum may be divided into two parts one wherof is an advantageous action and to be prosecuted the other is noxious and to be avoyded yet each of them belongeth to one and the same kind amongst the aforesaid three and is as it were a middle part of the whole Indicate For the Spirits direct to an election of such things as may cherish and protect them and to an avoidance of such things as may in a further degree empair them and both these actions concur to advance and ascertain the compleat and final conservation of them In like manner both in cure and restauration and also in caution and prevention there is found an action as well to be embraced as abandoned yet whether of them exceedeth the bounds of its kind so that no confusion can from thence be feared For whilst we cure we make choice of those things that wil demolish the Diseas and we deliver the application of such things as wil augment it In like manner when we preserve we take away the causes and withal we shun the use of thos things that may conspire either the continuation or future breeding of them And for this Reason in the definition which we have presented above of an Indication we distinguished the action indicated into that which ought to be prosecuted and that which ought to be waved which very thing also we were about to do in the enumeration of the particular Indications to this Diseas It is now time for us to proceed to the second enquiry propounded at the beginning namely Unto which operation of the Intellective faculty the Indication belongeth We say first That the Indication doth in som sort include the simple apprehension of each term both of the Indicant and the Indicate For he can never understand a Proposition who is ignorant of the Terms therof Yet this knowledg is only preparatory and presupposed in the art of Indications as we have already noted We affirm secondly That composition and division is an explicit operation of the Intellective faculty in the perception of an Indication For the Indicant by force of his relation doth represent the Indicate to be aptly continued together into a relative proposition Now that a Proposition thus constituted may in its own nature be so manifest and evident that no man can reasonably doubt of the truth therof or need any cleerer proof is expresly taught by Galen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and again in another place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here som calumniate Galen as if he had devised an art separated from all experience and quarrelling with Reason but because Galen intended nothing else than that Propositions framed by Indication are of self credit and need not any comprobation from Reason or Experience thes Criticks may perceiv their own rashness and retract the scandal Senertus indeed objecteth that the Indication cannot belong to the second operation of the mind because the Indicate is neither affirmed nor denied of the Indicant But that learned man was herein mistaken For although peradventure that the Indicate be neither affirmed nor denied of the Indicant directly and by the bare Verb Substantive or Copulative est Yet indirectly and obliquely it is manifestly predicated of the same and after the same manner as it useth to be in relative Propositions As for example A sound State is the Indicant of its own conservation a sickly condition is the Indicant of som remedy c. And if any man wil express the Indicate with his relation to the Indicant by the participle in dus than the Predication will be direct As a sound State is to be preserved a diseased State is to be cured a Diseas must be removed c. If the Learned Senertus can deny these to be Propositions he may with the like facility deny that an Indication belongeth to this Operation of the Understanding but if he must needs confess that there is no room left for the denial of this Now we have said that the Indication doth belong to the second Operation of the Mind becaus the Understanding in reference to the order of time doth withal comprehend the mutual relation between the Indicant and the Indicate and thereupon frameth a Proposition which formation and contexture of the Proposition is the very Indication and explicitly a second Operation of the Understanding Now that the Understanding doth together at one time comprehend the Indicant and the Indicate in the Indication is elegantly expressed by Galen in a decompounded word which he useth in the definition therof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also in another definition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We say Thirdly That Indication may likewise implicitly be referred to the third operation of the Understanding Becaus in the order of Nature the Understanding seemeth first to perceive the evident relation of the Indicant to the Indicate before it can conclude of the certainty of the Proposition from thence resulting Although in the order of time the Mind as hath been said comprehendeth them together neither is it necessary to form an explicit Syllogism for the truth is The Understanding can comprehend those things together at one time which by the Institution of Nature are termed Successive as the Sun and Light Fire and Heat c. But in regard that this simultaneous comprehension of an Indication doth include a certain dependance of the knowledg of the Indicate from the perceived relation of the Indicant it supposeth also that the said relation is sooner perceived at least in the order of Nature and that the Indicate is later understood and by an implicit bringing in for a kind of transition in respect of the order of Nature doth seem to be here implied from the relation of the Indicant as the Medius terminus to the Proposition constituted of the Indicant and the Indicate as to the conclusion and this
evacuation hath gon before is first Indicated and indeed the viscous humors Indicate incident and the thick attenuant remedies Again when the Diseas is very Chronical and extended to many months yea perhaps to a year and upwards it is not to be supposed that the whol matter causing the Diseas can at once be prepared or evacuated wherfore in this rerespect it Indicateth that we insist upon things preparatory and evacuant by turns Besides we must know that Cholerick humors require one preparation and evacuation and Melancholy humors another flegm another and watry humors another And that the preparation and purgation is Indicated variously according to the diversity of the humors commixed with the Blood The humors that are impacted in certain parts of the Body do much more require preparation before they are evacuated according to that of Hippocrates When you would purg a Body you must first make it fluxible Neitherdoth a certain general purgation suffice to subdu thes humors but such a preparation is required that hath a peculiar reference to that part in which they are inherent and therfore the humors in the Liver require one kind of preparation those in the Lungs another c. Finally Seing that the propounded kinds of all humors after they are evacuated may grow and breed again they Indicate an avoyding of such things which may dispose the Body to an easy generation of such humors And thus much of Indications Preservative it remaineth now that we consider the Vital and Conservative CHAP. XXVII Indications Conservative or Vital THis Indication ariseth from those things which are according to Nature For Life in it self consisteth in these things namly in a triple Constitution of the Body the Natural Vital and Animal above rehearsed The Natural comprehendeth under it First The Temperament Secondly The Inherent Spirits with their plenty and vigor Thirdly The Tone of the Parts Fourthly The Structure of the Organs Fifthly The Continuity The Vital containeth First The Generation Secondly The Distribution of the Vital Spirits Thirdly Their participation with those parts unto which they are distributed namely from the union of them with the said parts and the communicated heat The Animal comprehendeth First The Generation Secondly The Distribution of the Animal Spirits Thirdly The due Stretching of the Parts depending upon the Influx of the Brain All these things because life consisteth in them are called Vital Indications But among Authors for the most part they are known by the common name of the Spirits but this name is somwhat to gross seing that in propriety of speech the Spirits are radicated in the said Constitutions and are faculties of them Yet we have no design to innovate the custom of speech provided that the things may be understood as it is These Indicants so long as they continue firm and sound they require only a general and ordinary conservation by the right use of the six non-Natural things but when they are all alike vitiated or obnoxious to imminent hurt they require not only a general conservation but such an one likewise as is mixt with cure and preservation Again Where some one Constitution or som one part therof is depraved more than the rest or subject to such depravation besides the general preservation it requireth in like manner an especial one to be associated to the peculiar Curation Lastly When a Constitution Subject to error or actually erroneous is fixed to som certain part it doth higher specify that conservation namly that respect may be also had of the part so labouring more than the rest But because som say That the Vital Indication is the only and that Conservation is the simple end and that they cannot be further subdivided because that all things which are according to Nature are comprehended in the word Spirits and that they Indicate one Action namly the preservation of themselvs We grant indeed that the Spirits if as we have already noted they be improperly taken for their causes namly the three Constitutions aforesaid may in one word comprehend al things which are according to Nature but then this word must be Generical and divisible into three species namly the three Constitutions as Spirits Natural Vital and Animal We grant also that the end or that the Indicated action is one namly Conservation but by the unity of the Genus not of the ultimate species For those very things which are according to Nature however they agree in the Genus yet in the species they may differ among themselvs and require a different conservation yea it is possible that thos things which conserv the Spirits on one part may impugn them on the other as for example Wine given may in one respect cherish and strengthen the Vital Spirits or rather the Vital Constitution but in the interim it may offend and debilitate the Animal Spirits or the Animal Constitution In like manner the Temperament requireth one preservation the Structure of the Organs another and the Continuity another Yea the very different Constitution of the parts Indicates a various conservation neither do we after one and the same manner or by the same actions provide for the special conservation of the Liver Lungs Brain c. Wherfore when som one Constitution is more infirm then another or when som one part is weaker than another it Indicates a proper conservation peculiar and special to it self and therfore both Conservation and Conservants may be divided into their Species For the Conservation the Conservants appropriated to the Animal constitution differ from those which are destinated to the Vital or Natural And from hence the three first kinds of Conservation are to be deducted namly the Conservation of the Animal the Vital and the Natural constitution In like manner the Conservation of the Liver is accomplished by the use of the Hepaticals and of the Lungs by Pectorals c. Yea all parts of an eminent diversity do subdivide the conservation into so many more species Thus much of the division of Conservation into its species Moreover The same Conservation seemeth to be further divisible unto its parts For this Conservation is somwhat complicated and doth not only relate to simples but in som sort to contraries to wit Indicates both Curative and Preservative and either permitteth or disalloweth those same things being estimated with the Spirits It seemeth therfore to be branched into three parts into an election of like matters into an election of contraries under a certain condition and into a prohibition of the same under a diverse condition The election of like things is the most appropriated Action to Conservation and seems withal to have reference to two kinds of things alike namely such as are easily assimilated and are properly nourishments and such which although they cannot be assimilated in respect of their substance yet they contain within the same qualities like unto the constitution of certain parts in respect wherof they are reputed amicable and familiar to Nature and
unaptly be referred Moreover the Spirits also although they prohibit all extream hot things yet they allow of these as mōderat and very congruous to Nature In like manner there is little or no particular repugnance between these causes and the Indicates albeit in respect of time and the order of administration som dissent may be observed as we shall see afterwards in due place Wherfore in what respect and how far these agree together whilst we intend a cure we do at once respect not only the Spirits but in som sort the causes by choosing such curative remedies or by mingling such ingredients with them which are able both to attenuate the thick matter to cut into the viscous to open the obstructed passages and the like In like manner whilst we are chiefly imployed either in preservation or in the rooting out of causes we make choice of such evacuants or els we compound them with such remedies as are also partly contrary to the Diseas And all these things we do to that purpose as that as hath been said we may be subservient to the most intentions we can Now having found out the actions simply requisit in the Species in the next place we shal enquire out their du circumstances 1. In regard that this is a great Diseas it requireth a great quantity of the Remedy in respect of it self For a Remedy unequal to the Diseas cannot extirpate it It is necessary therfore that the dose of the Medicine be equally to the magnitude of the Affect But in this Diseas the Spirits permit not so great a quantity of Remedies to be given at once Wherfore that quantity must be divided given by turns For this is a Chronical Diseas and of slow motion neither doth it necessarily require an hasty Cure and although the Spirits cannot wel endure either vehement Remedies or such as are given in a large dose yet they permit the use of Evacuant Medicins by an Epicrasis Wherfore by turns we must somtimes make use of Remedies Preparatory somtimes Evacuant somtimes Alterant and somtimes strengthing Secondly For so much as belongeth to the place of administration the general Rule is that the remedy ought to arive at the seat and penetrate to the very Cause of the Diseas If therfore it must have a passage into the Vessels it must be taken at the Mouth but if it will suffice to touch only the thick Guts it must be injected by the Fundament If the humors be naturally ready to move upwards expel them by vomit if downwards evacuat them by siege In like manner you must humor the inclination of Nature and root out the causes by spitting by Urin or by sweating Particular evacuations must be instituted in the very affected parts or in the parts adjacent For so the force of the Remedy doth the more surely make way to the seat of the Diseas and the morbifical Caus And for the same reason external and topical Medicines must be applied to the next convenient place Yet you must know that there is a certain Sympathy between som parts in which case the remedies ar frequently administred to the part wherwith that consent intercedeth and neither to the affected nor the adjacent part Thirdly The form of the Medicament doth partly depend upon the Rule last propounded For if the scope be to lenifie the Jaws or the Windpipe we chuse a licking or lapping form that by degrees the remedy may slide over the affected parts and stay the longer upon them In like manner if the Stomach be affected we often prescribe Pils Pouders or Electuaries that they may the longer abide in the Stomach To the Kidnies we rather design liquid things that they may the more easily be carried down to them with the wheyish part of the Blood The forms do also in som part depend upon the very nature of the Diseas as in burning Feavers liquid things are for the most part convenient dry things are scarce admitted on the other side in moist Diseases and when the Belly is oversoluble more solid forms are preferred Finally the forms of the Medicines do also partly depend upon the nature of the Ingredients So Cassia worketh most effectually in the form of a Bolus Hartshorn Coral and the like in the form of a Pouder in like manner bitter things such as beget a vomiting and stinking things are concealed in the form of Pills somtimes also they are guilded or els they are enwrapped in Wafers and exhibited in the form of a Bolus Now it must here be noted that for the most part the form of the Remedy is not so considerable as it gives place to the more easie and commodious administration in respect of the Admission or Reception of the Sick For many cannot swallow Pills others presently reject their Potions by vomit others are perhaps avers from other forms In this Affect in regard that all Children almost are loth to take Physick that form is to be preferred before the rest which shall be observed to be least distastful to them Fourthly As for the time of action you must so endeavor to sit your administrations that they may as little as possible be interupted with times of eating exercise or sleep for at this age the Spirits are scarce preserved sound and perfect without an interposition of those things by just internals Remedies evacuant opening attenuate and incident must be taken early in the morning upon an empty stomach and if they must be repeated the same day four of the Clock in the afternoon upon an empty stomach likewise is the most seasonable hour Strengthning and astringent Medicines and such as provoke sleep are to be taken rather in the evening than in the morning but perhaps som of these are most agreable after meals Medicines that are mingled with the nourishment ought to be gratful to the Palat lest they subvert the stomach and hinder concoction or caus a loathing of the meat or els empair the Spirits As for the order of proceeding there occur two general Rules The former is That that must first be don which being premised makes way for the following Remedies and therfore that ought first to be removed which hath the consideration of an impediment in respect of what must follow The later is That we must ever give our first help to the more urgent and weighty Indicant unless som impediment intervene If the Question therfore be Whether the Diseas or the Caus of the Diseas doth first require the help of Physick The answer wil be obvious according to the first Rule For the causes are reflected upon under the notion of an impediment in respect of the Cure of the Diseas for they cherish it and infringe the vertu of the Medicins Wherfore before that we are intent upon the vanquishing of the Diseas we premise all possible endeavors to root out the Caus or at least to lessen abate and retund it that it may oppose no considerable force to
retard the rooting out of the Diseas Yet in the interim whilst we are busie in the removal of the Causes the Essence of the Diseas must not be totally neglected as we have before admonished Yea when we have so subdued the Cause that it cannot for the present much interupt the Cure we may the Causes not being utterly over-come and cast out the more diligently and earnestly attempt the resisting of the affect yet with this condition That if the Causes revert and becom new impediments that then we are obliged presently to undertake the subduing and evacuation of them so that in this Chronical Affect somtimes the Causes somtimes the Diseas must be resisted by turns and the Spirits do better undergo this change of action than if we should continualy make our battery against the Causes till they were absolutely rooted out Moreover When the Causes of the Diseas in this Affect are unapt for motion by reason of their toughness grosness and perhaps setledness they must first be freed from this impediment and prepared before they are evacuated For according to the Rule of the great Dictator Quae movenda sunt fluida prius facere oportet In like manner that thickness toughness and setledness of matter if it be present indicate Remedies attenuant incident and opening But these things are not safly taken the impurities still flowing back into the first Passages for then perhaps they are carried along with the Medicines into the Veins and more defile the Blood or at least hinder the efficacy of the Remedies These therfore have the nature of an impediment and must be in the first place removed Lastly Universal Evacuants must be premised before Particular and Topical Remedies especially where it is not permitted at once to mind both intentions For the Universal Causes flowing in the Body are easily surrogated in the room of Particular Evacuations and renew the Afflux to the first affected part but the thinner part of Particular Causes and that which is most apt for motion is evacuated but the thicker perhaps is more impacted Wherfore Universal Causes yet flowing to and fro in the Body as considered are Impediments in respect of Particular Evacuation and by consequence must be first expelled The latter Rule was That we must releeve the more urgent and weighty Indicant first unless there be an interuption of som impediment That is termed an urgent Indicant which threatneth the most danger Now every such Indicant is supposed to induce great afflictions into the Body and not without manifest danger to wast the Spirits Therfore in this respect we must somtimes first help the Diseas the Caus being neglected Somtimes also we must neglect both the Diseas and the Causes and adress our endeavors to the pacification of the Symptoms as in a vehement Flux of the Belly long Watchings profuse and immoderat Sweating and the like But even in these cases we must have a prudent regard both to the Diseas and the Causes and when the urgent Symptom is corrected or the violence of the Diseas repressed then we must return to the regular Method of proceeding for this Rule belongs not to the ordinary and legitimate order of Cure but to the Method of Necessity Moreover to perfect the right administration of Indications there is required an exact and accurat knowledg of the Medical Matter whereof we shal discours in the subsequent Chapters CHAP. XXIX The Medical Matter answering to the Indications proposed and first the Chyrurgical THE Medical Matter must be found out by Experience and Analogismes or Arguments drawn by an answerable necessity from the Caus to the Effect although the truth is we conceive not any other Reasonings to be absolutly excluded It is vulgarly and not unaptly distributed into three kinds The Chirurgical the Pharmateutical and the Diatetical Of these in their order The Chirurgical commonly received and approved in this Affect and famous above the rest are chiefly two Scarification of the Ears and little Fountains or Issues But our enquiry as we shal see anon shal be extended to many more namly of Cuppin-Glasses Leeches Blisters Ligatures and Swathing-bands But the opening of a Vein the Spirits cannot brook as every one knows who but observes the frailty of the age the extenuation of the habit of the parts and the smalness of the Veins The Scarification of the Ears shal lead our discours The Empericks who undertake the cure of this Diseas make more of it than one would imagin For in their practice they celerate it with great vaporing and without it scarce hope for a happy cure But we although we disallow not this kind of remedy have seen many Children successfully recovered without the use therof And they themselves who attribute most unto it for the most part take away no considerable portion of Blood Yet some affirm that they have seen a large quantity of Blood drawn away with good event However it be it is credible that those Children do with most ease endure this remedy and obtain most profit by the use of it which are of a Sanguin complexion and wel habited and who are affected with an Alogotrophy rather than an Atrophy or a Consumption or any other remarkable extenuation of the parts Our Practitioners for most part repeat this operation two or three times in a week They seldom do it with an Instrument or sharp Pen-knife but most commonly with an ordinary blunt Knife taking no notice of the pain and crying of the Child Moreover For the most part they perform it in the hollow of the Ear but some extend it to the inward and outward circumference of the upper part of the Ear yea to the whol circumference No man hitherto as we know have attempted the Scarification of the hinder side of the Ear although indeed it is not easie to give a reason why it should conduce less being administred there than in the hollow part Yet it may be lawful for us to offer our conjectures why the hollow of the Ear should be chosen before the other parts for this operation which notwithstanding we will not confidently assert although we suppose we can at least probably assert it if that be true which the most diligent Chyrurgion Fubricius Hildanus hath written in his Observ 4. Centur. 1. de nervo quinti parts For this conjecture is grounded upon this Observation and if that be ruinous this perhaps must perish with it The Conjecture is this The distribution and use of the Nerve and of the fifth Pair before mentioned being supposed Scarification in the hollow of the Ear may very conveniently both free that Nerve from any kind of oppression and likewise shake off the numbness and give it vigor For the hollow of the Ear is the next place unto it which we can come at with an instrument Wherfore evacuation being here made may immediatly drive away the matter which commonly oppresseth the very beginning of that Nerve and withal causing pain and encreasing the
swelled and this stretching hardness and swelling would not yeild to a Purgation though rightly administred then you must proceed to Local Remedies As Take Oyl of Capers Wormwood Elder of each one ounce of the general Ointment first described one ounce and an half mingle them and make a Liniment Or Take Ointment of the opening juyces Foesius three ounces the first general Ointment two ounces mix them together and make them one Ointment also Oyl of Saxifrage made of a manifold infusion and boiling of the bruised Herb in common Oyl is much to be commended to be mixed with it In the time of using it this and the like Liniments or Unguents may be mingled for penetration sake with som appropriat liquor As Take the flowers of Elder the flowers of red Sage Bay-berries bruised white Sanders slightly beaten to pouder of each two drams white Wine two pound steep them for three days in a cold place in a glass vessel accuratly stopt with Cork and shake it twice a day when you use it strain as much as will serve your present occasion then stop your vessel again Or if you desire a stronger Take the roots of white Bryony well dryed and sliced Bay-berries Goos-dung of each two drams Cummin-seeds one dram the leavs of red Sage the flowrs of Elder of each one pugil boil them in one pound and a half of Rhenish-wine to a pound keep the Decoction in a cold place diligently stopped These and the like Liquors mingled with the Oyntment and heated at the fire must be rubbed upon the Abdomen and especially the Hypochondries even to driness Let the Nurse also having well warmed her hands handle those parts gently somtimes pressing the Bowels upwards somtimes downwards somtimes to the right hand and somtimes to the left according to our former Directions The most galent thing of all is the Balsom of Tolu mixed with any Oyntment or Plaister and so applied to the Region of the Back either in form of an Oyntment or Playster Plaisters also seem to contribute somthing As Take three ounces of Ceratum santalinum Gum Ammoniacum dissolved in Rhennish Wine or in som other medicated wine above described purified and boyled again to a thickness one ounce make your Plaister according to art Spread part of this upon Leather and lay it upon the right Hypochondry or els the left if the hardness be there most sensible which indeed is very seldom Or Take the Juyces of Brooklime Watercresses Garden-Scurvygrass Wormwood the bark of Elder the roots of the male Fernbrake of each one ounce Let the Juyces be purified with a gentle heat and being extracted reduce them to a thick body then ad one dram an half of Mace and two drams of yellow Sanders in pouder Take of this Mixture one ounce and an half Gum Ammoniac dissolved in Wine and boyled to a body four ounces Mingle them bot and stir them continually till they begin to wax cool and hard and make a Plaister to be applied as the former Moreover when the Lungs are il affected many times a peculiar pectoral Plaister is very useful As Take Oyl of Violets white Lillies and the Ointment of Orenge flowers of each one ounce Mingle them and make a Liniment to be rubbed with a hot hand upon the Breast laying a Lawn Paper over it lined with Wool or linen cloth To this Liniment you may ad a smal quantity of Natural Balsom Or Take two ounces Unguent Pectorale an ounce and an half of simple Ointment of Liquoris one ounce of Oyl of Violets Mingle them and make a Liniment to be used after the same manner The Ointment of Liquoris is thus made Take new and Juycy Liquoris four ounces new unsalted Butter washt in Rose water one pound slice the Liquoris and beat it wel with the Butter in a stone Morter afterwards fry them then strain and squeeze them and repeat the same labor thrice with a new quantity of Liquoris Again Som Plaisters may be prepared proper against the weakness of the Back which very frequently hapneth in this Affect In the Shops you may have the Plaister of Betony and Diachalcitheos unto which nevertheless when you use them you must ad Mastich and Olibanum in pouder of each half a dram the Plaister also which is called Flos Unguentum may hither be referred provided that you omit the Camphire in like manner also Emplastrum Nervinum Or Take two ounces of the first general Oyntment five of the Herbs that are contained in that Composition cut and chopped very smal Yellow Wax four ounces the purest Rosin eight ounces the Oyntment Rosin and Wax being melted ad the Herbs and according to art make a Plaistrr Or Take fifteen ounces of the third general Oyntment Litharge of Gold beaten smal and sifted nine ounces boyl them together continually stirring them to the consistence of a Plaister then ad Wax Burgundy Pitch of each three ounces Oyl of Nutmegs by expression three drams Mastich Olibanum Mirrh of each one dram and an half Costorium half a dram white Vitriol in pouder half an ounce make your Plaister according to art In like manner some commend a Liniment for the weakness of the Back-bone which consisteth of Gelly of Harts-horn made with such things as strengthen the Sinews adding the Flowers of Sage and the Roots of our Ladies Seal In the time of anointing mingle therwith a little Oyl of Nutmegs by expression or Oyl of Worms or Mans Grass And thus much of external Remedies FINIS A Table of the Chapters contained in this Treatise CHAP. I. THE Antiquity and first Origin of this Diseas the Name of it and the Derivation of the Name Pag. 1 CHAP. II. Anotomical Observations collected from the Dissection and Inspection of Bodies subdued and killed by this Diseas p. 8 CHAP. III. Certain Suppositions are proposed for the easier finding out the Essence of the Diseas First of the Essence of Health Secondly of the Essence of a Diseas Thirdly of a threefold Division of Health and Diseases The Explication of the third Division and the Use of the same The Description of a Natural Constitution and the Exaltation of it The Fourth Supposition of the Combination of three Constitutions in the same parts p. 17 CHAP. IV. That the Essence of this Diseas consists not in the Animal or Vital but in the Natural Constitution not as Organical but as Similar Three Limitations are propounded p. 26 CHAP. V. The proposed Opinion is examined by Parts First That this Diseas is a cold Distemper An Objection and the Answer thereunto That it is moist that it consisteth in the penury or paucity of the Spirits An Objection with the Answer Finally That this Diseas consisteth in the stupefaction of the Spirits p. 36 CHAP. VI. Of the Part first affected in this Diseas p. 45 CHAP. VII Of the secondary Essence of this Diseas p. 57 CHAP. VIII The secondary Essence of this Diseas in the Vital Constitution p. 72 CHAP. IX The viciated Generation of the Vital spirits in this Affect and whether that fault be a part of the secondary Essence p. 75 CHAP. X. The viciated Distribution of the Vital Spirits in this Affect and whether it be a part of the secondary Essence thereof p. 80 CHAP. XI The Inequality of the Distribution of the Bloud in this Affect p. 94 CHAP. XII The faults of the Vital Participativ Constitution in this Affect p. 99 CHAP. XIII The Organical faults of the Natural Constitution in this Affect p. 108 CHAP. XIV The secondary Essence of this Diseas in the Animal Constitution p. 144 CHAP. XV. The Causes of the Rachites And first those things which concern the Parents p. 151 CHAP. XVI The Causes of this Diseas incident to Children after their birth p. 163 CHAP. XVII Precedent Diseases which may be the Cause of this Diseas p. 180 CHAP. XVIII The former Question p. 187 CHAP. XIX The latter Question Why this Diseas hapneth more frequently in England than in other Countries And whether it be Natural to English-men p. 202 CHAP. XX. The Differences of the Diseas called the Rachites p. 215 CHAP. XXI The Signs of the Rachites and first the Diagnostical Signs p. 228 CHAP. XXII The Signs of the Differences of the Rachites or the Diacritical Signs thereof p. 241 CHAP. XXIII The Prognostical Signs in the Diseas of the Rachites p. 251 CHAP. XXIV The Method to Practice and Indications in general p. 257 CHAP. XXV Indications Curative p. 279 CHAP. XXVI Indications Preservative p. 282 CHAP. XXVII Indications Conservative or Vital p. 284 CHAP. XXVIII The Use and right Administrations of the Indications aforesaid p 302 CHAP. XXIX The Meddical matter answering to the Indications proposed and first the Chyrurgical p. 310 CHAP. XXX Of the Pharmacental matter and first of such things as clense the first Passages p. 322 CHAP. XXXI Remedies Preparatory and their Use p. 330 CHAP. XXXII Remedies Electively Evacuant p. 335 CHAP. XXXIII Specifical Alterent Medicines p. 340 CHAP. XXXIV Remedies that correct the Symptoms p. 349 CHAP. XXXV External Remedies p. 357 CHAP. XXXVI Things to be Externally Applyed p. 366 FINIS * A most loathsome and horrible Disease in the Hair unbeard of in former times bred by modern luxury and excess It seizeth specially upon Women and by reason of a viscous venimous humour glues together as it were the hair of the head with a prodigious ugly folding entanglement somtimes taking the form of a great Snake sometimes of many little serpents full of nastiness vermine and noysome smel And that which is most to be admired and never eye saw before pricked with a needle they yeeld bloody drops And at the first spreading of this dreadful Disease in Poland all that cut off this horrible and snakie hair lost their eyes or the humor falling down upon other part of the body tortured them extreamly It began first not many years ago in Poland It is now entered into many parts of Germany H Saxo Professor of Physick in Padua ‡ A Disease in the head coming frō Rhewm ‡ That part of the brest where the ribs meet ‡ A thin and smooth skin which cloatheth the ribs in the inner side