Milk which is a very fluid Body into Cheese which is a very firm and fixed one agrees very well to solve the Phaenomena of that Disease for it is more than probable that the Plague kills by coagulating the Blood and rendring it unfit for Circulation for the Spots or Tokens seem to be nothing else but quarred flakes of it which being thrust out at the ends of the Arteries there stick can no more enter into the mouths of thâ— Veins than Milk when it is turned 〈◊〉 Cheese can pass through a Streiner The Definition which M. N. gives us iâ— this Chapter of the cause of Diseases me thinks is very pretty where he tells us That the cause of all Diseases Me. Med. p. 199. is a certaâ—â— Putrefaction secretly lurking among the hiddâ—â— Recesses of the Humors This Definition 〈◊〉 dare swear for him is his own though he has the face to fasten it upon the Vnanimous Consent of Physitians For by its being most unintelligible Fustian I know it to be of the same Wofe and Thred with the rest of Medela CHAP. VI. I Have in the foregoing Chapters prov'd at large that the Scurvy was a Disease antiently Endemial to the Northern parts of the World I have allowed a notable disparity to be between the Blood of the Inhabitants of the Regions subject to this Disease and that of those Persons who breathed the Air where the Ancients liv'd and made their Observations upon Diseases Yet is not the difference so considerable but that a rational Physician may make admirable use of much of their Method and Medicines in the curing of Diseases in these Climates and even in such cases where the Scurvy bears a considerable share in the complication And as to Vermination I have demonstrated that Worms are more often the Effects than Causes of Diseases that their productions in humane and other natural Bodies was no less frequent and observable in former times than ours and that from them so great a change in all Diseases as to make void all the Practise and Medicines of the Ancients can by no means be inferr'd It is confessed that the French Pox is of late come in upon us from America but M. N. has not in the least prov'd that it has so tainted and infected the Stock and Nature of mankind as to render all Diseases incident to humane Bodies uncurable by the Wayes Methods and Medicines which the faithful experiences of former Ages have recommended to us as effectual Some Maxims of Physick are by M. N's favor as Eternal as those of the Spanish Monarchy Though by the way he has unluckily quoted Balzac for this expression since it is very obvious to tell him That Maxims of Monarchy and Physick have been equally sacred to him and that there was a time when he treated Monarchs with less civil Language than that is which now he bestows upon the Princes of the Art of Physick and he must give me leave to mind that he might as rationally inferr from that monstrous and new Disease of the late Rebellion which was by his virulent Pamphlets diffus'd amongst the people like the Plaguâ— by the infected raggs of greedy and malicious Nurse-keepers that all Maxims in Policy and Government are become insignificant and unnecessary as to conclude from the breaking out of the American Disease that the old way of Physick in respect of Method and Medicines is insufficient and useless For many Maxims in Medicine are founded upon the long and constant Observations and Experience of the World and so adapted to the very Nature and Constitution of Man that in all places and times they must of necessity be of admirable use For indeed many Rules of this Art are not grounded upon any Hypothesis contriv'd by mans brain but are themselves the very foundations which will though possibly Philosophers have raised upon them an ill contrived and incommodious Structure remain when the Superstructure is demolished stable and unshaken And though it must be confessed that the Physiology and Pathology of the Ancients are very insufficient to satisfie an inquiring man concerning the true causes of Diseases and their Symptoms yet much of the Method certainly is not grounded upon them but was long in use before those notions of Causes were invented The learned Dr. Willis de Feb. Willis speaks much to this purpose in his Preface before his Book de Febribus He tells us that in the cure of Feavers some indications anciently received do in this age stand firm and ought to be observed to the worlds end and that they are not founded upon the precepts of Schools but upon Experience the Mistress and Teacher of the Art of Physick And that though the Hypotheses of the Ancients were erroneous that did not hinder the practise of Physick which was first established by induction from Observations from going on successefully And thence he concludes that much less shall a Theory built upon true grounds be pernicious to the sick or cause practitioners to leave that track which Time and Experience has recommended to them as safe And it cannot be denied continues he that bare Empericism without the assistance of Method and Reason does signifie very little nay that it does most commonly do a world of mischief considering that the very same Diseases are not at all times and in all places to be encountred with the same Remedies but he that has so joyned both together that Reason shall not give Laws to Nature and Experience nor these corrupt Reason seems to be a most absolute and compleat Physician Now if it be true as this excellent Philosopher and Physitian affirms that much of the method and many of the precepts of Physick do and will alwayes continue firm and useful because they are not established upon phantastical Notion's such as are the Author 's of Medela but upon unerring Experience no lesse will those Medicines which the constant trial of the World has recommended as effectual remain serviceable to Physitians before such as are imagined by the touchy head of M. N. or any other whimsical Inventer of Secrets and Remedies For I have already prov'd at large in the first Chapter that the Materia Medica is wholly founded upon Experience That Medicines were at the first found out Crebro singularium tentamine by a frequent Triall of each Medicine upon sundry persons I have there shew'd how dangerous it is for ignorant Quacks to Experiment Medicines especially such as are hazardous upon the Bodies of men I am for my part of the same opinion with Varandaeus who told the ingenious and learned Doctor Primrose Primr Popular Err. l. 1. c. 12. that those Remedies are the best which are no Secrets but best known as being confirmed by more certain Experience I confesse sayes that eminent Physitian that all the virtues of Simples are not yet perfectly known as yet many lie hid If therefore any man hath found out by Experience the virtue of some
Hysterical Fits and some even after so large Haemorrhages that there has been more Reason to believe they had not Blood enough left to maintain the Circulation than to suspect the Lungs and Heart could be oppressed with it Riverius has an Observation of a Maid River Ob cent 1. ob 94. who having her menstruous Flux in so violent a manner that in the space of two hours she voided four or five Pints of Blood fell into so terrible a Fit of the Mother that she lay without speech as one dead and yet had her eyes open and shewed with her hand that she was strangled These and other Reasons seem to argue That the Animal Constitution I use Dr. Glysson's word is primarily affected in this Disease Glisson de Râ—chid p. 19. and the heart and lungs only secondarily and by consent and that the disorders of the vital parts as well as the rest of Hysterical Symptons are meerly convulsive motions Consonant to this Dr. Willis in his most admirable Treatise of the Brain Nerves gives an excellent account how the Lungs come to be affected in Hysterical and Hypochondriacal Paroxysms in these words Si quando nervos pneumonicos à causa morbifica affectiones Spasmodicae afflixerint ita ut motibus inordinatis convulsi arterias venas quas amplectuntur perperam constringant aut huc illuc contrahant propterea Sanguis aut pulmonibus nimis exulans eos flaccescere ac in se concidere facit adeo ut aerem copiose attrahentes ipsum haud facile reddant vel quod crebrius usu venit Sanguis intra pulmones detentus ibidemque stagnans eos infercit ac diu rigidos tenet ut aerem inspirare nequeant Vtriusque generis Symptomata in affectibus Hystericis quibusdam Hypochondriacis passim contingunt Quinimo interdum ipsa Bronchia pari nervorum Spasmo convelluntur ac in motu suo praepediuntur quo minus debito modo aerem inspirent exspirentque prout in paroxysmis Asthmaticis cernitur cujusmodi affectus saepenumero a nervorum vitio sine insita quavis pulmonum dyserasia producuntur Willis Nervorum Descrip c. 24. In the same Chapter he acquaints us how the affections and motions of the Heart are produced by the influence of the Animal Spirits through the intercostal and eighth pare of Nerves and that the tremblings and disorderly vibrations of the Heart which evidently differ from its pulsifick motions are caused from the violent Succussions and Convulsions of the Pericardium To evince the necessity of the influx of the Animal Spirits to maintain the motion of the Heart he tells us That he had often made this Experiment in Dogs when they were alive Having opened the Skin about the Neck he tyed both the Trunks of the Par Vagum with very strict Ligatures upon which the Dog seem'd to be stun'd lost wholly his voyce and fell into Convulsions about the Hypochondria with a great trembling at his heart But these presently ceasing he lay as if he were just a dying without any life or vigor in his countenance scarce being able to move any part and refusing all meat that was offered him Notwithstanding he dyed not in several dayes till he was quite starv'd though the Nerves were both cut asunder The Heart receiving by the recurrent and intercostal Nerves a sufficient though weak supply of Spirits to maintain a faint motion and a Circulation enough to keep the Dog alive Having hitherto prov'd That the Animal Constitution is primarily affected in the Hysterical Passion it will follow that theremay be assigned as many causes of this Distemper as we can imagine able either notably to vellicate the Extremities of the Nervs affect them so strongly as to draw into consent the whole System or else to put the Animal Spirits in the Brain into so great a confusion and disorder as to disturb their constant and regular irradiation and influx into the bowels and other parts of the body Or whatever causes are apt to render the nervous Juyce which is the Vehicle of the Spirits sharp and pungent and apt to irritate and provoke the Fibers in its passage The Ancients reckon the Seed retained in the genital parts in too great a quantity as one of the principal causes of these affections and that we may the better understand how that is able to put the Animal Spirits and Nerves into disorderly motions it will not be impertinent to consider the nature of it The Seed or Geniture seems to consist of Salt Sulphur and a great quantity of Spirit for these active principles are only able to perform that wonderful work of Generation in that secret shop of Nature the Womb. It may be proved by sundry Experiments That a nitro-sulphureous spirit is the Author of all Generations as well in Vegetables as Animals The Account which that eminently learned person D. Ent gives of the production of things in his Apology for the Circulation against Parisanus is very much to this purpose Eat Apol. Terra Aqua sayes he materies sunt rerum naturalium in quibus seu uteris diversa rerum gignendarum semina sive spiritus delitescunt quorum virtutes in salibus potissimum nidulantur Per calorem solis humores tenues variis salibus impraegnati ascendunt aeremque nostratem constituunt denuoque in elementa unde evecta erant relabuntur Quinetiam interdum majore copia roris forma decidunt cujus opera Terra Aqua spontaneos suos foetus producunt Indicium hujus rei est quod si aqua calida terram perfuderis namque eo modo sal omnis educitur nihil postea in ea nascitur neque vermiculi neque lapilli nec gramen imo nec semina quidem ei commissa licet soli haec terra exponatur aqua stillatitia irroretur nihil inquam inde progignitur donec per aliquod temporis spatium sub dio posita novo rore sive sale vivifico impraegnetur Hic ros super arborum frondes incidens varia insectorum genera producit Hic in mediano plantarum cortice potissimum stabulatur per quem plantae vivunt unde debito tempore frondes flores fructus producuntur ac propterea illo ipso in pertinacibus viscerum obstructionibus reserandis utimur In quo si Brosseus recte computum iniit vigecuplo plus hujus salis quam in ulla alia arboris parte reperitur Imo sunt qui affirmant ab ipsis plantarum salibus terrae commissis easdem denuo plantas repullulare Hinc constat idem etiam animalibus contingere hominumque semen de natura salis participare quod probatur his rationibus 1. Semen diutius retentum copia adauctum titillationem excitat id autem sali contingere in prurigine videre est 2. Semen in humido liquescit quod sali proprium est 3. Acidum olet 4. Hinc fit ut nimio coitu capilli qui tali sale abundant defluant Ossa eo
wrought very gently with her but as soon as the working was over after her last Vomit she fell into a Fit of the Muther It might be expected that I should now give an account of every particular Symptom which belongs to this disease but not designing to make an exact Treatise of it in this place I must recommend to the Reader the consideration of these causes which I have mentioned or any other which he can imagine powerful enough to make disorders in the animal Spirits and convulsions in the nervous parts and as for the particular consents correspondencies of one part with another how distempers begun in one part manifest themselves in another far remote I referr him to Dr. Willis his most learned Treatise of the Brain and Nerves and to the Schemes wich he will there meet with For without such an Anatomical consideration of those parts it is impossible to receive any tollerable satisfaction concerning the affections of them And I will onely in this place give him an account of the most notorious Symptom the rising of the Muther from which all the rest receive their denomination in Dr. Willis his own words Plerique abdominis plexns praesertim vero insimus affinis ejus mesenterii maximus in passionibus Hystericis vulgò dictis saepenumero afficiuntur Willis Nervor descrip c. 27. Porro illud Symptoma in Paroxismis ejusmodi valde frequens nempe quo velut globus ab imo ventre efferri ac circa umbilicum impetuose exilire percipitur ut perinde uteri ascensus perhibeatur Dico id nihil aliud esse quam immanes horum plexuum spasmos Saepe quidem in foeminis interdum etiam in viris novi cum affectio convulsiva in aderet primo molem in hypogastrio â—ssurgere visam dein circa medium abdomen intumescentiam ita immanem successisse ut viri fortis manibus ut ut validissime intentis haud comprimi aut inhiberi potuerit Proculdubio admirandi hujus affectus causa est quod intra paris intercostalis nervos Spiritus animales influi quoties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sive motus Convulsivos ineunt primo uti plerumque assolet circa nervi extremitates nempe in plexu abdominis infimo effervescere ac velet explodi inciptant quae illorum affectio cum sursum perreptans ad plexum Mâ—senterii maximum deferatur adeo ut Spiritus ejus incolae pari inordiatione corripiantur nihil mirum est ista medii abdominis intuumescentia ac velut materiae cujusdam nitrosulphureae explosio cietur In this and the place before quoted out of him we see that Dr. Willis whose sense M. N. that he may honour himself by quoting of him every where either ignorantly or willfully mistakes ascribes Hysterical hypochondoriacal and asthmatical risings and stoppings to Convulsions of the nerves and not to vitious and malignant vapours raised in the lower belly especially about the spleen in the stomach Mâ—d. Mâ—d. p 49. 50. and about the Midriffe and in the cavity of the Omentum Nor to the Playing of the Scorbutick malignant vapours up through the veines and arteries to the lungs and by communication to the heart which accompt may be well enough tollerated in Sennertus but is by no means to be indur'd in M. N. who pretends so much to the new discoveries in Physick and undertakes to demolish and overthrow all the old Writers And yet aggrees with them in their grossest mistakes And now having clearly proved that the Diseases of this present age are not so much changed and of another nature as to render the old way of Physick uselesse I will next proceed to examine whither the causes assigned by M. N. are sufficient to produce that great alteration both in Nature and art which he imagines to be made CHAP. III. THE Causes of the alteration of Diseases from their ancient state and condition the Author of Medela assigns to be the Pox and Scurvey which by carnal contact by ill cures by accidental contagion by haereditary propagation and by lactation he supposes so to have overspread the whole face of Mankind as that by them there is introduced an universal alteration and depravation of Nature from whence he would inferr that the rules Methods and Medicines which were used by the Ancients in the curing of their diseases are become altogether uselesse in ours As to carnal contact haereditary propagation and lactation I very readily grant that the Pox and scurvy may by those ways be communicated from the diseased persons to the sound But as to accidental Contagion as he calls it upon which point lies the main stress of his Arguments for the universality of those diseases by which they like the Plague infect at a distance and by steams emanations taint the whole stock of Mankind it is a meer whim of his own and so far from being a solid truth that it is point blank contrary to the daily experiecne of the world and the authority and observations of the most learned and faithful Writers and the very Nature and Essence of those diseases When M. N. comes to handle the point of the propagation of the Pox and Scurvy by ill cures it is pleasant to observe that he does not onely fling dirt upon the learned Physitians for letting blood and using the purgers of the Shops but that he may ingross all the sinners of the Town he likewise falls foul upon his own Fraternity the men of his own Rank and Ability in Physick the poor Quacks and Mountebanks who pretend to the Cure of the Venereal disease and to make room for his own very injuriously tears down their bills from the Posts On my word he will make no ill trade of it if he can perswade the whole Nation that they have the French-Pox and then that nobody but himself can cure it But passing by his immodest and uncleanly discourse as not designing to make my self acceptable to Stews and Brothel-houses I will fall upon the other more important and less offensive disquisition concerning Phlebotomy And as to that he tells us he could forsooth willingly write a Treatise and a learned one it would be touching the mischiefs done by bleeding in these Northern parts of the world in most Diseases as well as Agues and Fevours because of the mixture of the Scorbut and his main reason is because that if it be true since the liver is turn'd out of the Office of Sanguification Sanguis sanguificat blood makes blood of the chyle and doth it ad modum tincturae c. Now I will grant to him that the liver is very justly discharged of the office of sanguification as I will anon more largely prove and that in some sense the blood may be said to make blood and yet upon this score is it impossible for that great remedy of bloud letting established by the Experience and Authority of the whole learned worlp in the least to grow out of esteem First then
congealing power Farthermore every days Experience informs us what changes and alterations are made upon our Bodies as to Epidemical diseases by the hot cold moist or dry Constitutions of the Seasons and Years And I cannot but wonder that the Chymists should exclude the four first Qualities from having any causality in diseases when in their own operations they observe a notable disparity between the effects of a dry and moist heat and they employ heat as the common instrument of almost all their operations But whil'st I assert the Essiciency of the first qualities in the causing of diseases in the humane Body I would not be understood to mean by the word Quality a Being or Entity distinct from matter or Body But that I apprehend by hot cold moist and dry the parts of matter or Atoms so figured and moved as to produce those Effects which we call heating cooling moistning and drying For Example We use to have an apprehension or notion of heat from the relation it has to the sense or as it is the efficient cause of that acute passion or sensation which we feel in our skin or any other organ of touch whil'st we are burnt or heated But this being too particular an effect of heat only as it works upon an Animal we ought therefore to consider it from its more general and comprehensive effects upon which this which is more special does depend which is to enter into the Pores of a Body to penetrate through the parts of it and to force or rend them asunder from one another and so to dissolve the union and continuity of the Body This cannot be understood to be done by a bare naked quality but by certain Atoms which are endued with such a motion figure and fize as are fit to penetrate discuss dissolve and perform all those effects which we usually attribute to heat On the other side since we find cold the most opposite thing in the World to heat if it be the property of heat to dissolve discuss and tear asunder it is then the property of cold to congeal fasten and close together and those Atoms which by their shape and figures are fit and proper for those effects may with very good Reason be called Atoms of cold and Bodies made up of such Particles cold Bodies Thus the Air which is the common Receptacle of heat and cold upon the blowing of North-winds is usually filled with such Atoms as bind and congeal the Earth and Water and in the body of man both by mingling with the blood and closing the pores or breathing holes of his body oftentimes produce considerable disorders As for humidity or moistness it seems to be nothing else but a kind of fluidness and Liquors are commonly said to be moist inasmuch as when they are poured upon hard and compact bodies some small parts of them are left behind either sticking in the little Cavities of the Surface and then the body is said to be wet or else have insinuated themselves into the most inward pores and recesses of the hard body which then we commonly say is moistned And on the contrary driness is nothing else but a kind of firmness inasmuch as a dry body is upon that score the more firm for being void of all moisture And now I cannot see why these four first Qualities as they are term'd should be excluded from having a share in the number of the causes of Diseases since they are notably active especially the three first modifications of matter and not only apt to excite various motions and cause as well new Combinations as dissolutions of bodies in the great World but also powerfully to alter the Microcosm and produce fundry different Symptoms in relation to the motions and harmony of the humane Engin. In the next place though it be utterly untrue that there are in the Vessels four distinct humors but whatsoever is contained in the Arteries and Veins is either the stale deflagrated blood or the alimentary juice fresh come into the Vessels or else the Serum or Whey returned by the Lymphaticks or else some Particles of Nitre and other bodies received in by the Lungs and Mouths of the veins from the Ambient And though the blood differ in several persons only as to the abundance or defect of natural heat yet are men not improperly said to be of a melancholick cholerick or some other temperament inasmuch as by how much the more vigorous or remiss the natural heat is in their bowels and entrals by so much the more weakly or powerfully concoctions are perform'd and consequently the blood apt to be overcharged either with stale and adust or else crude and phlegmatick Excrements In which respect the person either way disposed is not improperly said to be of a phlegmatick or cholerick temper and if the adust or raw Excrements be not rightly and duly separated out of the mass by the effervenscy of the blood I see no reason why I may not say that a man abounds with a melancholick cholerick or phlegmatick humor and if so the Notions about Pharmacy aiming at an evacuation or else alteration of these humors are not framed amiss nor whatever M. N. argues to the contrary without very good reason For I suppose it alters not much the case as to practice whether a man suppose that there is too great a redundancy of one of the humors in the blood or whether which is the right Notion he apprehend the blood depraved either with phlegmatick and raw juyces or the bilious Excrement consisting of Salt and Sulphur or the melancholick in which the Caput mortuum or earthy part is most predominant For either of these Notions will direct us when the blood is unable to fine its self to assist it with those alteratives which time and experience has recommended to us as proper in those cases and those Purgers which have been long observed more particularly to make a separation either of the pituitous cholerick or melancholick parts of the blood For though it be irrational to think that Purgers do with a certain knowledge or choice lay hold of one humor rather than another yet is that distinction of Purgers into Chologoga Phlegmagoga Melanagoga and Hydragoga of very good use and founded upon observation and experience inasmuch as these several Purgers by causing very different Fermentations and variously agitating the Particles of the Blood may with very good reason cause different separations and so one Purger to evacuate that sort of Excrement Barm or Lee which another cannot And in this matter I do not find that the Improvements which have been made in the Theory of Physick have much altered the Practice for the indication for Purging was not founded upon the Notion of the four Humors but upon long observation that when Distempers discovered themselves by such and such signs the body was to be emptied and by frequent tryals one Purger as especially Hellebor in Melancholy was found more essectual than