great sound Ulcers in the Ears a hot distemper weakness and exquisite sence A stroak by moving the Spirits in the Head too violently causeth a noise A great sound doth violently move the natural Air. And Ulcers by the heat of the matter boyling and working make a noise and by the Spirits gathered thither and moving the Natural Air. A hot distemper fills the inward Arteries of the Ear with much Spirit whence a great beating noise proceedeth Somtimes too much Spirit is sent by those Arteries into the Ears and the Natural Air is thereby moved from whence cometh a noise And from this cause may come a continual none for some months or yeers Weakness of hearing useth to make a noise in the Ears as in sick people because every sence debilitated is hurt by every violent or moderate object so they who have weak sight are offended by a small light And lastly When the sence is most exquisite as Galen lib. 3. de comp med sec loâ— cap. 1. there will be a noise in the Ears becauâ—e even moderate objects are too vehement for it Now this exquisite sence must be preternatural for the exquisitness of â—ence cannot of its self produce a depraved action but rather the more exquisire it is the leâ—s will it Err. This preternatural exquisitness of sence comes from a hot distemper ulcer or the like as parts inflamed do depravâ—dly that is painfully feel moderate touchings Or if the exquisitness of sence be Natural you must suppose that the cauâ—e of the noise is Preternatural for the vapor which is so little that it cannot be felt of dull sence and so the action not be hurt will be felt of him that hath exquiâ—â—te â—ense and will cause a noise so that in one it is Preternatural in another Natural There are divers sorts of sounds in the Ears which proceed either from the quantity of the vapors as they are more or few thinner or thicker swift or slow in motion for if the vapor be much thick and of quick motion it wil make a noise like swift running water or like a drum or like â—ome such Musical Instrument or a rushing wind or the like but if it be little thick and move quick the noise is like the falling of a â—ree or House If it be much thin and swift in motion it causeth a hissing or is like falling of a gentle Water If it be little thin and quick in motion it causeth a tickling If it be much thick and of slow motion it makes a murmuring noise If the matter be little thick and slow in motion it makes a kind of whispering noise If it be much thin and of slow motion it causeth a hissing And lastly Because the degrees of thickness and thinness of greatness and smalness of swiftness and slowness are infinite therefore there are innumerable sorts of sounds in the Ears There is no certain knowledg of the causes aforesaid as Galen teacheth 3. de comp med sec loc c. 1. but we may make conjecture from the precedent Causes and Circumstances We conjecture that the noise comes from wind because somtimes it ceaseth and returneth again as also when the Patient hath formerly used to eat windy meat It cometh by consent from other parts when there is some peculiar disease in them It appears to come from the Brain when pain and heaviness of the Head went before and when other sences also are hurt That the fault is in the Ears appears by a continual noise without any intermission We know that that Disease comes from a cold matter if the Patient be better for the use of hot things and if in time of health great noise be not much disturbance The difference of sounds above mentioned do shew whether the disease comes of thick or thin many or few vapors it will easily appear by what hath been said When it comes from the weakness of the faculty of hearing as from some Diseases aforegoing of which the Patiâ—nt is scarce recovered We conjecture that it comes from a hot distemper and from an exquisite sence coming thereupon when the Patient perceiveth a heat in his head about his Ears when some hot Causes went before and Medicines that discuss wind do encrease the disease as also when the Patient in time of his health could not endure any great noise by reason of the exquisitness of sence As to the Prognostick A new begun noise in the head is easily cured but an old hardly and the more if it come from the French Pox. That which proceeds of a hot cause is more easily cured than that which comes of a cold An old noise coming of flegm contained in the Ear turneth to deafness for when the matter is encreased the passage of Hearing is stopped The Cure of this Disease is divers in respect of the diversity of Causes And first the Cure of Noyse in the Head coming from consent with other parts depends upon the Cure of the Diseases of those parts and must be taken from their proper Chapters But that which comes principally from the Ear Distempered must have its proper Cure And if it come of a cold Distemper and thick Vapour it wil be â—ured as in the Treatise or thickness of Hearing for they are complicated and joyned together For Noyse in the Ears is the fore-runner of thick Hearing and Deafneâ—s Therefore al Remedies both Universal and Particular may be used here which we prescribed in the former Chapter of Deafness and thick Hearing If the Noyse come from an Ulcer in the Ear it requireth no other Cure than that which is proper for the Ulcer And that shal be laid down in the following Chapter If it cometh from weakness of Sense as in them who are lately Recovered of some great Disease it wil vanish of its self as the Body gathereth strength yet you may drop some proper temperate Oyls somtimes into the Ears to mitigate as Oyl of Chamomel Dill Sweet Almonds and the like And Finally If it come from a hot distemper and exquisite Sense you must prescribe a Cooling and Moistning Diet as also drop Cool things into the Ears beginning with mild first and after proceeding to stronger And first Uâ—e the Decoction of Barley Violets Lettice Water-Lillies to which you may put a little Balm or Chamomel to make it pierce which not prevailing you must use the juyce of Lettice Purslain Henbane Galen alloweth the Juyce of Poppy and Opium its â—elf but these must be used sparingly and with much Caution lest by weaking the natural heat of the part the Hearing grow more dull Chap. 3. Of Pain in the Ears PAin of the Ears called Otalgia in Greek is a violent Disease both in respect of the part affected namely the inward Membrane which goeth about the Cavity of the Ear as 〈◊〉 by reason of the neerness of the Brain which often suffereth at the same time But since al pain comes from the solution of Continuity al those things do cause
and keep her self as quiet as possibly she can both in her Body and Mind also to abstain from Genial Embracements which do vehemently towze and disquiet the Womb. For while the Womb opens it self to comprehend the Mans Sperm with which it is exceedingly delighted it drives forwards the lately conceived Child not yet throughly fastened in the womb But if notwithstanding the Medicines aforesaid by reason of the vehemency of the Cause whether it be internal or external the Patient be ready to Miscarry we must apply our selves to do the best we can with these following Remedies And in the first place so soon as pains and throws shall be perceived in the lower part of the Patients Belly towards her Share in her Loyns and about the Ossacrum we must seek to allay and stop them both by things given in and outwardly applied according to the variety of Causes For if Abortion be provoked by Crudities and Winds which is most usual when it begins from an Internal Cause a Pouder must be given compounded of Aromaticum Rosatum and Coriander Seeds Yea we may give of the Aqua Imperialis if the quantity of flegm and wind be very great At the same time let Carminative or Fart-forcing Medicaments be applied below the Patients Navel such are bags of Annis seed Fennel seed Foenugreek seed Flowers of Chamomel Elder Rosemary and Stoechados mingled together Or a Rose Cake fried in a Pan with rich Canary and sprinkled with Pouder of Nutmeg and Coriander or the Caul of a Wether newly killed or his Lungs laid on warm If with these means the pains cease not let a Clyster be cast in made of Wine and Oyl wherein two drams of Philonium Romanum may be dissolved or Narcoticks may be given inwardly in a smaller Dose to allay the violence of Humors and Winds as we are wont to do in pains of the Chollick But if by reason of contumacious pains that will not be asswaged or of the violence of some external cause blood begin to come away Revelling Medicines are to be applied to withdraw the course of the blood from the Womb such are Rubbings of the uper parts and painful bindings also Cupping-Glasses fastened to the Shoulder-blades under the Dugs and under the short Ribs on both sides Yea and if the Woman be ful of Blood it will not be amiss to take some blood from her both when she begins to void blood and especially before it begins to come and the blood must be taken away at several times a little at once And if all this will not suffice but the Flux of blood continues we must proceed to astringent and thickening Diet and Medicaments and so the Pouders and Electuaries formerly described may be administred Also Juyce of Plantane new drawn and Syrup of Poppies to the quantity of an ounce with Pouder of Bole-Armoniack or Dragons-blood Also outwardly may be used fomentations binding and strengthening made of Pomegranate peels Cyprèss Nuts Acorn Cups Balaustians Grape-stones and such like things boyled in Smiths water and red Wine Or a little Bag full of red Rose Leaves and Balaustians may be boyled and applied hot to the Patients Belly Hereunto may be added the foresaid Plaisters and Cerecloaths Or for to cause the more astriction make a Cataplasm of astringent Pouders with Turpentine and the whites of Eggs which must be spread upon Tow or course Flax and applied to the Navel and the Reins warm The Tow which shall be applied to the Navel must be moistened with Wine that which is to be applied to the Kidneys in Vinegar The two following Medicaments are accounted for Secrets and it is beleeved they will certainly hold the Child in the Womb if they be used before it be loosened from the Wombs Vessels Take twelve Leaves of Gold Spodium a dram the Cocks Treading of three Eggs that are not adle Mix all very well till the Gold be broken into smal Atomes Afterwards dissolve them in a draught of white Wine and give it to drink three mornings together At the same time let the following Cataplasm be laid on Take male Frankincense poudered two ounces five whites of Eggs Let them be stirred about together over hot coals alwaies stirring them that they may not clodder together add Turpentine to make them stick Then spread it upon Parcels of Tow which lay upon her Navel as hot as she can possibly endure them twice a day morning and evening on the three daies aforesaid Chap. 18. Of Hard Child-birth HArd Travel in Child-bearing is such as keeps not the due and ordinary Laws of Nature taking up longer time than ordinary and accompanied with more vehement pains than are usual and other more grievous Symptomes Divers causes here of may be assigned both internal and external The internal depend either of the Mother of the Womb or of the Child In respect of the Mother Travel with child may become sore and hard by the weakness of her Body either Natural or in regard of Age as in very yong and very ancient women or in regard of Diseases wherewith the woman was troubled during the time of her going with Child or is still troubled Hereunto also Leanness and over great driness of the whol body may be added as also over fatness and grossness compressing and straitening the passages of the womb ill shape of such bones as border upon and embrace the womb as in such as limp wind stretching the Guts stone or preternatural tumor possessing the bladder and pressing the Womb and the ill constitution of the Lungs and other parts serving for Respiration because holding the Breath is very necessary to exclude the Child In respect of the Womb divers Diseases thereof may cause a sore Labor as Swellings Ulcers Obstructions Astrictions Stoppages arising from preternatural Causes In respect of the Child Hard Travel is caused when there is some fault therein in respect of its substance its quantity its figure and certain things thereunto belonging The Child is faulty in regard of Substance when it is dead or putrefied or some waies infected or weakened with some Disease so that it hath no ability to contribute to its own exclusion In regard of Quantity likewise the Child doth not further it s own Birth which is either discrete or severed quantity or concrete and joyned the former is called Number the latter Magnitude In regard therefore of continued quantity the child is faulty if the Body or Head of it be over great which makes the Birth thereof become difficult and laborsom in regard of the disjoyned quantity of the child or burden Labor becomes difficult as when there are more than one in the womb so the Birth of Twins is more painful than of a single Child for the most part In respect of the Figure or Scituation of the Child in the Womb difficult Travel happens many waies as when the Child endeavors to come forth with its feet or its hands foremost or puts out one hand only or
Bay-leaves Calaminth Carrot seed Cummin and Caraway Seeds Flowers of Cheiri and Chamomel in Water white Wine or Milk Or the following Cataplasm may be applied Take three or four Onions well boyled in Water beat them in a Morter and put thereto Seeds of Line and Cummin beaten of each one handful As much Chamomel flowers Barley Meal as much as shall suffice to make all into a Pultiss And if need be add a little of the Water wherein the Onions were boyled Spread it upon a Cloth and apply it warm to her Navel It is likewise profitable to apply the Skin of a weather newly flead off while it is warm to her Belly For this kind of warmth is very neer of kin to our Natural heat concocts and mitigates the cause of the pain also it hinders the Skin of the Belly from gathering into wrinkles These following Medicines may be given inwardly Take Carrot Seeds poudered one dram white Wine three ounces Mix them Give it warm twice a day Or Take Nutmeg Annis seed Cinnamon of each one scruple mix them into a Pouder to be taken in white Wine or give one scruple of Oyl of Nutmegs in Broth. Or Take Date and Peach Kernels of each half a dram Nutmegs four scruples Pouder of Diamargaritum Calidum two drams Annis seed one dram Cinnamon two scruples Saffron ten grains Sugar the weight of all the rest Make all into a most fine Pouder whereof give two drams in Wine twice or thrice a day if the pains are much Forestus gave a Decoction of Chamomel flowers in Beer or a Decoction of Mugwort and Chamomel in Puller Broth with good â—ucceâ—s It 's good presently after the is brought to bed to give her the Broth of an old Cock three daies together earâ—y in a morning while she is fasting with a little Cinnamon and Saffron The following Pouder taked presently after the delivery of a woman doth wonderfully preserve her from Gripings insomuch that it is thought If it be given a woman after her first Childing she wil never after in her following Lyings-In be troubled with these Gripes Take the greater Comfry Root dried one dram Peach Kernels and Nutmeg of each two scruples Amber half a dram Amber-greece half a scruple Make all into a Pouder of which let her take one dram in white Wine or if she be Feaverish in Broth. For her ordinary Drink let her use a Decoction of Mugwort with Cinnamon If the Gripings be caused by Chollerick and sharp humors they are cured much after the same manner that the Chollick is cured when it proceeds from Choller As for Example Take Syrup of Vioâ—â—ts and Borrage of each one ounce Mucilage of Quince seeds drawn out with Violet Water half an ounce Water of Borrage and Scorzonera of each three ounces Mix all make thereof a Julep for two Doses Or Take Oyl of sweet Almonds two ounces Syrup of Violets an ounce Borrage Water half an ounce Mix all for a draught External Medicines must likewise be used such as are laxative and emollient which do likewise by one and the same labor ease pain Oftentimes after they are brought to bed women are pained in their Groyn by reason of their wombs being gathered together like a ball in their Groyn It is cured by applying to their Navel a Plaister of Galbanum and Anafoetida in the midst whereof some grains of Musk must be put Chap. 24. Of Acute Diseases of Women in Child-bed WHat we said before touching the Acute Diseases of women with Child we may now repeat touching the Acute Diseases of women in Child-bed viz. That they have the same Essence and the same Signs with the like Diseases in women which are not with Child and in men So that we shal refer the Reader for the Theory of these Diseases to their proper Chapters Now these Acute Diseases are for the most part continual Feavers both Essential as Synchus putrida a continual Tertian and the rest and also Symptomatical which accompany inward Inflamations as the Pleurisie Inflamation of the Lungs Inflamation of the Liver Phrenzy and such like Yet there is a peculiar sort of Feaver which besals almost al women in Child-bed which is called by them the Feaver of their Milk which is wont to befal them about the third or fourth day after they are brought to bed when their Milk begins to encrease in their Breasts and it ariseth from the reflux of the blood from the womb to the Dugs and the motion and agitation thereof Which kind of Feaver is reckoned among the Diary Feavers of the longest durance neither needs it any Medicines because within three or four daies viz. about the ninth after her delivery it is finished by sweat It is distinguished from putrid Feavers because commonly it seizes the woman about the fourth day after her being delivered and her Dugs begin to be filled with Milk and to be troubled with hardness pain and heat with heat and heaviness in her Back and Shoulders also her Child-bed Purgations slow duly which seldom is seen in putrid Feavers Now putrid Feavers do befal women in Child-bed from three causes viz. Suppression of their Child-bed Purgations or diminishing by the heaping together of bad Humors during the time of their Belly-bearing which were agitated by her Labors or by Errors in their Diet. Some add immoderate flux of the Child-bed Purga ions which is rather a sign of the secret badness of Humors causing the Feaver but cannot be it self any cause thereof In suppression of the Child-bed Purgations the blood and vitious humors which are collected during the whol time of her going with child do flow back again into the greater Veins and there putrefie and somtimes are câ—rrâ—ed to the Liver Spleen and other parts in which they raise Inflamations or if they abide in the Veins of the womb they putrefie and so cause a Feaver in those women which were before in perfect health But if the Child-bed Purgations duly flowing a feaver arise it comes either from superfluity of Choller or from errors in Diet. Evil Humors agitated by the Labors and Pains of Travel do easily inflame and putrefie and stir up a feaver Errors of Diet may happen divers waies And first in point of eating in which women that he In are wont to be very faulty stopping themselves with plenty and variety of Dishes which cannot be by them digested but causeth putrefaction in their Bodies Another error is committed when Childing women do unadvisedly expose themselves unto the cold Air especially while their Milk-feaver is in its vigor which is wont to be terminated by sweating and transpiration which is hindered by heedless admission of the cold Air whence it comes to pass that the Feaver which of it self was void of danger and would in a few daies have ceased is changed into a dangerous putrid Feaver There is yet another frequent Cause of the Feavers of Childing Women viz. When the After-births are not wholly cast forth but some
it self For albeit somtimes it is joyned with a Melancholly Humor yet that Humor is seldom begot in the Brain as Flegm is but it is for the most part lodged in the Hypochondria or Parts beneath the Ribs and sent from thence to the Brain whereby most grievous Symptomes are produced The Causes of a Cold and Flegmatick Distemper of the Brain are these 1 Cold and moist Meats which easily turn into Flegm and also in the time of their Concoction by cooling the Stomach and the Liver too much produce abundance of Flegm which after is sent up to the Brain 2 Too great a quantity not only of Meats which are too cold but also of good and wholsom which destroyeth the Natural heat and begetteth Crudities 3 Eating presently after or before meat and before the former meat is concocted whence come many Crudities which send Flegm to the Head 4 The ceasing of a Natural custom of vomiting or purging flegm or the omitting the Custom of taking Purges Sweats Diureticks or provokers of Urine or omitting of accustomed Exercise 5 To be born of Parents troubled with a cold distemper of Brain 6 Old Age which by reason of the decay of Natural heat produceth much Flegm as also Youth by reason of Gluttony and disorderly Diet. 7 A Cold and Moist dweiling neer standing Pools Marshes Fens and great Rivers open to the North winds Snow and Rain 8 Long and deep sleep especially presently after Meat 9 A sedentary idle life without or with too much Care Study or Sorrow because by dispersing the Natural heat especially in the Brain they make it cold 10 To these may be added a hot and moist Liver which sends many Vapors to the Brain which there condense or grow thick and so turn into Flegm The Signs of a cold distemper of the Brain are taken eithr from the Causes above mentioned by the prefence of which we may easily conjecture of the condition of the distemper or they are taken from the effects of the distemper which that they may be particularly examined and tried we shall fetch from their Originals namely from Actions Passions Excrements and Habit of the Body 1 The Animal Actions which declare a cold Distemper of the Brain are these A heavy and dull Mind a slow blockish Wit an unfortunate Memory a great inclination to sleep and long and deep continuance therein except a Catarrh or Defluxion Pain of the Head or Passions of the Mind do hinder it Dreams of Coldness of Waters as Rain Snow Floods Pools Seas and of white things A slowness and dulness of all the Sences Slowness of Motion yet continuance therein because gross Spirits are more difficult to be diffused or dissolved 2 The Passions which declare a Cold Diseases of the Brain are Cold Diseases as Palsies Lethargy Catarrh or Defluxion and many others with which if the sick party have been formerly troubled we may well conjecture that he is subject to this distemper of a cold Brain This will further appear if the sick man be better in clear hot and dry weathr than in cold moist winter and rainy weather Moreover an often and plentiful sending forth of snot and flegm from the Mouth and Nostrils is a clear demonstration of abundance of cold Flegm and moisture in the Brain 3 From the Habit of the Body we may have signs both general and particular of this Distemper The general Signs are taken from the whol Habit or Constitution for if the whol Constitution be cold and moist then without question the Brain which is most cold and moist of all other parts is the same Therefore a Skin which is cold soft smooth and white a Body soft and slow not fleshy with smal veins declare a cold constitution oâ— temper The particular Signs of a cold Brain are in the Head as paleness of Face no Veins to be seen in the Eyes soft hair smooth and thin growing slowly red and not curling continuing the whol life without baldness and when the Head is quickly offended with outward Cold and refreshed with Heat As to the Prognosis or Prognostical part concerning this Distemper It is hard to be cured and often produceth grievous Diseases that which hath been long breeding is most hard to be cured that which is Natural Hereditary and from the Birth is never to be cured as also that which is in old folks if it hath been of long continuance Winter is not a sit time for the Cure of this Distemper but Summer The Cure is wrought from two Indications or Intentions namely by evacuating or discharging the flegm abounding and correcting or qualifying the distemper of the Humor by its contraries which must be done by Diet Chyrurgery and Physick The Diet must be hot and dry and first make choyce of a pure Air somwhat hot and dry but not too hot for that would dissolve and powr forth the humors in the Head too soon and so produce a distillation and other diseases which happen to those who stay long in the Sun or inflame their heads with too neer approach to the fire The Air cannot be too dry so it be temperate in its active qualities but it had better be too hot than too cold Let not the Chamber of the sick party be too little too low nor too moist or filthy but open to dry winds which may pass through In moist cloudy cold times the Chamber air may be altered with hot and sweet Herbs strewed upon floor as Sage Marjoram Lavender Rosemary Tyme or by burning the same or other dry Woods and especially Juniper let the fire be cleer and such as will dry the Air in the Chamber Fumigations if they be not too strong do well to consume moisture but they must be carefully used they must be very gentle and moderate otherwise they do hurt by melting and powring forth the cold humors too speedily which cause defluxions and also you must consider the Patients Constitution in the use of them for some men are presently brought to the Head-ach by any strong scent having their heads presently filled with the vapor A temperate and proper Fumâ—gation is made of the purest Amber putting little pieces thereof upon the Coals it 's no way offensive dries well and strengthens the Brain especially the Indian Amber called Gum. Animi or you may prescribe this following which is thus compounded Take Wood Aloes and Benjamin of each two drams of Storax called Styrax Calamita one dram and an half Frankinsence and Sandarach of each two scruples Gum-Animi and Cloves of each half a dram Make a gross Pouder of them to be thrown upon the Embers Southernly winds and those that cause Rain are to be avoided night-air and especially Moon-shine which much offend the Brain Very cold and North Winds are to bewared of especially when they suddenly are changed from the South for such a wind doth squeeze a Brain full of moist excrements and sends them down into the Body even as a mans hand squeezeth
goeth by fits when in a Coma it comes all at once A true Epilepsy is distinguished from an Epilepsy by consent thus In the true there appears many signs of the Brain affected as heaviness of mind and slowness decay of memory troublesom sleep with dreams dulness of sences slowness and idleness of Body pain of the head and other things Moreover the sick man doth not perceive the fit coming but is suddenly taken therewith unawares at the new Moon for the most part The due proportion of the inferior parts being without blemish do confirm this sign But we may know whether it come from the right or left side of the head most By this either the sight of one eye is more obscured or the hearing more thick with the noise of the head on that side or if the right or left side be more dull But we may know from what humor especially an Epilepsy cometh by those signs which declare when flegm choller or melancholly abound An Epilepsy by consent is thus known There appear no signs of a distempered Brain the Patient perceives his Disease Coming and a wind rising from the parts below or some lower part is weakened or else affected strongly in the time of the fit These things following do shew that the Cause of an Epilepsy is in the stomach Disdain of meat an inability to fast loathing vomiting pain of the stomach gnawing pricking and distention somtimes beating of the heart which ariseth from the Stomach That the disease comes from the Liver or Spleen appears by often belching and breaking of wind a swelling of the belly with rumbling and noise sowr belchings straitness of the Midrif and pain somtimes reaching to the back besides some distemper in inferior parts An Hysterick fit or the Mother mixt with Convulsions if a retaining of the Courses or Seed went before shews that it comes from the Womb. If the Epilepsy comes from an external part some wind is perceived to rise from that part and the matter causing the Disease somtimes tickleth and beateth in the part which is a sign there is a fit at hand and if that part be tied hard the fit is hindred Lastly The Signs of worms shew that the disease come from them as stinking sowr Breath itching of the Nose pain of the Belly earthy Excrements grating of the teeth sleepiness and the like especially if somtimes worms are voided But the extraordinary Causes as Imposthumation foulness of a Bone stopping of urine and the like may be taken from their proper signs As to the Prognostick An Epilepsy is a Disease of long continuance and very stubborn and deadly in Infants An Epilepsy coming haereditary is incurable but that which comes from external causes and evil diet is curable An Epilepsy coming before fourteen yeers of age in Boyes and twelve in Girls is curable after twenty five yeers of age it is incurable out of Hippocrates Aph. 7. Sect. 5. For in the time of ripeness of Age there is great store of Natural heat which is powerful to discuss-Diseases Moreover at that time women begin to have their terms by which the uncleanness of the Body is purged Yet although Hippocrates supposed an Epilepsy to be incurable after twenty five yeers of age yet this is not alwaies true for we find by experience that many have been cured after although but seldom seen therefore we may say that the Aphorism is true for the most part A strong Epilepsy often killeth the Patient in the fit or it turns into an Apoplexy or by reason of the strength of the symptomes and the violent shaking of the Brain the Fabrick of the Body it is overthrown and some parts thereof are broken and it happens somtimes that pieces of the bones called Processus Mammillares come out of the Nose An Epilepsy coming of Melancholly turns somtimes into madness when the humor is sent from the Ventricles of the Brain into the substance thereof The same humor when it is only in the Ventricles of the Brain stopping them and paining them causeth an Epilepsy But when it offends the substance of the Brain which is the seat of the chief â—unctions by defiling its Natural temper and corrupting the Animal Spirits and darkening them it makes a Mâ—lancholly doting Hence Hippocrates 6. epid sect 8. text 40 saith that Melancholly men turn for the most part Epileptick and Epileptick to Melancholly But these Diseases thus change in a two-fold respect either by the change of the matter causing the Disease from its proper seat and so when one comes another goes or by the propagation of the matter and then both remain An Epilepsy coming of flegm turns either into an Apoplexy or a Palsey A Quartan Ague coming upon an Epilepsy and continuing long cureth it by reason the matter of the Diseaâ—e is by degrees coâ—â—â—â—ned by the heat of the Feaver if it be of flegm but if it come of Melancholly it is sent from the part affected to the place where the ground of the disease lieth that it may supply matter to the new sits The â—ure of the Epilepsy is two-fold the one in the fit the other out of it Physitians are seldom called to the Cure of the fit except it continue over long in which cafe those Remedies which we laid down in the Cure of sleepy Diseases especially the Apoplectick Water the Cinnamon Water Aqua vitae and other Spirits which are very proper to discuss the fit Out of your fit you must vary your Cure as the Cause requires And first we shal lay down the Cure of a proper Epilepsy which consists in Evacuation of humors throughout the body in the discussing of the matter of the Disease and rectifying its evil qualities as also in strengthning of the Brain And since the matter offending in a true Epilepsy is for the most part Flegm we will direct our general Cure in oppoâ—â—tion to that admonishing yong beginners that if Choller or Melancholly abound they would prepare and purge them But the specifical Remedies are alwaies the same of what cause soever the Disease doth come For a perfect Cure we must thus proceed First Give him a Potion to purge flegm or some other Medicine to that purpose which the Patient can best take mentioned in the first Chapter First giving a Clyster if his body be bound After if there be signs of Repletion or if the party be Sangume he must be let blood otherwise not Afterwards the Universal Cure of the cold distemper of the Brain is to be followed with this Caution That to the Decoctions Apozemes Diets Sweats Syrups Chewings and head Pouders you ad the Root and Seed of Peony and Misleto of the Oak which all ancient Authors hold to be most proper for the Cure of this disease For his Dâ—et Guajacum is the best Sweater By the use of which Jachinus reports that he cured many but let it be continued thirty or fourty daies To every Dose of the Sudorifick Decoction put some drops
neither doth the example of a Spunge prove any thing which will not empty its self in the Air. But this Opinion delivered by Hippocrates in lib. de loc in homine seems to be true Fluxions saith he come of cold when the flesh and veins of the head are extended for those when the head is cold and contracted bound together and excluding do strain forth moisture And also the flesh doth assist them and the hairs are on end as being every where strongly pressed and therefore whatsoever is strained from thence falls where it is occasioned From whence is manifest That a Coarctation and compression of the Parts may be made by cold and from thence a humor may be expressed Neither doth it hinder that densation or thickening of humors which is made by cold as was said for it may be so when the whol body is equally cold But when the external parts are offended by sudden cold they are presently straitened and strain the humor contained Of less force is that Argument against the Spunge that it is not expressed by the cold Air for there is another Reason to be given of living parts whose heat and spirits fly from the sence of cold and cause the parts wherin they are to be contracted which cannot be in a Spunge ful of Water Yet we must confess that this is not the only way by which a Defluxion comes through cold for cold of the feet will produce a Catarrh by communicating a cold distemper to the brain by the chiefest Nerves that come through the marrow of the back bone and this coolness goes into the innermost parts of the brain not the external as cold air which affects the head immediately therefore we may rather think in this case that the retentive faculty of the brain is weakened by cold of the head so that it cannot contain the superfluous humors which are many but lets them flow forth There is also another way very usual by which a Catarrh of a cold cause cometh namely The stoppage of the external pores especially in the time wherein the body requireth most sweat Hence it comes that men very much inflamed running suddenly into the cold air are troubled with Catarrhs So Catarrhs comes to be most frequent in Autumn because the Body being made thin and the ports opened in the Summer casting forth many excrements by insensible transpiration if they be presentsently stopped by contraction of the body with cold do cause humors and vapors to fly into the head and center of the brain So about the beginning of Autumn there are not only Catarrhs but also abundance of watery humors are sent forth by most men in their urine and by stool which cause fluxes of the Belly at that time But if any ask why defluxions do not last al Winter when by reason of cold the pores are alwaies stopped We answer That Nature doth in Winter discharge her self by other waies rather than by sweat namely by stool urine and spittle How great that Evacuation is which is usually by insensible transpiration or sweat is pleasantly taught by Sanctorius in his Book de Statica Medicina where he saith That it is larger than all the sensible Evacuations put together so that if the meat and drink of one day be eight pound in weight the insensible transpiration will be five pound he is very curious in this matter What light he hath left to the finding out of Causes and Curing Diseases I leave to be judged by the Learned In the part receiving you must consider the imbecillity or other disposition to receive and attract defluxion In regard of weakness it is an usual saying among Physitians That the stronger parts do alwaies lay their superfluous burden upon the weaker as in Common-wealths the Great Ones lay the chiefest burden upon the poor Commons Now the weakness of the parts is either Natural or Adventitious A Natural weakness comes from the softness and loosness of the parts from the Glandles and Lungs do easily entertain defluxions But an Adventitious weakness is from a distemper or from solution of continuity A cold distemper by weakening the Native heat causeth the part to have less power to resist the humor flowing unto it And also a Solution of continuity or wound makes the part more fit to receive defluxions by its weakness hence arose the use of Cauteries or Issues because the part being thereby weakened the humors do flow from other parts unto it And so the Lungs being ulcerated receive the humors from the head and from al other parts Among other dispositions for the attracting of a defluxion heat is chiefly to be reckoned for we may observe that parts inflamed do plentifully attract humors So in a Consumption many humors are drawn from the head to the lungs not only by reason of the ulcer but also by reason of the inflamation Whence Hippocrates speaking of a Phthiâ—is or Consumption in his first Book of Diseases saith thus The Lungs beâ—ng inflamed draw humors from the whole Body and especially from the Head and the Head being made hot from the Body spits forth that thick matter There are two waies by which the humors are carried from the head into the inferior parts either internal or external The internal way is when the humor flows from the parts under the Skull chiefly from the Ventricles of the Brain and makes divers diseases and symptomes according to the diversity of the parts receiving of which some have peculiar names according to those vulgar Verses in Schola Salerni That Rhewm is call'd Catarrhus which doth fall Vpon the Breast upon the Jaws we call It Branchus Coryza through the Nose doth fall When the Humor flows upon the Breast the Disease keeps the general name of a Catarrh or Defluxion when it falls upon the Jaws and Aspera Arteria or rough Arteries it is called Branchus Raucedo or Hoarsness when it flows into the Nostrils it causeth not only a Coryza or Murrh but Ozaena and Polypus But in other parts it produceth various effects if it fall upon the Nerves it produceth a Torpor or Numbness a Palsey Convulsion Trembling if in the Ears Deafness Swelling if in the Eyes Ophalmy or Inflamation Tears Blindness if upon the Uvula or Pallat Swelling Loosness or Laxity or Ulcer if in the Throat the Squinzy if on the Lungs the Pleuresie Inflamation or Imposthumation Cough shortness of Breath spitting of Blood Consumption if into the Stomach Vomiting want of Appetite if into the Bowels it causeth Diarrhaea and Dysentery therefore it is rightly conceived that the greatest part of Diseases that trouble mans Body have their original from the Head Moreover Somtimes the humor flows from the Brain with the blood into the veins whence comes the Disease called Febris Catarrhalis when Nature is strongly moved to expel the superfluous humor and the Spirits being thereby much disturbed are inflamed and cause a Quotidian Feaver hence it is that a defluxion is reckoned
Operation nor any other in his time But he confesseth it may be used so that the Lungs and rough Artery be not full of filth and he sheweth the manner of it in its proper Chapter most exactly from whence any one may take it The End of the Sixth Book THE SEVENTH BOOK OF THE PRACTICE OF PHYSICK Of the Diseases of the Breast The PREFACE BY this name Thorax or Breast we mean those parts only which serve for breathing for although the Heart be contained in the Thorax yet the Diseases therof shall be set down in a Book by themselves But in this we will only speak of those which hinder breathing and hurt the part of Respiration as Astbma Pleuresie Peripneumonia or Inflamation of the Lungs Empyema and Phtysis and we have ordained proper Chapters for each of them Chap. 1. Of Asthma or Difficulty of Breathing THe Breath is hindered by divers Causes either by sympathy or propriety of part The hinderance of breathing by propriety called Idiopathica comes from the Lungs distempered and therefore every Disease of the Lungs hurts their action which Diseases are either in the substance of the Lungs or in the Vessels thereof In the substance of the Lungs come inflamations pimples imposthumes ulcers and somtimes a drying and atrophy of the part somtimes a serous watery humor is suckt into the spungy substance of the Lungs and hinders their free dilatation somtimes though seldom there is a schirrus a stone or hard swelling in them In the Vessels of the Lungs there are often obstructions which hindering the free passage of the Air cause difficulty of breathing Breathing is hindered by sympathy or consent from other parts which are not only neer but remote so the Membrane that goeth about the ribs being inflamed or the Diaphragma or Mediastinum the breath is hindered So by custom there is a great and often breathing when the heart is inflamed as in Feavers and on the contrary when the Heart is cold as in dying men it is diminished and ceaseth the same happeneth in swouning or syncope when the action of the Heart and consequently Respiration ceaseth So in the Empyema or Dropsie of the Breast when matter or water is collected in the Cavity of the Thorax the Dilatation of the Lights and Respiration is also hindered So the Muscles of Breathing being hurt hinder Respiration as in wounds and tumors of them especially in an Apoplexy when the influence of the Animal Spirits is kept from them Moreover The Inflamation of the Muscles of the Larynx makes difficulty of breathing in a Squinzy So also the Diseases of the Hypochondria do hinder Respiration by consent as tumors of the Liver Spleen Sweetbread or Pancreas do by their weight draw down the Diaphragma to which they are joyned and so hinder the motion of it Also vapors and wind sent from those parts compress the Diaphragma and hinder its action from whence comes a flatulent Asthma The same happeneth by the abundance of wind or water contained in the belly of an Hydropical man and compressing the Diaphragma Lastly Vapors coming from the Mother hinder Respiration from whence this disease is called Suffocatio Hysterica Among the aforesaid hinderances of Respiration the Asthma is handled by it self because the other depend upon other Diseases they shall be mentioned in their places Although Asthma used generally comprehendeth in a large signification all kinds of difficulty of breathing yet it signifies more specially that shortness of breathing which comes from the stuffing of the Lungs and the obstruction of the Bronchion or Gristles of the Wind-pipe which of its self essentially is without a Feaver although somtimes it be joyned therewith And again it is subdivided into three other kinds as first Dyspnoea the second called also Asthma the third Orthopnoea Dyspnoea is a difficulty of breathing in which the breath is drawn oftener and thicker from the stuffing of the Lungs This is less than Asthma or Orthopnoea because the matter obstructing is less and it rather stops the substance of the Lungs than Gristles or Bronchia hence it is that there is no snorting at all which comes from the commotion of the humors contained in the Bronchia with the Air continually passing through Asthma is a great and often breathing in which the Diaphragma the Intercostal Muscles between the Ribs and of the Abdomen are violently moved joyned with snorting and wheesing For in a true Asthma properly so called the Btonchia of the Lungs are filled with flegm which as is said being moved by the Air make that noise Orthopnoea is a great difficulty of breathing in which the Patient cannot breath but sitting and with the neck extended upright and the aforesaid Muscles are not only moved vehemently but also those of the Breast and Shoulders The names Dyspnoea and Orthopnoea as we said of Asthma are used commonly for all difficulties of breathing which happen in Pleuresies or Inflamation of the Lungs or the like The same may be said of Apnaea which doth not only signifie a depravation of breathing as the former but also a diminishing or abolishing thereof and this happeneth in syncope Hysterical Passions and strong Apoplexies The humor which causeth an Asthma is for the most part flegm which falls from the Head into the Lungs and obstructs the Bronchia or Wind-pipe Somtimes it comes from crude and serous humors brought by Arteria Venosa into the Lungs and if these flow to the Bronchia they produce a true Asthma with snorting but if to the substance of the Lungs or smooth Arteries they cause a bastard Asthma without snorting This kind of Asthma which is unknown to vulgar Physitians who will acknowledg no other cause but a defluxion from the Head is confirmed not only by not snorting but from the thick and turbulent Urine of the Patient at that time especially in the sit because some part of those thick and crude humors in the Veins is sent to the Reins and Bladder And some Asthmatical men are subject to stoppage of Urine and when they are so they are free from it But when the fit of the Asthma comes the difficulty of Urine ceaseth because the matter of the disease contained in the Veins goes from one place to another We have also seen some subject to a flux in the Belly who while they were so were free from the Asthma but when that stopped the Asthma returned Moreover this kind of Asthma which is without snorting is so directly opposite to bleeding that when a Vein is opened in the fit as soon as it bleedeth the Patient begins presently to breath better and in the end or after a little space they are cured of their fit And finally these kind of Asthmatical men are for the most part of an ill habit of body and have an oedematous humor in their feet which sheweth that the cause of the Asthma at that time came from the Liver and is contained in the Veins so that somtimes a Dropsie
both smal and evil proportioned The straightness of the Breast shews want of Natural heat and the evil proportion shews its weakness For if the Natural heat were much and vigorous the breast would have thereby been extended But such and so great is this disposition that Hippocrates calls it a Natural Consumption coming from a principle in Nature Wherefore they who are thus made must of necessity fall into a Consumption except some other disease take them off Which by the way is observable for if they have any acute disease who are thus inclined they seldom escape because the Natural heat is weak and little and therefore will easily be overcome by a strong disease Therefore the most wary Physitians in such kind of Natures and habits do use to prognostick rather death and danger than health or recovery when they fall into any disease In them who are inclinable to this Disease Youth is most dangerous according to Hippocrates Aph. 9. Sect. 5. especially from Eighteen to Thirty Five yeers in which time there is much blood for to break the vessels as also it is then thin and sharp more proper to open and corrode the Vessels In Children the Catarrh is made slow with much Moisture in Old Men it is allayed with Cold but in the Middle Age for the Reasons aforesaid it doth often exulcerate Moreover in Youth many distempers come by Diet by which many ill humors are produced and the blood infectedâ— as also by reason of violent exercise as running wrestling leaping fencing going in the sun a vein may be broken in the Lungs which may produce a Consumption The signs of a Consumption begun are set down by Hippocrates in his Book of Diseases before mentioned Text 10. in these words In progress of time the Lungs are exasperated and ulcerated within by the Catarrh putrifying there whereby the breast seems ponderous and there is a pain before and behind and there is more sharp heat in the body and the Lungs by reason of their heat draw moisture from the whol body and especially from the head which also is made hot from that body and spetteth forth thick matter In these Words there are Six Signs contained of a Consumption begun The First sign is That the Lungs are exasparated in progress of time that is The Cough is more violent for the Disease increasing the Distillation is stronger and the Lungs are peirced therewith and provoked to Cough forth that which hurteth them which Cough doth not only come from the matter flowing down but from that which flowed formerly for being not Coughed up it groweth foul by long continuance by which means the Lungs are more forced to expulsion The Second sign is The weight of the Breast which comes from the matter gathered into the Lungs For albeit the Lungs of themselves do feel little or nothing yet because they are tyed to the Breast by Membranes they perceive a weight when they are burdened A Third sign is A sharp pain before and behind for the matter contained in the Lungs doth with its evil quality offend them as wel as with its quantity and putrifaction by which the Membranes are pricked which cause great pain for the pain in the Membranes is alwayes pricking Now this pain is perceived before and behind because these Membranes are joyned before to the Sternon and behind to the Back and the cause of this pain is from a great Cough called by Hippocrates A Malignant or Cruel Cough The Fourth sign is When sharp Heat falls into the body and there followeth a violent Feaver for when through progress of time the matter putrifieth more it is probable that the Feaver wil be greater for although the matter from the beginning do only putrifie in the Lungs yet by reason of the Suppuration made in the Breast with an Ulcer the filth is communicated to the humors contained in the Veins from which come divers sorts or putrid Feavers and these differ from that Feaver which comes only from the Ulcer in the Lungs through the filthy vapors which are carried from them into the Heart which turns to an Hectick and therefore in a Consumption there is a Hectick Feaver often joyned with a Putrid The Fifth sign is When a great quantity of Flegm falls from the Head to the Lungs which Hippocrates confirms when he shews the Cause of that great Defluxion namely The Lungs by their Heat drawing Flegm from the whol body Hence it is that the humors contained in the whol body are the matter of a continual and great Flux which doth so trouble men in Consumptions The Lungs by the filth which they have contracted grow hot by which heat Flegm is drawn from the Brain which the Brain fetcheth from the whol Body And this is one of the principal Causes of the extenuation or the whol body for al the humors good and bad are carried to those parts and so the whol body decayeth The Sixth sign is Spetting of thick rotten Flegm for when the Matter putrifieth and there is an Ulcer quittor or filth must needs come from thence and therefore the Spittle is Mattery but it is between thick and thin for after that it hath by long continuance in the Lungs grown thick it is made thinner by the addition of that which breaks from the Ulcer and so it becomes moderate which Hippocrates calls Subcrassum or Thickish To these mentioned Signs of Hippocrates you may ad this as most certain namely The Extenuating the body with a lingering and constant Feaver For besides the putrid Feavers above mentioned which come and go by fits and grow from the humors which putrifie in the Veins there is also alwayes present a lingering daily Feaver coming from the vapors sent from the Ulcer to the Heart which corrupteth the nourishment of the whol body and makes it dry and hot from whence the body must needs grow extenuated To there you may ad Sweatings at Night with which men in Consumptions are often troubled as soon as they begin to sleep for by sleep the Heat is drawn in which encreaseth the Inflamation of the Lungs and the heat inwardly increased causeth abundance of vapors which are thickned in the skin and turned into sweat Moreover There is a continual rigor which comes from the sharpness of the matter which pricketh the Membranes And Lastly You may ad sweetness of spittle which useth to come when it begins to Suppurate which is the original of Saltness Hippocrates shews also the signs of a Consumption confirmed in his 11. Text of the Book above mentioned in these words The longer this Disease lasteth the more absolute matter will be spet and the Feavers be the sharper the Cough more frequent and strong the body will more consume and yet the body is disturbed downward from Flegm and this comes from the Brain when any man comes to this he must perish In these Words we may observe that there are Five Signs of a Consumption confirmed The First
thing be voided either naturally or by art it is for the most part windy and like Cow-dung with water at the top because it is most Flegm which useth to be so Somtimes the Belly is so bound that in the heigth of Pain Purging Medicines that are very strong will not work The Signs of the Causes are thus to be distinguished If the Pain come of Flegm it is not so great unless it be mixed with wind which cannot get forth of the places wherein it is contained for then the pain is very great somtimes in one part as if it were bored through with a wimble or stick somtimes in many if the wind do remove the Patient is better for hot and worse for cold things He used a Diet formerly which bred flegm his water is somtimes more crude and white not alwaies which deceiveth yong unexperienced Physitians and somtimes in a flegmatick and flatulent Chollick the Urine will be yellow and reddish by reason of the extraordinary pain which doth inflame the Spâ—riâ—s and Humors contained in the Veins and Arteries Which Avicen wisely observed Fen. 13. Lib. 3. Tract 3. Cap. 11. Let no man be deceived saith he to think by the foulness inflamation and redness of the Vrine that therefore the Disease is hot for that is common to all Vrines If the Chollick proceed of wind there will be a stretching pain and a swelling of the Belly the Patient perceiveth a rumbling of the Belly and much wind and he is better when he breaketh it he used a Diet to breed it as unreasonable drinking of cold water often use of Pease Rapes Chesnuts Sallets Fruits and the like And if the wind be contained in the Cavity of the Guts the pain is movable not in one place and is somtimes greater But if it be in the â—oats and Tunicles of the Guts the pain is fixed because the wind cannot move and it is constant because it cannot get forth If the Chollick come from a sharp and Chollerick Humor it is most grievous pulling and pricking there is heat thirst and often a Feaver the Urine is very Chollerick It is worse for hot Meats and Medicines and better for cold By sending forth of Choller the disease is diminished and there went before a Diet breeding Choller The pains of other parts under the Navil are easily distinguished from the Chollick by their proper signs except the Stone whose signs are so like with those of the Chollick that very skilful Physitians have been deceived by them As Galen himself was as he confesseth 2. de loc aff cap. 5. when he was troubled with the Chollick he thought that he had the Nephritis and that a stone was fastened in one of the Ureters till the Humor was purged away and the pain ceased after which he found it to be the Chollick But by these following signs these two Diseases may be plainly distinguished if they be well observed First The Nephritis or pain of the stone is fixed in the Reins and comes from thence to the Testicles according to the length of the Ureter But the Chollick is movable and girts about the middle of the Belly like a girdle Secondly The Chollick encreaseth after Meat by reason of the compression of the Intestines from the full Belly but the Nephritis encreaseth not but rather decreaseth because some of the Nourishment is carried to the Reins which doth somthing asswage the pain Thirdly In the Chollick the vomiting is more vehement and the Body is more bound because the Colon lieth in the bottom of the Stomach and the Intestines being stretched or much provoked do constringe themselves that they may expel what is noxious But both the Symptomes are common to both Diseases so that you can hardly know their intension and remission because a strong Nephritick pain may cause a greater vomiting and astriction of the Belly then a weak Chollick Fourthly In a Chollick there is more ease found after Evacuation than in a Nephritis Fifthly In a Nephritis or the stone the Urine â—sâ—first clear and thin afterwards there is a sediment and at length sand and little stones are voided But in the Chollick the Urine is thick from the beginning As to the Prognostick The Chollick for the most part if it be gentle and little and not long nor in one place constantly but intermitting and not binding the Belly is curable and without danger But if the pain is very great and fixed in one place not intermitting and if the Belly be bound that nothing can get forth with great watchings and if vomiting follow hiccoughs doting and coldness of extream parts with cold sweats it is deadly A stubborn Chollick coming of sharp and Chollerick Matter degenerateth into other grievous Diseases as Arthritis Epilepsie or Paralysis which is most usual An Epidemical Chollick which is contagious and pestilent is commonly deadly The Cure of this Diseale is divers according to the variety of the Causes And first there is the same Cure of a flatulent and pituitous Chollick which begins with an Emollient Clyster after which followeth one Carminative and discussing as was prescribed in the Dolor Ventriculi from the like Cause which must be repeated twice thrice or four times in a day till the pain be gone and if he go not to stool in one or two Clysters as somtimes happeneth you must give a sharp Suppository In one of the aforesaid Clysters you may do well to ad four ounces of the Aqua Benedicta Rulandi Or two or three drams of Coloquintida boyled in an Emollient and Carminative Decoction If Clysters will not give ease you must not stay too long upon them but use some gentle Medicine It hath been observed that when a sick man had taken three Clysters without benefit that another Physitian came and gave but one ounce and an half of Manna with two ounces of the Oyl of sweet Almonds in the fat Broth of a Hen and cured the Patient But in a pain that comes from grofs flegm you must give stronger Medicines Afterwards Fomentations Oyntments Baths Emplaisters and the like are good which were declared in the Cure of the Dolor Ventriculi of the same Cause to which you may ad some specifical things which are fit for this Disease Wash the Guts of a Wolf in white Wine then dry them in an Oven in an Earthen pot till they may be poundered Let the Patient take a dram thereof in white Wine and he will be presently cured Boyl fair Water and ad to it the fourth part of Oyl and some gross Pepper let him take three or four spoonfuls as hot as he can endure it and the pain will be instantly gone Take of the best Aloes one dram Laudanum four grains Diagridium six grains Mix them and make six Pills gilded Let him take them at a convenient time They take away the pain aster one hour and then purge out the noxious humor Instead of these you may give Diaphoenicon and Philonium Romanum as is
saith that hot blood given as a Clyster doth wonderfully cure a flux Chap. 6. Of Dysenteria or Dysentery A Dysentery is an often and bloody loosness of the Belly with pain and torment depending upon the ulceration of the Intestines The word Dysenteria is taken commonly among the Antients for every bloody flux of the Belly but strictly and properly it is taken only for the bloody flux which comes from an Ulcer in the Intestines Gal. 3. de symp caus cap. 2. nameth four kinds of bloody fluxes which he commonly calls Dysenteries The first is when any part of the Body is cut or when any exercise is omitted or any bleeding is omitted as usual bleeding at the Nose and Haemorrhoids that by reason whereof the blood abounding is sent by the Meseraick Veins to the Intestines and so evacuated by the Belly The second is when by reason of the weakness of the Liver Watery blood like that water wherein flesh hath been washed is voided as it is in the Hepatick or flux of the Liver of which we shal hereafter speak The third is when Melanchollick and shining blood is cast forth which by reason of the long continuance in the Liver or Spleen is burnt and mixed with Melancholly Shining signifieth burning because blood which groweth black by cold doth not shine but loseth that brightness or splendor which it had before The fourth Difference is when the Patient at some short distance voids blood with Humors or Excrements with which somtimes there is mixed Pus or Matter and that with pain and torment by which we may conclude that there is an Ulcer of the Guts And this is properly called a Dysentery of which only we here discourse The Internal Causes of a Dysentery are sharp and ulcerating Humors as yellow Choller green like Leeks or Verdegreece and black as also salt flegm bred in the Head from great heat or in the Belly by putrefaction and so brought to the Intestines where cleaving a long time it doth ulcerate Here is a great Doubt propounded by Authors How yellow Choller in a short time should cause a Dysentery When green Choller in a long time maketh only a Diarrhoea which never turneth into a Dysentery since the green is made of the yellow by adustion and hath more sharpness Mercatus answereth That there must be a clamminess by which it may remain long in the Guts to corrode and gnaw them as wel as a sharpness And therefore if yellow Choller be such it causeth a Dysentery on the contrary if green Choller be more fluid and stay less while in the Guts it makes but a simple Diarrhoea Sennertus saith that this answer is probable but it doth not satisfie because oftentimes there are fluxes in which there is clamminess with sharpness and yet there is no Dysentery And contrarywise often times there is no clamminess in Chollerick Humors which cause a Dysentery and therefore he thinks that the Humors which produce a Dysentery have a peculiar occult quality with which the Intestines are offended and ulcerated as the Lungs are with the fish Lepus and the Bladder with Cantharides and no other part And he proveth that malignant quality in that a Dysentery is contagious for the most part so that the infections which come from the vapors rising from the excrements of those that have a Dysentery do only infect the Guts of them that are infected and not upon other parts The same happeneth in other Epidemical and infectious Diseases in which the poyson doth go only to some peculiar part so their Pleuresies Peripneumonia's or Imposthumes in the Lungs and Squinzies which are infectious So the Poyson of a mad Dog doth only infect the Head This is more cleer to be seen in Purging Medicines which have a peculiar vertue to move the Humors in the Body and bring them to the Guts which wil not only being taken at the Mouth purge by stool but laid to the Navil are taken by vapor at the Nose it is probable that they piercing into the Veins and Arteries by the Pores of the Skin and extremities of the Vessels do stir up motion and Fermentation or working in the Humors because the bad Humors are separated from the good and by pricking or stimulating of Nature they are driven to the Intestines by the force of the Medicine directing the expulsive faculty to those parts By the same reason but after another manner do Sudorisicks or Sweating Medicines and Diureticks or such as provoke Urine work the former forcing the Humors to the Skin the latter to the Bladder From which we may collect that the insection of a Dysentery by what manner or part soever it is admitted into the Body doth cause a certain fermentation or working in the Humors by giving them a Disposition like it self which being an enemy to the Guts doth provoke the flux of the Humors to them by which they are ulcerated and they being infected with the like disposition do infect the Humors and Nourishment from whence comes a true and proper Dysentery It is demanded of divers Authors What is that snotty and white Matter which is voided in such great plenty in Dysenteries mixed with Blood and other Humors Some think that it is the fat of the Guts others that it is that with which the Intestines are lined for the better passage of the excrements others that it is flegm from the Head or other parts others that it is Pus or Matter from the Ulcers But we conclude That it is nothing else but a preternatural excrement of the Guts for they being decayed from their Natural Constitution cannot convert their proper Nourishment into their own substance but by an imperfect way change it into that Matter which when it is unfit for nourishment of those parts is expelled forth and then the parts wanting again Nourishment attracteth or draweth new which is changed as the former and there must needs be a great encrease thereof because the part affected continually draweth Blood from the Veins which is changed into this slimy substance by which it is deceived of its expectation and therefore again draweth new for its Nourishment which it continually aimeth at but cannot turn into its own substance but into thâ— slimy Matter of which there is so great an encrease The same thing is done in other parts and especially in great and profound or deep Ulcers For the part Ulcerated when by reason of its evil disposition it cannot be wel nourished draws blood continually from the Veins which is changed into Pus or Quittor by which means the whol body by degrees consumeth Nor doth this befal only parts ulcerated but others that have no Ulcer or Imposthume so that although the aforesaid Excrement be like Quitt r yet is not true Pus or Quittor for that comes only from an Ulcer or Imposthume This chiefly appears in an Ophthalmy or Inflamation of the Eyes in which when there is no Ulcer or Imposthume there is a continual Excrement
over wanton venereal embraces And in a word vehement motions of the Armes by drawing somewhat violently to a Body by turning a wheel or doing some such work may exceedingly further Abortion or Miscarriage The Signs of present Abortion are manifest of themselves But such as go before Abortion and prognosticate the same are these An unusual heaviness of the Loyns and Hips a loathness to stir Appetite gone shivering and shaking coming by fits pain of the head especially about the Roots of the Eyes a straitening of the sides and of the Belly above the Navel the flagging or falling and extenuation of the Dugs which made Hippocrates to say in Aphor. 37. Sect. 5. If the Dugs of a woman with child do suddenly grow small that woman will miscarry For the extenuation of a womans Dugs in such a case doth signifie want of blood in those Veins which are common to the womb and to the Dugs by means of which defect the child is in danger to miscarry But if Abortion shall be caused by some external essicient causing violent agitation of the Child in the Womb and a bursting of the Vessels with a pain raised in those parts the Spirits and Blood run speedily to the genital parts of which the Dugs being destitute grow smaller than they were Furthermore Plenty of Milk dropping from the Dugs doth argue weak Child and consequently portends Abortion according to Hippocrates in Aphor. 52. Sect. 5. But if frequent pains aâ—d almost continual do torment the Reins and Loyns reaching towards the Share as far as Os sacrum with a certain endeavor of going out of the Womb it is a certain sign of a woman that will shortly mscarry For those parts do signifie that the Membranes and Lâ—gaments wherewith the child is fastened to the womb are stretched and torn in â—under And if so be that pure Blood or such as is wheyish or water flowing from the Womb do â—ollow the foresaid pains and endeavors of coming out it shews that Abortion is hard at hand and that the Vessels and Membranes of the Womb are broken and the mouth of the Womb open At the same time the cituation or posture of the Child is changed for whereas it lay high and possessed the middle of the Womans Belly like a Sugar-loof bearing out it is now gathered round like a Foot-ball and roiled down towards the Water gate Also oftentimes there follow grievous Symptomes as shiverings tremblings Palpitations of the Heart Swoonings and abundant Bleeding Hereunto may be added what Hipâ—ocâ—aâ—es teacheth us in the second Book of Popular Sicknesses Text 17. That if after violent external câ—uses such as are blow a fall and such like vehement pain and perturbation arise in a Woman with Child she suddenly or at most the same day miscarries but if the external cause were weak the Abortion may be differred till the third day which being once over there is no longer danger of Abortion because such wounds and hurts are wont to grow well again upon the third or at most the fourth day or very much to be mitigated and asswaged whereupon the Child is again confirmed in the Womb and retained Which Precept is of great moment in the Practice oâ— Phyâ—ick that women with child being hurt by some external accident should keep their bed for â—nree daies or longer and use such Remedies as prevent Abortion The Prognosticks oâ— Abortion may be divers after this manner Women are more endangered by Abortion than by due and timely Child-birth because it is more violent and unseasonable for as in ripe Fruit the Stalks are loosened from the Boughs and the Fruit falls of it self so in a Natural Birth the Vessels and Ligaments wherewith the Child is tied to the Womb are loosened and untied as it were of their own accord which in case of Abortion must needs be violently broken asunder Very many women become Barren by their Miscarriages by reason of those exceeding rendings tearing which do wholly overthrow the dispositions of the Womb. Much bleeding accompanied with fainting raving and convulsions is wont to cause death and Aresaeus testifies he never saw any escape who in the time of their Abortion or aiterwards had Convulsion fits Inâ—lamation of the Womb caused by Abortion is for the most part deadly for Blood flowing to the Womb in great quantity is not purged out but putrefies therein and regurgitatâ—s or slows back into the upper parts whence arise burning Feavers pantings of the Heart Heart-burning and other Symptomes enumerated before Abortion is more dangerous in a woman that never bore Child before because being unaccustomed to Pains and having those Passages more strait she is longer and more vehemently tormented Women very lean or very fat are more endangered by Miscarriage the former because of their weakness the latter because of the narrowness of those Passages by which the Child must come forth Abortion is more dangerous in the sixth seventh and eight months because the Child being the greater is excluded with the more pain and difficulty Women which have a more loose and moist womb than ordinary domiscarry commonly without danger especially in the first month because those parts in such women do easily give way whence their pain and trouble is the less Hippocrates in the second Book of Popular Sicknesses affirms That to miscarry of a male Conception of three-score daies old helps a Woman whose Courses are stopped By stopping of Courses he understands only their imminution when women are not sufficiently or conveniently purged at their monthly seasons for by such an Abortion or Miscarriage as aforesaid those stopped passages are opened and the Blood is drawn towards the womb which came thither but slowly in former times Our ordinary women seem to have taken notice of the truth of this saying of Hippocrates who touching an Abortion of a few months are wont to say by way of proverb Amiscarrying woman is half with child again The Cure of Abortion consists in Preservation for that which is past cannot be helped But all the Symptomes which follow Abortion are the same which accompany women duly brought to bed The Preservation from Abortion hath two principal Points or Heads The one concerns the woman before she is with child The other when she is with child Before the woman is with child all evil dispositions of body which are wont to cause Abortion must be removed as fulness of blood badness of Humors and peculiar Diseases of the womb viz. Distempers Swellings Ulcers and such like Fulness of Blood opens the Veins of the womb or strangles the Infant while it is in the womb This if it be a pure and simple Plenitude may be cured by Blood-letting such as shall answer the quantity of blood super-abounding But badness of Humors is either chollerick and sharp so as to open the Orisices of the Veins or by provoking Nature to stir up the expulsive faculty whereby the child comes to be expelled with those evil humors or by
known when the motion thereof ceaseth which either the Mother did feel or the Midwife perceive by hâ—r hand laid on or other warm and strengthening things which were wont to awaken and rouse up the powers thereof when they were in a slumber or stupified Also the Mothers find a greater sense of weight with which and pain of the Belly they are troubled when they turn from one side to another they perceive the Child to roul from one side to another like a Stone The lower part of their Belly feels very cold the native heat being extinguished and those spirits dissipated which were formerly in the Child their Eyes become hollow and troubled their face and Lips are pale their extream parts appear cold and of a Leaden-colour their Duggs become slap and flaggy and at length when the Child rots stinking moistures flow from the Womb like water and blood their belly is blown up with vapours asending thereunto a filthy smell and a stinking Breath comes both out of the Mouthes of such women and from their whol bodies If the After-Birth be excluded before the Child it is a certain token that the Child is dead in the Womb. As to the Prognostick A Child dead in the Womb is a very exceeding dangerous thing and if it be not timely voided forth it is wont to cause Feavers Faintings Dead-sleeps Convulsions and death it self Yet somtimes a Child dead in the Womb may be kept a long time as appears by many stories related by divers Authors which Schenkius hath collected in great number as rare Cases and Sennertus hath transcribed out of him touching many Women which have voided the Bones of Children dead and putrefied in the womb by their Water-gate their Dung-gate and by a Swelling that broke in their Belly I have seen one Woman which voided all the bones of her child by her Navel and her Navel growing afterwards whol again she recovered her perfect health The Cute consists wholly in the Exclusion or Extraction of the Child for seeing great danger of life at ends the Mother so long as the dead Child is in her Womb as soon as ever by the foregoing signs we certainly collect the Child is dead we must make hast to force it out Which is done by the same Remedies which were formerly propounded to hasten the Birth But among them we must chuse out the most strong and effectual whereunto some other things may be added which are yet stronger after this manner Take Leaves of Savin dried round Birth-wort Roots Troches of Mirrh and Castoreum of each one dram Cinnamon half a dram Saffron a scruple Mix all into a Pouder The Dose is a dram in Savin Water Or Take Dictamnus Creticus Savin Borax of each a dram Mirrh Asarum Roots Cinnamon Saffron of each half a dram Mix and make all into a Pouder The Dose is a dram in the foresaid or such like Liquor In the mean time let the Fomentations aforesaid be applied to the Privities the Share and space between the Water and the Dung-Gate adding Briony Roots Roots of wild Cucumer Florentine Orice round Birthwort called Aristolochia rotunda and Broom-flowers After Fomentation anoint the said Parts with Vnguentum de Arthanita or with this following Take Aristolochia rotunda or round Birthwort Coloquintida and Agarick of each one dram Gum Ammoniack dissolved in Wine and Bulls Gall of each two drams With Oleum Cherinum as much as shall suffice Make all into an Oyntment Also let this Pessary be put up into the Womb Take Aristolochia rotunda Orice Root Black Hellebore Coloquintida Mirrh of each one dram Galbanum Opopanax of each half a dram With Ox Gall make all into a Pessary Or this Take Ammoniacum Opopanax Castorium Sagapenum black Hellebore wild Vine round Birthwort Pulp of Coloquintida Scammony of each one scruple Euphorbium one dram With Juyce of Rue Bindweed wild Cucumer and an Oxes Gaul make all into a Pessary Zacutus Lusitanus in Obs â—54 of the Second Book of his strange and Admirable Cures doth testisie that a dead Child in the ninth months growth producing many Symptomes in the Mother was driven out by this Pessary and by help of an Oyly Bath wherein was mixed the Decoction of such Herbs as do open and widen the Passages of the Body A Fumigation of Galbanum or an Asses Hoof may be received by a Funnel into the Womb. If the Matter hang long it will be good the woman being sufficiently strong to give her a purging Medicine whereby evil Humors which in this case are easily collected may be evacuated and the dead Child comequently cast forth Angelus Sala in his Book which he calls Triumphus Emeticorum that is the Triumph of Vomits doth witness That in this case he had often with happy success given four or five grains of Mercurius vitae which doth most powerfully expel the dead Child and excel all other Medicines in that point Which notwithstanding in regard of its vehement working requires great Caution and Discretion in the Physitian that would use it If after Medicines long tried the dead Child cannot be ejected we must implore the Chyrurgions aid Who may pull it out either by Instruments as Paulus Aegineta describes the manner or only help of the hand as is taught by Carolus Stephanus Bauthine and others all which are diligently transcribed by Schenkius and Sennertus Chap. 20. Of the After-birth retained IN a Natural Birth commonly the Secundine is excluded presently after the Child yet somtimes it is retained in the Womb by which means the Mother is in great Danger of her life The internal Causes of this retention are the over thickness of those coats and their too great compactness by which means they cling more fast to the sides of the Womb their being swelled through conâ—luence of humors which is stirred up in a laborious Travel weakness of the Mother caused by hard Labor so that she wants strength to exclude the After-Birth and the shutting up of the Mouth of the womb after the Child is come away But the external causes are the Cold Air by force whereof the Secundine is repelled and the Wombs mouth stopped Certain smells by which the Womb may be enticed upwards or agitated some greivous passion of mind as fear or suddain terror or frowardness of the Childing woman which will not abide in such a posture nor use such endeavours as are necessary to this work the over great weight of the Infant by which the Navil-string is broak unawards and the secundine is left within and the Error of an unexperienced Midwife which cuts the Navil-strings too soon or holds them not fast in her leâ—t Hand as she ought to do for if she let them go they are drawn back into the Womb and there lie hid with the After-Birth which they ought to have holpen to pull out The Tokens of a Secundine retained are needless its apparant of it self yet somtimes a bit thereof is severed from the whol and
thick and clammy humors abound the Syrup of Vineger will be very profitable in stead of those last named Also somtimes Conserve of Roses Violets or Borrage is wont to be mingled with cleer Water boyled with Barley Water and to be strained through an Hippocras bag for ordinary drink unto which some drops of spirit of Vitriol may profitably be added Or a Tincture of Roses is made after this manner most delightful in colour and in tast Take Red Roses one ounce Bloodwarm Water three pints spirit of sulphur or Vitriol one dram and an half Let them stand infusing cold for three or four hours To the strainings add white Sugar four ounces Rose-Water half a pint Make thereof a clear Julep for ordinary drink Also Julepus Alexandrinus is very good and extream pleasant It is thus made Take Fountain Water one pint Rosewater Juyce of Lemmons and white Sugar of each four ounces Boyl them over a light fire till you have taken away the Scum As for other things pertaining to Diet Sleep is extream good and watchings bad Yet over much Sleep doth overwhelm the natural heat and hinder the Evacuation of excrements Rest is necessary in acute Feavers but in long Feavers light and gentle exercise is good Also we must endeavor that nothing be retained which ought naturally to be expelled howbeit al immoderate Evacuations which exhaust the strength are to be stopped and al vehement Perturbations of mind must be turned out of Doors Among manual Operations Blood-letting holds the cheifest place for it doth not only diminish plenitude whether it be a simple fulness so as to stretch the Vessels or only a fulness with reference to the strength of the Patient whether it be in the whol body or in some Part but also revels the influx of Humors Causing obstructions cools the whol body and makes it perspicable keeps back putrefaction and furthers the concoction of putrefying Humors Presently therefore and at the beginning of the Disease blood must be drawn unless weakness hinder as in the Swooning Feaver and other like Cases and that after the Belly hath been loosened with a Clyster or a Suppository How much blood should be taken it gathered from the Patients strength from the greatness of the Pleâ—hora Custom of the Patient to bleed or not to bleed and other circumstances The Antients in the Synochus Putrida and the burning Feaver did let blood til the Patient fainted away But it is much more safe as we have said in the Cure of a simple Synochus to take away at several times so much as shall be sufficient then suddenly to put the Patient in danger of death Avicenna in a burning Feaver and in a continual Tertian doth forbid letting blood unless the Urine be thick and red For he fears lest Choller should be the more inflamed which he saith is bridled by Blood But the wiser Physitians do explode this Opinion of his seeing these kind of Feavers are often terminated even by Nature her self by bleeding at the Nose and they do somtimes cause Frenzies and other Inflamations and finally because Blood-letting doth potently refrigerate doth rather stop than further the Ebulition or boyling and working of the Blood and Choller comes away as wel as Blood when a Vein is opened so that in that Mass of Blood which is in the greater Veins remaining there is the same proportion of blood to Choller which there was before Nay verily when a Vein is opened if the sick party be any thing lusty and the blood flow amain only the putrid Blood which is offensive to Nature is voided the purer remaining in the Veins which few Authors have taken notice of although it be in the course of Practice every where observable For if the Blood flow out of the Vein drop by drop it is the purest Blood because it comes out of the Vein by its own proper motion But if it spring out with a forceable stream it appears foul and corrupted Nature expelling the worser part of the Mass of Blood Howbeit Blood is more sparingly to be taken from such as are of a very Chollerick Constitution in the middle of Summers Heat and the Dog-Daies than in other Natures and times But in Flegmatick and Melanchollick Feavers Blood must be taken away in lesser quantity and evermore great regard is to be had to Coindicants and Contraindicants forasmuch as Quotidian Feavers do for the most part happen unto Children or old Persons in cold Countries and cold Seasons of the yeer which considerations do lessen the Quantity of Blood which otherwise the Disease or its Cause require should be taken away When the Feaver is caused by over much labor blood must be taken away more sparingly If a Feaver happen by over great use of Carnal Embracements Blood-letting is pernicious Concerning the time of Blood-letting it is to be noted That a Vein must not be opened presently after the Patient hath eaten but after Digestion is past and after the Patient hath been at stool Again Blood is to be let when the Feaver is most remiss and not in the vigor thereof for then Nature is not able to bear both the violence of the Disease and the loss of Blood As for the repletion of Blood-letting if the same be necessary to cause Evacuation it must be repeated the same day if for Revulsions sake on another day For where Evacuation is necessary especially in acute Diseases the Body must be suddenly changed into another condition also it often happens that a Disease is quickly past its first time or beginning so that afterward we cannot so conveniently open a Vein But in Revulsion we have respect to the motion of the Humors which is then best ordered when it is done at divers times some space being interposed whereby Nature becomes accustomed to a contrary motion For in the space between Bleedings the Blood which was shed into the parts regurgitates into the Veins and by another Blood-letting is profitably drawn forth We understand that Blood-letting must be iterated if that blood which was first drawn forth were very much corrupted and there is reason to think that there is yet a great quantity thereof abiding in the Veins Yea verily Although the Blood at first seem pure and uncorrupted yet must we not desist from taking the same away but continue so doing until it appear more impure and corrupted And truly that Precept delivered by Hippocrates in his 4. de Victus Rat. in Morbis acutis in the Cure of a Pleutisie may very profitably be observed in acute Feavers viz. That Blood-lettings be so long continued til the blood change color so that if at first corrupt blood come away we must let it run till it appear more pure and on the other side if at the first the blood appear laudable we must suffer to flow til that which is impure and corrupted be come away Yet is there some diversity to be observed in both Cases For if at first good
Double Tertian Now these Double and Triple Quartans come of Melancholly putrefying in divers parts of the Body The Signs to know this Ague by are first such things as argue that Melancholly abounds in the Patient Unto which must be added the coming of the Fit upon the fourth day which is the peculiar sign Also the form of the fit differing from the fits of other Agues doth discover this Disease For it begins with yawning and stretchings together with heaviness of the whol Body after which follows cold and then shivering and shaking in which the Patients seem to have their bones broken Also the heat is kindled by little and little in a cold and thick Matter The Pulse is seldomer and slower than in other Feavers The Urines are at first white thin and watry but in the progress they are more colored and thicker Now these signs appear in a legitimate Quartan But in a bastard Quartan the vehemence of the Symptomes being greater doth argue the Humor to be thinner and hotter But a bastard Quartan is not distinguished from a legitimate herein alone in that in a bastard Quartan the heat thirst watchings and other Symptoms are more vehement but in that the legitimate begins of it self without any Feaver foregoing but a bastard Quartan succeeds other Feavers and Agues by reason of the adustion of the Humor which caused those Diseases by means of which adustion it degenerates into Preternatural Melancholly A Double Quartan is easily known by the Course of the fits And a Triple Quartan is distinguished from a Double Tertian and a Quotidian not only by the Signs of Melancholly abounding and by the form of the Fits but also because it was first a Single or a Double Quartan before it came to be a Triple Quartan For very rarely or never doth a Quartan Ague begin with a Triple but a Simple or Double Quartan degenerates into a Triple As for what concerns the Prognostick this kind of Ague is wont to be longest of all others and that which begins in the fal of the leaf continues al Winter commonly and goeth not away til the Spring come Yea and some Quartans continue a yeer or yeers Summer Quartans are the shortest In al of them we must have a continual eye to the signs of concoction which signifie the solution of the disease to be at hand and with these for the patient to make black urine is a good token A legitimate Quartan is longer than a bastard Quartan because the former proceeds from a thicker the latter from a thinner Humor This kind of Ague is wont to be very safe from danger especially the legitimate being accompanied with no grievous affection of any of the bowels But the bastard Quartan is more dangerous and if the Liver Spleen or any other part be grievously damnified it degenerates into a Dropsie Aged persons above sixty years being taken with a Quartan Ague do for the most part dy of it because their naturall heat is too weak to overcome so contumacious an Humor An intermitting Quartan being changed into a continual is for the most part deadly Because that Feaver whose motion was outward is changed into one whose motion is inward Which mostly falls out in the Winter the cold meeting with the humours which were but outward and beating them back into the innermost Closets of the Body The which also come to pass by unseasonable use of sharp and vehement purges For thereby of simple Quartans double triple and continual are generated A Quartan Ague coming upon one that hath the falling sickness cures the same according to Hippocrates in the 70 Aphorism of the 5 Section Those that have Quartan Agues are not much troubled with Convulsions And if having first Convulsions a Quartan Ague follows they are freed from their Convulsions Now the reason which Galen in his Comment gives hereof is because the thick matter which caused the Convulsions is by the long heat of this Ague attenuated and digested Also by the shaking of the Body in the cold Fits the said Humor is more easily ejected We must also add that the evil Humors lurking in the Brain and other parts as also in the veins is transferred to the Hypochondria and more ignoble parts where the Melancholly Quartanary Humors are seated and so leaves the parts aforesaid A bloody flux coming upon a quartan Ague tends to health according to Hippocrates in the 48 Aphorism of the sixt section To such as are splenetick a Dysenterie is good Now in a quartan Ague commonly the Spleen is misaffected and a melancholly humor is common to a quartan Ague and a misaffected Spleen but this must be understood of a short dysenterie for a long one is wont to be mortal as we have it in the 43. Aphorism of the said section Such as being troubled with the Spleen have a flux of the Belly with pain if it turn into a long Dysenterie or Bloody flux they fall either into a Dropsie or a Lienterie and dy To bleed at the nose in a quartan Ague is a very bad sign Because the Humor which causes a quartan is too thick and too cold to be voided that way and because such bleeding is symptomatical and if it continue wil breed a dropsie it must presently be stopped by opening the basilica vein out of which the putrid blood may flow because the pure blood comes from the Nose The quartan Ague hath a double cure according to the two kinds thereof For the remedies used in a bastard quartan must be far different from those which are used in a legitimate one And that we may begin with a Legitimate quartan we must presently set our selves to vanquish the cause thereof not regarding the Feaver And seeing the cause thereof is an humor cold and dry thick and earthly we must use medicaments that do heat moisten and attenuate Also the Peccant Humor must be at seasonable times evacuated which notwithstanding will require a long time to do because of the extream contumacy of the Humor and length of the disease But before these medicines be used we must appoint the patient a convenient diet Let the patient therefore use meats of good juyce easy to digest of thin substance and moderately heating and moistening as the flesh of young Animals and mountain Birds new Egs soft boiled Fishes that are taken in stony Rivers In the state of the disease we may allow the patient Salt Fish Capars and Olives Galen 1. ad Glauco Grants likewise Pepper and Mustard Among Herbs Borrage is commended and Bugloss Pimpernel and Spinach Fennell and Parsly Roots but especailly Turneps which must be first boiled in water and afterwads in fat broath which is very good for such as have the quartan Crato in his Councels collected by Scholtzius brags that he had cured many of the quartan Ague by the second broath of turneps seasoned with Butter and Sugar Of fruits Apples and stewed Prunes Raisons of the Sun fat Figs Almonds
often break forth in the state of the disease and symptomatically and deadly until by the remedies aforesaid their oâ—structive facultie was taken away In a carbuncle superveneing upon a buâ—â—ing Feaver if before its appatition Blood were not sufficiently taken away If the patient can bear further blood-letting open that vein which is nigh the carbuncle that the greater attraction may be made of the veremous matter to the part affected Afterward let the Tumor be scarrified on every side round about and that with prety deep gashes and foment it a while with warm salt water that the corruption of the blood may be hindered and the â—fflux thereof promoted A while after apply a grain of a Caustick to the midle of the Pastle and upon the whol swelling lay this following Cataplasm Take leaves of Rue and Scabious bruised of each one handfull three pair of dryed Figs bruysed sharp Leven an ounce Pepper poudered one dram two yolkes of Eggs Mix all into a Cataplasm which must be applied for two dayes together And then lay on this following Take Juices of Comphry the greater Scabious Marygold of each one dram old treacle four scruples Salt one dram two yolks of Eggs mix them all and apply it to the tumor Also at the beginning may be applyed the Cataplasm de Arnoglosso described in the Dispensatory of Bauderon But to the Eschara after the application of the Caustick apply Vnguentum Basilicum adding thereto Treakle Oyl of scorpions and the yolk of an Egg. When the tumor is grown lest the malignant matter should flow back again to the internal parts let the compass thereof be anointed with ointment of Bâ—lus twice or thrice in a day And upon the Eschara or Crust that it 's falling off may be hastened â—y Vnguentum Basilicum with butter and Sows grease mixed therewith after the crust is com away let the ulcer be clensed with this folowing ointment Take juice of Marygolds wormwood Scabious and Smalladg of each one ounce choyce of Mirrh Florentine Oris Aloes Sarcocolla of each one dram Honey of Roses two ounces Make of all an ointment to be used till the sore be perfectly curred Chap. 2. Of the Measles and small Pox. THat Feaver which is commonly attended by the Measles and small Pox may justly be reckoned among Malignant and pestilential Feavers seeing it is Epidemical and contagious and kills very many children to whom it commonly happens What is the difference between the Measles and small Pox Authors are not yet well agreed But custom hath obtained that those same larger pustles or Whelks like unto Warts from whence they have their name should be called in latin Varioloe in English the small Pox but those little pustleâ— and as it were asperities of the Skin with a deep redness like St. Anthonies fire or the rose which are discussed within five or seven daies without suppuration are called in latin Morbilli and in English Measles There is also another kind of pustles common to Children like unto the small Pox in respect of the fashion and size but herein it differs in that the small Pox begins with redness and inflamation but these are white and as it were bladderes full of a wheyish humor which within three daies break and dry up and are wont to cause no danger and commonly break forth without a Feaver It is described by Vidus Vidius in these words Som besiáes the two former sorts do ad a third which they call the Crystalls For so they term certain Bladdrs full of matter which shine like Christall wherewith the Skin is in divers parts diapered the common people call them Ravaglione unto which all men are not so subject as unto the small Pox and measles neither are they so greviously afflicted under them wherefore these bladders ought not to be reckoned as a third sort with the small Pox and Measles Touching the smal Pocks and Measles Authors dispute much and especially whether these be new diseases or if they were known unto the antients and what is the next and immediate Cause of them But since I affect al possible brevity in my Lectures I have bin wont to omit al controversies propounding onely the plain and naked decisions of them and accordingly I shal breifly unfold what is to be thought of the foregoing questions And in the first place I conceive the smal Pocks and Measles to be no new diseases seeing they rise from a most antient Cause viz. the impurites of the maternal blood which when the Arabians observed they accounted it no new disease But if they had first come abroad in their times they would have mentioned their novelty And although they were the first that exactly described them and Hippocrates and Galen with the rest of the Antients have scarce mentioned them we must suppose that therefore the Antients did not write distinctly of them because they are only accidents of a malignant Feaver and critical eruptions which do not make a distinct disease by themselves Or because in Greece through the mildness of the Ayr these disease were so light as not to deserve the Care of a Physitian Even as in the Western Indies in regard of the great temperatnes of the Ayr it was wont to be to be light that it was scarce taken notice of before the coming of the Spaniards into those parts But a Blackmore which was brought thither being taken with Pestilential smal Pocks the malignant and venemous quality being spred by Insection the disease began so to range and rage that a great part of the Indians were slain thereby For whereas before those impurites of their Mothers blood remaining in them were wont easily to be discussed throught the Clemency of the Ayr now when a venemous quality was added to them they caused grevious Diseases Now that the Mothers blood is the true Cause of the Smal Pocks and Measles is hence cheifly gathered because among many thousands of Men it is hard to sind one who once in his Life hath not had these diseases But a disease common to al Men must needs depend upon some common cause such as are the principles of Generation viz. the seed and Mothers blood But the seed cannot be the cause of the smal Pocks and Measles because from it come hereditary diseases such as last a Mans Life time it remaines therefore that these diseases spring from the Mothers blood with which the Child is nourished in the Womb. For therein be it never so pure some impurites are found which communicate their pollution to the parts of the Child and that pollution of the parts doth defile the Mass of blood and being provoked by some occasion doth make the same to boil by help whereof the blood ferments and becomes purified both it and the parts aforesaid This the Arabians do mannifest by a cleer example of Wine which being powred whiles it is new into musty or otherwise il-qualited Vessel receives that il quality from the Vessel but when it begins to
work and puresie it clenses both it self and the Vessel Now this working doth commonly happen to Children howbeit somtimes to those that are elder and have attained Mans estate because it is evermore set on work by some external Cause such as is especially a certain disposition of ayr proportionable to this disease whence it comes to pass that somtimes the smal Pocks somtimes the Measles are rise because the Ayr is somtimes enclined to the one and somtimes to the other Neither can those impurites of the Mothers blood infect her and cause in her the same diseases althought Hippocrates saies in his Book de Natura Pueri that there are three parts of the blood one most pure with which the Child is nourished another impure wherewith the Mother is nourished and another most impurer which is kept in the Veins of the Womb the whol time of Going with Child and after the Birth is purged away in the Child-bed purgations For first seeing the Mother hath parts more hard and solid they do not so soon take impresion as the tender and soft body of the Child Again that most impure part of the blood which is kept in the Veins of the womb and of the After-birth the whol time of belly-bearing doth infect the blood in the passage which is carryed through those parts to Nourish the Child whence the Child contracts and evil quality which in its time is the Cause of that ebullition in the blood of the Child But that impurest part of the blood remaining in the foresaid places doth not infect the body of the Mother Furthermore it s not to be wondered at that the breaking out of the smal Pocks and Measles is somtimes so long deferred as that some have them at Mans estate For those impurites do not substantially remain in the body as many imagine for they would be corrupted by long stay and acquire a most grevious putrefaction But only an evil quality is by them imprinted upon the parts of the Child which in process of time infecting some part of the humors becomes offensive to Nature which then rowsing her self doth drive those infected portions of the humors into the Skin And forasmuch as in the Mass of blood a twosold excrement is found the one thick the other thin of the thick the smal Pocks are bred of the thin the Measles And although the evil and malignant quality be one and the same insecting both excrements yet because the Nature of the excrements is different the Analogy of the external Cause unto them both is Different whence it comes to pass that sometimes the smal Pocks and somtimes the Measles are Epidemically spread abroad And although the smal Pocks are wont to break forth in the whol body yet are they wont to appear in greatest quantity in the face feet and hands which is otherwise in the purple spots of the Purple Feaver for they appear most on the breast and back The Cause of which difference is this that inasmuch as the smal Pocks arise from an ebullition of the blood by help whereof an Excretion is made of the excrements lurking therein unto the Skin and the Liver being the Fountain and original of blood whose Emunctories are the Face Hands and Feet whence it comes that such as have hot Livers have red and rubied faces and feel intense heat in the palmes of their hands and Soals of their feet it follows that the smal Pocks and Measles must come out there more than any where else Contrarywise the purple spotts which appear in malignant Feavers do arise principally from the Misaffection of the Heart and therfore they break out chiefly in parts near the Heart and especially about the Loines because in them the Vena Cava ascendens and the Arteria aorta which are annexed unto the Hair have their Course Also another difference is to be noted between the smal Pocks and Purples because the smal Pocks and Measles appearing on the third or fourth day from the beginning of the Feaver are wont to be critical and for the most part void of danger but the purple spots though they appear on the seventh day are commonly Symptomatical and render the disease worse whenas a man would think it should be otherwise for a disease is more crude on the fourth than the seveuth day But the Cause of this difference consists herein that in the smal Pocks and Measles the Feaver commonly begins at the highest so that not only on the third and fourth day but also on the first or second daies excretions may be in them critical But malignant Feavers proceed more slowly and their beginning is commonly Extended to the seventh day so that Excretions which then happen cannot be critical Now that the Pox and Measles come so soon to their state and not the malignant Feavers is hence because the Pox and Measle-Feaver comes from the lightest putrefaction and rather from an Ebullition of the blood than from any intense putrefaction of the matter and therfore Nature by help of Coction makes it to cease before the seventh day because it was a light Feaver and rose from the slightest Causes But in malignant Feavers so great and fordid is the putrefaction that it cannot be corrected in the fourteenth nor somtimes in the twentieth day And therefore the spotts breaking out before that time the disease is exasperated because Nature was forced to expel them without Concoction and symptomatically The expulsion therefore of smal pox and Measles is caused by an Ebullition of the blood which Ebullition according to Avicennas doctrine is twofold the one perfective the other corruptive The perfective or depurative is that in which only the impurer and excrementitious parts of the blood are by Nature purged forth that the whol mass may afterward remain pure and then the smal Pocks are innocent which are cured without any help of Physick But the corruptive is wherein not onely the excrementitous parts of the blood but the sincere blood it self is putrefied whence arise dangerous and deadly pox and according as there is more or less putrefaction in more in more or fewer parts of the blood so is the danger more or less This corruptive Ebullition doth cheifly happen when those diseases are epidemical being occasioned by a malignant Constitution of the Air by which an ebullition of the humors and a malignant putrefaction is caused whonce many and dangerous smal Pocks are caused which are somtimes according to Rhasis the Forerunners of the Plague Pocks and Measles are reckoned among acute diseases because ordinarily they are terminated within the space of fourteen daies Now som do wittily observe a double order of times in times in this disease viz. the time of ebullition and the time of eruption the time of ebullition is commonly terminated in four daies so that the first day is counted the beginning the second the Augment the third the state and the fourth the declination for then the Feaver and other symptomes
few hours after bleeding you must purge without respect of time Neither let the Physitian be too curious or fearful in purging since the Disease doth much require it and the time of the disease is not usually long And that purge ought to be very strong because the humor is stubborn and the Sences so drowned that they cannot be rouzed or stirred up without strong Medicines And that Medicine is usually one ounce of the Electuary Diacarthamum dissolved in Bettony Water with half a scruple of Castor Or Take Turbith four scruples Agarick two drams Ginger two scruples Fennel seeds one scruple Castor six grains Infuse them in a sufficient quantity of Bettony Water and in three ounces of it strained dissolve the Electuary Diacarthamum three drams Syrup of Roses one ounce Let him drink it Take of Cochie Pills the less one dram Castor three grains With Bettony Water make seven Pills and if the party cannot swallow them dissolve thâ—â— in Sage Lavender or Bettony Water Or Take of Cochie Pills the greater and Pills of Agarick of each half a dram The Troches of Alhandal Diagridium and Castor of each three grains With Honey of Rosemary make Pills or dissolve it in Sage Water Or this Potion Take of Senna half an ounce of white Agarick one dram and an half of Turbith one dram of Ginger and Galanga half a dram Boyl them in Sage and Rosemary Water In two ounces and an half of the strained Liquor put two drams of Diacarthamum the Electuary and of Castor half a scruple of simple Oxymel half an ounce In a Lethargy the purging Medicines must be milder from the beginning by reason of its continual Feaver accompanying made of Agarick with Rhubarb or Scammony or of Pills of Hiera with â—garick because Choller is that which carrieth the humors to the Head Yet in the progress of the Disease when the matter is flown to the Head and sticks there we may use the Purges above written Trallianus gives one scruple of Scammony with two scruples of Castor in Oxymel by which he hath cured many desperate Lethargies And Oribasius saith That there is no better Medicine for a Lethargy to purge away that flegm which Choller brought to the Head than Scammony and Castor It often happens that the Faculties are so oppressed that Physick wil not work which is an evil sign and such seldom recover But because Celsus saith when things so fall out we must use such Medicines as are at hand if they be proper for the Disease which is so desperate that we may use desperate Medicines For as Serenus saith The Physitians think such Medicines better in desperate cases than for the Patient without tryal to die an easie death And as Celsus saith Many things may be done in time of danger and necessity which may wel be omitted at another time Therefore when we have used those Medicines without any success we may wel rise higher namely To those Medicines which are made of Antimony especially to those which are less vehement and furious as Aqua Benedicta of Dr. Ruland made of the Infusion of Crocus Metallorum which purging both upwards and downwards bringeth such a quantity of Flegm not only from the stomach but the brain also as somtimes the Patient is cured only with this Evacuation And I can witness upon my own Experience That I saw a Noble man thrice in two years cured from the Apoplexy with this only Medicine Although some learned men do forbid the use of Vomits in these Diseases yet we must yield to Experience which dayly teacheth us that Children affected with sleeping Diseases are more readily and safely cured by the vomiting Salt of Vitriol than by any other Medicine The Tincture of Tobacco drawn with Aqua vitae and taken in the quantity of two drams with Honey powred down the Throat doth excellently After you have given a purging Medicine before it begins to work and also while it worketh you must think of al those things which cause revulsion of humors and bring them into practice not only frictions or rubbings and ligatures or bindings mentioned before but also Cupping glasses to the back shoulders arms and thighs without scarrification if he was formerly blooded and with scarrification if blood-letting was omitted In an Apoplexy you must not apply Cupping glasses to the Breast or Hypochondria or parts under the Ribs lest the Muscles of the Breast and Belly being contracted the Breath be hindred The chief and only Remedy in an Apoplexy especially is to apply Cupping glasses to the head Which kind of Cure the famous Physitian Fracastorius being taken with an Apoplexy did direct for himself by his Nods and signs but for want of their understanding of them he died Zaeutus Lusitanus in his 33. History and the first Book of the Principal Physitians reports that he cured a desperate Apoplexy by setting a Cupping glass twice upon the hinder part of the Head with deep Scarrification A Veâ—â—catory or Plaister to draw Blisters to the Neck behind and to the Shoulders Let two or three sharp Clysters be given every day Take of Pellitory of the Wall Hylop Calamints Organ Sage Rue and the lesser Centaury of each one handful of Carthamus seeds half an ounce of Fennel and Cummin seeds of each three drams of white Agarick tied in a linnen clout two drams of Coloquintida tied with it one dram and an half Boyl them to one pint strain them and ad to the Liquor of Hiera Picra half an ounce of Diaphoenicon one ounce of Oyl of Rue two ounces Make a Clyster The Chymical Physitians do usually ad two ounces of Aqua Benedicta of Dr. Ruland made of the Infusion of Crocus Metallorum and then it wil work strongly You may give four or six ounces of the same infusion at a time and also you may take it out of the glass wherein the Infusion was made shaking it before that it may have some of the fecies or residents of the Pouder in the bottom to make it more strong Therefore for the most part we do prescribe Clysters of Aqua Benedicta or Vino Emetico that is the Infusion of Crocus Metallorum because in many Diseases especially Chollicks it doth wonders Take of Emollient Decoction for Clysters one pint of Diaphoenicon one ounce of Infusion of Crocus Metallorum shaked together four ounces make a Clyster If the Clyster come not away in due time give this Suppository Take of the pouder of Hiera Picra of Galens prescription two drams of Coloquintida and Agarick the best of each half a dram of Diagridium one scruple Salgem two drams Honey boyled to a sufficient consistence or thickness as much is sufficient make Suppositories It often falls out that the Muscle of the Arse called Sphincter is so weak that a Clyster is given in vain because it cannot be contained which is a desperate condition Apply Castor and Vinegar to the Nose which are said to have a special quality against sleep It is
Centaury and in our 98. Observation and the second Centaury were given two examples of Scorbutick Palseys accompanied with Convulsions There may be divers other Causes of a Palsey which are little observed As first A cold and moist Distemper simple and without matter may by congealing of the Spirits not only hinder their passages and influence upon the parts but also by destroying the temper of the Nerves make them uncapable of receiving the animal Spirits whereby they have Sence and Motion and this cold and moist distemper from overcoldness of the air or from the touching of a cold thing as Galen teacheth 4. de Loc. Aff. Chap. 4. of a certain man who when in a cold season and a great storm he had wrapt his wet Cloak a long time about his Neck fel into a Palsey in his hand the Nerves which come from the Neck and Marrow of the Back-bone being thereby made too cold and moist Some of our late Writers have reported That a Palsey may be procured by a stupifying or numbing quality which is inhaerent in some Medicines and Poysons and somtimes in the humors themselves And hence they say comes that Palsey which is caught by touching of the Torpedo or Cramp-fish but it is not so much to be termed a Palsey which cometh by that way as a Stupor or Stupifaction and numbness such like as that which Goldsmiths and Gilders have often by the touching and much using of Quick-silver and Looking-glass makers also which is often seen in Venice And Platerus supposeth that Wine by narcotick or stupifying quality begets Palseys and Numbness although others differ from his Judgment yet Fernelius seems to favor his Opinion affirming in the place above cited that he once saw a man whose skin by gluttony and drunkenness was all over stupified and insensible And Petrus Fabius in his Notes upon Altimar Chap. 14. relates a story of a certain Barbar who after he had been strongly tipling of Wine awaked at mid-night and fell suddenly into an universal Palsey of all the parts of his Body beneath his face so deprived of Sence and Motion that he felt not when he was cut and scarrified with a knife nor when he was pricked deeply with needles But his surfet and drunkenness being past he was cured in the space of three daies only by revulsions and resolving Oyntments applied to the back Notwithstanding this Author doth not impute this Palsey to the Narcotick or stupifying quality of the Wine but to those gross vapors which arose from his surfet and stopped the Nerves and this cause may be accounted among otheres that produce this Disease We have shewed in our Treatise of sleeping Diseases That there is a stupifying quality in corrupt and malignant Humors which being carried to the Nerves may hinder their Actions and since the Humors which produce the Scorbut have a venemous and malignant quality they may also have a stupifying forâ—e which may cause also a Palsey with the Scorbut or a Scorbutick Palsey although as we said before an obstruction or stopping or pressing of the Nerves may be sufficient to cause a Palsey alone Moreover Tumors growing by the Back-bone and its Nerves may without doubt cause a Palsey by pressing upon the Nerves So the cutting and pricking of a Nerve may produce the same effect The dislocation luxation or making loose of any of the Back bones or other Joynts may cause the same by pressing upon the Nerves And lastly The Condensation or thickning of the Nerves may hinder the influence and passage of the Spirits which comes either by too much exsiccation or drying or of a gross Earthy Humor which is taken into the substance of them So in those that have the Leprosie called Elephantiasis the sence and feeling of many parts is lost by reason of their growing too thick and hard by an Earthy and gross Nourishment which they receive The Causes of different Palseys are these In a perfect Palsey which supposeth a perfect privation of both Sence and Motion there is more plenty of the matter which causeth it by a general obstruction or stopping and binding of the Nerves But in an imperfect Palsey there is less matter to stop and bind the Nerves whereby it comes to pass that the passage of the Animal Spirits is not altogether so closed up but it wil suffer some portion of them to have their recourse Somtimes the Motion is hindered and the Sence not because there is more vertue to cause Motion than to cause sence or feeling in regard feeling is a kind of passion but Motion consists altogether in action Somtimes the Sence is hindered and not the Motion for in some parts of the body those nerves and their branches which serve for sence do not serve for motion as those nerves which are in the skin if they only be hurt the Sence only is hurt which is seen in a particular Palsey which is in one part only of the Body But if the chief nerves which are carried to the Muscles be hurt the sence cannot only be hindred but the motion also The Diagnosis or Knowledg of this Disease is directed to three things namely The kind or sort of the Disease to the part affected and to the cause that produceth it We may easily know what kind of Palsey it is because the want of motion and the privation of sence are to be discovered by the eye It is harder to know the part affected but it is found out by the knowledg of Anatomy which declareth the original and joyning of the nerves For if the right side of the face or left hath the Palsey and no other part be hurt the Brain is only hurt in that part from whence the nerves are brought that come to those sides of the face But if the parts under the head be hurt together with the Face then it is a sign that the Back bone is hurt as wel as the Brain And if the parts beneath the Head are hurt and not the face the fault is only in the Back bone If half the Body have the Palsey only one half of the Back bone is affected but if the whol body suffer then is the original of the Back bone hurt When the Palsey is in the Legs the part affected is about the bottom of the marrow of the Back and the Vertebrae or turning Bones of the Os Sacrum and so we must search out for the place whence the nerves spring which are brought to that part which is troubled with the Palsey Somtimes also the searching into the outward Cause doth much avail for the knowledg of the part affected Two examples whereof are brought by Galen one whereof we mentioned before out of his fourth Book de loc affect chap. 4. concerning a man in a cold stormy time wrapt his wet cloak so long about his neck til he fel into a Palsey in his hand Another is in his first Book de loc affect chap. 5. of Pausinias Syrus who lost the sence
a miracle presently If the Child suck look that the Nurses Milk be good let her have meat of good juyce and light of digestion Let her drink no Wine but Water or Water and Honey and a smal drink made of Sarsaparilla Some Children are so subject to this Disease that it will return again after it is once cured Nay in some Families al the Children use to die of this Disease Therefore you must use preventing Medicines not only to those which are newly born but to those also which have recovered First therefore give to Children newly born before they suck give one scruple of the Pouder de gutteta mentioned before in a little milk and give the same quantity thrice in two daies It is good both for them which have been cured and children when they are a few daies old to apply a Caustick to their Necks But an actual Cautery is much better which our Physitians wil not use because they abhor violent and terrible Medicines Rondeletius affirms that the Actual Cautery is so used in Florence that the women do use to apply it themselves And this doth Aquapendens witness in his Chyrurgery Operations and teacheth the way of applying them in his proper Chapter of the burning of the hinder part of the head in children Let the Child be purged twice in a month with Manna Syrup of Roses or of Cichory with Rhubarb Every new Moon give it a dose of the Epileptick Pouder de gurteta above mentioned Make a Bag to strengthen the head and a Fume for the Head-cloaths as in the cure of cold Diseases of the head and also pouder its hair with the pouder before mentioned For the Cure of this Disease this is a good Preservative Take of Spirit of Wine four ounces Spirit of Castor one ounce Peony Roots three ounces Let them be infused and strained Wash the whol body of the child with it warmed CHAP. IX Of Giddiness called Vertigo Avertigo is a false Imagination in which all objects and the head it self seem to turn round so as the Patient often falls to the ground unless he lay hold on some stay at hand It may be objected That in a Vertigo the Imagination is not hurt for if it were so the Patients would think the objects truly turned round as men in Madness and Phrenzy do think what they imagine to be truly so We answer That in a Vertigo the Reason is not hurt which perceiveth the error of the Imagination but in a Phrenzy or Melancholly the Reason is hurt as wel as the Imagination There are two sorts of Vertigoes the one simple called in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which the Sight remains unhurt the other is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a dark Vertigo in which the Eyes are both darkned as it were with smoak or a cloud In both kinds the Sight is somwhat hurt because the Spirits which use to go directly to the Eyes are moved out of order by the visive Nerve by reason whereof the Eye doth not so sitly enjoy them But in a dark Vertigo there is a more violent Motion of the Spirits so that they come less to the Eyes from whence the sight is darkned or hindred The immediate Cause of a Vertigo is the circumvolution of the Spirits coming of a vaporous matter or wind which coming into the Ventricles of the Brain and Plexus Choroides disturbs the Spirits and makes them run round whence the species of the Objects brought by those spirits are moved in like manner and so the objects themselves seem to be moved also the same way But here we may doubt since a Vertigo is a symptom of a hurt action and every action hurt depends immediatly upon a Disease how the Circumvolution of the Spirits can be the immediate cause of a Vertigo when it can be referred to no kind of Disease To which we thus answer A Circumvolution of the Spirits is a Disease in respect of Scituation for at that time the Spirits do not keep that place or position which they Naturally ought but move preternaturally and amiss And this Answer hath a weighty instance For a Disease is an affection of a true part but spirits are not true parts We answer That Axiome is not alwaies but sometimes true according to Galen that which is principal and hinders the action of its self is the true Disease We say that the word Part ought to be taken in a larger sense comprehending all those things which go to the making up of the Body and whatsoever hinders the action of any part is called a Disease So a yellow color in the Eye hurts the sight immediately and therefore it is called a Disease in number so a better savor in the tongue and noise in the Ears are Diseases in number in regard there is something in those parts besides which offendeth the actions After the same manner is the Circumvolution of the Spirits a Disease in Scituation or Position for the Reason above mentioned But those Vapors are sent up from evil humors not continually without intermission but by compass and going about and at a distance namely as often as they are raised up by an external cause and the humors are such as use to produce vapors namely Blood Choller Flegm and Melancholly and the watery Humor because both a cold as well as a hot vapor may cause a Vertigo as Galen 3. de loc affect chap. 8. and Comment Aphor. 23. Sect. 3. These evil humors are either contained in the Brain or in the inferior parts Hence a two-fold Vertigo ariseth one Proper the other by Consent Waterish and flegmy humors heaped up in the Brain send wind and vapors to its ventricles which stirring about there do cause a Vertigo And so a proper Vertigo comes to be a forerunner of an Epilepsy or Apoplexy But Humors contained in the inferior parts especially the stomach and the spleen do easily send up Vapors to the head which if they touch the Ventricles and the Arteries cause a Vertigo The external Causes are all such things as will quickly dissolve the Humors and turn them to Vapors or make an inordinate motion in those Vapors Among which are reckoned by Hippocrates Aphor. 17. Sect. 3. a South wind and sudden change of Air. To these ad the heat of the Sun windy Meats Garlick Mustard Radish Pease and Beans Drunkenness Gluttony immoderare Exercise and unseasonable the suppression of a wonted evacuation Anger Baths Hunger especially in those which are ful of bitter Choller often turning of the Body round long looking upon Wheels and things that run round and of Waters that run swift looking down from a high place a Fall a stroak upon the Head a Fracture or depression of the Skull compressing and lying upon the Brain We shall lay down no Diagnosis or general signs to know this Disease by because it is of it self manifest Yet in particular we shal declare those signs which
He who hath a Vein beating in his Arm is like to be mad and is subject to wrath but he that hath it moving by degrees is slow and stupid Here Hippocrates calleth Arteries by the name of Veins For he doth not mean a simple but a violent Pulsation unto which he opposeth that which is by degrees So that the meaning of his saying is this They who have naturally a high strong Pulse great and swift are inclinable to anger and fury but they who have a slow pulse are dull and blockish Secondly You must regard the Sex for Men are more often mad than Women Which is to be understood of the Original Disease of Madness for Woâ—en are often mad by consent from the Matrix Thirdly The Age is to be considered for Madness comes oftener to yong men than to boyes and old men Fourthly Mark the time of the year It comes often in Spring oftener in Summer most often at the fall of the Leaf according to Hippocrates and Galen Aphor. 20 21 and 22. Sect. 3. In the Spring the humors bred at other times and kept al Winter quiet are moved and stirred and produce proportionable diseases In the Summer much choller not only yellow but black is encreased in them that are inclined to it which causeth madness at that time or else encreasing till Autumn the disease comes then These Signs are more remote and shew only in general a disposition to this disease but these following shew it to be at hand Constant pain in the head watchings short and little sleep troublesom dreams cares and thoughtfulness frights from smal causes a rash and often fury from none or the â—mallest occasion eyes not enduring light noise in the ears an unaccustomed desire of Venery Nocturnal pollutions often laughter unaccustomed and without Reason much talk not formerly used and somtimes much silence These shew that a Mania is begun But that the Mania is present you may know by the â—igns mentioned in the Definition namely a Delirium without a Feaver with fury and boldness divers are the kinds of Dotage or Delirium in divers sick men and at divers times they come according as the cause is more or less vehement for some have a rash madness and seize upon every man they meet tear their own cloathes somtimes lay violent hands to destroy themselves Others ate milder and tamer and hurt no body but speak distractedly and ridiculously somtimes they sing somtimes they laugh and have divers whimseys and symptomes much like those in Melancholly men and fools And from the variety of those symptomes you may gather the variety of the cause For immoderate laughter mirth and singing signifie that the matter offending is dashed with much blood but wrath restlessness howling striking pale and yellow color in the face shew that choller is in fault but a furious madness that laies hold on all it meets and somtimes stayeth them comes from choller burnt which is called black choller but if this black choller comes not of yellow choller but melancholly adust the Patient looks furiously somtimes is long silent and then breaks forth into earnest discourse they are unruly and untoward and somtimes cry and lament grievously The Prognostick of this Disease is A Mania is a strong Disease and continueth not only months but years even to death especially if it be haereditary All Diseases of black choller are hard to be cured and this especially because the Patient will not be ruled and take their Medicines prescribed A Mania which comes with laughter and those light symptoms is easier cured than that which comes with sadness and fury That the Disease will shortly be cured appears by Natural Evacuations by sweat stool bleeding at noâ—e or hemorrhoids or varâ—ces or crooked swelled veins appears whence Hippocrates Aphor. 21. Sect. 6. if varices or hemorrhoids come to mad men the disease is cured Bloody-flux Dropsie Tertian Ague or Quartan happening to a mad man takes away his disease for there is a remove of the humors unto the lower parts from the Head in which they produce a new Disease For the Cure of this Disease the matter offending is to be evacuated revelled and repelled the hot Distemper is to be corrected the Brain and other principal parts are to be strengthened which may be done by the means following First Let blood out of the vein of the Arm which appears most but give a Clyster before the day after bleed again in thâ— other Arm and do thus often For Platerus affirms that innumerable mad folks have been cured by Chyrurgions and others who have studied the Cure and have let them blood twenty or twenty six times not only in the Arms but Feet Forehead Nostrils Hemorrhoides if the veins appear there and also in the Hand or Salvatella This is to be done by degrees intermitting Clysters and purging Medicines here prescribed Cupping Glasses to the Shoulders and Back with â—carification are to be applyed after the other veins are opened as also Horsleeches to the Temples and behind the Ears And you must intermix Preparations and Purges proper for the matter offending when you let blood so often and they must be continued long for which use are al those which we have mentioned for preparing and purging of Choller to which we may ad these following as being more excellent and choice Take of Laâ—is Lazuli one dram and an half Diagridium half a dram the best Turbith one dram Senna half an ounce Epithymum and Cream of Tartar of each two drams Cinamon and Citron peeles of each one scruple Saffron half a scruple make a pouder the Dose to be given at once is one dram or four scruples with any proper liquor or broth Take of black Hellebore one ounce infuse it for three dayes space in four ounces of rain water boyl them with a gentle fire to three parts ad to the straining of the best clarified Honey two ounces and take one spoonful in fat broth Or Take of the Extract of black Hellebore half a scruple Sirup of Violets one ounce mix them for one Dose All Medicines made of Hâ—llebore as the Wine Syrup and Oxmel of it are very good against this Disease Heâ—ce it is reported that Melampus the Son of Amythaon the Physitian Cured the Daughters of Praetus King of Greece with Hellebor'd wine when by Madness they supposed themselves to be Cowes Antimony in this Disease is not only Commended by Chymists but also by al Galenists both in regard it doth diâ—charge Melancholly from the whole Body and also because the Patients wil be easily perswaded to take it The Dose is divers according to the diversity of the preparation of it Baths of hot Water are to be often used and after every Purge The Orâ—er of Purging Medicines for this Disease is as followeth First give altering Apozems that Purgeth for three or four dayes together after you have let blood in both Arms. After give twice in a week gentler Potions or Pouders
whol Body Also in an old Headach sweating Decoctions are very good and famous Authors declare that many have been cured thereby Which not prevailing Mercatus is bold to fly to the use of Stibium and commends it highly in his first Book of the Cure of internal Diseases and the eighth Chapter But in an old grief it is better to strengthen the head often than to use too many Evacuations Therefore Pouders and Caps and other topick or external Medicines are very necessary before mentioned in the Cure of the cold Distemper of the Brain But Pouders are more commendible because the vertue of a Cap is not so much communicated to the Brain and the pain may be encreased by the filth which is contracted by the long wearing of them Moreover An Oyntment may be applied of the Oyl of Almonds in which wild Bettony Bay leaves Mastich Lavender Mints Marjoram Thyme Penyroyal Nutmeg Cloves and Cinnamon or some of these have been boyled adding in the time of the boyling a little red Wine Or this following Chymical Oyl Take of Turpentine one pound Mastich Nutmeg Cinnamon of each one dram Cloves Zedoary Galangal Ladanum of each one ounce and an half the juyce of Ebulus or Dwarf-Elder and of the wild Cowcumber of each one dram the Oyl of Chamomel and Lillies of each half a pint red Wine one pint and an half wild Marjoram green one handful Pouder those that are to be poudered and put them into a Glass Retort and extract an Oyl with which anoint the head after it is shaved Oyl of Amber is very good and it will be sufficient only to anoint the Head therewith While you use the afore mentioned Remedies you may also use from the beginning of the Cure specifical Medicines such as this Epitheme Take of the pouder of Zedoary one dram the Water of Bettony Vervain and Elder of each one ounce Mix them and apply them hot to the part grieved with Scarlet cloth Among the proper Medicines for the Head-ach from what cause soever it ariseth Vervain is the chief whose Water distilled you may both apply externally and give of it internally to the quantity of ounces with three drops of the spirit of Salt Green Vervain alone only hung about the Neck hath cured two Patâ—â—â—â—s when many other Medicines failed as Forestus reports Zacutus Lucitanus it 〈◊〉 1. Praxis Med. mirab observat 7. 8. 9. 10. propounds four Remedies confirmed by Experience namely An Issue in the back of the hand Hors-leeches to the Temples opening of the Vein in the Forehead and the corner of the Eye which you may read in the place cited These things are to be noted concerning those Observations First That the â—â—sue between the Thumb and fore Finger is approved by other Experiments and hath cured great Headaches Secondly In the Cure by Hors-leeches Zacutus is not content to apply two or three as ordinarily is done but ten or twelve round about the Temples whence comes a great attraction of Blood which may draw forth the whol matter of the Disease Thirdly In the Curing by opening the Veins in the Forehead we must observe That that Vein was twice opened whence it appears that the first was not sufficient when ordinarily our Practitioners do seldom open it the second time if the first hath been to little benefit The hot Cause of a Primary and Essential Headach is Blood or Choller And the like Remedies are proper for both though they must be made stronger or weaker according to the strength of the Disease First then after a Clyster is administred begin with Blood-letting drawing forth more when the grief proceeds of blood than when it proceeds of choller Then give a Medicine to purge Choller not only when Choller is the Principal Cause but when blood aboundeth whose thinner part is easily turned into Choller If the matter offending is not sufficiently taken away by one purge you must purge again at a due distance After apply Repelling Medicines to the Head and Vinegar of Roses such as were propounded in the Cure of the Phrenzy making choice of the mildest And after it will be very profitable to apply Creatures newly killed or parts of them to discuss the reliques of the Disease and to asswage the pain In an Headach which goeth with a continual Feaver a Sheeps Lungs applied hot do much asswage the pain Also a Cataplasm of bruised Guords and Housleek to the feet The opening of the Saphena after sufficient bleeding in the Arm cures often times a Headach with a Feaver very suddenly You must use Cupping-glasses with and without Scarification and Frictions of the extream Parts And in the whol time of the Disease if the Belly be not loose you must every day give an Emollient and cooling Clyster and which do gently purge After general Evacuations and Revulsions you may rightly and with profit derive the matter by opening the Head Vein or with Hors-Leeches to the Forehead or with Vesicatories to the Neck In the mean while let the whol mass of Humors be qualified with Juleps Emulsions and Broths as was mentioned in the Cure of the Phrenzy Lastly If the pain be very violent you must apply Narcoticks both externally and internally as they are set down in the said Cure of the Phrenzy Here also may avail the opening of the Forehead Veins and Leeches to the Temples commended from Zacutus Lusitanus Paraeus lib. 16. cap. 4. reports that a desperate half Headach was cured by opening the Arteries in the Temples and saies there is no danger in doing it The Artery is opened as a Vein and six ounces of blood forcibly leaping forth are to be taken After apply a convenient Ligature and open it not in four daies Botallus also saies That it doth miraculously cure old Head-aches and we also have cured desperate ones the same way and never found any danger in the opening of the Artery You must apply a Plaister to the Orifice of Frankinsence Mastich Bole armenick and Hares Hair with the white of an Eg and then make your Ligature as you use to do in Wounds of the Head In all pains of the Head of what cause soever if other means fail and the greatness of the pain make thee run to extremities a Vesicatory applied over all the Head after it is shaven will cure it A Cautery upon the Coronal Suture somtimes hath perfectly cured a violent Head-ach But it is more powerful if it be applied to the Temples of which see Poterius observat centur 3. cap. 8. and our Observations thereon The End of the first Book THE SECOND BOOK OF THE PRACTICE OF PHYSICK Of the Diseases of the Eyes The PREFACE THE Diseases of the Eyes are so divers that it is very hard to lay them down cleerly and plainly and to distinguish one from the other which that we may endeavor as much as may be and cleer up our Treatise for Practice we will so divide them the Diseases by which the sight is
4. de comp Med. sec loc cap. 8. But if the disease be stubborn you must foment the Eye with the Decoction of Foenugreek Marsh-mallows Fennel Rue Celondine or let the fume of the same be received into it And finally all Medicines prescribed in the Cure of a Cataract may be very proper for the cure of this But more especially when the disease is old and the redness turneth black Galen commends dried Hysop tied in a rag and put into hot water and applied to the Eye and Experience teacheth that this Medicine is of such force that the blood is drawn away by it sticking to the clout And lastly The yellow color of the Jaundice which most appears in the Eyes when the Jaundice is cured is easily discussed if you would hasten the Cure take the fume of Vinegar into the Eyes CHAP. VIII Of Ophthalmia or Inflamation of the Eyes THe Tunicle called Adnata is so joyn'd to the Cornea that many diseases are in both as the Inflamation of the Eyes though it is proper to the Adnata yet it is often extended to the Cornea and produceth divers Diseases in it namely Ulcers Hypopyon when matter is underneath Albugo or Pin and Web and others So also Pustals and other Tumors Wounds and Ulcers are common to both Tunicles Therefore because all the Diseases of these Tunicles cannot be spoken of severally we will only speak of the Diseases of the Adnata before we speak more of the Cornea Beginning with an Ophthalmy We say that it is as the word in Greek sheweth only an Inflamation of the Eye and by all Authors it is used for the inflamation of the Adnata or Conjunctiva It is called by the Latines Lippitudo or blood-shotness since Cornelius Celsus This Inflamation as it is greater or less hath a three-fold difference The first is called in Greek Taraxis in Latin Conturbatio which according to Paulus cometh from an external cause namely the Sun smoak dust oyl and the like but it may also come of an internal namely by fault of the stomach after drinking of Wine or other Distempers and this is a light Inflamation called Phlogosis with a smal pain and redness yet it somtimes turneth into a true Ophthalmy and is the original of it But a true Ophthalmy comes alwaies from an internal cause and it is a true inflamation with which tumor redness and pain it is called by Celsus Lippitudo or blood-shotness because there cleaveth a thick excrement which the Latins call Lippa The third is called Chemosis in Greek in Latin Chemosis also and it is when an inflamation groweth so high that it is very great with vehement pain and both the Eyebrows are inverted so that the Eyes can scarce be covered therewith and the white of the Eye stands higher and the red doth cover most part of the Iris or Circle In Children and such as have great Eyes this hath often happened and it comes from a great repletion and from flegmy humors There is another Difference of the Ophthalmy taken out of Hippocrates Aph. 14. Sect. 3. by which it is divided unto a moist and a dry Ophthalmy The moist Ophthalmy is that which is already described and hath a weeping But the dry Ophthalmy called by Hippocrates Xerophthalmia which cometh in dry weather is made of Choller or burnt or adust Melancholly and is such as wanteth humidity in part and therefore there is no weeping There are other subdivisions from the adjuncts for if there be an itching joyned with it it is called Psorophthalmia but if it come with hardness of the Eye-lids it is called Sclerophthalmia There is also another Difference of Ophthalmies taken out of Galen 2. de diff febrium cap. 11. where he saith That some are Periodical or such as cometh by fits to those which have a very hot and moist head and weak Eyes fit to receive a defluxion These after many yeers have a consumption of their Eyes and lose their sight hence it is called Tabida Ophthalmia or a consuming Ophthalmy or an Ophthalmy which ends in a consumption of the Eye There is also another difference taken from the immediate cause which is defluxion or congestion that is gathering of humors It comes for the most part by defluxion but by congestion only when there is either a distemper or weakness of the Conjunctiva by which there is no equality or Omoiosis in the part but many excrements are gathered together from whence through the weakness of the part cometh an inflamation The Conjunct cause of an Odhthalmy is Chollerick or Waterish or Melanchollick Blood flowing into the Eyes or gathered into them The Causes of defluxion are manifold both external and internal ordinarily known But the causes of Congestion or Cumulation are all such as distemper or weaken the Eyes so that an Ophthalmy which at the first came only by defluxion in time by weakening of the part may spoil its concoction and so it may be said to be an Ophthalmy partly from defluxion and partly from Congestion which is often seen in old Ophthalmies But when an Ophthalmy comes only by way of defluxion it is certain that it comes for the most part from the head and almost all Authors acknowledg this Notwithstanding Experience teacheth that many violent Ophthalmies come from the Liver and the humors that come from thence to the Eyes insomuch that Cauteries applied to the hinder part of the head eâ—crease the Disease which otherwise are good Remedies when the defluxion is from the head for they draw up the humors and we have often seen that old Ophthalmies which were accounted incurable have suddenly gone away of their own accord by stopping of an issue which hath long been kept open namely when the motion of the humors from the inferior to the superior parts hath ceased which before was caused by the Cautery or Issue in the Neck by Nature sending part of the humors to the weakened Eyes not far distant from the Issue That defluxion which cometh from the head either is carried by internal Veins which are under the Skull into the Eyes or by the external Vessels which is most frequent namely by the Veins and Arteries which come from the Pericranium by the Forehead and Temples to the Conjunctiva An Ophthalmy is easily known because the blood diffused upon the Conjunctiva may be easily seen and if redness appear without a tumor coming of an external it is called Taraxis or Conturbation But if besides the redness there be swelling and heat with weeping it is a true Ophthalmy and at length if it so encrease that it cover the black of the Eye and the Eyelids be inverted then is it called Chemosis Hence we fetch the signs of the Causes for if it comes from repletion and of blood alone not only the Tunicle Adnata but also the whol face will be red as also there will be a swelling of the Veins drouziness of the Sences and whol Body and a manifest swelling
is good to take the vapor of hot water into the Nose or to anoint the Nostrils with Oyl of Roses sweet Almonds Violets or with fresh Butter or to snuff up warm Milk into the Nose by which only Remedy Forestus presently cured the Maid mentioned formerly Chap. 7. Of Bleeding at the Nose called Haemorrhagia THe word Haemorrhagia vulgarly signifieth any flux of blood coming from any part But peculiarly when it is named simply of Hippocrates it signifieth only that flux which cometh from the Nose as the first and most evident kind as Galen observed Com. 1. in 1. Epid. An Haemorrhagia of the Nose is a Symptome in the excrements of those things which are wholly against Nature For Blood coming through the Nose either comes from the Veins and Arteries in the Brain or from the Vessels coming from the Pallat to the Nostrils which ate like the Hemorrhoid Veins in the Womb and Fundament But since every Symptome depends upon a Disease as its immediate Cause the cause of this will be either an Organical or a Common Disease The Organical is two-fold The opening of the Vessels which is called in Greek Anastomosis and the thinning or rarefaction of them called Diapedesis The Common Disease is two-fold The breaking of the Vessels called Rexis and the Erosion called Diabrosis The Causes immediately producing those Diseases are either exceeding in quantity or quality of Blood Blood offending in quantity can either break the Veins or open the Orifices of them In quality if it be too hot or too thin it will flow out by Anastomosis because heat doth dilate the Orifice and thinness maketh it flow more easily Also the same qualities make a Diapedesis for heat maketh the coats of the Vessels thin and the thinness of the blood makes it easie to pass through the pores of those coats Lastly The sharpness of the Blood gnaweth the Tunicles of the Veins and ulcerateth them from whence cometh a Diabrosis The external Causes also do concur to produce this Disease either mediately or immediately Immediately as falls stroaks wounds and the like which break and divide the Veins They work mediately which do encrease warm and make thin the blood as plentiful Diet Drunkenness Idleness too much Exercise great Noise Heat long staying in the Sun and the like The Differences of Hemorrhagia are these Some are Critical some Symptomatical Critical Hemorrhagia's are in acute Feavers by the force of Nature endeavor to expel the cause of the Disease this way as especially in those Diseases which are joyned with the Inflamation of some Entral especially of the Liver or the Spleen which are many times discharged by these waies somtimes it comes without a Feaver when Nature dischargeth her self of the superfluous blood whence we see many in their youth have an Hemorrhagy by fits and others blâ—ed other waies A Symptomatical Haemorrhagy happeneth chiefly in Chronical Diseases in which filthy blood is produced by reason of the debility of the Liver or some other great Distemper which either flows through those Veins by the weakness of the retentive faculty or is sent forth by the expulsive as an unprofitable burden because impure blood is not fit to nourish the Body Haemorrhagia is known of its self But its Causes are thus distinguished That which cometh by Anastomosis hath this common with that which comes by Rexin or rupture in that in both the blood floweth plentifully but in this they are distinguished If a blow or a fall went before we should suppose it to be Rexin But when Ruption cometh from Plethora or much Blood as also apertion of the Veins thus they may be distinguished When the Vessel is broken the Blood sloweth constantly when it is opened at a distance and by fits only because the Orifices of the Vessels use to be knit and closed when there is less plenty of the Humor which dilateth flowing thereto but broken Vessels stand alwaies open and therefore blood continually sloweth till the solution of continuity be united Moreover the opening of a Vein is distinguished from the breaking by the substance of the blood For if it be thin it comes from a Vessel opened if thick it comes from a broken Hence it is that Hemorrhagy comes in yong men for the most part by the opening of the Vessels because their blood is thin but in old men from Ruption because theirs is thick If it comes from Eroâ—â—on of the Veins there will be signs of Cacochymia or ill juyce in the body of an Ulcer and matter somtimes comes forth or at least a salt Catarrh hath gone before If it comes by Diapedesis or Rarefaction the blood is thin and little The Causes autecedent and external are easily distinguished For if it come from plenty of blood there is a red face and large veins as also the Diet hath been large and hot or there hath been some external cause which hath melted and made thin the blood and these especially befal them who have very hot Livers If it come from evil Juyce it is known by its proper signs which declare whether Choller or Melancholly doth abound Moreover the Blood will appear corrupt either from the Nose or taken from the Arm. If it come from the weakness of the retentive faculty the face wil be pale and the whol body weak as also some Disease hath gone before by which the Liver was first weakened and then very little bloâ—â— comes forth and by degrees If the blood comes immediately from the Veins of the Nostrils it is easily stopt with astringent Medicines applied thereto and there will be no pain in the Head Contrary wise if it come from the Brain there is some pain in some part of the Head the flux is hardly stopped and things put up into the Nose do no good Somtimes blood comes from other parts as the Liver Spleen Womb whose signs are the pains and extensions in those parts If the blood flows from an Artery it comes with force it is hot pure fresh and clear but when it comes from a Vein it is dark red thick somtimes foul and comes forth with smal force The Prognostick of Hemorrhagy coming especially if it be Critical is taken from the hurt actions when the Excrements and qualities are changed as watchings and dreams of red things a great pain of the Head and Neck heaviness in the Temples and great beating of those Arteries ringing and noise in the Ears dulness of the Eyes with redness thereof and of the whol face hating of light involuntary tears itching of the Nose a drop of Blood upon the day that declares the Crisis difficulty of breathing an extension of the Hypochondria without pain The Reason of which signs is When the Blood begins to be carried to the Head it begets in the Head Phantasms of red things both waking and sleeping as it happened to a yong Roman which Galen mentioneth lib. de praesag ad Posthumum cap. 13. he had an acute Disease and thought he saw a
formerly prescribed wil do this as also the Tincture of Roses to Cool the Liver and strengthen it is very good Outwardly you may apply Epithems made thus Take of the Water of Roses Plantane Purslain Sorrel and Succory of each four ounces the seeds of Purslain Sorrel and Succory of each one dram the Troches of Camphire and yellow Saunders of each two drams Vinegar two ounces Make an Epithem To these you may ad al the Remedies which are prescribed for the Cure of a Hot Liver Somtimes the Hot Distemper of the Spleen and Reins is the Cause of this Disease and then you must apply Cooling Medicines to those parts also To these must joyn a good order of Diet which from the beginning of the Cure must be diligently observed And therefore first the Air where the Patient is must be Cool and if it be Summer time let it be altered by sprinkling the floor with Vinegar and Rose-water and strowing of the Leavs of the Vine Willow or Water-Lillies or the like Let his Meat be thickning of little nourishment as Calves-feet Sheep and Goats-feet and the like Rice new fat Cheese hard Eggs and the like Let him eat Fruits that are somwhat sharp binding and bitter as Pears Quinces Medlars Services and Sawces of the Juyce of Pomegranats Lemmons Orenges Sorrel some commend the use of Lentils or Pease boyled in Vinegar because they have vertue to thicken astring and allay the Acrimony of the blood Let the Patient abstain especially in the beginning of the Disease while his strength is good from Wine Flesh and Rear Eggs which breed much and thin Blood you must give him Moist Meats and Suppings in the time of his bleeding As cooling Broths made of Barley Oates and Rice with Water for chewing doth provoke bleeding if he be weak you may give him Flesh-broth and Panadoes in which there is Starch dissolved which is made without Chalk or Gum Arabick Let his Drink be steeled Water and let al his Meat be boyled in the same which wil be of more force if Nettle Roots be first boyled therein Command him to rest so that he neither Walk nor Cough nor Speak loud or at al for the motion of the Tongue and Jawes provoke bleeding Let his Head be covered and let him not see the blood for thereby the imagination being moved he wil bleed faster Let him sleep for long Watchings make the blood more sharp Chollerick and thin but sleep doth contemperate the Humors and restrain the motions thereof Lastly Let him avoid the Passions of the mind which cause the blood to ascend as Anger Laughing and Joy The End of the Fourth Book THE FIFTH BOOK OF THE PRACTICE OF PHYSICK Of the Diseases of the Tongue The PREFACE THE Tongue is the Instrument both of Speech and Tasting But both these Actions are hindered by divers tumors which grow thereabout And especially every Action is diminished abolished or depraved by its peculiar Cause That all these may be severally described this fifth Book hath four Chapters Of which The first is of Inflamation and other Tumors of the Tongue The Second is of the Ranula under the Tongue which though it belong to the kinds of Tumors yet it is handled by it self because it requires a different Cure from all the rest The Third is of the Taste hurt The Fourth of the Palsey of the Tongue and other binderances of its Motions Chap. 1. Of the Inflamation of the Tongue and other Tumors of the same AS all the Parts of the Body and especially the fleshy parts use to be inflamed 〈◊〉 also the Tongue by blood flowing unto it which blood as it is either pure chollerick flegmatick or Melanchollick produceth either a true Phlegmon or a Phlegmon erisipelous oedematous or schirrous which somtimes comes to suppuration of which there is an Example in Forestus Obs 24. Lib. 14. of a Brewer which had a great Inflamation of his Tongue that brake which came to suppuration Also the Tongue often suffers a soft and loose Tumor which is purely oedematous by the falling of Rhewm from the Head of which Galen propounds an Example Lib. 14. meth cap. 8. in a certain man whose Tongue was so swoln that he could not contain it in his mouth Somtimes the Tongue grows very great which cannot be accounted any kind of tumor as Galen teacheth lib. de diff morb cap. 9. that he saw a Tongue which grew exceeding great without any sence of pain neither would it pit or yield to the finger but it was a bare increase of quantity in the Tongue and the substance was no way hurt which came by too much nourishment brought and converted into the substance of it And Claudinus Consult 9. gives an Example of this in a maid of twelve yeers old whose Tongue grew to a great bigness and the Tumor could neither be called an Oedema nor a Schyrrus because it was without pain neither would it yield to the hand pressing of it nor take an impression or pit nor was it without Natural sence The Original of it was a forceable breach of the bridle of the Tongue by the pain whereof blood was attracted to the part which being sent thither continually caused this largeness But in this case Glaudinus observeth that it is bigger at night and less in the morning and alwaies livid or blewish The reason whereof he saith is because in the Concoction and assimulation of the Blood which is flegmy otherwise such as is bred in children by reason of their moist Nature and intemperance many vapors are raised especially at night when the heat is drawn in and contracted by which the Tumor is enlarged but in the day they are discussed by the motion and heat of the Tongue by which means it becomes less The reason of the blewness is the Air to which it alwaies is open for by the coldness of the Air the blood which cometh to the superficies of the Tongue before it comes to be like in the substance doth encrease somwhat and so turns livid For Galen saith that blood waxeth black with cold 3. de symp caus cap. 2. which yet is not so in other parts because there is no superfluity sent to them but as much as is sufficient for nourishment The knowledg of these Tumors is not difficult because the preternatural greatness of them is visible But the differences of these Tumors are these If there be an Inflamation then there is pain heat and redness also in the Tongue wherewith also the face is somwhat infected But if the Tumor come originally from flegm the Tongue is white and there is much spittle whose tast is sweet or without tast If there be only a bare encrease in the Tongue there are no signs of other Tumors and Vitrous humors As to the Prognostick Tumors in the Tongue for the most part do not endanger the life unless they grow so big that they cause suffocation or come from a malignant melanchollick humor from
the Root and Membrane which inwardly covers their Cavity but also in their proper substance and saith That the Teeth and other parts of the Mouth do taste as also doth the tongue And in his Book of Bones cap. 5. he saith Of Bones only the teeth are partakers of the tender Nerves of the Brain and for that cause they alone do manifestly feel Therefore pain reacheth not only to the Nerves and inward Membrane but also to the substance of the teeth The Tooth-Ach comes from a Flux of Humors either Cold and Flegmy or Hot and Watery Salt and Sharp hence comes the Distention or Convulsion of the parts these Humors either flow to the Membranes of the Jaws and of the holes wherein the Teeth are or to the Nerve which is inserted in the root of the Teeth or to the substance of the Teeth Although some think that the Teeth cannot receive into their own substance afflux of humors and distention because they are most hard and thick yet this is taught by Avicen Fen. 1. Lib. 1. Doct. 1. Cap. 5. and Fen. 7. Lib. 4. Tract 1. Cap. 4. And somtimes saith he there is matter which doth imposthumate the Tooth it self Which Opinion he confirmeth and treateth of chiefly Fen. 1. Lib. 3. Tract 3. Cap. 1. in these words It is not as some Physitians think that the Brain it self wil not imposthumate reasoning thus That which is soft as the brain and hard as a bone is not extended and that will not imposthumate which cannot be extended But this is erronious because that which is soft if it be viscous or claminy may be extended and bones are imposthumated as Galen teacheth we wil shew in our Chapter of the Teeth Moreover we say that whatsoever is nourished is extended and encreased with the nourishment and it is likewise possible that it may be extended and augmented with its superfluity and that is an imposthume This Avicen teacheth from the Doctrine of Galen who Lib. 5. de comp med sec loc cap. 8. saith Because the Teeth cannot grow without nourishment they are only obnoxious to these two Diseases following namely of want and superfluity of nourishment by want of nourishment they grow dryer and thinner and by superfluity of it there will be an inflamation about the fleshy parts Thus Galen But it is probable that pain is more usual if it be vehement in those parts which have most exquisite sence namely the Nerve and the Membrane in the hole of the Tooth next to the root which doth not only suffer distention and vellication but also somtimes inflamation of the humors flowing down for it blood be mixed with other humors then the pain hath two causes namely Distention and Compression which comes from the hardness of the Tooth which the Membrane being inflamed cannot endure and this Inflamation of the Membrane is for the most part accompanied with the inflamation of the Gums which also is reckoned by Galen and Avicen among the causes of the Tooth-ach Now the Humors commonly flow from the Head upon the Teeth and parts adjoyning somtimes from the inferior parts for when any bad humors especially watery bred in any part are abounding in the Veins Nature desiring to cast off her burden sends them to the weakest parts And if the seeth by reason of the distemper foulness or erosion are such the flux will chiefly come thither Charls Piso propounds an Experiment of this who also thinks the Toothach con comes chiefly from a serous humor lib. de morb ab illuv ser obs 7. where he reports that himself being troubled with the Tooth-ach for many daies halr an hour after he had taken a purging Medicine vomited up above a pint of cleer water with such success that ten yeers after he was never troubled with it By which Experience he alwaies prescribed Medicines that purge water to them who were so troubled and with good success Moreover he striveth to prove that it comes from this cause by this sign Because they who have the Tooth-ach do continually spet Besides the Causes mentioned there are also Worms in rotten Teeth and they breed of any matter which is contained and putrified in the Cavities whether it be excrementitious or come of putrifying meats especially flesh and sweet meats which by reason of their clamminess stick to the Cavities of the Teeth Others think that the Tooth-ach comes sometimes from wind contained between the Cavity and the Nerve which doth violently stretch the inward Membrane whence comes such intollerable pain The principal external causes of Tooth-ach are all those things which cause defluxions the chief are Cold Air South winds staying in the Sun or night Air Surfet and all faults in Diet. Ad to these things that debilitate the part and make it more fit to receive a defluxion as rotteness and hollowness in the Teeth which sometimes make violent pains The diversity of Causes is k own by divers igns For pain when it comes from hot humors is stronger the constitution hotter the age yonger if Summer there is heat sensibly in the part and inflamation of the Gums often times it is better for the use of cold and worse for hot things But if it come from a cold humor the signs contrary to these will appear If worms are the cause of pain it will be intermitting coming and going often and somtimes the motion of the worm will be felt When it comes from Wind it is known by the excess of pain and sensible stretching and it ends in short time and is easily cured with discussing Medicines The Prognostick is divers according to the variety of the Causes for that pain which comes from a hot thin watery sharp and salt humor is more violent but sooner at an end by reason of the sudden change of the humor but that which comes from a cold and flegmy humor is less and lasteth longer A Tumor rising in the Gums or Jaws takes away the pain of the Teeth for the flux is carried to the external parts so that it no longer lieth in the internal Cavity of the Tooth The Cure must be directed for the taking away the Cause and mitigating the pain for although Anodines profit but little except the defluxion be stayed yet somtimes we are constrained not only to use them but also Narcoticks or Stupefactives before we take away the Cause therefore the humor flowing to the Teeth is to be revelled evacuated and repelled and that which is there is to be derived and discussed First therefore if the pain comes of hot humors open a vein in the Arm on the same side by which the humor flowing will be revelled But if it come of cold bleeding is not so good but in regard of the defluxion it may be used because it is the chief reveller But then you must take less blood except there be a Plethory in which regard although it be from fiegm you may bleed freely according to Galen who said that
a hot Catarrh If from a cold Cause you must take that course which is prescribed in the Cure of the cold distemper of the Brain but you must strengthen the Teeth with the Medicines in the Chapter following Chap. 2. Of the blackness and rottenness of the Teeth MAny times the Teeth do contract a black livid or yellow color from the evil Humors cleaving unto them which by long continuance do also corrode them and make them rotten and these Diseases come from filthy vapors that fly upwards and are engendered of evil nourishment or from the distemper of the stomach which corrupteth good nourishment Quick-silver doth black the Teeth whether it be used to the whol Body as in the Pox or only to the Face Hence it is that women which use Mercury to make them fair have black and ill color'd Teeth For the Cure you must first remove the antecedent Cause and if it comes from evil humors in the stomach they must be discharged and the distemper of the parts which produce them must be corrected and a good diet prescribed and those things forbidden which do corrupt the teeth especially sweet things Infinite Medicines are prescribed by Authors for making teeth white which may be experienced We are contented with one which presently makes them white clenseth them and keeps them from rotting namely the spirit of Sulphur or Vitriol in which you must dip a little stick and rub the teeth with the end thereof and then wipe them with a clout In a great foulness you may use the Oyls by themselves otherwise you must mix them with Honey of Roses or fair Water lest by the often use of them the Gums should be corroded Montanus consil 113. reports that he learned that at Rome of a Woman called Greek Mary to whom when he came when he was yong and she twenty yeers old and after when she was fifty he found her almost in the same condition and she confessed that her Beauty and strength was preserved by the Spirit of Vitriol and that her Teeth which were very bad in her youth were by that made very fair and firm and also her Gums and also that she perceived her self by the use thereof to seem more youthful and she used every day one drop or two to rub gently her Teeth and Gums The Ashes of Tobacco is very good also to clense and make white the Teeth For prevention and to preserve the Teeth first clense them with a Tooth-picker made of Mastich Wood or the like then wash the mouth with Wine and rub the Teeth with this Pouder Take of the Roots of Snakeweed Allum and white Coral of each one ounce Make a Pouder to rub the Teeth Or wash them with this Water Take of the fine Pouder of burnt Allum two drams whol Cinnamon half a dram Spring and Rose Water of each four ounces boyl them in a Glass upon hot Embers to the consuming of the third part Wash the Teeth therewith every morning with a cloth dipped therein Chap. 3. Of the Erosion or eating away and of the Exulceration of the Gums THe Gums are eaten away and exulcerated by sharp corroding humors which come unto them The parts from whence they come are the Brain Stomach Spleen and others Men that have Diseases in the Spleen are most subject to Ulcers in the Gums as in the Scurvy somtimes the erosion of the Gums comes from worms or the corrupt humors which cause worms so that it is a plain sign of worms when it continueth long So saith Fabricius Hildanus Obs 59. Centur. 1. the Son of a Citizen of Dusseldorp was long troubled with erosion of the Gums and died after the use of many internal Medicines and Topicks when he was opened we found abundance of worms which had eaten through his Guts and many in his Stomach The Cure is first to be directed to the antecedent cause and the vicious humors are to be evacuated by blood-letting and purging the sharp and hot humors are to be tempered with Apozemes Juleps and Physical Broths and the like The flux of the same is to be diverted by Cupping-glasses and Cauteries fitly applied And lastly the faults of the parts affected are to be corrected Afterwards you must use Topicks which are to be altered according to the greatness of the disease so that to a simple Erosion you must apply only those which astringe and dry as this Water following Take of unripe Galls Acorn Cups and Flowers of Pomegranates of each one ounce red Roses one pugil Allum three drams boyl them in two parts of Forge-water and one part of old red Wine and wash the Gums often therewith If the Erosion be not taken away with that use this Opiate Take of Dragons blood three drams Lignum Aloes red Roses Spodium and burnt Harts-horn and Cypress nuts of each one dram Mirrh and Tobacco Ashes of each three scruples Allum one dram Make them into Pouder and mix them with Honey and a few drops of Spirit of Vitriol or Sulphur Make an Opiate which must be spread upon linnen cloth and laid to the Gums at night The Spirit of Vitriol and Sulphur as they clense and whiten the Teeth so they take away the rottenness of the Gums either alone or mixed with Honey of Roses or Water as in the former Chapter If the Ulcer be deep and foul anoint with this Take of choyce Mirrh and Sugar-candy of each equal parts pouder them and fill the white of an hard Egg cut in the midst therewith then tie it with a thrid and hang it in a Wine-Celler with a glass under it and there will come forth a Liquor or Balsom with which anoint often But if by the use of the aforesaid the disease be not cured if the Tooth neer the Ulcer be rotten you must pull it out and then it will be presently cured otherwise never Chap. 4. Of bleeding at the Gums SOmtimes abundance of blood flows from the Gums either Critically or Symptomatically although the former be very seldom yet it is somtimes so we may see by Experience and by reading So saith Dodonaeus Obs 14. A certain Quarrier having the smal Pox had a flux of blood from his Gums and being stopt it made the Urine bloody which being stopt it returned again to the Gums and there continued till he recovered of the smal Pox. Amatus Lucitanus Curat 5. Centur. 5. saies that some have had benefit by bleeding at the Gums and have been worse when it was stopped Also Zacutus Lucitanus obs 86. lib. 1. Praxis admir speaks of a Goldsmith who when he fell into a Feaver by laboring at the Furnace being of a strong constitution lost much blood by opening a Vein and amended so that the seventh day having had an itching of his Gums and a pain in the lower Lip the blood gushed from the Veins of his lower Gums for three daies in such a quantity that he lost above five pints more and the more he bled the more
Throat are for the most part inflamed as aforesaid but also the parts adjacent and the outward part of the Neck as shall be said in the Diagnostick and Prognostick of this Disease In all these kinds of Angina's when there is great danger by the difficulty of swallowing then those things which are given use to fly out at the Nose especially if they be liquid things which are more hard to be swallowed at that time because they spread themselves abroad and therefore cannot so easily be comprehended of the Muscles to be sent into the Oesophagus which Muscles cannot sufficiently contract themselves by reason of the inflamation but solid nourishment being more corpulent need only the superficial action of the Muscles and are swallowed down by a smal contraction of them But it somtimes falls out that solid things are harder and liquid things easier to be swallowed which dependeth upon the diversity of the parts affected For the Muscles of the Larynx are ordained for to swallow meat as well as for the voyce and when the meat is thrown into the Oesophagus the Larynx is lifted up with the Tongue But for to swallow drink we use the Tongue most which while it is drawn inwards it brings the drink from the Lips to the Jaws If therefore the Muscles that move the Tongue are more affected it is harder to swallow drink But if the Muscles of the Larynx are more hurt it is harder to swallow meat Here by the way we must mark that Hippocrates somtimes by the word Angina doth understand only the inflamation of the Larynx and so it is taken more strictly of which there is an Example 6. Epid. Sect. 8. Text. 1. where he saith thus Some had inflamations of their Jaws some had Angina's where by the name Angina he understands the inflamation of the Muscles of the Larynx and distinguisheth it from the inflamation of the Jaws A Bastard Angina is without a Feaver and is two-fold The first and most ordinary comes of Rhewin falling upon the Jaws and parts neer unto the Larynx The other comes from the Luxation of the Vertebra's of the Neck by which the passage of the Gullet and Throat is pressed and made narrow The Cause of a true Angina as of other inflamations is either pure blood or mixed with Choller Flegm or Melancholly which falls upon the parts aforesaid out of the Branches of the Jugular Veins and this is either attracted by the heat or pain of those parts or sent from other parts because these parts are weak loose and fit to receivea defluxion especially if the whol Body abound with humors or the Head or the parts neer the Jaws For when evil blood aboundeth in the whol Body and is carried unto the Head if the Brain be strong it will not receive it but sends it down by the same Veins into the lower parts hence come divers inflamations as Parotides or tumors under the Ears Ophthalmies Angina's and the like Yong men are more subject to the Angina than old because they have much Chollerick blood and because they are full bodied and have much blood especially in the Head Some Authors say that men are more subject to Angina's than women which it seems Hippocrates observed 6. Epid. Sect. 7. where describing an Epidemical Constitution in which Angina's Coughs and Peripneumonia's or Inflamations of the Lungs were frequent he affirmeth that few women were sick and he gives no other reason but because they went less abroad than men and therefore were not so subject to injuries from the Air. Which Reason doth not agree with the universal Proposition That women are less subject to Angina's than men but this may be a true Reason because women have colder Blood a less Larynx or Wind-pipe and narrower Veins of the Throat For which Reason those parts do not so easily receive defluxions The precedent Diseases may be reduced to their internal Causes as continual putrid burning and especially Epidemical Feavers such as were mentioned by Forestus Obs 2. Lib. 6. which happened in the yeer 1517. at which time all that were infected had an inflamation of the Jaws and died within sixteen or twenty hours except they were let blood within six hours But in this Angina the Feaver is not Symptomatical but Essential and the Angina is symptome to it because part of the matter causing the Disease is sent to this place for in Epidemical Feavers Angina's Pleuresies Inflamation of the Lungs Disenteries and the like do happen from some secret force and influence of the Stars by which somtimes one part of the Body and somtimes another is more affected Whatsoever can cause a flux of humors to these parts may be reckoned among the external Causes of this Disease As Southernly winds according to Hippocrates Aph. 16. Sect. 3. in time of much rain many diseases happen as long Feavers Fluxes of the Belly Putrifactions Falling-sicknesses Apoplexies and Angina's Also for the producing of this last the inequality of weather doth much when the parts are made loose by heat and by cold suddenly coming thereupon the humors are sent thither A sudden cooling after heat and drinking of cold water doth the same or if the Head be kept too hot or too cold The first Cause of a Bastard Angina is propounded by Hippocrates 4. de vict rat in morb acut text 39. where he saith an Angina comes when in Winter and Spring time much slimy flegm falls from the Head to the Jugular Veins which obstructeth the passages of the Spirits with its cold glewiness There is another Cause of a Bastard Angina given by Hippocrates 2. Epidem Sect. 2. namely a Tumor rising in the Vertebra's of the Neck and especially in that which is called Dens or the shape of a Tooth by Hippocrates by which the Vertebrae are drawn inward and therefore a Cavity appears in the external part Now this Tumor either comes from flegm removing by its encrease the Vertebra from its seat or from blood falling upon the Muscles from whence comes an inflamation by which the Muscles being contracted draw the Vertebra's inward and then it is a true Angina coming from the inflamation of the said Muscles There may also be a Luxation of the Vertebrae by a flegmatick humor loosing their Nerves and making them slippery between the Joynts And lastly it may come from an external Cause as a fall or stroak as in other parts An Angina is generally known first by its proper signs namely difficulty of breathing and swallowing when there is no fault in the Breast and Lungs and when pain is felt about the Jaws and Throat and in a true Angina redness heat and a feaver are signs The Differences may be distinguished by their proper signs In Synanche there is less difficulty of breathing but great difficulty in swallowing so that moist things can scarce be swallowed but come out at the Nostrils In Parasynanche there is less difficulty of breathing nay very little because the inflamation of
the cooling of an inflamed heart The Pulse is hard because the Membrane is affected and stretched forth which also distendeth the Arteries and they therefore make that difference of pulse called Serratilis like a saw for when you lay many fingers upon the Arteries of the Pulse one part seems to be more lifted up than the other so that it seems to represent a saw A troublesom Cough follows a Pleurisie because Nature doth continually strive to expel that which is troublesom from the part affected as also some of the matter sweateth from thence into the Lungs which moveth the expulsive faculty whence the Cough cometh There is also a spitting of blood as another sign which is neither in al Pleurisies nor at al times of the Disease therfore it is not reckoned as a proper sign They who say that the Lungs are alwaies affected in a Pleurisie do affirm that the blood is spit from the Lungs and they deny that it can pass from the Membrane about the Ribs to the Lungs because it is very thick and also the Membrane about the Lungs is of the same Nature and cannot therefore be pierced by that blood which is without the Vessels But Galen doth cleerly confute these 5. de loc aff cap. 3. where he first shews that the matter contained in the Cavity of the Breast may be taken into the Lungs and be sent upwards by two cleer Examples The one is those who have received a wound in the Breast that pierceth into its Cavity for if an injection of Honey and Wine be made into the wound and it be presently closed at the orifice in a little time the injection will be coughed up and spit forth and the Patient wil have the taste of it in his mouth Another Example is taken from a Fracture of a bone when the skin is not broken which while the Callus is growing and the broken bones begin to glutinate that blood which flowed to the part affected is carried forth to the skin and goeth through it so that it moistneth and fouleth all the rowlers and ligatures about the part Galen also shews the manner how blood matter or the like being contained in the Cavity of the Breast may be taken through the lungs namely by the extream outward orifices of the Bronchia or branches of the rough Artery which are spread through the Lungs and end in the superficies of them Although the orifices of the Vein Arterial and Artery Venal are also carried to the superficies of the Lungs yet the orifices of the Bronchia are more large and open than they For by how much greater the Body or Trunk of the rough Artery is than the Trunk of the Venal Artery or â—rterial Vein by so much the greater are its branches than theirs and its orifice than theirs because all these Vessels are equally divided and distributed into the whol body of the Lungs Moreover the substance of the rough Artery and its Bronchia or branches are Cartilaginous or grisly from whence it is that they cannot cloâ—e together so much as other Vessels and their orifices are more constantly open by which they can better receive the matter from the Cavity of the Breast But Galen teacheth that the matter contained in the Breast is taken through at the time of breathing when the Thorax is straightened for then the Thorax doth press those things that are in the Cavity of it and drive them into the Lungs so that some part of them at least is carried into the orifice of the Bronchia Neither is the softness of the Lungs which yeild to a compression and therfore cannot be forced to receive the matter any hinderance For this softness is the cause why all the matter is not received yet it is no obstacle but some part thereof may be received in although the greatest remain in the Cavity by reaon of the â—oftneâ—s aforeâ—aid Let us ad to this Doctrine of Galen the wonderful providence of Nature which hath found out waies not only manifest but also unknown and â—omtimes incomprehensible by which she useth to expel things hurtful as we said of the matter in Fractures which is purged forth by the insensible pores of the Muscles and of the Skin A bastard Pleuresie is distinguished from a true in that the pain is encreased when the Patient lieth on the contrary side in a true Pleurisie for then the part inflamed is pulled and more distended by its own weight but in the other the Muscles external being inflamed are compressed when the Patient lieth on the same side and therefore he hath then greater pain The times of this Disease are known by these signs following In the beginning of it all the symptomes are weaker the pain and feaver smal there is a dry Cough and very little and crude spittle In the encrease of the Disease the feaver and pain encrease and there is more spittle In the state or height the symptomes are more vehement want of rest dotage pain of the Head and if the disease will be cured there is much concocted spittle easily raised In the declination the spittle is perfectly concocted a free spitting and decay of all symptomes The signs of the Causes are generally taken from the temper of the Patient the time of the yeer the Country the Diet and the like But especially theâ—e things shew that a Pleurisie comes of pure blood red and bloody spittle a stretching and pricking pain the fulness of the Veins especially about the Forehead and Temples redness of the whol face a full Pulse thick and red urine somtimes with a blew crown These signs shew that it comes from Chollerick blood yellow spittle a burning feaver great thirst a hard and quick pulse a more acute pricking pain greater watchings and restlesness bitterness of the mouth a thin and very yellow urine These signs shew that it comes from Flegmatick blood a white viscous or frothy spittle sweet and slow in coming forth a remiss feaver little thirst much spittle a leâ—s but heavy pain more sleep a little pulse and not so hard pase and thick urine These signs shew that it comes of Melanchollick blood black spittle tough and slow in coming forth a less pain and feaver a red urine and dark a dry Cough a black and rough tongue a belly bound The Prognostick is taken first from the remission or vehemency of the Symptomes For if pain difficulty of breathing and a feaver be not great they signifie that the disease is gentle but if the pain be great and the Cough and there is nothing raâ—â—ed up and if the feaver be violent with great difficulty of breathing you must took upon it as a desperate Pleurisie A smal pulse quick and hard foreshew death in a Pleurisie And Galen saith that none of this have been cured Gal. 4. de praesag ex puls cap. 5. An exquisite Pleurisie in which nothing is raised by Cough or when with the spitting after it began is restrained having
Feaver which after is dispersed from the Heart into the whol body so al the parts being too cold and dry and receiving the intemperate putrifying heat do not wel concoct their nourishment but are ill nourished from whence you may plainly perceive a Consumption of the substance of the whol body for that Feaver by reason of its continuance from the perseverance of the Cause turneth Hectick and it s often joyned with a putrid Feaver which is known by the Urine and by the Distempers extraordinary at sometimes inâ—omuch that in some Consumptions you may observe sits of an intermitting Feaver A sharp and Corroding Humor either coming from other Parts or breeding in the Lungs is the immediate Cause of an Ulcer in the Lungs First sharp and salt Rhewm falls from the brain which being violent easily ulcerateth the Lungs Somtimes Flegm that is not sharp nor salt wil do the same namely if it lie long in them and putrifie and from the putrifaction ariseth an Acrimony which Corroding Ulcerateth yet this putrid flegm in the Lungs doth not alwayes ulcerate as we may observe in a Catarrh when putrid Matter is spet forth and the Lungs are sound But there are two Conditions for the Causing of an Ulcer one in respect of the matter flowing another in respect of the Lungs In respect of the Matter it is required that it should be so disposed that when it is putrified it begets a sharpness which may cause an Ulcer In respect of the Lungs they must be extraordinary tender and disposed to corruption which in a word is called a Vitious Constitution of the Lungs coming from the Parents usually of which we will speak hereafter Now the Humors that Exulcerate and putrifie the Lungs come from the parts adjoyning as the Pleura Mediastinum Diaphragma rough Artery and especially from an inflamation in them wâ—â—â—h comes to Suppuration and turns into an Empyema of which Hippocrates speaks Aphor. 15. Sâ— c. 5. They who fall from a Pleurisie into an Empyema if the Empyema break in fourty dayes and come away are Cured but if not they fall into a Consumption The Humor is in the Lungs when from some vessel broken corroded or opened by a wound the blood flowing doth putrifie or when an Ulcer is left there from the smal pox Somtimes from the evil Constitution of the Lungs evil Humors proceed which corrupt their substance and cause a Consumption and this comes commonly from the Parents from whence a Conâ—mption is reckoned among the Haereditary diseases of which it is the chief so that we may observe how many whol Families are taken away with this disease This evil Constitution of the Lungs is not in the first qualities but hath some malignant and venemous quality by which it becomes infectious Although we deny not but a soft and loose substance of the Lungs and therefore more fit for Corruption doth much conduce to the breeding of this Disease This evil Constitution of the Lungs causeth that some fal into Consumptions without a Distillation Inflamation or any other evident Cause but only from the fault of the part that corrupteth its own nourishment Somtimes it comes from a Pustulae bred in the Lungs and broken which by Hippocrates 1. de morbis is made two-fold One by him is called A Crude Pustule because it never comes to Suppuration but growing by degrees stops the passage of the breath and at length kils the Patient The other is that which cometh to Suppuration and is called the Imposthume of the Lungs and these come two wayes either by Defluxion or Congestion and the Matter gathered is either in a Bagg or without it in the very substance of the part The thickness of the Bagg often causeth that such an Imposthume is carried many yeers in the Lungs undiscovered and without any hurt to the body From whence Hippocrates saith Aph. 41. Sect. 6. They who have an Imposthume in the body and feel it not it is by reason of the thickness of the Matter or of the place wherein it is that they feel it not For this Cause many who seemed to be in perfect health have suddenly died by an Imposthume broken within of which there are Examples in Ferneâ—ius lib. 5. de morbis de part â—orb sympt c. 10. among which he mentioneth two Physitians who sore-â—aw the danger without signs If the matter which comes from the Imposthume broken flow into the Ventricle of the Heart the sick presently die but if it come to the Bronchia or passages in the Lungs it may be spit up if the body be strong and the matter little in quantity but commonly there is an ulcer remaining in the Lungs which causeth a Consumption Moreover There are external Causes as contagion which is the chiefest for this Disease is so infectious that we may observe Women to be infected by their Husbands and Men by their Wives and all their Children to die of the same not only from the infection of their Parents seed but from the company of him that was first affected And this Contagion is more easily communicated to them that are of kin wherefore it is not safe for a Brother or Sister to enter into the Chamber for the Miasmaza or vapors infective which come from their Lungs and infect the whol Air of the Chamber and being drawn in by others especially if they are any way disposed to the same Disease beget the same disease in their Lungs There are other external Causes especially very hot or cold Air the hot Air doth melt down the sharp humors which are contained in the Brain and sends them to the Lungs The too cold Air by astringing compressing and Squeezing doth cause the like defluxion But the Air in Autumn is most dangerous because by its inequality in heat and cold it causeth sharp and salt distillations whence Hippocrates saith Aph. 10. Sect 3. Autumn is the worst time for People in Consumptions Secondly Sharp and salt meats and drinks do cause a Consumption which sill the Head with salt and sharp vapors And lastly all those internal and external Causes which use to produce spitting of blood which useth to end in a Consumption may be said to be Causes thereof Among the Antecedent Causes evil humors throughout the whol body are accounted the chief which being moved by external causes are sent to the brain and from thence to the Lungs Among which you may reckon the suppression of the Terms Hemorrhoids or other usual evacuations which doth cause Catarrhs and defluxions The aforesaid Causes do produce this Disease especially among those whom Hippocrates calleth Phthirodeis and Pterugodeis that is such as have a straight and distressed breast a long neck and shoulder bones sticking forth who must of necessity fall into this disease if they have tender Lungs or any hereditary inclination thereunto Also they are inclined to a Consumption who have a weak Head which is easily filled winh superfluous Humors which are sent to the
the breast a pale colour black and blew a smal obscure and unequal pulse A swoonding by way of Sympathy from other parts is known by the sign of those parts affected so that if it come from the stomach that hath been distempered with loathing vomiting gnawing the mouth hath been bitter and dry and the like The same Judgement is to be taken in other parts but if you see no sign of any other part affected you may conclude that it comes principally from the heart Moreover A Syncope is distinguished from other Diseases by its proper signs From an Epilepsy because that hath a Convulsion but a Syncope not From an Apoplexy because in that the breath is stopt and there is often snorting and the pulse is not much abated except when Death is at hand but in a Syncope the Pulse is almost gone and the breath is free It is distinguished from the Mother for in that the breathing parts are most affected so that the Patient is almost strangled but the Pulse is not much altered nor the colour of the face but keeps its natural complection and somtimes is higher coloured but in a Syncope the breath is not stopt but the pulse is almost gone and the face is pale But somtimes a Syncope is joyned with the Suffocation of the Mother and then the Pulse is not perceived The Prognostick of this Disease is first taken from Hippocrates Aph. 41. Sect. 2. They who often and violently faint without a manifest Cause do die suddenly For as it is said a great Syncope doth quite take away the strength from the heart A Syncope from which a man is not recovered by Rose Water thrown in his face and Wine given to drink with sneezing-pouder put into the Nose is deadly When one is raised from a Syncope health is not to be promised for if his Pulse return not but his colour be wan and he still be cold he wil quickly Relapse in which is danger That Syncope which comes from immoderate Evacuations fear sorrow or some evident Cause is of less danger than that which comes from an internal Cause As for the Cure because it comes from divers Causes it must be various But of what Cause soever it come in the time of the Fit these are good Lying upon the back throwing of cold Water in the face provoking to neez putting of strong Wine Cinnamon or imperial Water Aqua vitae Coelestis and the like into the mouth holding of hot bread to the Nose loud calling and shaking stopping of the Nostrils wringing of the Fingers pulling of the Hair rubbing binding and cupping But in respect of the Causes which are divers you must vary the Cure thus If it come from want of meat he wil be Cured with strong Wine and a Toast or Sop Also with nourishing broths and Restoring distilled Waters among other things a dish of Eggs with sugar Wine and Cinnamon described in the following Chapter If it come from thinness of the Humors by which the spirits do easily flie away give him sweet things and meats of good juyce and thickning let the pores of the skin be stopt with Oyl of Roses and let the Patient stay in a cold place If it come from the Mother you must give Medicines for that If it come from some evil quality give Cordials and Antidotes such as are prescribed in malignant Feavers If from poyson give things to expel it First a Vomit and then Treacle and then if he feel burning or gnawing in the Guts let him take Milk of Butter or fat Broth or cooling Cordial Potions If it come of immoderate Evacuation let the Patient be refreshed with Scents Meat Drink sleep and rest If from too great loss of Blood lay him upon his bed with his Head backwards dash his face with cold Water give him a little Wine with cold Water If it come of too much Purging give him new Treacle or old if you cannot get new with two grains of Opium dissolved in Wine or three grains of Laudanum which is better And let the Belly be anointed all over with this following Oyl Take of Oyl of Myrtles and Quinces of each one ounce and an half Oyl of Wormwood one ounce With a little Rose Vinegar mix them and anoint often Give a Clyster of steeled Milk with three Yolks of Eggs and two drams of Philonium Romanum Use Frictions of the Arms and upper parts give him a Sop in Wine or Wine alone And lastly Every Evacuation whether it be of Blood from the Nose or Womb or other parts or of Humors by Vomit or Stool must be stopped with their proper Medicines prescribed in their several Chapters That Syncope which comes from too much Sweat is cured by Medicines that restrain Sweat as with Cold or Rose Water alone or with a little Vinegar sprinkled upon the Face and Hands Also let the Air be cooled with the same Water and with Fanning Apply cold Epithems to the Heart made of Rose Sorrel and Borrage Water with Pouder of Diamargariton frigid with a little Wine to make it pierce You must also give often cooling Juleps made of Syrup of Sorrel Violets and Apples or Lemmons with cooling Waters and Lapis Prunellae Let the Pores be closed with anointing the Skin with Oyl of Roses Myrtles and Mastich Let him abstain from Wine Let him not be rubbed bâ—t let him move often gently being lightly covered Let his bed be perfumed with this Pouder following Take of the flowers of Water-lillies red Roses of each three ounces the best Labdanum half an ounce Storax two drams Myrtles and grains of Sumach of each two ounces Make a Pouder If it come from suffocation of the Spirits you must call them forth by Frictions Ligatures Cupping-glasses and the like And if this Suffocation came of Repletion you must bleed plentifully but by degrees If it comes from terror and fear you must also bleed lest it cause an Obstruction or Inflamation Chap. 2. Of the Palpitation or Breathing of the Heart AS in a Synoope the motion of the Heart is diminished so in this Disease it is depraved It iâ— wrongly stiled by some a trembling of the Heart when trembling is a passion of the Animal and voluntary motion and is not proper to any parts but such as have voluntary motion Galen in his Book of Trembling Palpitation and Convulsion saith That Palpitation comes only from the Disease that is from the Cause which lifteth up and depresseth the part without any help of the Faculty but Trembling comes partly from the Faculty partly from the Disease Hence it is that many using the word Palpitation indifferently to any part think it is in the Heart as in the Skin and Muscles in which it comes from wind driven violently thither for if the Heart be moved as a Bladder by water or wind they suppose that to be a Palpitation But the reason is different for the Skin and Muscles cannot naturally dilate and contract themselves but by
Diseases But the Heart hath a Natural Faculty to contract and dilate it self therefoâ—e a Palpitation cannot be without its motion And they do in vain muster up Galens Reasons so thought by them to prove that the Palpitation of the Heart comes not by Nature but by a Diâ—ease or cause of a Disease For Galen in all those places speaks of no other Palpitation than that which is in the Skin and other external parts and not of the palpitation of the Heart which is of another Nature and Galen 2. de sympt caus cap. 2. saith that the Palpitation of the Heart and Arteries is different from that of the other parts Therefore the Palpitation of the Heart is an immoderate and preternatural shaking of the part with a great Diastole or Dilatation and a vehement Systole or contraction which somtimes is so great that as Fernelius observes it hath often broken the Ribs adjoyning somtimes displaced them which are over the Paps and somtimes it hath so dilated an Artery forth into an Aneurism as big as ones fist in which you might both see and feel the pulsation This immoderate shaking of the Heart comes from the Pulsative Faculty provoked But here may be objected That in Feavers all these things are found for this is an immoderatâ— Systole and Diastole by the provocation of the Faculty through some troublesom matter or by encrease of heat in the Heart To this we answer That the motion of the Heart in Feavers is distinguished from Palpitation only by its degrees and the depraved motion of the Heart when it is vehement is called Palpitation but if it be not vehement it is called a quick great and swift Pulse and is referred to the differenceâ— of Pulses Now the Efficient Causes of this Palpitation may be referred to Three Heads Either it is somwhat which troubleth and pricketh or necessity of Refrigeration or defect of Spirits which two latter may be referred to the encrease of Custom The Molesting Cause is most usual so that many Authors knew no other the other are rare and that is either a vapor or wind which troubleth the Heart either in quantity or quality or both The quality is either manifest or occult A vapor troublesom in a manifest quality is either in the Heart and its parts adjoyning or it is sent from other parts and this suddenly getting to the inmost parts of the Heart doth stir up the Expulâ—ive Faculty which being Naturally very strong ariseth powerfully with all its force to expel the enemy In the Heart and thereabout especially in the Pericardium are gathered somtimes cold and thick Humors which send up vapors to the Ventricles of the Heart which cause Palpitation But from more remote parts vapors and wind are sent to the Ventricles of the Heart as from the Stomach Spleen Mother and the other parts of the lower Belly Many times a Vapor that troubles the Heart by an occult quality ariseth in malignant Feavers Plague and after Poyson and somtimes from Worms putrified and the terms stopped from corrupt feed or other putrid matter which do much stir up the Expulsive Faculty thereof Divers Humors do molest the Heart either with their quantity or quality so too much Blood oppresâ—ing the Veins Arteries and Ventricles of the Heart so that they cannot move freely makes a Palpitation by hindering motion which that the Faculty may oppose it moveth more violently So Water in the Pericardium being in great quantity doth compreâ—s the substance of the Heart and its Ventricle so that they cannot freely dilate themselves The same do Humors flowing in abundance to the Heart as it happens somtimes in Wounds Fear and Terror Humors offending in quality hurt the Heart if they be venemous putrid corrupt sharp or too hot especially burnt Choller coming to the Heart and provoking its Expulsion Also Tumors though seldom cause this Disease as Inflamation of the Heart Imposthumes or Swelling in the Arteries of the Lungs neer the Heart which Galen saith befel Antipater the Physitian 4. de loc aff by which after an unequal Pulse he fell into a Palpitation and an Asthma and so died so Dodonaeus reports that he found a Callus in the great Artery next to the Heart which caused a Palpitation for many yeers Also Tumors in the Pericardium whether they be without humors and scirrhus or with humors in them as the Hydatides or watery Pustles and little stones bones and pieces of flesh are somtimes growing in the Heart which cause Palpitation So Platerus reports that in one who had a long Palpitation and died thereof there was found a bone in his Heart But Schenkius reports that in a Priest who was from his youth to the age of forty two troubled with a Palpitation there was found in the bottom of his Heart an Excrescens of flesh which weighed eight drams and resembled another Heart The Second Cause of Palpitation is necessity of refrigeration which is when there is a pretâ—â—natural heart in the Heart by which the Spirits are inflamed within and therefore the motion of the Heart and Arteries is encreased that what is spent may be restored and the heat cooled and this comes somtimes from an internal cause which is rare but oftener of an external as anger vehement exercise and the like As Platerus observed in a yong man who being hot and angry at Tennis fell into a Palpitation of the Heart and so died The third Cause is the defect of Spirits which comes by hunger watching anger Joy fear shame and great Diâ—eases and other causes which do suddenly dissipate the Spirits which defect the Heart laboring to repair that it may beget more quick and plentiful and send them into the whol Body sooner it doth enlarge its motion and make it quicker You must observe for conclusion that it is more ordinary to see a Palpitation which comes by consent from other parts than from the Heart it self For it hath a consent with all parts by the Veins and Artâ—ries by which Vapors Wind and Humors are sent Which all shall be shewed in the Diagnosis following The Diagnosis or knowledg of this Disease is directed either to the Disease or the Causes which produce it The Disease is subject to sence it may be felt with the hands somtimes seen and heard for the Artery may be seen to leap especially in the Jugular And Forestus saith it may be heard by an Example of a yong man that they who passed by might hear it by laying their Ear to the Window Also the Causes are distinguished by their Signs A hot distemper is known by the greatness of the Pulse and swiftness by a Feaver and heat of the Breast by great and often breathing and desire of cold things If the Palpitation come of wind it quickly comes and goes and is presently raised by little motion and the Breath is difficult with trembling somtimes at the knees mists in the Eyes noise in the Ears and somtimes pain of some
Many Practitioners do not only apply these Remedies before to the Cartilage called Xiphoides like a sword but also behind upon the thirteenth Vertebra because the proper orifice of the Stomach inclineth backward but the thickness of the Vertebra is such and of the Muscles under them that the strength of the Medicine cannot pierce through to the Stomach Take of Galangal and Calamus Aromaticus of each three drams Mastich and Cloves of each two drams one Nutmeg dried Citron peels half an ounce Annis seeds one dram and an half Make a bag of these being bruised and put into red silk pricked through and into musked Cotton to be worn alwaies upon the Stomach The Skin of a Vultur dressed and worn upon the Stomach is commended for the same in want of which a Hairs Skin or a piece of Scarlet may be used Chap. 2. Of Dogs Appetite called Fames canina HAving in the former Chapter spoken of Appetite diminished and abolished now we shall speak of it depraved And this is done two waies When it either offendeth in quantity or quality It offends in quantity when nourishment is required in a greater quantity than Nature would and this is called Boulimia or Dogs Appetite It offends in quality when things are required which are evil or are not food and this is called Pica or Kitta Of the first we shall speak in this Chapter of the last in the Chapter following The word Boulimia comes apo tou bou kai limou because the Particle Bou put to other words encrease the signification as if it were compared to the greatness of an Ox. It is also called Phagedaina which word is given to Ulcers which eat the flesh and enlarge and therefore called Vlcera Phagedaina that is spreading Ulcers Now it is called Fames Canina or Dogs Appetite because they who have it are hungry as Dogs But you may observe that these two words Boulimia and Fames Canina are somtimes confounded and used for the same thing and somtimes distinguished so that it is called Fames Canina when after much feeding they vomit like Dogs But some purge rather than vomit when Nature throweth down that which it cannot concoct In Boulimia vomit doth not follow but somtimes Lipothymia There are some who feed unsatiably and yet vomit not nor purge but concoct all and if they have not presently more are sick As Sennertus reports of a Scholler who was black colored who eat not only in the day but night and digested it without vomiting he could not be satisfied with delicate meats but required gross and therefore would eat no Bakers Bread but such as the Country people made and would eat as many raw Parsnips in a Summer morning as could be bought for six pence without damage Hence it appears that this disease is a Symptome of an action depraved in respect of quantity which action being encreased is called Dog-like or an Appetite beyond Natural Measure The part affected is chiefly the mouth of the Stomach The cause containing is sence of sucking and vehement pulling which stirs up the Appetite Galen 2. de symp caus cap. 7. reduceth the immediate causes of this Disease to two Heads in these words Evil Appetites exceeding in quantity which are called by some Caninae are then when either some evil sharp Juyce biteth the Stomach or when the whol Body immoderately concocting wants nourishment for evil Juyce which is cold biteth like the Natural sucking and produceth appetite by the resemblance of Nature The immediate cause of a preternatural Appetite according to Galen is first a vicious humor and cold sticking to the Stomach Secondly want of Food by over much concoction Evil Humors sticking to the Stomach cause immoderate Appetite because they by their too much coldness sharpness and sowrness do constringe wrinkle and pull the mouth of the Stomach and so make a sence of feeling like a natural sucking and beget a false Appetite This Humor is either sowr flegm staying long in the Stomach or many times Melancholly sent from the Spleen into the Stomach which in a natural state and a moderate quantity and quality begets a moderate and natural Appetite but if it be preternatural and exceed it makes the Appetite too great The want of Food by reason whereof the Veins do continually suck from the Stomach either it comes from too great Evacuation by bleeding purging vomiting sweating and the like or from too great a Consumption of the alimentary substance by reason of the immoderate heat of the parts or the thinness of the humors and body and loosness of the pores watchings baths immoderate exercise much venery all which do dissolve the substance making humidity and by these emptiness being caused and want of food the meat is carried from the Stomach sooner than it ought Also this Fames Canina or Dogs Appetite may come from Worms which devour the Chylus as Trallianus reports lib. 7. cap. 4. of a Woman in this Disease which voided a worm twelve â—ubits long by the use of Hiera and was cured The Hermetical Physitians do lay down another cause of this wonderful Appetite namely a certain dissolving Spirit begot in the Body which by an inhaerent property doth so readily consume whatsoever meat is taken so that it doth not allow Nature a lawful and necessary bound of nourishment This they call a hungery devouring salt sharp vitriol Spirit For say they as from divers Salts Vitriol Niter common Salt and Salt Armoniack with the like Aqua fortis is made by Chymistry which will dissolve the hardest Stones Mettals into Liquor in a short time so that Gold which will not be dissolved in a month by a strong fire in a quarter of an hour will be dissolved in Aqua regia and be turned into a Liquor of the same color This Doctrine is diligently to be examined for as the digestion of the Stomach in its Natural condition hath somthing to be admired by the curious Searchers into Nature so the same being made preternatural hath somthing to be wondered at This is wonderful in the Natural digestion of the Belly that the hardest meats are digested therein and in three or four hours space are turned into a Chylous Liquor so thin that it may be strained through the narrowest branches of the Venae lacteae and that Dogs do turn the hardest bones into the same Liquor is not to be attributed to a stronger concocting heat because meat in a pot although the fire be never so hot cannot in twenty four hours or many daies be converted into the same The Galenists hold that this comes from the faculty of the Stomach which faculty works not without an Instrument because if there is an Idiosyncrasia or a certain proportion of the first qualities as is commonly reported its chief action must be from heat for cold moisture or driness do nothing to that great dissolving of food and heat as it is said hath not that power Therefore the Idiosyncrasia is somwhat more
be laid down in the Cure of an Hectick Feaver This following Opiate is excellent Take of Eryngus Roots candied and Conserve of Bugloss of each two ounces Conserve of Violets and Borrage flowers of each one ounce Confectio Alkermes half an ounce Diapenedion newly prepared without the Species two drams with Syrup of sweet Apples make an Opiate of which let him take the quantity of a Chesnut at the time of thirst drinking after it a little Borrage Water Chap. 5. Of the Hurt Concoction of the Stomach THe Concoction of the Stomach called Chylosis as of all other parts is hurt three waies either by diminishing abolishing or depraving This Concoction diminished is called Bradupepsia the abolished Apepsia the depraved is called Dyspepsia all which differences are comprehended in this one word Crudity Now this Crudity is two-fold either nidorous stinking and acidous or sharp The nidorous Crudity is when the nourishment is turned into a stinking burnt matter as when the stink of Eggs or rotten fish or fryed Oyl is smelt by belching which happens often in hot Chollerick Bodies But a sharp sowr Crudity is when meat turns sowr and the belchings are sowr and this comes from a cold distemper To these you may ad a third difference of Crudities when by reason of weak heat the matter is imperfectly concocted and is turned into flegm without sowrness The Causes that hinder Concoction in the Stomach may be brought into three Heads namely a fault in the Organ Object and things External and Internal The fault in the Organ comprehendeth all diseases in the Stomach whether they be Similar or Organ cal or Common all which may overthrow its actions but distemper is commonly the cause of hurt Concoction for since Concoction is made by a moderate heat according to Nature if at any time it want its due moderation the Concoction is hurt So a cold distemper of the Stomach which diminisheth the Heat if it be gentle it only weakeneth the Concoction and make a Brylypepsia or slow Concoction If the cold distemper be greater it abolisheth Concoction and makes Apepsia But a hot distemper doth deprave Concoction and make a Dyspepsia which is a difficult Concoction These distempers are somtimes simple and in such who have Naturally a weak Stomach and smal Natural heat or have a sharp and burning heat but they are commonly with matter hence in Hypochondriack Melancholly much flegm and fermentation of a black Humor use to cause Crudities Winds Swellings Rumblings and sowr Belchings The fault of the Object that is the nourishment which is the proper Object of the Stomach comes many waies when it offendeth in Substance Quantity Quality time or Order of being taken Nourishment is vitious in respect of its substance when it is too hard and difficult to be concocted as Deers flesh Hairs flesh especially if old and made hard with Salt or Smoak Bread full of Bran Mushroms Roots Pulse and the like which are called Dyspepta Meats offend in Quantity when too much is taken at once and therefore cannot be overcome by the heat hence come Crudities which are most usual among them who do surfet themselves If there be less eaten than is required it may seem to be crude because too little meat will be burnt and dryed in a Chollerick Stomach Meats offend in Quality which are too cold and moist and windy or they which are too hot whereby the thinner part of the Chyle is burnt and turned into nidorous vapors To this may be reduced the Art of Cookery and Sawce-making for the divers waies of roasting boyling and making of Sawce do alter the disposition of Meat by which means they become more easie or hard of Concoction The time and order of eating being preposterous may also spoil the Concoction as if any one should omit his usual time of eating and fall to at midnight or a little before he goes to sleep fill his Stomach or if after taking of solid and astringing things as Cheese Pears Quinces and the like they take liquid things which do soon corrupt Also external things may spoil the Concoction if they be immoderate so too cold Air by dulling the natural near if it be weak or too hot by dissipating the heat may hinder Concoction as also immoderate exercise especially after meat by drawing the natural heat forth from the Stomach to the external parts and so dispersing it extraordinarily as also by throwing the Chylus yet imperfect into the Guts The stoppage of the Belly and other excrements or an immoderate flux great watchings sleep in the day time great passions of the mind especialy sadness and deep study presently after meat and the like do not a little hinder the action of the Stomach Besides the Causes mentioned the Hermeticks of late time mention one less usual and not noted by the Ancients which also is not plainly demonstrated by them but it is confirmed by some conjectures not to be contemned of which we made mention in the explaining of the Causes of Fames Canina First therefore they ashrm that the Natural Concoction of the Stomach is not made by heat only but that quick melting of solid meats by which it is converted into Chylus is from another cause since Experience teacheth that meat boyling in a pot at a strong fire many daies will never be dissolved and bones in a Dogs Stomach are quickly dissolved and turned into Chylous Liquor and in the bellies of Fishes which have no actual heat all that is brought in is dissolved and concocted the same way Therefore they lay down the principal Cause of this dissolving to be a certain Spirit or sharp Liquor sent from the Spleen into the Stomach which hath great power to dissolve And they take this opinion from Galen by whom it is confirmed that a Melanchollick Humor sent from the Spleen into the Stomach doth cause appetite and that either by astringing or wrinkling the inner Tunicle of the Stomach or pulling of it by its sharpness which may be opposed for if it do it by astriction then all astringent things would do the same and if by pulling sharp things rather than sowr would provoke Appetite Therefore they think it more probable that that humor should stir up Appetite by accident by causing want of nourishment by dissolving of that which comes in And therefore they allow a more noble use of the Spleen than ever the Ancients thought of namely to be a chief instrument to serve the Stomach in Concoction This may be conjectured from Birds which dissolve the hardest seeds and have a Spleen round about their Stomach or Maw that it may more powerfully inspire that dissolving Spirit or communicate unto it sowr Liquor And Helmont from his own experience saith that that sowr Spirit is very strong in Birds for he relates that when he was a Boy and kept a Sparrow he gave it his Tongue which the Sparrow catching with his Bill disired to swallow and that touching the Throat of the
Diabrosis The Antecedent Causes are the same with the Conjunct but they differ in place for when blood offending either in Quantity or Quality doth immediately open the Veins it is called a Conjunct Cause and the same being contained in the Veins is called an Antecedent Cause The parts sending of which the chiefare the Head Liver Spleen and Womb are antecedent Causes Often times Blood is carried from the Head to the Stomach by the Pallat and Gullet or Oesophagus and also a violent Catarrh of sharp and Salt flegm doth corrode the Stomach and open the Veins thereof It is carried from the Liver and Spleen by the Veins that go to the Stomach from the Womb when blood by the stoppage of the Terms runs back and opens the Veins of the Stomach so that some Women have had their Terms by vomiting blood constantly at the time Vomiting of blood comes oftener from the Liver and Spleen than from other parts and from the Spleen than the Liver because it doth more consent with the Stomach For it is evident by Anatomy that the great branch of the Gate Vein or Porta goeth to the Spleen from which many Veins are sent to the Stomach both above and below and these are so great that being distended with wind or blood they are as thick as the middle finger this we have observed in Dissection Moreover the Vas breve being wide as in a natural state it doth continually send Melancholly into the Stomach so being in a Preternatural state it may send great plenty of blood But observe here that in this case that blood is voided by stool as well as vomit both because a part thereof which went to the Stomach is sent downwards and also because the Meseraick Veins are open and send blood into the Guts which by its long passage through the Guts groweth black and comes forth like Tar. The external Causes are all things that can wound or bruise as also great heat which causeth boyling of the blood hence it is that yong men to the age of thirty five are very subject to vomit blood and other bleeding as also great cold by too much astriction may endanger to break the Veins the same doth unseasonable Motion and Labor unusual Exercise great hallowing and the like which move the blood violently in the Veins And finally All the Causes of Blood-spitting afore mentioned For Blood being violently moved either in the Veins or Arteries whether from an external or an internal Cause goes soonest to that part which is weakest and most fit to receive it and therfore if the Stomach or the Veins going thither are so disposed there will be vomiting of Blood rather than any other way of bleeding The Diagnostick of this Disease lieth chiefly in the discovery of the part from which the blood comes If from the Stomach the scituation of the part and the constant pain and heaviness thereof will demonstrate and there is less blood for the Veins of the Stomach are smal and it comes with loathing and there is a biting when they swallow as also somtimes it comes forth mixed with Meat Flegm or Choller If it come from the Head there will be tickling about the Jaws and Pallat and some blood will be blown out of the Nose with Snot there went before it some Head-ach or heaviness which after bleeding ceaseth If from the Liver or Spleen there is more plenty of blood and somtimes a tumor or dolor in the part From the Liver the blood is red and frothy from the Spleen it is thick and black Also Blood from the Liver goes most downwards because it commonly goes from thence to the Guts through the Meseraicks and must ascend from them into the Stomach to cause Vomiting but it doth easier descend Contrarily that which comes from the Spleen is rather by vomit because the Veins from the Spleen to the Stomach are shorter and narrower Lastly If from the suppression of the Terms you may know it from the Woman and it wil come at those times which wil be more probable if there be no disease in any other part As for the Prognostick Vomiting of Blood of what cause soever is dangerous for it either threateneth death suddenly or if it stay in the Stomach and putrifie it breeds faintings swoonings and suffocations Vomiting of blood from suppression of the Terms is less dangerous than that from the Liver or Spleen for when they are brought down it is usually cured as Hippocrates taught Aph. 34. Sect. 5. in these words When a Woman vomiteth Blood if her courses breakdown she is cured And in this case only the opening of the inferior Veins doth provoke the Terms especially if she take somthing besides for that purpose They who after Vomiting of Blood fall into the Dropsie called Ascites do die thereof Dodonaeus doth testifie that he never knew any that escaped and Experience teacheth that a Dropsie from any kind of bleeding is deadly for it comes from a great dissipation of Natural heat which cannot be repaired For the Cure of this Disease use Medicines which revel the Blood from the Stomach and correct its distempers and the open Veins with astringents and glutinatives To which ad those things which concern the part chiefly affected from whence the Blood is sent into the Stomach according to the divers Nature and Disease of the part And because Diet is of chiefest concernment in this Disease let us shew some Rules therefore Let his Nourishment be commonly astringent and Emplastick and cold both actually and potentially as Barley Almonds Rice Panadoes Gellies and especially Starch made without Chalk and boyled in Milk which is good also in spitting of Blood to all these you may alwaies add some Pomegranates or Vinegar of Roses Also hard Eggs steeped in Vinegar are good Bread crums steeped in cold Water and Chicken Broth with Sorrel Purslam Plantane and unripe Grapes the feet and hips of Sheep Kids and Calves boyled to a Jelly for the first course let him take that which is a stringent as a Quince or sowr Apple or Pear roasted in the embers Marmalat of Quinces or Jelly of sharp Cherries Medlers or Services Let him abstain from all sharp salt peppered and fried Meats as also from things that breed much Blood except he grow weak and then you may give him them sparingly He must be but little nourished for the less Blood is bred the Disease will be the less and the empty parts by their attraction will stay the flux Let him drink little only a little Iron Water with a little Juyce of Pomegranates He must drink no Wine except it be thick and sharp which we call Tortium and it must be when there is no Feaver Let the Air be cool without Wind Sun or Moon shine let him sleep little and not in the day for although all fluxes are said to be stopped by sleep yet this by long keeping the heat in the Center may be encreased Let his Belly be loose
filled with wind by the fire Paraeus also propounds another unusual Medicine by which he boasteth that he cured many at deaths door namely by drinking three pound of Quick-silver in Water alone for with its weight it doth untie the Gut and open and sends down the hard excrements which Remedy is commended by others who say that it may be taken without harm But we may wel fear so great a quantity lest it extinguish the Native heat with its coldness and coagulate the Blood in the Veins therefore in a desperate case it is better to give a less quantity Some give two ounces in a rear Egg and think good to repeat it if the first Dose do not succeed well but you may see in our Observations that one ounce hath done well But when the Illiack Passion comes from the Guts falling into the Cods all the care is to place them right which must be done by the gentle hand of a Chirurgion long fomenting the part affected first with an Emollient Decoction and Relaxing Oyls giving often Emollient and Carminative Glysters so placing the Patient that his Head be low and his Thighs high for some having been hung by the Heels were quickly cured If the Hernia comes with Inflamation of the Intestine it is cured with a fomentation of cold water If wind stretch the Gut discuss with a Fomentation of Spirit of Wine See the examples of both Cures in our Observations Chap. 3. Of Astriction or binding of the Belly BY Astriction of the Belly we do not understand all kind of supression by which nothing is â—et forth downwards as in the Ileos But only a dull and slow dejection by which the faeces and reliques of Meat are seldom and not according to the quantity of Food thrown forth therefore they are necessarily indurated because of their long continuance being dried with heat and some moisture is alwaies drawn from them by the Meseraick which reach not only to the thin but thick Guts It is a Symptome of the Expulsive faculty diminished or the retentive encreased and it is the cause of many diseases therfore the Excreta and Retenta are reckoned among the six things not Natural which not keeping the Law of Nature produce divers Diseases so it being bound sends vapors to the Head and produceth Catarrhs and other Diseases of the Brain disturbs the Concoction of the Stomach and the actions of other parts The Causes of this Symptome are many And first hardness of the faeces and driness are not only Effects but also Causes of them because being hard they are more difficult to be voided and do less provoke the expulsive Faculty They become dryer and harder chiefly and oftenest from the excessive heat of the Liver which powerfully draws away all the moisture contained in the Intestines and leaves the faeces dry This is also caused by violent motion especially riding also by few Excrements through want of food or because they have no actimony to prick the Intestines as it happens in cold Meats and when the Choller doth not go to the Guts as we observe in the Jaundice And lastly Many diseases of the Guts may cause this constriction as a cold and dry Distemper Tumors Obstructions Numbness of the Anus and Palsey and many others The Signs depend upon the knowledg of the Causes which must be taken from their proper Fountains The hot distemper of the Liver is to be taken out of its proper Chapter Also Tumors and other Diseases of the Guts have their proper Diagnosis or signs and so the external Causes as little Meat or coldness thereof riding and the like are known by relation of the Patient As for the Prognostick The Constriction of the Belly is more or less dangerous according as the Cause is greater oâ—less For if it come of Inflamation or other Tumor of the Intestines it is very dangerous but from other Causes less It useth to be contumacious and long when it comes from the faeces indurate and thence come often Chollicks which return after they have been cured by reason of the new dryness of the faeces as also because though the Belly seems to have been made sufficiently soluble by purging and many liquid Excrements are discharged yet there remains somtimes many hard Excrements in the Guts which breed new pains and cannot be taken out but by many Clysters given after Purging The Cure of this Disease depends upon taking away the Causes which are to be taken from their proper Chapters But because it is commonly long especially when it depends upon a hot distemper of the Liver and dryness of the Guts and in the mean time the Belly bound brings many inconveniences We will speak of its Cure by its self which is generally done by Emollients and Laxatives made thus Take of Althaea or Marsh-mallow and Lilly Roots of each two ounces Mallows Marsh-mallows Mercury Violets and Brank Vrsine of each one handful Lin-seed and Foenugreek of each half an ounce Annis seed one dram and an half sweet Prunes three pair Chamomel and Meltlot flowers of each one pugil boyl them to a pint and an half Dissolve in the straining Oyl of Lillies and Lin-seed of each two ounces fresh Butter one ounce and an half Diacatholicon and Diaprunis simple of each six drams Make a Clyster to be given as often as need requireth Somtimes instead of this use the following Take of the Decoâ—tion of Sheeps entrals one pint fresh Butter two ounces Cassia Diacatholicon and Diaprunis simple of each half an ounce red Sugar one ounce Make a Clyster Also twice in a month or thrice you may give one pint of common Oyl alone for a Clyster And because Nature will grow dull by too much use of Clysters and at length will never officiate that way but when she is provoked by one you must endeavor to mollifie the Belly with other means For this end sweet Prunes and roasted Apples with Sugar may be taken one hour before dinner as Galen sheweth 2. defacult alim cap. 31. For if they be taken immediately before dinner they will not work Or take Chicken Broth or other Broth in which have been bovled beets Borrage and some Apples or one spoonful of Oyl of sweet Almonds newly drawn without fire with as much Syrup of Maiden-hair or two spoonfuls of this Syrup following Take of the Mucilage of Fleabane seeds and of Quinces drawn with Mallows Water one pound and an half white Sugar one pound Make a Syrup according to art That the Prunes may work better let him drink half a glass of Vinum Lymphatum or Wine and Water before and after he taketh them fresh Butter taken an hour before Dinner the bigness of a great â—ut and drink Wine and Water will do the same thing Once in a week let him use one of these following Medicines Take of Cassia new drawn one ounce Cream of Tartar one dram Make a Bolus Take of 〈◊〉 one ounce or an ounce and an half Mix
like Quittor which comes only from the distemper of the part and the depravation of the Homiosis or quality by which it makes Nourishment like it self The same befals men in Asthma or Ptisick and other Diseases of the Lungs for their Lungs being distempered do il concoct their own Nourishment but turn it into an Excrement like Quittor which is expelled by coughing and yet they have no Ulcer in their Lungs as many learned Physitians wil conclude when they see the Matter The External Causes of a Dysentery are al things that produce sharp and evil Humors or give them being produced a disposition to cause a Dysentery The Principal are sharp Meats or very subject to putrefaction as Fruits soon rotten and al unripe things Waters that are drunk ordinarily wherein there is Crudity or a Mineral and Medicines which are deadly qualified and evil Air as Hipp. Aph. 11. Sect. 3. when the Winter is too cold or dry the Spring too wet and too full of South winds then there wil be Dysenteries in the Summer And Aph. 12. Sect. 3. If the South wind blow much in Winter and it rain much but if it be dry and the North wind blow much in the Spring those seasons produce Dysenteries But the proper Distemper of the Air to produce a Dysentery is known in a contagious or Epidemical Dysentery which somtimes is more dangerous then others As also there is an Infection in the Excrements of those that have this Disease to them that smel them and if thâ—y be cast into the Privy they infect most of the Family that sit over them The Signs of a Dysentery are taken out of the Definition mentioned an often bloody Evacuation with pain and torments of the Belly and somtimes a Feaver watching thirst loathing of Meat and other Signs common to many Diseases But it is hard to know whether the thick or thin Guts are ulcerated Usually if the pain be above the Navil they say it is in the thin Guts and if below in the thick but this is contrary to reason because both the thin and thick Guts are carried both to the superior and inferior parts Therefore this sign is rather to be taken from the quality of the pain and the excrements For if the thin Guts are affected there is vehement pain like pins pricking because they are more Membranous and of more exquisite sence As also they go not to stool presently after the pain and there is blood in every stool for because the Blood and purulent Matter comes far before it be voided it is more mixed with the Dung but if the thick Guts are affected the pain is less vehement and lasting there is presently after a going to stool the Blood and Matter swim upon the excrement or are very little mixed and in a great Ulceration there are as it were little pieces of flesh The Signs of the Causes are taken especially from the Colour of the Excrements when they are yellow green white or black to which you may ad the Signs of Humors abounding from the Age Temperament time of the yeer and course of Life The Prognostick is thus made If the Thin Guts are Ulcerated there is more danger for they are more Nervous and being neerer the Liver they receive more pure Choller Dysenteries coming from black Choller or Melancholly are deadly Hippocrates aph 24. sect 4. because the Ulcer grows Cancerous which is seldom Cured outwardly in the body But if this Melancholly comes by Crisis of Judgement it is not so dangerous But you must beware least you take Congealed blood for Melancholly A Dysentery from Choller or sharp Diet is easily Cured from salt Flegm it is worse than from Choller because by reason of the Clamminess it stayes longer in the Guts to ulcerate In long Diseases of the Guts Loathing of Meat is evil and worse with a Feaver Hippocrates Aph. 3. Sect. 6. If in a Dysentery there be as it were little pieces of Flesh voided it is deadly Aphor. 26. Sect. 4. for it signifieth a deep Ulcer which takes away pieces of the guts Much Watching Stools without mixture of Humors black stinking much blood a Lientery coming after Hickets Chollerick Vomits pain of the Liver Midriff great thirst do commonly declare that it is deadly A Dysentery coming to those which have the Gout or a Disease in the Spleen is good Hippocrates 2. progn aph 46. sect 6. but this is rather a simple Diarrhoea which sends forth the matter of those Diseases Old Men and Children more commonly in this Disease than Men of middle Age Hipp. 2. progn Children because of their tenderness and their not observing rules Old Men because their strength is spent and because there is a great overthrow of their natural state thereby for they do not easily produce excrements that are fit to cause a Dysentery The Cure of this Disease is wrought by Medicines that asswage clense and evacuate sharp humors that Consolidate and dry Ulcers and stop the flux At first you must evacuate the Humor offending least it do more mischief and you must Purge often and it you think it not safe to purge every day or every other day do it every third or fourth day Rhubarb is the best for purpose either given in substance with Broth or made into a Potion as in Diarrhoea Or thus Take of Plantane half an handful Liquoris scraped and whole Raisons of each three drams Red Roses one pugil Tamarinds six drams yellow Myrobalans rub'd with Oyl of sweet Almonds two drams boyl them to three ounces Dissolve in the straining of Rhubarb infused with Lavender in Plantane Water one dram Syrup of Quinces one ounce Make a Potion Or Take of Tamarinds half an ounce Citron Myrobalans two drams boyl them in Barley and Plantane Water infuse in the straining of Rhubarb one dram and an half yellow Saunders half a scruple to four ounces of the straining ad one ounce of the syrup of Roses solutive make a Potion The Decoction of Myrobalans made thus and given in many Draughts is Commended of many Take of the rinds of Myrobalans Chebs ten drams Citron Myrobalans five drams Currans two ounces boyl them in twenty six Pints of Water to the Consumption of the third part strain them and adde ten drams of Sugar clarifie it and put to it half an ounce of Cinnamon Penotus Commends the following Potion as good against both Dysentery and Diarrhoea Take of the Bark of Guajacum beaten two ounces boyl them to halfs in a sufficient quantity of Water adding of red Roses Pomegranate Flowers and Plantane of each two drams boyl them for an hour and then adde to the straining of poudered Rhubarb one dram Diacatholicon three drams make a Potion Many give Parched or Torrified Rhubarb that the Purging Quality may partly be taken away But Amatus Lusitanus takes the second Infusion of Rhubarb and saith That in the first Infusion al his sharpness is taken away and it is better so than Parched
thick slimy and crude Humors coming commonly from evil Diet for these Virgins drink great draughts of Water at bed-time or in the morning fasting or eat Vinegar Herbs unripe Fruits Snow or Ice hence it is that they lose their Natural heat and there is abundance of crude Excrements Others sleep too much or are very idle as Seamsters which by sitting stil al day are very cold Others watch too much and use unseasonable exercise as dauncing presently after meat and so continuing with their Sweet-hearts all night Moreover they have great cares and disturbances of mind by which the Concoction is destroyed and the Body filled with evil Juyce The Knowledge of this Disease is easie from the Symptomes following First The Face and all the Body is pale and white somtimes of a Lead color blew or green for crude flegmatick and â—erous Humors abounding and being carried to the habit of the body do discolor it and if Choller or Melancholly be mixed with that flegm the color wil be yellowish greenish or blew The Second is Swelling in the Face and Eye-lids especially after sleep because the motive heat being closed and contracted at night raised more vapors than it could discuss The Leggs also and Feet especially about the Ankles and the whol Body is loose and soft by reason of the abundance of flegm Thirdly Heaviness and Idleness in the whol Body a lazy stretching forth of the Leggs from the Humors being fallen down Fourthly There is difficult breathing especially when they move themselves or go up Hils or steep places then the thick blood grows warm and thence arise many vapors which cause shortness of breathing Fifthly There is Palpitation of the Heart and beating of the Arteries in the Temples when the Body is exercised by reason of the same evaporation which is raised from thick Humors heated by Exercise Sixthly There is often a great Head-ach and somtimes in the hinder part of the Head when the Womb suffers but in the Forehead when the vapors arise most from the Hypochondria Seventhly The Pulse is swift and quick as if they were in a Feaver and therefore this Disease is called the white Feaver by reason of the quickness of the Pulse which is so for this reason The vital faculty being weak makes the Pulâ—e little therefore Nature supplies the smalness of it with often beating Eightly The sleep is very sound they sleep til midnight except they be forcibly awaked and this is from many thick vapors which arise from the filthy flegm Ninthly There is a great loathing of wholsom meat by reason of the great collection of Crudities in the Stomach and parts adjacent and these Humors when they grow worse cause the Pica or longing for things that are not to be eaten Lastly When the evil encreaseth and the Obstructions are multiplied the Terms stop which shews the Disease to be at the height and confirmed As for the Prognostick That Disease commonly is not dangerous and continueth a long time But if it be too much neglected and suffered to take root so that the Nourishment is hindered there follow great Diseases of the Natural parts as Scirrhous and other Tumors and corruption of the substance of them which cause death by Dropsies long Feavers and the like When the Disease is less and comes only from the Obstruction of the Veins of the Womb in yong women it is cured by Marriage Women that have long been in this Disease either are barren or their Children are diseased and weak There is great hope of recovery when the Terms keep their ordinary course and their due quantity and quality The Cure of this Disease is by opening Obstructions by emptying of the filthy Humors from the whol Body and correcting the distemper of the Bowels and strengthening of them The Obstructions are taken away by the Medicines which were mentioned in the Cure of the Obstructions of the Liver and Spleen adding some things which respect the Womb and that are more proper to open those Veins First then give a purging Medicine agreeable to the Patients temper made of gentle things to clense the first Region only and a Clyster before it if the Body be bound Then open a Vein if the Disease be not very old and the Maid very much without blood and inclining to an evil habit Let the Vein of the Arm be opened first although the Terms be stopped for if then you draw blood from the Foot the Obstructions of the Veins of the Womb will be greater by their fulness And if the Liver be most stopped take blood from the right Arm if the Spleen from the left After you have bled sufficiently you must give an ordinary Purge by way of an Apozeme such as was prescribed in the Cure of the Obstructions of the Liver To which you may add some Herbs that are proper to the Womb as Mugwort Feaverfew Peny-royal and if the Spleen be stopped you may add proper things for that as Capar barks Ceterach or Spleenwort Harts-tongue It the temper be Chollerick and there be signs of a hot and dry Liver you must take all the hot simples out of the Apozeme and put in cold openers instead thereof For the more delicate Virgins instead of Apozemes you may give the Broths prescribed in the aforesaid Cure of the Liver and change the simples as we said of the Apozeme In the mean while you may use Fomentations and Liniments prescribed in the same Chapter not only to the Liver but to the Spleen and Womb. After Purging 〈◊〉 this Bath following to open and loosen the Vessels and to dissolve and digest the Matter 〈◊〉 Obstructions which are of such force that we have known somtimes the Terms to begin to flow at the third or fourth bathing when they have formerly been long stopped Take of Marsh-mallow Roots Lilly Roots Elicampane Briony wild Cucumer of each two pound Mallows Violets Mercury Penyroyal Feaverfew Balm of each four handfuls Linseed and Fenugreek beaten of two ounces boyl them in spring Water for a Bath Let her go into it warm twice in a day not sweating long before and after meat for two daies renewing each day the Decoction The day after the last Bath if the Terms be stopped let the lower Veins be opened and take away three ounces of blood and this may be done twice or thrice at that time in which the Terms used to flow Or if they never did appear at that time in which the Patient is most asslicted After these Medicines to strengthen the Bowels and to wear away the reliques of the Obstructions an opening and strengthening Opiate wil do very wel described in the place mentioned to which you may add two drams of Foecula Brioniae and as much of Salt of Mugwort But because somtimes the Obstructions are so great that they wil not presently be cured you must make a Magistral Syrup of the Ingredients to the Apozeme before mentioned with an encrease of the purging Medicines in quantity and
let the Patient take it twice or thrice in a month The ordinary Pils mentioned in the Cure of the stoppage of the Liver are most excellent to which you may add the Medicines there mentioned of Tartar Vitriol and Steel Zacutus Lusitanus Observ 99. Lib. 2. reports of a certain Woman which had the Green-sickness ten yeers with stoppage of her Terms and could not be cured with divers opening and purging Medicines and some made of Steel that he cured her with nothing but Conserve of Mugwort given thirty daies together drinking after it the distilled Water of Savin in which Rhubarb had been a whol night insused The same Zacutus Observ 117. Lib. 3. tels of a Virgin which eating much Salt every day felinto a Diarrhoea of Choller mixed with a Consumption which he cured after general Medicines with Goats Milk steeled and cold things applied to the Liver In the greatest Obstructions an Issue made in the right or left Legg as the Liver or Spleen is affected is very good After the Obstructions are opened you must diseuss the flegm like serous humors that remain in the Veins and in the habit of the Body by sweats for which you must use the Decoction of Guajacum in cold Constitutions or of China and Sarsa in those that are hot for fifteen or twenty daies with this Caution That every fourth or fifth day you give a Purge to clense the Bowels of Humors which cannot be sent forth by sweat and which if they continue wil grow hard and putrefie and be the occasion of Feavers and other Diseases For this Purpose you may use Brimstone Baths both for drink and bathing for by the drinking thereof when the passages are first open by the Medicines aforesaid the Humor that is contained in the first and second Region of the Body is clensed and sent forth by the belly and urine and the third Region is clensed by sweating in them And lastly Copulation if it may be legally done after the use of opening Medicines is very good for thereby the Natural heat is stirred up in parts Natural by which the Vessels of the Womb are much enlarged And Experience teacheth that somtimes these Women have their Terms the first night after Marriage and that others who in good health have them before their accustomed time Chap. 2. Of the stoppage of the Terms THe Terms are said to be stopped when in a Woman ripe of Age which gives not suck and is not with Child there is a seldom smal or no evacuation of blood by the Womb which used to be every month The cause of this stoppage is either in the Womb or in its Vessels or in the blood which comes or ought to come that way Divers Diseases of the Womb may cause this Disease namely a cold Distemper and dry which thickeneth and bindeth the Body of the Womb or a hot and dry distemper by drying the part or burning up the nourishment thereof from whence come evil humors which being fastened in the part hinder the Terms from flowing Also the Organical Diseases of those parts as inflamation or scirrhus the turning of the inward mouth thereof or compression from the Tumors of the parts adjacent or the Omentum or Caul growing too thick The thickness of the Womb it self Ulcer or Scars which they leave or from the tearing of the Cotyledones or Mouths of the Vessels in a great Abortion The Vessels of the Womb do often suffer Obstruction which is the chief cause of stopping of the Terms and they come from cold and thick Humors somtimes there is a suppression of those Veins by binding of them and that is from the parts adjacent being stretched and swoln as we said in the binding or closing of the Womb. The blood offending either in quantity quality or motion may be cause of the obstruction of the Courses It offends in quantity when it is too much or too little too much when it stretcheth out the Veins so that they cannot contract themselves to expel it as in the bladder when it is too full of Urine it cannot contract it self to send it forth too little when the Body hath not blood enough to nourish it The blood offends in quality when it is thicker and more slimy of its own Nature by reason of the cold distemper of the Liver and other parts or from the mixture of thick and flegmatick or melanchollick humors from whence commonly Obstructions come The blood offends in motion when it passeth other waies as by the Nose vomiting spittle urine hemorrhoids and many other parts I saw a Maid who had a Sore in her head which opened every month and bled plentifully and we have seen many that have sent forth blood at fixed times by their Lungs and this evacuation was instead of a Menstrual flux The external Causes are cold and dry Air Northern winds often going into cold water especially in the time of their flux too little or two much meat either too thick and cold or too astringent also hot things as too much Salt and Spice by drying of the substance of the Liver and other parts and by drying up the blood by which it groweth thick and fit to stop violent exercise and watchings which do consume the blood long sleep and idleness which do weaken the Natural heat and cause Crudities too long retaining of Excrements by usual bleeding at the Nose Hemorrhoids Diarrhoea and other evacuations by vomit urine or sweat and lastly great passions of the mind anger sudden fear sorrow jealousie and the like The Knowledge of this is to be taken from the Patients relation but because it comes either from Natural or Preternatural Causes we shal lay down some distinguishing signs left the Physitian be deceived by Women that would dissemble their being with Child and left he should rashly prescribe Medicines to provoke Terms to Women with Child First If they be with Child they have commonly their Natural Complexion but others are pale and ill colored Secondly The Symptomes which Women with Child have at the first do dayly decrease but in others stoppage of the Terms by how much the longer the Terms stop by so much the more the Symptomes encrease Thirdly In Women with Child after the third Month you may perceive the Scituation and Motion of the Infant by laying your hand upon the inferior Belly in others there is a Tumor to be felt but it is oedematous or flegmatick not hard neither is it proportionable to the Womb. Fourthly If a wise Midwife touch the inward Mouth of the Womb it will not be so close shut as in women with Child but rather hard and contracted and full of pain Fiftly Women with Child are commonly merry and little disturbed but when the Terms are otherwise stopped they are sad and sorrowful The Signs of the Causes are these The faults of the Womb which use to cause stoppage of the Terms shal be laid down in the following Chapters but the greatest
part of them is found out by touching seeing and relation of the Patients The Obstruction and straightness of the Vessels of the Womb are known by pain in the Loyns and parts adjacent especially in the time the Terms should flow and if any thing flow at that time it is slimy white and blackish Now the Diseases of the adjacent parts which may shut the mouth of the Womb or the Veins will appear by their proper signs You may know the abounding of blood in the Veins by the swelling of the Veins in the Thighs and Arms especially if the Woman be fleshy and red and have fed high You may suppose there is want of blood if the Woman be fat if she have had a long Feaver went before or loathing of meat The evil quality of the blood is known by the evil habit of the Body by the distemper of the Liver and other parts and especially by the blood it self if you can see some of it The preposterous motion of the blood when it flows another way is manifest of it self As to the Prognostick The stoppage of the Terms is very dangerous and many great diseases come thereof and some in the Womb it self as swellings imposthumes and Ulcers others in the whol Body and divers parts thereof as Feavers Obstructions evil Habits Loathing Dropsie Heart-ach Cough short Breathing Fainting sore Eyes Madness Melancholly Headach Joynt-gout and the like Hippocrates Lib. 1. of Womens Diseases hath shewed the encrease of Diseases from the stopping of the Terms in these words The third month after the stoppage of the Terms they begin to feel suffocations or shortness of breath with horrors heaviness of the Loyns and somtimes a Feaver But if it last long the Belly grows hard they piss much they loath meat and watch much they grate their Teeth in sleep and if they continue longer stopped the pains will be greater but in the sixth month that Disease which was formerly curable will be then incurable then she wil be troubled in mind and faint vomit flegm thirsty the Belly about the Privities will be pained there will be a Feaver and the Body bound and the Urine stopped the Back will ach and she will stammer Afterwards the Leggs Feet and Belly will swell and the Urine be red bloody and pain over all the Body especially the Neck and Back-bone and Groyns and so they die of a Dropsie Thus far Hippocrates But here is a doubt because the Author saith That in the sixt month the Disease is incurable when Experience teacheth the contrary and Hippocrates himself 4. Epid. reports that a Maid who had her Terms stopped for seven Yeers was restored to health by the return of them Hippocrates may be reconciled to himself by saying That after six months the Disease is incurable when the Terms are in the Body or Cavity of the Womb because there they putrefie and come to suppuration as in the After-birth or Blood retained But this is not to be understood of every Suppuration That Stoppage is least dangerous which comes from plenty of good Blood or fat bleeding or other Evacuations because those Causes may easily be removed That is harder to be cured which comes from heaviness of Humors Obstruction of Vessels or straitness because that stubborn Humor getting into the innermost passages cannot be got forth but by long pains and Medicines which Women are very unwilling to receive That stoppage which cometh from the distemper only of the Womb is worst because the part being hurt by propriety is hard to be cured by reason of the continual flux of Humors which the part is disposed to receive and therefore is called the Jakes of the whol Body The Cure of this Disease is divers according to the variety of the Causes And first if it come from too much blood you must abate the quantity by Phlebotomy in the Arm for if the lower veins should be first opened the blood would be drawn more to the Womb where it would make greater obstruction and distention of Vessels and break them or cause Inflamation of the Womb. After the Plethory or abundance of blood is taken away you must draw the blood down by opening the lower Veins about the time that the Patient used before to be clensed as also by Frictions Ligatures Cupping-glasses dry and with Scarrification These things done you must relax and soften the parts of the Womb with Fomentations and Baths and moistening Unguents which if they cannot master the Disease you may give Hysterical Purges and such as do properly provoke the Terms which we shal after descrhibe cusing the mildest If want of Blood be the cause as after long Feavers great Evacuations and Extenuation of the Body you must not provoke them till you have used Restoratives and blood be renewed and whatsoever is the cause of extenuation be removed which things being done the Terms do commonly flow of themselves which if they do not but Nature forgets her office you must open the inferior Veins and use the Medicines afore mentioned so that you take not away too much blood becaus the strength is little and lest the Patient fal into a Consumption But here you must diligently mark That every extenuation of the body doth not signifie want of blood but only after great evacuations consuming Causes for it comes to pass somtimes that the Terms stopt in the Veins get an evil quality which makes the blood unfit to nourish hence comes leanness although the Veins be filled with much bad blood and then large bleeding is very good as Galen confirms Comment 3. in Lib. 6. Epid. I saith he cured a Woman that had her Courses stopped eight months when she was lean by drawing much blood as also others But what happened to that famous Woman was remarkable I opened a Vein when other Physitians feared the success and were against me saying that it must hurt her not only because she was lean but also because she had no stomach to eat But these yong Physitians had a more Sophistical way to observe what happened to the Patients and to neglect the affects and Causes which are the ground of Cure I took to my best remembrance the first day a pint and an half of blood from the woman the next day one pint the third not above half a pint or eight ounces Thus Galen By which it is manifest That from lean women of this disease you may take a great quantity of blood although the women of our Age will not endure it The stoppage of the Courses comes from a preposterous motion of the blood when it is sent forth by the Nose Vomiting spitting or Hemorrhoids and the like The Cure is by repelling it from those parts and bringing it to the passage of the Womb. First while they bleed you must wash Arms Head and Face with cold Water and keep them from the use of those parts especially loud speaking then you must open a Vein beneath Two or three daies
in this Disease are chiefly the Brain Stomach Liver Spleen Mesentery and the Bladder which dispatch their Excrements unto such parts as are more weakly and so more disposed to receive them These Excrementitious Humors are bred in the Womb because when it is unable to digest its proper nourishment by means of the weakness of its Retentive or Concoctive Faculty the greater part of its Aliment is turned into Excrements being imperfectly digested or corrupted rather It is imperfectly digested in cold distempers of the Womb and it is corrupted in hot distempers thereof And seeing the Womb by want of Digestion is defrauded of its Nutriment it presently draws new Aliment which being turned into Excrements is by the Womb expelled as unprofitable and new Aliment is continually drawn whereby this flux of evil Humors from the Womb becomes both plentiful and continual The Womb is weakened and more disposed to the Reception of these Excrements by Child-bearing travelling in Child-birth Abortion and Contusion Inflamation Imposthumes or Ulcers The Signs of this Disease are referred to the Infirmity it self to the part affected or to the cause producing the Disease The Disease it self is easily known by relation of the sick party and it is often times attended with divers Symptomes viz. Paleness of Face want of Appetite sickness of Stomach short breathing weakness swelling of the Eyes fulness pensiveness and sadness thick Urines turbulent and many other accidents which differ according to the diversity of the Humors offending as we shall declare more distinctly by and by The part affected and the place in which these Excrementitious Humors causing the flux are bred may beknown by these following tokens If the matter of the Flux is bred in the whol Body these signs do shew it viz. Weariness and heaviness not proceeding from any work of which the Patient is eased having disburdened her self by the flux plentifully and then again when new matter is collected she begins to be weary and heavy as before her Veins are full her Feet Hands and Thighs are apt to be numbed And these signs do especially discover only a plenitude of Humors But that corrupt Humors do abound in the whol Body is known by an evil habit in the whol Body that is an ugly sickly appearance in the looks and whol outward state of the Body a puffing up of the Hands and Feet an itching and stinging in the whol Body if the Humor be sharp and many such signs as these If the matter offending reside in some peculiar part the Symptomes and Excrements proper to that part discover the same as for example A pain heat and swelling of the Liver with Chollerick Excrements do shew the Liver to be affected and the same Symptomes happening on the left side with Excrements of a Melanchollick appearance do argue the flux to spring from the Spleen Flegmatick Excrements Stomach-sickness want of Appetite and somtimes extream Appetite frequent corruption of the meat and sowr belchings or fatty as of the Dripping-pan or over-scorched flesh are sure tokens of the Stomachs faultiness Pain of the Head Froathy Excrements some usual evacuation by the mouth or nostrils being stopped do witness that flux springs from the Head If none of the aforesaid signs of some part affected appear then we may conjecture that the flux proceeds primarily from the womb Also the Woman in such a case is well colored the matter flowing is but little in quantity being the excrement of the womb alone There have preceded such causes as weaken the Womb as are hard Travel Abortion a Fall upon the Belly or Back immoderate Carnal Embraces especially if the woman have been too young married Tumors Ulcers and other Infirmities of the Womb whose signs are propounded in their proper Chapters The Humor causing the Flux is known chiefly by the colors of that which comes away which were a little before declared and which appear in the cloaths wherewith it is received if as Hippocrates teacheth in his second Book of Womens Infirmities the said cloaths being dried shall be after washed in Water alone and dried in the shadow for so they manifestly declare the color of that Humor which most abounds in the Excrements Hereunto may be added the signs of an Humor abounding in the whol Body usually delivered in that part of the Institution of Physick which treats of Signs In the last place We are to propound such Signs as distinguish this Disease from others like unto it as namely Excretion of Purulent matter proceeding from an Ulcer of the Womb and the Gonorrhoea or flux of Seed It is distinguished from purulent Matter by the signs of an Ulcer in the Womb which shall be set down in their proper Chapter as likewise because the Purulent Matter or Quittor is much thicker whitish and lesser in quantity if it be digested rightly but if it be of a goary sanious and fleshy appearance like blood and water mingled there is then blood amongst the matter and it is wont somtimes to come away with strings from the Womb and with exceeding pain also the Women that have Ulcers in the Womb or its Neck admit not of Copulation but with pain which exasperates their Disease but those which are troubled only with the Whites do willingly and patiently suffâ—r themselves to be embraced by their Husbands In the Gonorrhoea the matter which comes away is not so much in quantity is thicker of a more shining whiteness holds up longer from flowing and seldom or never stinks But if it be a virulent or venemous Gonorrhoea such as accompanies the Letchers Pocks it is known by sharpness of Urine Ulcers of the Privy parts and other Signs that argue Malignity The Predictions or Prognosticks of this Disease are as followeth This Disease in one respect may be called good in another respect bad Good forasmuch as commonly it is not attended with any danger of death and bad because it is a stubborn Disease long lasting and most exceeding hard to be cured forasmuch as the flux of evil Humors having once taken this course is very hardly turned out of its Channel because the Womb as we said before is the Draught of the whol Body whereby even in time of Health the superfluous Humors of the whol Body are monthly evacuated If this Infirmity get head it may bring many other Evils upon the Patient as Barrenness falling down of the Womb Exulceration Cachexia Dropsie and Consumption A Flux of Whites blewish bloody stinking is worse than the white pale not stinking The longer this Disease hath lasted the harder it is to cure It attends old Women to the grave for the most part because of their abounding with flegm and the weakness of their Concoctive Faculty The Cure of this Disease is to be begun by a convenient purging of the Peccant Humor And because â—legmatick and wheyish Humors do most commonly oftend such things as purge those Humors must chiefly be used and with them Purgers of Choller or
cause and are to be cured by the self same Medicines so that the aforesaid Authors are fain to repeat the same things over and over in several Chapters not without much weariness to the Reader We therefore That we may more briefly and methodically set down the Nature of all these infirmities think it worth our labor first to set down the universal Causes of them all and afterwards to declare how those Diseases arise from the said Causes We have shewed in the beginning of this Chapter that there are two special Causes of all these Symptoms viz. the Womans Seed and the Menstrual Blood being retained beside the intent of Nature and corrupted and possessed of a malignant and venemous quality out of which malignant Vapors do arise and afflict divers parts of the Body Unto which Doctrine generally propounded two other things of greatest moment must be added viz. First That not only the Seed and menstrual Blood do produce Hysterical or Womb-sicknesses but divers Humors also of an excrementitious Nature flowing into the VVomb and by a long abiding growing putrefied and sending out filthy Vapors This is verfied by many Ancient VVomen who being destitute of menstrual Blood and of Seed are yet very much subject to these VVomb-sicknesses or Hysterical passions Secondly that not only vapors arising out of the aforesaid substances are causes of these distempers but the very Humors themselves are a cause which finding no free vent by the Veins of the Womb into which as a Common-shore Nature disburthens superfluous Humors by reason of the stoppage of the Monthly Courses or of the Whites they flow back again into the superior parts of the Body and doe infect the said parts with that vitious quality which they have contracted by their long abiding in the Vessels of the Womb or by their mixture with Seed or Menstrual Blood corrupted These Foundations being thus laid down let us see how Hysterical Symptomes are stirred up by the Causes aforesaid beginning with the Suffocation or strangling fits of the Mother which is the most frequent and principal Sickness of these kind of Women being accompanied with very many and those most grievous Symptomes For besides their breathing impaired and somtimes abolished their whol Body becomes cold their Speech and Pulse is intercepted so that they lie like dead Women and some have been accounted dead and laid out for Burial and yet afterward Revived Now this Sickness comes by fits which makes their returns somtimes sooner somtimes later and endure somtimes a longer somtimes a shorter time according to the quantity of the Humor offending which is somtimes quickly collected and somtimes long in gathering somtimes soon discussed and somtimes long before it can be discust For such like Causes of Diseases in the Body of Man have their times of digestion and exaltation which having arrived unto they do suddenly and as it were in a moment break forth into action Yea and such Humors being already collected in the Body may for a season lie hid until being stirred by some internal or external Cause they shed forth their poysonous blasts and vapors into other parts of the Body Now the most frequent and noted Caused of this Commotion and Agitation of these Humors are sweet smelling things coming neer the Patients Nose or sweet Meats taken in which quickly bring Women subject to this Insirmity into their fits also vehement Anger Terror and other grievous Passions of the Mind Now there are divers Degrees of this Sickness according as the Matter offending differs in Quantity or Malignity For somtimes the Choaking-fits with want of breathing are light and soon go over somtimes it is extream so that the Patient breaths not at all and is attended with other Hysterical or Womb-sicknesses such as Vomitings Ravings Convulsions and Swoonings or Faintings away And for the most part more grievous Symptomes do arise from corrupted Seed than from Menstrual Blood or other corrupted Humors For look how much Seed retaining its Natural Disposition is of a more excellent Nature than Menstrual Blood by so much does it degenerate when corrupted into a greater or worser kind of Venom or Poyson There are likewise other Differences of this Choaking Mother-sickness to be observed viz. That somtimes the Patients have their Breath stopt as it were somtimes they complain that they are choaked as it were with a Rope that strangled them and somtimes their breathing is much abated or abolished without any pain or sence of strangling The Reason of which diversity is this That the simple Suffocation and difficulty of breathing do arise from abundance of Vapors which do somtimes very much abound in Hysterical or Womb-sick Women especially when the Hysterical Passion and Hypochondriacal Melancholly are joyned together Which Vapors or Winds do compress the Midrif and Lungs as it is wont to fall out in the windy Asthma but the sence of choaking in which the Patient feels her self as it were strangled in her Throat depends upon a special property of the venemous Vapor as there are other Poysons in the greater World which have such a property of throatleing and choaking as is known of one sort of Mushroms And that the venemous qualities bred in Hysterical Women are divers Galen does sufficiently hint in his sixt Book of the parts affected Chap. 5. where he compares the malignity of this Vapor to the venom of the Fish Torpedo and to the sting of a Scoâ—pion which Poysons though in quantity they are smal in operation they are mighty and being received into mans Body they do in a short space of time grievously afflict the same and produce therein most vehement Symptomes As for Respiration diminished or abolished it is caused by the said Vapors being endued with a Narcotick or Stupefactive power which being mighty contrary unto the Heart and Vital Spirits their action is thereby hindered whence follows a cooling of the whol Body through defect of that Spirit which should flow from the Heart and a cessation of Respiration because there is now no need thereof For seeing that drawing of Breath is necessary to cool our Hearts when the Heart is extreamly cooled by the venemous Vapors aforesaid it needs none of that cooling which is caused by drawing in the Air and so breathing ceases because there is no use thereof We may also say That the said venemous and stupefying vapor does assault the Brain and hinder the Influx of the Animal Spirits whereby the motion of the Midrif and the Muscles serving for respiration is hindered ad hereunto That the Vital Spirits being destroyed the Animal Spirits which are made of the Vital must needs be destroyed likewise In the place before alleaged Galen resolves a Doubt which is this That seeing it is generally held that a man cannot live without breathing therefore it is impossible that Hysterical persons should in their fits be quite deprived of breathing To which he answers That in an extream cooling of the Heart there is no need of
their Eyes redness springs up in their Cheeks Sence and motion is restored their Body grows warm they fetch deep Sighs and so the Sick-Party by little and little is freed from her Fit By the Signs propounded Womb-sickness may easily be distinguished from such infirmities as are of kin or otherwise like the same viz. the Syncope Swooning-sickness Apoplexie blasting Planeâ—-striking and the Falling-sickness howbeit the difference between Womb-sickness and those diseases aforesaid is peculiarly to be noted And in the first place by three general Signs we may conjecture that these Symptoms which are common to Womb-sickness and the aforesaid maladies do proceed rather from the Womb than from any primary misaffection of the Heart or Brain The first whereof is that if the sick Patient be subject to Womb-sickness and hath been often anoyed with aforesaid Symptoms when they come afresh we may conclude the Disease to be no other than Womb-sickness The second is That when Women begin to feel those Symptoms they complain that their Womb is out of order A third is That in Womb-sickness Women do feel great ease when stinking things are put to their Noses and sweet smelling things are put in by the Water-gate which in those other infirmities falls not out And the Hysterical or womb-sickness is more peculiarly distinguished from that which we cal Syncope or the Swooning-Fits because in the Syncope the breathing and Pulse do wholly cease but in the VVomb-sickness it remaines in a small measure til they come into the very height of the Fit wherein is most danger Secondly The Swooning Fits come more quickly and seaze upon the Patient as it were on a sudden But in the VVomb-Fit there proceed evident tokens of the approaching Fit Thirdly The Patients Face is paler in the Swooning-fits than in the Womb-fits yea verily some Women have a ruddy countenance in their Fits of the Mother and than the Disease is sufficiently known by that Sign alone Fourthly In the Swooning Fits we find commonly cold and Diaphoretick Sweats which in the Womb-fits appear not Fiftly The Swooning Fits aâ—e shorter and the Patient is soon either wel or dead but the strangling Fits of the Mother last longer continuing a whol day or divers daies together sometimes But it is to be remembred that the Swooning-sickness and the Womb-fits are somtimes joyned together when the Heart is more grievously afflicted than ordinary or when the Patients strength hath been much weakned by protraction of the Disease and then the Symptoms of both Diseases may be mixed one with another The Womb-Fit is distinguished from the Apoplexie First because that in the Wombs-Choaking-Fits the Joynts are not so loosened neither is the Sence of feeling wholly gone as in the Apoplexie but if they be pricked or have their hairs puld off they give a sufficient Sign with their Hands that they feel the pain Secondly In persons Apoplectical Planet-struck as the simpler sort do phrase it there is a perpetual snorting of the Patient but in the Womb-stranglings not Thirdly Womb-strangled Patients when their Fit is over remember what was done and said during their extremity but in the Apoplexie it is not so It is distinguished from the Falling-sickness First Because convulsive motions are not alwaies â—â—yned with Hysterical Suffocations and those that do accompany the womb-Fits are not so Universal as in the Falling sickness but molest only one or two members Secondly The Pulse is greater in the Fits of the Falling-sickness than it uses to be when the Patient is wel but in the Mother-Fits it is quite contrary Thirdly In the Falling-sickness the Patient fomes at the mouth but in the Mother-Fits there is no such foming Fourthly In the Falling-sickness the Patient remembers not what was done to her during the Fit but in the Mother-sickness she remembers al as we shewed before Fiftly Those that have Fits of the Mother do in the end of the Fit come to themselves like persons awaked from sleep with a noyse in the lower part of the Belly the Womb as it were becoming quiet and returning to it 's Natural place and sometime much humor flows from the Womb which doth not befal such as have the Falling-sickness We must also enquire how such as are in the Fits of the Mother may be distinguished from those that are quite dead seeing many Histories relate that some Women in that Case have been accounted dead appointed to buryal yea and some buryed The waies which Authors prescribe to make this tryal are divers For either they lay teazed wool or light Feathers upon the Patients mouth and if they stir not she is given over for dead or they apply a bright looking Glass to her mouth which will be dulled with her breath if she be yet alive or they set a cup full of water upon her breast and if the water stir not they account the party dead These Signs do for the most part hold good but they are not perpetual neither do they put the matter past dispute seeing as was said before some VVomen in these Fits do live only by Transpiration as those live-wights which live in holes al the winter and fetch no breath at al by their mouths VVhich though it very seldom fals out yet it is a very good Caution not to suffer women which die of this Disease to be buried til the third day after their death or at least til they begin to stink The Signs of the Causes are likewise to be declared which Causes we have shewed to be three viz. Seed retained and corrupted Menstrual Blood in like manner retained and corrupted and vile humors contained in the vessels or in the Cavitie of the womb If this Disease arise from Seed retained or corrupted there have preceeded al those Causes which might encrease gather together and corrupt the Seed in the vessels as flourishing age ripe for Generation or formerly accustomed to the actions thereof which of late it hath left off Sanguine complexion an idle life and given to pleasures a rich and plentiful table with the use of such meates as are easily corrupted In such persons if the womb-Fits happen they having their Courses wel we may guesse they come from Seed retained If these womb-Fits depend upon the Menstrual Blood retained and corrupted as their cause the Patients Courses are either wholly stopt or flow very little and to no purpose and she her self is not to seek for carnal Embracements but wel provided And some Symptoms do attend this suppression as Melancholly Waspishness Sluggishness Drowsiness Head-ach swelling of the Dugs heaviness of the Loyns and Thighs That this Disease comes from evil Humors is known by the Patient having her Courses well being exercised sufficiently with actions of Generation by her being stept into years or being very sull of evil Humors or being troubled with some other Disease in her womb We must also set down these Signs of those other Symptoms which we formerly described as springing from
require Hence Four Impediments of Conception do arise viz. If the woman receive not the Seed If she retain it not If she preserve and cherish it not If she nourish it not so as it encrease and grow Reception of the Seed is hindered by many Causes by things Natural things not Natural and by things Preternatural Among things Natural hindering the Reception of the Sperm in the first place is reckoâ—ed yongness of Age in which by reason of the smalness and straitness of the Genital Parts the woman cannot receive the mans yard or not without very great pain which makes her worse for Genial Embracements The same effect is caused by over great Age seeing that in elderly Virgins the Genital Parts through want of being exercised in actions tending to Generation do become withered flap and flaggy and so strait that they cannot afterwards easily â—dmit a mans Yard Likewise all such as are naturally lame with distorted Legs and their Crupper-bone depressed can hardly put themselves into such a convenient posture during the genial Embracement as a necessary that the Seed may be duly and rightly received Hereunto add over great fatness which straitens the Passages of the womb and by greatness of the Belly hinders the right and fit Conjunction of the man with the woman And lastly a cold distemper of the womb makes women dull and listless so that they enjoy no pleasure to speak of in the Genial Embracement or it is long before they are provoked with desire so that the inner Orifice of the Womb is not timely enough opened to receive the Mans Sperm Among things not Natural Passions of the Mind hold the first rank and especially hatred between Man and VVife by means whereof the VVoman being averse from this kind of pleasure gives not flown sufficient quantity of Spirits wherewith her Genitals ought to swel at the instant of Generation that her womb skipping as it were for joy may meet her Husbands Sperm graciously and freely receive the same and draw it into its innermost Cavity or Closet and withal bedew and sprinkle it with her own Sperm powred forth in that pang of Pleasure that so by the commixture of both Conception may arise The things Preternatural which can hinder the Reception of Seed are certain Diseases incident to the Genital Parts or to such as border neer upon them as Tumors Ulcers Obstructions Astrictions Shuttings up Distorsions Stone in the Bladder and other such like The Second fault in Women which hinders Conception viz. When the Seed is not retained depends either upon the over great moisture of the Womb namely when the womb is filled with many excrementitious Humors by which becoming looser and more flaggy than is fit it doth not rightly purse and contract it self together so as to retain the Sperm or the Orifice of the Womb is so slack that it cannot rightly contract it self to keep in the Seed which chiefly is caused by Abortion or hard Labor in Child-birth whereby the fibres of the Womb are broken in pieces one from another and they and the inner Orifice of the Womb over much slackened And that same immoderate moisture may arise both from the proper Constitution of the woman and from external causes of moisture such as Baths Idleness moist Diet and especially from the Whites which flux of Whites happens very frequently since the Womb is as it were the Common-shore whereinto all the parts of the Body do discharge their Superfluities so that this is wont to be the most frequent and ordinary Cause of Barrenness The Third Cause hindering Conception viz. When the Sperm is not sufficiently nourished in the Womb depends upon such things as are apt to corrupt the Seed as every distemper of the womb namely a cold distemper which extinguisheth the Seed an hot distemper which dissipates the Spirits a moist distemper which robs the Seed of its due thickness and a dry distemper consumes and drinks up the Seed and thus the Seed being by these distempers corrupted and degraded from its natural Constitution becomes unfit for Conception To these Causes Authors do add Witchcrafts and Charms by which all confess that Conception may be hindered Likewise external things as Meats and Poysons may do as much such as are reckoned up by Authors viz. Among Meats Vinegar Mint Water-Cresses Beans and such like and among Poysons or at least such things as have a certain venemous property causing Barrenness The Agate or Jet â—he Matrix of a Goat or Mule Glow-worms Sapphires Smaragds and the like And lastly Malignant and venemous Diseases may exceedingly corrupt the Seed and render it unfit for Generation as the Consumption Leprous Infections Whores-Pox stinking and cancerated Ulcers The Fourth and last Cause of Barrenness viz. When the woman doth not yield convenient matter to form the Conception and to augment the same depends upon a want of Seed and Menstrual blood so over yong women and over old do not conceive through want of both those Materials The Age of a woman fit for to conceive is commonly determined to be from the fourteenth to the fiftieth yeer of her Age. Yea and though those foresaid Materials are not wanting if yet they are ill disposed they are not fit for Generation And they may be ill disposed through divers distempers and other Diseases likewise by reason of bad Diet producing none of the best blood So women which gorge themselves with much raw fruit and cold smal drink breed wheyish blood unfit for Generation Yet we must needs confess that some women have conceived who never had their Courses as may be collected out of the Observations of divers Authors yet so much Menstrual blood was collected in those women as useth to remain over and above in such as have their Courses though they had not so much as to cause their monthly Courses To the Causes hitherto mustered up must be added a certain disproportion or unsutableness between the Mans Sperm and the Womans which makes they cannot be rightly mingled nor conspire to the Joynt-making up of an Embrion or Rudimental Infant though there be in the mean while no sensible defect either in the Man or Wife And it somtimes happens that the same man can have a child by another woman and the same woman by another man whereas they have lived together in the married estate barren It comes likewise to pass That a woman shall live with a man for ten or more yeers together and not conceive child and afterward shall begin to conceive and bring forth the Cause of which accident is The change of Temperature caused by yeers whereby the Seed comes to have another temper so that being before disproportioned to the mans Seed it comes by change of Age to be fitly proportioned thereunto Now this disproportion of Seeds consists chiefly herein When men much exceeding in some quality belonging to their temper are joyned with women which partake of the self same excess viz. When over hot men
in perfumed Linnen if in the morning the crown of her head shall smel of Galbanum the woman is wel purged and wil be fruitful You may try the same if you put a little Balsom mingled with Water and received in Cotton into the Womb binding it with a string to her Thigh for if the womb do draw it inwards it is a most approved sign of fruitfulness Amatus Lusitanus commends this following as a most true sign He takes a dram of a Hares Runnet which dissolved in warm water he gives the woman to drink being in a bath of hot water and fasting If the Woman do then feel pains in her Belly he pronounceth her fruitful if not barren Many seek to know the Barrenness of a woman by her Urine wherein they steep Barley which Barley if it grow within ten daies they count it a sign of Fruitfulness if not they account it a certain token of Barrenness And others Finally do powr the Womans water upon Bran or Fenugreek and take it for a note of barrenness if Worms breed there For a Conclution to these Discoveries We shall diligently consider and enquire whether Conception and Generasion be not hindred by fault of the Man or any defficiency in him For in such a Case it were vainly done to torment the Woman with a multitude of Medicines Barrenness proceeding from the Man may be known by the diseases of his Genital parts as inability to raise his Yard want of Sperm Swelling of his Stones Gonorrhoea and the rest And it gives some token hereof if the Man be faint hearted and Womanish by Nature if he want a Beard be slow in casting forth his Sperm and his Sperm be cold so that his Wife feel it cold in her Womb if he have little or no Lust to Carnal Embracements and perceive very little pleasure therein And lastly If such Causes have preceded which are of power to make the Seed unfruitful The Prognostick must be regulated according to the Method of the Causes as we have ranked them And in the first place Tenderness of Age hinders conception only for a time which cannot be expected till the Woman is more grown But Elderly years cause a Total dispaire of Conception But if the Parties Courses do as yet proceed in due season there may be yet some hope of Conception howbeit very smal especially in such Women as are at the fortieth yeer of their Age for although Women that have had Children younger are likewise wont to Conceive at that Age yet such as have never been with Child have little reason to hope that they shal Conceive at that Age because the Womb having been so long unimployed is become withered shrunken up and unfit to Conceive Child Barrenness which is caused by an evil shape of the Members as in such as are Lame have distorted Thighs or their Crupper-Bone depressed is incurable But if Barrenness proceed from over Fatness or some distemper of the womb not over old the cure is to be hoped by procuring leanness and by correcting the Distempers That Barrenness which is caused by other diseases as by a Swelling an Ulcer Obstruction whites want of Courses falling of the Womb Consumption Leprous Mangyness Whores-Pox and such like is easier or harder to cure according as the said diseases are either easie to be cured or hard For the Cure of this disease whichsoever of the causes aforesaid hath produced the same we must seek the removal thereof And in the first place the straitness of the Genital Parts in regard of youngness of Age needs no cure for as Age encreases they attain to a convenient wideness But in the mean time it is necessary that the Party abstain from Carnal Conjunction because the oversoon use thereof doth spoil the natural constitution of those parts Barrenness which is caused by lowness of stature or Elderliness of years is incurable yet endeavour may be used to help the same by Emollient and Relaxing Medicaments provided the Courses do still slow Over great Corpulency must be corrected by an extenuating Diet and convenient Evacuations If Barrenness seem to arise from a bad Course of Diet as in persons given over much to Belly-cheer to Wine or small Drink such women are to be reduced to an exact Course of Life and all excess of eating and drinking must be avoided Viragoes and strong constitution'd women such as come neer to the Nature of Men that they may be 〈◊〉 fit for conception must by all the art possible be effeminated and reduced to such manners as become their sex all meats of grosser nourishment being forbidden them and all labours and exercises their Courses being made conveniently to flow by plenty whereof they may be abated of their manly courage and grow soft and gentle And if their monthly courses shall not suâ—fice to that end their humors must be diminished by frequent Blood-letting and purging and by frequent bathing and other alteratiue remedies the whole habit of their Bodys must be moistened and cooled If Barrenness be caused by Closure of the Womb by distorsion by obstructions by Tumors or Ulcers all these must be remedied by such Medicaments as are propounded in those Chapters which treat of their Respective cures Barrenness depending upon an hidden property in the woman which is natural to her is incurable and therefoâ—e it ought diligently to be enquired after least remedies be applied in Vain If Barrenness come by witch-craft Charming or hidden power of Medicaments there is little place for Physick but the party must have recourse to prayers and supplications which being Zealously poured forth by men eminent in piety do procure Help from the Almighty Howbeit against Medicines which by a secret power do cause barrenness certaine Amulets are propounded by Authors which have a peculiar vertue to resist the malignity of such Medicaments Cardan will have it that the Pizzle of a Wolf worn about the woman will frustrate all such Incantations and fascinations Others do much commend the Adamant and the Hyacinth Stone The Antients called Saint John-wort the Divel-driver The same vertue is likewise attributed to the Squil or Sea-Onion to Eryngus â—agapenum Rue other things being worn by Man Wife Also certain it is that for the parties concerned to endeavour confidently to despise and slight all Charmes and Witch-crafts is very profitable in this case Also if the Author of the Witch-craft be not known it is good for them to Change their Habitation and to forsake their Houses Beds wearing Cloathes and other Houshold stuff wherein the Charmes are oftentimes concealed If an hot Distemper be the cause of Barrennes the same Cure is to be used which was described in the hot distemper of the Liver But if the Excess of Heat be yet more violent recourse must be had to those things which have bin described in our Chapter of Womb-fury But the camphire must be let out of those Medicines Because it is held to be a very great Enemy
nourish the Infant in the Womb. Or if it be an acute Disease without a Feaver as the Falling-sickness Apoplexy Universal Convulsion of the whol Body the Mother and Infant cannot withstand the violence of the Disease neither can they bear such strong Medicines as are requisite to the Cure of those Diseases Yet we must know that this Prognostick is not perpetually true For we know by the Testimonies and Examples in Authors and by dayly Experience that many women with Child having acute Diseases escape with their lives But Chronical or lingering Diseases as Intermitting Agues Catarrhs Tenesmus c. do threaten Abortion and if they cause it not they can hardly be cured before the woman be brought to bed but do keep her company till she lie down Diseases Acute and Chronical in the first and last months are more dangerous than in the intermediate months For in the first months the bands wherewith the Infant is fastened to the Womb are weak so as they may easily be broken and the tender Infant is more easily over pressed with those preternatural Causes But in the last months namely the sixth seventh and eighth the Child being grown greater requires much nourishment which in these Diseases it is deprived of Also the foresaid bands do not stick so fast as in the third fourth and fifth months in which there is less danger of Abortion Therefore Galen doth excellently compare the Child in the Womb to Fruits hanging on a Tree which upon their first growing out have very tender stalks so that they may be easily shaken off with the wind or any other violent commotion and when they are neer ripe they hang not so fast upon the bough as in the intermediate spaces they did Likewise the Cure of the foresaid Diseases in women with child doth remarkably differ as touching their Diet and those two grand Remedies Blood-letting and purging whereunto we may ad Medicaments which evacuate by other waies viz. Such as move the Courie Piss-drivers and Sweat-drivers because it is feared lest by these evacuations abortion may be caused of these therefore we shall only treat at present referring what else belongs to the Cure of these Diseases to the proper Chapters where such respective Diseases are handled As for Matter of Diet it is not to women with Child in Acute Diseases to be enjoyned so spare lest the little Infant be famished neither is it to be allowed so liberal that the Feaver should be thereby strengthened but we must steer a middle course with this Caution That in the first months of their Belly-burden a thin Diet be enjoyned and in the latter somwhat more solid and plentiful because the Child doth then stand in need of more nourishment Yet if there must needs be some error in Diet it is better to err in keeping too full than too slender diet for recovery is chiefly to be expected from the strength of the Mother and the Child Touching bleeding that Aphorism of Hippocrates viz. the 31. of Sect. 5. is presently brought in opposition where he saies If a woman with child be let blood she miscarries especially if the child be grown And Galen renders the Reason in his Comment Because the Blood being let out the Infant wants its nourishment whence follows Abortion On the other side daily Experience shews That in very many Diseases of big-bellyed women especially acute diseases as the Pleurisie Inflamation of the Lungs continual Feavers and such like blood-letting is necessary and may be administred not only in the first but also in the middle months and somtimes in the last months of a womans Belly-bearing Which if it be omitted both Mother and Child are in great danger of death And to this latter Opinion the elder Physitians assent not dissenting from the Mind of Galen and Hippocrates by so doing For therefore it is they held a woman would miscarry if being with Child she were let blood because blood being taken away the Child would want its Nourishment So that if blood may so be taken away as that the Infant shall not want its nourishment there wil be no danger of Abortion thereby Now so the case may stand As first In the first Months of a Womans Belly-bearing while the Infant in the womb is little and wants but little Nourishment for then its Nourishment by bleeding will not be drawn away especially if certain signs of superfluity of blood be apparent in the Mother So that from the first month to the fift blood-letting may be safely practised But in the middle and last Months greater circumspection is to be used because the Child being greater and wanting more Nourishment cannot so safely admit of Phlebotomy Howbeit if the Woman abound with blood and a smal quantity be taken away she may safely be let blood because hereby the Disease will be allaied neither wil so much Nutriment be there by withdrawn from the Child as to cause Abortion But if it seem that Hippocrates thought otherwise let us consider that we let blood after a far other fashion than the Antients did they let blood by pounds and we by ounces The very truth is there is no better way to preserve women from Abortion than by blood-letting when it springs from overmuch blood strangling the Infant and overwhelming the same in such women as have been accustomed out of their time of being with child to have a plentiful flux of Courses for divers daies together Thus Petrus Salius Diversus in the 22. Chapter of his Book of particular Diseases I for my part protest quoth he that I have preserved many women from Abortion which they had often suffered only by letting them blood in the first months of their being big Neither would I have it thought that no other kind of blood-letting may be practised in childing women save that which is sparing or moderate For somtimes plentiful bleeding in the last month hath done very much good And I have somtimes experienced this plentiful Blood-letting in the last month when the women with Child were afflicted with a burning Feaver and were full of Blood hoping thereby an abatement of the Feaver and an hastening of the Birth both which I obtain'd by blood-letting and saved both child and mother in danger of death by this only Remedy Which being in some Patients omitted and neglected by Physitians minding more the words of Hippocrates than the matter it self hath been the cause that both child and mother hath miserably perished being strangled by the plenty and fer vency of blood So far Salius Amatus Lusitanus in the 57. Cure of his I. Section let a woman with child of eighteen yeers of age blood in the sixth month four times with happy succe she being in a burning Feaver And Rodericus a Castro in his third Book of Womens Diseaeases Chap. 21. writes that he let a woman of Lisbon blood who had a Pleurisie in the eight month and was given over for desperate by other Physitians four
to five or six grains Oyl of Cinnamon to four or five Drops Oyl of Amber to twelve or fifteen Drops in VVine Broth or other Liquor Sneezing hastens the Birth or Hippocrates in the Aphor. 35. Sect. 5. Sneezing which happens to a woman in sore Travail is good Sneezing may be provoked by the following Pouder Take White Hellebore half a dram Long Pepper one scurple Castoreum five grains Make all into a Pouder and blow thereof into her â—stâ—â—lls the quantity of a Pease The same Hippocrates prescribes another Remedy in the first Book of womens diseases which is omitted by all authors almost And that is the opening of one of the lower veines of the Body which he propounds in these words But if saith he a Big-bellied woman be so stopped that she cannot bring forth but continues divers daies in her â—ains if she be a yong woman vigorous and full of Blood her Anckleveines must be opened and Blood taken away according as her strength will bear Although this remedy be never used by our Practitioners and it seems much to be feared because in Travail nothing is so needful as strength which may be weakened by Blood-letting Yet if difficult Travail do arise from fullness of blood which Hippocrates doth insinuate in those words where he saies If the woman be yong and in the prime of her strength and very full of Blood there is no question but bleeding may be very profitable because the Veines being very full of Blood are wont to make al other inward passages of the Body more strait Whence it comes to pass that in pains of the Stone in the kidneys the like Blood-letting doth often work wonders and facilitate the expulsion of Stones conteined both in the kidneys and Ureters Also hard Travail may be holpen not only by those inward Medicines prescribed but likewise by outward Let the Midwife therefore frequently anoint the Womb of the Childing woman with Oyls of Lillies sweet Almonds Lin-Seed and such like Also let her belly be fomented on the nether parts with an emollient Decoction of Marsh-mallow and Lilly Roots Leaves of Mallows Violets Mugwort Seeds of Line and Fenugreek with the flowers of Chamomel and Melilot Let sharp Clysters be administred by the provokeing virtue of which the expulsive faculty of the womb may be likewise â—oused up and the Gutts being emptied will afford larger space for the womb Let her Navel be anointed with Oyl of Amber Some commend the Gaul of an Hen applyed to the same part Also such things may be used which are thought by a peculiar property to help the Birth as Aegle-Stone Load-Stone Storax and the rest being fastened to the Hipps Hartmannus Commends the Eyes of an Hare taken in the month of March which are carefully to be taken out and dried entire with Pepper Let one of these with Pepper be so tied to her Belly that the Sight of the Eye may touch her belly and it will bring forth the Child be it alive or dead Which being done take away the Eye least it bring forth the Womb it self He saies likewise that it is good to bring out the Mole Heed is likewise to be taken that the woman carry no Precious Stones about her either in rings or otherwise but let her lay them al away for many of them are conceived by a peculiar property to retain the Child in the womb If the Child seem to be weak it must be refreshed both with strengthening things given to the Mother as warm wine Confectio Alkermes Cinnamon Water and also with things outwardly applied as with a Crust of Bread or a Rose Cake strewed with Pouder of Nutmegs Cinnamon Cloves Kermes Berries and sprinkled with Aqua Imperialis or with warm Wine Or with a peice of Wether-Mutton a little broiled upon a Gridiron and sprinkled with Water of Roses or of Orange-flowers with the call of a wether newly kil'd not yet cold and such like If the Child begin to come forth in a disorderly manner as by putting out one Foot one Hand or any other way the Mid-wife must no waies receive it on that manner but thrust it into the Womb again and compose it to a right and natural posture or form of egress Which must be done by laying the Childing woman on her Back in the Bed with her Head somwhat low and her Buttocks high and then gently pressing her Belly towards the short Ribs and thrusting the Child into the Womb. Afterward let the Midwife endeavour to put the Child into a right posture for coming out by an artificial Hand procuring that the Child turn its face towards the Mothers Back and its Buttocks and shighes let her lift up towards the Mothers navel and so hasten the same unto a natural manner of coming forâ—h When all Hope of the Childs coming forth is past or when the Mether is almost dead some Authors proceed to the Caesarean Section that is to cut the Child out of the Womb as Caesar was cut out of which Francilcus Rossetus hath Printed a most elegant Treatise in which by many reasons and examples he endeavours to shew that such a thing may be somtimes done with good success Howbeit seeing this Operation is very dangerous and terrible it ought seldom or never to be practised by a discreet Physitian that would preserve his own reputation Chap. 19. Of A Dead Child IN sore Travel of Child-birth by reason of great and long Labour the Child is oftentimes killed and somtimes before a womans pains come upon her the Child happens to die through some preternaturall accidents such as those which are wont to cause Abortion and if it hath not attained to the due time of natural Birth it causes Abortion but if it have it causes an hard and sore Travel Because in a due and naturall Birth both the Mother and the Child ought to join their Forces to bring it from the Dark Dungeon to the Liberty of Day All such things therefore which cause difficult Child-birth being in a greater and more grievous degree are of power to kill the Child But especially the Child is wont to be kild if it come in so untoward and preposterous a figure that it can by no means be brought forth in that manner neither can the Midwife or Chyrurgion draw it forth or reduce it to a better Posture For while sticking thus in the mouth of the Womb it frustrates all the endeavours of the Mother straining her self to exclude it it comes to pass that in those sâ—â—ainings various motions and compressions somtimes both Mother and Child somtimes the Mother alone and somtimes the Child alone doth die It is to be admired which Fabricius Hildanus writes touching two women which died through hard Labour in whom their Wombes were found broken a sunder and the Heads of the Infants in their Mothers Bellies By which we may gather how strongly a lusty Child doth labour to work it self out of the Mothers Womb. A Dead Child is
are to be used as do revel the Blood into the superior parts as rubbings and bindings of the upper parts Cupping-glasses fastened under the short Ribs on either side It is good likewise to bath the Patients hands in hot Wine in which Confectio Alkermes or Venice Treacle hath been dissolved Also let her Belly be moderately swathed with a Rowler or Swath-band because hereby the Vessels of Blood will be pressed together and the immoderate flux hindered Let Linnen Cloths be applied to her Loyns moistened with a mixture of Water and Vinegar by which the blood contained in the Vena Cava is tempered and the motion thereof hindered If the flux be very immoderate and weaken the Patient so that there is danger of Death we must have speedy recourse to stronger Remedies Among the rest this following Potion hath commonly good success Take Waters of Plantane Orange flowers and Roses of each one ounce Syrup of Corals or where it is wanting of red Roses one ounce Sal Prunella one dram Dragons blood ten grains Make all into a Potion If the flux do yet continue a Pouder or an Electuary for divers Doses may be prescribed after this manner Take Blood-stone four scruples Pouder of Bole-Armoniack red Coral prepared Pearls of each one dram Seeds of Plantane Coriander prepared and grains of Sumach of each two scruples Mix all and make them into a most fine Pouder of which let her take one dram with the Decoction of Knotgrass and Syrup of Quinces Take Conserves of Roses and of Comfrey Roots of each one ounce Bole-Armoniack Troches de Carabe and prepared coral of each one dram with syrup of coral or of dried red Roses make all into an Electuary of which let her take the Quantity of a Chestnut drinking a little of her ordinary drink after it Also a fomentation and an Oyntment will profitably be applied outwardly made after this manner Take Topps of the red Mastich or Lentisch Plantane Cypress Olive and Solomons Seal of each one handfull Red Rose Leaves two pugills Myrtle Berries one ounce and an half Cypress-Nuts six Peels of Pomgranates two pugils Boyl all in Steel-quenched Water and astringent harsh red Wine and with the strained Liquour bath the Privie Parts very lukewarm and almost coldish Take of the Countesses Oyntment or Uuguentum Comitissae two ounces Jâ—yce of Plantane one ounce worke them together into one Oyntment to be used after the fomentation Also an Injection may be made of the Juyce of Plantane into the Womb commended by Galen in the fifth Book of his Method or of the Decoction of the foresaid fomentation Other remedies not helping to open a vein in the Arm is a present Cure if the Blood be drown out in distant spaces of time for experience hath taught that many women given over as it curable have by this means recovered And finally the disease still remaining all Medicines prescribed for the immoderate flux of the monthly courses may be used in this Case likewise And among the Medicines for immoderate Courses Cataplasmes were propounded to be applied to the share and Loines unto which the following Cataplasm or pultis may be added very good for all immoderate fluxes of Blood but especial for these Child-Bed Purgations Take Pure Soot from the Chimney not mixt with Dart eight ounces work it lustily with the strongest Vineger and make a pultis to be applied to the Reines of the Back And it is here specially to be noted touching sleep that while the Blood flowes plentifully the woman must not be suffered to sleep for many by that means are taken away because the natural heat retiring inward causes the flux to be greater And if sleep in such a case cannot be avoided some must be alwaies by of the servants to feel her pulse and mark how she fetches her Breath In a word if clotters of Blood do settle in the Womb and cause a pain and stretching therein endeavour must be used speedily to bring it out least coming to putrefy they transmit filthy vapours to the Brain and Heart and cause a feaver Therefore the Childing woman if strong enough ought to walk gently or stand bolt upright for some time together or to sit upon the groaning Chair as if she had list to stool And if this suffice not the clotters are to be dissolved with a warm Decoction of French Barly and a little Oxymel or honey of Roses injected into the Womb. But here we must go warily to work least while we bring out the clotters the flux of Blood be afresh provoked Chap. 22. Of Suppression of Child-bed Purgations THe good and happy success of Child-bearing doth especially depend upon the convenient and orderly flux of the Loches or Child-bed Purgations seeing the Impurities which have bin collected in the veins of the Womb during the nine months time of the womans Belly-bearing are wont to be avoided by these evacuations but if they be suppressed wholly or diminished insinite Dangers and Calamities arise thereby viz. acute Feavers Phrenzies Madness Melanchollies Squinzâ—es Pleurisies Inflammations of the Lungs and other swellings which are for the most part malignant The Cause of this supression or imminution are the thickness of the Blood narrowness or obstruction of the vessells which hinders the free egress of the Blood cold air heedlesly received into the Womb which closes the Orifice of the vessels taking cold at the feet drinking of small cold Drink fear Affrightment sadness and other Passions of the mind which withdraw the Course of the Blood from the Womb. This Suppression is manifest of it self and the diminution thereof is not to be judged by the Quantity which comes away because some women have more superfluous blood and some less But the perfect knowledg thereof is gathered from the supervenient Symptoms such as are a swelling of the Belly a pain possessing the nethermost part of the Belly the Loines and Groines redness of face difficulty or breathing perturbation of the Eyes shivering fits Feavers Fainting fits and other Symptomes related before The Prognostick is drawn out of the Symptomes propounded as supervenient to this Disease for they being for the most part dangerous the cause from which they spring must needs be very dangerous likewise Childing women are freed from the foresaid danger if some other evacuation happen which may at least in some measure supply the desect of these purgations as Bleeding at the Nose or by the hemorrhoid veins plenty of Urine with a sooty setling or plentiful sweating Or if after some daies Lead-colored black and stinking matter begin to flow forth But it is to be feared lest by the corrupt blood ulcers should be bred in the womb The whol Cure of this Malady consists in the provocation of these Purgations which must be endeavored by such Medicines as provoke the Course of the Blood downwards and open the Vessels of the Womb. And in the first place Emollient Purging and Opening Clysters are to be administred made after
portion remains behind This happens principally in the Womb-Liver a part whereof is somtimes annexed to the Womb and left there doth putrefie which makes the Child-bed fluxes to come forth greenish stinking and Carrion like and if within few daies it be not separated from the womb and excluded it casts the sick woman into great danger of death seeing it may mortifie the Womb. If Clotters of Blood or any other preternatural thing shal remain in the Cavity of the womb after Child-bearing it may thereby be known because the neck of the womb remains soft and open neither is the inner Orisice thereof shut neither is the womb drawn upwards and whereas when all goes well after Child-birth the womb is drawn upwards and its neck and orifice are quickly shut An Example here of is propounded by Dr. Havey in his Treatise de Partu concerning a woman who having a malignant Feaver and being very weak miscarried and after exclusion of a perfect Child and uncorrupted yet being very weak with a creeping Pulse and cold Sweats she was ready to give up the Ghost He feeling her womb perceived the Orifice thereof lax soft and very wide and putting in his fingers he drew forth a Mole as big as a Gooses Egg having certain holes in it containing a clammy black and stinking putrefied matter and the woman was soon freed from the foresaid Symptomes and quickly recovered her health It happens likewise in some women that the Orifice of the womb presently after their delivery is so shut up that the blood contained within the womb suddenly clottering and putrefying causeth most sad Symptomes and when no Art can bring it forth present death follows Yet Dr. Harvey relates in the place aforesaid the History of a woman cured by him of this Disease The Lips of the Water-gate were swelled and very hot the mouth of the womb was hard and close shut He opened it a little with an Iron Instrument which he forcibly put in so as it would admit an Injection made by a Syringe and thereupon clotted black and stinking blood some pounds in quantity came away by which means the sick woman had present ease The Prognostick of these Feavers herein only differs from the Prognostick of such like Feavers which happen to those that are not in a childing condition because through the Labors of Child-birth the strength of the patient is more dejected and by reason of the Child-bed Purgations suppressed there is a greater redundancy of Humors in the Veins and in both respects the Party is in greater danger The Decision of that famous Question Whether the computation of the daies of the womans sickness ought to be made from the beginning of her Disease or from the day in which she is delivered of her Child makes much to cleer the Prognostick of this Disease especially to foretel the Crisis Which Question we shal therefore thus briefly determine If the Birth of the Child were natural attended with no grievous symptomes and the Child-bed Purgations were as they should be and the Feaver come some daies after the account ought not to be made from the day of the Childs birth but from the day the Feaver began which was provoked by some other preternatural Cause viz. Evil Humors lurking within the Body or from some external Cause But if the Child-birth were hard and beside the Course of Nature and the Feaver arose after three or four daies we must reckon from the day of the Childs birth because then the whol order of the Body began to be overthrown and the Humors to be disturbed which was followed by the Feaver So in grievous wounds of the wont of the Head especially though the Feaver come not til after the fourth of fifth day yet the account is wont to be made from the day of the wound received because the Humors began then to be in a commotion and to be disposed to cause a Feaver The Cure of these Feavers differs not from the Cure of other Feavers unless in point of those great Remedies Blood-letting and Purging in the administration whereof there is no smal scruple which we shal briefly endeavor to remove As for letting of Blood in acute Diseases of women in Child-bed the disagreement of Authors is so great by reason of the contrary Indications on the one side and on the other that we can scarcely find two of the same mind We shal briefly in these following Theorems or Maxims propound that Opinion which cometh neerest the Mind of the wisest Authors and is in the course of Practice most successful An Acute Disease befals a Child-bed woman either in the beginning or in the middle or in the end of her Lying in If it happen in the beginning and the woman be plentifully purged there must be no other evacuation of blood than that which is directed by Nature when she rightly and conveniently performs her Operations But if the Child-bed Purgations are suppressed or flow sparingly let the interiot Veins be opened and take a good quantity of blood away because at that time the Child-bed Purgations of blood ought by the appointment of Nature to be plentiful If an Acute Disease happen in the middle time of her Lying In two things are to be considered The one is Whether the Morbifick matter be contained in one particular place or if it be dispersed through the Veins The second Whether the Woman hath been conveniently purged or not in regard of quantity If the Disease proceed from matter scattered abroad as in Feavers and the woman hath not been fully purged the lower Veins ought to be opened because both the Morbisick Matter wil be diminished and her Natural flux wil be provoked But if the woman have been sufficiently purged and the Disease get ground and the Natural Evacuation have not been sufficient for the Disease the inferior Veins must be opened notwithstanding and so much blood must be taken away that by two Evacuations that may be accomplished which the Disease requires according to the Doctrine of Galen in the ninth Book of his Method Chap. â— If the Feaver be very high and great heat vex the Patient let that be done which we shal presently declare which ought to be performed when the Disease ariseth of Matter driven into some corner and there putrefying In a particular Acute Disease as the Pleurisie Inflamation of the Lungs Squinzy and the like we must mark whether the Fluxion be only beginning so that the Disease is only ready to seize upon the Patient or is in its beginning and very little blood be collected in the part For then the inserior Veins are to be opened that revulsion may be made to such opposite part For then the inserior Veins are to be opened that revulsion may be made to such opposite parts as are at greatest distance from the part affected and by that means that preposterous motion of Humors may be stopped But if the fluxion be already in good measure
when the same blazes out again they grow hot Assades Febris the Feaver so called is a kind of burning Feaver in which the sick do tumble and toss and are exceeding unquiet much oppressed with the disease being for the most Part subject to stomach sickness and vomiting Because it is wont to arise from the vexation of the Stomach by sharp and Chollerick Humors biting the orifice or Coats thereof The Feaver Elodes is that in which the Patient prepetually Sweats and it is caused by a mighty Putrefaction or Maliginty of Humors dissolving the Substance of the Body The Feaver Syncopalis is that in which the Patient often Swoones and Faints away Avicenna makes two sorts hereof one of thin sharp and Venemous Choller another of much Flegm or abundance of crude Humors The former is called Syncopalis Minuta because it arises from a little Quantity of Humor but thin and malignant The latter Avicenna doth call Syncopalis Humorosa vel Repletionalis because of a great Quantity of crude and Flegmatick Humors abounding therein and there is also Joyned a weakness of the mouth of the stomach by which means eâ—pecially the sick persons come to Swoon so often That Feaver is by Galen termed Epiala 2. de diff Feb. cap. 2. Lib. de inaequali intemperie cap. 8. in which at the same time through the whol Body in the smallest particles thereof there is felt both cold and heat For albeit one and the same Part cannot be the subject of contrary qualities yet is that which hath been said of this Feaver to be understood of the smallest particles in respect of sense but not indeed and in truth Galen shewes that this Feaver is caused two waies the one is by means or Glassy Flegm mingled with bitter Choller and â—o diffused into the whol body For Choller causes a sence of heat and the Flegm a sence of cold The other is by means of Glassy Flegm alone but partly putrefied and partly void of putrefaction For inasmuch as Glassy Flegm is extream cold and clammy it doth not readily putrefy nor al at once but only by peecemeal so that one portion thereof being putrefied the other remains unputrefied That Part of the said flegm therefore which is not putrefied being shed among the sensitive Parts causes a sence of cold by reason of the extream coldness thereof and that which is putrefied causes a sence of heat And so the whol body at one and the same time feels both cold and heat Platerus also hath invented a way how this Feaver may be bred viz. when intermitting Feavers or Agues do one fal upon the Neck of another the same day in the same Patient so that the cold fit of the latter Ague begins ere the hot sit of the former be ended or else when intermitting Feavers coâ—cide with those which are continual so that the heat of the continual Feaver and the cold of the Intermitting happen at one and the same time There are likewise other accidental differences of continual Feavers which because they are wont to be reckoned among the Symptomatick Feavers they shal be discussed forthwith in the Description of the said Symptomatick Feavers Now although the Cure of Symptomatick Feavers depend upon the Cure of those Diseases in particular from whence they arise yet must we declare their Nature least they come to be confounded with Essential or Primary Feavers Those therefore are called Symptomatical Feavers which arise from the Inflamation and putrefaction of Humors conteined in some of the Bowels Of which kind are those Feavers which accompany the Pleurisy Inflamation of the Lungs Frenzy Squinzy Inflamation of the Liver and other Inflamations Ulcers or Impostumes of the internal Parts And it is diligently to be observed as a thing of great moment in Practice and by few taken notice of that al Feavers perpetually which are Joyned with Inflamations of the Parts of the Body are not Symptomatical But that some of them are essential the foresaid Inflamations do follow upon them For it often falles out that Blood corrupted or filled with evil Humors after it hath raised a Feaver comes to be agitated by Nature and her as hurtful to her expelled to the weaker Parts or to such as are most convenient to receive them whereupon an Inflamation is caused in those Parts which doth not cause the Feaver but is rather a Consequent thereof So we may often see in the Course of our Practice the Patients sick of a continual Feaver for a day or two before Pain in the side and other Signes of a Pleurisy appears So many on the third or fourth day fal into a Phrensy so al Gouty persons in a manner before they are troubled with Pain swelling and Inflamation of their Joynts are wont to have a continual Feaver for a day or two So they which have the Rose or Saint Anthonies Fire have a Feaver somtime before the swelling break forth The same thing appears by the Urine which in such Inflamations as these do shew manifest signs of putrefaction in the Veins For in the beginning they appear crude and undigested and in the progress they shew tokens of concoction dayly encreasing Also Blood is often taken away very corrupt Which things would not happen if such Feavers were only Symptomatical simply depending upon those Inflamations And these Feavers whether they be Symptomatical or primary and attended by Inflamations of the Parts have their accidental differences For if the Inflamation be of Blood the Feaver is called Phlegmonodes if it be of Choller Typhodes And peculiarly an Erysipelas or Chollerick Inflamation of the stomach and Guts brings the Feavers called Zipyria in which the outward Parts are very cold and the inward Parts burn For the inward burning doth draw the Blood and spirits co the Part inflamed whereby the heat is so encreased that the inward Parts seem to be burned with unquenchable thirst but the outward are cold being destitute of heat and spirit Lenta Febris the flow or Lingring Feavers is wont also to be reckoned amongst Symptomatical Feavers which arises from some hidden obstruction and putrefaction sticking so close to some Bowel and so impacted that the substance of the Bowel is for the most Part Vitiated And when a portion of the putrid Humor is shed into the Veins and mixed with the Blood it stirrs up a slow Feaver and so mild that it troubles the Patient with no greivous symptom yea and the Patient is scarse sensible of any Feaver Yet some notes of putrefaction appear in the Pulse and Urin. And somtimes this Febris Lenta is bred of the putrefaction and corruption of some of the bowells because by the Veins inserted into that Bowel putrid and hot Vapors do breath unto the Heart Such a kind of Feaver is often bred in the Consumption of the Lungs which degenerates into an Hectick It is also somtimes caused when the substance of the Liver or spleen corrupts or when putrefaction settles upon the Mesentery
Restorative Broths with Juyce of Pomegranates sowr Grapes Pouders of Corals Pearls shavings of Ivory Sanders or Baulaustians Juleps of the Waters of Roses Lettice Purslain with Syrup of Pomegranates dryed Roses or Quinces Conserved Electuaries of Conserve of Roses Corals Pearls Terra Sigillata pouders of Diamargaritum frigidum and such like AN APPENDIX In the Cure of most acute and pernicious Feavers one thing is diligently to be noted that such Feavers seldom happen without some inward and peculiar disorder and commonly Inflamations of some of the inward Bowels as Liver Spleen c. So that we must evermore be careful of the Parts under the short Ribs of the Head the Breast the Womb Reins and Bladder that by al means possible we may hunt out which of those is much out of order and as much as may be restore the same to its Natural Constitution Chap. 3. Of a Tertian Ague AN Ague or Intermittent Tertian Feaver is caused by an Excrementitious Chollerick Humor contained in the first Region of the Body and there putrefying A Tertian Ague is either Legitimate and Exquisite or Illegitimate and bastard A Legitimate or Exquisite Tertian Ague is terminated in twelve hours and is caused by the putrefaction of Natural Choller But a bastard Tertian hath fits that last above twelve hours But if it exceed twenty four hours it is termed Tertiana extensa a stretched Tertian And it is caused either by Preternatural Coller putrefying or by Natural Choller mingled with other Humors especially with flegm Also Tertian Agues are Simple or Double or Triple A Simple Tertian is that whose Fits come every other day A Double Tertian is that whose Fits come every day And although herein it differ not from a Quotidian or every day Ague yet they are known one from the other by their proper Signs shewing the abundance of Flegm or Choller in the Patient of which Signs in their place Somtimes notwithstanding in a double Tertian there are two fits in one day the other day remaining free and this some latter Physitians do call two Tertians and make it to differ from a double Tertian Which Distinction notwithstanding is of smal moment A Triple Tertian is when there are three fits in the compass of two daies This is a most rare and seldom seen sort of Feavers Yet Galen propounds one single Example thereof and I saw another in the yeer 1637. in a certain Gentleman who once in sixteen hours had a fit of a Tertian Ague And all the fits did every one of them terminate in the space of ten or twelve hours by sweat Now these divers Paroxysms are made by a different matter putresying in different places so that each one hath as it were its peculiar Chimney where it is first kindled Now the Humors causing Tertian Agues are collected chiefly in the first Region of the Body viz. In the Liver the bladder of Gall the Stomach the Mesentery the Pancreas or in the Veins of those Parts Their Causes are all such things which ingender Excrementitious Choller viz. An hot and dry distemper of the Spleen youthful Age Hot Constitution of the Air Watchings Cares Anger Fastings use of hot Meats over much Exercise To these are added for the breeding a bastard Tertian such Causes as engender Flegm and Melancholly Hereupon such as have hot Livers and by Glutinous and bad Diet do breed many Crudities are subject to bastard Tertians by reason of the mixture of Choller with crude Humors And hence also it is that in Summer time crude Humors bred through weakness of the Natural Heat by eating of Fruits and over much drinking being mixed with Choller do breed bastard Tertians The Signs to know an Exquisite Tertian by are these That this Feaver alwaies begins with great shaking Fits whereas in a Quotidian Feaver or Ague there is only a light shivering or coldness After the cold shaking Fit follows great Heat sharp and biting Intollerable Thirst great and frequent breathing want of Sleep Head-ach and somtimes Ravings After the shaking fit somtimes there follows a vomiting of Chollerick Humors or a purging by Stool The Urine is somtimes Yellow Yellowish-Red or Red. The Fits last not above twelve hours and they are terminated by Sweat Also the Causes fore-cited breeding Choller have preceded In a bastard Tertian all the foregoing Signs are more remiss than they are in an Exquisite one but more intense than in a Quotidian Ague And according as there is more or less flegm mingled with the Choller the Fits come neerer to those of an Exquisite Tertian or of a Quotidian but in respect of the vehemency of the Symptoms and the length of the Fit it self So that the Paroxysms of a bastard Tertian may be lengthened out to sixteen eighteen or more hours Although they may be somtimes shorter because of the paucity of the Matter and be terminated within the space of eight ten or twelve hours The Prognostick of this Disease is taken out of Hippocrates in Sect. 4. Aph. 59. Exquisite or exact Tertian Agues last but for seven fits at most And in Aphor. 43. of the same Section All Intermitting Feavers are void of danger Which is to be understood only of such Tertians as are void of all malignity For there are Malignant and Pestilent Tertians which though they have evident Intermissions yet do they often kill the Patients Furthermore many things fall upon the Neck of a Tertian which may breed danger although the Feaver of it self be not dangerous Haly writes and common Experience shews That if such as are sick of a Tertian Ague have Ulcers Scabs or Pustles breaking out in their Lips it is a token the Ague wil leave them For it is a kind of Critical Evacuation in those parts A Loosness befalling one that hath a Tertian Ague the matter being digested ends the Disease And this is the way by which alone Nature doth perfectly expel the Cause of these Feavers For seeing the Original Cause of these Feavers is contained in the Gall-Bladder or the Liver or the Mesentery and other Parts in the first Region of the Body although that which steems and vapors therefrom in every fit do get into the habit of the Body and is purged away either by Sweats or by insensible Transpiration or by Pushes and Pimples yet the gross parts and setlings of the Humor abiding in their place which unless by the benefit of Nature or Medicaments it be purged away by stool it is wont to be the Cause either of a long Ague or of Obstructions or of a Relapse or of other stubborn Diseases Agues are wont to be of smal durance and little danger if the habit of the whol Body be good if the bowels be wel affected if it be Spring or Summer if the Patient eat little and drink sparingly And contrary wise they are wont to be long and more rebellious if there be an evil disposition of the Liver or Spleen if the Patient abound with flegmatick Humors or
are apt to Corrup-tion so that though there be no Obstruction present they necessarily fall into a Putrefaction and a Feaver Howbeit Putrefaction being by this means brought into the Humors when Nature doth no longer rule them they are wont for the most part to breed Obstructions whereby the Feaver is augmented so that in these Feavers Obstructions may Concur which though in the beginning they were not the Cause of the Feaver yet do they follow the same being cherished by the Causes of the Feaver and being infected with Pestilential Venom The External Causes of Pestilential Feavers are the six Non-natural things which as they are necessary so do they necessarily alter our bodies and when they are far departed from their Natural condition they breed in us Malignant and venemous Qualities Among these the Air holds the chief place which as it is a most common Cause so Diseases that are common doth for the most part proceed from some fault thereof Now the Air becomes vitious and hurtful to men for the most part by a threefold means First If it be not blown through with wholsom Winds Secondly If it be polluted with the Infection of putrid and stinking Exhalations Thirdly If by an excess or preposterous condition of the first Qualities it doth so alter Men that thereby evil and malignant putrefactions of the Humors be ingendred The first is evident enough For if the Air be not blown through and stirred with Winds it is easily corrupted Whence Hippocrates in the 3. Epidem Describing a most grievous Pestilential constitution saith This year had no Winds And the Second is most effectual and frequent viz. When Putrid Filthy and malignant vapors are mingled with the Air and do infect the same which is wont to arise from divers things viz. Lakes Pooles Fiâ—h-ponds and other quiet and still Waters or such as are full of mud or wherein Flax or Hemp have been steeped Or from the stink of Privies Dung-hils and nasty Allies Or from the unburied bodies of such as have bin slain in battle Or out of Dens or Caves or Caves wherein the Air having been longshut up hath gained a filthy putrefaction being opened by an Earth-quake or some other â—asualtie But the third Reason which consists in the Excess Inequality or Preposterous condition of the first Qualities may happen divers waies and especially when there is a great excess of Heat and moisture For those Qualities when they are extranious and adventitious and encreased above their Natural condition they are the principles of putrefactions Hence a Southern Wind lasting long in the Seasons of the year according to Hippocrates in Epidem was the principal cause of all Pestilential Feavers there described But a dry Constitution of the Air though in the Opinion of Hippocrates it 's more wholsom than a moist yet because excess of Qualities is hurtful to our Nature certain it is that a very dry Constitution of the Air more than ordinary doth produce Pestilential Feavers especially if it be joyned with Excessive Heat A cleer example wherof we have in Livy in the first Book of his History Decad. 4. viz. How by over great dryness a Pestilence happened at Rome because there had been little or no Rain that year neither was there scarcity of Water from Heaven alone but the Earth was scarce able to continue her Springs Now this dry Constitution doth therefore Cause the Pestilence because the Humors being above measure burnt dried up degenerate into the Matter of Biles Carbuncles and consequently of a Pestilential Feaver and being very much thickned they produce grievous Obstructions wherby in a matter otherwise wel disposed therunto Malignant putrefaction is easily bred Add hereunto That this immoderate driâ—ess of the air doth corrupt the Corn hindring it from attaining its due maturity For it brings the Corn sooner out of the Earth and it gives it at first plentiful nourishment and afterward Scanty whereby the Corn is unequally digested being Burnt without but within quiâ—e Raw like Flesh scorched with an over violent Fire and so it proves a Cause of indigestion and divers Crudities It is proved also from Hippocrates That immoderate Cold doth produce a Pestilence 1. Epidem Sect. 5. tempest 1. where he saith In the Country of Thasus a little before the appearance of Arcturus a Star or Constellation and whilst He appears the North Wind blowing there are many and great Rains In which places he fetches the Cause of a Pestilential Season from over great Coldness Also we may read in Livy Lib. 5. Decad. 1. That a Pestilential Season was caused by vehement Cold in these Words The year was remarkable for a Cold and Snowy Winter so that the Wayes were stopped up and the River Tyber was unnavigable So sad a Winter was followed by a grievous and Pestilential Summer Mortal to all kind of Living-Creatures whether iâ— were occasioned by the sudden change of the Air from one extream to another or by some other means And the reason of this Accident is at hand viz. That by reason the Pores of the Skin are closed up by the extream Cold so that the vapors cannot steem forth so as naturally they should there follows the greater putrefaction and more grievous poison whereupon follows more dangerous feavers than in the Summer in which the condition of the air although in some sort it gives beginning to the Disease yet doth it make the pores and passages wider Through which that which putrified does exhale and the natural and preternatural evaporations doe readily breath out Inequality of the Season is wont also to be the Cause of this kind of Feavers viz. when it is sometimes Hot sometimes Cold sometimes wet sometimes dry in a short time or when these various seasons doe endure longer one after another As when after long vehement Hot weathâ—â— a freezing cold claps in or after long rains an extream drought steales upon us or contrarywise Or when after a preposterous fashion it is hot in Winter and cold in Summer Now these inequalities of Seasons may help the production of Pestilential Feavers because in them the humors are exceedingly disturbed by which means they arrive unto an evill condition far from their natural stare and fit to produce malignant Diseases especially in those bodies which during the Course of the Seasons aforesaid by disorderly Course of Diet and liveing have contracted either a Plethory a Cacochymy or some notable obstructions To this kind of Causes may be added the malignant Influence of the Constellations which by changeing the Ayr are wont diversly to affect the Bodies of Liveing Creatures Such they say are the Conjunction of the superior Planets Saturu Jupiter and Mars in humane Signes such as Virgo and Gemini and especially when Mars is Lord. Which do bring Diseases in otherwise they by change of the Ayr so far as to corrupt the Nature and substance thereof And that change is wrought two waies and is by the manifest qualities as when
by the Influence of the Stars the ayr is so long and so far changed by excess of the first qualities of Heat Moisture Cold and Dryness that at length it 's proper Substance becomes vitrated the other is by occult qualities when by the secret power of the Stars without any notable excess of the first qualities the substance of the ayr is so changed that it receives a certain degree of corruption contrary to our Life Touching the first no man doubts seeing it is clear by Common Consent of Phylosophers that inferior Bodies are governed by the Heavenly Constellations And as the alterations of the Ayr which happen in the four seasons of the yeer do arise from the yeerly motion of the Sun so the great diversity of yeers whereby one proves very moist another exceeding dry the Sun holding every yeer the same Course in the Zodiack can depend on nothing but the various aspects of the Constellations The other way because it is occult is not so freely granted by all How be it by common Consent of Astrologers it is held for certain that the Stars do act upon inferior Bodies in a three-fold manner viz. by their Motion Light and Influence The light and beat do alter these Sublunary Bodies according to the first qualities and especially Heat But the Influences doe induce both the first qualities for example the cold which Saturn causes cannot depend upon his Motion nor his Light and also the hidden and occult ones For seeing Pestilential Diseases doe ostentimes happen no great mutation being made in the ayr in regard of the first qualities but when they ragâ— the 〈◊〉 appâ—ares exceeding pure and puret sometimes than it is wont to do when there is no pestilence stirring neither have very hot and moist seasons preceded from which great putrefactions are wont to arise it to be coniectured that these pestilential Diseases doe arise from some malignant Influence of the Stars Adâ— hereunto that Pestilences are wont to rage even in the depth of Winter which no remarkeable alteration of the first qualities hath preceded For in such a Case these diseases are to be attributed to the hidden power of the Starrs which have as Astrologers teach a power of corrupting the Air no extraordinary mutation of the first qualities being made therein And this is that divine principle in diseases which Hippocrates acknowledged and according to the Exposition of Galen is in the Air but is produced by the Celestial Bodies and hidden causes It is also hinted at by the same Hippocrates in the second Epidem Sect. one When he saies The time and the Diseases doe answer one another unles some innovation happen in the Superior Powers Neither does that hinder which is brought as the opinion of Plato out of his Epinomis that the Course of the Heavens and heavenly Bodies have alwayes good influence here below and from them nothing but preservation and benefit doe flow And Aristotle in the ninth of his Metaphisicks Chap. 10. Saies that in those Bodies which are eternall and aethereal neither error nor corruption is found And Averrhoes saies in his 1 De Caelo cap. 24. The Heavenly Bodies doe containe the Elements preserve them and universally are unto them instead of a form whence it 's collected they cannot infect them with a poysonous and malignant qualitie Ad hereunto that if pestilential diseases should be raised by influence of the Starrs they would at one and the same time inâ—ect the whol World almost seeing those influxes are universal causes and by the circulation of the Heavenly Bodies doe affect all the quarters of the World But these diseases doe peculiarly invade som one Region onely And finally if the Stars were said to be malefick and of an evil disposition God the Author of them would be accounted the cause of Mischief which is full of Impiety These objections I say doe not a whit prejudice the truth propounded which may thus be answered All created substances are considered two waies either as they are things in being and do concur to the compleating and perfection of the Universe and in that respect they are all good for to be and to be good are one and the same neither hath the High God blessed for ever created any thing which ought to be termed evil simply considered or they are considered in regard of their operations and then they may be termed evil forasmuch as they may damnefie some other things by reason of the antipathy inbred Enmity of Nature And although almost innumerable contrarietyes of nature are found in the world yet must they al be termed good in respect to God their maker in regard of the Univers whose perfection consists chiefly in variety Furthermore the operations of things created may be termed evil two wayes absolutely or simply considered in themselves or in respect of somwhat else They are absolutely evil when at all times in all places and upon all occasions they doe perpetually evil and in this sense no Creature can be found which is evil in respect of some other thing the operations of things may be termed evil when they hurt one and doe another good and so there is nothing in the whol universe so hurtful but that it hath some other ways its uses benefits for which it was created So al poysons though most hurtful to men or other Animals yet conveniently us'd they doe a great deal of good to them And in the Art of Physick there is scarce so deadly a poyson found but that out of it by skil of Art an healthfull medicine may be drawn And finally the actions of Stars upon these inferior Bodies are considered two waies either in respect of the whol sublunarie world containing the Elements and al mixed things and so the action of the Heavens and Stars is simply benign ingendering conserveing vivifieing all things doing al other good offices which tend to uphold the univers in this sence most true it is that these inferior Bodies are cherished susteined by the influence of the Heaven and Hevenly Bodies or they are considered in respect of the proper nature of this or that Element or this or that living creature and then it is no absurdâ—â—â—e to say that there are some influences hurtfull to som Element or living Creature in such or such a part â—â— and so affected which depends not of any fault of the stars for they are of a most perfect nature but rather of the imperfection of sublunary things which cannot suffer any considerâ—ble mutation without the corruption of their proper substance now these divers natures and qualities of the stars produced in sublunary Bodies by their divers concourse and influence were ordained by the great Architect of this universe for the Conservation of the whol world which being 〈◊〉 up of so divers and so contrary natures had need of as g eat variety in the influence of the Stars that all things might be preserved as it were in
a large evacuation of blood agreeable to the Plethory is the best remedy for all pains which we have found true by experience not only in the paine of the teeth but in other parts Let him purge the day following with that which is proper for the humor in the form of a Potion if a hot with Pills if a cold humor be the cause of pain After this if the pain continue apply Cupping-glasses to the Shoulders with scarrisication or one great one between the shoulders without scarrisication A Vesicatory applied to the neck or behind the Ears doth violently draw back the humors Also to hinder the defluxion apply astringents to the Temples as Emplaister of Gum Elemi or Mastich only upon a piece of Silk and heat with a brass pestle the Shop Emplaister of Mastich or that against Ruptures called ad berniam Or this following is good Take of Frankinsence Hypocistis Labdanum of each one dram and an half Pitch and Mastich of each one dram Opium half a scruple Oyl of Mastich as much as is sufficient Make a Mass of Emplaister The Root of Comfry fresh and bruised applied to the Temples doth intercept the defluxion very well There is also a good Plaister made of pouder of Allum and Galls mixed with Pitch Riverius the chief Physitian to Henry the Great had this Plaister as a Secret Take of Cyprus nuts red Roses Mustard seed torrefied or parched Mastich and Terra Sigillata of each one dram and an half Let them be steeped in Vinegar of Roses twenty four hours then dry them Opium dissolved in Aqua vitae three drams Pitch and Colophonia of each one dram yellow Wax melted in the expressed Oyls Henbane and white Poppy as much as is sufficient Make an Emplaister apply it to the Arteries and the part affected with pain And because the smal Veins by which nourishment is carried to the Teeth do run by the Ears you put Medicines into them for the Cure of the Tooth-ach as Oyl of bitter Almonds to the Ear on the same side or the fume of Vinegar in which Penyroyal and Origan have been boyled Others put Vinegar into the Ear by which the defluxion is mightily stayed especially if the flux be hot But in a cold defluxion the Juyce of Garlick mixt with Treacle and dropt warm into the Ear doth wonderfully asswage the pain of the Teeth A Clove also of Garlick peeld and put into the Ear is good Also astringents in the beginning of the defluxion may be applied to the part pained cold if the matter be hot but if it be cold you must put hot things with your repellers But in every cause if the pain be great you must mix Anodines with Repellers As Take of the Roots of Snakeweed Five-leaved-grass and Tormentil of each one ounce the Leaves of Vervain Plantane and Maudlin of each one bandful Cypress Nuts Galis and Acorn Cups of each two drams red Sanders and Crystal of each one dram and an half red Roses and Pomegranate Flowers of each one pugil boyl them in red Wine and Vinegar and wash the part grieved often therewith warm This may be used in the beginning of a hot defluxion but in a cold ad Cypress Roots Box Bark Ivy Leaves and the like A plainer Medicine is made of Plantane and Rose Water with as much Vinegar like an Oxycrate Or boyl Galls in Vinegar and wash the Teeth therewith Or Take of the Roots of Cinkfoyl half an ounce Willow Leaves half a handful Galls two drams boyl them in red Wine and wash the mouth This staies the defluxion and takes away pain Then you must use these Remedies which asswage pain and take away the cause of which there is in authors and vulgarly a multitude we will give you the best of which you must make your choyce with this judgment That those which do not only dissolve and discuss but also astringe and stop the flux be used in the beginning and the encrease of the pain but things that only discuss in the state and declination Take of the Juyce of Housleek and Nightshade of each two ounces Cow or Sheeps milk eight ounces Oyl of unripe Roses one ounce and an half Opium and Saffron of each three grains mix them and apply it warm with a cloth to the Jaw of the same side often Take the Papp of sweet Apples two ounces Bran steept in Vinegar three ounces Oyl of Roses one ounce Saffron half a scruple Opium two grains mix them for a Cataplasm to the part pained Or Take of Barley and Bean meal of each three ounces Oyl of Roses and sweet Almonds of each half an ounce the juyce of Housleek one ounce and an half Milk as much as is sufficient make a Cataplasm to be applied often warm to the part Or Take two whites of Eggs beat them with Rose Water and dip stuphs therein sprinkled with two drams of Pepper Poudered Apply them to the pained side over the whol Cheek But here observe That you apply not Astringents to the Jaws if they be swoln for it is to be seared That the Humor wil so be Repelled to the Throat and the Patient Choaked An Example of which Valesius de Taranta giveth of a Physitian troubled with the Tooth-Ach and Inflamation of the Jaws who applied only Oyl of Roses with Vinegar which brought him to a Squinzy and he died Other Waters may be made to wash the mouth Thus. Take of the best white Wine four ounces white Henbane Roots two drams let them boyl to the Consumption of the third part strain them and ad one ounce of Vinegar Varnish one dram let them boyl a heat and let the Mouth be washed often therewith The plain Decoction of Vervain is Commended of many for the same Also a Decoction of Guaiacum made with Wine or Water and a little salt Or Take of Arsmart and the barks of the Roots of Henbane of each equal parts boyl them in Rose Vinegar and wash the mouth And if the pain cometh from a Hot Cause only boyl a Henbane Root in Vinegar If the Arsmart be too sharp take a less quantity Nay you may leave it quite out in a Defluxion coming of a Hot Cause and put Persicaria Macutata instead of it which is Astringent and Cooling and his juyce may be given safely at the Mouth in al Defluxions that are sharp and Chollerick Also you may use the Leaves of Henbane instead of the Root Some use the Leaves of Henbane and Persicaria Maculata as a secret Magnetick Charm they boyl them in Vinegar they burn the Leaves being boyled with a gentle fire and wash their Teeth with the Vinegar and they say that as soon as the Leaves are burnt the pain wil be gone But I rather think it is Cured by the Vinegar with which the Teeth are washed In the aforesaid Decoctions if the Vinegar be so sharp that the Patient can scarcely endure it you may mix half Wine and in a Cold Cause make them of
Wine only Amatus Lusitanus Commends Exceedingly Sandarach boyled in Vinegar and Wine Thus. Take of Sandarak one ounce Wine and Vinegar of each half a Pint boyl them and let the strained liquor be held a long time in the mouth The Decoction of the Roots of the great Nettle with a little Nutmeg and Saffron made in equal parts of Wine and Vinegar and held warm in the Mouth doth wonderfully draw the Humors forth But at the first the pain wil seem to encrease but afterward it wil be mitigated and cease The Root of the sharp Dock gathered in the Spring before it groweth forth and dried applied to the Tooth pained doth appease the pain by a specifical propriety which is confirmed by the experiment of Forestus in Obs 6. lib. 4. where he saith That he applied this Root green and cut in smal pieces to the Tooth of a Maid with good success and that he Cured many other therewith after he had given them universal Medicines If the body be wel purged and the head be not very ful of flegm Masticatories to draw the Humors from the part affected wil do very wel which are made either of Pelitory of Spain a long time hâ—ld in the mouth and chewed or as followeth Take of Mastich Pelitory of Spain and Staphisagre of each one dram the seeds of Henbane half a dram Pouder them and mix them together and make little balls thereof in a thin linnen Rag which let him long chew to make him spet Commonly the Oyl of Cloves is used in a little lint to stop the Tooth if it be hollow or otherwise for so the humor adhering to the part is drawn forth and the part strengthened Oyl of Camphire is very profitable for the same purpose Or Dissolve eight grains of Camphire in one dram of the Oyl of Cloves and use it as above But above al the rest the Oyl of Box is extolled which being but once dropt into the Tooth presently staies the pain This Oyl is made of Box cut in smal pieces and then Distilled by descent in two Vessels the one put into the earth the other above upon which you must make a strong fire and so the Oyl wil fal into the lower vessel Besides the aforesaid Oyls the Chymists commend the Oyl of the Hazel Nut used in the same manner If the pain be so great that it wil not away with the aforesaid Medicines you must come to Narcoticks which are set down by Practitioners undâ—r divers forms although their effect is as uncertain as others but they do surely stupifie the Pain Among the rest Laudanum is chief which doth not only appease the pain but also stop the Flux and it may be given safely after universal Remedies to the quantity of three or four grains if it be wel prepared Many Topicks made of Narcoticks are carried about These Two following are the best Take of Opium Myrrh and Labdanum of each one dram Pouder them and with white Wine boyl them into a Liniment which put with lint into the Tooth The Other is the Emplaister of Riverius Chief Physitian to Henry the Great above mentioned If Worms be in the Teeth you must kil them with bitter things And this following is good for that Take of Aloes one dram Camphire half a scruple Aqua Vitae half a dram mix them and apply thereof with lint to the Tooth It is to be observed That the Teeth do seldom ake except they be hollow to the Nerve therefore to take away the sence of pain burn the Nerve with an actual Cautery or with Aqua Fortis or Oyl of Vitriol which often done to a very hollow Tooth it wil be broken in pieces and so drawn forrh If the Pain stil continueth and the Tooth be very hollow you must draw it out and then the pain wil presently cease and never return But you must take heed that you draw not the Tooth when the Defluxion falls violently or when the Head aketh or the Gums swel or when there is great pain And the Chirurgion is to be Admonished That he pul it not out violently at one pul lest the brain be too much shaken and the Jaw bone broken from whence comes a great Flux of blood a Feaver and somtimes death After it is Drawn close the part with your fingers then let the mouth be washed with warm Oxycrate and let him take heed of Cold Air lest a new Defluxion fal upon the other Teeth But if the blood flow so fast that it wil scarce be stanched which somtimes happeneth by the breach of the Vein and Artery without the breach of the Jaw And Varaiola reports of one that had his Tooth pulled out without iron or force but with the fingers and yet bled a pint at one time and as much the next day from the Artery under the Gum This Flux of blood is stopt by laying a hard peice of lint like a ball and holding it down for one hour or two with the fingers If that wil not prevail apply burnt Vitriol and lay a Ragg upon it dipt in Vinegar and compress it with your finger til you make an eschar The last Remedy is an actual Cautery by which the blood wil presently be stopped If any fearful people refuse burning and require other means you must try those which Authors prescribe As Paste made of the milk of Spurge and the pouder of Frankincense mixed with a little Starch the Root of Crowfoot the Bark of the Mulbery Root the pouder of Earth-worms Pellitory of Spain stâ—ept in Vinegar and the Root of Wild Cowcumber so steept and the like But the Leaf of Elleboraster rub'd upon the Tooth is best but you must not touch the other lest they also fal out A Country man troubled with the Tooth-ach was perswaded by another to rubb his Tooth with Elleboraster he unwittingly rubb'd al the Teeth on that side and presently almost al his Teeth fel out Therefore if any wil try this Medicine I advise them to defend the other Teeth with soft Wax Although when there is a Tumor in the Jaws the pain for the most part ceaseth because the matter is carried outwards Yet for the quick Dissolving of it use this Liniment Take of Fresh Butter and Hens Grease of each one ounce the Pouder of Flower-de-luce-Root one dram Saâ—â—ron half a scruple Oyl of Chamomel and sweet Almonds of each half an ounce make a Liniment A Cataplasm made of Figgs Bread and Vinegar is better A Nettle bruised and laid to the Jaw doth quickly asswage the pain This is the Cure of the Tooth-ach for the present But if it return often as is usual you must use prevention which is to hinder the breeding of those humors that flow thither and let the Teeth be strengthened that they may be less capable to receive them Therefore if it proceed from a hot cause you must use such Medicines as were prescribed in the Cure of a hot distemper of the Liver and