fire grows hot above measure the bond of the mixture for the greatest part is loosed that its Principles are almost wholly drawn away by the Ferment of the Heart and the active Particles being loosned from the mixture break forth as it were into a flame Wherefore the Liquor of the Blood being after this manner rarified in the Heart and as it were inkindled is from thence carried through the Vessels with a most rapid motion and disperses very many Effluvia of heat from its deflagration Hence the whole mass of Blood like water put over the fire continually boiling distends the Vessels pulls the Brain and Nervous parts raises up Convulsions and pains in them very much destroys the Vital Spirits with its heat wasts the Ferments of the Bowels hinders the Offices of concoction and dispensation often depraves the nourishing Juice destinated for the Nervous stock that from thence exceeding great disorders of the Animal Spirits follow yea almost perverts the whole oeconomy of Nature The course of this Disease shews it self after this manner It rarely begins without a procatartic cause or previous disposition to wit the Sulphureous or oily part of the Blood is first too much carried forth and exalted beyond its due tenor which afterwards either of its own accord like Hay not eventilated begins to grow hot or by the coming of an evident cause it is forced into a preternatural heat But when it grows turgid in the first place by reason of the admixtion of a crude Juice with the Blood now a shivering now heat infests which shew themselves unequally like fire which is covered with green wood sends forth now smoak now flame But at length the fire glowing more largely as here the victor fire spreads it self abroad so there sooner than said the whole mass of Blood is inflamed and is urged at once with heat and a most swift motion Nor is this immoderate heat of the Blood appeased before its active particles being loosned from the mixture and then successively inkindled in the Heart are wholly burned out which doth not happen but in the space of many days And then at length this Feaver ceases when the remaining Liquor of the Blood the Spirit and Sulphur being very much consumed being made lifeless and poor is fit only for a weak and small fermentation From this kind of deflagration of the Blood and also of the alible Juice by the same fire burnt out the recrements or little Bodies of torrified matter are heaped up in the Blood which yet do more promote its fervor and ebullition and for a time increase the Feaverish distemper After the Blood hath very much burned forth and these kind of little Bodies are gathered together to a fulness of swelling up the vital Spirit endeavors a separation and tries to concoct and to overcome what it may these adust recrements and then having put a great many of them into a swelling up a Flux being risen strives to shut them wholly out And indeed in the subaction and seclusion of this matter chiefly consists the event of this Disease for if the vital Spirit being strong the Bloody humor when it hath sufficiently burned forth and shall be freed from these adust particles should recover its pristine tenor whereby it is made fit for motion and a due fermentation in the Heart the sick tends towards health but if by a long deflagration and an inextricable confusion of the morbific matter the liquor of the Blood being wanting of Spirits and more pure Sulphur or those same by the impure mixture growing ill being as it were put under the yoak is rendred so lifeless that it is not any longer rarified by the ferment of the Heart or inkindled by degrees its heat and motion together with Life it self decays The procatartick causes which dispose to this Disease are an hot and humid Temper an active habit of Body a youthful Age the Spring time or Summer season a high and rich Dyet besides the often drinking of rich Wines a sedentâ—ry and idle life a Body full of gross humors and stuffed with vitious Juices but above all the rest it appears by observation that the frequent letting of Blood renders men more apt to Feavers wherefore it is commonly said from whom Blood is once drawn that unless they do the same every year they are prone to a Feaver The reason of this is unless I am deceiv'd by the frequent letting of Blood the Sulphur is more copiously gathered together in the mass of Blood in the mean time the Salt which should bridle it and hinder it from raging by this means is drawn away for the Blood the older it grows becomes so much the more Salt the Salt of all the Elements not evaporating But by how much the more the Blood abounds in Salt by so much the less it abounds in Sulphur for Salt eats and consumes the Sulphur and makes it evaporate wherefore they who are lean and abound with a Salt Blood are less prone to Feavers But when by the letting of Blood the ancient Blood is drawn forth in its stead another more rich and more impregnated with Sulphur is substituted so that it becomes less Salt and more Sulphurous Hence it is that those who often let Blood are not only prone to Feavers but also are wont to grow fat because of the Bloods being more impregnated with Sulphureous Juice The evident causes which deduce the latent disposition of this Feaver into act are of the same sort which procure an Ephemeran Feaver and simple Synochus in this rank chiefly come Transpiration being hindred and Surfeiting By reason of the effluvia being restrained the mass of the Blood being increased in bulk grows turgid and conceives a Fervor as it were from a certain ferment inspired anew and cruelly boyls up from thence presently the pores are more obstructed by the infartion of the effluvia and the frame of the Liquor being loosned the particles of the Sulphur exuberating in the Blood leap forth from the mixture and are inflamed by the ferment of the heart as it were by fire put to them and so they enkindle a very intense Feaver But from a Surfeit both an immoderate fermentation is induced in the Blood and also a nitrous Sulphureous matter apt for adustion and an inkindling is conveyed as it were food to the burning Blood In this Feaver four times or seasons are to be observed in which as it were so many posts or spaces its course is performed These are then The Beginning the Augmentation the Height and Declination These are wont to be finished in some sooner in others more slowly or in a longer time The beginning ought to be computed from the time the Blood begins to be made hot and its Sulphur to conceive a burning untill the ardors and burnings are diffused thorow the whole mass of Blood The Increase or Augmentation is from the time that the Blood being made hot and inkindled thorow the whole burns forth
is only a double Tertian and doth arise from a dispersed matter having gotten a twofold Nest to which I cannot assent and I suppose its begining is to be attributed to a peculiar Dyscrasie of the Blood In this the symptoms of cold and heat are more remiss but its fit is longer continued and oftentimes it is wont to last eighteen or twenty hours This Feaver for the most part follows a Tertian for when the Vital Spirit is very much flown away by the frequent deflagration of the Blood and the Feaverish disposition still remaining the Blood is made weaker it doth not concoct the nourishing Juice or ripen it but perverts almost the whole into a Fermentative matter wherefore it comes sooner to its increase and is gathered together to a plenitude of swelling up within double the time than at first But because the congested matter participates equally of crudity and adustion therefore the heat of the burning is lesser and more unequal and like green wood laid on the fire slowly burns for which reason the fit endures longer Somtimes it happens that a Quotidian Feaver doth arise without a Tertian going before viz. when a Feaverish disposition falls upon a Cacochymic Body or full of evil humors and stuffed with depraved Juices for then the Blood being poor in Spirits perverts in a greater measure the nutritious Juice and in a shorter time gathers to a fulness of swelling up But that which begins an every days Ague oftentimes changes its figure and becomes a Tertian just as a Tertian often goes into a Quotidian because between these Feavers and their causes there is a great vicinity and the constitution of the Blood being a little changed it makes a transition from one to another A Quotidian Intermitting Feaver is not so easily cured as a Tertian For whether it comes at first simple or follows upon another Intermitting Feaver it is still excited from a stronger cause and argues a greater dyscrasie of the Blood which will not presently give way to Remedies But also if this Feaver be of long continuance or comes upon another Chronical Disease it has most often adjoyned to it besides the taint of the Blood the infirmities of the inwards to wit the Blood being spoiled easily affixeth its impurities by degrees heaped up on the Viscera whilst it passes through their Meanders from hence it is that in a Quotidian Feaver the weight of the Ventricle an extension of the Hypochondria Obstructions or Tumors now of the Liver now of the Spleen or Mesentery are joyned together but these kind of distempers are not the cause of the Feaver as is commonly believed but only its product Wherefore in this Feaver besides the simple method of Cure which is shown in the Tertian many other intentions or coindications come under consideration to wit that the Ventricle be cleansed from its load of humors the stuffings of the Inwards freed Infirmities corroborated and that together with these the Dyscrasie of the Blood may be mended and the Accessions of the Feaver may be restrained must by all means be endeavoured from whence by reason of these kind of various intentions we come to the Cure by a longer way In this case Vomits if strength will bear them are of benefit before all other Medicines also Purges whereby the assiduous supply of Excrementitious matter may be drawn forth are often to be repeated Besides these digestive Remedies openers of Obstructions such as restore the Ferment of the Viscera and Blood and correct their evil dispositions are frequently to be administred Wherefore the fixed Salts of Herbs and their Extracts Acid Spirits of Minerals and somtimes preparations of Steel do very much help concerning these main things the task will be hard when by reason of the manifold evil many things are to be done together yet by reason of the assiduity of the Feaverish fit there is leisure for the sick to use few only In Distempers so complicated tho the reason of the method requires the impediments to be first removed and then to Cure the Disease yet I have known this kind of Feaver beset with many other distempers in a Body full of humors often Cured without method and by an Empirical way viz. after a light provision of the whole Ague-resisting Remedies being outwardly applyed have at first stopped the Feaverish fit that then there was time for the Curing the other distempers and more happy occasions of healing were granted I lately visited a Noble Lady who being long indued with a Cachectical habit of Body a month after her lying in being weak and languishing was taken with a quotidian Intermitting Feaver after six or seven fits of it her strength was so much cast down that she could scarce rise out of or sit up in her Bed nor able to take never so little Food tho very slender but upon it most grievous molestations were raised up in her stomach besides the Region of her Ventricle and left Hypochondrium was wholly beset with a hard shining tumor and cruelly painful by reason of her strength being mightily cast down there was no place left for Evacuation but the use of Clysters also her Stomach being very weak loathed all other Remedies unless very grateful and only in a very small quantity In this difficult case circumscribed between narrow limits of Curing I counselled these few things to wit that twice in a day she should take this mixture viz. The magisterial water of Earth-worms two Ounces of Elixer Proprietatis twelve drops Moreover I ordered to be applyed to her Ventricle a Fomentation of the Leaves of Sea-Wormwood Centaury Southernwood with the Roots of Gentian boiled in White-Wine in an open Vessel also that after the Fomentation a Cake of Tosted-Bread and dipped in the same Liquor should be worn upon her Stomach besides Ague-resisting Medicines were ordered for her wrists and with these Remedies only she mist her Ague fit on the third day and remained free from it afterwards then by the use of Chalybeat Remedies she became perfectly well within a short time CHAP. VI. Of a Quartan Feaver IN a Quartan Feaver the period is longer than in the rest to wit which is extended to the fourth day inclusively also its continuance uses to be longer and its cure harder because this Disease is protracted for many months yea oftentimes for years and seldom or scarce at all is cured by Medicines The Fit for the most part begins with cold and shaking to which a very troublesome heat succeeds but more remiss than in a Tertian Sweat for the most part concludes the Fit At the first coming of the Disease the Fits are more grievous and very infestous and keep the sick in their Beds yea they make them lose their strength and vigour of Body But afterwards the trouble is more easily born so that the Fits are suffer'd out of Bed and somtimes in a Journy or being about any business If it continue long it induces the Scurvy or Hypochondriac
Disease he may predict its event suspected and much to be feared But yet he ought not to trust to a naked Prognostication to hinder all things else but that as yet what is in the Medical Art should be consulted for Health tho desperate Remedies may be administred to the symptoms most infesting the Spirits of the Blood almost extinct may be restored by Cordials When we despond of Health life should be prolonged as long as it may and at least a fair exit procured According to the various types but now described of a Putrid Feaver I might readily add very many Histories of sick people and particular observations made about their Cure for these kind of examples are usually met with in our dayly practice so that they are sufficient to fill a great Volumn out of these however with the good leave of the honest Reader I will briefly propose some few respecting the several kinds of the aforesaid Feaver by which their Doctrine and Method of healing them above delivered may be illustrated A Noble Matron about fifty years of Age of a slender habit of Body little stature indued with a ruddy Complection when on the fifteenth day of June by reason of the Summers heat she had put on more thin Garments than she was wont felt herself ill in the Evening from thence she was distempered with a nauseousness and oppression of her Stomach she felt wandring pains troubling her now in her shoulders now in her back very thirsty yet without any immoderate heat on the second and third day almost after the same manner on the fourth day after a Vomit Viz. of the infusion of Crocus Metallorum one Ounce given she cast forth yellow bile four times and had three Stools and seemed to be eased the night following she slept somthing better but on the next day the Feaver being throughly inkindled she complained of thirst a burning of the Praecordia and of a pain now in her side now in her back presently blood was taken to eight Ounces her Urine was of a very deep red thick and troubled without any Hypostasis or setling of the Contents her Pulse unequal and often intermitting the following night without sleep on the sixth day of the Disease early in the Morning a small Sweat broke forth from whence the heat somthing abated which in the Evening again grew stronger on the seventh day a very acute heat with thirst burning an inordinate and intermitting Pulse as also with a mighty restlessness and tossing of the whole Body troubled her on the eighth the symptoms were somwhat more remiss also in the Urine some marks of an Hypostasis she took that day posset-drink with Meadow-sweet boiled in it and sweated plentifully and was cured of her Feaver All the time of her sickness for Food they gave only smal Beer Posset drink Barly broth or Grewel also frequently Clysters Drink and a cooling Julep they gave her at her pleasure This Noble Lady through transpiration being hindred fell into a Putrid Synochus the Effluvia wont to be evaporated through the skin being retained within together with the Choler flowing out of the Choleric Vessels and fixed to the Viscera did overthrow the dispositions of their parts and especially gave trouble to the Stomach and raised up pains and Convulsions in the parts filled with Muscles and Membranes the Pulse was unequal and intermitting not because of the malignity of the Disease as in the Plague but by reason a certain proper disposition of the Heart by which indeed its ferment being not well constituted the Blood growing fervent is not presently equally inkindled and wholly leaps forth but a part of the Blood in flowing in a small then a greater and after some turns the graatest proportion stoping for a moment of time in the Bosoms of the Heart produces the unequal and intermitting Pulse I have known in many others clearly the like distemper of the Pulse to wit so long as they were free from intemperance the Pulse was altogether equal and orderly but if they were more strongly heated than usually by any sudden passion of the mind or too great agitation of the Body presently they were affected with an unequal Pulse and between the vibrations or strikings intermitting perhaps 4 7 10 or 20. and as often as they fell into a Feaver the Pulse shewed it self after this irregular manner When this habitual irregularity concerning the Pulse was not yet made known to me by frequent experience I was wont to suspect still a malignity in the Disease and to foretel a fatal event which hapned otherwise On the fifth day in this sick person the Feaver although slowly inkindled came to an augmentation and from thence past through the rest of the stations with a swift motion on the sixth a light emptying of the adust matter arising to a fulness a sweat being risen and so a certain remission of the Feaverish heat followed on the seventh day this adust matter arising to its height of increase made the standing of the Disease to which at length on the eighth day a plentiful sweat with all things requisite to a good Crisis followed and perfectly Cured the Feaver because as it ought to be those three things went before this critical evacuation viz. first a full and sufficient deflagration of the Blood as appeared by the very strong heat and plainly fiery continued for three days before also secondly a congestion of the adust matter to a plenitude as was collected by the high disquiet and tossing about the preceeding and then a certain Pepasmus or Concoction of the same matter and a begun secretion in the Blood which a ceasing of the symptoms and signs of Concoction in the Urine shewed wherefore the Copious sweat coming upon so laudable a sign so long as there was no suspition of malignity portended nothing but good About the beginning of the year 1656 a Gentleman endued with an active habit of Body without any manifest cause unless that being much addicted to study he used no exercise after it became ill at first he complained of a nauseousness and want of Appetite with a great Headach on the second day he was affected now with a shivering now with heat several times reciprocating besides with thirst and burning of the Praecordia with a scurfieness of the Tongue and an ingrateful savour On that day he took ten drams of an Emetick Liquor by which he Vomited seven times and cast up a great quantity of yellow bile and had four Stools the night following he was unquiet and almost wholly without sleep and in which the sick person grew more Feaverish with an increased heat on the third day when the aforesaid symptoms were grown worse he was let Blood to ten Ounces his Urine was red thick and with a copious sediment his Pulse quick and vehement at night he sweat a little with a short sleep but disturbed on the following morning he seemed to be a little eased yet in the evening
pass through most swiftly as the Rays of light through a Diaphanous medium the whole mass of one another 2. As often as the Blood contracts hurt from some Poysonous thing the Poyson is fixed within either slow and of lesser activity which does not presently betray it self nor break forth into cruel symptoms till of a long time after it is ripened by a silent fermentation and hath first infected the whole mass of Blood as may be observed in some Poysons which are said to kill at a distance and not till after some months or years Or the Poysons inspired into the Blood are imbued with a much more acute sting that from their Contagion the Infection contracted presently breaks forth into cruel symptoms and thereupon follows now a Feaverish effervency with Vomiting Thirst and burning of the Precordia now a swelling up of the whole Body a discoloration of the skin oftentimes a breaking forth of whelks and buboes and frequently also a sudden loss of all strength so that sudden death without tumult and almost insensibly steals upon one where by the way it is to be noted If the Spirits of the Blood provoked by the enemy are able to encounter him and to strive for the victory this Feaverish ebullition of the Blood is stirred up from the conflict but if the Particles of the Poyson being far stronger suddenly profligate the Spirits of the Blood and extinguish life presently the Bloody mass is corrupted neither can it be circulated in the Vessels nor rightly inkindled in the heart If it be yet demanded what mutations the Blood infected with Poyson undergoes either in its substance or consistency that for that reason it is rendered unfit for the sustaining of Life I answer after this manner some Poysons fuse the Blood and too much precipitate its serosity such are Medicines which by a strong killing Purging or by a Profluvium of Urine or a discoloration or swelling up of the whole Body or with an eruption of Pustules cause a very great secretion of the serous Latex in the mean time a great ebullition of the mass of Blood is induced whereby the Vital Spirits are greatly destroyed the Particles of Salt and Sulphur too much exalted by the Concoction and are often so roasted that a Yellow or Black Jaundies is caused There are Poysons of another kind far more dangerous which congeal the Blood and by destroying its mixture corrupt it viz. the first induce a congelation to the Bloody mass and then a Putrefaction for when the Spirits of the Blood being overthrown by the contagion of the Poyson are dissipated the equal mixture of the Liquor is loosned wherefore the more thick Particles mutually infold one another and like Milk when Rennet is put to it or growing sowr of it self are coagulated apart hence the Blood curdles in the Vessels that it is less readily circulated in them coagulated portions of this being inwardly diluted into the bosom of the Heart are apt to stagnate there and so to bring forth frequent syncopes and swounings being carried outwardly and in the circulating fixed in the skin somtimes being more plentifully heaped together they induce a suffusion of blackness through the whole somtimes being more sparingly dispersed they cause only spots or Purple marks like black and blew stroaks and other appearances of malignity But the coagulation of the Blood quickly disposes it to putrefaction or corruption as is seen in extravasated Blood which is wont to grow soon black and putrid For the Spirit being exhaled the Particles of Sulphur and Salt remaining in the Blood begin to go apart one from another and to break the bond of the mixture from whence follows Putrefaction These things being thus premised of Poyson in general the reason of the method requires that we enter upon the handling of Feavers which draw their Original altogether from a malignant and invenomed infection and as under this title the Pest or Plague easily obtains the chief place I will begin with its consideration and afterwards I will speak of malignant Feavers Small-pox and Measels in order But yet before I shall propose its definition I will briefly inquire of the pestiferous Poyson what its disposition and Nature may be also from whence it may be born and lastly by what means it is propagated into others by contagion For the expressing the Nature of the Plague Authors are wont to choose some invenomed Bodies and from their names to frame an Elogy of this most wicked Disease wherefore in the definition of the pest are commonly recounted the Nepelline Aconital and Arsenical Poyson the Lethiferous force of which however as it consists in a very thick matter and does not exert or put forth itself but by a Corporal contact doth not truly imitate the essence of the Pestilential Disease for this is founded in a Spiritual and Vaporous infection by which its Effluvia being every way diffused so potently unfold themselves that out of the best seminary or seed plot they quickly propagate a fruitful Crop of death and destruction By reason of its notable activity this infection may deserve to be called as it were a certain quintessence of Poyson the very agil and subtil Particles of this do penetrate all Bodies and inspire them with its ferment for either being dispersed through the Air or hid in a certain tender or cherishing nest tho they strike against the human Body but lightly and as it were through a Casement they easily subdue it for both the Animal Spirits and those of the blood they quickly infect and by that means shortly pour forth the Venomous taint into all the members When a Pestilential Breath or Vapour hath invaded any one and that Poyson hath first laid hold on the Animal Spirits or those of the Blood or both of them at once as hath been already said of Poysons the taint is quickly derived from the subtil and more thin substance of these into a more thick matter because it quickly ferments the whole mass of Blood or of the Nervous Juice and the excrementitious humors every where abounding and from thence is deduced into the solid parts and fixes the evil in them If this Disease first possesses the Animal Spirits presently the hurt is communicated to the Brain and the Nervous stock and especially to the Ventricle forthwith it impoysons the humour growing in these loosens its mixture perverts the regular motion and renderr it wholly incongruous and infestous to the more tender substance of the containing parts by and by from thence Cramps and Convulsive motions cruel Vomitings pains of the Heart also Phrensies deliriums or pertinacious watchings are stirred up about the first assault of the Disease when in the mean time the infection not being yet dispersed through the Blood the sick are not Feaverish nor are troubled with inordinate Pulse or Syncope or appearances of marks which symptoms however arise afterwards as soon as the Blood is infected If when the Spirits of the
Liquor easily contracts the taint of this from whence it being made improportionate to the Brain and Regiment of the Animal Spirits stirs up great irregularities in them wherefore upon these sort of Feavers come not only spots and whelks but most often a Delirium Phrensie Sleepiness Tremblings of the Limbs Cramps and Convulsive motions I have often observed that in some certain years Malignant Feavers have increased which have shown their virulency without the appearances of marks chiefly about the Nervous stock because in some presently after the beginning has followed a sleepiness with a mighty heaviness of the Head in others strong Watchings a perturbation of mind with Trembling and Convulsive motions but in most either none or only an uncertain Crisis and instead of it a translation of the Feaverish matter to the Brain besides it is observed that these Feavers creep upon others by contagion and that very many are killed by them that therefore they do deserve to be called Malignant But these kind of Feavers are somtimes first begun from a venomous infection and the Blood being touched with the Particles of the venom conceives of it self an Effervescency and is inkindled as when from a contagion or malignant Air being inspired any one hath fallen into a Malignant Feaver without any evident cause or predisposition But somtimes the Feaverish Distemper is induced from a proper cause and then the seeds of the Malignity either lying hid within in the Body exert themselves in the Effervent Blood or they come from another place by the contaminated Air as it were the Food of the flame before inkindled for it appears by frequent observation in the time in which an Epidemical Feaver spreads that others being any way arisen turn into it Malignant Feavers as also Pestilential for the most part are popular and invade many at once but somtimes they are private and not ordinary so that perhaps only one or two are taken in the whole Region in such a case it is to be suspected that they come not from a malignant Air or Epidemical cause but from a morbous provision of the Body for I have often observed that when in the Spring or Autumn a Feaver sufficiently common hath spread in some City or Town of which very many have dyed perhaps some one on whom an evil predisposition and a more strong evident cause hath brought the Feaver hath lain by it with more horrid symptoms and great notes of malignity in which case that malignity is not to be called common to the Feaver but not ordinary and accidental only Altho the greatest reason of the difference by which these kind of Feavers are distinguished from one another and from other Feavers consists in their deadliness and contagion yet somtimes they are noted with a certein peculiar symptom from which they take for that time both the note of malignity and the appellation of the name hence in some years an Epidemical Feaver reigns which induces to most of the sick a Squinancy another time an inflamation of the Lungs a Pleurisie Dysentery or some other distemper and that oftentimes most dangerous and contagious so the seeds of Diseases not only derived from the Parents by traduction excite their fruits as it were by a certain designation in the same part or member but also those received from an Infection commonly spreading produce in all a distemper of the same mode and figure which yet I think to happen not because the seeds of the venomous Infection respect either this or that Region of the Body with a certain peculiar Virtue but these so affect the mass of Blood by a like manner in all that there is a necessity for the sake of washing away this stain that a Crisis be attempted after the same manner in all For when without malignity the Blood by reason of Coagulation or perhaps other causes is apt to be extravasated the usual places in which portions of the same being extravasated are wont to be fixed are the Throat Pleura Lungs and Intestines wherefore 't is no wonder when from a malignant cause the congelation of the Blood and for that reason an extravasation is induced if the Disease is nested in the accustomed cherishing place of Nature Concerning the causes of these kind of Feavers there is not much business they are for the most part deduced in respect of the malignity from the vicious Constitution of the Air in respect of the Feaverish heat from the morbous provision of the Body either of these are easily made clear by what hath been already said concerning a Putrid Feaver and the causes of the Pestilence If the malignity be stronger than the Feaver and hath induced it the impression of it is to be imputed to the inspired Air or to a Contagion received from others if the Feaver be first its inkindling is ascribed to transpiration being hindred to a Surfeit or to some other of the evident causes above enumerated As to the signs besides contagion and destruction these shew the malignity of the Feaver a sudden loss of strength a weak and unequal pulse and evil affection of the Brain and nervous parts being suddenly induced cruel Vomitings blackness of the Tongue a suffusion of darkness through the whole Body but chiefly the appearances of Spots Buboes and of other marks For the cure of Feavers both Pestilential and Malignant there is greater need of Judgment and Circumspection than in any others whatsoever For when there are two primary Indications to wit the Malignity and the Feaverish intemperance and when one can scarcely provide for the one without detriment to the other it is not easily to be discerned which should first be helped or soonest regarded In respect of the Feaver purging opening a Vein and cooling things do chiefly help but whilst these are performed the Malignity for the most part is increased and being neglected spreads abroad more largely its Poyson against the Malignity Poyson-resisting Cordials and Diaphoreticks are required but these extreamly heighten the Feaver they more shake the Blood and Spirits before inkindled as it were with the blast of Bellows and force all as it were into a flame wherefore here is great need of skill that these things be rightly ordered in themselves and where there is most of danger appearing thence the Curative Intentions are to be more immediatly designed but so as whilst one is consulted about the other be not neglected But in these cases besides the private Judgment of every Physician experience may supply the chief means of healing for when as these Feavers first spread every one almost tryes several Remedies and by the success of them collated together it may be easily reckoned what kind of method is to be relyed on till at last by a frequent tryal or the footsteps of those passing before there is made as it were a high and broad Road for the curing of these sorts of distempers bounded both with various observations and warnings Besides these sort
CHAP. XVI Of Feavers of Child-bearing Women VUlgar Experience abundantly testifies that the Feavers of Women lying in are very dangerous beyond the disposition of other common Feavers also that the same differ very much as to their essence from both a simple and putrid Synochus plainly appears from their signs and symptoms rightly weigh'd wherefore I believe it not to be from the matter to handle after malignant Feavers the acute Diseases of Women lying in being exceeding neer of kin to those for their mortality or perniciousness Yet before I shall enter upon the unfolding these Diseases it behoves us to consider their subjects viz. the Bodies of Women in Child-bed after what manner they are predisposed and by what provision they are made obnoxious to these kind of sicknesses Concerning this the first thing that offers itself is that the Flux of the menstruous Blood is wholly convenient to be suffered by human kind and at this time for Women concerning whose nature and original we shall not inquire in this place but it shall suffice to note that in them the particles of the Blood to be periodically thrust forth are very Permentative which if reteined in the Body beyond the wonted manner of Nature are very often the cause of many Diseases unless only when a Woman conceives with Child For all the time of her being big Bellied the monthly Flowers are stopped without any incommodiousness and in the mean time milk or the alible juice is disposed in great plenty about the parts of the Womb for the nourishment of the Child but after the Birth this daily suppression of the monthly Flowers is recompensed by a copious flowing forth of the Lochia or what comes away after the Birth and the milk within three days having wholly left the Womb springs forth plentifully into the Breasts at which time Women lying in are wont to be troubled with a small Feaver If that the milk be driven away from the Breasts it restagnates again towards the Womb and is thrust forth together with the Lochia under the form of a whitish humour In the mean time the Womb after the Birth becomes subject to various distempers for oftentimes its tone is hurt the unity is dissolved and many other accidents are induced which render Women lying in subject to danger wherefore that their acute Diseases may be rightly unfolded it is convenient for to consider chiefly these three things viz. first the nourishment of the Child or the Generation of Milk both in the Womb and in the Dugs and the metastasis or translation of it from one to another Secondly the purging of the Mothers Blood or the profluvium of the Lochia after a long suppression of the Menstrua Thirdly the condition of the Womb after the Birth and its influence on other parts of the Body And these being premised we will speak of the Feavers of Women lying in viz. both the milkie and the putrid called and that deservedly malignant by reason of its deadliness First the Milk and nourishing humour being heaped up in the parts of the Womb for the nourishment of the Child are of a like nature tho somewhat different in consistency Milk is indeed more thick because it ought to be received in at the mouth and to be kept in the Ventricle and afterwards it more thin portion to be conveyed to the mass of Blood The other alible Juice is more thin and like the water of distilled Milk because 't is immediately poured into the Blood of the Embryo thorow the umbilick Vessels without any previous digestion Either Juice is supposed to come from the Chyle fresh made in the mothers stomach what is reposed or laid up in the Breast is more thick and white by reason of the more thin or open strainer and coction in the greater Glandulas on the contrary it happens in the Womb ootherwise where the Glandulas are smaller and the Straining more close But there is a great disagreement among Authors concerning the passages by which this humor is carried both in the Breasts and into the Cake of the Womb. Some contend that Milk only is begotten of the Blood more plentifully cocted in the Glandulas which yet by reason of the immense dispense of Milk which consists not with the Blood this seems not probable Others affirm that the Chyle or Milkie humor is immediately conveyed from the Viscera of Concoction thorow occult passages without any alteration into either receptacles But in the mean time while these passages lie open it seems indeed to me more likely that from the meat taken into the Mothers Stomach a portion of the Chyle thence made is presently supped up into the Veins which having obtained the vehicle of the Blood before it be assimilated by it is said up in the Glandulas destinated here and there for the receiving of it being carried by the Arteries and lastly separated from the mass of Blood for as it appears that drink being plentifully taken presently passes thorow the whole mass of Blood and is rendered by Urine like water and as old Ulcers by means of the Blood coming between prey upon the nutritious humor from the whole Body and pour it forth under the shape of a putrified matter Why may not the alible Juice in like manner being strained by the Collander of the Glandulas before it has indued the colour of Blood go into a Milkie humour This indeed seems more probable because whilst the Milk is carried from the Womb into the Breasts and on the contrary passing thorow the mass of Blood it is wont to stir up a perturbation thorow the whole with a feaverish intemperance besides in the first days after the Birth when the Glandulas do less rightly perform the office of secretion Beasts who have not the Lochia give a bloody Milk which is drawn forth of their Udders that is mixt with Blood by reason of the plenty of it flowing forth together Secondly As to what belongs to the Menstrua being suppressed in the time of being with Child and the Lochia plentifully coming away after being Delivered we say that after the Conception of the Child the Menstrua ought to be suppressed by Divine Designation for that the flowing of them often causes abortion then because the Vessels are filled by a continual stilling forth of the alible juice into the parts of the Womb the mass of the Blood doth not arise into swellings up to be allayed by the menstruous Flux For the same reason Women for the most part have not their courses so long as they give suck Perhaps in some indued with a more hot Blood the monthly courses flow both whilst they are Big-bellied and in the time of their giving suck but that more rarely and is wont not to happen without trouble yet in the mean time the Menstrua being suppressed during the time of being with Child because much less of the nutritious humor is expended at that time for Milk they much more deprave the Blood
things and that are indued with a styptic or binding vertue are equally to be avoided for these fix the Blood and bind it too much and hinder its very requisite Purgation both by the Lochia and by transpiration thorow the skin But rather though the Feaver be urgent give them decoctions powders and confections of things moderately hot of which sort are as is already said decoctions or Distilled Waters of the Flowers of Marigoids the Leaves of Pennyroyal Mugwort the roots of Scorzonera also Bezoartic Powders Spirits of Harts-horn fixed salts of Herbs c. If the Lochia should be stopt that their Flux may be again provoked must be indeavoured every way To the moving of this conduce frictions and ligatures about the Thighs and Legs sometimes Cupping-Glasses or Blisters about the Thighs or Hips also in the soles of the Feet also sometimes the opening a Vein in the Ankle is convenient in the mean time a fomentation of the hysterical decoction is to be applied about the Pubis or the Caul of a Weather or Sheep taken out warm may be layed to the bottom of the Belly and experience manifests that sometimes injections into the Womb are profitable If the Belly yields not it may be gently brought down with a violet suppository so called or an emollient Clyster of more strong provocations you must take heed because in Women Lying in even as in a Malignant Feaver from a copious dejection with loss of Spirits Life is quickly lost If with the suppression of the Lochia there be a notable perturbation of the Blood with vomiting thirst and wakings I have often known Laudanum mixt with Saffron given with happy success Instead of a cooling Julep this kind of mixture is convenient viz. take of water of Pennyroyal and Balm each three ounces of hysterical water two ounces of the Syrrop of Mugwort three ounces and an half of the tincture of Saffron two drams of Castor ty'd in a rag and hung in the glass one scruple mingle these and let them drink of this three or four spoonfuls oftentimes in a day 2. If notwithstanding the use of these Remedies the Feaver grows still worse and by degrees is increased with worser symptoms that besides the disorders of the Blood the Brain and nervous parts begin to be touched Medicines tho many of every kind may be tryed do little yea in this case the indications are almost the same with those made use of in the Plague it self forasmuch as the Lochia being for a good while suppressed they cannot easily be reduced or scarcely at all in the great confusion of the Blood and humors therefore it is convenient quickly to move a sweating to wit that the corruptions impressed on the Blood and nervous juice and restagnating from the Womb may be carried forth some how by sweat and insensible transpiration Therefore here Powders and Confections of Bezoar Spirit of Hartshorn or of Soot tinctures of Corals or Pearls help I have sometimes seen by the help of those kind of Medicines in a desperate case when the Pulse and other symptoms have appeared a little better some small hopes to shew themselves yet Cure rarely to follow but when the use of these Cordials were left off the sick with a weak Pulse and a Loosness presently arising have been precipitated to Death 3. When yet the business of the sick proves still worse when the Feaver being increased the Pulse is weak and unequal and frequent horrors and convulsive motions in the whole body with a delirium and stupefaction infest them then the Physitian having first made a Prognostication of Death may insist upon a few Remedies and those only Cordials and must wholly abstain from blood-letting scarification blistering or the use of Cupping-glasses for such administrations beget only an odium and blame that by so doing we are esteemed by some Women as wicked and cruel The Symptomatic Feavers of Women in Child-bed THE Acute Diseases of Women in Child-bed shew themselves not only according to the Figure of the aforesaid Feaver but sometimes they are beset with some signal symptoms to wit the Squinancy Pleurifie inflamation of the Lungs Dysentery Small-Pox or of some other kind and at that time they get the appellations of those Distempers It will not be here seasonable to repeat at large what belongs to the essences and natures of each but I shall briefly shew what these sicknesses being complicated with the distempers of Women Lying in contain peculiarly as to the Causes or Cures All these symptoms we suppose to proceed from a certain Coagulation of the Blood and from thence its extravasation But whilst the Blood is extravasated or put forth of the Vessels in one part its efflux however natural and critical is hindred in another wherefore it is dangerous lest whilst the Blood begins to be coagulated either in a particular or accustomed nest of Coagulation or universally in its whole mass the flowing of the Lochia be stopped which in truth for the most part happens and therefore these Distempers for the most part are deadly to Women in Child-bed yet the cause of their Death for the most part happens with some difference viz. in the Small Pox the flowing of the Lochia draws inwardly the malignity begun to be carried forth outwardly and forthwith compels the mass of Blood and the heart it self to be impoysoned with its evil and therefore in the Small Pox these purgings of the Womb are convenient to be stopped But in the Pleurisie Squinancy and the rest when the provocative of the Disease being fixed here or there in a particular place draws to it self the impurities of the Blood which ought to be separated or sifted forth by the Lochia and derives it streight from the Womb for that reason it increases the impurity of the Blood The Lochia being stopped in the Small Pox by the more universal manner or way of excretion may be shut forth of doors with the venemous Particles of the Disease which thing indeed does not succeed in the rest by reason of the minute and more sparing manner of excretion Of these the Squinancy Pleurisie and Inflamation of the Lungs by reason both of the great similitude of the Cause and analogy of the Cure may be considered together when any Woman Lying in is distempered with any of these it is to be supposed that besides the Infection gathered together in the time of being Big-bellied there happens a certain sourish disposition of the Blood by the means of which whilst that it self grows feaverishly hot certain Particles of it being fused with the sourness enter into congelation in this or that part like Milk growing sour and then to be coagulated The Blood being there frozen or congealed and hindred in its circuit stops the passage of the rest but the Blood being obstructed in its motion buts against the impediment and so being heaped up about it and driven forth of the Vessels grows into a tumour from thence presently whatsoever is
head moreover a leaping up of the tendons in her wrists also she had sudden concussions of her wholy Body yet still her loosness held to her were administred by the prescripts of several Physicians Cordials and other Remedies and kinds of Administrations carefully but nothing profited her Pulse being more weak and her strength leisurely wasting she died on the ninth day after she was delivered This Feaver very much depended upon the vitious provision of the Body as the procatartic cause for I have often observed that it fares ill with Women Lying in who when Big bellied devoured fruit and any unwholsom trash and living without motion or exercise indulged themselves with ease and rest the Blood by reason of the previous Cachexie conceived a burning without any evident cause as it were of its own accord But growing hot laying inwardly still its recrements and impurities caused the Diarrhea neither yet was its mass made more pure by its almost continual excretion yea rather being still more depraved in its mixtion or crasis the Blood at length wholly departed from its proper disposition and became unable to be fermented in the heart whereby heat and breath might be every where dispersed The loosness excited by the motion of Nature was untowardly stopped especially by the use of astringent things for this I have often observed never to be done without paying for it because the Flux of the Belly has cured some that have been ill but in this Lady and in many others as has abundantly appeared to our experience altho it did not take away the Feaver yet it freed her from the more grievous distempers of the Brain and nervous stock from whence this sick person was wholly free from a Delirium nor was struck with Convulsive motions till reduced almost to extremity The Mother of a Family and a Gentlewoman about 36 years of Age or upwards being with Child of her seventeenth Child was troubled and very anxious lest she should die of that Child-bearing But God favouring she was delivered well enough of a Son and for three days after she was very cheerful on the fourth day when she had eaten more than she should do of a Chicken a little before night she fell into a feaverish Distemper with vomiting and a stopping of the Lochia all night she lay restless and without sleep the next morning she had four stools and seemed somewhat eased about Noon about which time I came to her she complained again of heat and thirst as also a palpitation of the heart and of the ascent of some substance in her throat her Pulse was quick and small her Urine red the Lochia scarce appeared I ordered her Juleps Cordials and things to purge the Womb besides a fomentation for the bottom of her Belly also her Legs and Feet to be rubbed often with warm Wollen Cloaths at going to sleep I gave her of Laudanum one grain with Saffron Pouder half a scruple in a spoonful of Treacle-water She slept well and the Lochia came down plentifully and by that means with a slender dyet and continuing to provoke moderately the Flux of the Womb for a few days she became very well The immoderate eating of flesh as an evident and almost only sufficient cause without any great provision or vitious predisposition induced the Feaver The Lochia restagnating into the Blood increased its intemperance and presently brought troubles upon the nervous kind but in the mean time the Blood altho growing hot did not undergo any great corruption but when the recrements heaped up by the Surfeit were sent forth by the loosness and the Blood the Lochia being restored began to be purged forth again after its wonted manner this Feaver wanting a further malignant ferment quickly vanished A noble Lady young and fair was brought to Bed of a second Child and for six days as to the Lochia and other accidents she was well and wholly free from the suspicion of any intemperature she ate flesh daily and rising from her Bed was brisk and chearful in her Chamber on the seventh day without any manifest cause a shivering came upon her with a Feaver and a lessning of the Lochia but not suppressed to the tenth day after her Delivery she was only moderately feaverish whilst the purgings of the Womb yet flowed she remained free from any grievous symptom but then although she was greatly feaverish she was more cheerful than ordinary and seemed more confident of her health at Night she slept little or nothing the morning following at which time I first visited her she clearly raved the Lochia were stopped also her whole Body was shaken with horror the tendons in her wrists were pulled together so that I could hardly distinguish her Pulse which in the mean time was weak unequal and very quick I said she would die quickly unless God should miraculously restore her by his Divine Power however six grains of Oriental Bezoar being given her in a spoonful of Cordial Julep brought upon her a plentiful sweat with a better Pulse then other Cordials being given wiâ—â— due intervals gave some little hopes tho I doubted they would not continue aâ—tâ—r four hours from the time that I came the sick Lady had of her own accord a great Stool and presently her strength wholly failed her and within half an hour she died When there hapned nothing of ill to this Lady as to her Delivery or Womb so pernicious a Feaver and so suddenly Mortal could not happen without a great and malignant procatarsis of the Blood and humors whether a more full Dyet or taking Cold or any other evident cause gave a beginning to this is uncertain because the Women and Nurses helping her knew of no manifest occasion of her sickness The Feaver being inkindled the infection of the Blood could not be wholly carried away by the purging of the Womb tho long continued tho for that reason the more cruel symptoms came not presently upon her yet the evil still lurked within and the Disease being very acute shewing it self with a swift motion on the fourth day when Nature should have indeavoured a Crisis the matter of the Feaver being moved but not overcome as it were in a moment overturned at once the Brain and nervous parts whence Death was to be expected and suddenly followed A Woman well known who had scarce passed the twentieth Year of her Age of a florid countenance and slender Body after her being brought to Bed when the Lochia flowed immoderately made use of some astringent Remedies by the counsel of those about her by which means they were wholly stopped but a Flux of her Belly succeeded which when it had increased for three days the Women gave her other things for the stopping her Loosness nor were they frustrated in the success in the mean time in the place of the former evil they had brought a most dangerous Feaver and distempers as it were hysterical for the unhappy Gentlewoman Lying in was troubled
to vomiting let a more plentiful evacuation be procured by a gentle Emetie in the time of the fit The opening of a Vein and Purging ought not to be administred unless between the fits for whilst the Blood grows mainly hot or is resolved into sweat Nature ought not to be called back from the Work begun nor her endeavours to be disturbed by the prescriptions of Physicians wherefore after the 〈◊〉 being past and the sweat throughly finished a Purging may be instituted by a gentle Cathartic and the same afterwards sometimes repeated on the like occasion for by this method not only the provision of the excrementitious matter is brought away from the first passages but chiefly the choler-bearing Vessels being emptied the choler is copiously drawn forth from the mass of Blood and by that means the Blood is restored to its natural Crasis or disposition The Letting of Blood if it be indicated should be performed presently after the beginning for so its Liquor being too turgent or swelling up is eventilated whereby both the nutritious juice is less perverted and the fit urging it burns forth with a less heat together with the morbifick matter but otherwise if a Vein be opened after a long sickness when the Blood being made poorer and more watry more of the morbific matter is heaped together and does not rightly concoct and sift it forth it detracts much from the strength of Nature and nothing from the power of the Disease In the interval of the fits when there is no place for opening a Vein nor Purging let the Belly be kept loose by the constant use of Clysters also digestive Remedies of acetous or saline Liquors and Powders are to be exhibited of which sort are Cream of Tartar fixed Salts of Herbs Tartar Vitriolate Harts-horn burnt Spirit of Vitriol and Salt c. for these restore the lost or sleepy ferments of the Viscera purifie the Blood by fusing it also separate the morbific matter and as it were precipitate it also at this time between if pertinations waking infest the sick and overthrow their strength it may be lawful to administer anodyne and gentle narcotic Remedies but never in the fit for then they greatly hinder the subduing and sifting forth of the feaverish matter and draw out in length the fit that would end sooner These things are to be done about the interstitia or intervals of the fits but whilst the fit is urgent altho the sick then chiefly send for and call upon Physiicans yet at this time their prescripts are limited to a narrower space If Vomiting notwithstanding an Emetic being given still infest it may be more freely provoked either by simple Posset Drink or with bitter Herbs boyled in it But let the chiefest means of help be in temperating the heat and thirst which most grievously torments the sick in this Feaver For whilst the Blood growing hot with the morbific matter and being inkindled in the Heart leaps forth into the Lungs stirs up there a cruel Inflamation which requires a profusion of a cold humor as it were for the extinguishing the Flame wherefore they greedily desire without any measure drink for want of which the sick are almost killed with too great heat and their Blood being almost wholly rarified into flame and fume the thrid of Circulation is hardly continued wherefore drink ought to be wholly granted to those in Feavers which however if it be taken in too large a quantity it at first more disturbs the estuating Blood and at length brings confusion to the feaverish matter begun to be separated that from thence the Work of subaction and secretion is longer protacted and the fit is made longer also besides large drinking causes troubles in the Ventricle and by disturbing it and often provoking Vomiting hinders the breathing forth and calls inward the sweat breaking forth or perhaps already broke forth wherefore at first the heat of the Feaver being inkindled altho the sick be very thirsty let them only sip a little and abstain from drink as much as they can afterwards when the matter being burnt and subdued begins to be dissipated by sweat they may be more freely indulged as to this for so the sweating is greatly helped and the fit is sooner finished as to the nature of the Drink let them take sometimes Posset Drink sometimes Small Beer or Barly Water and sometimes simple Water or sharpned with the juice of Lemons In this case the use of Sal Prunellae is deservedly praised to be given in every Liquor for this with its nitrosity wonderfully allays the raging Blood and potently moves sweats I have often observed in the midst of a fit the sick wont to fall into a swoon or syncopy to whom presently they give Cordials or hot Waters that much increase the violence of the Feaver and bring forth more troubles than usual that the fit is more difficultly finished But these faintings for the most part happen either from a bilous humor suffused in the Ventricle or by reason of the sweat suddenly breaking forth and against these I always found the most present Remedy that either a feather being put down the throat Vomiting may be provoked or that Liquor being plentifully drunk a sweat may be again raised up also in the whole course of this Feaver I am wont never to give any Cordials or alexiteriums The Dyet in this Feaver ought to be only slender and not nourishing all sorts of Flesh or any thing prepared of them are wholly to be avoided for as these abound with Sulphur they give a more plentiful food as Oyl poured on Flame to the hot or enkindled Blood besides nothing spiritous as strong Waters strong Beer or Wine is to be yielded to but Decoctions or Broths of Oat-meal or Barly altered with cooling Herbs are chiefly to be used also Posset Drink and small Beer or Whey is to be given them at their pleasure for by this means when a very slender and watry nourishing juice is conveyed to the mass of Blood the soluted Particles of Sulphur burn forth sooner and with the less tumult also the recrements of the adust matter are more easily carried from the bosom of the Blood but if on the contrary a more rich or plentiful nourishment be administred the effervency of the Blood is thereby very much augmented and the Blood is more infected by the confusion or pouring in of the adust matter After that the Blood being much burnt forth by frequent fits and the Feaver being in its declination remits of its fervor and fierceness you must take heed lest the sick at length growing well fall not into a Cachexie or Scorbutic Distemper for the disposition of the Viscera being hurt and the Blood very much depauperated the alible juice though not scorched so as at first is not however rightly concocted and ripened into perfect Blood but by reason of the want of transpiration the serous excrements being imbued with a fixed salt are greatly heaped together
and now fixed in the Bowels now in the extreme parts bring forth various Distempers Wherefore in a long languishing of the sick or otherwise for the sake of being sooner well Remedies should be given them which volatilise the Blood or hinder the stuffings of the Viscera or if stuffed may open them and their ferments as if extinct restore for this use those Remedies and Preparations chiefly help which are commonly called Digestives and Antiscorbuticks with which being timely administred I have known very many weak pale and as it were without Blood suddenly to recover a liveliness and vigor The Description of a Catarrhal Feaver Epidemical in the middle of the Spring in the Year 1658. taken the fourth of June AN equally intense Frost followed the next Winter the immoderate heat of the foregoing Summer so that no one living could remember such a Year for either excess both of heat and cold From the Ides of December almost to the vernal Equinox the Earth was covered with snow and the North wind constantly blowing all things without doors were frozen also afterwards from the beginning of the Spring almost to the beginning of June the same Wind still blowing the season was more like Winter than Spring unless now and then a hot day came between During the Winter unless that a Quartan Feaver contracted in Autumn infested some among our Countrimen there was a moderate state of health and freedom from all popular Diseases The Spring coming on an intermitting Tertian as used to do every year before fell upon some About the end of April suddenly a Distemper arose as it sent by some blast of the Stars which laid hold on very many together that in some Towns in the space of a Week above a thousand people fell sick together The particular symptom of this Disease and which first invaded the sick was a troublesome Cough with great spitting also a Catarrh falling down on the palat throat and nostrils also it was accompanied with a feaverish Distemper joyned with heat and thirst want of appetite a spontaneous weariness and a grievous pain in the Back and Limbs which Feaver however was more remiss in some that they could go abroad and follow their affairs in the time of their sickness but complaining in the mean time of want of strength and of languishing a loathing of food a Cough and a Catarrh But in some a very hot Distemper plainly appeared that being thrown into Bed they were troubled with burning thirst waking hoarsness and coughing almost continual somtimes there came upon this a bleeding at Nose and in some a bloody spittle and frequently a Bloody Flux such as were indued with an infirm Body or men of a more declining Age that were taken with this Disease not a few died of it but the more strong and almost all of an healthful constitution recovered those who falling sick of this Disease and died for the most part died by reason of the strength being leisurely wasted and a serous heap more and more gathered together in the Breast with the Feaver being increased and a difficulty of breath like those sick of an Hectic Feaver Concerning this Disease we are to inquire what procatartic cause it had that it should arise in the middle of the Spring suddenly and that the third part of Mankind almost should be distempered with the same in the space of a Month then the signs and symptoms being carefully collated the formal reason of this Disease also its Crisis and way of Cure ought to be assigned That the Northern Wind is most apt to produce Catarrhs besides the testimony of Hippocrates common experience doth make known but why Catarrhs did not spread at least in some peculiar places all the Winter and Spring but only in one months space and then joyned with a Feaver this Distemper should become Epidemical doth not so plainly appear I know many deduce the cause from the unequal temper of the Air at that time which altho for the most part very cold yet the North Wind sometimes lessening there would be a day or two very hot between wherefore from this occasion as from cold taken after the heat men should commonly fall sick But indeed for the exciting the Distemper so suddenly rising and commonly spreading there is required besides such an occasion a great foregoing cause or predisposition tho the other might suffice perhaps for an evident cause for to distemper them with this sickness for we ought to suppose that almost all men were prone to the receiving this Disease otherwise no evident cause could have exercised its power so potently on so many wherefore it seems very likely that this Disease had its Origine from the intemperance and great inordination of the year and as the Autumnal intermitting Feaver before described was the product of the preceding immoderate heat so this Catarrhal Feaver depended altogether upon the following part of the year being so extremely cold For the Blood being now throughly roasted by the very hot Summer and prone to the Feaver before described then being made more sourish by the Autumn urging it and apt for a Quartan Feaver afterwards being a little eventilated by reason of the strong cold of the Winter and hindred from its due perspiration retained yet its Dyscrasie or evil disposition and readily broke forth on the first occasion given wherefore when the Blood in the middle of the Spring as the juice of Vegetables being made more lively and also begun to flower and grow rank by reason of the stoppage being still continued was straitned in its Circulation and easily made prone to a feaverish effervescency and as the serous Water redounding in the Blood could not evaporate outwardly because of the Pores being still straitned by the cold restagnating within and chiefly falling upon the Lungs where it might be moved about instead of an outward breathing forth excited the so frequent and troublesom Cough The Original therefore and formal Reason of this Disease are founded chiefly on two things to wit that there together hapned a greater effervescency of the Blood than usual from the coming on of the Spring season and also a stoppage or great constriction of the Pores excited by the too great cold of the foregoing season that therefore there was not a free space granted to the Blood flowring or luxuriating in the Vessels The business being after the same manner as if Wine begun to grow hot should be put up into close shut Vessels for by this means either the Vessels or the Liquor were in danger to be lost Wherefore that we may contract the thing in short the cause that this Disease begun in the middle of the Spring having presently spread largely seised very many was not the blast of a malignant Air whereby the sick were distempered as if struck with a blasting but that at this time the Blood being inspired by the constitution of the Spring and so luxuriating and apt to grow hot was contracted
those kinde of medicine between whiles in the spring and autumn and other fit times 2ly As to specific Remedies which indeed only though not allways are able to reach the Epilepsie and to subdue it of which sort are the male Paeonie Missletow Rew Castor the Claws of an Elk preparations of a dead mans Skull Amber Corrall with many others Forasmuch as these are taken without any sensible evacuation or also perturbation following in the viscera or humours it is a wonder by what formal reason or virtue of acting they are wont at any time to help in this disease In what the Virtue of the specificks consists in the Epilepsie Concerning this matter intricate and obscure enough if there may be place for Conjecture when as we have already asserted the procatartick Cause of the Epilepsie to consist in the heterogeneous Copula joyning or cleaving to the spirits inhabiting the Brain and inciting them to praeternatural explosions it follows that those things which take away or resist such a cause must be of that nature that by strengthening the brain and binding up its pores may exclude that Copula and so fix and as it were binde the spirits flowing within the middle or marrow of the Brain from leaving their Copula that they shall not be any more apt or prone to irregular explosions Perhaps after the same manner as when gunpowder or aurum fulminans being pounded with sulphure or sprinkled with spirit of Vitriol loses its thundering virtue And indeed these kind of properties to wit one or both of them may be suspected yea in a manner detected in most anti-epileptick Remedies For truly Paeony Missletow Rue the Lilly of the vally with many others abound in a certain manifest astriction that 't is likely their Particles being taken inwardly and so dilated to the brain by the Vehicle of the blood and nervous Juice do so binde and shut up its too loose and open pores that afterwards they do not ly open for the Passage of the morbifick matter Besides for that these vapourous Concerts breath forth as it were an armodiack scent or scattering therefore they are sayd to purifie the animal spirits to fix them and to strengthen them having put off their heterogeneous Copula This virtue purifying the spirits proceeding from an armoniac salt is more apparent in Remedies which are taken from the famuly of Mineralls and Animalls such are the preparations of the humane Skull of blood amber and coral as the other more binding rather exists in the parts and preparations of Vegitables It will not be needfull here for the curing of the Epilepsie to propose a compleat method of healing with exact forms of prescriptions because there are extant every where among Authors general precepts and most choyce Remedies and the Prudent Physitian will easily accomodate both the Indications and that plentifull provision of medicinal stuff to the particular Cases of the sick But because we have exhibited a quite new Theorie of this Disease here also ought to be rendred a Curatory method fited for it which we shall describe by and by more fully after we have shewn you some cases or Histories of people sick of the Epilepsie A fair maid sprung from parents indifferently healthfull being her self very Observation 1 well till about her coming to ripe age about that time she began to complain of her head being ill And first of all she felt neer the fore part or her head by fits a Vertigo or giddinesse whereby all things seemed to run round and also whilst this Symptom continued she was wont to talke idlely and to forget whatever she had but just done These kinde of fits at first pass'd away within a quarter of an hower and came again only once or twice in a month in the interval of which she was well enough Afterwards the assalts being made more grievous by degrees they also return'd more often and within half a year her brain being dayly more weakened this giddinesse or turning round was plainly chang'd into the Epilepsie that the sick being struck down to the ground at every fit was affected with Insensibility and horrid convulsions and also with foam at the mouth The Domesticks observ'd that she allways fell on the same side so that siting neer the fire if she sate in the right Corner she would be flung in the midst of the fire but if in the left Corner she fell against the wall of the Chimny once when being left alone in the house she fell upon the burning Coals and so miserably burnt her face and forepart of her head that the skull being made bare of the skin and flesh a deep and large escar was burnt into it and afterwards the outer shell of it fell off a hands bredth In the mean time the sick maid so long as the ulcers contracted by the burning ran with filthy matter she was free from the fits but afterwards they being healed up the falling evill returned This Disease began first to shew it self about the time of puberty for this maid presently after the begining of it had her Courses and afterwards they constantly observed their set times though her distemper grew dayly worse Various kinds of medicines being administred to this sick Creature availed nothing because it was the custome and practise of her and her friends quickly to change both the Physitian and method of Physick if an happy event did not presently follow and to betake themselves very much to every Empirick and outlandish Mountebanks That in this Case the Vertigenous Distemper with a short delirium was the forerunner of the Epilepsie it plainly argues the original of this Disease being planted in the middle of the brain to depend upon a certain inordination of the Spirits to wit those dwelling there at the begining begun to admit an heterogeneous Copula which being more plentifully heaped up being moved either of its own accord or occasionally while it was shaken off induced by reason of the spirits being disturbed and not yet very explosive those former distempers Afterwards from the same cause by degrees growing worse the perturbations of the Spirits did raise up their manifest explosions and chang'd the vertigo and Delirium into the Epilepsie But that this maid began to be sick about the time of ripe age it hence evidently follows as the natural ferment so sometimes the praeternatural explicates it self first at that time wherefore as it happens that the menstruous purgations doe then first break forth so the seeds of the falling sicknesse whether innate or acquired then budded forth a little and by degrees were ripened into fruit when the praeternatural Ferment first appears ofttimes the natural following blots it out hence the Epilepsie of young ones often ends about the time of puberty or ripe age but if that Firment or taint of the disease comes after the menstruous flux or together with it and ceases not presently it remains for the most part afterwards during Life
whilst she Cough'd the Diaphragma being caried upward and with a renewed Sistole held so a long time she made a great noise as if about to be suffocated then this little maid growing more apparently feavourish complained of thirst and heat and lay all night without sleep with a mighty agitation of her body and began to talk idly after the same manner as her brother of her coat being fallen into the water and when all things grew worse she began to be tormented with Convulsive motions first in her Limbs by and by in her face and then in her whole body the Paroxysms coming by often turns twice or thrice in an hour did most grievously trouble her so that this little wretch within the space of 24. hours after the Convulsive Distempers began to grow more grievous her animal spirits being almost quite spent she dyed whilst the Convulsive Fits tormented her her pulse was very much disorder'd and often intermitting also a frequent vomiting molested her Being sent for to visit this maid also too late a little before her death when I could contribute nothing to the proroguing of Life I endeavourd what I could to finde out from her Death the knowledge of the aforesaid disease therefore having got leave to dissect her body the reasons and marks of the Symptoms chiefly urging in this feavour more clearly appear'd Opening therefore first the lower belly The knâ—wledg of the disease found â—ut by dissecting the Carcase I found all the bowells in it sound enough and well furnish't The ventricle altho tyred with empty vomiting contained nothing besides the Liquor lately taken in at the mouth for neither in it nor in its Appendix were worms or sharp humours found which are wont oftentimes to give a cause to these kinde of Convulsions the small guts were in many places mutually involved to wit the Convex superficies of one part was thrust into the concave of another as into a sheath and hid far in it which indeed I judge to have hapned wholly from the convulsive Motions of those bowels for whilst by reason of the vehement Convulsion excited from the nervous origine the opposite fibres being drawn together did work the same Intestine into contrary motions it easily hapned that a part of the Intestine of the Ilion being carried upward might run into the hollowness of the other being snatch'd downward The Thorax being opened the flesh of the Lungs appeared very red and as it were sprinkled with bood yea in some places as it were livid and almost black out of the same whereever it was cut there flow'd forrh a thin and frothy matter Certainly this shewâ—d that the feavourish matter or the serous impurities of the boyling blood being soon impacted in the Lungs did so stuff up their pores and passages that the blood it self being in its wonted and free Circulation there stagnating and being extravasated did excite a certain inflammation We found a no less clear track of this so deadly disease in the head for the shell of the skull being removed presently the vessells creeping thorow the meningae were seen to swell very much with blood as if almost the whole mass of blood were gathered together in the head for the veins being cut or broken about the Inwards of the lower and middle belly little blood flowed forth Besides those membranes where they cloath the Cerebel and being higher spread divide it from the brain being sprinkled in very many places with extravasated blood were noted to be of a black-purple colour that it was not to be doubted but the Phlegosis or Inflamation round about excited was the cause of the so cruelly infesting Convulsions These coverings being taken away the substance of the brain was seen to be altogether moist and watered above measure with a watery humour yea its rine or bark being taken off all the ventricles were full of a limpid or clear water of which kinde of very clear Liquor there was judg'd to be more then half a pinte From these appearances the Pathologie of the aforesaid feavour is easily Collected to wit in this sicknesse as also in many others The Pathologie of the aforesaid Feavour the blood feavourishly growing hot presently deposes its recrements both into the Lungs and into the brain wherefore a serous Colluvies or watery heap did presently overflow the constitution of either then because the blood being hindred both here and there from its due circulation it began to grow into a very great heap about the confines of the affected parts and at length to stagnate and to cause as it were a phlegosis or Inflammation hence by reason of the serum being plentifully heaped up in the lungs and baked by the heat the troublesome cough with the thick and discoloured spittle for the most part came in this disease and by reason of the like affection excited within the head the vertigo swimming stupifaction and other Cephalic passions constantly seased on the sick which kinde of Distempers in this little maid and in her brother by reason of the infirm constitution of the brain before in either of them being made more greivous terminated in an Apoplexy I might easily here propose many other histories of persons sick of this feavour at that time but from these but now recited the Type of the aforesaid disease may be sufficiently known But because the same feavour happens almost every year on some prae-disposed and perhaps by reason of an evill constitution of the year may hereafter at some time become Epidemical it will be worth the while to represent some Method about its Cure Concerning which first of all take notice that in this feavour The Curatory Method no Critical days were to be observed as in the vulgar continual feavours for the blood as soon as it began to grow hot poured out a part of the morbific matter as yet crude and not overcome from its embrace to the head or breast wherefore it were vain to expect that the blood should suffer the heterogeneous particles to be heaped together in its mass to a fullness that from thence a flowring or putting forth arising at the set intervalls of times it might thrust the same subtilities out of doors yea rather this growing hot glows not with a great and open burning but like a fire covered over with chips sends forth a moist smoke or breath rather then a flame But so that from thence by reason of the nervous juice being depraved soon in its disposition and not rarely because of the lungs being stuffed with the consumptive matter the convulsive or phthisical or consumptive symptoms did molest chiefly in the whole course of the disease Blood to be taken away at the beginning of the disease It behoves us to designe the curative Intentions according to the various times of the disease and the diversities of the symptoms chiefly urging About the beginning of this feavour the taking away of blood seem'd convenient allmost to all This
wonted tasks of Influence and so provoke them ready to be exploded in such disorders yea and as a flame put to them do somewhat inkindle them but on the contrary stinking things repress the spirits drive them back from excursions and exorbitances and compell them into order yea like sulphur mixt with aurum fulminans take away from them their explosive force What we have hitherto said of the passions called from the womb hysterical will yet more clearly appear if for the Confirmation of our Hypothesis we shall add arguments taken from anatomical observations I will therefore lay before you a notable Case by which the former reason and Causes of the convulsive distempers may be very much illustrated A very noble Lady of a most curious shape Observations and highly indued with a virtuous disposition of minde and manners of late lived near to this place who being for many years obnoxious to convulsive distempers for that she had originally or hereditarily contracted this sickly disposition and had experienc'd the fruits of this morbid seed almost every lustre of her age but chiefly as often as she was with child for she very frequently miscarried was wont to be tormented above measure with convulsive passions as it were hysterical because presently after the restraint of her monthly flowers the heterogeneous particles being translated to the brain and nervous stock caused fits of this most cruell distemper After she had newly conceived in the first months according to her old custom she was presently molested with convulsive distempers about the nineth week of her big belly from taking cold she fell into a dangerous feavour in which very acute pains tormenting her in her loyns and bottom of her belly for many days seem'd to threaten an abortion but these pains as the event shew'd rather to be termed Colical proceeded from a sharp humour falling down into those parts from the brain by the pipes of the nerves for towards the declining of the feavour this matter being somewhere else translated a great loosness or Diarrhaea pains of the feet and as it were an ulcerous disposition succeeded As soon as this Lady became well from her feavour and those pains the convulsive distempers returned for every morning wakeing from sleep she was wont to suffer Convulsions and cruel contractions about the parts of her face and mouth as also in her armes and thighs which symptoms without doubt did arise from a serous heap or gathering laid up in the head about the beginnings of the nerves and by them imbibed together with the nervous juice more deeply in sleep and when afterwards the same matter was carried by the pipe of the interior nerves into the foldings of the Mesentery and loyns most cruel pains of those parts and also fits as it were hysterical did most grievously infect her But these convulsive motions of her face and members after a little time ceased but yet she still remained weak and without strength with a pale countenance an infirm and trembling gate and desirous only of congruous food and hot Liquors about the end of the third month at which time she was wont continually to miscarry her menstrua broke forth which coming away for two or three days together with little pieces of broken membranes she expected to miscarry But that flux ceasing pains as it were of one in labour in her abdomen and loyns as before arose and for the space of a week tormented her day and night at length having used a bath of Emollient herbs and afterwards put to bed to sweat she brought forth the burthen of her womb the conception so coming away with mighty pain was about the bigness and like the figure of a Turkie egg the exterior coat of it was torn and broken the interior remaining whole contained about half a pint of clear water and nothing else besides there appeared no shape of a childe or any rudiments that it would ever be one Afterwards for 4. or 5. days her flowers flowed forth with some pieces of broken membrances in the mean time pains with their wonted fierceness tormented her and when the space of a week being elapsed they left not off of themselves remedies at length were sought to allay them To this end first Liniments Fomentations Baths and Clysters were often administred also medicines purging the filth of the womb on which the cause of all the evill was cast were taken inwardly Short intermissions of her tortures followed upon the use of the former but then the distemper returned with great trouble yea the disease much increasing in three weeks time got many other horrid symptoms for besides the pains in her belly and loyns which became more cruel every day also she was shortly after tormented in her back neck shoulders as also in her arms and thighs with most cruell pain and that more bitterly as soon as she was warm in her bed besides she was afflicted with a frequent giddiness vomiting and nauseousness and often in a day with most grievous convulsive fits viz. First a bulk was seen to ascend in the bottom of her belly and presently it lifted up her whole belly forceably by and by respiration being restrained an Insensibility with a dead countenance succeeded after that she had thus lain as one dead for three or four minuts of an hour she was wont suddenly to leap up that she could hardly be held down or kept by those standing by then follow'd cruell contractions and distortions in all the parts of the mouth and face as also in all the members of the body These symptoms were indeed judg'd to be hysterical because this noble Lady so lately had miscarried But weighing every one of these I was at last of this opinion that the cause of either fit viz. Both the dolorifick and the convulsive did depend wholly on the evill affection of the brain and nervous stock and that without any fault of the womb for that a sharp humour being heaped up within the head did from thence descend thorow the passages of the Nerves into parts at a great distance which lodging upon the membranes and fibres and fermenting with the humour flowing in from the bloody mass did irritate them very much and so stir'd up most cruel pains Then afterwards when the heterogeneous and explosive particles being admitted with what humour within the head and entring into the nervous passages did cleave to the spirits therefore the convulsive disposition then breaking forth into grievous fits was induced as shall be by and by more largely laid open Instituting Curatory Intentions according to this kinde of Aetiology I order'd to have blood taken from this sick Lady at what time she most grievously laboured out of the Saphena vein and within two days to be given her a gentle Cathartick and that to be reiterated once or twice in a week Also on other days Morning and Evening I gave her spirits of Harts-horn and at other hours twice or thrice in
Bodies are that are most fit for Fermentation and which are less convenient for it Secondly What things are requisite about Fermentation to wit what are wont to promote or also to hinder its motion in every Subject Thirdly How manifold the motion of Fermentation is and the end of it also what are the effects and alterations which follow it As to the first That all Bodies when tending to perfection may truely Ferment they are required In the first place That there be some parts loose and disjoyned otherwise the Fermentative Particles will not be stretched forth or move from place to place Wherefore in the more hard compacted things or in viscous things or too much boyled or evaporated to a spissitude or dryness Fermentation does not succeed What are Liquid as Wine Beer the Juices of Fruits and Herbs easily and quickly swell up next to these what are soft tho they are of a thicker Consistency as Bread and most Eatable things and Medicinal Compositions Secondly It is required that there be an Heterogeneity of parts or a confusion of all the Principles together to wit that some Particles do oppose others and stir them into motion For the more simple Bodies in which one or at most two Elements only are strong with a very small proportion of the rest are unapt to Ferment because like Particles or Symbolical Elements lie benumed and quiet But between the unlike there arises presently a strife for domination and some provoke others into motion Thirdly There is a third condition that there be neither too much Crudity nor Maturity of parts in the body Fermenting In the former the active and subtil Particles are not easily extricated from the more thick nor are brought into motion as it appears in Juices which are pressed forth from unripe Fruit also in Beer which is made of Barly or Mault not come forth or germinated In the latter the Particles being made too volatile are not contained in the bond of the mixture but presently evaporate and dispose their Subjects to Putrefaction Wherefore Juice expressed from Summer Fruits or others too ripe will not easily pass into Wine but it will quickly corrupt And for this reason extravasated blood milk and urine do not Ferment but quickly putrifie As to the second thing proposed there are many ways by which Fermentation is either promoted or hindred The first and chiefest is the adding of a certain Ferment to the body Fermenting the Particles of which when being first placed in vigor and motion may raise up the others idle and sluggish in the to-be-fermented Mass and may drive them into motion But there is a two-fold Ferment either absolute which is the same kind of Body in which the active Particles being altogether placed in their vigor are notably in motion and so whilst they are committed to the Subject in Fermenting snatch with them into motion other Particles there of the every kind before sluggish by this means Barm or Yest beaten Eggs and such like stir up a Fermentation almost in every thing Or the Ferment is respective to wit which consists of Particles very much of one kind which meeting other of another kind in the Mass to be Fermented grow hot with them and so produce in the mixture a turgency or rising up of all the parts together After this manner Saline Particles having gotten a Flux grow very hot with other Salines either fixed or alchalisate as appears when acetous Liquors are poured on Corrals Harts Horn shells of Fishes also when the Spirit of Vitriol and the Salt of Tartar are put together a great ebullition is excited There are some accidents and external circumstances which variously conduce either to the provoking or hindring the motion of Fermentation of which sort are chiefly the condition of the Ambient Air the placing or laying up of the body Fermenting and the means of conserving it The Southern Air in which hot and humid Particles every where abound which also entring easily any Bodies obtain the force and place of a Ferment impresses a notable motion of Fermentation in very many things Wherefore in drinkable Liquors it doth not only raise up at first the force of effervescency or growing hot but also for a long while after induces new swellings up in them being Fermented On the contrary the Cold and Northern Air binds up and very much fastens Bodies and in very many things hinders the fusions and flowings of the Elements and oftentimes either hinders Fermentation from being stirred up or restrains it being begun Also the hot Summer Air because it too much moves the active Principles drives away the Spirits and subtile parts exalts the Saline and Sulphureous into a Flux and so perverts their equal motion and either the Sulphur or Salt being too much carried forth it easily brings to Bodies a rancidness or putrefaction or a mouldiness which nothing favours the business of Fermentation It is a vulgar opinion that some select times of the year to wit those in which the Vegetables of every Kind flower cause anew the motion of Fermentation in the Juices and other things prepared of them after they had Fermented a long time before so that Beer when the Barly and Wines in the time that the Vine flowers conceive risings up or new Fermentations they say also that Bread and Flour when the Wheat is in Flower is want to become sooner musty and moldy also that spots or stains of the Juices of Fruits as the Mulberry Blackberry Rasberry and such like being in Cloaths are wont to be gotten forth again at that time when those Fruits are Ripe Concerning these things I ingenuously confess that I have not made tryal of them by my own proper observation so as to dare to affirm it for truth in every part I will therefore lightly pass them over for it would both grieve and shame me lest I should relate false things to Philosophize concerning doubtful things Concerning the laying up of the Fermenting Body these things are chiefly to be observed When things first being to Ferment that they are not to be shut up in too close Vessels neither while the Liquors are hot are they to be put into Bottles or Casks For the Particles at first boyling up and as it were rarified desire a very large space wherefore the Fermentation of Wine or Beer is begun in open large Vessels but when they grow less hot those kind of Liquors lest the Particles being set and moved into motion too much should fly away from the Subject they are kept best either in a cold Cellar or close Vessels In the preparation of Vinegar we observe the contrary to wit it is wont to be placed in a hot place near the Chimney or Oven or exposed to the Suns beams to the end that the vinous Spirit being depressed the Saline part might be exalted into a Flux and so might give a sharpness to the Liquor There is another observation that Liquors do Ferment better in
the Blood is filled to a plenitude it forthwith grows turgid and conceives an heat But this is supposed to be either an Excrementitious humor sliding down into some Mines which by degrees and at a set time being brought to an increase and moved Ferments with the Blood or it is the nutritious Juice supplyed from the matter of Food and delated in weight and measure which when it is not assimilated by reason of a defect in sanguification being heaped up to a fulness for its own expulsion induces a turgency in the Blood The reason of Intermitting Feavers is commonly explicated by the former way and the causes of the Intermission and set times of approach are fetcht from the nature of the Humor and the seat or place where it is cherished The Nest or Mine of this Disease almost by an unanimous consent is fixed on the first shop of the Body and from hence the reason of the Intermission is fetched and the continual difference of an Intermitting Feaver but they affirm the matter to be Choler Phlegm and Melancholy and as these humors are said to putrifie flower or sooner so the Feaverish courses are said to be absolved in the space of one or more days But this Opinion after the Circulation of the Blood hath been made plainly known to all is deservedly rejected For when the Blood never stagnates in the Vessels but washes every place with a perpetual motion and continually carries away their filth it is impossible that the Mine of this Disease should subsist in the Mesaraick Veins where it is commonly asserted to be as to what belongs to the cavities or dens for the heaping up of the humors in the Viscera it neither appears by what means such should be formed without a Tumor or Imposthume nor by what instinct such humors shut up in their Nest do increase are consumed and lastly spring forth again at so exact intervals of times Besides what is affirmed concerning Bile Phlegm and Melancholy and of their periodical motions we hold wholly suspected because these sort of humors are not afforded sincere such as are described in the Schools but the Blood having gotten a various disposition now being hotter now colder its nature imitates the qualities of such humors or in its Circulating it lays aside its Recrements which being deposited in little Chests or Vessels are falsely believed to be Morbific and Preternatural humors Wherefore as the nutritious Juice is the only humor wherewith the mass of Blood is dayly refreshed and its supplements are made still in measure and proportion without doubt the periodical heats of the Blood are to be drawn from the accession and commixtion of this I have already remarked concerning the Particles of the Blood a triple state of crudity maturation and defection to wit the nourishing Juice supplyed from the dayly Food comes crude is mixed with the Blood and being for some time Circulated is assimilated to it and is ripened into a perfect humor afterwards growing stale it goes into parts and is laid aside Whilst after this equal manner the Blood is continually restored and its losses repaired it very quietly Ferments without any trouble or immoderate heat and is Circulated within the Vessels but if the supplement of the nourishing Juice is not as before ripened nor goes into Blood by a perfect digestion its Particles being confused with the Blood remain as it were some Heterogeneous thing and not exactly akin in the mass of Blood with which when it is filled to a plenitude the Blood forthwith grows troubled and conceives a Feaverish heat whereby the fresh supply of this depraved Juice is either overcome or cast forth of doors I say therefore from the first instant in which the nourishing Juice is not assimilated with the Blood its Particles tho mixed with it are as yet Circulated with it without any great tumult or perturbation and so afterwards till the mass of the Blood is filled with them to a turgency but then it quickly boils up and conceives a heat almost after the same manner as new Beer put into Bottles which if they are closely stopped that nothing may evaporate is at first contained in those Vessels without heat or force afterwards when the Effluvia being still restrained the mass of the Liquor swells up notably Ferments and by reason of the force of Fermentation oftentimes makes the Bottles fly in pieces also this happens at a set time and in the space of so mnay hours as in an Intermitting Feaver the Liquor arises to its height of turgescency There yet remains a difficulty for what cause the nutritious Juice being confused with the Blood is not assimilated but degenerates into an Heterogeneous and Fermentative matter I suppose this to be done for the most part not by the default of the Aliments nor yet of the Bowels but by the vice of the Blood it self For the Blood even as Wine somtimes passes from its native and genuine disposition into an acid sowr or austere disposition and because the Blood makes Blood it comes to pass that when it is departed from its due temper it easily perverts the provision of the nutritious Juice by which it should be repaired What that disposition of the Blood is and by what means contracted shall be told hereafter when we speak of the kinds of Intermitting Feavers and of their evident and Procatarctick causes The Heat or Effervescency therefore of the Blood which constitutes the fit of an Intermitting Feaver depends only upon the assimilation of the nourishing Juice being hindered the Particles of this being commixed with the Blood are not as before ripened nor are made into perfect Blood but by the mixture of these the mass of Blood as it were new drink is imbued with little Bodies greatly Fermentative when the which are more thickly heaped together and the Blood is filled with them to a swelling up it presently grows hot and a mighty agitation and strife of the Particles is made by which they break and subtilise one another till at length the vital Spirit getting the dominion and the rest being brought under what is extraneous is thrust forth of doors from the company of which the Blood being freed the remission and intermission of the aguish fit follows but afterwards from a new supply of this Juice a new fit is brought on Secondly As to the shaking or cold preceding the heat in this Distemper I say when the Particles of the nourishing Juice do proceed from a state of crudity towards maturity but do not attain it they contract a notable sowrishness with which they greatly prick and haule the nervous parts and cause the sense of cold even as new Beer which being stopped close in Bottles passes from a sweet into an acid and nitrous tast that for the cuttingness and cold can scarce be swallowed When therefore the Particles of this sort of crude Juice being indued with a Nitrous sowrness do fill the mass of the Blood to a fulness
or to a swelling up and when they being more thickly heaped together begin to enter into a Flux they first of all strike down the Vital Spirits with their sharpness and somwhat overthrow their heat wherefore the Blood becomes colder and is more slowly circulated yea and by reason of the defect of heat the sense of cold is perceived in the whole Body and a pulse very rare exists Moreover when the nervous and solid parts are watered with this sort of acetous Juice for their last nourishment by the Flux of this which happens together with the turgescency of the Blood these sensible parts are pulled and irritated into Tremblings and Convulsions And this without doubt is the true and genuine cause of the cold and shaking which are excited in a fit of the intermitting Feauer to wit the Flux and swelling up of the nourishing Juice degenerated into a Nitrous matter with which the Spirits and Heat being suffused are blunted and the Nervous Bodies being provoked are moved into tremblings But afterwards when these Nitrous Particles being thrust forth from some part into the Superficies of the Body the Blood is somwhat freed from their weight and oppression the Vital Spirits recollect themselves and begin to shine forth but from thence a most intense heat succeeds because both the mass of Blood by reason of the growing hot with the Feaverish matter being loosened and also its mixture being laxed the Sulphureour Particles are more plentifully inkindled in the Heart and because the pores of the skin being possessed by the same matter thrust forth towards the circumference of the Body the vaporous Effluvia are restrained within which do more shake and make hot the Blood that heat persists still in the Blood until that Fermentative matter being wholly burnt out and together with the adust recrements remaining after the burning being fully brought under and subtilised and involved with the Serum insensibly evaporates by sweat or transpiration Thirdly These things being premised it will not be hard to shew the reasons and causes of the intermission as also of the set periods viz. the intermission follows because all the Morbific matter is dispersed in one fit and so till new be substituted there is a necessity that a remission follow But new matter begins to be begot of which the last fit failed to wit the mass of Blood being but now emptied receives the nourishing Juice and perverts it as before by reason of its defect of due making of Blood and of Concoction into a Fermentative matter but its little plenty stirs up little or no trouble or Fermentation but when the Blood is filled to a swelling up it presently ferments and is in Flux even as when new Beer or new Wine shut up a long while in a Vessel at length at a certain time boils up and leapes forth at the mouth of the Vessel But that the Fits or Accessions do for the most part come again at set intervals of times and that so certainly that a Clock is not more exact the reason is because the nourishable Juice is for the most part supplyed from the Viscera to the Blood flowing in the Vessels in an equal measure and manner for tho we do not dayly take exactly so much meat and drink in weight and dimension yet because we for the most part eat at set hours for the satisfying the Appetite from the things eaten and the mass of the Chyme heaped up in the Bowels an equal portion of the nutritious Juice is conveyed to the Blood through the Milky Vessels wherefore if at such hours so much of the nutritious humor is poured into the Blood which increasing to a fulness and swelling up it brings on the fit that day certainly this being finished in the space of the same time sufficient matter is laid up for the following fit But if errors in feeding be committed and that the sick indulging their Appetite eat more plentifully or inordinately the approach of the fit anticipates the wonted hour by reason of the Bloods being filled sooner with the Feaverish matter if that the sick are abstemious and more sparingly take their Food the intermission is drawn out longer If it be yet asked wherefore the periods of intermitting Feavers be not of one kind and of the same distance but that some repeat or come again dayly others on the third or fourth day The cause is the diverse constitution of the Blood to wit whereby it is perverted from its due temper now into a sourish now into an acid or sharp or into an austere or harsh disposition By reason of the diverse evil constitution of this the alible Juice being fresh carried departs more or less from maturation and is perverted into matter apt sooner or later to ferment When the Blood has acquired a sour hot and bilous disposition I suppose that some part of the nourishing Juice is ripened into perfect humor and is assimilated with the Blood and so goes into Food to be carried to the solid parts and is affixed to them but the other part of it from the Blood being too much cocted and depraved is changed into a Feaverish matter and supposing that half of the nutritious Juice is after this manner perverted in double the time in which it is said to have a full Concoction in our Body that is after eight and forty hours this kind of Fermentative matter rises to a plenitude and turgescency and then induces the fit of a Tertian Feaver If that by reason of the austere and pontic nature of the degenerated Blood in which a fixed Salt with an Earthy Faeces is exalted too much and therefore apt to ferment more slowly only a third part of the nutritious Juice is corrupted then in three times the space of the aforesaid time the fit is induced that is after seventy two hours in which the period of a Quartan is wont to be concluded But if by reason of a greater infection of the Blood almost the whole supplement of the nutritious Juice is perverted into a Feaverish matter then in the space of that time in which the plenary coction ought to be absolved in the Vessels and habit of the Body that is after twenty four hours this matter arises up to the motion of turgescency and brings on the Quotidian fit And hence it comes to pass that in a Quartan Feaver strength and courage do not presently fail whilst in a Tertian the sick are wont to become more weak but in a Quotidian Feaver they are sooner brought into languishing and greatest weakness to wit in each as more or less of the nutritious Juice goes into the Food of the Disease so much also is drawn away from the strength and firmness of the Body But more fully of these when we treat of the several kinds of Intermitting Feavers and the Causes of them Against the equal Circuits of these Feavers it is argued that for the most part the fits do anticipate the set time of the
distemper and involves men in an unhealthful condition The causes which dispose to this Disease are first the constitution of the Soil and Air because this Distemper is proper to the fall of the Leaf or Autumn that you rarely find this Feaver to begin but about that time also in some places especially about the Sea-coasts this uses to be general or common to the Region and to come upon those living there or Strangers coming thither from elsewhere A declining age which is past its acme or height also a melancholick Temper and which by reason of an ill manner of living is obnoxious to the Hypochondriac Distemper cause this besides long Feavers of another kind and Chronical Diseases often pass into a Quartan Feaver According to these positions and rightly weighed it may be said that a Quartan Feaver even as the other intermitting Feavers depends upon a vitious disposition of the Blood to wit because the nutritious Juice being by degrees delated into the Vessels is perverted into a Fermentative matter and the effervescency of this heaped up even to a fulness of swelling over constitutes the Fit of the Quartan Feaver But as in this Feaver there are some things which are peculiar from the rest we will inquire what kind of Dyscrasie of the Blood it is in this Disease distinct from the others and by what means it excites the very remarkable Symptoms The opinion which is commonly had concerning this thing is very far from truth almost by the consent of all the Essence and beginning of a Quartan Feaver is ascribed to a melancholick humour heaped up somwhere in the first passages and there periodically Putrifying Instead of this we affirm that in this Disease the Liquor of the Blood doth pass from a sweet spirituous and balsamick into an acid and somwhat austere Nature like Wine growing sowre to wit there is too great a want of Spirits and the Terrestrial or Tartareous part of the Blood which consists chiefly of Salt and Earth is too much exalted and being carried forth into a Flux induces the sourness of the mass of Blood Even as Beer being disturbed by Thunder and infected with a troubled lee or dregs grows sour The Blood after this manner degenerated from its native disposition doth not rightly dress the alible Juice and assimilate it to it self but perverts it into an extraneous matter with which when it is satisfied to a fulness in the vessels and the nervous parts are watered by the Juice from thence arising a Flux of this matter and as it were a spontaneous effervency follows by which indeed the Feaverish Fit is induced with shivering and heat as is wont to be in a Tertian In a Quartan Feaver the periods have longer intervals because when the Dyscrasie of the Blood is become sourish and therefore less violent and hot it perverts the alible Juice without strife or tumult wherefore it assimilates some of it and the depravation of the rest does not so far recede from its natural state as in a Tertian and from hence its congestion to a plenitude is made longer and almost in another half of that time in which a Tertian rises up to a Turgescency And therefore those taken with this Feaver are indifferently well and are strong which is a sign that the nutritious Juice is less depraved also the Fits are made without cruel burning because the nutritious humor is perverted into a fermentative matter without great adustion But why this Disease is so hard to be cured and so pertinaciously infests the sick the cause is the melancholic constitution of the Blood which is not easily to be taken away and yields almost to no Remedies The cholerick disposition of the Blood is mended by the frequent Deflagration and ceases often of its own accord even as too rich Wines are depressed by their own growing hot and are wont to be reduced into their due state but this melancholick Dyscrasie of the Blood in which with a want and defect of Spirits Salt and Earth are too much exalted as when Wines grow sour is most hard to be restored and is almost of the same labour and difficulty as to put again life and a vinous Spirit into Vinegar For that the Blood depraved after this manner may be restored it will be needful that its whole mass should be volatilised and as it were made Spiritual anew wherefore in this case evacuations profit not a jot yea by more depauperating the Blood oftentimes the strength is cast down beyond help but they had need to exalt and make volatile what is fixed and to promote a Transpiration or Spiritualisation in the whole mass of Blood From hence it is that in this Disease the change of the Air and Region most often brings help before all other Remedies For the Spring following oftentimes takes away those Quartan Feavers that had arisen the Autumn before which without doubt happens because the changed condition of the Air is wont to alter for the better the evil disposition of the Blood also for the same reason the change of the place most often cures this Distemper inexpugnable to all Physick If it be demanded wherefore this Disease chiefly begins in the Autumn and rarely in the Spring or Summer time I say the Autumnal time doth most fitly produce this kind of Feaverish disposition of the Blood for when very much of the Spirit and Sulphur hath flown away by the Summers heat and that what is left begins to be bound up by the cold the Liquor of the Blood as Wine growing sour by too much heat easily degenerates into a saltish and acidulous or sharp Nature This also the Sea air by infecting the Blood and Spirits with saline Vapours falling on them easily procures yea also the affinity of this Disease with the Scurvy and Hypochondriac distemper plainly shews the evil disposition of the Blood to be in fault whereby it becomes salt and earthy with the want of Spirit Concerning Quartan Feavers the last year was so abundantly fruitful of observations that many might collect by ocular Inspection whatever belong to this Disease for when the most hot Summer was past about the end of it an Epidemical Feaver of which in another place you shall have a description followed then the Autumn coming on when that Disease had ceased a Quartan Feaver began very much to rage that in very many places the fourth part of the people was taken with it neither did it only infest old men splenitick and melancholick men but of every age and temper also Infants Children and young men ordinarily which was clearly a sign that this Distemper had drawn its rise not from a melancholick humour heaped up by the default of the Spleen but from the Dyscrasie of the Blood brought in through the intemperance of the year for the mass of the Blood after too great heats even as Wines after immoderate effervescencies was made fit to grow somwhat sour or to get an austere disposition and
so also prone to this sort of Feaver as is already shewed If the Remedies which for the Curing of this have been made tryal of both by Physicians and Empericks were collected together their description would swell into a great Volumn but altho there is instituted a manifold provision of Medicine against this evil yet very few are cured in the Autumn In some about the begining of their sickness before the Disease has taken too deep root a Vomit hath brought help but in most all manner of Cathartics tho an hundred times repeated have profited nothing In whom the evil had deeply implanted it self the sick received no help from the most studied Medicines made use of all the Autumn But when at this time I perceived the ordinary method of Medicine was administred in vain I proposed to a Noble Virgin requiring a sudden Cure by any means to be performed that if she would indure a Flux at the Mouth for some days from a Mineral Medicine by that means it might be hoped that the Disease would be profligated When she had readily assented to this I gave her a gentle and very safe Medicine by which a light spitting only was provoked and that finished within twelve days As soon as the Salivation began she mist her fits but at those times they were wont to come she felt a perturbation in her whole Body with an oppression of the Heart and dread of swooning but after the spitting was finished she appear'd very well and when again after two months space she was troubled with some light fits of this Disease from an Emetick pouder twice or thrice taken she was wholly cured without relapsing After the winter Solstice this Disease began to rage less and to cease in some of its own accord and in many others to be easily expung'd by the use of Physick because at this time the Dyscrasie of the Blood contracted by the Summers heat is wont to be blotted out leisurely by reason of the cold of the Winter and the mass of Blood growing old as it were to put off its old spoils and to be reduced towards its natural State But those who were of a melancholick temper or had their viscera and especially the Spleen evilly affected or that used an ill manner of Dyet received no change at this Tropick but to the next period of the year viz. to the vernal Equinox or the Spring kept the Disease and then in most the Blood being either restored of it self or its intemperance more easily mended by the use of Remedies this Distemper was seen to be overcome But in the mean time many old men and such as were full of evil humours or otherways unhealthy ordinarily dyed in all that space of time of this Disease also some liv'd who could not shake off its yoak tho the Summer Solstice were past But altho very many had labour'd with this Feaver as it were Epidemical almost thorow the whole year yet none that I know contracted it first in the Spring and very few grew well of it during the Autumn that in truth I do not doubt the Dyscrasie of the Blood to be the cause of this and the cure to consist in the change of it The Remedies which most often brought help as appeared at least to our observation were of this sort which did restrain the Feaverish Fit for the evils of the disposition of the Blood being somwhat mended by the time of the year being changed if now the habitual custom of the Fits were broken off Nature recollected her self and easily recover'd the pristine state of health by her own endeavour And this kind of intention to wit the inhibition of the Fits tho somtimes performed by Vomits given a little before the coming of the Fit for these did not rarely stop the Feaverish motion of the Blood by raising up another motion contrary to this yet this Indication is far more certainly and indeed happily effected by the use of those kind of Medicines which do not altogether evacuate from the Viscera but induce either a certain fixation to the Blood or a precipitation of the Feaverish matter for a time Wherefore those whom I undertook to cure in the Spring and afterwards I handled and in most with good success with this method a provision being made of the whole somtimes with an Emetic Medicine somtimes with a Solutive I was wont three hours before the Fit to lay a peculiar Ague-Medicine to the wrists and together to give them to drink in Sack an Ague-resisting pouder and to order the sick to be kept in Bed in a gentle sweat It seldom hapned but at the first or second time the Feaverish Fit was by this means restrained and then by the same Remedy somtimes reiterated the Disease at last wholly ceased To this kind of practice besides our experience the use of the pouder of a certain Bark brought of late from the Indies seems to give some Faith and approbation which is said most certainly to cure this Disease but the vertue or operation of this without any evacuation consists in this only that it hinders the coming of the Feaverish Fits Concerning this Peruvian Bark because of late it hath begun to be in use there are some things to be said which offer themselves to common observation The common manner of exhibiting this is that two drams of it beaten to pouder be infused in Sack or Whitewine in an open Glass for two hours and then upon the coming of the Fit the Patient being put to Bed that the liquor and pouder be drunk up This potion often takes away the approaching Fit yet oftentimes tho taken after the wonted manner it prevents the next however either in the first second or third period the Fit is inhibited and the Disease seems to be cured it is often wont to return within twenty or thirty days then this pouder being again exhibited the Disease is for a time deferred about the same space and by this means I have known many sick of a Quartan to have suffered some few Fits only a whole Autumn and Winter and so to have detained the enemy in his precincts till the Spring coming on the disposition of the Blood is altered for the better by the help of the time of year and of other Physick and so this distemper vanishes by degrees Those who by this means have procured these frequent truces of the Quartan have liv'd chearful lively and ready for any business when otherwise being weak and pale they were brought into languishment and a vitious habit of Body scarce one of an hundred hath tryed this Medicine in vain yea if but half or a lesser quantity viz. the weight of but one dram taken it very often takes away the Fits and suspends the same a shorter space only neither is it any matter whether it be taken in strong or small Wine unless with the respect to the disposition of the sick because in a more hot temper it may
growing hot and which constitutes a distinct kind of continual Feaver is excited from a certain malignant and invenomed Ferment by which when the mass of the Blood is imbued and the Spirits and the Sulphureous part together conceive an heat and their burning is not sooner appeased than that either that malignant matter be consumed and cast forth of doors or else a certain coagulation and as it were putrefaction of the Blood from its corruptive venom is induced by which both circulation is hindered and the Vital Spirit extinguished This malignity is wont to arise either from a certain contagion received from without or from some infection begotten within us according to these ways the malignant Feaver Small-pox Measels and also the Plague draw their beginnings and by their contagion far and near set upon many There are therefore three degrees or manners of growing hot by which the kinds of continual Feavers are determined From the subtil portion of the Blood made hot or the Ebullition of the Spirits the Ephemera arises as also the Synochus of one or more days by the Sulphureous or Oily part of the Blood being too hot and inkindled the putrid Feaver is stirred up then thirdly upon an invenomed taint infecting the Blood and congealing its Liquor malignant Feavers depend In every one of these by the depravation or rather corruption of the Alible Juice fresh carried into the Blood the various fits inequalities and critical motions arise But before I enter upon the several kinds of a continued Feaver it is requisite for me to consider how the growing hot of the Blood in a continual Feaver differs from that other which constitutes Intermitting Feavers I say therefore that the growing hot of the Blood in an Intermitting Feaver depends only upon the commixtion of a certain Fermentative matter and not rightly miscible with the Blood and on its growing up to a fulness of boiling over Because of this heat with the Blood in the Vessels and of the deflagration in the Heart the fit is induced because of its growing cool the intermission follows that in the coming between of the fits neither the Spirits nor Sulphur become outragious but the bond of the mixture being kept whole the Liquor is circulated in the Vessels equally and without trouble on the contrary in a continual Feaver the disorders of the Spirits and of Sulphur of either or both together by their proper Ebullition also without the mixture of any other stir up the Ebullition of the Blood wherefore there are required for an intermission besides the difflation or cooling of the Excrementitious matter a deflagration of the inkindled Blood and a reduction of it to its due Temper The Constitution of the Blood in a continual Feaver is of the same sort as of Wines when they grow hot upon too rich a Lee to wit are mighty in Spirit and grow turgid with exalted Sulphur and therefore they conceive a Fervor and greatly boil up of their own accord without the mixture of any other thing In an Intermitting Feaver the Blood is moved after that manner as Wines when they conceive an heat because of somthing poured to them that is not miscible with them Moreover in this Feaver the disposition of the Blood is of that sort as of Wines when in their decay and declination they become ropy unsavory or acid to wit in which the Spirit is depressed that in the mean time either Salt or Sulphur or both together appear above the rest and infect the whole Liquor with their disorder An Intermitting Feaver for the most part is free from danger because the constitutive parts of the Blood altho they should somwhat change their disposition however keep the bond of mixture and whilst they are in power are circulated equally in the Vessels yea they pervert the nutritious Juice into a matter not altogether besides Nature but rather infesting with its fulness and turgescency In a continual Feaver besides the intemperance the mixture of the Blood and constitution of the Liquor are somwhat loosned and its corruption easily follows wherefore this Disease often ends in death further the nourishing Juice is depraved into a matter wholly vitious and altogether infestous to Nature CHAP. VIII Of the Ephemera or Feaver for a Day I Have said the least degree of heat which induces a continual Feaver is placed in the subtil and Spirituous part of the Blood being too much agitated and heated for this like the Spirit of Wine boils up on every light occasion and conceives a fervor by a too great motion of the Body or perturbation of mind by the ambient heat as of the Sun or vapours by hot things taken inwardly as the drinking of Wine and the eating of peppered meats and being irritated by such like For the Spirits of the Blood easily take fire and being impetuously moved are not presently appeased but they move throughly other Particles of the Blood variously confound and snatch them into a rapid and disorderly motion also from this motion of the Spirits the Sulphur or Oily part of the Blood is more boiled forth somwhat more dissolved and somthing more fully inkindled in the Heart by which means an intense heat is raised up in the whole Body But forasmuch as Sulphur is inkindled and inflamed only by small parts and not in the whole that fervor of the Spirits is quickly appeased and ceases wherefore the Feaver which is excited by this means for the most part is terminated within twenty four hours and therefore is called an Ephemera or a Feaver of a day If that by reason of a greater heat of the Spirituous Blood it is prolonged further it rarely exceeds three days and is called an Ephemera of more days or a Synochus not putrid but if it should happen to be lengthned beyond this time this Feaver easily passes into a putrid viz. from the dayly Ebullition of the Spirituous Blood the more thick Particles of the Sulphur at length begin to take fire and involve the whole mass of Blood in its Effervescency even as the Spirit of Turpentine being shut up in a Cucurbit and being put into a Sand Furnace if it be forced with a moderate heat boils up gently as the Blood in a Feaver of a day but if the heat be made more strong the Liquor grows impetuously hot till it breaks forth into a flame to which the inflamation of the Blood in a putrid Feaver may be very aptly compared The Days Feaver and Synochus simple rarely begin without an evident cause Besides what hath been but now said immoderate Labour Watchings a sudden passion of the mind a constriction of the pores a Surfeit also a Bubo or inflamed Sore a Wound the coming down of the Milk in Child-bearing Women are wont to induce them The procatartic Causes which dispose to this are an hot temper of Body an active habit a sedentary life and difuse of exercise The chief beginnings of this Disease depend upon the
than the same being restrained at the time of suckling the Child are wont to do yea from them being long suppressed in the former condition an as it were envenomed taint is impressed on the mass of Blood which unless it be purged forth by the daily Flux of the Lochia presently after being brought to Bed produces grievous and almost malignant Distempers Wherefore that I may give my opinion of the flowing of the Lochia I say that this bleeding proceeds immediately from the Vessels being broken by which the after-Birth did stick to the Womb and that by this way the excrementitious Blood and humors being partly heaped up about the Womb during the time of being with Child and partly flowing from the whole mass of the Blood are evacuated viz. whilst the Womb at first intumified in its bulk falls down presently after the Birth and is contracted into a lesser space the Blood is plentifully pressed forth from the Vessels opening into it But besides forasmuch as during the suppression of the courses the bloody mass is imbued with very fermentative Particles as soon as after the Birth the mouths of the Vessels are opened forthwith as it were at the instant of a more large Flux of monthly courses the whole Blood grows hot even as Must or new Wine upon the opening the Bottle and indeavours to purge forth the highly fermentative particles out of its bosom by the going away of the Lochia as it were the flowring And therefore besides the Blood which in the first days oftentimes flows pure by reason of the fresh opening of the Vessels afterwards is sifted forth matter very much discoloured viz. livid and green and this very stinking This kind of Flux is wont to continue at least for 14 days yea in some for a month and if that by reason of any error it be stopped before the mass of Blood be throughly purified by such flowring presently a Feaver very dangerous with horrid provisions of symptoms is wont to be induced of which we shall speak anon in its proper place The third consideration previous to the Doctrine of Feavers belonging to Women in Child-bed is chiefly about the Womb it self to wit how it is affected after Child-bearing and what influence it has on other parts of the Body As to the first there are chiefly two accidents upon which the acute Diseases of Women in Child-bed very much depend viz. First The falling down of the Womb or the reduction of it from the bulk of ingravidation to its natural site and magnitude Secondly the solution of the unity within its cavity by reason of the breaking of the connexion or tying to the cake of it or after-Birth When the Child with what wraps it about is put forth presently the sides of the Womb it self before very much amplified or enlarged do mutually close and by the help of the Fibres leisurely contract themselves into a narrower space by reason of this kind of contraction the Blood and Corruptions or matter are plentifully pressed forth from the Vessels and Pores of the Womb and are thrust forth with the Lochia But sometimes it happens by reason of some preternatural things conteined in the Womb as part of the secondine or after Birth a Mole or piece of Flesh clodders of Blood c. also if there happen after a painful Birth a Contusion or great Dilaceration that the Womb cannot rightly draw it self together but by an inverse motion of the Fibres ascends upwards and is lifted up into a bulk also the membranes being affected with a Convulsion it self is still tormented with torments as if it were yet in Travel which kind of Distempers if they long continue by reason of the Orifite of the Womb being tied together with the Convulsive motion the Lochia are oftentimes stopped also from hence grievous symptoms follow and very often the Feaver is either first excited or it happens being for some other cause induced to be rendred far more dangerous Secondly as to the solution of the unity from the cake of the Womb being broken it comes to pass that the Birth either at its just time or precipitous being too much hastened then the secundine is cast forth either whole or being torn or pull'd away part of it being left behind it is cut off as it were in half If the Child be born at its just time and the Birth with what inwraps it comes away from the cavity of the Womb as ripe fruit from a Tree whole and without violence the mouths of the Vessels are somewhat unlocked and the Lochia moderately flow but from hence no grievous symptom is to be feared but if the Child not being yet ripe for the Birth is pulled away or breaks forth as it were by force although the Cake with the membrane is pulled away whole yet the Vessels being torn a greater hemorrhage or bleeding and at length an Ulcerous disposition follows the little mouths of the Vessels spewing forth a stinking matter If that part or the whole secundine sticks to the sides of the Womb after the Birth it there putrifies and sends forth very stinking matter or corruption and stirs up wicked distempers oftentimes the Orifice of the Womb is shut up and retains within gobbets of clodder'd Blood little pieces of Membranes or Flesh which putrifying by reason of the heat impoyson the Blood and humors flowing together to that place by Circulation from the whole body also by a troublesome itching or provocation they stir up the parts of the Womb being so very sensible into Convulsions When therefore hurt is brought to the Womb from Child-bearing after the aforesaid ways the same is quickly communicated to other parts not without trouble to the whole body which thing indeed is wont to be done by a double means For first this happens because the Lochia being hindred from being thrust forth presently restagnate or flow back upon the mass of Blood and infect it as it were with a virulent taint moreover from the contents putrifying in the Womb either the substance it self of the matter or the Particles coming away from the cadaverous substance are mingled with the Blood and nervous juice passing thorow that place and quickly infect their whole liquors Secondly hysterical Distempers are more largely extended by reason of the notable consent which happens between the Womb and the Brain with the Fibres and Membranes of the whole body by the means of the nervous passage for when the extremities of the Nerves planted about the parts of the Womb are driven into Cramps and Convulsive motions by reason of the presence of some hurtful humor the Convulsions there received presently creep more largely upwards by the indeavours and circumduction of the Nerves towards the Brain and so it happens to the Viscera to be successively inflated and cruelly haled together and the Brain it self at length to be pierced and its functions to be as it were overwhelmed hence from the convulsive motions arising about the
the mass of Blood it is there first of all heaped up more plentifully than that the whole may go into nourishment or be received into the Breasts wherefore the Milk not only in its passage to the Breasts but also in its return towards the Womb brings forth the Feaver to wit by reason of either passage thorow the Blood But however the cause of this Disease is ordained it matters little or nothing towards the Cure for this is wholly committed to Nature and so long as the Lochia are in good order it proceeds for the most part happily without any Physical help because after the growing hot of the Blood for three or four days either a plentiful sweat or a more free transpiration cures this Distemper to wit either the Particles of the Milky humor degenerate in the assimulating or the adust recrements remaining after the deflagration of the Blood or both of them at once supplying the food or tinder of the Feaver are by little and little subdued and evaporated out of doors which being excluded the Blood becoming free from the extraneous mixture quickly recovers its pristine condition yet in the mean time certain vulgar Rules are wont to be observed about the admission of the Milk into or the driving away of the same out of the Breasts If the Milk too plentifully springs into the Breasts that their inflamation as also the immoderate growing hot of the Blood may be prevented at that time a more thin and sparing dyet to wit no flesh broths and also in a less quantity is to be ordered also the Breasts are to be frequently drawn If it be not commodious for the Mother to suckle her Child it is usual after the first or third day of her being Delivered to cover all the Breasts over with Sear-Cloaths moderately binding as the Plaister of Red-lead e. for so the spongious substance of the Glandulas is somewhat constrained or closed together whereby they less readily receive the milky humor flowing thither yet this kind of Remedy ought to be cautiously administred lest if the Milk be wholly excluded or driven out of the Breast too abruptly restagnating suddenly in the Blood it induces its disorder the prodromus or forerunner of the Putrid or Malignant Feaver of which it remains that we speak next The Putrid Feaver of Women in Child-bed WOmen Lying in from the fault of an evil affected Body as by the Contagion of a received Pestilential Air are found to be too obnoxious to the Putrid or rather Malignant Feaver but all do not a like receive the Infection of this sort of Disease for poor people Labouring Women Country Women and others accustomed to hard Labour as also Viragoes and Whores which are brought to Bed clandestinely bring forth without any great difficulty and then after a little time leaving their Beds return to their wonted Labours But more rich Women tender and fair and most living a sedentary life as if participating after a more grievous manner of the Divine Malediction bring forth in pain and then presently after the Birth they are subject to difficult and dangerous chances the reason of which seems to lie in this that those who are used to much exercise continually agitate and eventilate the Blood and therefore fewer infectious taints from the monthly Flowers being suppressed do gather together for the matter of a Disease moreover laborious and nimble Women as they have their nervous parts more firm therefore they are less subjected to convulsive motions and to the passions commonly called hysterical on the contrary in delicate and idle Women the mass of Blood in the time of their going with Child becomes very impure and fermentisible besides because they have the system of the Nerves and the Brain soft and weak upon every light occasion they suffer distractions of the animal Spirits and inordinate motions of the nervous parts And here by the way it is to be noted that Women more than men and that some of the same Sex before others are sensible of the affections called hystorical not so much by the default of their Womb as for that they are of more weak constitution of Brain and nervous stock for in those so affected the passions of anger sadness fear as also all troublesome and more strong objects easily pervert the dispositions and functions of those parts which when they are once hurt for the most part afterwards are accustomed to those irregularities But we will return from whence we have digressed The Feaver but now proposed is wont to infest Women Lying in indeed at various times and by reason of divers occasions now presently after the Birth especially if it be difficult and laborious now it arises in the first now the second third or fourth week yet the sooner it begins the more safely it is wont to be cured The Type or Figure of this Disease is performed almost after this manner After a previous indisposition an open feaverishness for the most part with a shivering or horror constitutes the first assault which is followed with heat and afterwards succeeds a sweat perhaps for a day or two they have various reciprocal fits of heat and cold then the Blood being wholly inkindled the Lochia if not before suppressed either flow smally or are wholly stopt If the Disease be acute and of a swift motion it comes to its height on the third or fourth day then an intense heat with a very troublesome thirst a vehement pulse and quick pertinacious wakings a great inquietude of the whole Body that they are continually tossing themselves in their Beds hither and thither a thick Urine and high coloured and other most grievous symptoms are wont to trouble them whilst the Feaver is after this manner at its height no Crisis is to be expected for I never saw this Disease cured by a critical sweat but that the business was still very precipitously acted as after the Blood was grown hot for a little time presently the adust matter being translated to the Brain most dangerous and heavy inordinations of it and the whole nervous stock forthwith come upon them for most often are stirred up convulsive motions of the Tendons wonderful distentions and inflations about the Viscera like to the hysterical passions then sometimes also follow a phrensie or dilerium not seldom a stupefaction and speechlessness the strength is suddenly cast down almost in all without any manifest cause the Pulse becomes weak and unequal and the sick are suddenly precipitated to death If that any perhaps escape either by the return of the Flux of the Lochia or a Lask coming upon it they hardly recover but of a long time I have known in some purple spots to have appeared and certainly in many symptoms that respect either the Blood or nervous juice which argue no light Malignity We will distinguish the causes of this Feaver after the ordinary manner into Procatartic Evident and Conjunct Those of the first sort upon which the
malignity and the greatest perniciousness of the Disease depend are two viz. first a depraved disposition of the Blood from the long suppression of the monthly Flux Secondly after the Birth the evil affections of the Womb from the dangerous Labours of Women who undergo the Divine Malediction appointed them from the Menstrua being long suppressed the Blood not only swells up and its Sulphureous parts being too much carried forth are rendred more apt for burning but besides the mass of the Blood is imbued with very fermentative Particles so that as hath been already hinted as if it were touched with a venemous infection presently growing fervent it is disposed towards putrefaction and corruptive disorders and besides forthwith impoysons the nervous Liquor and renders it infestuous to the Brain and the whole nervous stock These kind of evils being impressed on the Blood ought to be purged forth by the Flux of the Lochia but if after the Birth the Womb be out of order the Lochia are not only stopped and so a purifying of all the Blood is hindred but besides stinking corruptions or defilements are thence bestowed on the Blood and grievously infect it Also by reason of convulsive motions begun about the Womb and from thence continued to other parts inordinations are stirred up in the Blood and juices which oftentimes conspire either the production or the acerbation or growing worse of the Feaver The evident causes which induce an actual effervescency either to the Blood having gotten an ill disposition or invert the vices of the whole Body to the Womb are after a diverse sort A painful Labour a solution of the unity about the Womb a bruise a retention of preternatural things an ulcerous disposition and very many other accidents which are induced by a certain necessity may do this But the occasions that are at the dispose of the Patients and easily to be avoided which are wont to excite this kind of Feaver are chiefly two viz. an ill manner of Dyet and the taking of cold It is an usual thing to give to weak Women after being Delivered on the first or second day the flesh of living Creatures or Broths made of flesh meats and other foods very improportionate to their dispositions from whence presently arise an indigestion and great trouble in the Bowels and a feaverish distemper in the Blood by reason of a more rich nutritious juice than ought to be Besides the errors in Dyet oftentimes hurt is caused for that their Bodies being so very tender also by reason of the labours of the Birth and bringing forth the Child the passages are on every side opened they are exposed too heedlessly to the cold for most of them being impatient of their Bed within a day or two or sooner than they should do rise out of it and put on their Cloaths from whence presently the Pores of the skin being suddenly contracted and the Air being admitted into the parts of the Womb transpiration is hindred and often the Lochia on the sudden are stopped either of which suffices to excite the feaverish distemper The conjunct cause or formal reason of this kind of sickness chiefly comprehends these three things to wit there are present first a very notable discrasie of the Blood that growing hot from the Feaver being occasionally induced it doth not equally burn forth nor leisurely overcome the adust recrements and afterwards critically thrust them forth but the Blood growing hot is presently loosned in its mixture and its frame being unlocked turns and declines towards corruption hence when it grows but a little cool the spirits being shaken out of their dominion are moved into confusion In the mean time the Sulphureous Particles become untamed and fierce wherefore the strength falls down without any manifest cause the Pulse is made weak and disordered after the deflagration of the Blood altho the adust recrements are very much heaped up yet nothing is rightly concocted or separated but the sick being greatly oppressed in Nature tho they continually sweat receive nevertheless oftentimes no ease from thence but the feaverish matter which ought to be thrust forth being transmitted into the head and nervous stock induces there most grievous perturbations of the animal regiment Secondly the Tragedy of this Disease owes no small part of it to the nervous juice being presently made sharp and so improportionate to the Brain and its Appendix for this being infected from the taint contracted from the Blood doth not gently water or pleasantly blow up its subjects but notably hale or pull those tender parts as when an infusion of vitriol is poured upon a Worm and irritates or provokes them into convulsions and into motions as if of dancing or suddenly leaping forth and sometimes wholly overturns their functions hence comes contractures grievous convulsions dilerium wakings and sometimes stupification and the sleepy Disease upon Women Lying in Thirdly whilst these things are done oftentimes a third band of symptoms infest the sick to wit for that the Womb being hurt by some evil moves it self disorderly and is struck with a Convulsion according to these or those parts from thence by and by convulsive motions invade by the membranes and nervous passages the whole Region of the Abdomen wherefore the Viscera and Hypocondria are blown up belchings and grievous vomitings are stirred up then the Distemper creeping upwards and possessing the nervous parts of the Thorax a difficult breathing and unequal a palpitation of the heart a sense of choaking in the throat by reason of the Muscles being there drawn backward and other symptoms through the whole Body are excited the same evil being at last carried to the Brain The Feavers of Women in Child-bed almost never want danger but sometimes it happens about the beginning that they are cured by a slender Dyet and by the Flux of the Lochia being restored but if the feaverish distemper does root it self more deeply that the whole Blood is inkindled and immoderately grows hot the Prognostick ought not to be esteemed of a light Omen and there will be a greater reason of danger if besides the heat being suffused all over the sick are troubled with a frequent shivering if they are affected or molested with a great disquietness and wakings with sudden concussions of the Body or a contracture of the Tendons or if thirdly they complain on the fourth day of a tingling of their ears with a great repletion or fulness of the head you may from thence collect the evil to grow worse viz. a translation of the feaverish and hurtful matter to the Brain nor is it less to be feared if they have on them an oppression and weight of the Praecordia that the sick cannot breath freely nor draw their breath deep and from the bottom of their breast but only from the top and that frequently and sighingly and that they move themselves restlesly hither and thither For this argues the Blood to stagnate in its circulation about the Heart and
with thirst heat wakings and at several turns with swoonings and cold sweats at this time being sent for I prescribed her Cardaic Remedies and such as moved the purgings of the Womb and also a Clyster to be given her at length the Flux of her Belly being provoked the Lochia also came down and the sick Woman being freed from the aforesaid symptoms and the more grievous Disease to wit the Remedies of the Nurses quickly grew well of her Feaver The more plentiful Flux of the Womb hapning to this Woman removed the Procatartic cause of a more grievous Disease wherefore when they had committed so many errors about the ordering her viz. first in stopping the Lochia then what might compensate their defect in hindring the Flux of her Belly yet the Feaver was only light and without any venomous taint impressed on the Blood the like to this I have known to happen frequently to wit when at first the purgings of the Womb have flown very plentifully afterwards when they have flown very sparingly and sometimes stopped the Women in Child-bed have escaped And by the way it is here to be noted that it is wholly dangerous to inhibit or at least divert and cross any motion of Nature incited tho irregular A Noble Gentlewoman about 20 years of Age indued with a smooth and full habit of Body miscarried twice in the space of a Year when she had again Conceived by the prescription of her Physician she provoked a Vomit once a month by drinking plentifully Posset Drink by which she was wont to cast forth much thick tough Phlegm also in the time of her being with Child he Let her Blood 5 times the time of her going being over she was brought to Bed of a Son with very hard Labour the Secundine came whole away and she purged notably on the second day whilst she was lifted upon her feet in Bed that the Sheets and the Blankets might be laid in better order she took Cold and by that means the bloody Lochia wholly stopped and only a little serous Water came away on the third day she began to complain of an acute pain in her right side to which the Women laid Bags of Camomil made hot with Bricks but the distemper grew worse with a bloody spittle on the fourth day of her being brought to Bed a most â—harp pain with a difficult breathing and very Laborious invaded her by the prescription of her Physician then coming to her from the neigbourhood six ounces of Blood was taken away out of the Basilic Vein and she felt sudden ease for 10 hours she was better in the middle of the night the pricking pain returned with its wonted fierceness at length other Physicians being called to Counsel they agreed that it was necessary to open a Vein again in the arm of the distempered side four ounces of Blood being taken away the pain remitted and the sick breathed better then by Diasphoretic Remedies she fell into a great sweat with a quiet sleep But the Pulse was made quicker and weaker also contractures of the tendons in her wrists appeared presently afterwards she talked idly and within 24 hours after she was last Let Blood she departed That this Lady fell into a Pleurisie with a Feaver upon the Lochia being suppressed the cause in some measure seemed to be the Letting of Blood so often in the time of her being with Child for by this means the Blood being accustomed to be eventilated at the arm afterwards growing hot leaving the Womb was carried violently towards the place of its letting forth where when it found not a passage it fixed in the neighbouring side as the next nest to the place of extravasation yea besides the usual manner of a Pleurisie there was no small malignity hapned to this Disease for the Blood being hindred from being let forth of the Vessels began presently to be corrupted in its disposition and in the third day of the Feaver was so much depraved that it could not be any longer fermented in the heart so as to Prorogue Life It was not so with the Wife of a certain Smith who was brought to Bed at what time her Children had the Small Pox in the same House and she her self as it seemed had taken the Contagion of the same Disease for on the second day after her Delivery they began to break forth with a feaverish heat and pain in her Loyns which indeed for three days whilst the Lochia moderately flowed arose rightly into little swellings altho the purging of the Womb was very copious at that time she had the Small Pox very thick all over her Body not only in the superficies of her skin but also they filled the cavity of her mouth and throat so that she could scarce speak or swallow The sixth day of her Lying in the Lochia flowed immoderately from whence presently fell upon the sick a frequent swooning with a flagging of the Small Pox Convulsions and other symptoms of an ill nature which threatned Death soon being sent for I prescribed half a dram of this Powder to be taken constantly every three hours in a spoonful of the following Julep viz. take of the Roots of Tormentil in Powder drams two of the best Bole Armonie dram one of the species of Hyacinth half a dram make a Powder Take of the Compound Water of Scordium of Dragons of Meadowsweet each three ounces of Therecal Vinegar one ounce of the Syrup of Corals two ounces of Harts-horn burnt half a dram make a Julep Besides I ordered to be boyled in her Broths and in every thing she drank the Roots of Tormentil by these Remedies the purging of her Womb was soon wholly stopped and the Small Pox by degrees being ripened came off without any grievous symptom Indeed this case was difficult and was cured with great danger viz. for either the Lochia or the Small Pox to have been restrained inwardly was very dangerous and yet the more full eruption of the one hindred the motion of the other so long as either moderately proceeded things being permitted to the conduct of Nature was moderately well but when one of them became ill the work of Art was required and it was requisite to bridle the Lochia but to provoke the Small Pox. CHAP. XVII Of Epidemical Feavers HAving meditated rather a Commentary than an intire Tract I had thought here to have concluded our Discourse of Feavers But forasmuch as certain Epidemical Feavers do often spread which observe no Laws nor can be brought to any certain rule of Doctrine but being irregular vary every year and for that reason as often as any of them increase or spread abroad presently it is called the new Disease therefore I thought it worth our while because general precepts concerning these Feavers are not to be delivered to subjoyn some particular Histories of some of this kind for out of the various provision of symptoms whereby they are wont to be noted the nature and the whole
formal reason of these kind of distempers may somewhat appear Since therefore of late years within a short tract of time three popular Diseases have spread in these Countrys I will add as a Crown to this work the several Descriptions of them made at those times when these Feavers raged A Description of an Epidemical Feaver spreading about Autumn in the Year 1657. taken in the middle of September WHilst we meditate the Description of a Feaver at this time cruelly raging it is fit that following the example of Hippocrates we first consider the foregoing constitution of the Year its intemperance and excess of qualities For Epidemical Diseases and commonly excited among the people are from a common cause such as the habit of the Year and by that means contracted a disposition of the Blood by which many are alike affected But that we may draw the matter from the beginning the last Spring and the time succeeding it even to the end of the Summer was all that half years space extremely dry and hot but especially after the Summer solstice the heats were so intense for many weeks following that day and night there was none that did not complain of the heat of the Air and were almost in a continual sweat and were not able to breath freely About the Calends of July this Feaver at first sporadical or particular began to break forth in some places that perhaps one or two were taken in the same City or Village In many it imitated the likeness of an intermitting Tertian viz. the Fits returned every other day which yet infested the sick with a most intense heat without any cold or shivering going before Vomiting and Choleric Stools plentifully hapned to most sweat succeeding but difficultly and often interrupted whereby the feaverish fit rarely ended in a remission but that all the time between the sick continued languishing and weak with thirst and restlessness in some when the business began to grow better after three or four fits cold and shivering began the fits and the Feaver became an exact intermitting Tertian But in most the Feaver still grew worse and presently became of an evil nature and difficult Cure with a depraved provision of symptoms for when the sick were highly heated in their fits and hardly sweated they were wont to commit errors which daily increased the strength of the Disease because by reason of the inpatience of the sick and the unskilfulness of Servants the sweat being interrupted which should have ended the fit of the Feaver after one fit was scarce finished another presently succeeded and so the Disease was wont to have wandring and uncertain periods without any intermission betweene and afterwards to pass into a kind of continual Feaver The condition of which sometimes being very dangerous with an evil affection of the Brain and nervous stock so that oftentimes a Lethargy or Delirium or not seldom cramps and Convulsive motions were excited About the month of August this Feaver began to spread far and near among the people that in every Region and Village many were sick of it but it was much more frequent in the Country and smaller Villages than in Cities or Towns It was still like an intermitting Feaver unless that it seemed more infestous than that is wont and with more cruel fits and shorter intermissions and therefore was called the new Disease besides it underwent the note of a certain malignity and gave knowledg of its Contagion and Deadliness insomuch that it crept from house to house infected with the same evil most of the same Family and especially those familiarly conversing with the sick yea old Men and Men of ripe Age it ordinarily took away If you respect the nature and essence of the Disease this Feaver properly should be referred to the rank of intermitting Feavers for the fits returned at set times also for the most part they began with cold and shivering and oftenest with vomiting and by and by a most intense heat proceeding they were finished at last with a sweat The Urine in most appeared of a flame colour thin in the fits with some hypostasis without it more thick and with a redish sediment altho with a most copious sweat and often iterated the Disease was not cured which might be expected in a continual Feaver yea the distemper continued exceeding long for many days sometimes months tho much evacuation almost daily hapned by vomit and sweat which we observe frequently in an intermitting Feaver rarely to happen in a continual out of the fit at any time of the Disease a purge was profitably instituted which in a Synochus before the sign of concoction were a wicked thing to attempt besides that this Feaver was of the intermitting kind it seems to appear from hence because very many recovered of it that scarce one of a thousand died which I scarce ever knew in an Epidemical Synochus About the first beginnings of this Disease it appeared very like to an intermitting Tertian altho afterwards in some by reason of the vitious provision of their body and errors committed in Dyet and sweating it seemed to change into a continual for in whom the fits were not rightly concluded nor ended in a remission by reason of the morbific matter not being throughly dispersed their Blood was continually hot from whence it came to pass that the fits sooner returned and continued longer till at length by reason of the plenty of matter and the languishment of Nature the Blood being made weaker endeavoured no longer to swell up and to separate the feaverish matter at set hours but to subdue it by little and little with a continual effervency We are to inquire concerning the causes of this Disease what may be the leading evident and conjunct cause viz. by the means of which it spread so generally and became Epidemical through all England by what means and for what occasion it was wont to be excited in all men and lastly what kind of alteration of the Blood and humors being induced brought forth this kind of Feaver with such a provision of symptoms and conserved it in the Act. I know it is easie to place wholly the cause of this so popular Disease in the malignant constitution of the Air to wit that the Particles of the Air in which we breath were infected by a certain extraneous Infection and not agreeable to our Nature the little bodies of which Infections being admitted within did ferment with the Blood and humors and so in most brought in this Feaver almost with the same appearance of symptoms For who dares deduce the original of a Disease so generally raging from a less public fountain or refer to any other place the received causes of Diseases than to that nest of Vital Air on which every one seeds But whilst I more attentively consider the thing it seems to me that its stem and as it were its first beginnings are to be sought a little deeper To wit that this Feaver is
or straitned in its motion and the effluvias being constrained inwardly could not be sufficiently eventilated or cooled In every year tho temperate it is usual in the Spring and Autumn for some Epidemical Diseases to reign because at this time the Blood being as it were restored flowers anew and therefore intermitting Feavers and sometimes the Small Pox ordinarily spread in this season wherefore 't is no wonder after a great unequal constitution of the year and not natural when in this Spring the Blood boyling up more lively within the Vessels by reason of transpiration being hindred could not be freely circulated and sufficiently eventilated if for that cause great disorders follow and from this most common cause a distemper greatly Epidemical should be excited As to the symptoms joyned with this Disease a feaverish intemperature and whatsoever belongs to this the heat of the Praecordia thirst a spontaneous weariness pain in the Head Loyns and Limbs were induced from the Blood growing hot and not sufficiently eventilated hence in many a part of the thinner Blood being heated and the rest of the Liquor being only driven into confusion a simple Synochus or of more days was induced and this for the most part ceased within a few days But in some endued with a vitious disposition of Blood or evil habit of Body this kind of Feaver arising by reason of the same cause quickly passed into a very dangerous Putrid Feaver and often Mortal The Cough accompanying this Feaver with a Catarrh draws its Origine from a serous humor heaped up together in the Blood by reason of transpiration being hindred for a long time and then an effervescency being risen dropping forth more from the little Arteries gaping within for when the Pores are constrained the superfluous serosities in the Blood being wont to evaporate outwardly are poured forth on the Lungs by a proper castration or cleansing of the Blood wherefore by taking cold as they commonly term it that is from transpiration outwardly being hindred the Cough for the most part is stirred up And for a foregoing cause to this Distemper the flowing forth of the serum into the mass of Blood hath for the most part the chief place for from the long cold hindring the scorching of the Blood or the provision of the bile and prohibiting the breathing forth of the watry humor there was a necessity that very much of the serous humor should be heaped up in the Blood wherefore when the Blood flowring in the Spring conceived an heat the flowing forth of the serum and a pouring of it on the interior parts was wont to cause first the Cough as the proper symptom of this Disease and those whose Blood was more diluted by the mixtion of the serum and who were greatly obnoxious to the Cough and a Rheumatic Distemper were cured with less trouble of the feaverish Distemper the Prognostick of this Disease concerning private persons is for the most part easie that one may deliver the event from the first assault for if this sickness be excited in a strong Body and healthful before and that the feaverish Distemper be moderate and without any grievous and horrid symptom the business is free from danger and the Distemper is to be accounted but of light moment as that commonly is of catching cold neither needs a Physician be consulted nor Remedies unless trivial and ordinary be administred But if this Distemper happens in a weak and sickly Body with an evil provision or that the Feaver being carried into a Putrid Feaver or the Cough growing grievous induces difficult breathing and as it were a tabid or Consumptive disposition the event of the Disease is much to be suspected and often terminates in Death The common Prognostic that was taken from hence concerning the future state of the year conteins nothing to be feared or ominates any great ill by reason of the unequal intemperance of the year the great heats and then excessive cold we might fear Diseases to arise from the Dyscrasie of the Blood yet from the present condition we need neither suspect any noted depravation of the Air or Infection with poysonous breaths that from thence may be had any judgment of the Plague or Malignant Disease to be at hand As to what belongs to the Cure when this Disease is more lightly inflicted its Cure for the most part is left to Nature for this Feaver when it is only a simple Synochus is wont to be cured within a few days by sweat wherefore by a copious sweating for the most part about the third or fourth day the heat and thirst the weariness and heavy pains are allayed then the Cough being somewhat longer protracted by little and little afterwards remits and at length the sick leisurely grow well if this Disease hath rooted it self more deeply there is need of fit Remedies and an exact method of curing the Feaver growing worse is to be healed according to the Rules to be observed in a Putrid Feaver but nevertheless with this difference that because transpiration being hindred and the suffusion of the serous humor on the Lungs are chiefly in fault therefore Diaphoretic Remedies and those called pectoral are of more frequent use for these restrain the flowing forth of the serum from the Vessels within or by opening the Pores convey it forth of doors or precipitating it from the bosom of the Blood send it forth be the urinary passages therefore the method of Medicine for this Disease being brought into the worser state respects both the feaverish intemperance for the sake of curing which you are to be directed according to the intentions shewn in the Putrid Feaver and also the Rheumatic Distemper which however let it be secondary and not every expectorating Remedy or those used against a Cough are to be admitted but of that kind only which do not increase the Feaver the forms of these and the means of curing are to be sought from the precepts delivered generally for the Cure of the Putrid Feaver and of the Cough the helps which now by frequent experience are commonly said to bring Cure chiefly in this Disease are sweating or the provoking of sweat and letting of Blood for the Vessels being emptied by this or that means both the immoderate heat of the Blood and the abundance of the serum are restrained A Description of an Epidemical Feaver arising about the beginning of Autumn 1658. taken the 13th of September THE vernal Feaver but now described did not last longer than six weeks that it plainly was seen that it was only a more light flowring of the Blood which swelling up in the Spring and at the same time streightned in space for want of ventilation most impetuously boyled up like new Wine close shut up in Bottles and then ceased of it self Yet from thence as neither the year so neither our Blood did recover its due temperature and so another tinder or nest for a new Feaver was quickly gathered together
juice as well as the Blood by reason of the intemperance of the year was much altered from its due Crasis or Disposition viz. by nature sweet and spirituous and was become now heavy and almost lifeless now sharp and too much pungitive Besides also the mass it self of the Blood very much contributed to this evil for whilst it grew hot the vaporous effluvia which ought to have been dispersed outwardly by reason of the Pores being shut up were poured upon the Brain and membranes of the head and by reason of this kind of stopping impressed almost on all sweat hardly and not but partial and often interrupted succeded in the fits hence also in the height of the Disease a perfect Crisis or spontaneous rarely or never hapned to Cure it but instead of this if the business was committed to Nature the adust matter or recrements gathered together in the Blood were transferred to the head and there raised up now the sleepy evil now Phrensies and those long and stubborn 3. That the fits sometimes begun without cold or shivering but with a troublesome heat and were prolonged with a difficult sweat partial and often interrupted then forasmuch as the same being finished the sick began again to wax hot that the fits were not finished without a long evaporation of a dry breath the cause was the too sharp and bilous disposition of the Blood whereby when it grew turgid it was stuffed rather with adust Salt and Sulphur than a serous juice and presently conceived an inkindling without any previous Flux of nitrous matter and therefore for want of serum and by reason of the Pores being shut up its deflagration was continued for a long time almost only with a dry exhalation and scarce at last ended in a remission And therefore the interstitia of the fits were most troublesome with heat and thirst Head-ach Vertigo and other Distempers because the feaverish matter being heaped up in the Blood was not all dispersed by the several fits but part of it being left after the fit as it were extraneous and not miscible induced almost a continual burning 4. It was observed that those distempered with this Feaver presently lost their strength and flesh that after a fit or two they panted for breath and being very weak were not able to stand or go without being led when it is an usual thing in an intermitting Feaver that is common for the Patient to be very lively and cheerful between the fits the reason of the difference is because in this Feaver the mass of the Blood is both more depraved by the impure mixture of the degenerate juice and especially that the same is more perverted from its natural disposition and therefore when it boyls up less out of the fits it yet ferments not rightly and equally in the bosom of the heart wherefore when by any more quick motion or agitation of the Body the Blood is carried more impetuously into the bosom of the heart because it is not there presently inkindled it both leaps forth of doors and by its stagnation causes the oppression of the heart and great weakning of the Vital Spirits By reason of this kind of dyscrasie of the Blood to wit whereby it is made more unfit for due Fermentation and inkindling in the heart also some Beasts and especially Horses in the Spring time are made hard breathed and very unapt to any rapid motion 5. Lastly We are to inquire concerning this Feaver wherefore it spread chiefly in Villages in lesser Towns and the Country when Cities and greater Towns were less troubled with it It might seem that this Distemper should be excited from marshie Fogs and other hurtful Vapours plentifully heaped together in this or that Tract of the Air but there is a better reason for that the inhabitants of these kind of places being more exposed to the Spring cold and then to the Summer heats might have contracted a greater Dyscrasie of the Blood and so a more apt disposition to this Feaver For in truth the Inhabitants of the Country could scarce go out of their houses but they were exposed to the Sun's Beams or the fervor of the heated Air. Besides Country-men Husbandmen and such as were accustomed to Labours among whom this Feaver chiefly raged from their immoderate toyl in the Sun or open Air also using a bad and sharp Dyet sooner acquired an adust and torrid disposition of the Blood and so more apt for this Disease than Citizens and Townsmen who lived an idle life and enjoyed wholsome food and mostly continued within doors and in refrigerating shades We may believe this assertion for that not only the Epidemical Feaver now raging but also another of the Autumn before excited by reason of the evil disposition of the Blood increased chiefly among the Countrymen and inhabitants of the Country but the popular Feaver which arose in the middle of the Spring depending chiefly upon transpiration being hindred mostly infested Citizens and the Inhabitants of Towns whilst rustical men that were wont by Labour and Exercise to procure a more free breathing forth remained free The general Prognostication of this Disease seems only to ominate or foretel the like evil almost to follow this as followed the Epidemical Feaver of the former Autumn to wit the Augury being taken rather from the intemperance of our Blood than from the evil of the Air not the Pest but a Quartane Feaver might be feared to come upon it As to the particular Indication as Signs that promise Health or Death I shall briefly mention them and they chiefly respect the temper and government either of the Blood with the Vital Spirit or else of the nervous juice with the animal Spirit If it be plainly indicated from the Pulse Urine from Actions less hurt and the appearance of other symptoms that the Blood as to its feaverish disposition is not very much perverted from its natural temper that in the fits it moderately burns forth and in every Combat easily subdues the load of the feaverish matter and wholly shakes it off from its company that after same fits the mass of Blood is somewhat restored towards its due temper that it perverts little the alible juice and sifts forth with a more gentle rising up what is extraneous and not mingleable and that if in the mean time the other spirituous Liquor rightly inspires and waters the Brain and nervous Bodies that sleep waking sensation and motion are performed well or at least indifferently all good is to be hoped concerning the sick But if it appears from the same Fountains of Indications that the Blood hath acquired in this Feaver a disposition far removed from the natural if it perverts much of the alible juice and then from its extraneous and incongruous mixture the Liquor of the Blood is greatly disturbed and the Spirits driven into confusion if in the fits the Blood too strongly and in a long time burns forth yet doth not truly subdue the
But what most usually comes to pass that this sort of Urine big with contents as long as it is hot and some time after seems clear and perspicuous when it grows cold is wont to be troubled and as if some Runnet were infused to be precipitated according to all its parts yet the same if held near the fire or in warm water for a little space shall grow clear again The reason of this is already fully unfolded where we spake of the Causes of Cloudiness and of Clearness 4. After that the Urine being exposed to the cold is precipitated in this manner it may be observed by what means its contents descend to the bottom for sometimes they settle in a short time and if the liquor grows clear in the space of two or three hours it is a sign that the liquor of the urine is not too thick nor very much filled with Salt and Sulphur wherefore in the beginning or declination of Feavers when the heat is slack such an urine is most often made sometimes such a settlement follows not but in the space of many days the reason of which is because the consistence of the liquor is thicker than it should be therefore the contents or dissolved things are not so easily let go from its embrace that they may fall down to the bottom by their weight These kind of urines are wont to be made in the state or height of Feavers and most often precede an evil Crisis 5. Of no less a diverse kind are the sediments which fall to the bottom That I may pass over in this place the filthy matter and blood sand gravel and the like deposited from some parts I shall mention those which are the products of the whole body and they for the most part are either white or brown or red like Oker If you strain urine when it hath stood long through brown paper you may collect these contents I have often seen a whiteness like Chalk and sometimes red like Bole Armene without doubt there is the same matter of all to wit the recrements of the deflagrated blood and of the nutritious juyce depraved in the assimilating which as they are burnt by heat in our body and diversly perverted appear also in the urine under a various colour and form even as Antimony mixed with Nitre as it is more or less calcined exhibits a Calx now red now Saffron-colour now yellow now brown The like reason is as it seems of the sediments of urines which are as it were the Calx of the sulphureous and earthy matter burnt forth by the fire of the Feaver in the Viscera and Vessels 6. Besides these kinds of Contents which happen in the Urines of sick people I have often observed that after the urine had stood a long while something was affixed to the sides of the glass like sand and indeed in divers figures for now these little bodies like sand grow together with a sharp and unequal superficies now with ridges like the Crystals of Nitre and some shine and are pellucid like Ice I have seen these kind of Crystals fixed to the Urinal sometimes in the urines of those troubled with a Dysentery also in those troubled with pertinacious wakings Sometimes in urines when they have stood long a certain Cream will swim on the top as when Tartar is boiled in water this kind of whitish crust growing together in the superficies of the urine is commonly thought to be fat and fattish things and taken for the melting of the solid parts wherefore such as are wont to make such an urine are presently pronounced to be consumptive and in a desperate condition But indeed that is only a saline concretion which if put into the fire will not melt but grows hard into a crusty substance Yea both this and the other concrescences of urines are as it were the Tartar brought forth in them by a certain Coagulation But such a concretion depends altogether on the particles of the fluid or acetous Salt combined with others of the fixed or Alcalisate Salt For in every subject where there is a commixtion of the Salts of either kind Crystallizations and Coagulations of a diverse manner are caused either spontaneously by Nature or may be procured by artificial separation wherefore this kind of urine on which this Cream swims or that Crystals gather in the sides of the Vessels indicates the blood to be departed from its sweet and Balsamick nature such as depends on the volatile Salt into an acid and corrosive by reason of the flux and fixity of the saline Principle Such an urine if it be evaporated leaves in the bottom of the Vessel great plenty of Salt the distempers wherein it is usually found as I have often observed are spitting of blood Atrophy or general wasting and the Hypochondriack disposition In the Urines of sick people it is worth observation whether they dye the Urinal or not For sometimes in Feavers the urine is no sooner put into the Glass but presently it darkens its sides with a whitish cloud and again at another time this does not happen I suppose that the Glass is dyed when the liquor of the urine is fuller of dissolved Sulphur than its pores can contain within themselves as may be perceived in Lye wherein common Sulphur or Antimony is boiled Also every urine if it stand in the Glass till it putrifie will infect its sides with a crust or cloud sometimes whitish sometimes reddish sometimes of another colour for the frame of the liquor being loosned by putrefaction the particles of the Sulphur being loosned from the bond of mixture stick to the Glass But in the urines of sick people sometimes this presently follows because the Sulphur is more copiously dissolved than can be included in its pores As to what respects the particular Contents of Urines they indeed are manifold and may come from many parts and places yet they most often depend on diseases implanted about the Reins Bladder and Urinary passages sometimes it happens by reason of an Imposthume in the Liver Spleen Lungs or other Inward or by reason of preternatural humours heaped up in those places and flowing out with their fulness an extraneous matter is transmitted into the mass of blood and thence into the serous Juyce but this happens more rarely because an Imposthume being broken within for the most part pours out its matter into the cavities of the Viscera from which there is no passage open into the urinary passages besides the mass of blood flowing with impurities does not presently endeavour to send them forth by urine but oftner by sweat spitting breaking out of Wheals Tumors or by other ways of excretion Wherefore it appears by common observation that the other contents of urines than which we have above cited are chiefly sent from the Reins and their dependences the chief of which are sand stones blood matter bits of flesh skins branny or mealy sediments which for the most part signifie either
to wit whether by Accension or by Fermentation or by any other way we shall first in general inquire by what means and for what causes any liquid things are wont to grow hot then we shall consider to which of these the growing hot of the blood ought to be attributed Concerning these we say that there are only three ways or so many kinds of causes by which Liquors conceive a heat viz. first by fire or heat being put to them as when water is made to seeth or boil over the fire or that it grows hot by the heat of the Sun a Bath or Stove or by the dissolution of quick Lime instances of all which are commonly known For the same reason Bath-waters seem to boil For that we may instance in our own Baths to wit they are impregnated neither with Sulphur nor fixed Salt as I have plainly experimented by distilling and evaporating them and by pouring into them precipitating Liquors yea by dissolving them with Sulphur and many other ways They most resemble Lime-water and they as we believe grow hot from a like cause to wit by imbibing the fiery little bodies somewhere hid within the Earth Of these unless it had been superfluous we had here given a fuller description which may perhaps be done at some other time Secondly when saline Corrosives which are of a diverse kind being mingled with themselves or with sulphureous things work mutually one on another with a great strife and agitation of Particles and oftentimes excite heat yea sometimes fume and flame as when the Spirit and Butter of Antimony are poured to or mixed with stygian Water wherein lixivial Salts are melted or with Oyl of Turpentine or other distilled things besides when corrosive Liquors eat metallick Bodies they often grow hot Thirdly and the only way besides as I suppose whereby a liquid thing is made hot is when any humour being very much imbued with Sulphur or Spirit conceives a burning by putting a flame to it and so grows hot by burning forth This is ordinarily seen in oily or very spirituous Liquors being inkindled and inflamed There remain indeed some other ways of Calefaction to wit Fermentation Putrefaction and Attrition whereby more thick Bodies or Solids often conceive a fervour but they produce not such an effect in Liquids whilst the mealy Mass or Dough is fermented the active Particles being stirred up into motion unfold themselves on every side and lift up the bulk or substance of the subject in the mean time for as much as the sulphureous Particles being agitated with them take hold one of another and begin to be combined a certain heat though more remiss is excited in like manner from Putrefaction Dung or wet Hay get an heat to wit for as much as the sulphureous Particles within included are very thickly heaped up together then being combined together they break out in troops yet no Liquors either thin or thick whether they ferment or putrifie do for that reason at any time grow hot For Wines whilst in fermenting they break in pieces the sides of the Tun or overflow the top of the Vessel with a great noise and ebullition do not actually grow hot yea not so much as grow warm The blood being let out of the Body and placed in convenient Glasses either to ferment or putrifie doth not get any actual heat yet in truth we grant the Blood in living Creatures to be fermented and by fermenting to be putrified yea and some other offices of the animal oeconomy to perform the same moreover we have formerly shewed from its Fermentation being hindred or too much increased or otherwise depraâ—ed divers kinds of diseases to be produced yet we deny the heat of the blood to be excited by Fermentation Because neither the blood of more frigid Animals nor Wines nor any other Liquors though agitated with the highest Fermentation are for that reason actually hot And indeed the reason seems evident enough to wit because the sulphureous Particles being raised up in the more thick subjects though they lay hold on one another mutually and being more thickly heaped together raise up heat yet in Liquids the same kind of Particles however stirred up or agitated are immediately disjoyned by the watry coming between and are hindred from their mutual embrace and combination so that they cannot of themselves produce an actual heat For the same reason hard Bodies being rubbed one against another or violently knocked or bruised do not only produce heat but oftentimes fire whenas yet Liquids however shaken and agitated do not grow warm Therefore as there are only three ways whereby actual heat may be begotten in all Liquors we shall inquire to which of these the heat of the Blood may be ascribed First Some say it is the first way from the opinion both of the Ancients and of some of the Moderns the Blood is said to grow hot by reason of some hot thing put to it to wit whilst those affirm an innate heat and these a little flame to be placed in the Heart and to heat the blood passing through it but either of these opinions easily fails from which it is clear that the Heart is a mere Muscle her doth contain in it self any tinder or matter for a flame or heat I know not how implanted fit for their continuance For though it be confessed that on the continual motion of this Bowel which is only animal the Circulation of the Blood doth depend yet the Heart borrows heat altogether from the blood and not the blood from the Heart Secondly As to what respects the second way of making hot a liquid thing to wit whereby a great heat is excited by the mixing of saline Corrosives together or also oily or by corroding a metallick Body I think there is none that will seriously assert that the blood grows hot from such a cause for that its liquor in its natural state is always homogene and although it be stuffed with plenty of Salt it is however with that which is volatile gentle and benign only But there is not to be found either in the Heart or in any other place a saline or any otherwise heterogene Mine whereby the bloody liquor by working or corroding may get or conceive an heat to wit it behoves either such a Mine or the Body to be corroded to be perpetually renewed because the ebullition and heat raised up by the strife of Salts ceases as soon as the Salts are combined or the Body corroded If at any time the saline Particles of the humours in our Body depart from their right temper and become enormous and unbridled for that reason the blood as to heat and motion enters into some irregularities yet it seems impossible that it should originally and perpetually become hot by the congression and strife or corrosion of the Salts Thirdly As to the third way whereby Liquids are made hot though it may seem an uncouth saying That the blood is so inkindled
Symptoms That this happens in those that are hindred from respiration because the vital flame of the blood is wanting of the nitrous food of the Air rather than overthrown by its proper soot or smoke being detained Exper. 41. the most Famous Boyl also by his Experiments hath put it out of doubt for he hath observed that hot living Creatures being put within a glassy Globe and shut up did far sooner expire the air being drawn away from them than the same being left within it though in the former case there was more space left for the receiving the smoke left the retaining of it might constipate the blood yet however if the heat of the blood should arise from Fermentation or the congression of dissimilar Particles or from an ebullition by reason of admitted heat or from any other cause besides accension it is so far that that effect could be inhibited or suppressed by reason of the air being excluded that on the contrary it would rather for that cause become more strong or intense For it appears by a common observation that Liquors chiefly fermentable the more strictly they are kept in the Vessel the more they grow hot and the air being admitted through some vent-hole they presently cease from their fury Moreover Mr. Boyl's Experiments clearly shew that the effervescencies or growing servent stirred up by the ebullition of unlike Particles or by corrosion also the boiling up of hot water in a glassie Sphere are above measure increased after the air is sucked out Experiment Physicom 41 42 43. That most ingenious Tract of the aforesaid Author supplies us with many Experiments whereby it is abundantly manifest that the intestine motions of those Particles and almost of every thing besides fire and life are very much heightned or made strong in the space emptied of air but their act presently after the air is withdrawn is extinguished hence we may conclude the life of a living Creature to be either fire or something analogical to it The like to these is yet more clearly observed by the diggers of Minerals who ordinarily experiment in subterranean Caves where either the Nitre is wanting or is driven away by some strange damp or vapour so that they are in danger of being stifled or smothered at the same time the flame of the Candle is diminished becomes blue and at length expires The second thing requisite to sustain a flame is a constant supply of sulphureous food whereby it may continually be fed which being substracted or by reason of some incongruous mixture depraved the flame is extinguished as is perceived in a Lamp which for want of oyl or water poured in its place expires further as this sulphureous food is more or less suggested sometimes more plentifully sometimes more sparingly the flame being more or less intense is sometimes produced clear sometimes smoaky in the mean time the food being constantly consumed by burning goes away partly into vaporous Effluvia's and partly into ashes which are made up of some Particles of Earth Salt and Sulphur But it is much otherwise in Liquors exposed to Fermentation to which if new Particles be continually administred and the old ones depart the Fermentation is hindred or disturbed In like manner as in Flame the Blood of the hotter Animals and this only in all natural things besides fire requires a constant and copious sulphureous food and that being quickly worn is for the most part consumed in vaporous Effluvia's a Caput mortuum being left of Earth Salt and stinking Sulphur In the mean time from its food consumed by burning it disposes other Particles for other uses That the life or flame of the blood doth continually want aliment there is none but daily finds it in himself For if that be for some time denied the vigor of the blood is diminished yea and consuming the solid parts it snatches into its bosom their remnants and other humours of the Body whereby it may be fed If the nutriment daily suggested from things taken be too thin and watry the fervour of the blood like flame without food uses to be remitted but if the food be very sulphureous and swelling with a vinous Spirit and plentifully taken in the blood is presently inflamed and often breaks out into a Feaver as it were an open burning In the interim out of that food of the blood exhausted or consumed as it seems by accension hot Effluvia's full of soot and vapour go away which according to a just account far exceed all the other excrements of the Body and that their nature is plainly fiery the frequent burning of the mouth and tongue and infecting them with blackness like the soot or smoke of a Chimney witnesses besides from the inflamed blood adust Feces like a Caput mortuum are sent into the Bladder of the Gall Spleen and perhaps into other Emunctories Thirdly That inkindled Flame may for some time continue there is need of continual ventilation to wit that its sooty Effluvia's may still fly away which else being detained and heaped together thereabouts will suffocate the fire because by obstructing the Pores of the inflamed Body they hinder the eruption of the sulphureous matter to be inflamed Although this condition doth often interfere with the other more potent viz. the necessity of nitrous food to be so drawn in from the air that it can scarce be distinguished from it yet we may plainly perceive from the detained soot gathered together about the snuff the light to be put out for which cause a Lamp whose wick is made of plumous Alum or other incombustible matter will not as it promises endure any long time because the soot sticking to the wick hinders the access of the oyl to the flame for this reason blasts of wind from the Air wiping away the sootiness doth not only render the flame more clear that is free from fume and thick vapour but food being sufficiently given to it it becomes more durable Even as Flame the life of the Blood requires also continual ventilation to which end besides the greater breathing places of the Breast innumerable lesser viz. the Pores of the skin gaping every where through the whole Body do send forth Effluvia's departing plentifully from the boiling blood which if it happens to be hindred or too closely shut up the blood will grow excessively hot being as it were beset with fume and vapour besides there is need to shorten its circuit that passing through the Lungs with a more frequent turn it might there as much as it can dispel all its soot or smoak When the Heavens are heated the Air seems as it were immoveable and to stagnate we are wont very much to estuate or grow hot about the Praecordia for that the blood being fed with a more sparing nitrous food doth not burn so clearly but glows with a more suffocating and intrinsick burning further for that the Particles of the Air being less nimble when they are inspired and expired or breathed
animal Spirits whose companies or throngs constitute the Hypostasis of the bodily Soul have these two properties as it were implanted in their nature to wit that whilst they are lively numerous and free they exert or expand themselves then that force being finished they being a little diminished retire themselves and grow quiet but afterwards being refreshed they leap out again and so vicissively Waking and sleep and the alterations of work and idleness or rest inbred in all living Creatures sufficiently declare this Wherefore to the impulse or instincts of some Muscles which are wont to be perpetually contracted and released scarce any thing more is required but that their Tendons may be supplied by the Nerves with a constant influx of animal Spirits but the Spirits themselves because they are numerous and expeditious of their own nature do willingly leap out into the moving Fibres then the charge being performed after a small loss or expence they immediately withdraw and being again presently recruited they are again expanded and so vicissively Further their actions which chiefly are Pulse and Breathing are variously changed according to the degrees of heat or of the affections for as much as the Spirits being brought by the Nerves are sent from the Cerebel sometimes more remisly sometimes more plentifully or more nimbly Further in some other Muscles subject to the Empire of the Appetite as the animal Spirits naturally affect turns of expansion and recess there is only need of a sign to be given either for the performing or stopping of the commanded motion either of which the inflowing Spirits by their various knocking against the Muscle easily perform in ordering the implanted Spirits into various aspects or tendencies When the Muscle is contracted the implanted Spirits whilst they are loosned from either end towards the middle look and tend with a changed front from the middle towards either end And so whilst the inflowing Spirits carry the Symbol of performing Contraction they being incited by heaps within the Nerve more fully blow up its end inserted to the Muscle where they are more thickly crowded together and so cause it there to be contracted and abbreviated whereby it comes to pass that the same inflowing Spirits about to enter into the Muscle are at that time stopped by a mere heap or rather are called back towards the intumified Nerve wherefore by and by the whole series of the implanted Spirits hence their inclination being changed also looks that way and so the inhabitants of the Tendons leaping out from their little Cells into the fleshy Fibres cause motive contraction then the motion is broken off or ceases assoon as the Spirits being before called back towards the Nerve do tend again into the Muscle and so the front of the Army being again changed bands of the implanted Spirits are presently compelled into the Tendons That the thing is in a manner thus I am perswaded not out of a mere agreeableness or concinnity of our Hypothesis but from Anatomical observation Because once dissecting a Whelp alive when by chance I beheld some Muscles of the hinder part of the Head and Neck divided and separated at the same instant wherein the fleshy Fibres as also the Nerves inserted into them were seen at once to be contracted and being intumified to be abbreviated For the promoting the recess of the Spirits out of the fleshy Fibres into the Tendons whilst the Muscle is contracted the membranaceous Fibrils which every where cut cross-wise the fleshy and thickly stick between seem to help The texture of these never to be enough admired is better perceived in a Muscle endued with large Fibres viz. an Oxes being boiled to a tenderness For in such a one if gently opening the fleshy Fibres you shall draw them one from another through the whole series you shall see little Fibrils like hairs most thickly extended upon every one of those Tubes which little Fibrils not only close and knit together the fleshy Fibres but also lying upon every one of their series and cutting them in oblique Angles they also are all carried parallel from Tendon to Tendon in an opposite site to the fleshy therefore whilst the Muscle being contracted the fleshy Fibres do swell up the Fibrils embracing them that they may give place are somewhat distended then as soon as the swelling up remits these returning to their wonted straitness press together every where the flesh and the Spirits being expulsed on either side they reduce them to their pristine length It makes for this that whilst the Muscle is contracted the Spirits inflowing through the Nerves depart from their membranaceous Fibrils wherefore these being empty and lax are able more easily to be distended but whilst the Muscle is relaxed the Spirits again entring the Fibrils fill them and that they may the better bind the fleshy Fibres they make them shorter The Instincts of Motions to be obeyed by the Muscles so delivered by the Nerves are being sent either from the Brain performed at the command and with the knowledge of the Appetite or from the Cerebel according to the Laws of Nature for the most part unknown to us But besides sometimes the Muscles are carried beyond or contrary to the pleasure of the Appetite or Nature into irregular motions viz. violent and convulsive and that happens after various manners and for divers causes Concerning these some time since discoursing more largely we have shewn that from thence do arise many kinds and differences of convulsive motions as the Spasmodick matter being somewhere fixed doth subsist either about the beginnings middle or ends of the Nerves or because the same thing being wandring and loose runs about here and there through the whole passages of the Nerves and so variously transfers from place to place convulsive distempers But besides these divers kinds of Convulsions which are excited by reason of some evil or vice sticking somewhere to the Nerves themselves this our Myology or Doctrine of the Muscles hath discovered some Convulsions of another kind arising from the Muscles being chiefly affected For indeed we must advertise you that the animal Spirits disposed among the Muscles themselves by reason of a taint or evil derived from the Brain or from the Blood or perhaps oftentimes from both together are infected with certain heterogene Particles by reason of which they cannot rest or lye quiet in their Cells but being always unquiet and restless leap out of their own accord from the tendinous Fibres into the fleshy and so oftentimes produce frequent and cruel Convulsions But this we have observed to be done after a twofold manner viz. first for that the Spirits being burdened with an elastick Copula remain not long within the Tendons but leaping out from thence into the fleshy Fibres induce frequent Convulsions of a Muscle but short and as it were by leaps or secondly because the animal Spirits although they sometimes lye quietly within the Tendons yet being inordinately snatched into the
flesh and there cruelly exploded they cannot be presently repressed brought into order or reduced into the Tendons but whether we will or not they persist a long while expanded and so bring forth a long and very painful contraction of the Muscle Which kind of Spasm sufficiently known we vulgarly term the Cramp The former distemper called the Convulsive Leaping is familiar both to malignant Feavers and to the Scurvy As to those we have ordinarily known when either no Crisis or an evil one is obtained that heterogene Particles from the blood and nervous juyce very much vitiated are not only laid up in the Bowels whose dispositions and functions they pervert but almost every where in the Muscles and there growing to the Spirits do affect them with a certain madness so as they cannot continue peaceably together or rest within the Tendons but being divided and distracted one from another leap out from thence by bands into the flesh and there stir up the lesser and most frequent Spasms or Convulsions In like manner by reason of the Spirits inhabiting the Muscles being burdened with an elastick Copula there growing to them some labouring with an inveterate Scurvy cannot contain their limbs in the same site or position but are necessitated sometimes to extend the hands or feet sometimes to fling them about here and there to transfer them variously and sometimes to subdue their madness by running leaping or other hard labours Treating some time since of Convulsive Motions we did almost wholly omit the Aetiology of the continuing Spasm or Tetanism as a thing which depended upon the Doctrine of the Muscles to be treated of afterwards Then we only hinted that the contraction of that kind did arise in one Muscle because its other Antagonist was resolved or loosned which indeed oftentimes happens in the face and some members in which whilst the parts upon one side are troubled with the Palsie those opposite on the other as it were loosned in the Reins are too much contracted Notwithstanding this kind of Spasm for the most part is without pain besides this is not easily or presently passed over or cured no more than the Palsie which is the cause of it Therefore as to what belongs to the formal reason of the Spasm called in our Idiom the Cramp every one labouring with this distemper perceives in himself one or more Muscles to be most strongly and involuntarily drawn together and they being for some time so highly distended remain as it were stiff and in the mean time for that the fleshy Fibres being cruelly contracted do violently haul or pull either Tendon to wit that which is fixed to the immoveable part perhaps no less than the other part to be moved they cause a most troublesom pain But sometimes this Spasm being excited by reason of the animal Spirits carrying themselves out impetuously into the fleshy Fibres doth not cease until the same Spirits being returned into the Tendons suffer the flesh to be relaxed therefore its nearest causes will be both the greater impetuosity of the animal Spirits among the fleshy Fibres with which they leap thither unbid and also their long continuance or stay for that they return back more slowly and difficultly into the Tendons For the secondary causes may be reckoned both the evil disposition of the animal Spirits and also the evil conformation of the Tendons viz. sometimes this sometimes that and not seldom both together As to the former this distemper as other Convulsions seems to arise for as much as the animal Spirits being burdened with heterogeneous Particles or an elastick Copula at length being irritated they are incited to the striking of it off which notwithstanding being thick and viscous and for that cause more tenacious is not soon nor easily shaken off but that the Spirits being still provoked by the same and shut up within the fleshy Fibres are longer detained in the expansion which thing perhaps happens not so much unlike as when water and air being joyned together make a bubble which if it be made of water wherein a little Sope is put is more tenacious much more large and continues longer than that made only of mere water So we observe that they who abound in thick and tartareous humours are most obnoxious to these kind of Cramps and besides that they who presently sleep upon drinking or eating gross meats after full eating and especially after a large and plentiful supper do suffer most cruel assaults of this disease but sometimes the Tendons themselves are found to be in the fault for that they being too hard bound together or obstructed they do not easily admit the Spirits returning from the fleshy Fibres The obstruction of the Tendons is the cause that Gouty and Scorbutick people whose Tendons salt and tartareous humours easily run into and obstruct are wont to be cruelly tormented with these kind of painful Cramps But that the constriction of the Tendons doth sometimes bring forth this disease appears by this for that some Women with Child as I have been often told about the latter end of their Time by reason of the Muscles of the Abdomen being too much extended are wont to be troubled with frequent Cramps only in the bottom of their Bellies For the illustrating of this Pathology we will add this following Case A Noble Woman young and fair some time since obnoxious to Hysterick distempers and now above two years ago to Convulsive and in a manner Epileptical of late by reason of the frequent and most cruel assaults of the disease she became also Cachectical and Paralytical that at length her Abdomen was distempered with an Ascites and her Legs with a waterish Tumor and lastly all her lower parts below her Hips were deprived of motion hence as often as the Convulsive fits infested her she was wont not now to move her body or members here and there but sometimes these sometimes those parts being snatched with the Tetanism were variously bent and twisted about that in the mean time she her self sitting in her Bed or Chair remained stiff and almost immoveable It is not long since that seeing the whole manner of one of these Fits I observed not without great admiration divers sorts of turns and changes of alterations of the Spasms At the first assault her eyes being turned about swiftly hither and thither she was presently taken with insensibility then by and by her head being turned and contracted of one side presently her arms and legs at once became stiff and all her Joynts sometimes of one side sometimes of both were bowed or stretched out perhaps after four or five minutes these Spasms both in her Head and Limbs remitting of a sudden others for the most part opposite followed which being often finished in the like space others far different did arise and so for two or three hours longer Spasms almost of every kind and fashion being excited through her whole Body followed upon one another so that her
suspected that those strong Fibres and as it were Ligaments do sometimes contract sometimes dilate and variously draw the Membrane to which they are knit From these kind of motions of the dura Mater the blood flowing within the bosoms may be variously agitated and as occasion serves sometimes hastened in its Circle and sometimes restrained or hindred for in many affections of the sensitive Soul the blood being disturbed from its equal circulation is sometimes precipitated by heaps and impetuously to the Heart and sometimes detained from its nest longer nigh the confines of the Brain But that various whirlwinds of passions stir up such irregularities in the motion of the blood the nervous parts implanted about the Praecordia are in some measure the cause which by contracting or dilating the same variously moderate the course of the blood yet so that in the mean time some part of this office is due from the brain it self or at least to its Appendix Indeed the brain it self wants motion but the blood passing through its substance for as much as it is poured wholly in this Meninx and passes through its receptacles is at the motion and beck of this Membrane sometimes driven away from the brain and commanded to succour the Heart as in fear and great sadness sometimes being hastened towards the brain is for some time prohibited from flowing back as in shame indignation and some other affections Truly that these kind of interior processes of the bosoms and as it were transverse strings or cords do conduce to the more commodious reduction of the blood we gather also from hence that in working beasts whose brain because they feed and go with a prone and hanging down head is in greater danger of an inundation of the blood those processes are very big for that they being successively contracted may leisurely thrust out the blood apt otherwise to stagnate by reason of the inclination of the head Neither is it from the purpose to observe here that these same Animals are always furnished for that reason with a greater wonderful Net by which means indeed it is provided that the blood may not too much invade the brain by heaps as care is taken by the artifice but now described lest the same should make too long stay in the brain and so oppress its more weak frame Therefore in the last place that I may recollect what I have said of the dura Mater and rehearse its chief uses First It covers over the Skull within and reaches to it somewhat of nourishment by the Vessels Secondly It is a covering to the whole head and serves to distinguish its chief parts Thirdly It contains the Vessels designed for the reducing the blood from the whole interior head which in the mean time by reason of the plenty of the blood contained in them and the opportunity of their situation administer requisite heat for the distillation of the Spirits Fourthly It provides ways for the admission and going out of all the Vessels within the Skull and fortifies them to which may be added that it bestows on some of them their Coats as shall be shewn anon Fifthly and lastly This Meninx being here and there contracted or divided by the animal Spirits variously moved according to the passions of the Soul or the necessities of Nature stays the blood sometimes longer near the confines of the Brain sometimes drives it forward from thence towards the Praecordia CHAP. VII Of the thinner Meninx or Pia Mater of its stretching out as also of the Infoldings of the Vessels every where interwoven with it THE interior Meninx or Pia Mater is far thinner than the exterior and consists of a most subtle contexture of Fibres This does not compass about the Encephalon's superficies as loosly as the Dura Mater but embraces it so very strictly that it is very hardly separated from it besides it insinuates it self into all its turnings and windings and furrows and clothes their inward parts Further this Meninx although it be thin yet being covered over throughout with the infoldings of Arteries and Veins is interwoven with them and so waters all the spaces of the Brain and Cerebel with innumerable rivers For as the Region of either of these especially of the Brain is full of turnings and windings this Membrane in like manner grows to the deep furrows of the crankling turnings about and also to the tops of the ridges yea the chief complications of the Vessels are still placed in the vallies as if they were there hid in regard of their safety Neither doth this Meninx only cover the gapings of the turnings and windings about but also gathers together the tops or heights of all their interstices or places between and knits them together and so makes the whole superficies of the Head plain globous and as it were like the World That the diffusion of this wonderful Membrane into all the turnings and windings of the Brain and the distribution of the Vessels through those most intimate recesses may be the better beheld let the head of a man or of a brute beast that dyed of the Dropsie be opened For in such whose brain abounds with much moisture the little stays whereby this Meninx is fixed to the substance of the brain are loosned so that the Membrane with the infoldings of the Vessels may be easily drawn away and pulled off almost whole which indeed being pulled off the folds of the brain will appear naked also the insertions of the Vessels every where into the more inward substance of the brain may be perceived But to a sound and dry brain the Pia Mater sticks so closely that it can scarce be drawn away in any part or separated with a Penknife We have already shewn after what manner the Veins and Arteries which creeping like Ivy are knit into the Pia Mater and variously interwoven into it cover over with most thick little shoots the whole compass of the Brain and Cerebel and their Interstices the gapings of the crankling turnings and windings about bosoms and cavities and send forth every where small shoots into the medullary substance so that it is not to be doubted but that the animal Spirits being as it were stilled forth immediately from the blood every where in the whole head are received into the Pores and passages of the Brain and Cerebel From hence it will be easie to assign the use or office of the Pia Mater viz. First this Membrane clothes the universal parts of the whole Encephalon and distinguishes them all one from another For indeed this lying over all the gapings and interstices of the turnings and windings is instead of a mound or fence by which the animal Spirits are restrained every where within their proper cells and orbs of expansion nor are they permitted by this means to run beyond their bounds and so confound the acts of the many Faculties Then secondly this Meninx sustains all the blood-carrying Vessels viz. both the Arteries and Veins
roots of the Teeth Jaws Throat the farther end of the Palate yea and the Tongue for this reason chiefly that the nerves going out of the lower branch of the fifth pair might effect besides sense the divers offices of Taste and Touch or Feeling and motions of a various kind in the aforesaid members and parts most of which as the chewing of the aliment also those which have respect to configuration or framing of the mouth and face in laughing or weeping as we have already noted are performed unknown to the Brain that is involuntarily and by the help of the Cerebel only from which these Nerves are derived The other superior and also the greater branch of the fifth pair under the Dura Mater nigh the side of the Turkey Chair goes straight forward for a little space and is inlarged into some shoots over against the pituitary Glandula to the trunk of the Carotick Artery or the wonderful Net where it is present then it is inoculated into the nerve of the sixth pair and from thence sends back sometimes one sometimes two shoots which being united with another shoot turned back from the nerve of the sixth pair constitute the root or first trunk of the intercostal Nerve Concerning this intercostal nerve which is made of the lower ramification or branching out of the nerves of the fifth and sixth pair it shall be spoken of particularly hereafter Presently after the branches or shoots reflected or bent back for the root of the intercostal nerve that greater nerve of the fifth pair is divided into two noted branches The lesser and uppermost of these tending towards the globe of the Eye and becoming again twofold sends forth two branches from it self one of which turning towards the inward side of the Bone containing the ball or angle of the Eye is divided into two shoots The other of these having passed through the Bone nigh the mammillary Processes is carried into the nostrils the office of this nerve is to keep a Sympathy and consent of action between the nostrils and some other parts but the other branch of this division is bestowed on the Muscle by which Brutes wink The second Ophthalmick branch of the fifth pair is divided into four or five shoots all which going forward above the Muscles of the Eye and in some part passing through its Glandula's are almost all lost in the Eye-brows unless that in the passage they send down two small shoots which enter the Sclerotick Coat a little below the Tendons of the Muscles and reach to the Vvea or the fourth thin Membrane that cloaths the Optick nerve yea and also send in the passage small shoots to the Glandula's of the Eye It seems that these nerves of the fifth pair being distributed into the Glandula's of the Eyes and Eye-brows serve chiefly to the involuntary and pathetick actions of those parts the chief of which are the languishing and mournful aspect of the Eyes in weeping and the unwilling pouring out of tears For as the lower branching of the fifth pair to wit the intercostal nerve provideth in man for the Praecordia it easily happens that from the sad affection of these the Cardiack branches of this nerve being forced and wrinkled into Convulsions the aforesaid Ophthalmick branches also so correspond and by wrinkling the Eye-brows and by compressing the Glandula's produce those kind of looks of the Eyes and marks of sorrow and grief Further it is observed that from the Ophthalmick branch of the fifth pair a certain shoot is sent back higher nigh the heads of the Muscles which when it has passed through at a proper hole the Bone containing the ball of the Eye is carried straight into the caverns of the Nostrils Hence as I think a reason may be given wherefore passing out of a dark place into the light at the first beholding of the Sun presently whether we will or no we shall sneez to wit the eyes being too strongly struck by the object and being suddenly and disorderly moved that they might turn themselves aside the same affection is immediately communicated through the aforesaid Nerve to the Membrane covering the hollow caverns of the Nostrils which being thence contracted and wrinkled as it is wont by some sharp thing pulling it provokes sneezing The second or greater branch of the second division of the Nerve of the fifth pair being carried nigh the ball of the Eye is again divided into two branches The lower of these being bent downwards cleaving into many shoots is bestowed on the Palate and upper region of the Jaws The other and higher branch of this second division stretching beyond the ball of the Eye passes through together with the Vein and Artery a proper hole made in the bone of the upper Jaw which Vessels this Nerve climbs and variously compasses about with many shoots sent forth then arising out of the bone it imparts little branches to the Muscles of the Cheeks Lips Nose and to the roots of the upper Teeth Therefore forasmuch as this Nerve embraces and binds about the sanguiferous Vessels destinated to the Cheeks and the other parts of the Face from hence a reason may be given why the face is covered with blushing by shame for the animal Spirits being disturbed by the imagination of an unseemly thing by and by endeavouring as it were to hide the face their irregularities enter this Nerve so that the shoots of the same Nerve embracing the blood-carrying Vessels by compressing and pulling the same cause the blood to be more forced into the Cheeks and Face and the Veins being bound hard to be there for some time staid and detained But forasmuch as many shoots and fibres of the same maxillar Nerve derived from the fifth pair interweave themselves with the flesh and skin of the Lips hence the reason is plain why these parts are so very sensible and besides why the mutual kisses of Lovers impressed on the Lips so easily irritate love and lust by affecting both the Praecordia and Genitals to wit because the lower branching of the same fifth pair actuates these parts constituted in the middle and lower Belly and draws them into the like affection with the Lips The same reason holds of Love presently admitted by the eyes that as the Poet says Mars videt hant visámque cupit As soon as Mars saw her he desir'd her We have but now intimated that many shoots of this Nerve were destinated for the business of chewing and therefore because the aliments to be taken ought to undergo not only the examination of the taste but also of the smell and sight from the same Nerve whose branches being sent to the Palate and Jaws perform the business of chewing other shoots as it were fore-runners are carried to the Nostrils and Eyes to wit that these Organs of the other Senses might be furnished with some helps of probation also for the better knowing or distinguishing the objects of taste Certainly from the nearness of kindred
most part to the head it self and the same Distemper when it begins in the brain as in the Epilepsie is derived in like manner thence downwards to the remote Viscera and also to the exteriour members and Limbs The spasmodic matter causes Convulsions either continued or periodical or by fits The morbifick matter flowing in the heads of the nerves produces divers kinds of convulsions according to their various plenty and dispensation for first of all it is to be observed that the whole passages of the nervous System or of some of its parts through the abundant and exuberant matter are sometimes possessed so that the animal Spirits both flowing in and there implanted being full of an heterogeneous Copula and a perpetual supplement of it are urged into continual Spasms I have known some who have had all the muscles and tendons through their whole body afflicted with Contractions and leapings without intermission I have known others whose thighs arms and other members were perpetually forced into various bendings and distortions and also others I have seen who of necessity were compelled to leap and run up and down and to beat the ground with their feet and hands and if they did it not they fell into cruel Convulsions of the Viscera and Praecordia 2. If the explosive and heterogeneous Particles be combined with the Spirits in a lesser plenty they stick to them without tumult or perturbation untill after some time both Particles leaping again one from another and from their striking one another raise up Convulsive paroxysms which sort of Paroxysms are periodical and are repeated exactly at certain hours which happens by reason of the morbifick matters being dayly poured upon the nervous stock with an equal dimension and therefore about the same space of time it is also dayly heaped up to an explosive plenitude or they are wandring and uncertain in others for that the heterogeneous particles are poured in with a lesser company and so arise not to an explosive fullness under a long time when in the mean time the more full heaping of them together and their explosion are wont to happen sometimes more often and sometimes more seldom by reason of several occasions or evident causes hence it comes to pass that the Spasmodic Distemper is sometimes altogether attributed to the evident cause when indeed if a more remote convulsive cause had not gone before such a cause had stir'd up none Therefore that we may say something of the evident causes of Convusions The Evident causes of Spasms we have already observ'd if they be more vehement and happen to a weak and tender constitution of Brain and nervous stock they are sometimes solitary or of themselves cause convulsive passions but as often as the Spasmodick Distemper is heavier and being made habitual is wont to return oftener though the evident Cause be manifest and bears the blame of the effect nevertheless it is to be suspected that a procatartick or more remote cause exists and is the more strong efficient though it lies hid within for unless the Spirits are imbued with an heterogeneous Copula they would not be so easily nor so often driven into involuntary and praeternatural Explosions We meet with a double order or Glasses of Evident causes The Evident Cause twofold viz. Filling and Irritateing for either they are of that sort which increases the procatarick or more remote and brings it sooner to an explosive fullness as are an ill manner of living and errors in the six non-naturals which by infecting the blood and nervous juice heap up to a Saturity in greater plenty on the Spirits heterogeneous particles and by that means do the sooner procure Spasmodick accessions Or 2dly the evident cause is said to be whatever stirs and irritates suddenly the spirits that they presently fall into explosions and whatever it be that causes them to strike off their Copula and of this sort there are very many accidents that provoke the spirits The irritateing Cause stirs up Spasms direct or reflected planted now within the Head and now within the nervous System to convulsive motions by a divers instinct as is wont in the regular motions which motions are either direct or reflected 1. Of the former kinde chiefly are violent perturbations of the minde wherewith the spirits of the brain being agitated and confused they excite others lying within the nervous stock and often praedisposed to irregular explosions so a vehement fear anger or sadness do not only introduce epileptical and hysterical fits to those that are disturbed in their health but sometimes cause to divers others palpitation and trembling of the heart and also horrid convulsions of the members and Limbs 2. As to the other kinde of evident cause to wit whereby Spasms are excited by a reflected Act this indeed comes to pass not unfrequently as often as any heavy trouble with an irritation of the fibres and spirits happens any where to the nervous stock for that this trouble being by and by communicated to the chief fountains of the Spirits to wit the brain or Cerebell from thence inordinate and violent motions against the will of the minde that is convulsive being begun they are returned back for so either worms physick or sharp humours cruelly hauling the coats of the Intestines cause spasms in those parts and not seldom in the outward members So much for the several kindes of causes the conjunct procatartick and evident whereby convulsive Diseases becoming habitual and are wont to be repeated with more grievous Paroxisms do arise But as we have assigned another species of this Disease where the Paroxysms depend on an evident solitary cause or at most only from irritation the Spirits being not yet praeoccupied with an explosive Copula it is now next to be inquired into by what and how many ways this may come to pass Concerning this in general it is affirmed that the Spasmodic fits produced by mere irritation are either lighter and quickly passing away or more grievious and not seldom deadly as when poyson is taken or when they come upon an overpurging medicine Moreover it is noted when the morbifick or irritative matter falls upon the tales themselves or the foldings of the nerves that it also not rarely becomes explosive The irritateing Cause distinguished as to the places affected as to the subjects and so Spasms produced also from mere irritation as we have already noted are certain explosions these being thus premised we will dispatch the business in hand The irritation of the Nervous parts which is wont to cause convulsive motions happens in various places and from various matters which are incongruous and inimical to the spirits and fibres As to the things enemies to the Nature of the spirits you may observe besides poysons The places affected are the beginnings the extremities and the middle processes and foldings of the Nerves and the excess of cangible quallities which are inflicted from without many
the rest dwelling in both the medulary and nervous appendix of the Encephalon begin at once Convulsive motions or inordinate contractions and continue them for some space with frequent leapings or palpitations The accession of the disease come upon them at unawares and oppresses the sick not the least thinking of it and in the twink of an Eye casts them on the ground deprived of sense and understanding for that they do not only fall but are flung down with a certain force so that oft times the part first striken against the Earth or other adjacent Bodies is hurt with a bruise or wound being last done there comes upon them a gnashing of Teeth with a foam at the mouth also oftentimes the shaking of the head and a frequent knocking it against the ground the armes and thighs yea the hinder part of the neck and back either become presently slit or else they are distorted hither and thither with various bendings some Cruelly beat their breasts others strongly thrust out their armes and thighs and fling them and sometimes the whole Body impetuously here and there many have their praecordia and hypochondria and also all their lower belly swelled and blown up very much after some time sometimes shorter sometimes longer these Symptoms the Tragedy being as it were acted cease on a sudden and then the sick come to themselves and recover their senses but after the fit there remains an akeing in the head with a dulness and hebitude of the senses and not seldom a turning or giddiness The Epileptick Paroxysms are wont to return sometimes at set times of the day moneth or year and most Commonly at the greater returns of the year or Tropicks or at the opposite aspects or conjunctions of the Sun or moon they are wont more certainly to return and to afflict more grievously sometimes their comings or accessions are uncertain and wandring according to the occasion and variety of Evident Causes there are also Fits or Poroxysms now more light which quickly passe away so that the sick are scarce thrown to the ground nor are carried into disorder or insensibility now more grievous whereby they when taken lye senselesse the space of an hour or more and are tormented with horrid Symptoms as if possessed with the Devil Sometimes tho more rarely some foregoing signes of the fit warn them of their falling into it as an heavinesse of the head a brightness of the eyes a tingling of the eares sometimes a spasm or cramp proceeds in some exterior part as in the arm or thigh or else in the back or Hypochondria which ascending from thence like a Cold air and creeping towards the head seems to bring on their falling down Boys and young Men are found to be more obnoxious to this disease than old men or men of mature age who ever are once struct down by its fit unless they be cured by the help of Medicines they will hardly be altogether free from the infection of it all their Life after the more often the Fits are the more grievous they become which as they frequently return become more cruel and enervate the use of the memory Imagination and Reason and then the strength and force of the whole animal function until its Occonomy being greatly perverted the vital function at length decays and by degrees is abolished The weapons and wicked preparation of this Disease being after this manner layd open we will next make an inquiry in what part it fixes its seat or what is its next subject The accession of the Epilepsie and the manner of invasion The subject of the seat of the Disease is inquired into seem plainly to declare that its primary seat or part chiefly affected is contained somewhere within the Head but that a Paroxysm sometimes begins in the remote parts and from thence ascends towards the head which indeed seems only to be so and happens by accident when in the mean time the morficick Cause subsists about the Encephalon it self as shall be anon declared but that from the first assault of the Disease presently a strange Insensibility and disorder with contractions almost of all the Members and Viscera succeeds it is a manifest signe that the whole joynting of the Encephalon and the original of all the nerves are possessed with the morbifick Cause But truly although it seem most difficult to unfold where this cause or morbifiek matter subsists chiefly for neither is it probable that the same is diffused thorow all the parts of the Brain Some affirm it the Meninges or thin skins of the Brain other the pith or middle part of the Brain yet it neither appears in what singular place this being fixed should draw all the other parts so suddenly into a Consent of its evill Among the various opinions of Authors about this matter there are two that seem more probable than the rest and challenge an assent with an equall likelinesse to Truth One of which asserts the very middle of the brain and the other the meninges or the thin skins encompassing or cloathing it to be the primary seat of the Epilepsie The Reason of the former is founded in this that where the fountain of the animal Spirits and the original of the sensitive soul it self consists there ought to be placed the cause of this Disease certainly when the chief faculties are first hurt all the rest easily participate of the same evil But in truth though I may grant in the Apoplexy and the deliquium or fainting of the spirits that it is so yet it follows not in a Convulsion of which kinde of distemper the Epilepsie is that all the fibres and nerves should be pulled together because the middle part of the brain is first pulled for that this as it is a moist and fluid substance and wanting of sense and motion seems not capable of contraction or the Spasmodick Distemper wherefore others thinking the brain and every part of it free from the blame of this Disease cast it altogether on the meninges affirming that the membranes cloathing the brain and chiefly their processes spread upon the clefts of the brain and Ceribel as they are hauled by the morbifick matter do conceive or beget Spasms or horrid Convulsions and then that from the Meninges themselves so Contracted and brought together the included Brain is greatly compressed and bound together so that its pores and passages being bound up the great amazing disorder and insensibility is induced and also the trunks of the nerves to which either meninge or skin is fastened being brought into a consent with them enter also into Convulsive motions And indeed after this manner the formal Reason of the Epilepsie may perhaps seem to be unfolded but truly when I consider further of the matter I think we may differ from this opinion because it does not appear by what Course or for what cause the falling down being at hand these meninges should beget such horrid Spasms Nay it neither appears
how from them however Convulsive they be the Epileptick Paroxism should be induced It is affirmed that the meninges are not first of all affected As to the former it seems an impossible thing for the meninges to be so contracted as to their whole Concavities that being bound more strictly together like a purse they should on every side pull together their contents and draw them into a narrower space for that the Dura Mater sticks most firmly to very many places of the skull yea and the Pia mater is tyed to it near the processes of the hollow turnings by a mutual knitting of the membranes and every where besides with a Continuity of Vessells Hence it easily appears either that membrane as to the greatest part of it is immovable so that they cannot fall into so universal Spasms but in respect of lesser Spasms as when a certain portion of this or that meninge or both together is pulled indeed we grant such may happen for I have often heard those troubled with great headach to complain extreamly of a great constriction of the parts lying under the side of the skull sometimes on the right sometimes on the left and yet from thence no assault of falling down has followed Further as those membranes being notably hurt do cause great vellications or haulings yet upon it there is not wont to be an Epileptick sit to follow for I have known from an Imposthume in the Dura mater when being broken and that the stinking matter had knawn the more tender meninges and shell of the Brain that the sick have fallen first into an amazednesse and at length into a deadly Apoplexie who notwithstanding in the whole course of the Disease was free from any Epileptical Symtom Also I remember I have seen one who had the Dura mater very much torn by the instrument of an unskilfull Surgion and another that by a wound had that with part of his skull taken away so that a portion of the Brain swelled forth and yet to neither of them any Epilectical passion hapned wherefore neither is it likely that the blood or humors or if any shall so argue the vapours compacted within those meninges can bring in any greater evill than either a stroke or wound inflicted on them or filthy matter there poured out Besides those who are more lightly troubled with the Epilepsie so that they scarce fall down and have their minds free through the whole assault of the disease would perceive the membrans to be so contracted and the globe of the brain to be more straitly thrust together if there had bin any such kinde of affection The spirits inhabiting the middle of the brain are the primary Subject of the disease but they on the contrary seem to have the Brain as it were inflamed and to be sensible that the spirits leap forth and are as it were explosed with a certain fierceness And indeed I think it is very likely so that the Epileptick Paroxism is stired up from a certain suddain rarefication and explosion of the animal spirits inhabiting the Brain which are in truth the first and immediate subject of this Disease to wit whereby the Brain it self is inflated and rendered so insensible and the Nerves hanging thereto also put into convulsions For hence it comes to pass that the accession of this Disease begins so on a sudden and determines perfectly without any great provision or remains of the morbifick matter because the Infection is not brought so much to the solid parts as to the Spirits themselves We have already shown by what means the heterogeneous and explosive Copula consisting as it seems of nitro-Sulphurous particles cleaving to the spirituous particles of the animal Spirits and lastly being smitten and explosed by them by reason of plenitude or irritation produces Convulsive Symptoms But although this kinde of Spasmodick Copula is first distilled from the blood into the brain yet for the most part it does not take hold of the spirits there or at least it stays not long with them in that place but rather being thrust from thence towards the nervous Appendix causes particular and respective Spasms near the places affected But sometimes if the Spasmodic matter be more plentifull and strong and the constitution of the brain weak the heterogeneous Copula being fixed to the Spirits not only in the nervous stock but also to those planted within the Encephalon it self causes the Epilectick disposition and the explosive particles of the Spirits and this Copula knocking one against another stir up the falling fit For indeed since the assault of the Epilepsie urging the Insensibility and great disorder is for the most part the first Symptom and all the pathognomick it may be concluded that the animal Spirits lying within the middle of the brain it self are affected before others and that therefore that part is the principal seat of the Disease Then forasmuch as the falling of the sick or casting to the ground and spasms of rhe members and Viscera most often follow that Insensibility great disorder or leaping forth of the spirits it follows that the animal Spirits also inhabiting the nervous System are imbrued with the same explosive Copula and are drawn into consent with those inhabiting the brain it self and are excited by them to explosions purely inordinate although sometimes by the whole series of Spirits planted both in the brain and nervous stock being like a long train of gunpowder praedisposed to explosions an exterior Spasm beginning a great way off perhaps in some member or Inward may afterwards be carried to the Brain as shall be more fully shown hereafter In the mean time it is concluded that the region of the Brain it self is always the primary seat of this Disease and that we ought to suppose the conjunct cause of the Distemper not to be water heaped up within the ventricles of the brain nor a thick or clammy humour impacted in the passages of its pores for such Causes are begotten by degrees and therefore would shew some certain signes before-hand of the first coming upon one further the assault of the fit being over such a matter could not be wholly discussed in so short a time but that from its reliques some impediments of the animal function would remain which indeed rarely happens in the Epilepsie unlesse inveterate but for the exciting of the falling down no lesse can be imagined then that the animal Spirits which flowing within the marrowie substance of the brain perform the acts of the interior sense of the Imagination and appetite having gotten an heterogeneous Copula should be inordinately exploded and so they being disturbed beyond their orders and stations the Superior faculties of the animal regimen must suffer an eclipse then from this greater explosion of spirits as it were from a fiery enkindling other Spirits inhabiting the marrowy and nervous appendix being also praedisposed to explosions conceive the like disorder and in like manner cause
as yet included within the scarce hollow gums hence the blood being hindred in its Circulation causes a tumour and so presses the nerves and also pours on them the more sharp particles of the Serum by which being notably pulled or hauled they are tormented with Corrugations and painfull Spasms Therefore when so cruel pains happen to children from their breeding Teeth it is no wonder if a feavour and also Convulsive motions sometimes follow the former of these happens both for as much as the blood being hindred about the pained part is not circulated with its wonted and equall course wherefore it becomes inordinatly moved in the whole Body and besides because Spasms being stirred up somewhere in the nervous stock the corrugated and contracted nerves presse together and pull the Arteries and by that reason stir up irregular and feavourish fluctuations in the Blood But sometimes Couvulsions happen in breeding Teeth both because the blood growing hot sends forth heterogeneous particles to the animal government and so stirs up the spirits into explosions and besides also when this acute pain and as it were a Lancing follows upon the teeth being about to cut it communicates a very troublesome and irritative sense from the affected parts to the first sensorie presently from thence the motion of the rage is retorted by the same or other neighbour nerves which by reason of a praevious disposition doth not rarely become convulsive Besides these two occasions of Convulsions which are wont to be chiefly and more often in children to wit the times of Infancy and breeding Teeth this Distemper also is excited at other Times very often and for other Causes For in whom the Seeds of the Spasmodick Disposition is sown they sometimes unsold themselves presently after the birth and are ripened into morbid fruit or else lying hid for a while they now come before the breeding of Teeth and follow a long time after it and by reason of other evident causes to wit either external or Internal of which sort are a sickly or breeding nurse milk Coagulated in the stomack or degenerating into an acid or bitter putrifection a feavourish distemperature of the head Ulcers or wealks of other parts suddenly vanishing the Changes of the aire the Conjunctions oppositions and aspects of the Sun and moon and such like they at length break forth into Act from an uncertain event Concerning these there is no need that we should particularly discourse When all the Children of a man dwelling in the neighbourhood dyed of Convulsions within the space of three months at length to prevent that fatal event they sought for remedies for a child newly born I being sent for a few days after the being brought to bed first advised the making an Issue in the nape of the neck then that the next day after a leech being applyed to the jugular veine of each side two ounces of blood should be taken away besides that about every conjunction or opposite aspect of the Sun and moon about five grains of the following powder should be given in a spoonfull of Julap for three days morning and evening Take of humane Skull prepared of the root of the male Paeonie each ʒ i. of the powder of Pearls ʒ ss of white sugar ʒ i. mingle them and make a very fine powder Take of the waters of Black Cherries ℥ iii. of the antiepileptic of Langius ℥ i. of the Syrrop of the flowers of the male Paeonie ʒ vi mingle them also I order'd that the nurse at the same times should take a draught of whey or posset drink in which were boyled the seeds and roots of the male Paeonie and the leaves of the Lilly of the Vally the Infant for about four months was well but then began to be troubled with Convulsions at which time the same Remedies being administred both to the child and to the nurse in a larger dose vesicatories also were applyed behind the eares and blood was taken by the sucking of a Leech from the jugular veins within two or three days the child grew well afterwards whenever within four or five months the Convulsions return'd it was cured again by the use of the same Remedies After half a year the Convulsive motions wholly ceased but a painfull Tumour arose about the lower part of the Spinae dorsi or back-bone from which proceeded a certain distortion of the Vertebrae or joynts of the back bone and a weakness of the legs and at length a Palsie It seems in this case that the Spasmodic or Convulsive matter being wont to come upon the brain first and beginings of the nerves entring at last the Spinal marrow and being thrust out at its further end it wholly stopt up the heads of the appending nerves and shut out the passage of the Spirits to wit because other narcotick and more thick had joyned themselves to the explosive particles The Curatory Method against the Convulsive Distempers in Children IT is to be endeavour'd either to prevent the Convulsive passions threatning Children and Infants or to cure them being already begun For if the former children of the same parent were obnoxious or lyable to Convulsions that evill ought to be prevented timely The Preservation of Infants from Convulsions by the use of Remedies to those born after It is usuall for this end to put into the mouth of the child newly born some antispasmodick Remedy assoon as it begins to breath from hence some are wont to give them some drops of the purest hony others a Spoonfull of Canary sweetned with Sugar and some again oyl of Sweet Almonds fresh drawn to some may be given half a Spoonfull of epileptic water or one drop of oyle of Amber Besides these first things given to Infants which certainly seem to be of some moment certain other Remedies and means of Administrations ought to be used to wit let one spoonfull of Liquor proper to this distemper be drunk twice a day as for example Take of the water of black Cherry and of Rue each ℥ i ss of the Antiepileptic of Langius ℥ i. of the Syrrup of Corall ʒ vi of prepared Pearl gr xv mix them in a Viol. On the third or fourth day after the birth let an Issue be made in the nape of the neck then if it be of a fresh Countenance let a little blood to about ℥ i ss or ii ounces be taken by the sucking of Leeches from the jugular veins having a care lest the blood should flow out too plentifully in its sleep let the temples and the hinder part of the neck be gently rub'd with such a like oyntment Take of oyle of nutmegs by expression ʒ ii of Capive ʒiii of Amber ℈ i. Let an Amulet be hung about the neck of the roots and seeds of the greater Paeonie a little of the hoof of an Elke being added to it Moreover antispasmodick Remedies should be dayly given to the Nurse The Method of Curing to be used to the Nurses Let her
and more light Convulsions in remote parts as hath been said or being slidden from thence more deeply into the passages of the nerves excites fits of Convulsions very Cruel such a progress of the morbific Cause we suspect in whom the Vertigo swooning heaviness of the head and torpor of the minde go before the Convulsive assalts Indeed the matter of the disease abounding as yet in the brain and marrowy Appendix produces these kinds of previous distempers which being slidden from thence into the Nerves causes Convulsions 2dly There is yet another way whereby it plainly appears that the materiall cause of the Convulsive Distemper is transferred to the beginnings of the Nerves to wit when the same being deposited by the serous water within the Cavities or ventricles of the Head it is insinuated into the Neighbouring roots of the Nerves For in Chronical Diseases when the remarkable discrasie of the blood and humours happens also to be accompanied with a praved disposition of the brain oftentimes a great plenty of sharp serum infesting the Nervous stock dropping forth from the Vessells of the Choroeidan or retiform enfoldings slides into the ventricles of the brain and its Appendix But this serous water afterwards breaking thorow the under-spreading of the Cerebell into the fourth ventricle the little skin there being displaced whereby the oblong marrow is uncovered it falls upon the beginnings of one or more of the Nerves and either by irritating or imbuing them with Heterogeneous and explosive particles induces the Convulsive disposition And this for the most part is the cause that sick people after long and ill handled Feavours also after the more grievous Cephalic Diseases at length dye of Convulsions as I have found by the frequent Anatomie of the Carcases of those who dyed by that means Also it appears by anatomical Observation that the brain may be overflowed by a certain serous water without the distemper of the Convulsive disposition and further that in some who dyed of the Epilepsie and other Convulsive diseases there was no deluge of the serum within the ventricles of the brain By which it is given us to be understood that the Convulsive distempers do not flow only from the waterie matter in the Head but that they arise not at all from such a cause unless the serous water overflowing the ventricles of the Brain and chiefly that underlaying of the Cerebel be imbued with heterogeneous and explosive particles I remember once my Councel to be ask'd for a young man labouring with an Egregious Phtisis and at that time truly desperate besides a cough and shortnesse of Breath he had grievously complained for many days yea weeks that he could not lye upon his back in his Bed or whilst he sat in a chair he could not lean his head backwards for that by this or that posture of his Body he was wont presently to suffer tremblings of his heart and a fainting of the Spirits as if he were just about to dye wherefore of necessity he was fain to hold his head upright or leaning forward After he was dead his carcase being dissected his Lungs appeared all over tumified and in some places Ulcerated then his Skull being opened there flowed within all the Ventricles of the brain a great quantity of yellow and salt Serum which water certainly whilst it did slide forward upon the fourth Ventricle about the Trunk of the oblong marrow his head leaning back rushing upon the heads of the wandring and intercostal pair of nerves did stir up the aforesaid Convulsions about the Praecordia but so long as his head was inclined forward that the heap of serum flowed back into the anterior Ventricles of the Brain the origine of the nerves remained free from that Convulsive matter Having hitherto shown how many ways and by what passages the morbific matter being dilated towards the origine of the Nerves seems to bring on Convulsions it were easie according to these reasons to unfold many Convulsive Symptoms for besides the Convulsive motions of Infants and children oftentimes excited from the same kinde of Causes hither may be referr'd the Contractions and sudden leapings forth of the nervous parts which follow upon feavours As also those passions commonly called Hysterical also hypocondriacal and certain others proceed not seldom from the morbific Cause rushing upon the beginings of the Nerves We will therefore endeavour to establish the truth of this Hypothesis by some other Histories and examples of Sick people but in the first place we will propose observations of that Kinde in whom the morbific matter setling upon the beginings of the nerves and not being as yet slid deeply into their processes induced frequent vertigos and only more light Convulsions of the Viscera and Praecordia A noble woman about 30. years of Age of a tender Constitution and lean in Observation 1 Body was wont every winter to be grievously afflicted with a Catarrh or Rhume flowing upon the winde pipe and Lungs with a hoarse Cough and great spitting but the last year great care and dilligence being used she avoyded that evill But after the winter Solstice having taken cold she was troubled with an huge pain of the head a tingling of the ears a giddiness with a great defluxion upon the eyes that it easily appeared that the heap of Serum which before this time was wont to distill into the Breast was now wholly layd up within the head and Brain besides an effect of which was that as often as she began to sleep she was greatly infested with passions as it were histerical to which she had never been before obnoxious For when ever being sleepy she closed her eyes presently a bulk ascending in her belly a choaking in her throat tremblings and leapings about the Praecordia were stirred up which Affections notwithstanding quite ceased when she was thorowly awakened so that the Sick party was necessitated to abstain almost altogether for many days and nights from sleep Being sent for to this Lady after she had bin sick and weak for many days I was compelled at length to use gentle medicines Therefore I took care that blood should forthwith be drawn from the foot to four ounces and every day a Clyster of milk and sugar to be administred by which she was wont to have three or four stools besides I gave her every eighth-hour a dose of the Spirits of Harts horn in a Spoonfull of the following Julap Take of the water of penny-royall of walnuts and black Cherries each ℥ iii. of Histerical water ℥ ii of the Syrrop of Clove-gilliflowers ℥ i ss of Caster tyed in a little knot and hang'd in the middle of the glass ʒss of the powder of Pearls ℈ i. mingle it I Caused with success a vesicatoris to be put behinde the ears and a Cataplasm of the leaves of Rue and Cuccowpint with the Roots of Bryony bay salt and black soap to be layd to the soals of her feet Sometimes I gave her in the
evening in a little draught of the prescribed Julap half an ounce of Diacodium to which succeeded a moderate sleep without the wonted Convulsions following which kinde of effects from opiats exhibited in the like case I have often experimented for the quenching her thirst I gave her a Ptisan with diuretick Ingredients boyled in it by the use of these she was very much eased in a short time But what proved a great benefit to her was that an Imposthume in her ear breaking of its own accord powred forth at first a yellow matter and afterwards for many days a great plenty of thin Ichor or Excrement by which Evacuation the Convulsions of the Viscera and Praecordia wholly ceasing the disease was perfectly Cured As to the Reason of the aforesaid sicknesse without doubt it seems that those Distempers were excited by the serous colluvies layd up within the Bounds of the Head for the translation of that humour into the head brought at first both the Disease and the Secretion or flowing of it out thorow the Emunctuaries of the ear took away all the Symptoms Besides when the morbific matter had brought in to the Spirits planted about the beginings of the nerves a Disposition somewhat explosive they though being struck as it were with madness they were continually troubled yet so long as leaping back towards the Brain they obtained a space in which they might be more freely expanded or stretched forth they did indeed only more vehemently exercise the Phantasie and without farther trouble did only cause watchings But when by sleep sometimes Creeping upon her the excursion of the unquiet Spirits were restrained towards the Brain which indeed necessarily happens when we sleep the nervous Liquor within the pores of the brain at that time being more plentifully admitted they tumultuarily rushing upon the heads of the wandring pair and intercostall Nerves troubled the whole series of Spirits flowing within the passages of those Nerves and so caused the aforesaid Convulsions about the Praecordia Viscera and muscles of the Throat I have known many both Men and women sick after this manner who when they have been troubled with an headach an heaviness of the hinder part of the head or a Vertigo have while they slept felt forthwith in their Praecordia or Viscera or in both together perturbations as it were Convulsive which indeed happens from the bending downward of the tumultuating Spirits being reflected from the brain upon the beginings of the Nerves But that the use of opiats brought a pleasing sleep to this sick person without the wonted Convulsions following the reason was because the animal spirits as unquiet and furious as they were yet by the Intanglement of the narcotick Particles they were bound as it were in chains that afterwards without any resistance they were overcome by sleep I have indeed very often happily cured most grievous fits of Convulsions both Asthmatical and as it were hysterical by administring Opiates Observation 2 An honest woman M. G. of 67. years of Age yet of a florid countenance and fat in body when she had been a while obnoxious at first to a swelling of the face and very grievous fits of the headach she fell through the great cold of the winter into a very troublesome Vertigo with a trembling of the heart a fainting away of the Spirits and a frequent striving to vomit being lay'd in her bed if she opened her eyes or turn'd her from one side to another she was presently troubled with a notable gididness or swimming in the head with swooning and effectless vomiting Visiting this woman I doubted not but that the cause of her sickness was the Convulsive matter being translated from the exterior region of the head to the most inward recesses of the Encephalon by whose inspiration or heterogeneous Copula the animal spirits being touched while they leaped forth inordinatly towards the brain they excited the vertiginous Distemper and while they rushed tumultuarily upon the heads of the nerves the Scotomie disorder of the Praecordia and endeavouring to vomit A large Vesicatory or blistering Plaster being applyed to the nape of the neck and behind her ears Clisters dayly administred also the use of Spirits of harts-horn frequently and of a Cephalick Julap cured her within a few days Observation 3 A noted man about 34. years of Age when he had been for a long time subject to a Cough with great and thick spitting besides having the pores of his skin very open he was wont to sweat continually and every night to be wet with it about the begining of the spring he perceived those usuall evacuations to happen more sparingly in the mean time he Complained of a fullness of his hands and feet and as it were a certain swelling or puffiing up so that he feared a dropsie was coming upon him beside he was troubled in his head with a giddinesse and frequent Vertigo A little while after this evill increasing light contractions and sudden Convulsions were ordinarily excited about his Lips and other parts of the mouth and face also presently after the morbific matter as it should seem flowing upon the beginnings of the wandring pair and intercostal nerves he was afflicted with the trembling and leaping of the heart with frequent fainting away of the vital spirits as if a Leipothymy or swooning was falling upon him I know that very many ascribe these Convulsive passions so grievously infesting the Praecordia to the vapours rising from the spleen but it seems much more reasonable to deduce there from the Convulsive matter layd up within the brain and rushing upon the beginnings of the Nerves because a shifting or translation of some excrements from some other parts to the head goes before and that it is so layd up within the compass or bounds of the Encephalon the almost continual vertiginous distemper and the Convulsions of the parts of the mouth and face testifie it plainly wherefore I thought good to prescribe to this man Remedies according to the method hereafter shown I might be able here to propose many observations of this nature in whom the morbific matter subsisting neer the beginnings of the nerves stir up light Spasms or Convulsions only of the Viscera or members with a Vertigo But because a portion of this matter descending from the head enters more deeply the pipes of the Nerves and so strows the tinder or enkindling of explosive seed as it were gunpowder about their middle and ultimate processes and enfoldings it will be to the purpose to add some examples of this kinde A certain young maid E.L. tall and hansome sprung from sound parents and Observation 4 her self as far as might be Perceived originally healthfull after she had serv'd a master long sick being a long time and almost continually with him and was forced to watch whole nights very often and also at other times so that she never slept but short and interrupted naps she at length begun to complain of an heaviness in
white sagar â„¥ ii make a Julap The dose 4. or 6. spoonfulls twice in a day after a dose of a solid medicine Take of millipedes or chesslogs cleansed i pint of Cloves cut â„¥ ss put to them i quart of white-wine let them be distill'd in a glass-Cucurbit The dose â„¥ i. to â„¥ iss twice in a day For poor people medicines easie to be prepared may be prescribed after this manner Take of the Conserves of the Leaves of Rue made with an equal part of sugar â„¥ vi take of it the quantity of a nutmeg twice in a day drinking after it of the decoction of the Seeds and Roots of Burdock in whey or posset-drink made of white-wine Or there may be prepared a Conserve of the leaves of the Tree of Life with an equall part of Sugar dose Ê’ss to Ê’ i. twice in a day Take of millipeds prepared Ê’ iii. of ameos seedsÊ’ i. make a powder divide it into 10. parts take a dose twice in a day or 12 Sows or woodlice brused and white-wine put to them let the juce be wrung out make a draught let it be taken twice a day In the mean time while these Medicines are taken Inwardly it is sometimes convenient to raise blisters with Vesicatories in the nape of the neck and behinde the ears for so the serous and sharp humours are very much brought away from the head besides sneezing powders and such as purge Rhume from the head often give signal help The taking away of Blood from the Sedal veins or the foot ought sometimes to be itterated yea and the Distemper urging Plaisters or Cataplasms are profitably applyed to the soles of the feet It is also beneficial to apply drawing medicines about the calves and thighs CHAPTER VI. Of Convulsive Motions whose cause subsists about the extremities of the Nerves or within the nervous foldings SOmetimes Convulsive distempers do arise without any fault in the Head by the irritation and explosion of the spirits remaining about the extremities of the nerves which plainly appears because when medicines haul sharply the Ventricles or Intestines or worms gnaw them there do not only follow Convulsions in those parts but besides convulsive motions do sometimes torment or are retorted on the members and outward Limbs for indeed as we have shown elsewhere when the sense of a very grievous Trouble torments any part and from that is communicated to the chief Sensorie presently from thence an involuntary and irregular motion is wont to be reflected on the spirits in that place irritated and that not only by the same nerves to which the sense of the pain was carried but sometimes also the Convulsion is reciprocated by others either neighbouring or altogether extraneous So the Stone being fixed in the Ureters and irritating very much its nervous fibres excites Convulsive motions not only in the distemperd Vessell but almost in all the Viscera of the Abdomen So that the urine being suppressed Torments diffused here and there and very often horrid Vomitings follow Wherefore 't is not at all to be doubted but that both diseases and some Convulsive Symptoms are very often induced by reason of an outward hurt brought to the Tops of the Nerves terminating within the membranes muscles or Viscera yea in the hysterical hypochondriacal and certain other passions if at any time Convulsive motions are excited in the hurt head by the fault of the womb spleen or other Inward verily they arise by this only means to wit by the Trouble of the rest of the parts being translated this way through the Nerves but in no wise by the Vapours to the brain and are propagated all about into various Regions of the Body Convulsions begin from the ends of the Nerves both by reason of irritation But it should here be noted that although the evident Solitary cause forasmuch as it is strong and vehement may sometimes induce Convulsions of it self and without a praevious disposition because indeed the Animal Spirits being irritated beyond measure begin greater and more than ordinary explosions as in overgreat purging and Vomiting and the fits of the Collick and Stone is ordinarily wont to happen yet in many other Convulsive Distempers whose fits are often and habituall besides the irritation made about the extremities of the nerves which serves for the most part for the evident cause also a certain more remote cause is present to whose efficacy the assault of the disease is chiefly beholden to wit when Convulsive motions are wont to be excited and at every turn repeated by the fault of the Spleen womb or other private part it may be suspected that the animal Spirits of the Fibres in the distemperd part and those disposed in its neighbouring parts had first contracted an heterogeneous explosive Copula And by reason of an Explosive Copula by which being filled to a running over they were provoked by a light occasion to Convulsive explosions Then those being first begun about the extremities of the nerves creep upwards by the passage of the same nerves and are often caryed to the same nervous origine and sometimes beyond to the middle of the brain from whence lastly being reflected on the nervous stock they also secondarily cause the Convulsions of the members and Limbs But after the Brain and a Superior portion of the nervous System are wont to suffer and be affected often by the Convulsions below excited the spirits inhabiting those parts also begin to be themselves adulterated at length and to admit an heterogeneous and explosive Copula and so to acquire in part a procatartick cause hence at length a Convulsive procatarxis or more remote cause becomes Common to either end of the Trunk of the same nerves and the animal spirits of one nerve or more being evilly disposed both at the head and tail conceive explosions from either part and deliver them presently to the other as shall be more largely declared below when we treat particularly of hysterical and other passions in the meantime we will add some histories and observations of Convulsions arising from the farther ends or extremities of the Nerves Observation 1 A fine maid about the 16th year of her age falling from her horse and lighting upon a Stone grievously hurt her left breast from whence a Tumor arose with pain which Symptoms notwithstanding by the use of medicines at the beginning seem'd to be mitigated and to be indifferently well for a long time after Three years after she having taken cold and having observed but a bad course of dyet all things began to be exasperated the hurt part swelling into a bigger bulk troubled her with an accute and almost continual pain that the sick Virgin for the cruel torment could take no rest for many days and nights neither could she suffer the glandula's of her Breast being then made more tumid to be either touch'd or handled yea nor any noyse or shaking to be made in the Chamber When to this Tumour about
Medicines did her no good but were rather hurtfull and troublesome she received some benefit by the taking away of blood by Leeches and by the use of Asses milk and afterwards she was much eased by the long drinking of spaw-waters The reason of it The aforesaid Symptoms which commonly are ascribed to the hysterical passion and the vapours from the womb here plainly appear to have proceeded from a Tumour arising about the bottom of the ventricle for that the blood of this Lady being very hot and melanchollick when it could be no more purged by her courses flowing from her it laid up its recrements and adust faeculencies at first in her breast and then from a new beginning in the membranes of her stomach From the tumor there made sharp and heterogenious particles falling down perpetually entred the fibres and nerves planted round about which cleaving continually to the spirits dwelling in and flowing into those parts excited them to frequent explosions and so made Convulsive distempers in all the neighbouring parts But that sometimes the convulsive motions were more light in that place hence it appears that the whole nervous stock and the head it self as is wont to be in greater convulsions had not as yet been touched with the same distemper But the disorder of spirits arising about the parts affected and from thence transfer'd by a smaller undulation or waving to the head and so only lightly disturbing the spirits inhabiting it induced watchings with a great heat and perturbation of the phantasie what we have hitherto discoursed of Convulsions from the morbific cause setling upon either end of the nervous system will more clearly appear when we shall hereafter trear particularly of the chief kinds of convulsions viz. the hysterical hypochondriacall and other passions In the mean time there will be no need to add a Curatory method for this Hypothesis of convulsions arising by reason of the extremities of the nerves being affected because the ways of curing may be better accomodated to the passions of this kinde hereafter particularly to be spoken of But for the present it behoves us to proceed to the unfolding of the convulsive passions whose cause or morbifick matter seems to subsist within the nervous foldings We have largely enough in another place discoursed of the nervous foldings and in their description and use we have shown that 't is very likely the more grievous fits of convulsive motions beginning oftentimes within these parts are from thence propagated on every side into the neighbouring parts and not seldom to a great distance at least that it seems much more probable that the heterogenious and explosive particles after they have overcome the tract of the head and its medullary appendix and being more deeply slidden into the Channels of the Nerves and their passages together with the juce watering them do spread their stores within the nervous foldings as it were in Cross-streets and by paths and there sometimes make their stations untill at length being more plentifully heaped up they as it were with Collected forces produce the more cruel convulsive distempers This I say appears to be much more probable That the nervous foldings is the seat of Convulsive matter then what is commonly said to suppose them vapours arising from the womb spleen ventricle or any other inward in which all the fault is easily thrown For within these foldings there are spaces large enough for morbific mines that the matter may be there at leasure laid up and remain till it be gathered to a fullness But then because we believe that great plenty of spirits lodge there more than in any other little cells the heterogenious Copula growing to them lays as it were tinder for more grievous explosions so that the spirits being explosed within these bodies do not only inflate and dilate them but elevate and lift them up from their Place even as a house blown up with gun-powder wherefore the parts lying over them are suddenly lifted up into a tumour and loose are drawn violently hither and thither That after this manner the more cruell fits of Convulsions about the praecordia and Viscera are very often stirred up I have found to be true besides the Arguments taken from reason not long since by my own sight For when I opened the dead body of a Gentlewoman who had been exceedingly troubled with as they say the Mother fits or hysterical Distempers I found the womb wholly faultless but the Nerves near the foldings of the Mesentery as it seem'd only to be lifted up and elevated into a bulk and the membranes of that inward appeared torn and loosned one from another as being on every side tumid and loose as it were blown up into little bubbles or bladders Indeed there are more considerations of solid reasons whereby we are induced Observation 1 to believe that the passions called hysterical do most often arise from the convulsive matter heaped up within the Mesenterick enfoldings and by turns explosed which shall be more clearly manifested where we treat especially of those diseases But neither is it less probable that the Collick-pains do very often proceed from a more sharp and irritative matter contained in the same enfoldings Besides as often as the convulsive fits seem to begin from the spleen or ventricle by reason the beginnings of which are inflations and very great disturbances of those parts it is likely that the nest of the convulsive matter was hid within the nervous enfoldings belonging to the spleen or ventricle Also this kinde of matter seems to excite within the Cardiac foldings most heavy tremblings and passions of the heart and within the pneumonic or cervical or those belonging to the Lungs and throat enfoldings most terrible fits of the Asthma In our Treatise of the Nerves we have related a notable case of a worthy Gentlewoman to whom a serous matter wonted to distill from the forepart of her head through her left nostrill fell down behind her ear where when the most cruel pain did infest her Convulsions also and admirable contractions followed whereby the joynting or compaction now of the brain and the whole head seem'd to be pulled downward now the throat praecordia and Viscera upwards which kinde of Convulsions vexing the parts so opposite and at such distance by turns when they did proceed from one and the same seat of the disease planted in the midst it will be obvious to conceive that the grieved place as the origine of either convulsive affection was the ganglioform enfoldings planted near the Parotidae or the two chief Arteries of the throat into which the Nerves both of the wandring pair descending from the head are entred and out of which the shoots do stretch themselves into the muscles of the throat and branches into the praecordia and viscera Further front the same cause to wit the convulsive matter heaped up and by turns explosed within the ganglioform enfoldings we think and not undeservedly
then when the evident causes daily fixing the infection more on the bloud and humours did happen upon this remote hereditary cause for there were many chances and unfortunate accidents which continually brought sadness and melancholly upon this Gentleman indeed therefore the nervous Liquor being imbued above measure with a fixed and Scorbutic salt became highly sharp and irritative like aqua fortis or the Stagma's of Vitriol and so continually incited the Spirits and the bodys containing them into Corrugations and contractions just as the aforesaid Liquors when poured upon worms do the same thing Why this Distemper grew worse by the use of the Baths But that this disease leasurly at first increasing was quickly brought into a much worse condition by the use of the hot Bathes the reason easily appears It is known by experience that the hot Bathes do very much exalt and quickly bring to the hight the Sulphureous-saline particles in the humane body and otherwise morbid which abound in the Bowells and humours viz. do render them more fierce by agitating them throughly and force them from their first passages into the blood and from thence into the Brain and nervous stock yea and joyn together those that were before seperate and idle and incite them into a certain fermentation wherefore those who are hereditarily obnoxious to the Gout or Stone and have not as yet suffer'd any fits of those distempers very often feel the fruit of either disease in themselves to grow ripe soon by the use of the Bathes When therefore in this sick person both the blood and Liquor watering the Brain and nerves were imbued both with narcotick or stupifying and convulsive particles and also when they did degenerate from their sweet and balsamy Disposition that towards a saltish and this into a sour Ciaemul of a Stagma of Vitriol the use of the hot minerall waters was so far from bringing help that on the contrary these evills for that very cause presently grew all very much worse and the Disease proceeding from the humors being so depraved as to their temper and mixture could never be cured by any medicines no easier than vinegar may be reduced into wine When this Gentlemans body being at last dead of the Phthisis or Consumption was opened by me we could finde but very few foot-steps of these kinde of most grievous Symptoms Hence as it appear'd the Palsie and Convulsion did not depend so much on a thick and copious matter heaped together somewhere in mines as of an evill affection of the animal Spirits who are subtle and Invisible I will lay forth what was worthy taking notice of in the anatomy of this person Things worthy to be noted in the body being dissected The Abdomen being opened the Caule as is wont to be in most who dye of a Consumption and other Chronical Diseases was putrified and almost consumed In the mean time the Ventricle Intestines Pancreas and Mesentery were well enough to wit the membranes were firm well coulour'd and free from any ulcer or hard swelling There grew to the greater Intestines certain excrescencies like to the ears of a mouse for that there were very many of these kinde of things out of either side of the Colon and right intestine they shewed like twins at certain distances like the branches of Trees The like I formerly found in a Consumptive person The Reason of this seems to be that the nourishment in Consumptive people though it be deficient about the more solid and outward parts yet sometimes within neer the fountains of the nourishing juice performs more than it ought and for that cause superfluous and unnaturall additions grow forth The milt or Spleen which always is thought ill of and of most Physitians condemned for being the Principal cause of the Scurvy and of all other distempers appear altogether blameless and free from any fault For as in most sound people we observed it was of a darkish Colour soft and of an equal superficies free from any obstruction or swelling indued with vessells and fibres distinct and firm enough out of its substance flowed black biood when it was cut The Liver which indeed might be wondred at was indifferently well neither was it from so long and grievous a sickness become harder then usuall or scirrhous or planted with little whelks but it was somewhat big and of a darkish colour The Kidnys though free from any ulcer or gravell were not however free from fault for in the middle of the right Kidney was seen a great cavity distinct from the Tunell and much greater then it full of clear water the like I have very often found in hydropical people But indeed this perhaps arose from the serum deposited in that kidny that could not easily be strained thorow its passages and pores for that the serum subsisting therein had in the beginning made for it self a little den which afterwards by degres was inlarged and when for this Reason the secretion of the serum and its passing forth by the ureter were something hindred its Latex restagnating into the blood brought in the grievous trouble to the head which indeed was the rather to be suspected because also the left Kidny being mightily extenuated and consumed contained many Cisterns and Cavities full of clear water The Lungs growing on every side to the Sternum or part of the breast where the ribs meet sides and Diaphragma seem'd without any distinction of Lobes of one substance only of putrid spongy flesh staâ—fed throughout with a frothy or ichorous matter without doubt the sick man had not contracted this evill so long before to wit when he was not able to perform any exercise of the Body nor stay in bed that it might breathe out any thing more freely the faeculencies and recrements of the blood which were wont to evaporate thorow the skin being layd up in the Lungs were the cause that they grew together among themselves and with other parts and did vitiate their tone and conformation wholly so that a Consumption being at last arisen was the effect and product and not the cause of the rest of the distempers wherewith he had bin a long while miserably afflicted In either ventricle of the heart blood was concreted into a solid whitish substance and bak'd like flesh which being formed neer the Cavities and processes of the vessells of the Heart resembled the figure of a Serpent with a manifold divided tail than which indeed nothing is more usual in many dead People after long sickness The reason of which is that the Blood being without life from long sickness and from thence circulated slowly about the Praecordia begins to stand or stagnate in the heart and depending vessells and by that means is congealed leasurely into this kinde of fleshy Concrete When the Skull was opened we sought among its contents the chief Cause of the Disease The first thing that occurr'd was the bulk of the brain was less than it should be
the formal Reason or the means of generation The reason of the aforesaid case whereby the Convulsive matter falling down into the nervous stock did produce these admirable Symptomes we may lawfully suppose that the same being thrust forth from the Confines of the head being yet more firm into the spinal marrow and its Appendix and being like a malignant firment it first infected with heterogeneous and highly explosive particles these parts of the juce watering the whole mass which cleaving to the spirits every where disposed thorow their whole series and agitating them as it were with a certain fury did stir them up into continuall explosions When in truth the nervous juice as is said was so fermented by the inflowing of the Convulsive matter that which did other ways water the containing parts with a gentle falling on them and through the same did pass over the animal spirits with an equal Expansion now the same did torment the nervous fibres with various contractions and Corrugations or shrinkings up and did hinder both the spirits flowing in being too much burthened with an heterogeneous Copula from their due irradiation and also variously moving those implanted in every part did incite them as it were with a diabolical Inspiration so that no more obeying the Empire of the will they ran into inordinate motions and did renew them translated rapidly here ahd there with a perpetuall reciprocation But altho the heterogeneous particles being poured forth with the blood into the brain and thence thrust forth into the nervous stock did not enter rightly the beginnings of all the nerves but chiefly and almost only the spinal marrow and its nervous shoots so that the internal Viscera also the parts of the eyes mouth and face remained free from any Convulsion yet that same explosive force being hindred by some violence whereby it entred less in the outward members presently like wild-fire a way being found it was wont to run into the praecordia and bowells of the lower belly viz. because the inflowing spirits being struck with a certain fury and requiring a larger space in which they might exercise their madness being excluded from one place presently enter another somewhere open wherefore if that fury had been repulsed both from the members and the viscera no doubt but it would have flown back on the brain and brought thither madness or as it were an Epileptical Insensibleness which Symptoms indeed hapned to be wanting for that the brain of this most ingenious Gentlewoman being indued with a more firm Constitution did take from the nervous Liquor freshly instilled whatsoever was congruous and spiritous for its proper food and enjoy'd it In the mean time it did depress all the morbific particles into the spinal marrow by which the involuntary motions of the members were excited after that manner as we said but now Being requested to undertake the Cure of this worthy Virgin first The Curatory Method Observed in this case a light preparation of her body being made I gave her a solutive potion of the Infusion of Senna and Rhubarb with yellow Sanders and salt of Wormwood added to it by which she was purged 12 times with great ease the next day I took viii ounces of blood from her left Arm every evening I gave her an opiate of the water and Syrrop of the flowers of Lungwort with the powder of pearls besides once within vi hours I prescrib'd her to take a dose of the spirits of Harts-horn in a draught of the following Julap Take of the waters of black Cherries Walnuts and the flowers of Paeony each ℥ iii. of the Antipeleptic of Langius ℥ ii of the Syrrop of the flowers of the male-paeony ℥ ii of the powder of pearls ℈ i. mix it and make a Julap because she could not endure much purging Clysters with Sugar'd-milk were made use of frequently besides antispasmodic oyntments being applyed to the hinder part of her neck and the back-bone we order'd often rubbing of the distemper'd members with warm woollen Cloaths wetted in proper oyl By the use of these the sick person within 6 days seem'd to be very much helped for the Convulsive motions allmost wholly ceased and she could contain her members quietly in their due position only her head sometimes by a lighter Contraction was compelled to bend gently this way and that way further she was able to stand a little and rise out of her chair but when she went to step forward she went not rightly but obliquely on one side At this time going away I left her much better and in a manifest state of growing well But after another week when the North-winde being high and arisen in Night time the window not being fast shut blew very much upon the sick person being in Bed she presently taking cold relapsed into that kinde of Condition that she became obnoxious not only to Convulsive passions but to an universal periodical palsie for after that she was forced to move about turn and winde variously all her limbs successively with her head and members by turns bent and thrown about here and there as before from morning to night till at night these kinde of motions wholly ceasing a resolution of her members or palsie succeeded so that she was not able to stir either hand or foot or any other part of her body besides or to exereise any motive bending of the body lying in her bed allmost immovable like a stone but being a little refresh'd with sleep about morning as she recovered some little strength or virtue of the regular motive faculty by bending tho but weakly here and there her arms and legs so also the involuntary and Convulsive motions did constantly return enduring from that time all the day which again at the Evening were changed into these resolutions of the Limbs By these it appears clearly that the sick Gentlewoman laboured with a two-fold disease viz. a Palsie and Convulsion and that the materiall Cause of either was somewhat distinct For it seems that the animal spirits every where abounding being burdened with narcotick particles were almost continually bound besides that in the time of sleeping together with the nervous juiee the Convulsive particles plentifully flowing in clove also to the spirits for the explosions of which the spirits being incited produced the involuntary motions but also at that time the narcotic Copula being somewhat shaken off they were then able in some sort to perform the voluntary or regular also Besides the Remedies but now recited they did carefully administer very many others allmost of every kinde viz. Antiscorbuticks antiparaleticks Decoctions sudorificks or sweating medicines distilled waters spirits Elixirs Tincture Baths Liniments with many others by the use of which the Symptoms were something remitted but yet the disease was not wholly cured the universal palsie soon ceased that she was able at any time to move her Limbs and to bend them here and there and also the involuntary motions did trouble
the diseaâ—e suâ—… either nephâ—… begâ—…ings of the Nerves As to the morbific matter or explosive Copula which cleaving to the spirits flowing within the head and with them derived into the nervous passages is often the cause of the distempers commonly termed of the Womb we say that this as in other kinds of Convulsions is the heterogeneous particles poured forth from the blood which yet are wont to be affixed to the spirits flowing into the beginnings of the nerves cheifly for two causes to wit either by the fault of the spirits themselves or by the force of the matter it self instances of either kinde are ordinarily met with It sometimes happens that the animal spirits planted within the brain and in the passage leading from it to the praecordia are very much disturbed by a sudden passion as of fear anger sadness c. And forced into disorders and that by that means they being driven out of their orders do acquire to themselves heterogeneous particles whereever met with and combine with these that by and by for that reason they acquire an explosive disposition as we have already declared Further in the second place sometimes the morbific matter it self being made more fierce and strong in spite of the succour of the animal Aeconomie or rule is poured forth into the brain and its appendix from the bloody mass which cleaving fast to the spirits presently disposes them into explosions This is ordinarily discerned in the evil crises of feavours also in some malignant distempers also in Scorbutic and other Chronical diseases ill cured An ill or weak constitution of the brain or nervous stock whether it be hereditarie or acquired by reason of an ill manner of living very much cherishes these causes For in bodies so disposed both the animal spirits from every light occasion are moved in Confusion and the passages of the brain and nervous System more easily lye open for the running in of the heterogeneous and explosive matter In truth for this reason women are more obnoxious to convulsive distempers than men and some women then others as we will shew more largely hereafter But altho these kinde of passions of women called hysterical most often proceed from the fault of the head or from the morbific cause arising within the Encephalon yet sometimes such distempers are stirred up Or near the womb or other Inwards by reason of a Cause beginning somewhere else viz. Now in the womb now in the other Bowells and of this Convulsive Pathologie there are chiefly two heads viz. 1st Sometimes it happens that a Tumour or an ulcer This last happens after a twofold manner or a congestion of sharp humours arises in the membranous parts about the womb or planted about the other Viscera and often irritates the parts so distemper'd by reason of the breaking of the union into painfull Convulsions then forasmuch as the animal spirits placed round about and those inflowing Either by reason of the dissolution of the union are moved into frequent disorders they at length getting to themseves heterogeneous particles sent either from the distemper'd part or from some other place are disposed to convulsive assaults and when first of all the convulsive motions happen only in the neighbourhood of the affected place to wit that the bulk ascending in the lower part of the belly or its swelling up be only perceived afterwards they are propagated by the passage of the nervous bodies and by the consent of the convulsion there begun leasurely into the other viscera of the lower belly then to the praecordia and lastly into the head it self and the distemper being thus by little and little delated to the spirits inhabiting the brain they moreover having gotten in their proper Sphear an heterogeneous Copula retort the same back to the viscera and so the morbific cause being made reciprocall is begun at either end of the nervous Trunk Some time past I have seen a noble virgin in whom a small Tumour arising with most cruel pain below the Os pubis did stir up huge Convulsions first in the lower belly and afterwards ascending to the Praecordia and head were at length stretch'd to the outward members for once or twice in a day after that great pains did torment her in the affected part the abdomen and by and by the hypochondria were wont to be lifted up then difficulty of breathing on an Insensibility succeeded and presently the distemper being brought outwardly most horrid Convulsions and Contractions of the members and Limbs followed Sometimes it also happens that convulsive symptoms are induced in Child-bearing women by reason of some hurt or evill brought to the womb Harvie Relates that wonderfull convulsions were caused by the injection of some sharp thing into the womb So sometimes tho rarely it happens that a morbific matter or explosive Copula is fixed to the spirits dwelling about the extremities of the nerves and near the womb immediately from the place there affected and without fault of the brain There yet remains another case or manner of affecting 2. Or by reason of an obstruction of the Nervous juice by which the convulsive disposition is produced from the fault or the parts lodg'd at a great distance from the brain tho in the mean time the taint which is the cause of this distemper is often mediately communicated to the brain it self to wit when at any time the nervous juice is hindred somewhere in its motion or circulation from thence stagnating in the nervous parts and loading them does often bring in a convulsive disposition So when some usual Evacuation whereby the superfluities of the nervous Liquor were wont to be sifted forth is stopp'd as from Issues suddenly shut up or old ulcers dryed up without a purge many fall into convulsive distempers Yea it may obtain here some place what is wont commonly to be noted for a cause of the hysterical passions in maids and widdows to wit the untimely restraint of the seminall humour which ought to be bestowed about the pleasure of Venus at least if they receive help from the state of a conjugal Life it therefore happens because the restagnations of the nervous humour which often fix a taint to the brain and nervous stock by this means are prevented Moreover the nervous juice flows back towards its beginning because its passage is somewhere shut up by a swelling or cancrous Tumour Lastly in this City a notable instance of this kinde of distemper hapned viz. A certain maid of 12. years of age had contracted an hernia or burstness hence by the order of her Mother she wore a truss ill fitted for a fortnight not without great pain and torment a little hard knot much pressing upon the glandulas of the Groin within this space when before she was perfectly well she began to complain of a giddiness and heavy dulness of her head and so a little after she felt convulsive and as it were hysterical distempers
the mean time it is to be observed The hypochondriacal distempers belong to the nervous kinde that the chief Symptoms of this sickness are Convulsive and depend immediately upon the irregularities of the animal Spirits and the nervous juice rather than on the evill disposition of the Viscera serving for Concoction But indeed from whence the first rise of this most complicated Disease proceeds and by what means it brings forth the divers manners of distempers in so many places will not be so easie to determine It would be a tedious thing to shew here The causes of the hypochondriac passion is inquired into what the ancient and modern Physitians thought of the hypochondriack Passion and of its essence and Causes we will only take notice that most of them do ascribe this sickly Disposition to the only fault of the Spleen In the mean time some contend that the whole confines of this Inward partaking of part of the fault the blood flowing every where in the Splenetick and Epigastric Vessells or those belonging to the Spleen and belly for that it being guilty of an hot and dry intemperature and so obnoxious to too much fermentation brings forth the original or gives a beginning to this manifold evill But the famous Highmore affording relief as well to the Spleen as the Womb hath cast the chief Cause of this Disease wholly on the vitious Constitution of the ventricle and from thence he would have the reasons of the aforesaid Symptoms to be originally sought But indeed that he might frame a fit hypothesis for the solving the Phaenomena of this sickness he first supposes the tone of the stomach to become too loose and weak that for that reason it hardly and very imperfectly Concocts the aliments so that the thin and more Spirituous part of the Chyle being sent from thence sooner than it ought to the blood perverts its disposition to a hot and sour temper then the residue of the food by a longer stay within the Ventricle degenerates into a ponderous and viscous or clammy Phlegme which also by its Stagnation even as it is observable in things to be eaten being longer kept becomes very sour or sharp But from hence that learned Man argues that from the blood made too serous and thin its effervescencies quickly passing thorow it are induced and from the stomach loaded with ballast of ropy or viscous matter the winde and distentions of the Ventricle and hypochondria as also the belching and troublesome Spitting do arise whereby indeed he wholly exempts the Spleen from this fault he contends that it doth neither draw to it self the melancholly dregs of the blood nor serves for any office whatsoever about the Sanguification or the making of blood but that its use almost only consists in this that this Inward swelling up or growing turgid with very hot blood it administers heat to the adjacent Ventricle and cherishes it with gentle warmth Altho I may so far assent to this famous Author concerning this opinion The Hypothesis of Dr. Highmore sifted that I yield the ventricle doth often grievously labour in this Distemper forasmuch as the tone of which being made lax and its strength broken by reason of the indigestion of the aliment a load of viscous Phlegm or Petuitous matter is begotten even in its bosom to which by reason of the Saline particles being brought into a flux by their long stay oftentimes a notable soarness and austereness happen then because the fault in the first Concoction is not mended the dyscrasies and disorders of the blood receive that want of digestion in the second But yet he cannot draw me into that opinion that the ventricle is always chiefly in the fault or that the other Symptoms of the hypochondriacal Disease depend only on its vitious Constitution For I have known many cruelly afflicted with this sickness who have been well enough in their stomach although they have very much complained of the pulsation in the left hypochondrium of the straitness of the breast and a wandring pain excited in it also of the trembling and oppression of the heart with a continual fear and disturbed Imagination in the mean time they were wont to desire food greatly and to digest whatsoever was eaten without any trouble of the ventricle or heaviness and also without any spitting or acid belching yea I have observed others great drinkers and using an evill manner of living to have contracted a loosness of the stomach with an ill digestion windiness and frequent vomiting who sound enough about their praecordia and animal faculties were not at all accounted for hypochondriacs Besides in this Distemper the ventricle is often rather sick from the vitiousness of other parts or of the Blood than from its own default because it is usual for those sort of sick people to be well in their stomach so long as they may lye abed and breath it forth but when they are raised up the pores being shut up and the dregginess of the bloudy mass stagnating within presently to be afflicted with the pain of the heart an aggestion of winde and frequent endeavours to vomit For these and other Considerable Reasons I judge the original of the hypochondriacal Disease to be derived from some other fountain than the weakness of the Ventricle but forasmuch as among the parts here primarily suspected to be affected great complaints are made against the Spleen it will be worth our while to enquire what office this Inward doth discharge then as often as it fails in it whether it contributes to this Disease The use of the Spleen is inquired into Tho I may grant with Doctor Highmore that the Spleen doth cherish the Ventricle with its warmth and so perhaps in some measure help Concoction yet I do not conclude this part to be framed chiefly for that end but for some more noble uses because there seems to be need for the digesting of the food in the stomach not so much of heat as of an active ferment For fishes being actually cold devour their food whole and without the help of heat easily concoct the same being resolved as it were by a certain menstrum besides it is observed of the spleen that though in man its whole substance lyes near to the ventricle in most other creatures who are indued with a longish form as to the greatest part of it it is removed far from the Ventricle Further if the Spleen be the only Chimny in which the blood warming the Ventricle is contained what is the reason that it rather than the Liver or Lungs becomes of a livid or blewish colour and is stuffed with a black blood and that less hot See his discourse of fermentation Chap. 5th When I consider these things which sometime since I have observed concerning the use of the Spleen it seems far more probable that a certain dreggy portion viz. a matter consisting of an earthly and fixed salt is layd up in this Inward
their inclination and falling down in the brain and perhaps also within the breast may be sometimes prevented then to Corroberate those parts that they may not easily admit the superfluities of the boyling Serum For these ends vomits and more gentle purges for the most part are usefull and in some measure ought to be repeated Vesecatories are often profitable yea if the Disease be contumacious Issues are to be made in the nape of the neck or the arm or about the Armpits Drink and liquid aliments are to be taken in a lesser quantity than usual and in stead of them a Bochet is to be used of Sarsa China Sanders Shavings of Ivory and harts-horn with diuretic and anticonvulsive Ingredients In this Case some remedies as it were special are greatly commended of which sort are pixed musk given in powder or boyled in milk and so given dayly in a frequent dose a decoction or Syrrop of Castor and Saffron decoctions of the root of Paony Misletow of the Oak also of hyssop help many the waters of black-cherries of Saxifrage and of Snailes distilled with Whey and appropriate ingredients are often taken with success The cure of the Convulsive Asthma 2. By what method and with what Remedies I have cured the periodical Asthma in some young ones hath been already shown But in most distemper'd with this Disease the most famous Riverius hath observed a vomit is chiefly helpfull although he hath not rightly shown the reason which indeed seems to consist in this to wit that this medicine greatly shaking and irritation the Emunctories planted about the first Passages strongly presses out from them and carries forth of dores the recrements of the blood and nervous juice apt to be troublesome and to restagnate on the brain and Nervous stock Zacutus the Lusitanian highly extolls and not without reason a cautery to be made sometimes in the hinder part of the head sometimes in the nape of the neck or about the Armpits A preparation of milipedes viz. in form of a dry powder or a distilled Liquor seldom wants success For by such like Remedies the superfluities of the Serum are deduced from the head and nervous stock and carried away thorow the urinary passages For the same reason a gentle purge evacuating the ill juice is often us'd for this end the decoction of an old Cock with altering medicins and gently purging being stowed in its belly is praysed by many Besides the remedies hitherto cited some others are said to be appropriate and as it were Specifical to the Asthma of which sort are the balsom of Sulphur turpintin'd also Spirits of Harts-horn or of Sut impregnaeed with the same Syrop of Tobacco of Ammoniack our diasulphur Lohoch of Garlick pills of the roots of Enula Campane made up with the milk of Sulphur with the flowers of Benzoin with liquid pitch or liquid amber with many others which would be too tedious here to enumerate And now the cheif Species and manners of Convulsions together with the Causes of the Symptoms and the means of curing being sufficiently explicated it is time to put an end to this our Pathologie of the Brain and nervous stock and to our Discourse of Convulsive Diseases FINIS Since nothing could so well express the meaning and intention of the Author as the very Latin and Greek words used in these Tracts we have continued them expresly and though in many places I have given their meaning by Synonymas yet for the benefit of the meer English Readers we have here composed a Table Alphabetically of all the hard Greek and Latin words used in the whole Volume as also of all Terms of Art and many other words derived from the Latin and Greek though usual among Scholars yet not frequently known to the vulgar and therefore we have fully explained them and rendred them intelligible to the meanest Capacity in the following Table A TABLE of all the hard words derived from the Greek and Latin of all Terms of Art and other words not vulgarly received with the explanation of them A ABdomen The lower part of the Belly from the Navel downwards Ablution A washing away Accension An Inkindling Accession A coming to or approach Acme The height or top of a thing Acid Sharp Acidity Sharpness Acidulae Medicinal waters running forth from Veins of Iron Copper and such like called Spaws from that famous place for Mineral-waters the Spaw in Germany Acrimony Sharpness or sourness rather Actionobolism An Irradiation of Beams or shooting forth of the spirits like beams of the Sun Aconite A venomous poisonous Herb put for Libbards bane Acute Sharp or excessive painful or that is quick and dangerous Aculeated Made sharp and prickly like a Needles point Adhaesion A sticking to Adjuted Helped Adventitious Coming by accident or by the by Adust Burnt or parch'd Adustion A burning or parching Aequilibrium An equal or even poise when the Balance stands bending neither to the one side or the other Aequinox When the Sun is in the Equinoctial Line and divides the Day and Night into an equal length which is about the 12. of March and about the 12. of September Aetherial Heavenly or belonging to the Air or Skie Aetiologie The rendring of the Cause or Reason of a thing Affection Taken for the natural Condition and often signifies sickness or disease Affected Distempered or diseased Sometimes natural disturbance Affusion A pouring forth of any thing Agaric A Drug that purges Phlegm Aggestion A heaping together of any thing Agitated A violent shaking or jogging together Alembic An Arabic word for a Still used by Chymists Alexipharmaca Medicines against Poisons and Venom Alexiterion The same being an Antidote against poison Alchalisat A salt made of the herb Kali Also taken and applyed to salts made of Herbs and shells of Fishes Alible Nourishable or that nourishes Aliment Food Allision A striking or knocking together Aloes A juice made out of a bitter herb used in purging Medicines also a sweet wood Amalgama A Chymical term for the setling and mixture of several Minerals or Metals or other things whereby a separation and extraction may be made Ambages A compassing or going about Ambient That invirons or compasses one about as the Air. Amulets Pomanders or Bracelets made against Witchcraft and Infection and Poison Analogy Proportion agreement or likeness Analysis The laying open or unfolding of the matter Anatomy A dissecting the Body to see the several parts Anasarca The watry Dropsy swelling up the whole flesh Analesia A stupifying disease that takes away the sense from all parts of the Head Angle A Mathematical Term being the nook or space at the cutting of two lines and is of several sorts A Corner or nook Anhelous Short-winded or that puffeth for want of breath that breatheth difficultly Annularie Ringy or like Rings Annular Ringy or like Rings Anodynes Medicines procuring ease from pains by sleep or other means Anomal Irregular out of order Antasthmaticks Things good against the Cough or
the Nerves 41 42. The difference of the motions of a Muscle 1 How the motion of a Muscle is made 2 Muscle Its motion see motions N. Nerves Sometimes Convulsive motions are received from the ends of the Nerves 6 How the morbific matter is thrust forth from the brain on the Nerves 7 The Nerves in Children and those of riper years differently by the morbific matter ibid. How the morbific matter falling on several parts of the Nerves affects the spirits 8 How the beginnings middle and ends of the Nerves are affected in Convulsions 9 10 11. The nervous System secondarily affected in the Epilepsie 15 Distempers arising from the origine of the Nerves distinguished 31 By what means the Convulsive matter flows into the Nerves 32 Wherefore Convulsions begin from the extremities of the Nerves 38 Of such Convulsive motions beginning from the exmities of the Nerves and within the nervous infoldings 41 42. The infoldings of the Nerves the seat of Convulsive matter 45 The Liquor of the Nerves causes Convulsions 46 The scorbutick disposition of the juice of the Nerves causes universal Convulsions 60 61. The cause of the Hysterical passion most commonly begins about the beginnings of the Nerves 79 The nervous juice obstructed a cause of the fits of the Mother 81 The Hypochondriacal distemper belongs to the Nerves 91 The Nerves sometimes the cause of the Convulsive Astmah 104 Nurses Of Infants how to be ordered to cure Children of Convulsions 29 O. Observations Worth noting in the Falling-sickness 21 In Convulsions in Men and Women 33 34 35 36. In Convulsions arising from the extremities of the Nerves and nervous infoldings 32 43 44 45. In some Epidemical Feavers 55 56. A rare observation 59 An observation of a broken Convulsive distemper 61 62. Observations on a continued Convulsive distemper 66 68 69 70 71. Observations on the fits of the Mother 83 84. Anatomical observations of the distemper of the Mother fits 85 86. Observations on Hypochondriacal persons 95 96. Observations on the Convulsive Astmah 104 105 106. Opinion Of Gassendus of the explosion of the animal spirits 3 Of Dr. Heighmore of the Hysterical passion 77 His opinion of the Hypocondriacal passion examined 91 Oyntments For the curing Convulsions in Children 29 P. Pills For the Epilepsie 23 For such as are troubled with Convulsions 41 Plasters For the Epilepsie 24 Powders For the Epilepsie 23 For Convulsions in Children 29 For Convulsions in Men and Women 40 Poyson Of Convulsions arising from poyson 46 Prognostications Of the Epilepsie 18 Purges For the Epilepsie 22 For Convulsions in Men and Women 39. R. Remedies Great for the Epilepsie 24 Remedies for a cold constitution troubled with Convulsions 40 For an hot constitution troubled with Convulsions ibid. Repletion And emptiness not the cause of Convulsions 3 S. Scurvy Of universal Convulsions arising frow the Scurvy 60 Sneizing Powders for the Epilepsie 24 Spasms See Convulsions How they differ from Convulsive motions 1 Specificks In what their virtue consists in the curing the Falling-sickness 20 Several Specificks for the Epilepsie 22 Specificks for curing Convulsions in Men and Women 40 Spirits For such as are of an hot constitution and troubled with Convulsions 41 Spirits The Animal spirits the instrumens of regular motions in the body 1 The explosion of the Spirits makes the motion of a Muscle 2 Gassendus his opinion of the explosion of the animal Spirits 3 How the Spirits are disturbed by the morbifick matter falling on the several parts of the Nerves 8 How the Spirits are exploded by reason of irritation ibid. The Spirits in the middle of the brain the primary subject of the Epilepsie 14 15. Spleen Its use 92 93 Its influences producing the Hypochondriacal symptoms 94 Steel Medicines and their preparations 99 100 101. T. Tablets For such as are troubled with Convulsions 41 Tarentula Of Convulsions arising from the biting of the Tarentula 47 Why Musick allays the poyson of the Tarentula 47 Teeth Breeding sometimes causes Convulsions in Children and why 27 28. How to cure such Convulsions coming of Teeth 30 Tenasmus What it is 11. Three kinds of it 12 Tetanon What it is 1 V. Vomits For the Epilepsie 22 For Convulsions in Men and Women 39 St. Vitus Dance described 48 The reason of it ibid. W. Waters Distilled for the Epilepsie 24 For Convulsions in Men and Women 40 41. Witchcraft A cause of universal Convulsions 48 How falsly imputed and how to know Convulsions coming of Witchcraft 49 Womb How affected in the fits of the Mother 81 Not always in fault in those fits 82 Worms A cause of Convulsions in Children 30 FINIS
ebullition which after this manner comes upon this intermitting Feaver wholly depends upon the confusion of the not miscible matter and its hard secretion from the Blood The Synochus happens like Wine growing hot of its own accord by reason of its richness the other conceives its fury like the same Wine by reason of some heterogeneous thing poured to it wherefore we remark that whilst our Feaver is seen still to be continual it is not cured by sweat or the Flux of the Belly altho they frequently and copiously happen because it depending upon the Blood being depauperated rather than being inflamed it continues long and disposes the sick towards a Cachexie 3. There is a third reason of difference by which this Feaver may be distinguished from the common rank of intermitting Feavers and it is this that it is easily propagated to others by Contagion the reason of which is because here very many bodies are predisposed after the same manner towards the same distemper which happens not at another time wherefore the meer effluvias from a diseased Body are able to excite the like effect in a very fit subject even as some Beams of Flame enkindle Flame in a very combustible matter In the mean time all do not alike contract the Infection of this Feaver but that some being less prepared or fitted for it converse with the sick without harm 4. There is another symptom occurs not constant to this Feaver but only hapning in some places that discriminates it not only from the common but varies its own proper type to wit sometimes it happens this Disease to be accompanied with a Dysenterick distemper in some cholerick Vomits and bilous Stools very much infest and in others Bloody Stools follow with cruel pains and torments of the Belly The former I often observed in our Neigbourhood and the reason of it may be deduced from the highly bilous temper of the Blood For by reason of this the adust matter not to be dissipated by sweat is copiously sifted into the Liver then by reason of the choler-carrying Vessels being filled to a flowing over it is sent away to the Ventricle and Intestines The other Dysenterical distemper was found only in some places and there peculiar rather than common it laid hold only of some sick The origine of it may be referred to the peculiar dispositions of some Bodies or vitious provision also to the site of the place or condition of the Air then the Disease is to be suspected to be thence translated to others not without the communication of a certain Infection There is to be had a double Prognostication concerning this Disease First of the Feaver in General what end it shall have and when what it may threaten to the Land whether it precede not which is commonly feared the Plague or Pestilential Sicknesses Secondly The signs ought to be laid down whereby we are wont to presage health or danger in the various cases of the sick As to the First Because we have shown that the Origine of this distemper is not to be fetched from the Contagion of the Air or its being infected with any venomous Infection nor from any malignant seeds of Vapours diffused through the Air but only from the signal bilous temper or disposition of our Bodies with the Blood being made adust and roasted extremely by reason of the Summer heats I think there is no reason of fear that this Feaver should be carried forth into any thing worse by the vice of the Air or might at length grow to be Malignant or Pestilential But rather that the season of the Year being changed and the alteration of our Blood assuredly to be expected we might fear lest this Feaver which now imitates the way of an intermitting Feaver should afterwards pass into a Quartane the Blood growing into a melancholy temper Which thing indeed I observed to happen to some already and I believe that before the Autumn be fully passed over will happen to many more As to the particular Prognostication the chiefly notable signs which occur in the course of this Feaver and in a manner foretel its condition and event are of this sort if the Disease happens in a firm Body well tempered and easily perspirable if vomiting with ease succeeds and that the Belly be loose if the fit begins with a light shivering and afterwards a moderate heat with sweat concludes it and that the intermission be with some tolerable remission if the Pulse be strong the Urine of a flame colour clear and with a laudable hypostasis we may Predict that the Disease will quickly end without any danger But if this Feaver be excited in a fat Body and or a vitious habit it with troublesome vomiting an intolerable thirst and fierce heat long exercise the sick if to the heat a difficult sweat and partial and often interrupted and between frequent vomitings succeed and that it ends not in a remission we may declare that this Disease may be long and of a dangerous issue But if the sick remain in strength and the Urine shew signs of concoction we need not despair of health especially if after four or five periods the Disease as it is wont to do remits of its wonted fierceness Thirdly we observe if this Disease is excited in an old Body or others broken with sicknesses or debilitated if besides horrid vomitings there happen swoonings faintings Deliriums or Lethargic distempers if after many fits the sick having lost their strength the Disease remits nothing but exerciseth the Blood with a continual effervency and that the Vital Spirits are much destroyed if the appetite be lost wakings pertinacious and that they have Convulsive motions with a weak Pulse and Urine troubled or thick we judg the matter to be full of danger yet is not the sick to be left as desperate because the Disease is not hasty and kills not suddenly and out of hand but is drawn out at length and grants time and occasions to nature of recollecting her self and to the Physician of giving Remedies The Therapeutic Indications which have place in the Cure of this Feaver are chiefly four First That the Blood being now scorched and made too choloric may be reduced to its due temper Secondly That the depravation of the nourishable juice and its alteration into a fermentative matter may be inhibited or at least lessned Thirdly That about the declining of the Disease the Blood depauperated by a frequent deflagration and made more impure by the fusion or pouring into it the morbifick or adust matter may be restored and rendred as it should be volatile Fourthly That the symptoms which chiefly infest in the course of the Disease may be timely helped by fit Remedies that these intentions may be satisfied I counsel that this following method be used About the beginning of the Disease if the bilous or cholorie humor flowing forth of the choler bearing Vessels and being suffused into the Venticle cause the sick to be prone
hairs for the sake of a better conduct are collected together in the same bundle yea the coverings being separated you may follow oftentimes the little Nervulets and those single to the respective parts and members to which they are destinated But in the mean time although there be singular passages or chanels of the animal Spirits of most Nerves distinct among themselves yet some do variously communicate with others through the branches and shoots sent on either side which indeed ought to be so made that when many Nerves together are required to some motion of a Muscle equally all these by reason of the commerce mutually had between themselves might conspire in the same action hence in some motions of the members as in the striking of a Harp or Lute and other complicated actions many Muscles cooperate with admirable celerity so that although many be imployed at once they perform their task severally without any confusion Besides there is need for the Nerves to communicate mutually among themselves because of the Sympathetical motions of the members and of some of the parts for neither for any other cause is the Nerve of the Diaphragma inserted into the brachial branches or those belonging to the Arms than that the exercise of living Creatures especially in running or flying might be proportionate to the tenour of Respiration Hence it also proceeds that in any passion the Praecordia being bound up or dilated the countenance and aspect of the face yea and the gestures of the hands and members are pathetically figured We have proposed sufficient Instances of this sort in our particular History of the Nerves so that we need not here add any thing more What remains for the illustrating our Myology or Tract of the Muscles we have taken care to have added viz. four Figures which may represent to the life both the exteriour and interiour true and natural faces or appearances both of a simple and compounded Muscle Fig. III. Fig. IV. Fig. I. Fig. II. The Explication of the Figures The First Figure SHews a simple regular Muscle described according to its natural appearance in the Belly of which the fleshy Fibres being opened are diduced one from another that the membranaceous Fibrils may be the better beheld A. The right Tendon B. The left opposite Tendon C. The fleshy Belly all the fleshy Fibres of which lye one by another equal and parallel but in even and oblique Angles between either Tendon D. The aperture of the fleshy Fibres which being drawn aside the membranaceous Fibrils thickly crossing them appear The Second Figure Shews a simple Muscle cleft in the middle after the Tendon being cut off and portions of it pulled away that the interiour series of the fleshy Fibres or their commixtures or mingling with the Tendons may appear A A. The right Tendon being placed above both portions of which divided do in some measure appear B B. The left opposite Tendon placed below either portions of which divided lye hid for the most part under the Flesh those towards the edges being only conspicuous C D. Portions of the fleshy Belly divided and separated which before this being laid upon that did cohere in either of which all the fleshy Fibres proceed equally and in like manner obliquely from one Tendon to another E. Some membranaceous Fibrils represented thickly crossing the fleshy Fibres The Third Figure Exhibits a certain Muscle less compounded to whose two fleshy Bellies two compounded Tendons also equal to four simple ones are destinated A. The exteriour compounded Tendon embracing either side of the fleshy Fibres which being almost only conspicuous on the edges lyes hid for the most part under the Flesh B. The interiour compounded Tendon entring into the middle of the Flesh which receives on both sides the fleshy Fibres sent from either side of the exteriour Tendon C. The first Belly of the fleshy Fibres all whose equal and parallel Fibres lye between the opposite sides of the Tendons in oblique Angles and equal D. The second Belly of the fleshy Fibres all whose Fibres being in like manner formed are beheld in the same as in the other Belly E E. Both extremities of the exteriour compounded Tendon F. The extremity or end of the interiour compounded Tendon the like to the other being opposite at an equal distance from the end of the Muscle The Fourth Figure Shews a regular compounded Muscle divided and opened in the middle so that the interiour face of either Belly may appear A. The exteriour compounded Tendon cleft into four parts B B. Portions of one side of the divided Tendon separated from the other C. Portions near sited of the other side of the divided Tendon which for the greatest part lye hid under the flesh D D. The flesh of one Belly also divided and separated one far from another E E. The flesh of the other Belly also divided and placed near one another F. The interiour compounded Tendon entring the middle of the Flesh G G. Portions of the same Tendon divided and with portions of the Bellies which they receive separated apart THE ANATOMY OF THE BRAIN The Authors Epistle Dedicatory to his Grace Gilbert Archbishop of Canterbury c. Most Honourable Prelate ONCE more your Sidley Professor and your Servant the more happy Title flings himself at Your feet with this only Ambition that he might render something of Thanks for Your Kindness and benefits and that our Labours might chuse such a Patron that might give Credit to the Author But I fear lest by my repeated Duty I may seem troublesom and no less in acknowledging Your Benefits than others in suing for them But so great is my Gratitude and so exceeding is Your good Nature that they cannot be crowded into a little compass much less wearied out or drawn dry But there is another Reason which if it doth not command what I do may at least excuse and defend it For when I had resolved to unlock the secret places of Mans Mind and to look into the living and breathing Chapel of the Deity as far as our weakness was able I thought it not lawful to make use of the Favours and Patronage of a less Person neither perhaps would it have become me For You indeed are He who most happily presides both by Merit and Authority over all our Temples and Sacred Things Therefore after I had slain so many Victims whole Hecatombs almost of all Animals in the Anatomical Court I could not have thought them rightly offered unless they had been brought to the most holy Altar of Your Grace I am not ignorant how great the labour is that I undertake For it hath been a long while accounted as a certain Mystery and School-house of Atheism to search into Nature as if whatever Reasons we grant to Philosophy should derogate from Religion and all that should be attributed to second Causes did take away from the first But truly he doth too much abuse the Name of Philosophy who
considers the wheels curious frame setting together small pins and all the make and provision of a Clock by which invented Machine the course of the Time the orders of the Months the changes of the Planets the flowing and ebbing of the Sea and other things of that kind may be exactly known and measured if that at length when by this his search and consideration he hath profited himself so much he should not acknowledge the Artist to whose Labour and Wit he owes all those things I am sure I am of another mind and opinion who look into the Pandects of Nature as into another Table of the Divine Word and the greater Bible For indeed in either Volume there is no high point which requires not the care or refuses the industry of an Interpreter there is no Page certainly which shews not the Author and his Power Goodness Trust and Wisdom In the mean time there is no right Weigher of things that can lay to our charge as a fault that we have studied these Rolls of Nature because some Atheists may be made thereby which may be objected to the studies of Divines in Sacred Letters that from their provision Hereticks have taken their Arguments and Opinions and turned them against them and Godliness That I may deal freely whoever professes Philosophy and doth not think rightly of God I do judge him not only to have shaken hands with Religion but also with Reason and that he hath at once put off Philosophy as well as Christianity Therefore I desire that all mine may be tryed and approved no less by the demonstration of Piety and Canons of the Church than by the Rule of Experience and Knowledge to which I keep Neither do I intreat and respect only the Mecaenas of humane Arts but also the Primate and chief of Divine whilst I openly profess my self with all due observance YOUR GRACES Most humble and obliged Servant THO. WILLIS The Preface to the Reader THE Romans sometimes promised to themselves an Empire an Eternity by the happy Augury of an humane Head being turned out of the Glebe neither could they perswade themselves that the Capitol should be the Head of the World unless it had been built upon the Skull of a Man I do not think of Empires in Arts nor do I promise to my self Triumphs by overcoming the World of Letters But in the mean time I had wholly frustrated those Illustrious Documents I had long since learned unless with those Auspices I had laboured in Philosophy especially the Natural For the Province which I hold in this Academy requiring that I should Comment on the Offices of the Senses both external and also internal and of the Faculties and Affections of the Soul as also of the Organs and various provisions of all these I had thought of some rational Arguments for that purpose and from the appearances raised some not unlikely Hypotheses which as uses to be in these kind of businesses at length accrued into a certain System of Art and frame of Doctrine But when at last the force of Invention being spent I had handled each again and brought them to a severer test I seemed to my self like a Painter that had delineated the Head of a Man not after the form of a Master but at the will of a bold Fancy and Pencil and had followed not that which was most true but what was most convenient and what was rather desired than what was known Thinking on these things seriously with my self I awaked at length sad as one out of a pleasant dream to wit I was ashamed that I had been so easie hitherto and that I had drawn out for my self and Auditors a certain Poetical Philosophy and Physick neatly wrought with Novity and Conjectures and had made a Fucus as it were with deceits and incantations for either of us Wherefore all delay being laid aside I determined with my self seriously to enter presently upon a new course and to rely on this one thing not to pin my faith on the received Opinions of others nor on the suspicions and guesses of my own mind but for the future to believe Nature and ocular demonstrations Therefore thenceforward I betook my self wholly to the study of Anatomy and as I did chiefly inquire into the offices and uses of the Brain and its nervous Appendix I addicted my self to the opening of Heads especially and of every kind and to inspect as much as I was able frequently and seriously the Contents that after the figures sites processes of the whole and singular parts should be considered with their other bodies respects and habits some truth might at length be drawn forth concerning the exercise defects and irregularities of the Animal Government and so a firm and stable Basis might be laid on which not only a more certain Physiologie than I had gained in the Schools but what I had long thought upon the Pathologie of the Brain and nervous stock might be built But for the more accurate performing this work as I had not leisure and perhaps not wit enough of my self I was not ashamed to require the help of others And here I made use of the Labours of the most Learned Physician and highly skilful Anatomist Doctor Richard Lower for my help and Companion the edge of whose Knife and Wit I willingly acknowledge to have been an help to me for the better searching out both the frame and offices of before hidden Bodies Wherefore having got this help and Companion no day almost past over without some Anatomical administration so that in a short space there was nothing of the Brain and its Appendix within the Skull that seemed not plainly detected and intimately beheld by us After this when we entred upon a far more difficult task viz. the Anatomy of the Nerves then very much appeared the plainly to be admired skill of this Man as also his indefatigable Industry and unwearied Labour For having prosecuted with a most exact search all the divarications wandring on every side of the Nerve how minute or small soever and immersed and variously infolded within other Bodies and so turning over the Labyrinths of the Branches and shoots of every pair far and near diffused he drew out with his own hand the Schemes Images or Draughts of them and also of many passages of the Blood as they appear in this Tract which indeed that they might be faithfully and most exactly shewn without any falsity or errour he caused that no Table might contain scarce any line or the most light passage whose conformation and exact habitude he had not found proved by the marks or inspection of many Animals for that purpose killed Besides the helps brought me by his most skilful dissecting hand it becomes me not to hide how much besides I did receive from these most famous Men Dr. Thomas Millington Doctor in Physick and Dr. Chr. Wren Doctor of Laws and Savill Professor of Astronomy both which were wont frequently to be
another to stand upright and to jump which interval however lasted scarce a minute of an hour but that his members flagg'd and were affected with their wonted languor and trembling When this worthy Gentleman had been sick after this manner above 12. years and had consulted the most famous Physitians in all England and had tryed very many Remedies and almost of every kinde viz. Antiparalytick antiscorbutick drying Diets Sweating medicines purges Causticks baths Liniments yea and had twice tryed salivation could finde no cure by any method of healing wherefore all hope of cure being wholly layd aside for the latter seven years of his life he made use of only Remedies chiefly respecting some Symptoms viz. he took thrice in a week a solutive medicine of Senna and Rubarb with Correctives now in form of a Syrrop or of an extract another time every night he was wont to take a dose of an opiate out of conserves and temperate Species Besides as occasions serv'd he had ready a Julap to be taken when his Spirits fainted moreover he continually drunk Beer made of oaten mault altered with temperate and diuretical herbs By the use of these he pass'd over at least seven years without any great alteration for the worse at length old Age coming on him together with the disease more cruel fits of Convulsions not as at first after sleep but assoon as he was warm in his bed invaded him that he was forced to abstain altogether from his Bed and rarely put off his cloaths unless to shift his Linnen from hence transpiration being hindred the serous Recrements and others wont to be evaporated were fixed on the Lungs which at first brought in a frequenr or short breathing afterwards an Asthmatical Distemper and lastly a deadly Consumption or wasting If the Reasons of the aforesaid Symptoms be sought after it will be easie The reasons of the symptoms chiefly tormenting to deduce all these evills from a depraved Constitution of the Brain and nervous stock and more immediatly from the dyscrasie and fault of the juice watering those parts For when that Liquor in which the animal Spirits do abound was as to its temper highly sharp and Corrosive like Stygian water and as to its mixion was fluffed full of both narcotick and explosive particles it is no wonder because the Spirits being very much burthened and for that cause restrained from their due expansion that they should be forced every where into small explosions as it were Cracklings and that the containing bodies being loosed from their due extension and strength should be also continually irritated into painfull Corrugations or shrinkings up Those Convulsive Distempers did more sharply infest after sleep The growing worse presently after sleep whence it proceeded because the heat of the Bed did exuscitate or stir up the heterogeneous particles of the nervous juce and rarifying them as it were compell'd them into explosions then also because the nervous parts did imbibe its juce in sleep and a more plentifull provision of the morbifick matter brought together with it which being filled to a plentitude at the first instant of waking they immediatly endeavour to shake off what is troublesome For this Reason it is observed that the pains of Scorbutical people and the fits of Asthmatical are made worse by the heat of the bed and by sleep therefore as in these presently to leave the bed was wont to give ease so likewise it did in our sick man But that the trouble Why allayed by Motion excited by the continual leapings and painfull extentions of the muscles was somewhat allayed by the local motion or moving from one place to another of the body or members the reason is because the Animal Spirits whilst they are compelled to divers actions from without they remit whatsoever inordinations are excited from within for as in pain and itching which are lighter Convulsions it helps to press rub or scratch the affected part so the Convulsive motions of the muscles and tendons are somewhat pleased by the inordinate agitation of the whole body or the members As to the Ptyalismus or copious spitting with the stinking breath The spitting which was wont to return at uncertain intervalls we do suppose that might perchance proceed from Mercury sometime secretly given although I have seen many labouring both with Convulsive and also scorbutick distempers in whom this kinde of perpetual defluxion of spittle from the mouth was very troublesome without any suspition of Mercury also some as shall be told hereafter on whom a salivation coming the explosive matter being after this manner Critically evacuated help'd the disease moreover it is likely that this distemper was produced from the mere recrements of the nervous juice and that the salival passages when many and enough were open did receive and convey forth of doors the superfluities plentifully deposited in the glandula's from the nerves and also from the Arteries As to the lucid Intervalls whereby the sick man us'd to obtain some truces Why this sick man obtained some truce from pains though short the cruelties as it were of the disease being mitigated as when but now his sickness had bound him to his chair he was able on a sudden to leap up and walk about but yet this unlook'd-for strength being vanish'd by and by falling again into his wonted languishment I say these kinde of motions of labouring Nature prostrate under a great burthen are its utmost endeavours and some more strong inforcements to wit whereby for a moment of time she recollects her self and attempts as it were to shake off the yoak of the Disease but because she is not able to sustain long this strife she quickly relapses and lies down under her former burthen Truly it is a wonder how much above the strength of Nature Anger and fear and some other passions of the minde do stretch the nervous kinde and compell them to shew a force plainly stupendious But these prodigies of her attempts are only of a small duration The secret leading cause of the aforesaid distemper The Conjunct cause of the aforesaid disease being after this manner designed and the Reasons of the Symptoms chiefly tormenting being shown it remains yet for us to inquire into the secret leading cause to wit by what occasions the nervous juice being become so degenerate at first brings in the Palsie and then leapings or intestine Convulsions of all the muscles further we ought to explain wherefore the fruits of this Disease increasing by little and little came suddenly to maturity by the use of the Baths also wherefore this sickness yielding to no Remedies became uncurable As to the first it may be said that the sick person being sprung from parents who were obnoxious greatly to Cephallic Diseases had contracted originally an evill Constitution of the brain and nervous stock so that within the 6th lustre i.e. about the 36th year of his Age he began to be sick of a spurious Palsie