for drinke and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cuppe Seeing therefore the hornes which are carried about for the Unicornes horne are diverse in colour magnitude and figure it is probable that they come from diverse creatures Therefore whether it be the horn of the Indian Asse which Aelian commends or of the Rhinoceros or of some water creature it is all one so there be experience of the vertue of it Wherefore I would not curiously enquire whether it be an Unicornes horn or some other creatures so it be good and efficacious yea and it is no matter whether the creature hath two hornes or but one Yet it is most certaine as we have said before that Elephants teeth and Whale-bones and Sea-horse teeth and common hornes burnt and those which are digged out of the earth which we have spoken of and other counterfeit and artificiall hornes Elephants and Sea horse teeth commonly sold for Vnicornes hornes are commonly sold for the true Unicornes horne Cardanus saith that Elephants teeth may bee made so pliable by art that they may be made streight like hornes and so set out for the Unicornes horn Neither give eare to them saith Amatus the Portugall who when they goe about to try an Vnicornes horn do infuse the scrapings and powder thereof in water which they say forthwith is troubled and bubbles up for you may perceive the same to happen from the scrapings of any bone infused in water as you may make triall in Ivory So likewise we must take heed that wee doe not give credit to other such experiments which some use to prove the goodnesse of the Unicornes horne for they say that if poyson or some venomous creature be neare unto it it sweats as if it did suffer and were affected with the poyson as also they bid make a circle of the powder of it into the middle of which or into an hollow horn they put a spider which if she passe over they will have it to bee a counterfeit horn but if she burst and die it is naturall all which are false but enough of this CHAP. XXXIX Of certain distilled waters ordained amisse for to drive away feavers BEcause it is such an usuall thing here in England both for men and women to hoard up remedies for divers diseases and to communicate them to one another for secrets we will speak somewhat of certain feaver curing waters which many use especially for agues the which although sometimes they may do good yet many times they are hurtful and pernicious In some Physick-Authors also such waters are found described Quercetanus in his Pharmacopoeâ restitutâ as he calls it names two which he saith are speciall waters for all sorts of feavers especially agues but principally for bastard and exquisite tertians so confidently doe these Chymists make promises of health 1 ad Glauc 3 de simp med Galen himselfe prescribes worm-wood a very hot plant for Tertians and in another place he commends cammomile for the same There are some that will provoke sweat with such hot things And in generall all those waters that I have seen were distilled out of hot simples which adventurously they will use in any intermitting feaver many times to the great hurt of the sick First therefore it is to be noted that intermitting feavers are caused by divers humours both hot and cold unto which one and the same remedy cannot fitly be applyed Secondly seeing that every disease is cured by its contrary it is certain that cholerick humours are inflamed more and increased by the use of these hot remedies and so of an intermitting feaver it may become a continuall Thirdly the cause of an intermitting feaver most commonly lies in the mesentery veines the panereas and other the first passages which dregge it is too dangerous to bring into the habit of the body by such remedies lest the bloud of the veines be polluted especially in cholerick feavers whose cause is for the most part thin and very moveable Fourthly Galen forbids to use vehement and hot remedies in the beginning of a quartane ague which is caused by a cold and dry melancholick humour and he tels a story of Eudemus a Philosopher who in that he did unseasonably use triacle for a quartane ague of a simple it became a double quartane whom neverthelesse Galen cured with the very same remedy seasonably and rightly administred Therfore these hot things are good in those feavers only which are procreated by cold humours or in a bastard Tertian in which there is a great quantity of flegmatick humours mixed with the cholerick Aguish waters not to be used till the humour be concocted or when there are very gross and stubborne obstructions and the bowels very feeble and weakened but not before the concoction of the humour thus Galen for a quartane prescribes a medicine of succus cyrenaicus but not untill the humor is concocted So hee commends wormewood in a Tertian but utterly dislikes it before concoction In like manner and by the same reason these hot waters are to be rejected but after the concoction of the morbous humour in a stubborne disease they may be profitable Therfore these hot things are not to be rashly administred in feavers for one that had adventurously used them in a quartane feaver of a simple made it a double quartane as we said before And there is the same cause of feare likewise lest the same happen by the use of these waters The advise of a learned physician ever requisite Therefore let the advice and counsell of a skilfull learned and faithfull Physician bee alwayes taken who may appoint convenient times for all remedies Nor let the people rashly trust to their Receits as they call them for they are even the hand of God when they are administred by a skilfull Physician but as it were a sword in the hand of a mad man when one meddles with them who doth not well understand the rules of Physick CHAP. XL. That Iuleps and other cooling Potions are to bee administred in a large dose I Have often observed when Physicians prescribe Apozemes Juleps and other cooling potions for them that bee sick of feavers that the by-standers doe usually administer them in a very little dose as but 2 or 3 spoonfuls But here is to be noted that those remedies that are prescribed to prepare the humours are not of the nature of them that contain much strength in a very little quantity but contrary wise seeing they work by the first and second qualities unlesse there be a proportion in quantity betwixt the humour that is to be altered and the Physick it is but in vaine prescribed for if they doe notovercome the humour they are overcome by it and corrupted In a very hot feaver if the aforesaid Juleps be either altogether denied The necessity of cooling and altering juleps in feavers or but sparingly administred the body is dried by the heat of the feaver and decaies so as
custome and inclination of nature to a mans own Country aire and usuall manner of diet which wee acquire by little and little without changing of that proper and inbred temperament which we derive from our parents from whence it comes to passe that some live better in their owne Country aire although unwholsome than in another Avicenne saith that an Indian would be sick if he were in Sclavonia Although that is not always true for it may be that some Englishman may live more healthfully in Spain than in his own native Country CHAP. XV. Of them that referre almost all diseases to a Cold. IT is a thing very frequent and ordinary when any falls into a disease or is not well to blame some externall cold from which he hath not carefully preserved himself And indeed this may oftentimes be the cause of many diseases For the aire is attracted by us continually by inspiration and transpiration and it doth impart its qualities to us whatsoever they bee But it hurts most of all when the pores being opened through heat a cold comes of a sudden for it obstructs and stops them presently from whence by reason of the fuliginous vapors retained fevers doe ordinarily ensue in cacochymick bodies but in others pain wearinesse difficulty of breathing Cold aire being inspired makes the gristles of the lungs become stiffe so that the lungs can scarce bee dilated Hence oftentimes the vessels of the lungs are broken and of other parts also and the bloud runs into some capacity and putrifies corrupts and stirs up naughty symptomes But concerning this thing it will not be amisse to give some notice of a few monitions First that all that blame this cause are not therefore sick by reason of it for there are sundry other externall causes of diseases Therefore commonly they that live in a cold aire reap not any evill thereby but the same parties even in the height of Summer and being well clad with cloaths doe notwithstanding complaine that they get cold to their hurt the same may be said of other externall causes of diseases In one and the same City there are many that breath in the same aire use the same exercises and the same diet yet when they fall into diseases they are troubled with sundry and in every respect different diseases If any man shall say that he is sick through a surfeit of meats or drinks perhaps he had eaten or drunk as largely a hundred times before and without any harm to himself which in like manner may be said of cold aire and immoderate labour when many a time hee hath endured a colder aire and undergone the same labour without receiving the least hurt it is a wonder how now he should bee sick thereby So we often see the last meat or that exercise that one hath last used or the last cold which he hath taken before the disease to be blamed as also the last remedy is thought to have procured health Where it is to be noted that these are called externall causes and that they doe not alwayes and at every time affect the body but then onely when an inward disposition lurks in the body and a morbous preparation which such causes do stir up Secondly they must take notice that those externall causes doe vanish away and continue not but their effects to wit the diseases stirred up by the inward causes do remain in the body and therefore the contemplation of externall causes is not always necessary for the knowledge or curing of diseases but of the internall alone which stirre up and foster the disease For wee see a disease that hath had its beginning from a cold aire neverthelesse not to be cured although the temper of the aire be changed but often to continue hard to be cured From whence also Thirdly it is to be noted that remedies are not to be measured according to the nature of externall causes for they indicate nothing For so hot things should bee alwayes good for them in whom cold hoth been the cause of the beginning of a disease which is not true for many times cooling things doe profit more From a cool aire as we have said many times burning feavers doe arise as also from baths that are too cold whereby the pores of the body are stopped and the fuliginous vapours retained by which the bloud is inflamed If the people doe here as usually they are wont encounter the disease with remedies that are of a heating quality they will be so farre from vanquishing the disease as that they will rather increase it more In this case inward cooling medicines and as Galen often teaches letting of bloud is the principall remedy In the eighth book of Method hee lets bloud in a diary that is generated by the obstruction of the skinne lest there follow putrefaction For though the externall cause bee cold yet the internall to which alone the cure is to applyed is often hot and is made so by reason of the corrupt humours that are kept in POPVLAR ERROVRS The Third Book Of the Errours about the Diet as well of the Sound as of the Sick CHAP. I. Of the goodnesse of Waters HIppocrates Galen Avicenne and other of the principall Physicians doe so commend the drinking of water in diseases that next to the letting of bloud they attribute thereunto the chiefest place in curing burning feavers and it is also the ordinary drink of many Nations Yet now a dayes some doe so much abhorre from the use thereof that they think it almost present poyson Now they think that the waters in England in respect of the coldnesse of the Climate are more crude and not so pure and wholsome as those in France Spain and the hot Countries And indeed every one ought to be solicitous of the goodnesse of the waters The best is discerned by the smell colour taste levity of it in the hypochondres and by the quick and speedy receiving of heat and cold So as that is best which is bright and cleare to the sight tastes and smells of nothing at all as also which is the lightest thinnest and soon passes through the belly Since then such water may bee found every where Good waters even in cold climates even in the most frozen Countries and I have often found such in this Country we may conjecture of their grosse errour that doe generally condemne their owne Country waters Now this is their errour that by the coldnesse of the Country they reckon the goodness or unwholsomenesse of the water hence they think that it is excessively cold and therefore crude and hard of digestion which Hippocrates calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which thing is not to be admitted for the water borrowes not its crudity or goodnesse from the Sun because the heat of the Sun cannot warm the water in the bowels of the Earth for it cannot penetrate so far which scarce pierces through the roofs of our houses unto us This doe the cellars under
curing this or any other disease but only to shew to the people their Errours that they may have alwayes recourse to a Physician if they be sick Although oftentimes greater danger is like to happen by the physician then by the disease and men presently give credit to every one that professes himself to be a Physician I who write these things for my owne part reckon not neither who nor how many they be that practise physick whether learned or unlearned even as it is with them that be sick if they doe but consult with some Physician in name only they care not what he be if he can but stammer out a little Latine and they falsly stile him Doctour of Physick though he be ignorant of the very principles of physick and never read Galen or Hippocrates POPVLAR ERROVRS The Second BOOK Of the Errours about some diseases and the knowledge of them CHAP. I. Of the deceitfull judgment of Vrines NOw is the most common Errour to bee refuted which first gave occasion to this Treatise for hee is scarce thought worthy to be a Physician who cannot by Urines judge of diseases and their circumstances which Errour even Physicians doe too patiently foster It was of old very ordinary with the Arabian sect and it was a common custome also in France in the times of Valescus and Gordonius Plantius in the life of Fernel relates that that most excellent physician was wont to look into urines that were brought from abroad unto him which abuse not withstanding he approves not but reprehends them which like Southsayers doe prophesie many things of the absent sick party Pisse-prophets by only looking upon the urine That there was very great fraud therein the bookes which Gordonius and others have set forth concerning the cautions of urines doe plainly shew wherein a Physician is taught how he may deceive the people as also take heed to himself of their subtilties Yea to this day among the Germanes this custome is in force even whether the Physicians will or no of whom many doe speak sharply against it Heurnius Foresins Sennertus and others but most excellently Fuchsius in the beginning of his chapter of urines he calls Physicians that peep into urines asses cheaters pisse-drinkers unworthy with whom good men should contend seeing they more esteeme of the gain they get by urine then of truth it selfe But now a dayes in France and Italy the Physicians have quite abandoned this foolish custome of divining by urine First urine is the whey of those humours which are in the veines Now the humours are causes of very many diseases and therefore urine will shew what humours are there But diseases are not in the veines they are all in the substance of the parts Vrine shews not diseases but their causes They will not therefore indicate the diseases but the causes of them only But from the same cause there are many diseases The burning fever frenzie jaundice every sort of erysipelas and herpes proceeds from choler If a very cholerick urine be brought can the pisse-prophet tell which of these diseases doth trouble the patient perhaps he will conjecture that choler is predominant Secondly as in diverse diseases Vrine varies every day and sick parties as we have already said the same urine may appeare so in one and the same sick man it is various and changes every day that if to day a sick mans urine bee brought to a physician and againe to morrow unlesse by some other way he know the disease he shall scarce judg it to be the urine of the same disease Yea the water is of one sort in the beginning of the paroxisme of another in the increase and of another in the height Thirdly the same water may appear in contrary diseases The same urine â—n contrâ—ry diseases even though they depend on contrary and altogether different causes As for example let the pisse-prophet resolve me If a white and clear water be brought is he well or sick that made the water A man in health having drunk much wine or beer and ale may make such urine as is dayly seen A sick man may labour of a very violent burning fever with the frensie Diabetes is when whatsoever is drunke is pissed out again even as it was drunk choller being carried up to his head he may be troubled with the Diabetes or the obstruction of the bowels or liver or with the weakness of the stomack or the stone or some other diseases but which of these diseases will he suppose it to be Will he judge the frenzie to be of a cold distemper Moreover a bilious urine may be made in phlegmatick diseases through the obstruction of the passage by which choler is carried to the intestines Fourthly diseases whose cause is not contained in the veines cannot be knowne by the urine for many diseases do not so much as alter the urine Such are externall diseases luxations roughnesse or smoothnesse of the parts yea the quartane ague it self which is an inward disease although it be an effect of the melancholy humour yet it holds forth no signes of it in urine neither in the fit nor out of the fitt Gilbertus an English man in his praxis in the chapter of the quartane ague and Richardus a very learned man as Arculanus reports in his Commentaries upon the first section of the fourth cannon of Avicenne the second tractate chap. 65. did ingenuously professe that by urines they could never know the quartane feaver not the epilepsie nor a woman to be with child O that in our times Physicians were so ingenuous and free These are the words of Arculanus that learned Physician in whose time this custome of divining by waters was very rife I doe not believe saith he that a quartane fever can be knowne by the water alone because of the great agreement of the quartan with the quotidian in urine and especially in the beginning Of which opinion chiefly was Gilbertus an English man in the first booke of his praxis in the chapter of the quartane reproving some ignorant habbling fellowes that professe themselves to know all sicknesses by urine as many Physicians in Lombardie even at this day mockers of men who as they say by urine know all diseases even the putrid feaver who neverthelesse when they are present and consider all the signes yet know but very little For as master Richard the most learned and experienced of all the learned saith looking upon these pratlers and boasters of their judgment in urine that in their much speaking are eloquent but in reason slender and mute in his most excellent treatise of urines whose singular learning to be compared with none in many things he saith he followed he blames them in these words Some prating saith he and arrogant fellowes doe exceede beyond all due bounds and interlace learning with rules invented by their owne authoritie But I call God to witnesse that neither by care nor art
account thick and and troubled urine a good signe because the obstructions seeme to be opened and the humour that breeds the disease to be evacuated This happens indeed sometimes in the stone in criticall evacuations and by vertue of medicament They betoken crudity But when such waters are made without a diminution of the disease they argue a crude and stubborne disease and heat and cruditie of humours for all concoction makes cleare urines But they are the worst of all which are pissed out troubled and continue so because of the very great agitation of the humours in the veines and the great conflict that nature hath with the disease and as Hippocrates observes they foretell the head-ach frenzy convulsion death 7. Epidem Polyphantus with such an urine was distracted in his mind and dyed in a convulsion CHAP. V. That the consumption cannot be knowne by the urine IT is a familiar thing also with many when they bring their waters to Physicians to aske them whether they thinke the sick party is in a consumption or no. In which particular they erre two manner of wayes First in that they doe not distinguish the true consumption from other diseases but call every wasting of the body by what cause soever it comes a consumption as we shall treat more at large in the following chapter Secondly because neither the ulcer of the lungs nor the hecticke 〈◊〉 which are properly consumptions can be known by by urine Nor have Galen and Hippocrates taken any signe of these diseases from urine the reason is because no proper nor unseparable signe of a consumption can be drawne either from the substance colour or contents because urine is the whey of the humours that are contained in the veines therefore upon the diversitie of humours the change of of urine doth depend But in them that have the consumption the lungs especially are affected and the whole body in hecticks and not the humours Wee have said already that the diseases of the lungs are discerned by spittle not by urine and though it be good to looke into urine yet it helps not to the knowledge of the disease but onely to the prognostication of the danger that is like to ensue for if it appeare to be naught it increases the danger But the Arabians said that these urines are fat and oyly whom also many of our late writers doe follow although they doe not agree among themselves yet for the most part they grant that in the beginning of a hectick nothing certaine can be knowne by urines but in processe of time when the fatty humidity is consumed such urines doe appeare as we have already said But Alexander Trallianus makes noe mention of fatty urines but thinne and fiery and crude for in regard that concoction is made by the solid parts if they be distempered the urine cannot be well concocted but be thinne fiery and crude as in a hot and dry distemper Neverthelesse from thence it cannot be concluded that a Physician not seeing the sick can by urines know a hecticke feaver for such urines appeare in other affects and may happen through divers causes and therefore except other causes doe concurre they note no certaintie The same may be said of oyly urines of which much might be spoken seeing that there is a diverse acception of this word with Galen and other Physicians But in this place those urines are meant which have fat swimming aloft which Hippocrates will have to be a bad signe 2. progn tex 35 If fat like to spiders webs float aloft it is to be disliked for it betokens melting Yet it doth not from thence follow that these urines doe shew the consumption for such urines are oftentimes seen in them that be in health 4. de sanitat tuendâ as Galen observe For seeing that grease and fatnesse are made of blood well concocted it is noe wonder if some portion thereof swimme above the urine as is usually found in coole broths Moreover it may come to passe by much lying upon the backe the fat of the kidneyes growing hot therewith and these two cases are very ordinary and there are few that cannot observe such urine in themselves But those that come from causes preternaturall doe appeare in malignant and burning feavers which we call * melting or wasting syntecticke feavers seldome in a consumption and hecticke in which no such melting doth appeare but the humours are wasted by an insensible transpiration 10. meth cap. ult Hence Galen puts this difference betwixt syntecticke hecticke feavers that in these what is wasted is resolved in forme of a vapour but in them it flowes downe into the belly for the heat of a hectick is but very little and gentle so as the sick do scarce perceive themselves to be in a feaver Therefore neither Galen nor Hippocrates nor the ancient Physicians who observed these urines did ever attribute them to hecticks but to burning and pestilentiall Feavers onely But if any fatnesse do flow out with the urine in hecticks it argues that another Feaver is joyned with the hectick to wit a malignant or burning Feaver which case is exceeding dangerous I have now while I write this a hectick in cure in whom such urine never appeared which I have often observed in others that are not sick at all And although we should grant that such urines appeare in those that be in a Consumption yet because they may also proceed from other causes how can the Physician that onely lookes upon the urine and perhaps knows not the party himselfe certainly finde out the disease But as we have said enough of the deceitfull judgement of Urines I will only adde thus much that it was wisely prohibited by the Colledge of Physicians at London that any Physician professe that counterfeit divination These are the words of that order It is a ridiculous and foolish thing by looking into Vrines alone Judging by urine a ridiculous custome to goe about after the mannor of Witches and Conjurers to divine any thing as certaine and solid either of the kinde and nature of diseases or of the state and condition of the sick Wee admonish therefore all Physicians that they behave themselves for the future in this particular much more warily than hath been wont heretofore to be practised by many And for this cause we forbid all that practise physick that they preseribe any thing in Physick for those idiots and silly women that carry about the urinals of the sick except they either first know well or see the sick party himself or at least be plainely fully and sufficiently informed by them that aske their counsell of the whole disease wherewith the sick doth labour and of the severall circumstances thereof For by this meanes we shall both better mainetain the dignitie of the Physician and also more fitly and skilfully bethink our selves of those remedies which shall be most profitable for one that is in
inbred propriety of nature Hence the * Marsi and * Psilli were not hurt of serpents and Pyrrhus his finger was not burnt by fire And hence it is also that some even in a most raging plague remain free from all hurt and some are infected upon the least occasion By the same occult quality it happens that what is poyson to one is wholsome a remedy yea and sometimes meat to another Seeing therfore that the natures of bodies are unlike very different thence it is that some are overcome and infected presently but others not without much difficulty For no cause can act without a disposition of the patient otherwise all that dwell together under the same Sunne Lib. de flat should be alike sick of Feavers or otherwise alike affected Hippocrates saith one body differs from another one nature from another and one temperament from another And for that cause the same things are not profitable or hurtfull to all To this concurres also a moderate diet a healthfull body voyd of corrupt humours of free transpiration temperate dry rather than moyst Lib. 7. cap. 50. cold rather than hot Therefore Plinie hath observed that old men are not so soon infected with the Plague as young men because of the coldnesse of their bodies and especially if they use a moderate diet and exercise CHAP. VIII Whether it be lawfull to fly in the time of Plague or no. THe second was whether it be lawfull to fly The Turks fear not the plague and withdraw a mans selfe out of danger although the Plague be defined to be contagious The Turks as Prosper Alpinus relates in his first book of Egyptian remedies doe not regard the Pestilence because they thinke that God hath destinated to every one his manner of death so as he that must perish in warre cannot be killed with the Plague of which opinion are some Christians also It is the office of Divines to enquire more diligently into that whether it be lawfull for a Magistrate or a Master of a Family or Children and such as be bound to others by a naturall or civill right to fly and in what cases I will only adde thus much that holy men seeme to have feared death because never any man hated his own flesh for both Elias and Moses fled Abraham chused rather to expose his wives Chastitie to hazard than his own life Yea and it is lawfull to avoyd all dangers Though GOD send a Famine for the punishment of our sinnes yet it is lawfull yea it is necessary to shunne it for he is guilty of his owne destruction who doth thrust himself into present danger Who will not shunne the raging enemy who will not avoyd flaming fire who is he that in swimming if he can will not save himselfe from present drowning Ought no man with clothes and fire to drive away cold because it is a punishment of God or being wounded or sick entreat the help of the Physician God promises long life as a blessing it shall therefore be lawfull by any meanes to preserve it from eminent danger The end of reason Therefore reason is given to man not that he may promise to himselfe the immediate help of GOD but that he may wisely and discreetly make use of those means which he hath created and ordained What man that is in his wits will expose himselfe to a roaring Lion and will not rather provide for himself by flight or some other means But the Pestilence as Galen teaches is as cruell as a wilde beast Lâ—bâ—de Theri ad Pisonem sometimes depopulating whole Cities Wherefore if a mans calling hinder not no man will suffer himself to be perswaded to stay among those that are sick of the Plague Which policy I see many do wisely follow neglecting the rash pietie of some For that Christians ought not to feare death is to be understood that they must not bee daunted in courage with the fear of death nor yet are sins to be committed that death may be avoyded And lastly in death if by no meanes it can be avoyded they must not despaire And therefore Hippocrates saith it is the safest way Hippocrates his counsell to fly soon and farre and to returne late Yet it is not expedient for all to fly for some are to be appointed to provide things needful for them that be sick But they to whom it is not granted to fly let them take heed to themselves by alteration of the aire and by Antidotes CHAP. IX What kinde of death may be prevented by the help of Physick THe Turks as we have already said out of Alpinus doe rush adventurously into all dangers because they are strongly perswaded that there is destinated unto every man a certaine manner of death either by Famine or Warre or Water or Hanging or by a Disease or by Age. Yea amongst us there are some so superstitious A superstitious conceit and I have known many such who would have a certain number of daies assigned to every man that it is not possible for the life to be prolonged beyond it and if any man chance to perish by the default of the Physicians or of the by-standers they excuse them because it is impossible to save him whom GOD calls to himselfe Thus word by word I have expressed their opinion Which absurd opinion doth very much favour some mongrell Physicians who at hap hazard without any art attempt the cure of diseases For thus the choice both of Physicians and Medicaments is taken away nor matters it whether to a learned or unlearned to an experienced or ignorant man the life of man be committed seeing of necessity he must have dyed whom the rashnesse or ignorance of Physicians or by-standers or some other mischance hath taken away God can doe whatsoever he pleases But because he doth usually work by the help and means of secondary causes except a man make use of them he hastens his own death as he that hanged poysoned or otherwise killed himself made his life shorter which might have been longer The art of Physick doth not promise any man everlasting life for at the length wee must all yeeld unto Fate as the God of Nature will have it who therefore made the principles of our bodies passive that at length by causes internall and externall they may be overcome Nor yet doth it excuse the Physician by whose default the sick doth perish but it keeps off the eminent dangers of our life lest it perish before the time and before mature old age Who knows not that the body is shaked and weakened by the violence of diseases and that it is patched up againe by Physick and that by the neglect or unseasonable use of remedies it doth at length sinke under the burden Who knowes not that a man by a fall or a stroake or by some other way may be wounded and that he may die thereof unlesse it be well cured who otherwise might have lived longer
that there is no sympathy betwixt the stomach and the hands because there is a threefold reason of sympathie A threefold reason of sympathy First of vicinitie the second of familiaritie of function the third by communion of vessels which things we may apply to the Liver and the hands For betwixt them there is no vicinitie or nearnesse in regard of scituation no familiaritie of function if there be any sympathy it must be of the third kinde to wit by communion of vessels but the vessels that issue out of the Liver are not carried to the hands alone but to the whole body In the hands besides the veines there are arteries which convey to them a greater heat from the heart Therefore from the hands ought not to be inferred rather the heat of the Liver then of the heart Besides the heat of the Liver is perpetuall or at least of long continuance but that heat of the hands is fugitive 6. Epid. Sect. 2. text 32. Fen. 13. lib. 3. tract 1. cap. 3. 4. Colliget cap 4. often goes and comes again Againe other Authours attribute it to the Spleen to wit if the Spleen tend upwards but if it incline downwards the lower parts are said to be hot * Avicenne will have long fingers to shew the magnitude and heat of the Liver but * Averrhoes laughs at him And the man whom thou knowest saith that the shortnesse of the fingers betokens a little Liver and herein it appears that he knew not wherein the power of forming did consist and considered not but in the parts themselves but let him goe with the rest Which are the words of Averrhoes who believed not that the signes of the temperature or conformation of the Liver could be drawn from the hands seeing there is no more peculiar sympathy between these parts than others Therefore Galen in Arte parvâ when he explicates the signes of an hot Liver omitted that figne of the heat of the hands as did the rest of the Greeks Aetius Aegineta and others Argenterius in his commentary on the forenamed place of the Art of Physick blames Galen for omitting this sign But more rightly do others defend Galen because that signe is nothing else then the vaine imagination of the vulgar for not onely the hands but the whole body is necessarily made hot neither is that heat of the hands permanent but unstable and uncertain CHAP. XII Of them that complaine of a hot Liver but a cold Stomach IT is a common and ordinary thing for many to complaine of the heat of the Liver and coldnesse of the Stomach because they feele winde and crudities in their Stomach together with some running heats in the body as in the face hands and feet But these are to be admonished of some things First it is certaine that the Stomach because it is a spermaticall part membranous and bloodlesse and white is of a cold temperament The Stomach is naturally of a cold temperament but to thinke that the heat of the Liver can hurt it is an absurditie For Galen writes that it was fenced about by Nature on every side with hot Intrailes that it might more compleatly execute its functions it lies in the middle between the Liver the Spleen the Caule and the gut Colon and is encompassed with them on every side that like a cauldron among a great many fires it may be made hot by them wherefore Riolanus in his Anthropographie doth not thinke it a thing probable that the heat of the Liver should diminish the heate of the Stomach but rather augment it Secondly it ought to be observed that the forenamed symptomes doe often happen in them that be in health that have a hot temper of the bowels but use an ill diet For by too much drinking either of wine and of Ale and Beere abundance of crudities in the belly doe grow and swimmings belchings windinesse and spittings doe arise for it is an ordinary thing Strong drinks breed cold diseases for cold affects to proceed from too much gulleting even of hot drinks which do not happen by a distemper of the part but through the fault of him that takes them In the mean while the Liver drawes unto it the thinner spirits of those drinkes whereby it is enflamed and so distributes too hot blood to the whole body Thence it is that they seem to feele heat in the body and cruditie in the Stomach at the same time And so they falsly accuse the contrary distempers of the parts not blaming their owne intemperance But if they would live soberly and use moderate drinkes they should experience no such matter Thirdly some are troubled with it although they live soberly and such are hypocondriacke persons whose * They are the parts contained in the belly hypocondres are hot and dry and obstructed which evill is very common in this country and it arises most commonly from the aforesaid cause namely a disordered diet But in them the Stomach is not made colder by reason of the vicinitie of the hot hypocondres but because many melancholy and flatulent humours are cast into the stomach which vitiate concoction whereupon they thinke they have a colder stomach than indeed they have Thence it is that Physicians demand how it comes to passe that hypocondriake persons seeing they are oppressed with a hot disease doe neverthelesse abound with winde and cruditie◠The cause whereof although some Physicians referre to the cold Stomach yet it is better as we have said to referre it to the corrupt humours weakning the temper of the Stomach from whence proceed not onely tart crudities which come from cold but also nidorous belchings which doe arise from heate especially if the party cat nidorous meat as fried Egges and the like Hence one sayes well that the symptomes in an hypochondriake passion are many of them cold but the cause is hot CHAP. XIII That the Husband cannot breed his Wives childe AMong very many Errours this seems most worthy to bee laughed at that the husband is thought to bee sick and troubled with the same symptomes wherewith a woman with child is wont yea and many will have this thing to be confirmed by experience I had a patient sick of a Feaver with a very high coloured and troubled urine who would not be perswaded of any other cause of his sicknesse then his wives being with childe I doe not remember that I have read of it at any time nor heard it observed in any place but in England It is certaine that women with childe in the first moneths of their conception are wont to bee troubled with very many and sundry symptomes especially they that are of cacochymick and impure bodies Now they doe usually arise from the retention of their Flowers For seeing Nature is wont to use that Flux not only for the purging out of superfluous blood but of corrupt and vitious humours also such blood being retent and kept in they are likewise retained
That blood retained because for the smalnesse of the young one in the beginning of her graviditie it is not at all spent for the nourishment thereof doth putrifie and hath recourse either to the noble parts or at least annoyes them with filthy vapours which it sends forth from whence arise the aforesaid symptomes in the stomach intrailes belly head and the whole body as vomiting loathing of meat unsatiable longing and lusting gripings dizzinesse of the head and such like Seeing therefore the husband hath not in him the causes of these affects but his wife onely it stands with reason that shee onely should be sick Nor if any husband be sick when his wife is with childe was hee infected by his wife for that distemper may happen through some peculiar fault of his owne body As while I write this it raines yet neither is my writing the cause of the raine nor the raine of my writing It is no new thing for husbands and their wives to bee both sick together But it is a wonder and heretofore a thing unknown that graviditie or a womans being with childe is a contagious disease and that not other women but men only whom nature hath freed from this travaile should be infected therewith Furthermore it is observed that the same symptomes do not happen to all women or at least not all to every one and yet it often falls out that when the woman is in good health the husband is sick yea sometimes being many miles off But if he endure that by his wives being with childe how comes it to passe that she continues well at the same time For naturall causes doe sooner worke upon the near than upon the remote subject And for that cause seeing the woman carries about her such noxious humours she should be sooner and more grievously sick I know something might be said of simpathy antipathy contagion fascination and other such trifles But if these things be so why do not maids and widows who are very often troubled with the like symptomes through suppression of their flowers infect their bedfellows and familiars seeing there is the same cause and without doubt they may have a sympathy with some of them To cause a contagion not only the efficacie of the agent but also a disposition and analogy in the patient is requisite But who believes not that another woman is more prone to receive and take the symptomes of gravidity than a man seeing they were all created for propagation of children and therefore one woman ought to take great heed to her self of another Moreover it may happen that a woman that is sore troubled with the green sicknesse as they call it is married to a man whom notwithstanding although her flowers be suppressed she shall never infect why then when the same woman is with childe and there is no other reason of sickness then suppression of the flowers shall her husband be sick Men would be in an ill case if as often as there were a suppression of their wives flowers so often they not their wives should bee sick But because by the very relating of it the absurdity of this errour doth appeare I will adde no more Iupiter bore Bacchus in his thigh and Pallas in his brain but let this be proper to him alone CHAP. XIIII Whether forraine Physicians and Aliens can know the temper of the sick of another Countrey TO know the temperature of the sick conduces much to the knowledge of diseases and their cure and this businesse requires a long and difficult handling I will onely say thus much that some are of opinion that Strangers cannot know the temperature of them of another Country as French men of the English But that is repugnant to the nature of the Art of Physick the precepts whereof are generall The precepts of Physick are generall and may easily be applyed to any Country For every art is of universals not of particulars therefore here in England all that are skilfull Artists doe practise Physick according to the precepts of Galen and Hippocrates which if any man doe well understand he is able to discerne the diversitie of men according to their ages countries and the different temper of the aire and what medicaments are convenient for them Concerning which Hippocrates hath written an excellent book of aire waters and places For the Art of Physick wheresoever it is taught doth lay downe marks and signes which are taken from Countries both for the knowledge and prognostication of diseases and indications which the diversitie of Countries doth afford for the appointment of a right diet letting of bloud prescribing of purges and administring of all other remedies Otherwise it were no Art if it should accommodate its precepts to some particular place only Galen who was borne and brought up in Greece practised Physick at Rome Hence 3 prognost Hippocrates saith that his documents may be applyed to any Country either hot or cold to Lybia Delos Scythia and the rest Also the Arabians have borrowed from the Greeks their precepts of curing which are the very same with the Galenists which we promiscuously follow Therefore it was wisely ordered by the Spaniards and Portugals that in India where they beare rule Physick should be practised after the self same manner that it is in Europe according to the doctrine of Galen and Hippocrates I know much might be said of that variety of temperature which Countries doe give to the inhabitants for even in one and the same Kingdome there is a great diversitie of inhabitants in respect of the divers situation of the Countryes nature of the soyle blowing of the wind and other causes for the diligent search of all which the Art of Physick layes down rules And yet whatsoever the Climate and Country be even in the most Northern Climates there are men of every temper hot cold cholerick flegmatick sanguine melancholick One that without license practised Physick a Surgeon by profession that he might doe me a displeasure was often wont to say that Frenchmen cannot understand the nature and constitution of the English I once asked him what was that constitution of an Englishman wherein he differs from a Frenchman by what signes he could know it seeing that in every place are men of every temperature which things seeing they cannot be knowne but of a learned Physician it is no wonder if every simple medicine-monger be ignorant of them For it is a thing exceeding hard to be known Therfore Galen said that if he could but perfectly know the temperature of his Patients he should be another Aesculapius I will now only adde thus much that what is talked by the vulgar concerning the temperature of divers people is well understood but of few for all men have their proper temperaments differing from others ingendred in them from the principles of generation they cannot therefore have any thing common in which all men can agree That same therefore is onely a certain
But the broth of a young Cock doth nourish very well and tempers the humours and therefore is very good for them that be sick I read in the old copies of Dioscorides and others except that Translation of Ruellius as Mathiolus reports That the broth of a young Cock especially is given to temper vitious humours and in the heats of the stomach simply prepared But Mesues saies very well of this businesse * Cap. 23. de simpl purg where after he had reckoned the flesh of young Cocks and Hennes among the best meats hee addes as Silvius interprets The nitrous and salt flesh of old Cocks especially unfit for meat is Physicall chiefly in the broth thereof but principally of hazled cocks which are quick for motion hot for copulation strong to fight meane betwixt fat and leane and the elder they be the more Physicall they are saith Galen This broth in respect of the nitrous and salt substance of it is hot it cleanseth detergeth attenuateth discusseth winde being boyled with the seed of Dill or wild Carrot Polypodie and Salgemme it asswageth the paine of the stomack colon small guts and reines arising from wind opens obstructions purgeth fleagme with Turbith and Carthamum and therefore it is good against the paines of the gowt that arise from thence c. From whence it is manifest that an old cock is not used for to nutrifie but for the Physicall vertues thereof wherefore for the future they shall doe better that shall administer young cock-broth to the sick for to nourish them For the opinion of Hippocrates Galen and of all Physicians is stable that old flesh is not fit for nourishing and therefore we must conclude that it is not convenient for the sick CHAP. IX That gold is in vaine boyled in broth for them that are in a Consumption IT is usuall with some to put gold into the broth of the sick especially for them that are in consumptions which although I doe not hold to be hurtfull or any way pernicious to them yet I thinke it is altogether unprofitable Touching the vertue of gold there is indeed no small controversie among Physicians The vertues of gold For many excellent Physicians are of opinion that it is good for the affects of the heart to renew the sight to cure the palpitation syncope leprosie epilepsie and being quenched in wine to cure the paines of the spleene to help those that be melancholick and to hinder putrifafaction Fen 5. cap. 7. Avicenne saith that in gold there are hidden qualities which are good against poyson if a new borne child hold it in his mouth he need never feare the Devill if a woman with child drinke it she shall not bring forth an abortive But in his book de medic cordialibus he places gold betwixt silver and the hyacinth and he will have it to be of more vertue than silver but lesse than the hyacinth The filings of gold is an ingredient in the remedies against melancholly But hee addes that silver is somewhat cold and dry Of Silver and that the operation thereof is like to the hyacinth save that it is weaker Of the Hyacinth Now to the hyacinth he attributes the vertue of cheering and comforting the heart and of resisting poyson which vertues saith he doth flow from the hyacinth as the vertue of drawing iron from the loadstone neither can gold be dissolved and overcome by our heat as vegetables are for saith he the substance thereof doth not yeeld thereto but only our naturall heat helps the penetrating quality thereof Fernel himself highly commends it in that it partakes not of the malignity that is in most mettals Also Paracelsus contends that all diseases even the leprosie and the gowt may be cured by the use of it And them doe many moderne Physicians follow and mixe gold in sundry medicaments But others deny all these things Antonius Musa Brassavolus Andreas Baccius of Baths Fallopius Erastus Rondeletius Duretus and other excellent men Savanarola extolls aqua vitae above all gold as being drawne out of a vegetable and so a cordiall familiar to the nature of man This controversie I will not make mine in this place for though gold may seeme to be an excellent cordiall and a strengthening medicament though it be not hurtfull to seeth it in broths yet it doth no good at all for nothing is dissolved from it nor passes into the liquor except some drosse because of the substance which is so very compact as it can bee dissolved with no fire with no boyling Againe it is not easily * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consubstantiated with us it cannot be overcome by our heat nor doth it turne into bloud nor can it repaire the losse of spirits seeing it is so different from our nature and cannot be converted into it for the substance of mettals is so different from the nature of man that after what manner soever they be prepared they can never become aliments and for that cause gold can never cure the leprosie nor a hectick nor a consumption nor diseases that are caused of evacuation which diseases need not only alteration but also addition of some substance which no mettall can supply Seeing then that those that that are hectick doe not require to be corroborated in quality alone but to bee repaired by a substantiall moysture in vaine shall gold bee sodden in their broths for verily it cannot repaire the losse of radicall moysture seeing it it is not converted into aliment but is voyded as it was taken or boyled without any diminution of the weight Yet all this doth not take from it the cordiall vertue which perhaps is in it to conquer poysons and melancholy diseases but only proves there is no vertue in it for nourishing Gold nourishes not Sennertus cheated by a Germane Impostor Not long since the good man Daniel Sennertus in the preface of his booke de consensu Chymicorum being deceived by a Germane sycophant wrote that a hen being crammed a whole moneth with leafe gold doth so perfectly turn the gold into her owne substance that three pure golden lines as if they were drawne by a workman may be seene in her breast which is indeed an extraordinary manner of nourishing to wit for the food that is taken so to retaine its owne nature even to the third concoction that it should be altogether unchanged this is plainely repugnant to the nature of the body nourished that it should notwithstanding be turned into the substance thereof But they that have made triall can testifie that this experiment was false as that learned man and heretofore well knowne of me at Montauban Petrus Laurenbergius under whom at that time I studied Philosophy doth professe of himselfe in his examination of the Aphorismes of Augelus Sala But this is not the onely deceit of the Chymicall Impostors who to one true experiment doe use to annex a great many false ones and extoll such vertues of
colour preferred before red because that colour doth dissipate the sight and call forth the spirits to the externall parts and so by consequence further the springing forth of the humours into the skin CHAP. XX. That they erre who thinke to drive away a disease beginning by labour IT is the custome of many when they feele themselves begin to besick to labour to shake off the disease by walking exercises and labours following herein the old saying Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito Unto diseases give no way Be bold and let them beare no sway And somtimes it succeeds well to them not alwayes except the cause of the disease be very light For exercise is troublesome and hurtfull to the sick in regard of the agitation of the morbous humours thereby Prodicus was wont to molest those that were in feavers with much walking abroad coursing about wrestling and dry fomentations but he is blamed by Hippocrates 6 epid sect 3. text 23. because saith he a feaver is exasperated by hunger wrestling walking abroad coursing and frictions for from thence did happen a rednesse of the veines palenesse of the face and some gentle paines of the sides This custome of walking to and fro in diseases Plato attributes to Herodicus in the beginning of Phaedrus So Asclepiades in the beginning of a burning feaver would have the Patient to use violent exercise but he is blamed by Celsus He thought saith he that the strength of the sick was to be disquieted with labour light lib. 2. cap. 4. 15. watching and vehement thirstinesse so as that for some few dayes in the beginning of the feaver he would not suffer their mouthes to be washed It is not therefore alwaies safe to strive against the disease with such violent exercises for many times the Patient becomes farre worse after them than the was before POPVLAR ERROVRS The Fourth BOOK Of the Errours of the People about the use of Remedies CHAP. I. Of them that despise those Remedies that are Chymically prepared THE principall part of Physick concernes the use of remedies for it is an Art ordained for the vanquishing of diseases Now diseases are vanquished by the proper and right administration of remedies Therefore in this Book we will take notice of certaine errours of the people about the administration and use of remedies And first the opinion of men concerning remedies is two fold A twofold errour Some do neglect and greatly feare to use any remedies that are chymioally prepared Others on the contrary doe extoll them beyond measure but those of Galens method as they call them to wit which are prepared after the vulgar and long since received manner they basely account of and contemne We will say something of them both but they are wise that keep a meane Medium tenuere beati And as almost all the errours which are rife among the people have heretofore at first proceeded from Physicians whose meanings the people have not well understood so this also among the rest Wherefore something is to bee said of the aforesaid errours Chymicall remedies not to be rejected Now in this Chapter I will plainly manifest that chymicall remedies ought not to be neglected being administred by a prudent Physician and an honest man As touching this manner of preparing medicaments it was not invented by Paracelsus as we have already said Chymistry not invented by Paracelsus but was practised many ages before Paracelsus was borne even by those Physicians which followed Galens method as Raimundus Lullius Villanovanus and many others who have left behinde them for us some excellent remedies chymically prepared And after Paracelsus his time many learned Physicians judiciously distinguishing the chymicall preparation of remedies from the doctrine of Paracelsus have followed that and disallowed this Fernel the chief of the modern Physicians did frequently practise that art Matthiolus used the spirit of vitriol and antimonie prepared chymically and in his Epistle to Andrew de Blaw being the last of his fourth book of Epistles he doth not only approve of this art and commend the admirable operations of it but he thinks that no man can be an absolute Physician The knowledg of it necessary for a Physician no not an indifferent one who is not of good experience in this most noble science Crato a Physician to 3 Emperours in his counsels set forth by Scholtzius doth highly commend chymicall remedies and professes that he himselfe used them Yea Erastus himselfe the great Antagonist of the Paracelsian Sect in the preface of his works against Paracelsus confesses that he doth not implead or dislike this chymicall preparation of remedies but commends and approves of it very much Ioannes Riolanus a most excellent Interpreter of Physick whiles that at the appointment of the Colledge at Paris he had abolished all the deceitfull figments of the Paracelsians writes that this Colledge wherein are the most excellent Physicians of Europe doth leave free the use of Chymicks so as the old manner of curing according to the precepts of Galen and Hippocrates remaine in force Indeed that art in Galens time was not practised nor knowne Chymistry not known in Galens time neverthelesse it is not therefore to bee rejected For it hath been and ever will be free for posterity to adde something for use and ornament to an art already well established Thus we use many remedies which our ancestors were ignorant of as Sene Rubarb Cassia Tamarinds and other things far better than peplium coloquintida and the like Moreover the Rudiments of the chymicall art do appeare even in the vulgar preparation of medicaments Now according to them all remedies are prepared either by addition detraction or immutation for either the matter of the medicaments is required or else the faculty and vertue separate from the matter the matter in thickning astringent and drying remedies but the vertue alone in attenuating dissolving and purging medicines because the grosseness of the matter hinders their efficacie For this intention Mesues makes 4 kinds of operation decoction dissolution infusion trituration or grinding to powder What is infusion but an extract begun What is decoction especially roasting with fire but the beginning of calcination But in this manner of separation which they so much wished for and the Ancients accounted so necessary the chymicall Art doth excell for by divers wayes it severs the pure from the impure and so extracts and stirs up the divers vertues of medicaments which otherwise had been hid under the grosse matter and could never have been drawn out by naturall heat as especially may be seen in minerals Besides it concocts and attenuates the earthly parts alters or else quite takes away the malignant venemous and corrupt qualities and increases the vertues for there is more vertue and efficacie in cinnamon water against the Syncope and other diseases than in whole cinnamon The same may be said of distilled and extracted oyles the oyle of
disease doth indicate evacuation either by blood-letting or by purging it cannot be that custome should indicate and betoken these remedies because as we said it hath reference to nature but one and the same remedie cannot be betokened by diverse things If in any man abundance of blood or some other such cause require blood-letting lest he fall into some grievous disease Nature will not necessarily the next year require the same remedy unlesse he labour with the same disease unto which nature custome hath reference because only the cause of the disease and not nature doth indicate this remedy If therefore he must be let blood againe it is in respect of the cause of the disease not because of custome Nor doth it follow if this year Socrates his blood be so faulty that there is need of evacuation that there shall be the like faultines the next Spring for both the temper of the man and of the aire and his manner of diet may be changed Otherwise diseases should never be perfectly cured if he that hath been once abundantly vacuated must necessarily relapse into the same disease Therefore custome it self doth not urge unto a reapplication of a remedy but permit the same because accustomed evacuations are lesse hurtfull and they that are accustomed to it may more boldly admit of evacuation Thus custome alone makes nothing unto future evacuations unlesse there be the cause of a disease with it but if some diseases use to return every yeare as the Gout pain of the joints melancholy and the like because the causes of these diseases do lurk in the body it is very good to prevent them with convenient remedies as Galen saith he did in his Comment upon the forenamed Aphorisme which remedies are convenient to be applyed not for assuefaction and custome but in respect of the causes of the disease which so often as they appear ought to be corrected with such remedies But all diseases are not of that nature that there is eminent danger of them every year and therefore there is no fear of accustoming a mans self to Physick except the disease also be made accustomary and familiar The remedy that cures the disease is not the cause of the return of the disease afterward which it should be if use should inforce a necessity of the remedie because only the cause of the disease requires evacuation from whence it would necessarily follow that the use of evacuation doth afterward encrease the cause of the disease unto the administring of the like remedy CHAP. IX That no regard is to be had of the Stars for letting of Blood and Purging IT is an usuall thing with many in taking Physick to observe the Signes to wit whether the Moon be in this or that Signe which is thought to governe this or that part Others take notice of the Conjunctions and Oppositions of the Starres when they must Purge or let Blood as when the Moon is in Conjunction with the Sunne they think it to be a dangerous thing to use these remedies 4. Fen. lib. 1. Some do advertise saith Avicenne that Cupping-glasses be not applyed in the beginning of the moneth because the humours are not yet swelled up to the height nor in the end of the moneth because then the humours are lessened but in the middle of the moneth when the humours are in their height following the increase of the Moon at which time also the braine is increased in the Skull and water in the rivers that ebbe and flow Which his interpreters do referre to other of the great evacuations during the same cause And here two opinions are to be weighed the one of Hippocrates and Galen the other of Astrologers Hippocrates in his Book de aëre aquis locis advises to observe the great changes of times and seasons and the Solstices that we neither administer Physick in them nor Cauterize the parts about the belly nor make any incision till at least ten daies after Now by those great Changes he understands the variations of heat and cold which happen at the Solstices Equinoctials under the Dogge-starre and before the Dogge-starre and at the rising and setting of some Constellations For hee addes Both the Solstices are very dangerous but especially the Summer Solstice so both the Equinoctialls are perillous especially that in Autumne the rising of the Starres are also to be observed principally the rising of the Dogge-starre Arcturus and the setting of the Pleiades Because at those times diseases do either end or else are changed These things therefore according to the opinion of Hippocrates are to be known in respect of the sudden changes of the aire which are wont to happen at the rising of some Starres Some to the forenamed Constellations do adde the Moon which hath great dominion over these inferiour things and experience shewes that it hath much soveraigntie over the humours of the body and * Galen also acknowledges the same But Astrologers have gone further for they attribute the signes of the Zodiack to the severall parts of the body and when the Sun and Moon are in those signes they hold it a dangerous thing to use remedies which concern those parts over which those signes are thought to have dominion and the common people in reading of Almanacks which come forth every yeare are very cautelous in observing them whereof wee will treat more at large in the following Chapter But if all these observations of Galen and Hippocrates be true there will scarce any time remain for administring Physick for in both the Equinoctialls Solstices at the rising and setting of Arcturus and the Pleiades we must forbear ten daies and before and under the Dogge-star at least forty daies so likewise according to Astrologers we must abstaine from Physick in all the Oppositions Conjunctions and Quartile aspects of the Moon All which if they should be superstitiously observed there would be no time left for Physick although we neglect those Starres whose influence is not yet observed some of which may perhaps hurt as much as the rest The Starres are not to be considered in the curing of diseases as they are in the Firmament but for their influences and those alterations which they make in the Aire as Hippocrates forbids purging under the Dog-star only because of the heat of the Aire Neverthelesse whatsoever the alteration of the Aire be the same cannot be equally good nor alike bad to all for evacuation but to some it will do good to others harm according to the different constitutions of men nor was there ever such a temper of the Aire and Weather which was not more or lesse healthfull or hurtfull to some For some Natures in Summer 2. Aph. lib. 3. some in Winter are better or worse saith Hippocrates so likewise some diseases are made better or worse in regard of other accidents 3. Aph. lib. 3. and so are some ages according to times places and manner of diet because the influences of the
very difficult Neverthelesse these reasons are of small force in a cold Climate because in England the heat is not so intense and violent in the Dog-dayes especially in the * Kingston upon Hull Northern parts of England where I write this where neverthelss they feare the biting of this Dog as much as in Spaine and therefore there is no cause to feare that our bodyes should be too much inflamed or that they should be weakned or that the humours should be too forcibly drawn into the skin Again our remedies are much more gentle than those which Hippocrates used Our remedies are moregentle than the Ancients as are Cassia Tamarinds Sene Rubarb and the like which doe neither inflame the body nor trouble the humours And Lastly because though wee should use strong remedies And our preparations better yet we can so prepare them and administer them in such a quantity as shall offer no violence to the body But seeing that Hippocrates his Country was exceeding hot and that all his drugs that he used were very violent and hot it is no wonder that he was so wary of that time of the yeare But in this Country those dayes are not so hot Besides Hippocrates did not say absolutely that we must not purge at all in the Dog-dayes but only that purgation is difficult not impossible and therefore seeing that at this time of the yeare there are very many acute diseases which cannot be cured without bloud-letting and purging the Physicians of hot Countryes as Spaine Italy the South parts of France and the like doe very wisely use purging remedies but not so frequently nor violent But some are of opinion that wee should abstaine from purgation not only because of the violent heat of the weather but for the malignant effects of the Star and the Ancients did attribute so much to this Star * It is accounted the most principall star of the first magnitude that for eminencie sake they called it the Star as having some more than ordinary power above the rest not onely over the body but the minde also so that both men and beasts especially dogs are then more sick than at other times and dogs are thought to go mad through its influence Wherefore Galen also forbids blouding at this time But all the mischiefes which Plinie reckons up to proceed from hence are not of infallible credit for they are seldome or never observed to happen here in England Again it is an absurd thing to think that any of the Stars are mischievous for they are all benigne and propitious to man and those things which the Ancients have written concerning this Star doe not correspond to experience We see every yeare there are divers degrees of heat and not alwaies the same because the power and influence of the Star is altered by the diversity of Conjunctions and Aspects so that those malignant effects if there be any of the Dog-star may be hindred by the aspect of other Stars Nor doth it necessarily follow if there be a great hear this yeare that there shall be the same the next yeare Wherefore there is no cause alwayes to feare purgation under the Dog-star or all the Dog-dayes for if this day be exceeding hot peradventure to morrow the weather will be more temperate only at this time of the year we must use remedies more sparingly and those not so strong as at other times for even those remedies which Hippocrates did ordinarily administer to his Patients are scarce at any time prescribed by us no not in winter To this our opinion do assent Ioubertus in his Popular Errours Mercurialis Argenterius Hollerius in his Commentaries upon the forenamed Aphorisme Fernelius Fuchsius Valleriola Claudinus Vallesius and all that have written of this subject It shall suffice us to conclude this Chapter with the testimony of Iacobus Hollerius a most judicious and learned man Note This precept saith he takes place in Hippocrates his Country and such like places which are very hot but not in these Countries now he speaks of Paris in France where he lived for besides that we have gentle and easie medicines which we use as Cassia Catholicon Asses milk c. We doe here experience no time of the year to be more wholsome and temperate especially when the East-winde blowes then the Dogge-dayes so as experience shewes that diseases begunne in June and July are wont to terminate in August even under the Dogge-starre Wherefore if a disease happen in those daies wee doe not feare many times to open a veine and to administer strong Physick Neverthelesse if there happen a vehement and canicular heat of weather as we have in France oftentimes even in the moneths of May and June we follow the advice of Hippocrates both in letting blood and prescribing purges Where he shews that that very number of daies is not to be regarded but only the heat of the weather is to be observed which if it happen in the Moneth of May before the Canicular daies yea what time soever it happens Hippocrates his rule is to be observed I might adde here that there are divers opinions concerning the rising of the Dogge-star for with the Ancients it rose sooner than now it doth but with us it rises at those times when it is not wont to be so hot and therefore at that time purgation ought lesse to be feared concerning which thing we may see more at large in Dionysius Petavius a most learned man But that it may appear what great difference there is betwixt England and Greece which was Hippocrates his country we may observe what Hesiod saith Lib. 2. operum to wit that their Harvest did begin at the rising of the Pleiades at which time the Spring is scarce begun with us For the Pleiades do rise in the Moneth of April after the old account or not long after the beginning of May. CHAP. XII That Purgations are often to bee reiterated BEcause Physick as we have said is tedious and irksome many doe expect a perfect cure by one only purging medicine and they think the disease exceeds the capacitie and skill of the Physician and if after a Purge once taken it be not cured Nor are they willing to hear that the remedy is to be reiterated little knowing for what causes Physicians are forced to renew Purgations It were indeed to be wished that diseases could be cured with one cathartick alone which thing although it sometimes happens yet it is not alwaies so and truly a Drugge that makes a full and perfect purgation Note ought not to be administred without diligent heed taken because all vehement catharticks are exceeding adverse and hurtfull to nature Therefore a perfect evacuation ought to be prescribed only when the strength of the sick can bear it the matter but little and thinne and nature it self leads the way when the humours are fully concocted and all the passages in the belly are open But if the humours
oftentimes happens to Physicians that when they prescribe a Clyster or a Purge for their Patients the by-standers especially women and such as keep the sick whom nothing can please but they desire alwaies to dissent from Physicians these I say doe intercede for the sick that he is weak and takes nothing at all when notwithstanding in secret they do preposterously urge him to eat meat and do even glut him therewith Yet it hath been often observed that such as have so much loathed meat have with a very gentle Clyster voided many excrements dried and hardened with the violent heat of the Feaver And it is to be noted that purging is not prescribed onely for the emptying of the belly but to purge out morbous humours for that want of appetite to meat wherewith the sick are usually troubled doth arise from vitious humours which requires purging out which being evacuated the appetite and stomach to meat doth come againe For the loathing of meat bitternesse of the mouth and other the like symptomes doe manifest that purgation is necessary saith Hippocrates Aph. 17. lib. 4. Loathing of meate paine of the heart dizzinesse of the head and bitternesse of the mouth in one that hath a Feaver doe note that there is need of a vomit For these symptomes are caused by the humours which lay about the mouth of the stomach Therefore though the sick take nothing yet they have lurking within their bodies many vitious humours which unlesse they be voyded out by a Cathartick the appetite will never returne of it selfe but the disease becomes every day worse than other and perhaps at length is made incurable CHAP. XVIII That a Purge is not much to bee disliked because sometimes it is cast back by vomit I Have sometimes heard the sick complaine that when they have a Cathartick whereby they should have been purged downward a contrary effect succeeded and they were purged upward to wit by vomit which manner of evacuation is indeed very troublesome for vomits do usually offer much violence unto nature Now they must know that it may often come to passe that the working of the Physick may be changed and a purge become a vomit and a vomit a purge The body indeed by an ordinance of nature is emptied rather by siege than by the mouth for the belly seemes to have been created for that purpose as also the humours by their proper inclination do flow to the belly and there are a great many Mesairaick veines that carry the humours unto the guts Now a purging medicine becomes a vomit either by reason of the medicine it self or by reason of the sick Of the Medicine First if it be strong and do greatly provoke and pull the mouth of the stomach Secondly if it be very unpleasant of a strong smell stinking and noysome to the stomach Thirdly if it be light thinne and do easily swimme above as if it be mixed with fat or oyly things Fourthly if it engender windinesse as Sene Epithymum Agarick which windy vapours being carried up to the orifice of the stomach do trouble it and so provoke vomit Fifthly if it be taken in a very great quantitie and by these means not onely medicine but meat also may cause vomit Also sometimes by reason of the sick a Purge becomes a vomit as if he be of a very weake stomach and exquisite sense if hee looke upon things that are unpleasant to him smell such as are noysome and stinking or use violent motion for motion causes vomiting as appeares in them that saile upon the water Furthermore it is to be noted that when one hath taken Physick if after an houre or two he vomit it up again there is no danger at all for in that space the Medicine is dissolved by the heat of the body and as Physicians speak is brought into act and so doth diffuse its vertue throughout the whole body whereby it purges no lesse than if it had been all kept in the body It is sometimes good to vomit after one hath taken a purge Yea many times it is very good to vomit it up for it carries out with it grosse flegmatick and other such humours that stick fast to the stomach which happily it had never purged out by the stoole Wherefore it is not to be imputed as a fault to the Physician or the Apothecary if the Physick do sometimes work the contrary way for thereby no harme at all but many times a great deale of good doth come to the sick CHAP. XIX That purging ought not to be feared though there be a flux of the belly THe common people many times wonder at it and think it a needlesse thing yea and dangerous when one hath a flux of the belly that Physicians do sometimes prescribe a purge which is rather a means to encrease the flux and to weaken and spend the strength of the sick But the thing is quite contrary for nothing doth stay the belly like to a purge In health it is good sometimes to bee loose in the belly so as it be not too great a laske nor impaire the strength if so be as Celsus saith it stay within seven daies But in them that be sick it is sometimes good sometimes evill to have a laske in respect of the diverse nature of the disease constitution of the sick and time as if it be a criticall flux if such things be voided as ought to bee and it be such as the sick is well able to bear Therefore sometimes it is to bee let alone sometimes to be stayed but if it be stayed by astringent remedies the noxious humour being retained in the body is oftentimes the cause of a greater evill to the body and corrupts and infects by its contagion the rest of the humours whereby afterwards the noble parts are hurt or else the flux returns worse and is more malignant than before It is a common proverbe among Physicians The causes of diseases must be taken away before the diseases themselves can be cured So likewise in such a flux the safest way to cure it is by taking away the cause which thing purging among other remedies doth most fitly and safely perform so that the working of it the flux either staies of its owne accord or if it doe not stay yet it may more commodiously and without danger bee stopped by astringent remedies I have often seen the sick which by reason of a lask went to the stoole many times every day whose loosenesse was stayed by a purge of Rubarb to which though sore against their wills I had perswaded them which nature of it self could scarce have cured Therefore it is a common axiome among Physicians one flux is cured by another and one vomit by another not that all diseases are cured by their like but by accident only insomuch as the causes of the flux being voided out the flux stayes of its owne accord CHAP. XX. That the use of Clysters is void of danger MAny
Vomitories which do only cleanse the stomach and others which draw humours from all the parts of the body which in sundry diseases are more profitable than the former When therefore one hath taken a vomit let him not hasten as many do to the use of possets for by filling the stomack they do too soon stirre up the working of the vomit which is thereby cast out of the stomach before it hath diffused its vertue into the whole body and so it doth not at all attract the noxious humours and yet molests the stomach not a whit the lesse But let him rather rest awhile till it be reduced into act and work twice or thrice without taking any drink at all Thus wee shall be sure that only those things which be hurtfull in the stomach and body shall be voided out Where it is to be noted that posset drinks are not prescribed by Physicians that they may further the operation of the vomit For what posset drink is prescribed in vomits for in the beginning they rather dull and diminish the strength and vertue of it but only to take away the irksomnesse of vomiting namely that the stomach may be more easily overwhelmed for many times repletion alone doth cause vomiting otherwise it were better to take nothing at all that the Physick not being altered by any mixture of meat or drink might draw nothing but the noxious humours into the stomach But perhaps some say that Paulus and Aetius two famous Physicians did prescribe a vomit after meat when there is a feaver of a long durance And Avicenne is also of the same minde speaking of the cure of an impure Tertian And know saith hee that nothing helps them more then a vomit after meat Canon 4. tract â— cap. 40. Galen likewise prescribes a vomit after meat but Alexander Trallianus blames him because it is better to provoke vomit before meat which is true for the forenamed reasons For a vomit after meat purges the stomach only and the humours contained therein and not them which are in the veins unlesse with a very great forcing of nature I must needs comfesse therefore that the patient doth vomit the easier after meat but with lesse commoditie But if the sick be prone and apt to vomit it is better to provoke vomit fasting and before meat or drinke for so the Physick drawes the humours better out of the veines Gentilis and Arâ—ularius two most excellent interpreters of Avicenne are of this opinion in the Chapter of the cure of a quartane Feaver If the patient vomit easily it may be administred before meat to draw melancholy from the Spleen to the stomach But if it come difficultly it is better to give it after meat that he may vomit the easier which may also be applyed to drink taken presently after If therefore the vomit be prescribed only for emptying the stomach from grosse humours it will not be amisse first to eat or drink or at least presently after But if the whole body be to be cleansed it must be taken fasting and the patient must not eat nor drink any thing after untill the vertue of the Medicine brought into act hath penetrated the whole body because immediately after the taking of drink the attractive vertue of the remedie is dulled Therefore those possets should not be taken before the patient hath vomited once or twice Best to vomit once or twice before one take the posset drink but afterwards they may be taken that the sick may vomit the easier and the grosse humours bee better dissolved and cast out The same hath Hartman a late Chymicall writer in his Notes upon Crollius observed who forbids to drink immediately after the taking of a vomit untill the patient hath vomited two or three times for otherwise it dulls the force of the medicine but when the humours have been sufficiently moved hee permits a good draught and in the end for to cleanse the stomach and evacuate the reliques CHAP. XXIII That old men may bee blooded without danger THe common people most commonly are disposed to thwart and contradict Physicians which as in many other particulars may bee seen in this that if one be sick of a Fever wherein it is profitable yea necessary to let blood they are ready to excuse declining age as not able to endure this remedy and this I have often heard of some not fifty yeares old and otherwise very strong and vigorous Indeed in the administration of all remedies the strength of the patient ought especially to be regarded insomuch as if it be defective we must withhold strong remedies even from a boy or a young man But because there is not the same duration and continuance of strength in all but some at threescore and ten are more cheerfull and vigorous than others at fifty the Physician regards not so much the number of yeares Physicians regard not the number of years but strength as the strength and vigour of the sick Therefore if a strong old man be troubled with the Pleurisie inflammation of the Lungs burning Fever or other such diseases there is no doubt but he may and ought to be let blood for these diseases can scarce bee cured without this remedy but if the sick have not strength to endure the remedie he must of necessity perish and so all diseases in old men should be mortall Galen himselfe in his booke of Phlebotomie prescribes blooding for old men of threescore and ten years and I my self have seen a man threescore and thirteene years old who was let blood foure times within the space of three daies and had thirty ounces of blood at the least taken from him Rhazes also did let blood in a decrepit old man which was sick of a grievous Pleurisie Therefore age is not to be measured by the number of years but by the strength of the patient which if it be vigorous in very old men why shall remedies necessary for their diseases bee denied them It is indeed certain that every old man is weaker than when he was young and therefore hee must bee let blood more sparingly than if he were yet young neverthesse it may be that if hee were compared to another young man he would bee found stronger than he and more able to endure physick There is then no age except decrepit old age but it may endure some evacuation Now decrepit old age because it hath but little blood and very many raw humours is unfit for this remedie But the other ages that are in the middle betwixt the first and the last have their degrees of strength and therefore doe admit of some sort of evacuation This did Cornelius Celsus teach very well Lib. 2. cap. 10. It is no matter saith he what the age is or what is within the body but what the strength is Seeing then this is a thing not doubted of among Physicians the sick ought not to gainsay if at any time a Physician command
vessels A pitcher that is half full of iron or heavy stones is not so full as if it were filled to the top with the most light spirit of wine although the former weigh heavier So likewise in emptying a vessell he takes more away that out of one vessell drawes a pottle of the spirit of wine than he that out of another takes half a pottle of stones although perhaps this weighs heavier Seeing then there is the same reason in bloud because one is more ponderous than another if in letting bloud we only consider its weight we shall never define well the quantity thereof for it is contained in the veins not as heavy but as filling unlesse one imagine the same ponderosity and weight of bloud in all men which I think no man will dare to affirm The quantity of bloud saith Galen is indicated by the more or lesse faultinesse of it and by the strength of the party and according to these two is more or lesse bloud to be drawne So that in a great distemper of the bloud the strength being vigorous we must use a larger evacuation but in a light distemper the strength being feeble we must let bloud more sparingly But if you judge of the quantity by the weight it may so fall out that when the sick is feeble in strength you may draw more bloud than when he is most lively vigorous which is a grosse trespasse against the rules of Physick For if in debility of strength the bloud be lighter and in validity of strength it be heavier if in this latter case you take halfe a pound of bloud and in the former but foure ounces the vessels into which these foure ounces are taken will be as full by reason of the levity of the bloud as those vessels which receive the half pound of the other ponderous bloud and so the same quantity of bloud is taken from them both which should not have been done Nor do I see any reason why the drawing of bloud should bee defined by weight more than the dejections of the belly in a purgation seeing that out of the veines the humours also are purged for under the manition of the vessels is purging contained as faith Hippocrates 2 aph lib. 1. Seeing therefore the vessels are not replete with any thing as heavy for the capacity of the vessels is not varied although the weight of the contents be different and it is apparent that a greater quantity of oyle than of honey goes to an ounce it will be better for the future if the quantity of bloud be accounted by measures and not by ounces and pounds seeing the judgment thereof may be so deceitfull I know there were among the Ancients as well pounds in measure as in weight for their vessels were drawn about with lines whereby the pounds and ounces were marked out and whatsoever they measured after this manner they called Mensurall As for example a mensurall pound of oyle or wine which perhaps Galen meant when he drew bloud according to ounces and pounds But because the things that were measured were of divers weight the pound in weight did seldome countervaile the pound in measure for though there may be the same measure of oyl wine and hony yet there is not the same weight and therefore that manner of measuring was very uncertaine and we now adayes have no such vessels as doe marke out ounces and pounds nor if wee had plenty of them could wee use them without a manifest errour in respect of the different weight of the bloud Therefore though I doe not disallow the received custome yet I thinke it safer to judge of the quantity of bloud by measure than by weight CHAP. XXVI That Sleep and Drink ought not to be wholly forbidden after bloud-letting AMong many observations of the people this is not the least that they are very wary lest the sick sleep or eat and drink presently after he hath been let bloud which was also the opinion of some Physicians because they think the bloud returnes to the heart which neverthelesse is not alwayes true except there bee an immoderate evacuation of bloud or timorousness which may cause swouning However no reason enforces that that return of the bloud should be so pernicious And first concerning sleep the bloud is wont in sleep to recoile into the inward parts to the exceeding great refreshment of nature The benefit of sleep to the sick Now in them that be sick who have not slept for many nights all men know what great benefit a little sleep affords for it repaires the strength concocts the morbous humours and corrects them wherefore we are oftentimes forced to apply remedies to provoke sleep Therefore if immediately or a little after bloud-letting sleep doe ensue it may be good both as a signe and a cause As a signe because it shewes that nature which was oppressed with the morbous humours is now refreshed and so doth performe its naturall functions As a cause it may be good because when once sleep ensues nature doth concoct the remainder of the morbous humour In what cases sleep is forbidden I know in some diseases sleep is not good as in the inflammations of the internall parts in the beginnings of fits and in pestilentiall diseases Therefore in those diseases it is not good to sleep immediately after bloud-letting but in other diseases I see no reason why the Patient may not sleep Galen saith that if the sick after long and tedious watching do fall to sleep it indicates a perfect crisis for sometimes it falls out Ex 2 Prorhetic * that the sick after the crisis sleeps a whole day especially when he hath not slept of a long time before and that to the great solace and refreshment of nature Yea sometimes it happens that the sick sleeps in the very crisis If therefore sleep be good after other evacuations why not also after bleeding Moreover sometimes it falls out that in some feavers such a preternaturall sleep possesses the sick that he can scarce be awakened and yet many times in such feavers it is very good to let bloud as of late I did to a woman that lay in an acute feaver possessed with an heavy sleep who otherwise had scarce recovered being adjudged of all as a dying woman If therefore with good success bloud may be drawne from one that is actually asleep why shall sleep be hurtfull immediatly after blouding Galen seemes to account it a good thing 9 method cap. 4. that the sick after blouding falls into a sound sleep Two houres saith he after hee was let bloud having given him a little meat and commended him to rest I departed And returning at the fifth houre I found him lying in a sound sleep insomuch as he did not feele me when I touched him Then comming againe at the tenth houre I found him still fast asleep Afterward having beene abroad to visit some other Patients I came againe in
the fifth houre of the night not being silent as before but of purpose with a loud voice to awake him from his sleep But perhaps some will say Galen did not command sleep till two hours after bloud-letting I answer it had been well if the sick could have slept immediately after he had been let bloud and in no place doth Galen disallow that for we know we cannot alwayes sleep when we desire it But seeing the aforesaid sick man could not sleep comming againe two houres after he bade him lye still that he might sleep which Galen had not done if he had judged sleep to be hurtfull after blooding If any man object that sleep is prohibited lest the ligature should be loosed and the patient bleed againe that is nothing for that may be prevented by the diligent care of the by-standers and the sure binding of it As touching drink Good to drink after bleeding Amatus the Portugall proves that it is not hurtfull immediately after blood-letting but very wholsome commanding that the patient doe presently drinke a little cold water for in regard that the veines are emptied it is instantly distributed into the whole body and doth both easier sooner and safelier coole the body CHAP. XXVII That blooding and purging is not hurtfull for women with child ANd this Errour is none of the least that if a woman with childe be sick they will not suffer her to take Physick nor to be let bloud for fear of an aborsement which is contrary to reason the authority of the Ancients and daily experience To reason because a woman that labours with an acute disease as a Fever or a Pleurisie is in very great danger as saith Hippocrates Aph. 30. ib. 5. * it is mortall for a woman with childe to be taken with an acute disease Fevers in women with child are most dangerous Therefore no delay is to be made in applying remedies Again in respect that the child is nourished with the mothers blood if she be sick there is danger lest through that sicknesse and the corruption of the blood the childe perish which if it happen as sometimes it doth then is the mother in danger both by reason of the disease and of the dead childe namely lest she being weakened by the disease the childe dye through putrefaction of the blood and she bee not able to bear the childe at least never doth an aborsement happen without danger Now it is evident enough that these evills cannot be prevented without taking away the cause for indeed no disease can be cured otherwise and the cause cannot be taken away without blood-letting The disease is not cured till the causes be taken away or purging They that think it such a dangerous thing for women to use these remedies and thereupon do not admit of them let them seriously consider this Note If a Physician can cure a woman with childe sick of a putrid Fever without blood-letting or purging much more easily may he cure her of the same disease without these remedies when she is not with childe and so the use of them might be quite abandoned But if he cannot cure her not being with childe without those remedies he cannot then cure her being with childe and sick of the same disease For the same disease indicates the same remedie and the being with child doth not take away the indication of the disease but onely after a sort alters the quantity of remedies and the manner of using them Yea much rather are these remedies to be used in women with childe inasmuch as they stand in greater need of help than others But they think that all the nourishment is drawn from the childe by blood-letting and that there is danger of abortion by purging and other remedies The danger to the childe is from the disease not the remedy All this while not knowing that great danger hangs over the childe by reason of the blood being corrupted to wit lest it die and kill the mother who is already weakened with the disease so that there is more danger of abortion from the disease than from the remedy And first we must never take away such a great quantitie of blood as that thereby nourishment should be withdrawn from the infant but rather we observe that the infant becomes more lively after the corrupt blood is taken away The child becomes more lively after bleeding for there is blood enough left behinde to suffice both the child and its mother Again a purgation especially a gentle one although reiterated if need stand can do no hurt A woman with child may take a purge being given by a discreet Physician but rather good for the strength of the Physick doth scarce reach unto the childe or at least in such a long circuit the noxious part of its strength is lost But what if it should attaine to the childe yet it cannot kill it if it be exhibited in a moderate quantity Onely the blood comes unto the the childe which by vertue of the Physick is purged from noxious humours Also in women with childe the wombe resists it much for the safeguard of the infant for in them the retentive faculty is more busie then the expulsive This Errour Secondly oppugnes Authoritie for Hippocrates commends purging for women with childe from the fourth Moneth till the seventh Women with childe may take Physick if there be an ebullition of humours in them Sect 4. aph 1. from the fourth moneth till the seventh onely they must bee more gently dealtly withall than others but when the infant is younger than this or elder it is best wholly to abstaine Which if it were Hippocrates his opinion notwithstanding the vehemency of his remedies Our purges more safe then the Ancients were much more is it true of ours which are farre more gentle for the purgations of the Ancients were more dangerous than ours Againe Experience testifies that the childe cannot bee so easily expelled by the use of physick 7. Epid. as the history of Harpalaus his sister manifests who being foure moneths gone with childe and sick of a Dropsie and Asthma the infant being so weak that it had not stirred of a long time tooke Aethiopian Cumin with honey and wine which though it was exceeding bitter diuretick and therefore of great force to provoke the flowers yet being discreetly used did her good and neither hurt the child nor provoked her flowers intimating thus much that the child is not alwaies killed by taking Physick unlesse the Physick be very strong and constantly used There is a notable story out of Avenzoar whereof we have made mention in another place who not knowing that his wife was with childe did administer unto her exceeding strong physick and yet the childe was not hurt thereby I will saith he relate what befell me while I was in the prison of Haly my wife was with childe and I knew it not and she was troubled with
such a discase that of necessitie I was to give her a purge and such an one it was that none would thinke that a woman with childe taking it in but a small quantitie could save her childe unhurt and yet shee tooke it without any harme to her selfe or her childe but when afterward I perceived that shee was with childe I was sorry for that mistake and craved pardon for it of God and shee brought forth a sonne whom I have now at home with me Thus Avenzoar a Physician of principall note among the Arabians Hercules Saxonia writes that while he was as yet in his mothers wombe and Physicians thought him to be a * Or false conception Mole they administred very strongremedies to cast out the Mole but all in vaine for the infant remained unhurt and afterwards became a most excellent interpreter of Physick This happens oftentimes because the force of the Physick is much weakened before it come to the infant and the wombe endeavours to its utmost to keep in the childe and but with great violence will not part with it before the time There is another reason taken from the birth for when the womb endeavours to put forth the perfect infant then doe these remedies help the travail but they availe little or nothing when the womb strives to retaine the infant I have often seen blooding and purging even in the eigth moneth prescribed with good successe for women that laboured with an acute disease CHAP. XXVIII That Physick is good for women in child-bed WHat wee have said of women with childe may be said likewise of women in childbed if they bee sick of acute diseases as a Fever Pleurisie and such like for they are wont to bee troubled with many diseases in that very respect that they are in childebed but there is a different reason between them and women with childe for in women with childe their flowers are stopped and doe never flow without danger to the infant but in women in childbed the humours that were gathered together in the matrix do flow out and are never suppressed but with very much danger and thereby they fall into grievous diseases for the curing of which Physick is to be administred Speedy help is to be procured for women in childbed and by so much the more speedily as in them all things are most dangerous For besides this that the secundine or after birth sometimes staies behinde their flowers also doe either flow too fast or are suppressed or flow but slowly from whence divers great and perillous diseases as continuall Fevers The diseases to which they are usually incident burning Fevers Frenzies vomiting loathing of meat Epilepsies inflammation of the bowels Plurisies and other such diseases do arise So likewise it may fall out that by an ill regiment of body alone together with corrupt humours lurking within exagitated and stirred up in the birth as also by an erroneous diet although neither the flowers be suppressed nor flow immoderately such diseases may happen These cases are difficult and dangerous and can scarce by natures strength alone be amended For if they come by suppression of the flowers they cause grievous symptomes and fevers with watchings and frenzie but if they arise from an 〈◊〉 wholsome regiment of body they are so much the more dangerous in women in childbed because they betoken a great putrefaction of humours within the body which the expurgation of the flowers could not take away nor amend When these things happen it is necessary by the consent of all Physicians to attempt something by blood-letting and purging and other altering remedies which the Physician shall think convenient But what veine must be pierced when how and with what remedies she must be purged is not my purpose to explicate in this place in that I am not now reading a Physick Lecture but onely discovering to the people their Errours in Physick Onely thus much I will adde that it is not safe to open the upper veines lest the flowers bee thereby suppressed and drawn back again into the body CHAP. XXIX That it is not hurtfull to take Quicksilver by the mouth THis Errour is to bee pardoned in many because it is maintained by the suffrage and consent of ancient Physicians Lib. 5. cap. 7. * Dioscorides saith that Quicksilver drunk hath a deadly qualitie and that by its ponderositie it gnawes the internall parts Lib. 6. cap. 28. and in * another place he saith it causes the same symptomes that the spume of Silver doth Tetrab 4. serm 1. cap. 79. With whom assents * Aetius And Galen himselfe reckons it among the poysons And so doth Avicenne although he differs from himselfe when he writes concerning the qualities of it Lib. 1. tract 2. cap. 47. for in * one place he saith it is cold and moyst but in * another place Fen. 6. lib. 4. tractatu 1. cap 3. hee reckons Quicksilver among hot and sharp poysons Some will have naturall Quicksilver to be cold and the artificiall hot which controversie in this place we will not spend time to decide Also some moderne Physicians will have it to be a poyson If it be taken in too great a quantitie it congeales the blood saith Conciliator producing the example of a certaine Druggist who being in a burning Fever instead of a glasse of water to quench his thirst unhappily chanced to light on a glasse full of Quicksilver and drinking up a great quantity thereof he dyed congealed insomuch as when his dead body was opened the Physicians found the blood about his throat congealed and frozen Fernel likewise is altogether against the using of it But others more rightly taught by experience do affirme that it is not so hurtfull As for Dioscorides he saies that it hurts onely by reason of its weight and ponderositie which it cannot doe unlesse it bee taken in a great quantity Galen confesses that he never made triall of it whether it kills or no being taken by the mouth or applyed outwardly so that if at any time he reckoned it among the poysons he seems to have done it according to other mens opinion not out of his owne judgement and experience And the moderne Physicians have found by experience that it may safely be administred if it doe not exceed due measure For no medicine is taken in excessive quantitie without hurt to the body And therefore if it did congeale the blood as Conciliator speakes that was onely by reason of the too great quantity and for that cause it must not bee thought to be of a more noxious quality than other medicaments Neverthelesse Rorarius tells a contrary story 9. simpl In contrad Galeni 20. I knew saith he a Germane who being drunke and sleeping in a Goldsmiths house hee awaked out of his sleep being very thirsty and groping about for drinke by chance he lighted on a vessell in which was three pound of Quicksilver and powring out that
it out again by expiring Indeed when we inspire by the nostrils the aire goes to the braine but when wee inspire by the mouth it is carried only to the Lungs and the Stomack Seeing then the aforesaid smoke is attracted by inspiring by the mouth it doth not go into the Brain When wee expire or when wee hold our breath saith Galen wee never smell although the sent bee in the very nostrils for in expiring we repell the smoke together with the aire Againe in holding the breath wee doe not admit it into the braine because when we hold our breath no aire passes to the braine of its own accord seeing the braine is already full of the aire that was inspired and this is the reason why wee doe not perceive the smell of those things that are holden in the mouth and the stomach otherwise a man were not able to endure himselfe because the perception of smels is made by inspiration onely but by the mouth we doe not inspire into the braine From whence it necessarily followes that the smoke of Tobacco taken in at the mouth is not carried up thither Besides if it should pierce so farre in that these vapours are very sharp they would vehemently disaffect and pull the brain and provoke sneezing and other affects which are not usuall As we see that if the same smoke be inspired by the nostrils immediately it causes sneezing because then it is indeed carried to the braine Let it therefore remaine established that the head is affected onely with the vertue of it and not that the substance thereof doth pierce into it Object But some will object that by long using it a heavinesse in the head is caused and dizzinesse and the braine is as it were intoxicated Sol. But I answer that it comes to passe onely by the frequent and daily taking of it which would quickly happen if the sinoke should fill the ventricles of the braine For dizzinesse is not alwaies caused by vapours but may proceed also from the spirits when they are too much heated and agitated or from the vapours of the humours that are stirred up by the immoderate heat of that smoke and from divers other causes which would be too tedious to recite here Yea some have such weake heads that they are soon taken with dizzinesse through any light externall cause so as they may be also taken with it by the smoke of Tobacco although it enter not into the head namely through some inward cause stirred up by it Again many times a great purgation may cause dizzinesse 2. Aph. 37. as Galen witnesses in his booke concerning them for whom purging is convenient Wherefore it is no wonder if the braine be too much purged by the immoderate use of it and the spirits exceedingly heated and inflamed doe draw unto them corrupt humours from the lower parts which cause heavinesse of the head and dizzinesse although the substance of the smoke doth not reach thereto CHAP. XXXIIII Whether Tobacco be a preservative against the Plague or no. I Have heard some averre that Tobacco is a preservative against the Plague Monardes commends it against poyson but especially against wounds that are made by poysoned weapons and venemous beasts Which those that write hereof doe understand of the green herbe or of the juice thereof applied to the affected part and not of the smoke taken as now adayes they use it Yet it may be that the smoke may doe good against the Plague but not as many think Tobacco haâ—h not any Antidotary quality against the plague by any antidotary qualitie that it hath against poyson but for other causes For those things that preserve from the Plague are either such as cleanse the body from excrements or that dry it whereby it doth not so easily receive the poyson Now that the smoke of Tobacco doth dry the braine and the body and voyd out the humours by the mouth and sometimes by vomit it is evident enough and thus perhaps it preserves from the Plague But no peculiar vertue of effecting that after this manner is found in the smoke for those things that doe evacuate doe onely by accident preserve from the Plague as purging bloodding c. Therefore no reason enforces that we should attribute to the smoke any peculiar vertue of preserving from the Plague But besides many observe that in the Plague a man ought to abstaine from all strong purgers because the humours are then soon disturbed by any light cause I know very many have promised that they would cure the plague or preserve men from it by vomits of Antimony when perhaps they could not defend themselves from it As Platerus in his observations reports of one Adam of Bodenstein a famous Chymist who in his writings professed a most certaine manner of curing or preventing the Pestilence who neverthelesse got it himselfe at Basil when it was almost quite ceased and died of it So infirme and uncertaine are all those things which are prescribed against this sort of poyson but especially vomitories who do debilitate a noble part and offer great violence to Nature There is another manner of preserving from the Plague to wit by Antidotes which have also a vertue of curing it for the very same things in a manner are good both against eminent and present diseases But as yet we have no experience of any such vertue in Tobacco for so many thousands of men whom that great plague at London and in other places in this Kingdome have swept away the greatest part of whom did without doubt take Tobacco are as so many witnesses to testifie that there is no such vertue therein and none of them that recovered can attribute any thing to Tobacco as a means of their recovery But if it hath no curing vertue it hath no preserving qualitie neither Moreover they must know that other poysons have their proper Antidotes The Pestilence hath no proper Antidote but the Pestilence hath none at all only Physicians use cordiall remedies not whereby the poyson is extinguished but onely Nature fortified against the force of the poyson which it afterwards expels by sweat or some other emunctories of the body But that there is not any cordiall vertue in Tobacco the dizziness swounings cold sweats vomiting and other symptomes that are caused by it do manifest which rather betoken a venemous than a cordiall quality Therefore although I doe not believe that it doth any hurt yet I thinke it doth not much good Moreover the braine as Galen saith in Arte Medicâ in the chapter concerning the signes of an hot braine is easily offended with the ambient aire Those that have hot brains saith he their heads are very subject to be distempered with hot meats drinkes and smells and all those things that doe occurre from without among which the circumjacent aire may be reckoned And therefore seeing by the use of Tobacco the braine is very much heated there is danger lest it bee
mountaines walls windes and of the chest in which with the weapon it is layd up especially when those things which carry the spirits are corporeall which may be letted by the interposition of other bodyes or at least by how much the further distant the object is by so much the more is the vertue thereof diminished and there is good cause to fear lest in a great distance of places the force of the medicament doe perish quite Hartman writes that this communication is made by a magneticall vertue even so as the sent of the carkasse is communicated to the Vultures many miles distant But smels are not diffused in any unlimited space whatsoever and besides they may be diversly hindred as by raine windes and such like To no purpose also was it that Goclenius alledged exampies of many sympathies for it followes not because there are sympathies in other things that therefore there is a sympathy in the ointment Besides the sympathy which is sayd to bee in this ointment is farre different from the sympathy of other things which do insensibly diffuse their vertue into the aire and need not the spirit of the world to carry them and do never worke unlesse the object bee present and are terminated and limited within a certain space But that there are some cessations and fallings off from this sympathy the Loadstone shewes which being rubbed over with Garlick doth not draw iron which manifests that there is not an efflux and wasting of the qualitie only but of some thinne substance also Secondly there is not a reall contact of the agent and patient for it touches not the wound it self but the weapon which is farre distant from the wound which is neither the subject of the disease nor yet of the cure and which needs not to be cured Therefore one said well hee that bindes the weapon that the wound may be cured doth as if one should cover a stone which hath made the hand cold that the hand may be made hot thereby Nor let any man say that there is a vertuall contract the spirit of the world carrying the vertue of the ointment to the wound for this spirit of the world if there be any such thing is common to all things that are in the world otherwise it were not the spirit of the world And yet it operates not in other sympathies for unlesse the object bee present there are none at all Moreover this sympatheticall vertue of the ointment which is joyned with the spirit of the world in such a friendly society is not seated in any artificiall thing as artificiall but in something that is naturall and they might do well to tell what is that naturall thing in the ointment which peculiarly hath so much familiarity with the spirit of the world As wee Galenists say that in every organe there is some particular part which is the seat of the facultie and on which especially depends the action without doubt there ought to be the same thing in this ointment for all the simples which are put into the composition of it cannot so equally agree with the spirit of the world that it should carry their vertues from place to place at the will of him that annointed therewith Therefore the cure shall result either from the similitude of the weapon to the wound but that cannot be for in relations there is no power of acting but there should rather be antipathy betwixt the weapon and the person wounded Or else some vertue flowes from the ointment to the wound for according to Crollius the ointment is of a conglutinating and drawing nature but they do not touch one another Nor is that sympathy of nature sufficient which Crollius with naturall Balsame makes the cause of the cure for if there be any such sympathy the annointing is superfluous for the vertues which are carried after a magneticall manner through so great distances of places doe not need a corporeall application But in this ointment the contrary is apparent for nothing is done without the anointing of the weapon Therefore its working is materiall and after the manner of other unguents it cannot operate without a corporeall contact as appeares by the anointing for if it may worke magnetically without a corporeall contact the anointing is in vaine And in vain also doth Grollius observe a forme of anointing on the upper or neather part of the weapon for the vulnerary vertue thereof might out of the box wherein it is bee diffused even to all that are wounded for it hath a sympathy with all Seeing then it doth not operate without reall application and a certaine and determinate manner of anointing it is plainly manifest that it can act only after the manner of other remedies upon that thing to which it is applyed and no further Thirdly why is bloud fat and the mosse of mans bones put into this ointment is it because the spirits which are thought to bee in them although putrified But there are more such spirits in the body than in the ointment or in the bloud that comes from the wounded Therefore it is either the vertue of the oyntment that cures or else the vertue of the spirit that carries it If the vertue of the oyntment be the cause of the cure it must be principally seated either in the fat bloud and mosse or else in the other naturall remedies which are ingredients also in the oyntment to wit oyles and powders If the vertue of the oyntment depend upon the former the ointment is unprofitable because in the body of the party wounded there is already both a greater plenty of them and they are of a more forcible operation But if it flow from the other simples which are put into the composition of the oyntment the former things to wit the bloud fat and mosse are added but in vaine because they give no vertue to the oyntment So any vulnerary remedy if the bloud of the person wounded be applyed thereunto shall bee able to cure the wound by a magneticall quality to wit the spirit conveying the vertue of the oyntment to the part affected And indeed there is no reason if this sympatheticall ouring bee naturally possible why it may not bee good in all oyntments that mosse and bloud be put into them not for their vertue of healing but for their sympathy only as if a wound be to be deterged take the bloud of the Patient to which adde a deterging ointment and the spirits which are in the bloud by reason of sympathy by means of the spirit of the World will carry the vertue of that oyntment to the person wounded and so performe the cure In like manner any remedy may be made sympatheticall thus purges may be instituted or other intentions of Physicians perfected by adding to some convenient remedy a little of the Patients bloud whose vertue may be afterwards carried to the sick by means of the spirit of the World But if the spirits themselves have in
them the vertue of curing seeing there are more spirits left behinde in the body in vaine is the vertue of the oyntment implored Fourthly it appeares from the circumstances that this is an unprofitable manner of curing For they say that from the too loose or too strait binding of the weapon the same symptomes doe happen in the sick which are wont to come by such tying when it is used to the body Now these symptomes doe proceed either from the oyntment or from the binding Not from the ointment because it hath power to heale but not to hurt Nor from the binding because an artificiall thing hath no power to work at distance and upon another subject then to which it is applyed And therefore because Crollius prescribes sundry formes of applying it the oyntment is to be subspected for in naturall things that curious manner of anointing cannot change the property and of beneficiall make it to become hurtfull as likewise appeares in the Loadstone Nor doth it depend on them both because the magneticall vertue of the oyntment seeing it is defined to be meerly naturall and is seated in the oyntment doth proceed from meanes that work naturally as are the simples of which it is compounded and not from artificiall meanes which depend meerely on the will of him that anoints with it Furthermore they say that whatsoever commodity or discommodity that spirit which is in the bloud of the weapon doth receive it communicates the same by sympathy to that which is in the veines thence it is that the Patient is in pain if the weapon bee exposed the heat of the fire or to the cold aire But thus not only the vulnerary vertue of the oyntment but also the externall cold shall have a magnetick quality which is an absurd thing to suppose So that noxious cold might be carried from the weapon to the Patient through a hot medium as in the greatest heat of Summer As if the weapon should bee anointed in a Northern Country and the Patient be in Africk in a hot Country suppose the weapon to bee cold the Patient likewise shall be cold in Africk yea perhaps being near the sire Now seeing that cannot bee done but by the aire as Crollius confesses the aire of the Northerne Countrey shall have power to refrigerate the aire in Africa which who sees not to be a grosse absurdity But I would demand further seeing there is such a mutuall sympathy of spirits and the maintainers of this magneticall cure write that on the contrary if the sick shall observe an ill dyet and eat garlick onyons and mustard it is presently discerned in the weapon If the Patient doe lye neare the fire in Africk very hot and the weapon be exposed to the cold aire in the Northern Countryes why shall rather the person wounded bee made cold than the weapon be made hot because they will have the spirits to communicate their passions one to another These externall accidents cooling or heating do happen to the spirits either from the oyntment or not If not then they will not affect the party because the oyntment is necessary for the magneticall vertue that is in it and not in the ambient aire or other externall things and through the oyntment alone is the communication of the vertues from the weapon to the wounded Nor from the oyntment for it hath neither power to coole nor heat they are therefore nothing else but externall things not permanent but are changed according to the alteration of the ambient aire for in a hot aire the weapon being well covered and bound both the spirits and the oyntment will be hot and the contrary Then I demand how it comes to passe that they are not againe refrigerated in the way by the aire for they may bee carried through such such a medium which is cold as the winds which are by nature cold passing through hot climates doe become bot as the South winds In like manner if one loose a few ounces of bloud by a wound or bloud-letting or bleeding or by some other meâ—â—es it is a woulder that bloud being changed and cooled that the person doth not feele such effects if there be such a great sympathy of the spirits among themselves that what commodities or inconveniences they receive from externall causes they communicate them to that within the veines and so those spirits being refrigerated have power to refrigerate and coole that body out of which they issued If one or two drops of the bloud on the weapon by the anointing of the ointment be of power to heat the wounded body if it be kept in a hot place by reason that the spirits themselves are hot it is a wonder that the rest of the bloud that was spilled which hath more spirits than this being left behind and exposed to the open aire doth not likewise at the same time refrigerate the body seeing that in a greater quantity there is alwayes greater vertue if that bloud be cast into the fire why shall not the Patient feele the heat of the fire or if that bloud be putrified how is it that the body also doth not putrifie if there be such a great affinity betwixt the spirits and the body out of which they issued In like manner if the weapon cannot be had they say it sufficeth to besmear another weapon or a willow stick with a drop or two of the bloud that comes out of the wound I demand therefore if when this viceweapon is anointed with the oyntment that weapon which made the wound be first cast into the fire or water why shall not the sick be in great paine be cold or hot For there is no reason why it should suffer rather from one part of the spirits than another It is absurd therefore to imagine that this heating or cooling is communicated by any magneticall power Hence the Reader may observe that whatsoever they say of the sympathy of the spirits among themselves is true with them only of that part of the spirits which they faine to be united with the spirits of the oyntment by the aanointing and all these symptomes whether good or evill which they say doe happen to the wounded doe arise from thence But the spirits which are in the remainder of the bloud that was spilled doe neither hurt nor good and so their sympathy is vanished when neverthelesse they are of the samekind with the other spirits And who can but thinke these things are magicall especially if the actions of Magicians be compared therewith A comparison betwixt Magicall operations and this salve Who knows not that it was an ordinary thing with Magicians to make waxen statues by the help of which they did much harm and especially which concerns this heating at distance Virgil writes in his Pharmaccutriâ Limus ut hic durescit haec ut cera liquescit Vâ—o eodemque igni isic nostro Daphnis amore In English thus As clay growes hard by fire and