be more plentifully conveyed to her Lungs Which truly is not so much to be wonder'd at seeing the Atmosphere is so highly impregnated with nitrous particles which as the Lord Bacon hath well observed are the only refrigerating Cordials that can be exhibited And surely if the motion and florid colour of the Arterial bloud do so much depend upon a due commixture of the air and many diseases and sudden deaths are occasion'd by too great a crassitude roapiness and coagulation of the bloud how much might the free admission of air into the rooms of sick and diseased Patients and it may be where we durst not allow of their rising the bare suction of it by some artificial pipe contriv'd for that purpose tend to their more easie and speedy recovery And if in high Fevers deliriums c. that excellent Physician Riverius would direct the strowing the Patients chambers with green herbs and pouring water out of one tub or pail into another surely these late experiments may encourage us in several cases to admit of fresh gales of air into those Patients chambers who are almost parch'd up or suffocated for want thereof And truly if we consider how many fair and beautiful Ladies in the prime and flower of their years are precipitated into Phthisicks and Consumptions from being too closely mew'd up with their near relations lying sick of those distempers and how many of those afflicted with them are rendred incurable and sometimes speedily destroy'd by the inspiration of air so highly vitiated from their own morbid expirations I cannot imagine but the most ingenious Physicians will allow me that great improvements might be made hereby for the better cure of diseases if we were as diligent in observation as we have been in speculation which otherwise is really no better than as our adversaries term it the ornamental part of physick But now 't is high time to answer their cry'd up objection taken out of Celsus which is as a late Author hath told us in plain English That nothing is more foolish than to imagine that things within a man should be in the same state when he is dying as they were when he was living much more when he is actually dead for saith he most diseases lying in the variations of bloud and humors spirits and ferments of the parts are causes remote from such ocular inspection And that nothing certain can be concluded from the stagnation of bloud or other humors found in any place or passage of the body after death is evident in this that nature upon deaths approach being driven to most violent motions does extravasate intravasate throw blood and humors in and out here and there and every where Cap-a-pee through the most abstruse and unperceivable passages so that if stagnant or coagulated bloud or other humors be found in any part by anatomizing it cannot be concluded it was so before death Thus far hath that ingenious Author endeavoured to defend so ill a cause which endeavours had they been employed to better purposes I doubt not but he might have been more serviceable to himself and the Common-wealth of learning But seeing his inclinations have engaged him to different apprehensions I hope he will pardon us that we refuse to give him our assent to what he hath yet writ on this subject unless his reasons were more cogent or prevailing For I would gladly have this Author acquaint us what alteration is made in the body of a healthful man when he dyeth of a violent death as to those things which we enquire after I mean as to the viscera and solid parts do they lose any thing of their figure connexion proportion c. I confess that they are something alter'd as to their colour but I hope we may satisfie our selves as to the reason of that mutation Which of the vessels do we then find wanting The lacteals we acknowledge do then disappear and the Lymphaticks too some time after death but the defect of these vivi-section will supply And as for the rest of the humors the bloud excepted they receive no great alteration in death as witness the gall urine Lympha c. And as for the bloud it self I hope we may observe both it and its motion in the dissection of living Animals and I am sure we may discover its passages even in dead bodies by injections And what though we readily allow that most diseases lye in the variation of the bloud and humours spirits and ferments yet our Antagonist himself is willing to grant us that the morbid impressions they make upon the several viscera are visible enough and so are the bloud and humors no less in some diseases though he is pleased to assert that they are causes remote from ocular inspection as witness the inflammatory blood that is usually drawn from the arms of Patients in Rheumatisms Quinsies Pleurisies c. And for the humors there is enough to be found for the proof thereof in Sylvius and de Graef who have acquainted the world with what a variety of diseases do owe their original to the preternatural affections of the bile pituita Lymphatick liquor and pancreatick juice all which may easily be obtain'd and that in some considerable quantity in living and dead in sound and morbid bodies And as for what is said of the extravasation and intravasation throwing bloud and humors in and out here and there and every where Cap-a-pee through the most abstruse and unperceivable passages in deaths approaches I must confess that I do not well understand this notion till the Author hath better clear'd it for according to my apprehension the impetuous and disorderly motion that he would fancy the humors to be in at such a time should be so far from directing them into those unperceivable passages that it should altogether hinder their motion through those fictitious Meanders And farther let him give me leave to tell him that I am not of his belief that the bloud and humors are then in such an impetuous motion the languid pulses of most dying persons affording us a sufficient argument to the contrary and for my own part with submission to better judgments I am apt to think that the disorder that is observed in the body upon the approaches of death doth chiefly proceed from the tumult of the Animal spirits which are put into those disorders and irregular motions for want of a due supply of influential spirits from the mass of bloud which alas at that time is so far from being endued with such volatile and luxuriant parts to occasion this motion that I take it not only to be perverted in its whole crasis but a weak confused and depauperated liquor And farther as to what is said of extravasation and intravasation in deaths approaches 't is as difficult to believe as all the former seeing that upon the point of death we rarely observe maculae or exanthemata c. to appear but usually in the beginning or augmentation
Author which they fancy may be made serviceable to their designs as they have been with their confutation of the learned Doctor Willis in the title pages of their books but I hope that none of our Faculty will ever give credit to any quotation of theirs without a due examination of the Authors design for 't is plain by this account that I have given of Mr. Boyles quotation that he hath been so far from discoursing against Anatomy that he hath spoken as much in the favour thereof as any of our Moderns would have done and therefore as if he had foreseen this vile sort of men that would abuse these excellent passages he wrote them with so much caution that one could have scarcely imagin'd that a man who pretends to cure the poor members of Jesus freely for his sake durst have been guilty of such apparent and malicious falsehoods and that to maintain so bad a cause I shall therefore for the prevention of these Empiricks for the future from quoting any passages out of Mr. Boyl against Anatomy acquaint the world out of this very book what a great honour and veneration he hath for this noble Art where you may find in the first part of it p. 5. that telling us that one would think that the conversing with dead and stinking carkases that are not only hideous objects in themselves but made more ghastly by putting us in mind that our selves must be such should be not only a very melancholy but a very hated employment And yet saith he there are Anatomists that dote upon it And I confess its instructiveness hath not only so reconciled me to it but so enamour'd me of it that I have often spent hours much less delightfully not only in Courts but even in Libraries than in tracing in those forsaken Mansions the inimitable workmanship of the Omniscient Architect And in p. 9. he tells us that were we not lull'd asleep by custom or sensuality it could not but trouble as well as it injures a reasonable soul to ignore the structure and contrivance of that admirably organiz'd body in which she lives and to whose intervention she owes the knowledge she hath of other Creatures And in the second part of the same book p. 9. he positively asserts that since diverse things in Anatomy as particularly the motion of the bloud and Chyle cannot be discovered in a dead dissected body where the cold hath shut up and obliterated many passages that may be seen in one opened alive it must be very advantageous to a Physicians Anatomical knowledge to see the dissections of Dogs Swine and other live creatures which puts me in mind of what a very learned Physician ingeniously observed that Dogs Pigs and Monkyes have contributed more to the advancement of Physick than this sort of men ever did or are like to do But to proceed in a further account of the great estimation that this noble Author had for Anatomy which you may find in p. 46. of the same book where he tells you that not only the dissections of sound beasts may assist the Physician to discover the like parts of a humane body but the dissection of morbid beasts may sometimes illustrate the doctrine of the causes and seats of diseases For that this part of Pathology has been very much improved by the diligence of modern Physicians by dissecting the bodies of men killed by diseases we might justly be accused of want of curiosity or gratitude if we did not thankfully acknowledge for indeed much of that improvement of Physick for which the Ancients were they now alive might envy our new Physicians may in my poor opinion be ascribed to our industrious scrutiny of the seat and effects of the peccant matter of diseases in the bodies of those that have been destroyed by them And in the same page he blames the acute Helmont for not having been a more diligent dissector of beasts And in the following page he tell us that here we may also consider that there are diverse explications of particular diseases or troublesome accidents proposed by Physicians especially since the discovery of the bloods circulation wherein the compression obstruction or irritation of some Nerve or distension of some Vein by too much blood or some hindrance of the free passage of the bloud through this or that particular Vessel is assigned for the cause of this or that disease or symptome Now in diverse of these cases the liberty lately mention'd that a skilful Dissector may take in beasts to open the body or limbs to make Ligatures strong or weak on their Vessels or other inward parts as occasion shall require to leave them there as long as he pleaseth to prick or apply sharp liquors to any Nervous or Membranous part and whenever he thinks convenient to dissect the Animal again to observe what change his experiment hath produced there Such a liberty I say which is not to be taken in humane bodies may in some case either confirm or confute the Theories proposed and so put an end to diverse Pathological controversies and perhaps too occasion the discovery of the true and genuine causes of the phaenomena disputed of or of others really as abstruse Now pray Mr. H. can any unprejudic'd or impartial person read this account Mr. Boyle hath given of his estimation for Anatomy and yet believe that little is to be expected from it and that he doth not see wherein by any of those new discoveries any thing hath been done to better the cure of diseases I am apt to think he cannot and if so what reason hath Mr. H. to peruse these passages with blushing Cheeks if he hath either ingenuity or modesty left him and come and supplicate pardon of that Noble person for that injury he hath done him in publick print The third Assertion was this That the greatest Anatomists and Practisers of our Age have been the greatest Chymists For the proof of this I need not take any great pains seeing two of our latest Anatomists and greatest Practisers may afford us so clear a testimony to the truth of this Assertion I mean the eminently learned Doctor Willis and Sylvius both which excellent Physicians have obtained an universal reputation throughout the world for their admirable accomplishments in the Anatomick and practick part of Physick and how highly they did esteem of Anatomy their great industry and pains therein with their learned writings drawn from that fountain will sufficiently testifie to all posterity witness that incomparable book of Doctor Willis de Cerebro with what he hath wrote de ventriculo intestinis pulmonibus and Sylvius his disputationes Medicae and though a friend of Mr. H. would perswade us that Sylvius his doctrines had not their rise from Academies but from his own and others Laboratories yet I believe he will scarcely be credited by any ingenious Physician that hath been conversant in his writings for 't is plain that Anatomy not Chymistry laid the
to certain points maxims or rules c. but how if I should tell him that from his own principles it may fairly be deduced that the same maxims and rules are still remaining for if his notion be true that the Colledge hath made no improvement in Physick and are only to be esteem'd the Sectators of Aristotle and Galen no doubt but they retain the same maxims they there espoused although let me tell him for his better information that there are several discoveries in the Physiological part of Physick so clearly demonstrated in our dayes by those great and renowned Physicians he so much contemns that we must deny even credit to our senses if we will not give in our suffrage to the certainty of them which have been so far from rendring our Art more conjectural that they have obtain'd the universal consent of all the ingenious of our Faculty witness the Circulation of the blood its sanguification by the vital spirits and not by the Liver as the Ancients and all later Physicians believed till the incomparable Doctor Glisson discharg'd it of that office the motion of the Chyle through the lacteal vessels discover'd by Asellius it s discharging itself into the common receptacle and from that through the ductus Chyliferus valves of the subclavian veins into the mass of blood happily found out by the industrious Pecquet the Lymphaticks by Dr. Jolive the Ductus salivales and lachrymales by our learned countrey-man Doctor Wharton and that excellent Anatomist Steno and many others which I shall ere long have occasion to mention which doctrines had they been discover'd in the dayes of those Greeks and Arabians he talks of would have been so far from everting all maxims in Physick that I rather think they would have been engraven in letters of Gold and the Authors have had Statues erected to their memory And truly if we well look into the profession of physick we shall not find it so Conjectural an Art as Mr. H. pretends for Medicine strictly so called is very little conjectural as to the rules of it though as to the particular application of those rules to the hîc nunc of a single patient it may be but that is no more than is in Divinity and Law and indeed in all the professions of the world The errors of a mans life consisting in the ill usage of avowed and undoubted principles and misapplying them to particular instances But still as to the Theory of our Art as far as it is strictly Medical it will not be found as I just now mention'd so Conjectural as our Adversaries pretend for as to the subject Physick treats of 't is certain and well known to every one of the Faculty and the end and design of the same is no less agreed upon on all hands and for the general description and Diagnosticks of diseases who ever yet contested about them it being universally agreed that there are such distempers as Apoplexies Epilepsies Pleurisies Gout Stone Feavers Quartane Agues c. which are so specifically differenc'd by their descriptions and diagnosticks that not only Physicians but Nurses are able to know them And for the Pharmaceutick part of Physick so far as it relates to the use of such remedies which by experience have been found of great benefit in several diseases of humane bodies who hath not readily embraced it I might likewise inform Mr. H. that we are generally agreed as to the Causes of diseases so far as they relate to air diet and the rest of the non-naturalia so that 't is plain Physicians have had a standing rule to judge by these 2 or 3000 years nor will they want such a rule to the worlds end But the matters of debate are of a more remote consideration and not so truly Medical as Philosophical I mean the Physiological principles which are borrowed out of natural Philosophy to the building up of an Art which might in all parts be complete And though our Adversaries would pretend that these principles are wholly conjectural yet possibly if they be attentively considered it may be found that our contests as to these are rather verbal than real differences about the focus or minera morbi or it may be about what hypothesis such a humor may be best explicated by whether Galenical Spagirical or Sylvian I shall therefore endeavour to shew both in Acute and Chronical diseases how little our Art may be esteem'd conjectural from such debates as these For instance suppose that the Galenists shall teach us that intermittent Fevers or Agues proceed from excrementitious choler flegm or melancholy congested in some minera of the body and according as those humors do sooner or later tend towards a state of putrefaction and commotion whereby they are conveyed into the blood and ferment therewith do cause those febrile paroxysms to return sooner or later And the Willisians shall tell us that the Essence of the one consists in a more retorrid constitution of the mass of blood being too much impregnated with Saline and Sulphureous particles the other in a more acid and austere one which being deprived of its sweet and balsamick nature is apt by reason of its penury of spirits and too great exaltation of its terrestrial and tartareous parts consisting of salt and earth to degenerate into a fluor and induce a sowrness upon the whole mass the third in a more debile constitution of blood than the former insomuch that the greatest part of the nutritious juyce is perverted into a fermentative matter which occasions the Fits to return so much sooner than in a Tertian or Quartane And the Sylvians as strongly contend that these Intermittents have their focus in the Pancreas and derive their original or primary cause from the vitiosity of the pancreatick juice which at different periods according to its various constitution doth discharge its self through its common ductus into the intestines and there fermenting with an ill affected bile and phlegm doth produce not only the various symptoms that accompany these Agues but the different species of them And thus in continued Fevers the one shall tell you that the putrefaction of the humors in the Veins and Arteries is the immediate cause The other too great an exaltation of the Sulphureous parts of the blood which immediately breaking forth into an effervescence procures that distemper we call a Fever The third shall tell you that the saliva bile and lympha being ill affected and continually circulating through the heart do there excite the foremention'd effervescency which occasions this distemper And thus in most Chronical affections as Hypochondriack melancholy Scurvey Gout Rheumatisms Hysterick affections Madness c. The Sylvians shall tell you that these and many others of the like nature do own their original to a preternatural fermentation of an acid juice or lympha with different subjects or from diversity of acids fermenting with one and the same subject from whence they would explicate all the
stubbornness and contumaciousness of our late diseases with their great and main alterations than the Chimerical Ternary of your unanswerable friends viz. the Pox Scurvy and Worms whereby many of his Majesties subjects have not only been deprived of the Cure of their distempers but sacrificed their lives to the forementioned detestable prescriptions 'T is therefore likewise to be hoped that our Soveraign Lord the King who hath been so great an Encourager of all liberal Arts and Sciences will imitate his Royal Predecessor King Henry the Eighth in confirming that Charter by Act of Parliament which out of his Royal bounty he hath lately bestowed upon his Colledge of Physicians whereby the mechanical successors of those old Empiricks exactly described and characterized in 3 H. 8. may be prevented for the future from trying experiments upon his Majesty's Subjects to the high displeasure of God great infamy of the Faculty and the grievous hurt damage and destruction of the Kings liege people c. Nay further 't is to be hoped that the Chancellors of our Universities with the grave Judges of our Land and all other persons of ingenuous or Academick educations will be exemplary in the encouragement of this no less famous than worthy Colledge that so the Laws already made and established by the Parliaments of England being diligently prosecuted by them may give some check to their Empirical pride and insolency as well as their bold invasion of this noble Art of Medicine whereby so many of the worthy Professors of it have met with no small discouragement I shall therefore crave leave to conclude this subject with what hath been no less ingeniously than judiciously observed by a very curious and inquisitive person viz. That if Physicians who are men of so clear judgments so unparallel'd for industry have no more respect or consideration than mean empty shallow pretenders we may have reason to fear that hereafter persons of so great abilities and liberal education will scorn to look towards a Faculty which though honourable in its own nature is so low and mean in the esteem of the world that every person who hath confidence to affirm he is a Physician although perfectly ignorant of the Rudiments of Physick shall yet have no less countenance from the publick than those gallant persons who after a long courtship have rendred Nature familiar are acquainted with the causes and Cure of diseases and who have so deserved of mankind that I cannot but marshal them next to those divine persons who also as these are often slighted and neglected although of them the world is not worthy FINIS POSTSCRIPT SInce the writing of the first part of my Book which relates to the establishment of the Colledge of Physicians by Law I understood that the Records of the Parliament in 14 and 15 H. 8. were to be seen at the Rolls Chappel which ingaged me to make a very diligent search into that Act and the rest which concerned the Colledge of Physicians where I found upon that Parliament Roll 36 Acts publick and private whereof 26 were signed at the bottom with Respons Regis le Roy le veult and ten others stitched to these on the same Roll without le Roy le veult But at the end of the Roll there is affixed a Commission granted by the King to Cardinal Woolsey to Prorogue and Adjourn the Parliament from Blackfryers to Westminster and there to continue and hold it immediately after which Commission we may find that upon the 13 day of August about six in the evening the King being present the House of Commons was sent for and Sir Thomas Moore their Speaker having made a very elegant and learned Speech he presented the King with a very large Subsidy given by the Commons as a Testimony of their great devotion to their Prince which being done and the Lord Chancellor having according to the usual custom privately conferr'd with his Majesty he commanded that all those Acts which were made in that present Parliament for the publick good should be recited and published Quibus ex ordine per initia recitatis lectis singulis publicavit Parliamento respons secundum Annotationes Regiae voluntatis Declarativas à dors script fact dictus reverendissimus dominus Legatus Cancellar exhortando admonendo nomine Regis omnes Dominos Communes supradictos ut diligenter ordinata Statuta pro bono publico in hoc Parliamento observarent ab aliis observari procurarent c. Now 't is evident that the Titles of all Bills that were agreed upon by both Houses were read in the Kings presence and received the Royal Assent though it was not ingrossed by the Clerk of the Parliament upon Ten of those Acts which are to be seen in the forementioned Roll which are but Transcripts of the Original Records and therefore as far as can be proved Roy le veult might be ingross'd at the top or bottom of these Ten as well as the other 26. in the Original Records But however 't is plain that the Form and Essence of a Statute Law doth not consist in the Clerk of the Parliaments engrossing the Royal Assent at the top or bottom of an Act that not being done until the Session is over but in the Clerk of the Crown 's pronouncing of it after he hath read the Title of each Act according to certain instructions given from the King Now the Clerk having in the audience of Lords and Commons pronounced aloud to every publick Bill le Roy le veult to every private Bill soit fait comme il est desire and to every publick Bill the King refuseth to pass le Roy se avisera 't was no difficulty for the Judges and Lawyers Lords and Commoners to know what Acts passed that Session and that this Act relating to Physicians did then pass by this Royal Assent seems very clear because as I before intimated in page 8. of my book a Parliament within 17 years after in the same Kings Reign owned the Colledge as a Body Corporate and gave them several priviledges which they maintain and enjoy to this day and about 28 or 30 years after another Parliament confirmed the 14 and 15 H. 8. with every Article and Clause therein contained as you may see more at large page 9 10. And that the giving the Royal Assent to these two Acts last mentioned in 32 H. 8. and 1 Q. M. might not be questioned you may see it thus ingross'd upon the top of the first Item alia quaedam Billa formam cujusdam Actus in se continens exhibita est suae Regiae Majestati in Parliamento praedicto cujus tenor sequitur in haec verba And then the whole Statute is recited And at the bottom you will find it thus engrossed Cui quidem Billae perlectae ad plenum intellectae per dictum Dominum nostrum Regem ex authoritate assensu Parliamenti praedicti sic respons est Soit fait comme il est desire And at the bottom of the second of the two last mentioned Statutes you will find it thus engross'd Cui quidem Billae perlectae ad plenum intellectae per dictam Dominam Reginam ex authoritate Parliamenti praedicti sic respons est le Reigne le veult Now 't is plain that these Sessions of Parliament were not so long distant from the former but that some that were in both Houses of Parliament in these two Sessions might be in that and therefore would not have own'd the forementioned for an Act if they had not heard the Royal Assent given to it But besides this Act of Parliament with some others of the Ten were ever owned as Acts of Parliament As for instance an Act that the Sir Clerks of Chancery might marry an Act concerning Cordwayners an Act of Tracing Hares an Act for the Clothiers in Suffolk an Act for the payment of Custome an Act for the Haven or Port of Southhampton all which with two or three private ones were passed by the same authority that the Physicians was and if that be invalid all the former are much more Nay further these Acts were publickly printed and bound up after that Session which hath been in use ever since Printing hath been common in England so that they may be found not only in the Rolls Chappel but in Mr. Pulton's Statute-book and in old Books that are bound up with Acts of Parliament that were made in particular Princes Reigns which may be seen at Mr. Millers in St. Paul's Church-yard But suppose that this Testimony were not sufficient I would desire Mr. H. to resolve me whether the forementioned Parliaments owning and declaring it as an Act and the Judges upon several Tryals giving their opinions for it and the receiving it as a Record into the Rolls Chappel be not evidence enough to prove this very Statute an Act of Parliament for I am credibly informed that a Record being brought into the Rolls Chappel and received as such by the Master of that Court who is termed sacrorum scriniorum Magister is so far from being question'd that it is a full and sufficient evidence in any Court
phaenomena of those symptoms that are observable in the foremention'd distempers The Willisians will no less probably assert that they proceed from too great an exaltation of the Saline parts of the blood which are perverted in some of these distempers into an acid and austere nature in others into a sowre and corrosive so that the animal spirits and nervous liquor are therewith affected and in others into a state of fixed Alkalies whereby the lixivial parts of the blood being conveyed by the Arteries into several parts of the body and fermenting with the sowre recrements of the nervous juice do produce some of the foremention'd distempers And the Galenists shall teach you that the cause of some of these is an atra bilis which is sharp like Vinegar or Aqua fortis Now let any judicious person compare these several Hypotheses and then tell me whether there be such a difference betwixt them as our Adversaries would pretend to for seeing they all agree as I before mention'd as to the description Diagnosticks and procatarctick causes of these diseases to which give me leave to add Indications for the cure of most distempers which though explicated by different Hypotheses yet are so nearly related to one another that we may find them generally directing but one and the same method of cure and persisting in the use of Medicines of the like nature which surely cannot render our Art so Conjectural as Mr. H. would have it And as for those internal causes of diseases I mention'd which of the Galenists Willisians or Sylvians ever doubted the existence of those acid humors whereby they would explicate the symptoms of several Chronical affections which are so far from Conjectural that there have been several undeniable demonstrations to prove the truth of them One of which is mention'd by the learned Doctor Willis in his Treatise de morb Convuls p. 116. who had a patient whose sweat was so corrosive that like Aqua fortis it would cito exedere corrumpere lintea and in his excellent Treatise de morbis Capitis he tells us usitatum est nonnullos saepe laticem quasi vitriolicum oesophagi ac palati tunicas erodentem vomitu excernere And Skenkius in his observations as quoted by that great and noble Philosopher Mr. Boyl gives us an account of the corrosiveness of some juices which rejected by Urine or Vomit would boyl on brass fret linnen and stain silver And thus I might run through the whole Catalogue of diseases both Acute and Chronical and satisfie all ingenious Naturalists how little prejudice our Art suffers by allowing this freedom of Philosophising for by Physicians comparing these several Hypotheses they may make choice of explicating the nature of diseases by that Hypothesis which they find most universally satisfactory although 't is certain that our Moderns have ill managed their talents in Physick if they have not by enriching our age with so many fresh discoveries made us Masters of the reason of many of those rules which were gather'd from observation only and practice by the Ancients especially considering they have happily found out several humors in the body which our predecessors were unacquainted with as the Nervous and Lymphatick liquors Nutritious juices and other great Anatomick discoveries whereby they might more securely and unerringly found their Hypotheses and more happily solve the phaenomena of diseases And therefore I will not deny that this Age having made so many improvements of the rules that were given by the Ancients may in some part vary the doctrine concerning Indications and methods of Cure the greatest part of which improvements I shall anon shew to be the effect of Anatomical discoveries But this doth not at all invalidate my assertion nor change the main body of practical Medicine in which the chiefest trials are made by Collegiate examinations that still persisting as much the same as a house is the same that it was a 100 years ago though some ingenious Artist by beating out some large windows bringing pipes of water and digging cellars have rendred it more commodious And as for those Theories I mention'd they have not only advanced much the true skill of the present Practisers but have found that allowance among the learned men of the Colledge that they tye not any man so strictly in their examinations to the Hypothesis of the Ancients but are content with such rational accounts of Philosophical questions as his studies have furnished him withal provided be be vers'd in the practical Theory or general maxims thereof which I call the rule of physick nay though in some of them he differs from their opinion not explicating the constitution of humane bodies or conjunct causes of their preternatural affections by the doctrine of the four Elements but instead thereof solidly answers those Physiological questions by the Willisian or Sylvian principles they do not condemn him the only thing they sight against being ignorance and mens impudent reviling of what they so little understand SECT 3. The method of taking Degrees in the University of Leyden HAving now performed that part of my task which relates to those certain foundations upon which our Art is established I shall now make it my endeavour to vindicate the famous University of Leyden with some worthy and ingenious Physicians whom Mr. H. hath so rudely treated which you may find in the 19. 29. 30. pages of his pamphlet although I think neither of them have much reason to take it unkindly at his hands he having been so audacious as to affront High Courts of Parliament Kings Bench and Common Pleas not sparing the Lawyers but representing them as men who would unawares accept of a Bill for a Statute nor yet Mr. Pulton one of the most industrious men of our Age to whom all the subjects in England are highly endebted for his faithfulness and care in collecting the Statute Laws of the Kingdom But to our present purpose and to the giving a faithful relation of the manner of taking Degrees in Leyden which feather in the Cap Mr. H. so much contemns as you may see in the foremention'd pages I suppose because he was as unwilling to pass an Examination there as now he is in England knowing very well that his Certificates would not be accepted by the learned Professors of that University for the surest evidence of his learning and knowledge fit for his Faculty and though he is in some hopes that the Statute of 3 H. 8. may do him some service here yet it was to little purpose to plead it there The method of educating Physicians and taking Degrees in Leyden is after the following manner When persons have studied some years Philosophy and other Arts for their better accomplishment they have liberty allowed them of admitting themselves Pupils to any of the Professors in physick of that University whose office or employment is to read Lectures dayly to their Disciples and those who are admitted under the practick Professors do frequently
by the great Doctor Harvey yet the velocity of its motion and circulation was never so clearly and fully evinced as it hath been by Doctor Lower and how much this may tend to the clearing up of several of the dark and obscure phaenomena of nature as the speedy passage of liquors from the stomach to the reins c. I leave to the ingenious of our Faculty to determine And doubtless great service he hath done us in clearing out the nature origination conveyance and separation of milk in the breasts of women a doctrine so much controverted in former ages And no less service have the learned Doctor Walter Needham and Doctor Lower done us in their experimental demonstrations of the circulation of the Chyle with the mass of blood some hours before its assimilation which discovery with many if not all of the former are to be admired not only for the truth and excellency of their invention but for their great usefulness in physick as I have before mention'd Wherefore 't is apparent that these discoveries have not only tended to the better cure of diseases as I lately proved but have likewise been very advantageous in affording us more useful Hypotheses in physick for our principles having been more certain and demonstrative it were very unreasonable to conceive that our foundations should not be more firmly laid than the Ancients who were not acquainted with the distribution and natural motions of the nutritious humor blood nervous and Lymphatick liquors c. Since the investigation of which the world hath been made happy with the excellent writings both of foreigners and our own countrey-men One of which I mean the learned Doctor Willis hath satisfied the world so well with his excellent and surpassing abilities in that kind that his Name as well as his writings will be admired both in our own and succeedings ages And if as Noble Mr. Boyl hath acquainted us Pythagoras Democritus Plato and diverse others of those whose wisdom made after Ages reverence Antiquity did not only esteem the truths of Nature worth studying for but thought them too worth travelling for as far as those Eastern countreys whose wise men were then cryed up for the best Expositors of the obscure book of Nature How much reason then have we and the learned world to bewail our unhappiness in the loss of one of the greatest and clearest Commentators thereon Witness that ingenious explication of the phaenomena of those stupendous cases he acquaints us with in his book de morbis convulsivis c. and though he frankly confesseth that in his explication of the theory of diseases he doth not tread in the footsteps of the Ancients but his Hypotheses are altogether new yet saith that learned Author they are such quae super observatis Anatomicis fundatae ac firmiter stabilitae aegrotantium phaenomena quaeque melius solvunt symptomatum causas aptius declarant medendi rationes unicuique affectui magis accommodas suggerunt Which being more firmly founded and established upon Anatomical observations do better solve the phaenomena of the sick more aptly discover the causes of their symptoms and suggest more appropriate methods for the cure of every affection And though Sylvius his Hypothesis hath not been so universally embraced by our English Physicians yet in foreign parts it hath met with no less acceptance from the most learned and judicious of our Faculty than the foremention'd his Ternary of humors being question'd by none of the Anatomists of our dayes from the depravation and exorbitancy of which he would derive all the preternatural affections of humane bodies but however whether his Hypothesis be true or not 't is known very well to his friends and enemies too that his success in practice hath given him a reputation not only in the Low Countryes but amongst most of the learned men in Europe Which hath occasion'd your worthy friend M. N. to acknowledg that he hath done the world more service towards the promotion of the Art of Physick than ever any man did before him in the United Provinces and how kind and generous he hath formerly been to Doctor Willis in acquainting all the learned of our Faculty how much they were indebted to him for that excellent Treatise of his de febribus I shall have occasion ere long to acquaint them with But if all this will not satisfie Mr. H. of the improvements that our Moderns have made whereby they have done something more worth than a straw beyond what the Ancients have done I would advise him to read over what I have discours'd of in the precedent particular and what he may find in the latter part of that Section which treats of Chymistry and if he can spare so much time from his quacking avocations I would recommend to his serious perusal that excellent book of Doctor Lower's called Pyretologia Willisiana which was written against his countrey-man Meara upon this very matter of contest between my self and him which having been printed in the same year that his beloved friend's was printed in and received no answer to it from its most avowed Adversaries for eleven years methinks it should be own'd for a much more unanswerable book than M. N's which hath had four satisfactory answers already to it whereby I should be in some hopes that he might happily be reduc'd to his wits again which were unfortunately lost when he wrote this scandalous Pamphlet against the Colledge of Physicians though he spared not for pen ink nor paper And though Mr. H. and some others of his acquaintance would seem to commend the Ancients by this assertion that our late Anatomists have done nothing by Anatomy worth a straw beyond what was done by the Ancients I take it to be not out of judgment or skill in them of which they are generally ignorant much less out of love to them whom they contemn as oft as they are thwarted by them as witness the principal if not sole design of the foremention'd book Mr. H. so highly commends which tells us that we must proceed by other definitions of the nature of diseases and indagations of their causes and invent other remedies and reasons and rules of curation than what have been delivered by the Ancients and not confine our selves to their conceptions aphorisms and inventions c and chargeth the Aristotelians and Galenists for superstitious devotion to their old heathenish authors and their Sectators as drones of the old methodical Hive that practise in the ordinary dog-road of Physick and therefore calls them the herd of vulgar Methodists and the old way of practice lazy its principles dull and the bane of our profession c. which is a plain demonstration that Mr. H. in this assertion did only use the Ancients as an engine to pull down modern discoveries Whereas we profess our selves to have a great respect and veneration for them as having done great things in Physick in their times for which we and our posterity
with those knowing men he boasts of and of their great improvements in Chymical pharmacy for let me tell him how contemptibly soever he and his companions do think of the London Dispensatory the best Chymists of them all would be at a great loss for a key to open most mineral bodies if they should exclude their proper solvents which are there to be found And it may be in stubborn and chronical diseases they might be glad to steal now and then some Chalybeate or Mercurial preparation out of that contemptible book and yet rail at it for affording them that kindness at so dead a lift and further I might tell them that in acute diseases there are as efficacious Chymical medicines to be found in that Dispensatory as most of their Laboratories will afford and doubtless did any of their Shops or Furnaces supply them with half so many of those Chymical oyles Mineral solvents Diaphoretick powders Chalibeate Vitriolick Antimonial Mercurial and Anodyne preparations Essential and Lixivial salts with safe and experimental Chymical Emeticks and Catharticks c. that are there to be found we should have had them applauded for Polyacea's and Panacea's too some of which might probably have as well answered the Helmontians primary indication in the cure of diseases as their singular Arcana of so general use fabricated out of Mercury it being as they tell us the pacifying indulging and gratifying the Archeus the Architectonical contriver of our first being every Atome of those generous remedies sending forth lively illustrious beams with the intuition of which the Archeus being wonderfully affected and infinitely delighted it layeth aside all morosity melancholy exorbitant passions and the entertainment of deformed Ideas by means whereof an Eutaxie Eucrasie and Symmetrie in the inferior orbs of the Microcosm follows and others of them as fully their second principal indication which is as they say the ablation of the inward efficient Cause and the outward occasional irritating matter by such generous remedies which taking part with Nature might help her to conquer evils and exclude the Nosopoietick thorns and briars those goads in the sides of the Archeus extimulating it to enormous passions and perturbations through the Sluce and outlet most patulous and convenient as an Acid son of Helmont hath lately discours'd in his direct method of curing Chymically But to proceed notwithstanding the London Dispensatory hath furnished us with the forementioned Chymical preparations it must not only be hector'd against but damned by Mr. H. and his Companions either because it pretends not to teach them the preparations of the Solar Lunar Mercurial Saturnal Jovial Venereal and Martial Metalline Sulphures or Coelestial Liquors or rather because it hath that unpardonable fault accompanying it viz. its Authority from the learned Colledge of Physicians in London which will certainly give it a far greater reputation amongst all judicious men than the Chymical Champion of your cause will give the Apothecaries Laboratory by telling the world that since he had found the Company of Apothecaries had erected a Laboratory at their Hall for supply of their Shops with Medicines of all sorts of the Chymical preparation he was resolved wholly to refer Patients with bills to receive medicines dispensed by their hands which new device though expected to prove advantageous yet I wish he finds it not as you prognosticate of the Anatomists of our Age the last part he hath to play or trick to shew to entertain Spectators and amuse the world to uphold some repute among such as are ignorant and draw on Customers and for my own part I am to apt believe that this action of his may be so ill resented amongst his Brethren the Arcanamongers of London that it may occasion some intestine faction in your Empirical Commonwealth as hath lately been publickly managed by some of your Tribe but then 't is to be hoped that when knaves fall together by the ears SECT 4. The usefulness of Method in the Cure of Diseases HAving thus far proceeded in the demonstration of what I promised I come now to enter upon some short discourse of the methodus medendi which though our Adversaries nay it may be our friends may not judge worth the contending for yet I think fit to give all ingenious persons an account of the great usefulness yea necessity of the strict observation of it and that because I frequently observe that the Enthusiastick Pseudo-Chymists of our Age do so much contemn and decry it being masters as they pretend of such great Arcana in Physick as will happily Cure diseases without it I shall therefore endeavour to clear the truth of this assertion by producing several instances both of Acute and Chronical diseases whose happy Cure is principally if not solely to be attributed to the prudent method of the discreet and judicious Physician amongst the number of which I shall first begin with Fevers they being to be ranked amongst the most Epidemical distempers we know of And in the first place we will discourse of those that are generally owned as putrid in which are constantly observed ratione motûs four considerable mutations viz. their beginning augmentation state and declination In the beginning of which putrid Fevers 't is usually observed that the Sulphureous parts of the blood growing too luxuriant do break forth into a flame agitating the whole mass in a preternatural manner whereby its crasis is in danger of being destroyed its vessels too much distended and if not timely calmed affections of the Head and Nerves with pain and spasms do usually ensue wherefore in this state of the disease here are present indications for Phlebotomy to ventilate this mass of blood for a spare and refrigerating diet for Emeticks if indicated lenient Catharticks Clysters c. which many times are no less prosperously than judiciously prescribed this formidable distemper being nip't in its bud it Sulphureous pabulum being extracted by bleeding Clysters c. or its disorder quieted by a cooling diet But if notwithstanding the proper application of the forementioned remedies this Febrile flame cannot be extinguished but it still encreaseth to a higher degree so that intolerable thirst and inquietude headache and watchfulness with delirium and phrensies do continually attend our Patients here are fresh indications for repeated phlebotomy clysters cooling Julips and decoctions c. whereby the spirits may be refreshed the parched viscera cooled and if possibly the motion of the blood so moderated that it may not injure the head or genus nervosum In the state of this disease we are diligently to attend Natures motions that so we might observe whether a future Crisis may be expected or not which if it doth appear a perfect and salutiferous one the febrile heat declines signs of concoction appear in their urines and all things prognosticate a speedy and happy recovery But on the other hand if Natures attempts be too weak for making a full discharge of that adust febrile matter which hath