Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	blood_n	heat_n	part_n	1,998	5	4.7606	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28806	A key to Helmont, or, A short introduction to the better understanding of the theory and method of the most profound chymical physicians	Bacon, William.	1682 (1682)	Wing B374; ESTC R28334	21,246	39

and becometh fit fuel to augment the disease for all ferments make aliquod tertium quod non fuit anie either a good or bad tertium according to the strength and regularity or weakness and irregularity of the alterer What then must the sick Patient have nothing to support him Yes Spirituous pure and incorruptible substances so adapted as that they joyn amicably with the vital Spirits without giving the least disturbance intoxication or inflamation though taken in great quantity And though such things if volatile seem as a potential fire yet they quench thirst and allay preternatural heat commonly giving a period to Fevers before the first Crisis as Helmont saith Ipse est Medicus non qui expectat sed facit Crisin Which I humbly conceive they do effect as they do comfort easily and friendly joyn with the vital Spirits or at leastwise the purer parts of the Juices wherein they inhabit thereby assisting and corroborating the said vitals so as to impower them to debellate and cast off preternatural heat or rather morbifick matter the occasion thereof As for instance a Fever I know is generally taken to be an extraordinary and preternatural heat causing Ebullition or undue fermentation of the Blood But I must beg leave to recede from this common Opinion sith I am convinc'd that the preternatural heat is but a symptom not the cause of the disease which I conceive to be a contest between nature and morbifick matter each striving for victory and thereby causing a great motion in the Juices of the body which motion produceth so violent heat The vitals being enforc'd into that disorderly motion to make good their post until they conquer or are conquered I must assure you that I have ever found that the hotter a man is in a Feaver the more hopes there is of him as arguing that Nature is strong and maketh a lusty resistance whereas small external heat in a Fever argues the contrary and is abundantly a more mortal symptom We find that generally Agues and Fevers begin with coldness and shivering of the external parts which seems to me as if Nature call'd in the heat strength and spirits that us'd to guard these parts and concentred them with those internal the better to withstand the approaching Enemy and at that time we find a great drought to attend such persons which argueth a preternatural heat within occasion'd as I conceive by the contest which being over and the Spirits remitted to their usual charge they carry away with them their inflamed particles Now what should we do should we clog and fetter our Champion the vitals with nasty depauparating flegms and gross substances or should we send proper and true assistance to him I leave you to judg I desire any impartial person to observe in the Countrey where many are so poor as they cannot apply to Physicians in Epidemicks and see how many more dye of them that use the common way of Physick than of those that use none at all though the latter commonly want all conveniencies I could never observe any advantange the poor had of the labouring Yeoman-like sort of people but that at a pinch instead of using those cooling slops they implor'd some Cordial-water of some charitable Lady of the Neighbourhood or for want of that did procure a drachm of Brandy or other strong-water to support their declining Spirits CHAP. V. An account of the seeming potential fire before mention'd I Mention'd in the Chapter preceeding a Liquor that was to sense as a potential fire yet would quench thirst and allay heat in Feavers a thing I doubt the prepossess'd world will hardly credit until they are evinc'd of it by experience Of which that they may be induc'd to make tryal of for their satisfaction I shall presume to give the best account I can and offer my weak Reasons with all humility and submission for the Cause I am entred on an abstruse matter but being certain that it 's so de facto rather then it should pass without some notice taken I am resolv'd to tender my mean sentiments if be it but to put more ingenious men on the consideration of it I confess I was Master of such Arcana's before I considered the Reason of their so benign Operation in mans body When calling to mind the words of the Ancients viz. separate and unite purifie and conjoyn destroy and revive c. For 't is the Hermophrodite that doth the great matters in Nature I easily saw that all the Noble Medicines that would raise Nature to act contraries whether fix't or volatile that I knew were of an Hermophroditical composure and then I conceiv'd and still do that by such an union the parts satiated one another Of which Opinion I was so fond that with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I acquiesced in it a long time until upon farther consideration I found I had taken too short a measure to give my self a satisfactory prospect And though I saw such Textures most agreeable to the vitals yet it did not satisfie me why it should be so and then I call'd to mind the Doctrine of Des Cartes which I had read in my youth concerning the Analogy and disproportion of bodies wherein he shews that things of like Texture do easily and friendly joyn and things of inconrguous particles difficultly and disturbantly and sometimes not at all At length happily meeting with the excellent Books of the honourable and incomparable Robert Boyle Esq his Origine of Forms and Mechanical production of Forms I was wonderfully enlightned and confirmed in Des Chartes's Doctrine And then I cast about to find what Analogy of Texture might be between those Medicines and the vital Spirits And sith the vital Spirits are too subtle for the best assisted sense to apprehend I endeavour'd by the same Doctrine to trace them in the parts where they lived and inhabited concluding with these Learned Authors that nothing could delight lye easie well or long continue in a disproportionate mansion and the blood being allowed to be the vehicle if not the seat of the vitals I easily found the products not principles of the purer parts thereof to consist of oleaginous saline and sulphureous particles I was then convinc'd that a volatile pure and incorruptible body which should consist of the like particles must readily and amicably joyn with the purer and more active parts of the blood sith it consisted of parts Analagous to it Certain it is that there is no more positive or innate heat in Spirit of Wine or saline Spirits than in common Water For set them in one place where let them stand until all accidental or adventitious heat be wasted and then try them with an accurate Thermoscope and you shall find them of equal coldness If so as no one that hath or shall experience it but will evidently find then it 's plain that it 's no innate heat in those spirituous bodies that seemeth to enflame us but as their particles

and is able to rend pliable Water into infinitely different corpuscles and thereby to mould them into as different forms or textures as we see in the World and as it form'd us it goeth along with us and preserveth our textures and several kinds as long as possible But here I foresee that I shall meet with an Objection of some learned and inquisitive Philosophers whose Opinion is that the diversity of Natural Operations are the products of different Textures and those Textures to arise from the Position or Figures of the Constitutive Corpuscles I readily grant them both being well assured that the aptness or unaptness of Textures make things grateful or ungrateful hot or cold to us and so of all other qualities Yet pardon me if I cannot conceive that either vegetable or animal things that beget their like can possibly be produced by the fortuitous coincidence of Corpuscles without the help of a guiding spirit nay I suppose that dead bodies would I say not could not be generated without the assistance of such a spirit also which coagulateth or mouldeth such different Textures for though there be many excellent and luciferous productions of this nature Mechanically obtain'd which plainly shew that there are such things in nature yet I hope it will be granted that they would not be without the art and guidance of the humane soul and if so why should we think that the world hath not an Aura vitalis or guiding spirit in it Now as spirits the Governours of the Sensories that have a distinguishing faculty in them embracing good and rejecting offensive things to the utmost of their power are affected so it acts for good or evil otherwise how could it be that the same Medicine which is but a dead thing of humane facture at the same time given in the same quantity and vehicle should act contraries in several bodies nay in the same body at several times nay in the same body at the same time as in Womens cases it may happen the Spirits being assisted exalted and thereby enabled to do all things for the best and to supply Nature in her several indigencies for the better and longer preservation of the concrete I could produce you many other Instances but for brevity sake I pass them by presuming that this one is enough to convince the considerate if it be so de facto ofw which I shall have occasion to speak more hereafter Now what sort of Water this is it matters not to my design sith it is enough to support my Hypothesis if it be granted that all things are made of Spirit and Matter CHAP. II. A Consideration of the Actions of the vital Spirit as tend to our purpose IF the vital Spirit form'd us according to the Omnipotent decree I presume 't will be easily granted that the same Spirit preserves us in that form and is the sole active and sensitive part of the body for having taken its flight from us we are no longer capable of Disease or Cure I shall presume to give my sentiments how that Spirit doth universally act for us and against us and thereby hope to elucidate that saying of Helmont that the cause of life is the cause of death I must first premise that all creatures in the universe are sustained by nourishment which I call the conversion of some other parts of the Creation into a symbolizing nature to the creature nourished which is said to be altered by vertue of the ferments but what nature the Leven of these ferments are is rather guessed at than known It hath been endeavoured to be describ'd by manifest qualities as Heat Acidity Acid and Alkali but the coldness of Fishes and sweetness of healthy Ventricles being suddenly and without terror destroyed overthrow the two former And if Acid and Alcali be unequally mix'd it would be tasted also if equally I could never find out of the body that it had any power to digest corrode or putrifie but is e contrà agreat preserver of bodies from putrefaction Praeternatural Heat and Acidity are the usual concomitants of Diseases and we well know that a diseased person cannot digest well according to Hippocrates's Aphorism Corpora impura quò magis nutrias eò magis laedas a Rule as little taken notice of by many Physicians as unknown to Nurses who think they can never do the sick right longer than they are suggesting something to eat little thinking whatever gross substance they take that is the object of digestion is converted by a deprav'd ferment into filthy matter fit to feed the disease for 't is not so much what we eat or drink as how our Alterative faculty is The same Joynt of meet that nourishes the well loads the sick nay will be converted into Dogs-flesh Swines-flesh Fish-flesh and Birds-flesh in a word into the several species of all creatures that will eat of it And we see the poor that feed on the coursest of fare as vigorous and as strong as those that feed most opiparously But pardon me this digression I lament therefore that so many ingenious and industrious men have and do still spend so much precious time to find out the causes of vital ferments thinking it to be so material as to be discovered by their senses whereas it seems to me most rational that that which gave us our formation should also prepare our aliment and distribute to us fit Juices for our preservation and so to unform the aliment if I may so speak it to form something for the preservation of its own concrete out of it If so we shall never know it a priori being too subtile for our most assisted senses but must be contented to guess at it a posteriori by its effects and parts it inhabits in However I confess and acknowledg that these ingenious inquirers have found cut several curious and different parts in the Ventricles and other parts of things of different species undoubtedly filthly adapted to work with to alter food of such and such a Texture to such an end But I must beg their pardon that I cannot think them the causes of fermentation sith of themselves they are but dead things longer than they are animated by the vital Spirits but conceive them as Engines stupendiously fitted for the vital Spirits to operate withal We see that creatures of different specist delight in different foods which no doubt are such that best agree to the Textures of their bodies and are most fit to be digested by their peculiar ferments Now sith it 's undeniable that we being depriv'd of the sensitive soul we are uncapable of sickness and health and all sensation whatsoever and all ferments except the putrefactive one cease though when present and active the smallest prick of a pin or any other the least injury given to the remotest parts offend all the whole body by startling the vital Spirits whose resentments of injuries and disturbance thereby cause them to form morbifick Ideas either through