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

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57952	A physical treatise grounded, not upon tradition, nor phancy, but experience, consisting of three parts. The first, a manuduction, discovering the true foundation of the art of medicine. Second, an explanation of the general natures of diseases. Third, a proof of the former positions by practice. By William Russell, chymist in ordinary to His Majesty.	Russell, William, 1634-1696?	1684 (1684)	Wing R2357; ESTC R218554	58,632	208

Digestion submitteth to it as an admitted Guest and ceasing to strive against it sends Superfluities as Nourishment thereunto This is apparent in every true Gout Before the Paroxysm begins Loathing at the Stomach and a restless Disposition is perceived for a Day or two and the Pain never approacheth till the Burthen be thence removed thô indeed the Torture which happens afterward doth many times cause as it were a Loathing Yet that is rather the Effect of Anguish than of Matter For whereas at the first these Universal Remedies work upon the Matter by Vomits Sweats Stools or Urine and when the Pains exist in the Joynts have no action at all yet when the Dolours are removed then they operate the same way again And this is a sufficient proof of the possibility of keeping even Hereditary Diseases from growing or increasing to any great height by General Medicines if seasonably applyed These General Dispositions of Medicines here treated of are singularly useful to keep Physicians from Error because Medicines of an Universal Tendency do manifest the Distempers of particular Parts and as with the Finger point at the Seats of Diseases beyond the Imagination of Any that have not proved them for they most sensibly act on the diseased Part. And where such Medicines are first administred there particular Remedies that are specifick to Parts have afterwards the greater efficacy because Nature being assisted in General doth readily dispose of the Particular according to its Gift also For althô they cannot cure every Disease yet their clearing the first Digestion by strengthening and removing the Evil thereof cause the particular Medicine to act without any stop upon the affected part And by this method it is that Distempers accounted uncurable have often been cured But the great Occasions of Errors committed in the Medicinal Faculty are 1. Ignorance of Nature what she is able to do 2. Want of Knowledg of the possibility of Remedies to be so universal in their nature as to do or leave undone as it most conduceth to Nature's help 3. The grand mistake of Practitioners touching the Causes of Diseases judging all Distempers to have their Original from Humorous filths and in the mean while never thinking of Venoms arising through Ferments much less of the Spirit that makes the Assault For althô they hourly see the Effects of Anger Sorrow Envy Fear c. yet when they apply Remedies the first obvious Cause that turns the whole frame of Man is not consider'd by them and only what they produce is the Subject against which their Medicines are directed As for Example When Rage kindleth Choler they seek to allay Choler that is only the product of Rage Choler maketh not Men angry but Anger conceived maketh that sensible For Nothing liveth but hath enough of that Juice so called to be in Rage sufficiently yet unless the Spirit be defiled by a wrathful Image there is no sense of it apparent So also when our thoughts are greatly exercised with a strong desire to attain what is unknown the Constringing Fiat presently ferments the Chyle with so great a sharpness through the Contraction of the Spirit in that Exercise that it is manifest in the Gust or sensible Tast and is in Nature the Cause of what is called Melancholy but if persevered in so long till Separation happen without great helps a certain distraction is produced or some violence that is worse Envy and Malice have not much different Effects for the former cause when they are conjoyned with a strong desire except that Madness hence does more rarely happen yet in that Cold dark harsh fire they impregnate the Chyle and induce great Leaness on the Body harshness and darkness in the Skin and Hair and are not curable any more than the other by any Means applied to the Humour For althô that be altered by the force of Physick to day and wholly separated yet if the Spirit strenuously persist in the same Design the Disease in the twinkling of an Eye is generated again because what is once done may be done a second time and needs not any intervening Agent Althô 't is true that Matter once generated augments the Evil and increaseth the Darkness so largely that the Spirit is thereby more materiated more exasperated and in greater Anguish Fear stagnizes the Blood brings Coldness Sighing intermittent Pulses Convulsions and if strongly persisted in sudden Death or great Stupidity Now it is true that in case the occasion of Fear be removed it is no hard matter to conquer the Effects And so it is consequently true in other Idea's but if continued in thô but in a mere dejection or sinking of the Life they are rendred more difficult to cure than the more evil and active Passions Sorrow is accompanied with debility of Faculties a pining away of the Body and a wasting of the Spirits and is a Causer of Pains in peculiar Vessels through the alteration of Chyle the Parent of manifold Evils yet if once overcome the Effects are not long in expelling thô they have altered almost all the Constitution Now in as much as 't is evident that Disturbance of the Spirit is the Generator of defects in the Body can it be thought that real Venomes whether Epidemical Endemical or Artificial shall less distast then the aforementioned Conceptions since they absolutely assault the Spirit and endeavour the Extirpation of Vital Light the former arise as well from feigned as real Objects the later only from real active and after a sort living Essences therefore in reason more perceptible and causes of greater Wrath Fear Stupor Sorrow or irregular Action in our Nature unless we think every thing is agitated by Necessity as Sparks fly upward and that there is no living Understanding and Election in Us. But if we bring these things to a sensible Test it cannot be denyed but that we feel the force of Anger Fear c. in our Bodies which if the Spirit in Us were not the Ruler could never be so Yet to come nearer to our Selves Do not trivial Errors even of Meats and Drinks Heats and Colds primarily affect the Spirit Who is there whom fulness of Meats and Drinks doth not affect with Dulness and Heaviness Do not Heats when overmuch cause Faintings and Languishments and doth not the Supplement of Cordials actual or potential supply that defect Likewise is it not apparent that Cold when offensive stagnizeth the Bloud giveth Cause for dolour in the external Parts to Imposthumous Humors or stirs up Disorders internally through the let of vital Separations and is usually the Begetter if the Spirit be not helped to perform its natural Separations of Vomitings Fluxes Feavers Coughs and what not through the obstructing of the vital Spirit Yet however this can be no more than the Occasional Cause the Efficient must be the Spirit erring in its own Acts that must constitute this formal part of distemperature and bring it to a Disease And doth any thing sooner restore Nature

to compose those Confusions that cause so great a Complication and indetermination may indeed by its particular act alter the Scene but not the Tragedy and change the Seat of a Disease from one Bowel to another but if any do impartially observe the Event they will soon perceive that the change of Place hath rendred the Disease before easily cured not curable unless with great difficulty and not at all but by General Remedies Yet let no Man mistake me so far as to think these Medicines I mention to be very easily obtained No the Common Preparations have no such Endowments Nor can the converting of a Vomitive and Purging Medicine into a Diaphoretick render its Gifts more splendid nay rather what before in it self had an universal Disposition is now become only a particular Bemedy being no otherwise serviceable than where Sweats are needful And it is clear to every skilful Labourer in the way of natural Medicines that every universal Being tormented by Fire or fiery Spirits is not bettered thô changed For every direct Change is a diminishing of the Natural Gift And whosoever spends his time this way to alter General Medicines will injure both himself and his Neighbour and shall never arrive to any certainty in the true Matter of Medicine The outward Life of Metals or Minerals is poyson which unless overcome with Conservation of the Species of them they cannot exhibit their natural Gifts For Mineral Virtues are like Lillies among Thorns if a Man remove not these he will be wounded with their Prickles before he can attain the Sweetness of those The outward life of Minerals must dye and be annihilated their middle Life is Medicine Antidote against Poyson an Exhilirator and Server of Nature without any determinate Action a great Light impressed with a Divine Seal capable to extirpate the Characters of diseasy Images or at least to subvert their Acts having a natural faculty to remove every occasional Matter by Nature's own Power not compelling but exciting Her as hath been sensibly experimented This proved to me the Truth of Helmont's Theory which thô believed yet without this Testimonial Act I might with the generality of Searchers have ruined my Self by adhering to what was visible and supposing what I enjoyed not as impossible to be attained For every true Natural Medicine worketh not by its own Power which is ever inimical to Nature to Vomit Purge Sweat provoke Urine c. but by Nature's dispose being such as never operates on Bodies well and in health althô taken in a six-fold quantity nor on the diseased and sick but in the way Nature finds most conducent to health Because Nature is the Physicianess and all that is ministred to her ought to be at her Dispose And that she knoweth how to use Medicines of an universal Disposition appeareth in that she doth by them Purge Vomit or Sweat where occasion is and that as forcibly and sensibly as the strongest direct Medicines can do yet with so different Success that Sweats thô endured for many daies do not weaken so much as others thô only for some hours excited by a forcible Diaphoretick Nay the Patients each day grow stronger and stronger than the first Day of taking them So likewise in Vomiting and Purging there is no debility of Nature thô they work many Weeks together in such a measure that the gentlest of direct Purgers if used so long and wrought after the same manner would bring to Death's dore if not totally extinguish Life but these separate the occasional Matter only and weaken not Besides these Properties mentioned that prove their Subserviency which is but the dark part of Vniversal Remedies there are other more vital Separations which manifest their Endowments insomuch that the very same Medicines that did provoke do also stay Vomiting repress unnatural Sweats stop Fluxes cure the Dysentery and Gripings of the Guts as also all Fluxes of the Womb white or red stay the Menses if inordinate and bring them down when stopped hinder Abortion further the Birth when ripe prevent the After-pains yet cleanse more securely than any Specifick whatsoever dissolve or ripen Imposthumes transmit seemingly fixed Tumors from one part to another so as sensible Tumors of the Womb have by the use of them become Imposthumes of the Abdomen an Action if well noted of no small Advantage to the Sick and of great Comfort to an honest Ingenious Physician I have also known Urine in a great Obstruction thereof contrary to the Common course of Nature yet naturally vented through the fleshy parts about the Kidneys and that in such a Quantity as was not inconsiderable had it been voided the usual way thô this continued no longer than the Obstruction was separating for then Nature assumed her usual Passages And for a Crown to the Reality of Vniversal Medicines I shall add They more powerfully excite Nature by insensible Transpiration than by all the usual Passages which Operation If Physicians be not stark blind is of more service a Thousand fold especially in our days than Purging Vomiting Sweating c. were it not the grand unhappiness of Mankind to measure the offices of their Living Spirits by the Effects and Consequences of their intemperate Lives For these Remedies of an universal Tendency exciting Nature to Insensible Transpiration perform that part of Medicine which is least minded thô of greatest Concernment and althô of late years it hath been conceded to as true because sensibly experimented yet the Medium by which it is performed is a mystery to the greater part of Physicians But to proceed to more sensible and less disputable Actions what hath been already specified being most certain because so often known by my Self Nothing below an Universal Tendency is capable of such different Operations nor can it be so disposed as Nature may be capable by the same to extravert the introversate and that without Damage to the Parts or Organs since it is not given to Nature to create Gifts but to use them For every particular Remedy thô most pure cannot be extended beyond its Gift As for Instance The purest Stomachical that hath Gifts to fortifie to cleanse and separate the Impurities of that Part not being indowed with an Universal Disposition to strengthen Nature to war against those dark Images she hath conceived and by that means impressed on another Digestion and also a Capacity of removing occasional Causes it shall indeed corroborate the part for the present but at the same time shall separate the Impurity thereof to other Digestions and so rather render the Party worse because the Root of the Disease being in the Archeus and that Specifick is uncapable of communicating ought thereunto except what concerned that particular Bowel the Disease it self must necessarily be increased in the place to which it is transferr'd and never be subdued until the Darkness overwhelming the Spirit shall be driven away or the occasional Matter in which those Idea's are impressed nullify'd Whence it

their Fore-fathers never knew thinking that Man who was made in the Image of GOD hath no Light or Guide in himself sufficient to direct Him to his own help or the help of his Neighbour O great Blindness What Man the Summary of all created things that hath an immortal Soul shall not that in him which descended from above be capable to distinguish what is fit for his help Shall Birds and Beasts have the priviledge to know the fitness of Remedies and Man be judged uncapable thereof Shall barbarous Indians and rude Shepherds Husbandmen or Old Women do greater Cures than the Learned Doctors of our Age O Shame For to be ignorant of what illiterate Persons know is a great reproach to the Learned if they pretending great knowledg perform little even in the Faculty of which they call themselves Masters and the other pretending little are able to do much more than they But this is because the One is excited by natural Instinct and the Other only by credulous reading Althô at present these things may sound harsh to the Ears of some yet being true and having Nature for their Foundation they will perhaps out-live the Enemies of the same and in this latter Age be as generally received as heretofore in times of Apostacy they have been denyed Our Ancestors in Art though vulgarly reverenc'd under the notion of Antiquity were really but the Infancy of the World 't is our Age which by following long after theirs is indeed the true Antiquity Why then should we dote wholly upon their Childhood-inventions and not rather having the advantage of Example which the Beginners must needs have wanted proceed and grow old in Understanding as well as in Time a Pigmey set upon a Giant 's shoulders may be able to see farther than Him The Second Part. OF THE General Nature of Diseases A Person is then properly said to be Sick when some Part at least cannot perform its due Action and whatever produceth that Infirmity is styled the Cause and that Disability of the Part to do its proper Office or Function is call'd a Disease of which some are Simple some are Complicated Simple Diseases are either Natural Preternatural or Contranatural Pardon the Coinage of the last Word because it seems as analogical as the Terms Supernatural Vnnatural Connatural and the like Of the first Sort are all Hereditary Diseases transferr'd from Parents to Children and may be considered under the deficiency of Parts transmitted Idea's or corporeal Venoms sometimes singly as when any weakness of Parts in Parents not labouring under any other Disease is conveyed to their Off-spring who have those deficiencies during Life in one measure or other yet are not at all thereby the more lyable to greater Diseases but to the trouble of Nature's exercise where that deficiency is except Nature failing in her own endeavour admit Retents of things to her further Disturbance which yet may easily be prevented by the help of Remedies specifick to the Parts But if to the weakness of a Part a material Evil be added then indeed the Persons if not quickly cleared of that Disease through the weakness of their inward Parts do either soon die or live a miserable Life Nevertheless even in the conveyance of such Morbifick Idea's if the Parts be sound and no accidental thing happen to give vigour thereunto they perceive nothing thereof for a long time as is observable in the Derivative Gout which a Child thô begotten by Parents strongly possessed therewith feeleth many times nothing thereof till 40 or 50 years of Age For it is absolutely necessary and essential to every Ideal Disease except Mental Evils to have material filths for the Idea to work upon For instance I have observed that those who have contracted the poyson of the Lues mummially and have otherwise been of sound Parts have had no tokens nor appearance thereof in several Years themselves and perhaps never may yet some of the Children proceeding from the same Bodies have been naturally infected therewith And likewise I have known other Parents Ideally defiled to have had Issues that appeared sound and free because Seeds admit not of ought but Idea's for 7 10 or 12 Years and afterwards that Ideal Disease by occasional Matter hath manifested it self apparently as an hereditary Communication Besides it is observed generally that those who are contaminated with that Disease by a seminal Contact have never any Sense thereof for several Months and Others on whom the Disease so acquired breaks out at any time are conscious of some disorderly Acts that have introduced Superfluities for captivating the Spirits without which that Malady when seminally induced is not made manifest But if the Lues be materially contracted then the soundest Body and the clearest Spirit escape not free from the sense thereof for many hours or at the most not for above 3 days because it materially affects the Parts discovers its proper Signs and manifesteth it self to be material and the Archeus striving against it produceth Sores and Fluxes in the Parts infected thereby to center the Evil in the Part to prevent its further progress in the Body by which means Gororrhea's newly gotten are quickly healed all the internal Parts being sound nor do they ever arise to the Lues except Means be wanting to keep them from further spreading For Material Diseases thô very venomous by reason of their corporeity are easier overcome than the spiritual or Ideal because they aseend not to so great an height as to captivate Nature so as to make her nourish the Evil without resistance except great Errors are committed whereas the Ideal do at first darken the Spirits and then make them subservient through insensibleness of the unmateriated Venom to prepare Matter for the existence and nourishment of that spiritual Evil and then is the Disease formed Now for corporeal Evils that are derived from Parents having their original from maternal Nourishments they manifest their cruelty so soon as the Child is born by one Sign or other evident to the Sense as by Vomitings Loosness Restlessness Thrush or Convulsions sometimes by Acrimonies external or otherwise by which their Lives are quickly cut off if they be not helped with Remedies that can fortify the natural powers to resist those Evils And that general Opinion grounded upon the defectiveness of common Remedies that Physick is not fit for Children hath in all probability cast away many that might have been preserved for material Evils how great soever they seem are seldom mortal if the internal Powers are strengthened by natural Medicines because the Spirit in them is not so vitiated as to nourish the Evil thô indeed a diseasy Idea imprinted upon the Archeus of a Child striveth to bring the Disease into act upon the advantage of every occasional disorder Preternatural Diseases so called because they have no Root naturally from Parents or from diseasy Seeds but are accidentally begot by variety of Distempers as the Spirit or Part is more