is evident where phlebotomy purgatives are very dangerous nay desperate by which it may be strongly concluded that if in the Plague the Smal pox and Pestilential Feavers phlebotomy a loose belly and cooling drinks are of very bad consequence so to wit as to cause death in many to indanger life in all that then the same things can not in reason be of good effect in any Feaver which brings me by the hand to the discovery of my method and Medicines for the cure of this disease the better to compare it with the way commonly practised by which both of them the better may be judged of and censured For Feavers are of sundry sorts either continual or intermittent The continual are various of which the saddest is the Plague next the Smal-pox next the pestilential Feaver next the malignant which is scarlet purple c. to which may be reckoned the Pleurisie which is a real sort of Feaver more violent by reason of an Apostemated matter threatned in the side of which it hath its denomination this accompanied with a cough and spitting of bloud with a tormenting pain is thought incurable without Phlebotomy and so the vulgar are perswaded by Doctors and Chirurgeons though very falsly Intermittent Feavers are of several sorts either Ephemerial or Tertian or Quartan of which the two last sorts are either single or duplicate and lastly there is the Erratick intermittent Feaver called by Paracelsus Febris extranea of all which are so many appearances that it would require a large Treatise to describe all the kinds of this disease But as for the cure or rather the way and means of restoring this kinde of disease therein the Galenical Tribe and I differ very much we only agree in the names and symptomes of the same concerning which let it not be objected that I leave out the names of Feavers Hemitritean c. since it is not my design in this place to make a curious Anatomy of that disease in its kindes according to its various Symptomes performed both learnedly and acurately by many Galenists as Fernelius and others who being professed Methodists were yet honourers of Chymical Medicaments as their writings do testifie which were a work of a peculiar Tractate to perform And to say truth the disease is sufficiently known being so common and so truculent that not only a Doctor but each ordinary Nurse can tell when a man or woman is Feaverish although to know certainly the kinde of each Feaver is a task sometimes too hard for a professed Doctor and yet that may be known and the disease as far from cure as before therefore well said he who sang thus Non opus est morbi testibus at medico To the certain safe and speedy cure of which malady I shall now come and that not perhaps without great expectation which I shall do my endevour to answer to the ingenuous readers satisfaction In order to which task I shall premise some positions by way of Aphorism very true and certain however contrary to the commonly practised way of the Schools 1. That the heat which appears in some nay most Feavers is not originally from the nature of the Feaver This appears first in intermittent Feavers commonly known by the name of Agues among us in which the cold fit in each access is of the most afflictive part of the distemper and torments with a violent thirst yet without any sensible heat But nextly all malignant Feavers some more some less begin with a sensible internal cold and a quivering or shaking withall after which followes burning Thirdly Castrensian or Camp Feavers a kinde of Feaver but lateâ—y known among mankind from â—he beginning of them to the end of â—heir Tragedy are without either thirst or heat and yet as truculent as any malignant Feaver whatever Adde to this that all Feavers when they draw towards a conclusion abate of their heat although the disease be more violent then as drawing nearer to death To which agrees that the Feavers of old persons and such who are of very weak decayed bodies manifest far less heat and burning then far milder Feavers do in strong vigorous bodies and lusty constitutions and that leads me to the second conclusion or Aphorism 2. That the more sensible the party affected is of heat and burning the more strength he may bejudged to have and the better probability of his recovery For it is the Archeus of the life whence this rage proceeds being provoked by some accidental matter whence the first offence doâ—â— arise or from some Ideal characteâ— instamped upon the seat of life or some near adjoyning sympathizing part either by mean of a virulent endemical fume or exhalation or of some passion of the minde which by its tyrannical impression doth disturb the seat of life that is its own original habitation the soul and life being originally seated in one and the same part whence is caused this or that disease according as the passive part doth receive the injury For it is not necessary that a Feaver should finde alway an occasional matter ready prepared since it is evident that grief fear c. have power to give originall being to this disease and so an eminent cold especially after being throughly warm which without controversie only inrage the Archeus by instamping an unusual Character on its place of habitation and so consequently follow febrile excrements which had not being before The vital Archeus is that Vulcan in man which doth stir up and feed that heat of life which from the first hour of life till death goes never out which in health is orderly and regular but being provoked rageth according to the known rule Idem agens laesus edit actiones laesas qui sanus edit actiones sanas Proportionable therefore to the provision for life is the virtue and strength of the Archeus whose rage in burning in Feavers is nothing else but a gathering together its forces to expell its adversary that is to blot out that character which either cold or virulent fumes or passions of the minde have instamped on its place of habitation and so proportionable to the strength of nature is the burning in such cases and this leads me to my third conclusion 3. That bloud-letting and purgations and cooling drinks are unreasonable waies to be used by him that pretends to cure Feavers For Nature only is the immediate helper both of Feavers and all diseases which assail the life primarily and in their first intention now if the provision for life be the subject cause of heat in Feavers what ever is intended primarily against heat must impugn the subject principle of life and this is the master-piece of the Galenists method namely to take part against nature to whose help alone they are called by the sick Patient That the life is in the bloud is most certain and by how much of it is taken away by so much is the vitall Balsam wasted and therefore very unwisely taken
your objection rejected all Mercurial and Antimonial Medicaments either Vomitive Purgative or Salivative as being sallets for your own Apparatus Pigs of your own Sow adopted sons of your own Method as also all Vegetals so long as either Purgative or Vomitive and their Oyles so long as Oyles and their Salts so long as fixt we renounce from our mysterie and leave them to you finding them with you ut similes labris lactucas But if any of you shall say that you know not any such preparations as I mention and therefore do not believe the commendations of them then say I why do you judge and censure an Art you know not why condemn you and reproach Artists while you understand not what they professe for shame cease imitation of the Fox and condemn not those Hens for lean and Grapes as sowre which are too high out of your reach We knew your Art both Theorically and Practically before ever we disliked it learn at least this candor from your professed Antagonist Therefore according to what we know we come to your own doors and dare you to combat we defie your Clysters as ridiculous your Purges and Vomits and Bloud-letting as dangerous your Issues Cauteries Blistering c. as cruell and needlesse and in a word your whole Method we have impugned Now because it may truly be replyed to what I have said That if a cure be never so desperate or uncertain or cruell yet it is good if it may do good to be used provided no better way can be had since not only a little bloud but skin for skin a man would be content to give to save his life Therefore and very seasonably did I lay down the efficacy of Medicines preparable by that Art which I commend and have instanced in those remedies which will perform my promise therein which was an absolutely required task for the making good of my assertion For if my Medicines would only do what your Method would perform as speedily and as safely yet it were the better as being more simple lesse chargeable not tying the Patient to such curiosity in diet nor by far so cruel as using none of all your martyrdoms and butcheries But if my Medicaments will perform what your Method accounts impossible and therefore dare not promise nor give hopes of as in the cure of the Palsie Epilepsie Gout Agues Kings-evill c. as also the Lues inveterate without Tubbing or Salivation in Gonorrhoea's of all sorts without purgation or vomiting or detaining within doors and will cure all acute diseases as Feavers Fluxes and Pleuresies Calentures Small-pox and Measles at the utmost in four daies without Blouding or Purging without suffering the Small-pox to fill but by an Antidotary killing the venome attenuating and avoiding the peccant matter by the pores and mortifying the venomous corruptor of the bloud not suffering the Archeus to make any purulent matter and in all this performance not tormenting the Patient with forbidding drink a common cruelty in the vulgar Method but allowing good Beer and Wine moderately in the most deplorable Feavers if I say this be made good certainly ordinarily and safely then it must follow that your Method is but a bloudy cruelty and a tyrannous cheat no more to be pleaded for or defended then Baal was to be pleaded for by Israel who were the people of God What I have said of the Medicaments commended by me I will hazard the cause totally upon making it good and can give past instances if required but if any shall undertake to combate with me we shall not go to rake up things past for to finde examples but Hic Rhodus hic saltus esto If the Methodists dare to contend with me if I do not stand contest let me for ever be branded for a vain-glorious boaster and till they do that they must never expect victory If their Method have done and can do what I promise by true Chymical remedies known to me and preparable by that Art professed by Paracelsus Helmont c. let them take up the Cudgels and come forth or if they will only try me let them only give me as much for each party cured as I will forfeit for each uncured of a thousand in acute diseases in four daies that is in Feavers Pleuresies Small-pox Measles Fluxes Calentures and Agues in four fits not Hectical or if Quartan and Hecticall in four weeks provided the strength be not wasted to despair and if I slink the proof of experiment let me be reputed what they please and if I cure not six for one I will recant what ever I have written publickly let them do the same if they dare And as for the dangerousnesse of my Medicaments which I know they will insinuate that is but a meer Bug-bear by which ignorant people are frighted without cause or ground as the Jesuites are reported to affright their deluded Catholicks by telling them that the English since the casting of the Popes Supremacy are turned into Monsters which those who know our Nation see to be but an invention to keep their people under restraint from falling into that Religion which they call and account Heresie I before advised the Reader that by the volatile Salt of Tartar all Vegetable poysons are so corrected as not to leave the least footsteps of the same and that without decoction but only by digestion in a heat answerable to the heat of the Sun in which warmth they in short space are turned into meer reall Salt which will crystallize like Sugar-candy tincted according to the concrete and retaining so much of its taste and odour as the Magnum oportet or vita media will retain So far then are these Medicaments from being poyson that my self will take of Hellebore or Elateâ—um two churlish poysons or any other Vegetal of the most malignant quality a dram at a dose and that on a fasting stomach and fast after it two three or four hours and let any Galenist do the like and I will lay down the cudgels But I have sung long enough to deaf men I shall have done with these captious Readers and shall come to speak a word to those who are better tempered after I have first given one word of admonition to prevent a Critick And that is if that any faults chance to escape the Presse my leisure not permitting me to attend it they be attributed to their true cause one in perusing part of this Treatise as it was brought me by the Stationer before all was perfected I observed remarkable and that is a large Anachronism which I cannot tell if or no it were an error of the Printer or a slip of my pen this I am sure it is a fault about of the bottome of the 16. page where in stead of though he viz. Aristotle in many places severely carped at Galen read be severely carped at by Galen which was my meaning not being ignorant of the number of years between Aristotle Alexanders
above Art the other as besides Art But that I refer to this Art which by a natural course doth perform cures whether by Talismans or by Sympathetical remedies or by proper Medicaments either specifical or universal whether simply used as Nature prepares them or else prepared by the Art of the Physician and that either Chymically or vulgarly And yet Chymistry doth also comprehend the most absolute and perfect Medicaments besides which nothing can be desired for any disease or defect either inward or outward except those accidents which necessarily require the work of the hand as Fractures and Dislocations and pulling out of any thing violently thrust into the body of what kinde soever it be So then we need not any Medicaments which Chymistry doth not supply yet the Art requiring the administration as well as the preparation of the noblest Medicaments it followes that Chymistry is too narrow a Genus to comprehend the whole of Medicine which Art doth being equally referred to Theory and Practick And yet Chymistry is larger then to be totally comprehended by the Art of Medicine for by it are prepared Diapasmes which are in a sort medicinal and sundry curiosities some not at all referring to medicine as the making of Jemmes malleable glasse c. others are referred to Medicine and also transcend it as the Elixir of the wise the white respecting only riches the red both riches and health Yea and this supreme Medicine doth transcend the bare Art of restoring defects of nature in as much as it doth lengthen life wonderfully although I know few do believe it So then the Art of Medicine contains these branches first the knowledge of diseases and secondly the way of their cure And this also contains two parts first the choice and preparation of Medicines and secondly their administration Their administration includes a true knowledge of their virtue and so a proportionable and convenienâ— application of them in reference to the cause of the disease and the state of the Patient And this is universally to bâ— noted that the more languid the medicines themselves are the greater sagacity is required in the Theorical part and care joyned with dexterity in the practick I know that according to the received Doctrine of the Schools I should now unfold many very unprofitable questions but intending the reality of things and not respecting the empty bubbles of Aerial notions I shall not meddle with them I mean questions in reference to the definition and division and subdivision of this Art To proceed then to what I intend I said that Medicine is the Art of knowing curing and restoring all diseases and defects to which mankinde is subject to in reference to the body as Theosophy doth the same in reference to the soul so that next to it this Art hath the first place I express knowing curing and restoring not without cause as I shall by and by explain Knowing I say because without the knowledge oâ— diseases a man may be a Mountebank but not a Physician which knowledge of diseases is as it were his line and plummet by which he works By this he judges the facility or improbability of the cure for though no disease in its kinde yeâ— many particular diseases are incurable as in my Preface I touched and explained nor shall I here repeat There also I did clearly discover what knowledge was absolute and what accidental to a Physician the one constituting the other adorning him the one to be required the other to be desired in him I shall also passe that as already spoken fully to Curing is as much as to say taking care of and imploying diligence about them nor any diligence iâ— not enough or any care promiscuously for the nurse and cook c. do carefully attend the sick party but by cure or care which is all one being but the English of the Laâ—ine word Cura of the Physician is that which is intended to the recovery of the Patient and that with as much speed and safety as may be I add restoring as the grand mark of a real and true son of Art it is his diploma by which he appears to be one created of God and not by the Schools for their creatures they adorn with titles God graceth his with real abilities His knowledge is not such as he sucks from the Schools but such as is applicable to action the other being but empty shadowes of which in its place His cure and care is not consisting only in reiterated Visits feeling of Pulses and tossing of urines Stirring of Close-stooles and appointing Purges Vomits Bleeding Fonsinels Blisters Scarifications Leeches and such enfeebling Martyrdoms nor prescribing Syrups distilled Waters of green Herbs Lozenges Electuaries and such fooleries and what is more sordid he doth not oversee the Kitchin to make this Gelly or that Broth or this Glyster or the like but like a valiant Achilles or Hercules he assayles the Disease with powerful and prevailing Medicines and for the Diet he is not so precise provided alwaies meat be not taken immoderately of any sort and that diet he approves for a sick stomack which is of easiest concoction but of this by the way we shall insist larger on it in its place He doth not cowardly sum up a Catalogue of incurable diseases so that as the ignorant Academians of old had their Graecum est nec potesâ— legi so the School Doctors have a very large roll of maladies over which they only put this inscription Incurabilia sunt and so leave them with a sad recommendation to God But as the valiant Hercules fought against Giants and Monsters and overcame them so a true Son of Art makes it appear that all diseases are in their kinde curable And now my Reverend Doctors who perhaps some of you have read Galen at least cursorily and some have read Hippocrates but never understood him some have turned over Fernelius Sennertus Avicen and others both ancient and modern writers to you I speak The Art that you think your selves masters of so that you would perswade your selves to be the very natural Sons of Aesculapius what is your Art let us weigh it in the ballance let us consider it and compare it with this Art which we commend and admire and I doubt not but as a shadow before the Sun so your appearing Art before true Art will pass away Can you cure the Gout some perhaps of you will finde impudence enough to affirm it to whom I shall only object Fiat experimentum The people deny it according to the Adagy Nescit nodosam medicus curare podagram How then You can cure you will say the running Gout speak softly I pray lest some of your patients hear you and object this And why then did you not cure me 'T will be aâ— serious check But I suppose you much mistake the name and nature of the running Gout the Gout properly and truly is an Arthritical pain affecting the joynts immediately and some
convulsions of the stomack which have Hellebore mixed and their purging quality with gripings and such symptomes that have Scammony mixed thus you use to correct poysons thus you intend to cure diseases Minervam crassissimam But as a Jugler when his feats are discovered so you by this means become ridiculous you know the serious check the Frog in Aesop received who as you do would pretend to be a Doctor Cur tibi ipsi labra livida non curas Coughs Colds Murres Hoarsenesses Head-aches Tooth-aches and the like nay oft-times the simple Itch and Scab doth reproach you at home and outdare you abroad and what is your excuse they are trivial cases By which it appears that if other diseases should become as common as these they would all be too mean for the Doctors reverence and good reason because they are above his abilities Though you name Mountebanks with contempt yet you differ from them chiefly herein They pretend skill in notorious diseases chiefly there where they are least or not at all known You in a place where you are most known are most desirous to deal in hidden unknown maladies How often shall a man finde the Doctors worship himself tormented and at his wits end with the Tooth-ach or Head-ach muffled up for a Hoarsness often coughing at every breath to whom if you object the common Proverb Physician heal thy self he will thank you heartily as much as if he did but he knowes he cannot do it but it must wear away he will take perhaps some old wives Medicine and what is the cause If another come to him for the same grief he is straight at his rules of Art the Cough saith he is caused by a Catharr and therefore first you must purge and then make an issue and use Conserves of Fox-lungs and such like remedies why doth he not use these tricks himself this is the reason he knows it is a folly for these remedies are invalid yet be it as it will he that hath money shall have his counsel which he will not take himself because he wants some body to pay him for it and other good he expects none but the Patients confidence he hopes will help out the insufficiency of the Medicament which therefore he will confidently prescribe and count this his Counsel worth a Fee to another which to himself would not be worth taking Well be it so that according to the Proverb Aquila non capit muscas the Doctor is above these petty imployments which are too vulgar which might be the better beleeved if he were free from them himself yet I then desire to be enformed what they say to the forementioned Gout is not that a disease worthy their care and cure Yes without doubt for it is a disease that often followes great men and Heroes whom it so affects that he should not be unrewarded and that highly that could perform that here the Doctor hath proved his skill and method ad nauseam and at last he concludes it to be incurable Perhaps upon some disorder of the body by sudden heat and cold there may be caused a running and very sharp pain which as I said before is accidental and therefore transient the Doctor is advised and consulted with he adviseth fomentations unguents plaisters sear-cloths and scarifications then he purgeth the body once or again as the fansie takes him perhaps he will cause blisters to be drawn and after them cause issues to be made then he prescribes a Dietory and perhaps causeth him to sweat the pain goeth away sometimes he useth bathing of the part in hot Bathes either wet or dry then the Doctor strokes his beard and perswades himself he hath cured the running Gout Ne saevi magne sacerdos Oft times a good old woman sweating a party so taken soundly with Carduus Camomile-flowers bathing the place affected with Brandy Wine warm hath performed the like Ampla spolia This O this is the Doctors Method this is the Art they so magnifie in respect of which a Chymical Physician in contempt is by them termed an Emperick and a Mountebank and what not We have seen their mystery in common maladies which are too vulgar for them a gallant excuse and in more difficult cases in which being convinced by daily experience and opportunity of being more fully convinced still presenting it self hath extorted a confession of their impotency herein yet palliated with a shameless falshood that such diseases are incurable which censure they give on a multitude of other diseases as the Phthisick Consumption Strangury Palsie Epilepsie and many others which it would be tedious to relate and name But a true Physician acknowledges none of those shameful distinctions of trivial and considerable diseases nor that false distinction of curable and incurable but by his Art with Gods blessing he is able to cure and restore to their integrity all distempers of what kind soever which I shall briefly yet fully clear up and demonstrate This task may seem to some very difficult especially to a Pisse-Prophet who I suppose are very desirous to hear it demonstrated I doubt not but many of the Goosquill Tribe hope the contrary having this confidence that what ever is beyond their capacity is beyond possibility whom therefore I shall principally assail in this demonstration If any of you desire to know how I prove all diseases to be curable who am so confident to affirm it I shall aske you how you prove any diseases to be incurable which you so confidently affirm to be so I know that what ever you will answer though by much circumlocution it will all tend to this because you never could certainly cure such diseases therefore you so judge them In very truth Gentlemen if you from negative experience are so bold to collect a positive Maxim and confidently pronounce that incurable which you cannot cure I hope you will give the like liberty to a Son of Art to affirm those diseases to be curable which he hath oft and certainly restored Worth derision was that of an Ideot who being asked how many seven and seven was he counted it on his fingers and could tell the number being asked how many four times seven was his finger Arithmetick failing he could not tell but being asked how many seven times seven was he said No man could tell he thought some men might possibly count up 4 times 7 but 7 times 7 God only knew So you some diseases you think you can cure others though you cannot yet some more experienced in your Art can but the knotted Gout Stone Strangury Epilepsie c. God only can cure This is your sentence somethings often succeed in our hands and some though rarely yet sometimes therefore they are curable others never succeed therefore they are incurable This Logick would make almost all Mechanicks to be impossible if what ever you cannot do must straight be unfecible Can any of you or all your Colledge together make the Tyrian