there do not seldom occur in Diseases sudden Removes of the matter that caused them from one part to another according to the nature and functions of which there may emerge a new Disease more or less dangerous than the former as the invaded part is more or less noble Thus oftentimes the matter which in the sanguiferous Vessels produced a Feaver being discharged upon some internal parts of the Head produces a Delirium or Phrenitis in the latter of which I have somewhat wondered to see the Patients Water so like that of a Person without a Feaver the same Febrile matter either by a deviation of Nature or medicines improper or unskillfully given is discharged sometimes upon the Pleura or Membrane that lines the sides of the Chest sometimes upon the throat sometimes upon the Guts and causes in the first case a Pleurisie in the 2d a Squinancy and in the third a Flux for the most part dysenterical But because I suppose that many if not most of these translations of peccant humors are made by the help of the circulation of the Blood I forbore at the beginning of this Section to speak in general terms when I mentioned them in reference to the Porousness of the internal parts of the Body and contented my self to intimate that some of them may serve to confirm that Porosity This will not perhaps seem improbable if we consider that 't is in effect already proved by the same arguments by which we have shewn that both the Skin and the internal Membranes are furnished with Pores Permeable by Particles whose Shape and Size are correspondent to them For we may thence probably deduce that when a morbifick matter whether in the form of Liquor or of exhalations chances to have Corpuscles suited to the Pores of this or that part of the Body it may by a concourse of Circumstances be determined to invade it and so dislodge from its former receptacle and excite Disorders in the part it removes to CHAP. IV. ANother thing whence the Porosity of Animals may be argued is their taking in of Effluvia from without For these cannot get into the internal parts of the Body to perform their operations there without penetrating the Skin and consequently entring the Pores of it Now That things outwardly applyed to the Body may without wounding the Skin be convey'd to the internal parts there are many things that argue And first it has been observed in some Persons for all are not equally disposed to admit the action of particular Poysons that Cantharides being externally apply'd by Chyrurgions or Physicians may soon and before they break the Skin produce great disorders in the Urinary Passages and sometimes cause bloody Water And I remember that having once had a blistering Plaister applyed by a skilful Chyrurgion between my shoulders though I knew not that there were any Cantharides at all mixt with the other Ingredients yet it gave me about the neck of my Bladder one of the sensiblest pains I had ever felt and forced me to send for help at a very unseasonable time of night The Porousness of the Skin may be also argued from divers of the effects even of Milder Plaisters For though some Plaisters may operate as they closely stick to the Skin and hinder Perspiration from within and fence the part from the external cold yet t will scarce be denied that many of them have notable effects upon other accounts whereof none is so likely and considerable as the copious ingress of the Corpuscles of the Plaister that enter at the Pores of the Skin and being once got in act according to their respective Natures Vertues The like may be said of Ointments whose operations especially on Children whose Skin is ordinarily more soft and lax are sometimes very notable And I have known considerable things performed by them in an internal Disease of grown men where I should scarce have expected a Vegetable Ointment should perform so much I say a Vegetable Ointment for 't is vulgarly known that by Mercurial Ointments Salivation may be excited and sometimes against the Physitians will the Corpuscles of the Quick Silver get so far into the Body that he is not able to get them out again What we lately said of Plaisters may be applyed to those that Physitians call Pericarpia or Wrist-bands The better sort of which though sometimes ineffectual are oftentimes successful in stopping Fits of Agues as I have frequently found in a mixture elsewhere mention'd of Currans Hops Baysalt well beaten together by which by Gods blessing many and I among others have been freed from simple Tertians and either double Tertians or Quotidians The Argument of the Porosity of Animals drawn from those things that get in through their skins without breaking or wounding them may be much strengthned if it can be made appear that those Physitians do not deceive us who ascribe sensible Operations and Vertues to things externally applyed in so loose a way that they do not so much as stick to the Skin or perhaps immediately touch it such as some call Periapta and Appensa divers of which are best known among us by the name of Amulets such as are the Quills containing Quick-silver or Arsenick that some hang about their necks and wear under their Shirts against the Plague and other Contagious Diseases and the Bloodstones that others wear against Haemorrhages and the stone which the Women use in the East-Indies for a quite contrary effect in Obstructione Mensium That many of these external Medicines answer not the promises of those that extol them having some of them no sensible operation at all and others no considerable one experience has assured judicious observers but that some of them especially on some Patients may have considerable not to say admirable operations I confess my self by other motives as well as Authority to be perswaded Having been one summer frequently subject to bleed at the Nose and reduced to imploy several remedies to check that distemper that which I found the most effectual to stanch the blood was some moss of a dead mans Scull sent for a present out of Ireland where 't is far less rare than in most other Countrys though it did but touch my skin till the herb was a little warm'd by it And though I remember not that I have known any great matter done to stop Haemorrhagies by the bare outward application of other Blood-stones yet of one that look'd almost like an Agate I admired the effects especially upon a young and extraordinarily Sanguin person To which I shall add a memorable thing communicated to the experienced Zwelfer by the chief Physitian of the States of Moravia For this learned man whom he extols for a great Physician and Philosopher assures him that having prepared some Trochischs of Toads according to Helmonts way which I remember I also was solicitous to prepare but had not occasion to make tryal of their vertue he not only found that being worn
I have carefully made upon my self added to some others of a very curious as well as great Prince that made use of a like instrument did me the honour to acquaint me with the events gave me no cause to reject Sanctorius observations considering the difference in point of heat between the climate of Italy where he writ and that of England where ours were made only I fear there has been committed an oversight by those many that ascribe all the decrement of weight that is not referrable to the grosser Excrements to what transpires at the Pores of the visible parts of the skin without taking notice of that great plenty of steams that is in expirations discharged through the Wind-pipe by the Lungs and appear manifest to the Eye it self in frosty weather though they may be presumed to be then less copious than those Invisible ones that are emitted in Summer when the ambient Air is much warmer But though I look upon the Wind-pipe as the great Chimney of the Body in comparison of those little Chimneys if I may so call them in the Skin at which the matter that is wasted by perspiration is emitted yet the number of these little vents is so very great that the fuliginous Exhalations that steal out at them cannot but be very considerable Besides that those that are discharged at the Aspera Arteria do probably at least for the most part issue out at the latent Pores of the Membranes that invest the Lungs which membranes may be lookt upon as external parts of the Body in reference to the air tho not in reference to our sight But to return to our Eggs we may safely allow a very great evacuation to be made at the Pores of the skin in man who is a sanguineous and hot Animal since we see that even Eggs that are still actually cold transpire And I elsewhere mention the copious transpiration even of Frogs that are always cold to the touch and the Decrement in weight of some Animals soon after they are strangled or suffocated when their vital Heat being extinct no more fumes are emitted by expirations at the wind-Pipe To which signs may be added the trivial experiment of holding in warm weather the palp of ones Finger as near as one can without contact to some cold solid smooth body as to a piece of polished Steel or Silver for you will often times see this Body presently sullyed or overcast with the invisible steams that issue out of the Pores of the Finger and are by the cold and smooth surface of the Body condensed into visible steams that do as 't were cloud that surface but upon the Removal of the Finger quickly fly off and leave it bright again The Perviousness of the skin outwards may not improbably be argued from the quickness wherewith some Medicines take away some black and blew Discolorations of the skin that happen upon some lighter stroke or other contusions For since these preternatural and unsightly colours are wont by Physicians to be imputed to some small portions of blood that upon the contusion is forced out of the capillary vessels that lye beneath the surface of it being extravasated are obliged to stagnate there it seems very likely that if a powerful Medicine do quickly remove the discoloration that work is performed by attenuating and dissolving and agitating the matter and disposing it to transpire through the cutaneous Pores though perhaps when 't is thus changed some part of it may be imbibed again by the Capillary Vessels and so by the circulation carryed into the mass of Blood Now that there are Medicines that will speedily work upon such black and blew marks the Books and Practice of Physicians and Chirurgeons will oblige us to admit Helmont talks much of the great vertue of white Briony root in such cases And a notable Experiment made a while ago by a Learned acquaintance of mine in an odd case did not give Helmont the Lye And I know an eminent Person who having some while since received a stroke by a kick of an Horse on his Leg a very threatning contusion which made the part look black and frightful he was in a few hours cured of the pain of the hurt and freed from the black part of the Discoloration by the bare application of the chopt leaves of Hissop mixt with fresh Butter into the form of a Pultess Nor is it only the Skin that covers the visible parts of the Body that we judg to be thus porous but in the Membranes that invest the internal parts we may reasonably suppose both numerous and very various Pores according to the exigency of their peculiar and different Functions or Offices For the two first causes of Porosity mention'd in this Essay are as well applicable to the Membranes that cover the internal parts as the Liver the Spleen c. as to the external Skin or Membrane that covers the Limbs and in some respects the transpiration through such Pores seems more advantaged than that through the Pores of the surface of the Body since the parts that environ the Spleen Liver Kidneys c. in man are hot in comparison of the ambient Air and being also wet which the Air is not the laxity of the Pores of the internal parts is doubly befriended And perhaps it may be allowable to conceive both the Skin that covers the Limbs and the Membranes that invest the internal parts of the Body to be like worsted stockings Wast-Coats c. Which in their ordinary state have a kind of continuity but upon occasion can have their Pores every way enlarged and stretched in this or that manner as the Agents that work on them determine them to be This may be confirmed by what we manifestly see in the finer sort of leather as that of Kid or Lamb and by the latent Pores that may be opened in Sheeps-Leather and mans Leather by the pressure of included Quick-Silver This Porosity of a living mans Skin and other Membranes though internal ones will the more easily be assented to if it appear that such thick and gross Membranes as the urinary bladders of dead Animals are Porous and Penetrable even by Water This we tryed by putting some salt of Tartar in a clean well dryed bladder which ought to be afterwards tyed up close in the neck lest the effect should be ascribed to the moist Air and leaving the lower part of the bladder as far as the Salt reached immersed in common Water whose particles by degrees insinuated themselves into the Pores of the bladder in plenty enough to resolve the Salt of Tartar into a liquor And that it may not be said that the Acrimony of the Salt by fretting the bladder made way for the Corpuscles of the Water I shall add that the Experiment succeeded but much more slowly when we tryed it with Sugar instead of Salt of Tartar And there are some who pretend that certain Syrups made this slovenly way
being injected at the Orifice of Wounds penetrating into the cavity of the Thorax has been observed to be in part received into the Lungs and discharged out of the Aspera Arteria by coughing And this he mentions as a known thing imploying it as a Medium whereby to prove another The mention that has been made of the Porosity of Membranes brings into my mind what I once observed at the Dissection made by some Physicians and Anatomists of a lusty Souldier that was hanged for I know not what crime This man though otherwise young and sound was observed to have been long molested with what they call a short dry Cough which made us expect to find something much amiss in his Lungs But meeting with nothing there we were at a loss for the cause of this Cough till coming to consider the internal part of the Chest we perceived something on one of the sides by tracing of which we discovered that between the Pleura and the substance of the intercostal muscles there was lodged a certain matter of the breadth of a Silver Crown piece or thereabouts of a roundish figure and of the consistence and almost colour of new soft Cheese which odd stuff was concluded to have been the remains of some ill cured Pleurisy and to have transmitted through the Pores of the Pleura though that be a very close Membrane some noxious Effluvia which ever and anon irritated the Lungs into an irregular and troublesom motion and so produced the Cough the Malefactor had been molested with CHAP. VI. I Am well aware that 't is far less difficult to prove the permeableness of single Membranes than that of such a Part of the Body as seems to be an aggregate of several parts which in regard of their close adhesion are looked upon but as one part to which on that account men commonly give a distinct name But yet there are some Phaenomena that seem to argue that even such compounded or resulting parts if I may so call them are not destitute of Pores which whether they be not some of them the Orifices of exceeding slender and therefore unobserved Capillary Vessels I must not now stay to enquire When the cavity of the Abdomen in those Hydropical Persons that are troubled with an Ascites is filled with Water or rather with a Liquor that I have found to be much more viscous it justly appears strange that by an Hydragogue or some appropriated purging medicine great quantities of this gross Liquor should in a short time be carryed off by Siege and perhaps also by Urine though to get into the cavity of the Guts or that of either of the Kidneys it seems necessary that it Permeate the Tunicles and other component parts of the Viscera it gets into I know not whether I may on this occasion take notice of what Physicians observe to occur now and then in Empyema's that follow ill conditioned Pleurisies For it has several times been observed that upon the bursting of such imposthumes into the cavity of the Chest the Purulent matter hath been voided by Siege and Urine I hesitate as I was saying whether I should alledge this Phaenomenon as a proof of what I now contend for till it be determined whether this Metastasis be made by transudation properly so called or by the ingress of the Pus into the imperfectly closed Orifices of the Vessels of the Lungs where being once admitted and mingled with the Blood they may with this circulating Liquor arrive at the Kidneys or any other Parts fitted to make a secretion of this Heterogeneous matter But whatever be the Reason or manner of it we find that the Lungs do sometimes odly convey things to distant parts of the Body And if I may here mention a thing cui honos praefationis est I shall add that I have several times observ'd in my self that when I had been an actor or an assistant in the Dissection of a living Dog especially if his Blood or Body were rankly Scented I should divers hours after plainly find that odour in the excrements I voided by Siege A famous Chirurgeon and Anatomist relates that one who was very ill of a dropsy judged to arise from a Scirrhus of the Spleen coming to ask his counsel and assistance though he judged the patients case desperate yet to content him he ordered him to dip a very large Sponge in good Quick-lime-Water and having squeezed out the superfluous Liquor to bind it upon the region of the Spleen only shifting it from time to time He adds that after some months he was much surprized to receive a visit from this Patient with solemn thanks for his recovery the outward Medicine having it seems resolved the Scirrhus and concurred with nature to evacuate the hydropical humour For the resolution of which hard tumour it seems necessary that the sanative Corpuscles of the external remedy should at length penetrate not only the Epidermis and the true Cutis but the Muscles themselves of the Abdomen and some other interposed parts These instances may be strengthen'd by an eminent observation of Galen who takes notice that Bones being sometimes broken without piercing the Skin that covers the part they belong to when the Callus is making and the broken parts of the Bone begin to be conglutinated together a Portion of that Blood which had flowed to the part affected is carryed to the Skin and permeats that so as to wet and foul the Dressings or Bandages that are kept upon the limb affected by the Fracture CHAP. VII BOnes Horns and parts of the like Substance being those that are granted to be the most solid of the Bodies of Animals I come in the last place to shew by particular Experiments that these also have their Pores I say by particular Experiments because in a general way their Porosity has been already proved by the same Arguments from their original Texture Nutrition Augmentation c. That have been employed to manifest the Porousness of Animal substances in general That the Nails of men as well as their Skins are Porous may be gathered from their being easily and permanently tinged with divers metalline solutions and particularly with those of silver in Aquafortis and Gold in Aqua Regia the former of which solutions though cold will but too easily tinge the Skin and Nails it chances to touch and makes some little stay upon with a dark and blackish colour which I found not that I could wash out with water or even with a far more penetrating and abstersive liquor The like durableness I found in the Purple spots that I sometimes purposely made on my Nails by letting some little drops of the solution of Gold in Aqua Regia dry upon them which I now and then did to observe the way of the Nails growth For if the stain were made near the root of the nail it would be still though very slowly thrust on by the new matter till after some weeks it