the product of the Fermentation arising from the inquinament or corruption of the Blood This Fermentation certainly is the very same thing that the Antient Physicians meant by the Putrefaction of the Blood in Fevers calling for distinction sake all such Fevers which they conceived to arise from thence Putrid Fevers For it is not credible that Men of so acute Judgment and so curiose in observing as their Writings declare them to have been by the Word Putredo intended to signifie that sordid and noysom Corruption observed in dead and rotting Carcases which is absolutely inconsistent with the Principles of Life but only a more mild manner of dissolution of the Blood and such as doth impugn and hinder but not wholly suffocate the vital Expansion of it And of this we are certain that they used to affix the Epithet Putrid to whatsoever doth by a swift Motion degenerate into the nature of Pus or Quitter Which is generated either slowly by degrees by a gentle and long process and also without tumult as when any Humour is without a Fever digested and converted into purulent matter or speedily and with great Tumult and disorder of the State of the Body as in putrid Fevers when the Materia Febrilis or inquinament of the Blood hastens to Concoction and the Disease runs through all its Times quickly and swiftly Of these two so different ways of producing Purulent Matter in the Body the former which is alway simple and without a Fever is called by the Antients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Maturation or Ripening of the Matter the Later which is alwaies with a Fever is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Putredo Whence that Aphorism of Hippocrates lib. 2. aph 47. Dum pus confititur dolores atque febres incidunt magis quam jam confecto In their Sense therefore Putredo is the very motion of the matter of a Fever tending to purulency and this Motion is the very same that most of the Neoterics Name Fermentation For in Fevers it is the Fermentation that brings the impurities to digestion or Concoction and disposes them to separation from the Blood and therefore the Putrid Matter and the Fermenting Matter signify one and the same thing and by consequence the Materia Febrilis and Fermentum Febrile are but two different Names of the Cause whence the Fever or fermentation of the Blood comes Now if this be granted to be consentaneous to Reason and Experience as to me it seem's to be We need no longer amuse our selves with inquiring either wherein the formal reason of a putrid Fever consists or how those two Enimies Life and a Fever can subsist together in the same Subject the Blood for what I have said may serve to expound both those riddles Confiding therefore in the firmness of this Foundation I design to erect thereupon a short Theory of the nature causes differences and principal Symptoms of Fevers and that according to the Model left to us by that most accurate Surveyor of Natures Works Dr. Fr. Glisson in his last incomparable Book reputing it well worth my diligence to paraphrase upon the Text of so great an Author And because to Physicians accurately investigating the differences of preternatural causes inducing Fevers there occur to be considered more than one kind as of Crudities so likewise of Ferments that I may not leave myself sticking in the shallows of Ambiguties 't is requisite that I clearly and distinctly explain first what I understand by CRUDE HUMORS commixt with the Blood Which I take to be generally the Material Causes of putrid Fevers and then what I mean by the Fermentum FEBRILE which I suppose to be the Efficient cause of them for by this means the Fogg of Equivocations being discussed we shall by a clearer light of distinct notions contemplate the nature of the things sought after As to the FIRST thereof viz. the CRUDITY of Humours 't is well known that Physicians observing two kinds of Concoction or Digestion performed by Nature in the Body viz. One of what is natural and familiar of the Aliment requisite to the continual reparation of the Body which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other of what is preternatural and hurtful as the material cause of Diseases which is named for distinction sake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have accordingly constituted two sorts of Crudity one Alimenti the other Inquinamenti Of which the former that respects nutrition is ordinary arising for the most part from some error committed in the use of the six Nonnaturals and consisting chiefly in this that the Spirits of our Food are either not sufficiently excited or if excited yet not sufficiently tamed and subdued by the concoctive faculty of the Stomach to serve to promote the vital mication of the Blood The Later viz. Cruditas inquinamenti is in the general any pollution or corruption of the Blood whatsoever arising from defect of its due preparation and fitness to admit the vital Mication And this being the Mother of Fevers is that intended by Hippocrates in that most remarkable Aphorism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Concocta medicamento purgare ac movere oportet non cruda This Crudity is subdivided into two sorts one Simple which consisting only in defect of due preparation of the Blood may be corrected per pepasmum or maturation necessarily previous to Evacuation either natural or artificial the other Malignant which always includes certain seminal Reliques of some precedent form of the matter mixt with the Blood highly Hostile to the vital Spirits and incapable of correction or mitigation and many times of expulsion Now from this Malignant crudity of matter mixt with the Blood ariseth a Malignant Fever and from the simple Crudity comes a Putrid Of both which we shall speak more copiously when we come to consider the differences of Fevers As to the SECOND viz. the difference of FERMENTS incident to our Bodies I advertise that they also may be as to my present disquisition commodiously referred to two kinds Of which the one may be called Fermentum irritans because it doth primarily by it self and directly irritate the vital Spirits of the Blood to begin an extraordinary commotion and seditious Tumult with the grosser parts of it and to endevor to deliver themselves from confinement and by dissolving the common Bond of the whole Mass thereof to fly away And under this kind are comprehended all fermenting mixtures abounding with saline Spirits highly volatile and not easily tameable by the digestive faculty of the Stomack among which the Stum of Wine is eminent The other deserves to be named Fermentum Opprimens because it at first and immediately oppresses the vital Spirits of the Blood impugning their expansive Motion tho afterward secondarily and by accident it irritates them to a Pneumatic Fermentation not to dissolve the whole mixture thereof and so to make way for themselves to fly away but only to attenuate discuss eject and exterminate the
Ferment that by clogging and oppressing them hinders their spontaneous expansion and the vital Mication of the Blood thereon depending And this to me seems to be that kind of Ferment by which a Fermentation of the Blood is wont to be excited in putrid Fevers and which for that very cause ought to be nominated Fermentum Febrile It seem's also to consist of any crude humor whatsoever commixt with the Mass of Blood For this doubtless is that Crudity which Hippocrates in the newly cited Aphorism forbids to be importunely attempted by purging Medicaments until Nature hath mitigated tamed and prepared it for evacuation by gradual digestion Of which Counsel though many reasons have been by the learned Commentators on his Aphorisms chiefly by Cardan alleged yet the most credible and therefore the most considerable seems to be this That Nature hath provided no Organs for the Separation or Secretion of such Crude Humors from the Blood the Spirits of which are not yet exhausted Most true indeed and evident it is that Nature has with amirable Wisdom and Providence taken care to preserve the Blood pure and undefiled and to that end framed and most advantagiously placed three conspicuous Secretory Organs for the purifaction of it viz. the Liver Kidneys and Stomach with the conjoin'd Intestines and yet it is no less true that none of these is by her primary institution destined to separate and drein from the Mass of Blood any matter yet remaining in the state of Crudity or no yet despoiled of its Spirits but all three ordained lest the Blood after it hath spent and consumed the sweet and profitable Spirits of the Aliment and becomes thereby effete and ungenerose should be longer detained in the Body and like a dead Body bound to a living pollute and infect the Blood newly made of Chyle lately imported and replenish'd with sweet and useful Spirits Now the Humors here by us supposed to be both the antecedent and conjunct Causes of Fevers are not such as have already been spoiled of their Spirits and apt to turn vappid but such as abound with Spirits yet unvolatilized and infest to the vital Mication of the Blood For the matter not sufficiently digested altered and elaborate in the Stomach becomes at length apt to produce Fevers in this respect only that the Spirits contained in it are either not sufficiently excited or not sufficiently subdued and tamed Likewise the matter that grows crude and apt to generate Fevers either from defect of due eventilation by insensible transpiration or from want of free motion is not vitiose because the Spirits of it are already dissipated but only because they are contrary to the institute of Nature detained and because they at the same time impede and somewhat suppress the vital Mication of the Blood In fine the Seminia heterogenea unalterable reliques of some precedent form remaining in the crude Matter commixt with the Blood cause a Malignant Fever not because the Spirits of that matter have been already exhaled but because they are hostile highly infense and pernicious to the Vital Spirits and incapable of being tamed We have reason then to believe that the material causes of Fevers are not the dead useless and excrementitious parts of the Blood not the Phlegm not the Bile nor that thin Humor consisting of the Serum Salt and Tartar of the Blood which is separated in the Kidneys for all these have their peculiar Secretory Organs by which they are daily separated and carried off nor do they require any other Preparation to their Separation but what consists in their transmutation into those Humors in Specie Wich is done only by the gradual deflagration of the Blood by which the vital Heat is sustained For hence it is that in tract of Time the nobler parts of the vital Juice are dissipated and consumed and the remaining Parts which they had before kept united divided into various parties and becoming excrementitious pass some into Bile some into Phlegm and more into the matter of Urine and all these now unprofitable Humors being brought together with the Blood to the respective Organs in which they ought to be separated are there by way of percolation secerned and by their proper excretory Vessels carried off and ejected If this be admitted for true what then are we to think of the long-lived and even to this Day flourishing Doctrine of the Antients that attributes tertian Fevers to Choler Quotidian to Phlegm and Quartan to Melancholy I answer with Dr. Glisson who in all arguments endevor'd as far as his Devotion to Truth would permit him to sustain the auctority of the Antients that those Humors were or at least might be taken either for the reliques of the Stale and vapid Blood or for Humors analogous to them The Reliques of the Blood are as was just now said resolved into Bile Phlegm and Urine in the last of which are contained four other kinds of Excrements viz. the potulent matter Salt Serum and a certain earthly liquamen commonly distinguished by the name of Tartar But as for Melancholy no place is to be found for it among the reliques or stale and rejected parts of the Blood For in the whole Body we find no peculiar Organ provided by Nature for the Secretion reception and exclusion of any such Humor and therefore saving the respects and veneration due to those Fathers of our Art the interest of Truth which is still more sacred and venerable obliges us to affirm that they erred most egregiously when they assigned that Office to the Spleen The Humors Analogous to the newly enumerated Reliques of the Blood are signified by the same Names in particular the viscid insipid and white part of the Blood is called Pituita or Phlegm the hot drie acrimonious and pungent or corroding Bilis or Choler the cold drie blackish and adust Melancholy if at least any such Humor may be admitted to lye concealed in the Mass of Blood For we must confess we usurp more than a Physical License when we call this an Analogous Humor to which nothing that holds any the least resemblance or analogie can be any where in the whole Body found and yet nevertheless it may be lawful to say that the Analogie that some parts of the Blood seem to have to that fictitious Humor which the Antients imagined to be separated and received by the Spleen may serve to excuse us if out of compliance with custom and the vulgar Doctrine of the Schools we retain the denomination while we rectify the Notion of Melancholy For though the Analogatum be wanting yet if in reality a thing respondent thereto hath existence in Nature the supposed Analogy is enough to justify the appellation Considering this I assert that in the Mass of Blood are most commonly contained 1 A sharp pungent or corrosive Serum such as is wont to be cast out by exsudation in an Erysipelas and in the little Bladders or Blisters raised by Epispastic emplasters which
partly from a depression of the vital Heat partly from Cold unequally affecting the Lungs and hindring the free ingress and egress of the Air and partly from the difficult passage of the Blood either through the Lungs themselves or through the Muscles helping to move them Fourthly the moisture of the Mouth and in the Glands circumjacent begins to be dried up and thereupon ensue thirst and driness of the Tongue The reason of which seems to be this that the Latex Serosus is in the febrile Fermentation so confounded with other Humors that it cannot be separated from them in the Glandules destined to the Secretion of it Other Effects or Signs of the Fermentation observable in this beginning of the Paroxysm I reserve till we come to the Augment in which they become more conspicuous In the AUGMENT therefore no new Motion arises only the former are either by degrees lessned or increased Those that belong to the simple depression of the vital Spirits are gradually diminished but those that are referrible to the incitation or suscitation of them are by little and little augmented Of the former sort are Chilness Sense of Cold shivering trembling quaking all which by degrees cease and vanish because upon the raising of the Pulse the Blood is transmitted more briskly and speedily through the habit of the Parts The Voice also becomes more strong and uninterrupt and the respiration more frequent and equal for the same reason On the contrary the provoked vital Spirits now rising up against their intestine Enimy cause a manifest increase of the febrile Fermentation and Tumult For the expansive luctation grows more and more fierce and exorbitant and recedes farther from the natural State till it becomes turbulent hostile and frothy and unequal The consequents of these irregular Motions are 1 inquietude jectigation and sometimes Pain of the outward parts but chiefly of the Head all from the difficult transmission of the Blood through them 2 Frequency of the Pulse and now and then robust vibration of the Heart and Arteries probably from the intercepted course of the Blood and the augmentation of Heat 3 Diminution of Transpiration which though now somewhat greater than from the beginning continues much less than it ought to be considering the abundance of Effluvia or exhalations of the Blood raised by the intense Heat 4 Greater Consumption of the Latex in all parts of the Mouth and consequently more grievous Thirst. 5 Nauseousness and sometimes vomiting or Flux of the Belly For the Stomach and Gutts are of all parts most troubled and offended by the tumultuose afflux of the Blood as well because of their nervose Texture and their exquisite Sense thence arising as by reason of the matters contained in their Cavity which the containing Parts being irritated fluctuate and so become more apt to be moved and ejected upward or downward and for the same Causes the same parts are often molested with Winds and Eructations all Pneumatic Fermentations in the number of which our febrile Fermentation hath a place conducing much to the generation of Winds During this time of the Paroxysm the Fermentation and Heat and all the consequents of them here recounted excepting perhaps the last are augmented by degrees till they arrive at the Achme or State But so soon as the Transpiration comes to be more free and answerable to the abundance of Exhalations steaming from the Blood so as they no longer recoyl by the Veins to increase the estuation of the Blood the Augment ends and the State of the fit succeeds In which the Fermentation and Ardor persist a while in their Violence and Fury And though at this time some parts of the oppressing Ferment begin to be discussed and expelled by laboriose Sweat yet the vital Spirits are by that tumultuose Motion so profusely spent and exhausted that nature suffers almost as much of loss by that exhaustion as she receives relief from the Victory and Expulsion Whence perhaps it comes that yet the conflict appears doubtful and equal till the beginning of the Declination when the febrile Heat and all its concomitants are by degrees mitigated And then it is that the Victory of the vital Spirits being complete the remaining parts of the febrile Ferment are by an universal Sweat flowing without any considerable detriment of the strength of the Patient dispersed and exterminated For this Sweat is a kind of despumation of the impurities of the Blood that caused the Paroxysm whereupon soon ensue a remission of the burning Heat a cessation of anxiety and Pains and a fresh diffusion of the Latex Serosus into the Throat and Mouth for the quenching of Thirst and in fine a Cessation of all other vexatious Symptoms of the late Conflict and so at length the Paroxysm is ended Now from this our congruous Solution of all the Phaenomena of the fit of a Fever ye may easily judge of the reasonableness of the precedent Hypothesis according to which I have endevored to explicate them and how far the same may deserve your approbation or dislike ¶ Nevertheless I am willing ye should suspend your Sentence till I have carried on the Hypothesis farther For there yet remain many other Appearances to be solved I proceed therefore to the primary DIFFERENCES of Fevers in hope that they also may be commodiously deduced from the same Principles Forasmuch as it is probable from what hath been said of the nature of a Fever in general that all Fevers arise from and essentially consist in a Fermentation of the Blood We may with reason infer that the diversity of Fevers how great soever it be proceeds from nothing else but the divers fermentations of the same Blood For the diversity of Effects is for the most part respondent to the diversity of efficients And since it is scarce possible but that from various Ferments various kinds of Fermentations should arise it necessarily follows that the various sorts of Fevers are to be deduced from equally various Ferments actually hindring the vital mication of the Blood And I hold that there are so many differences of febrile Ferments as there are divers Natures or Dispositions of Crudities incident to the Blood and apt to inquinate it To know all these distinctly and to explicate each of them by a particular discription is perhaps impossible so great is the variety of crude Humors that may be admitted into the Blood and so manifold the Combinations of them that may happen to pollute it Let it suffice then if reflecting upon the chief sorts of Crudities alredy described we shall from thence congruously derive the Primary i. e. the most frequently observed Differences of Fevers By Crudity I here understand any inquinament or depravation of the Blood whatsoever proceeding from defect of due preparation thereof for the generation of vital Spirits as I before declared Now the matter in this Sense Crude may be distinguished into Ordinary or familiar to human Nature such as arises from the erroneous use of
the six non-naturals and Extraordinary or alien and hostile to human Nature From the former come all Fevers call'd simply Putrid from the Later Malignant and Contagiose or Venenose The Ordinary may be subdivided into 1 Recent or lately generated such as is either carried out of the Stomach and Guts in the form of crude Chyle or reduced from some part or other inflamed or otherwise corrupted and 2 Inveterate or in a long tract of time by little and little congested and adhering to the substance of the solid Parts The former if it happens to pass into a febrile Ferment produces a Fever putrid indeed but of only one Paroxysm The Later likewise generates a Fever Putrid either accompanying some other Malady or Symptomatic but each of them either Continual of uncertain exacerbation or intermittent of uncertain Paroxysms The Etraordinary or Malignant which includes some certain seminal Principle dangerous and hostile to human Nature is also double viz. either it is disseminated by contagion or is primarily bred in the Body affected The Former though resolved into an exhalation and dispersed through the Air still retains its poysonous Virtue as the Miasma Pestilentiale or infection of the Plague The other is either not resolved into exhalations as Arsenic or is in the very resolution despoiled of its seminal malignity as the Breath of a mad Dog which seldom or never infects alone without the Saliva in forth Having exhibited to your consideration this plain and brief Scheme of the different material Causes from which I suppose the principal differences of Fevers to proceed I must reflect upon the Heads thereof more particularly and in the first place resume the explication of Crudity not Malignant as that which both more frequently occurs to our observation and is less obscure The Matter of Putrid Fevers Not-Malignant proceeds as I lately insinuated either 1 From defect of Concoction of the Chyle in the Stomach and Intestines or 2 From defect of due eventilation and free motion of the Blood in its Circuit Defect of Concoction of the Chyle is a thing so common and so fully explained by Physicians in their practical Writings that it is sufficient for me to name it And indeed in all Fevers the concoctive faculty of the Stomach is wont so much to languish that scarce any thing of aliment can be without detriment taken into the Stomach already troubled and inquinated with vitious and corrupt Humors For then the Food is not digested but whatever of either Juice or Tincture is drawn from it remains crude and turns to the Augment of the matter of the Fever Whence it comes that fasting and a thin Diet are so much commended by all in putrid Fevers Only in Pestilential a Diet less spare is sometimes allowed with good Success because the benignity and sweet Spirits of the Aliment are found to contemperate the Seminium Pestiferum and reduce it to a milder disposition Not of these Fevers therefore but only of those are we to understand the Counsel given by Hippocrates Aphorism n. Lib. 2. Corpora impura quò plus alimenti assumunt eò pluribus damnis augentur Aphor. 7. Lib. 1. si morbus sit peracutus tenuissima diaeta est utendum Defect of due Transpiration or Eventilation and of free Circuition of the Blood is sometimes the Cause sometimes the Effect of Fermentation therein The Cause if no other vice before disposing the Blood to Putrefaction hath given fit matter for the Generation of a Fever for want of free Transpiration and Interception of the course of the Blood in any part of the Body is alone sufficient to infer putrefaction upon the Blood but then the Fever is for the most part easily discussed and with one universal Sweat wholly solved It ariseth commonly from the diminished perspirability and permeability either of the whole Body or of some private part whose inconspicuous pores are constipated or obstructed and this happens either with or without extravasation of Blood With extravasation comes a Tumor if not an Aposteme which most commonly produces a Fever of uncertain Exacerbation as is frequently observed in great Obstructions and Abscesses of the Lungs Having concisely recounted the Procatartic or Antecedent Causes of crude Matter apt to induce putrid Fevers I must come to explain what I said of the Aptitude of crude Chyle received into the Blood to corrupt it Miasmate Febrili That I may do this with perspicuity and coherence two things occur here to be considered One is when that supposed Aptitude or Disposition of Chyle imperfectly concocted comes to be matured or exalted to an actual fermentation of the Blood the other where that crude Chyle is wont to lurk or lie concealed until attaining to ripeness it hath acquired forces sufficient to induce fermentation upon the Blood To the FORMER of these two questions therefore I answer that crude Chyle though from its first admission into the Blood it continually tend toward a febrile Ferment doth yet notwithstanding rarely attain to that last Degree of depravity where it meets not with an Apparatus of like matter before congested in the Body sufficient to augment its Forces and serve for convenient Fewel to a Fever For it is by long experience found that very few fall into any simply putrid Fever unless after many errors admitted in the use of the six Non-naturals nor is the febrile Ferment it self wont so soon as it is existent in the Body to kindle a Fever by breaking out into acts of open hostility upon the sudden but by secretly creeping on as it were and passing through certain degrees of operation successively First it is insensibly diffused through and intimately commixt with the whole Mass of the Blood after the manner of other Ferments Then inwrapping the vital Spirits by little and little with its clammyness it diminishes their Agility and disposes them to sloth After this it endeavours to inviscate bind and as it were suffocate them and then it is that from their expansive reluctation the conflict and fermentation commences All which may be collected from intermittent Fevers at least if it be true what many eminent Physicians hold that the whole Febrile Matter that causes a Paroxysm is as it were burn'd out and consumed in that Paroxysm as in an intermittent Tertian there intervenes a whole day of vacancy from a Fever and of quiet betwixt every two Paroxysms during which interval the febrile Ferment is only dispositive and preparing to unite it self intimately with the vital Spirits But in a simple Quartan two whole days intervene betwixt the precedent Paroxysm and the Subsequent the febrile Ferment all that while recruiting its Forces From whence it is highly probable that the crude matter doth not presently produce a Fermentation but by degrees and by way of disposition Which may be sufficient to solve the first Question viz. When the crudities commixt with the Blood come to acquire he degree of exaltation requisite to induce an actual
fermentation upon the Blood As for the OTHER viz. Where the same crude Matter is wont to be congested and to lye in ambush till that time if the whole matter of the precedent Paroxysm be spent and consumed in the Paroxysm as hath been supposed then it necessarily follows that the matter of the subsequent Paroxysm must either be generated anew in the time intervenient betwixt the two Fits or lie conceal'd somewhere in the Body either in the Vessels carrying the Blood or out of them from whence as from its Fomes it may after certain intervals of Time sally forth to infect the Blood and invade the vital Spirits For both these cannot be true and therefore it remains to be inquired which of the two is most likely to be so My Opinion is that the matter of every subsequent Paroxysm is not generated anew and my Reasons are these 1 So soon as any Paroxysm is ended the very essence of the Fever Ceases for that time and the Blood quickly returns to an Apyrexia Now if the Cause be extirpated together with the Disease nothing will be left remaining in the Body to continue it and by consequence every new Paroxysm will be a new Fever which no experienced Physician who hath observed the Disease to be of the same genius or nature from the first Fit to the last will easily be brought to grant 2 The same may be confirmed by this that intermittent Fevers even in poor Country People frequently run through alll their times regularly by degrees ascending to their State and thenceforth gradually tending to their Declination when no Physician is called to Succour Nature So that merely from diligent Observation of the motion of the Fever a certain prognostication of the State and final cessation of it may be collected which would be impossible if the matter of the Disease were every Day generated de novo for who could foresee when that new Generation would Cease 3 The cause of the Fever coming ab extra is accidental and depends on a less or greater Error committed in Diet and is constituted extra Febris essentiam nor can any indication be from thence desumed And our Dr. Glisson affirms that he knew a Man who being of a strong Constitution and afflicted with a Tertian Intermittent obstinately abstained from all Meat and Drink from one Fit to another and yet could not thereby elude the return of his Fever It may be therefore with good reason inferred that putrid Fevers have an internal Focus some where in the Body whence the material Cause of them breaking forth and gathering fresh Forces invades and irritates the Vital Spirits again and again even till the Fomes be utterly exhausted and consumed There are I confess many great Wits who in every intermittent Fever seek for a peculiar Fomes or Seat of the Cause I confess also that sometimes such a particular and partial Fomes may be found as for Instance in the Stomach or in the Pancreas or in the Mesentry and other Parts of the Abdomen and an inflamation of the Lungs is in some sort the Fomes of a Peripneumonia an inflamation of the Pleura the Fomes of a Pleurisy and sic de multis aliis partibus So that itcannot be denyed but both intermittent and continual Fevers may arise from particular Seats and that an Aposteme chiefly an Empyema may minister Fewel to a Fever yea more that an inflamation repercu'st from the outward parts and a Gangrene in any the remotest Member of the Body may produce a continual Fever by sending forth corrupt matter to pollute and infect the Blood All this I say must be confessed And yet nevertheless it must be acknowledged that besides these particular Fomites of Fevers there is a certain General one common to all putrid Fevers and this general Fomes I hold to be the very Parenchyma of the Parts nourished out of impure Juices For this FOMES is of all others hitherto supposed most consistent with the Circuition of the Blood by which it is commodiously carried to all Parts and diffused universally whereas other impurities can scarcely be so accumulated in the Solid Parts but they must when extravasated obstruct the free course of the Blood If they be supposed to stick and be congested in the capillary Vessels or in the inconspicuous Pores of the Parts they must be a manifest and intollerable Obstacle to the pertransition of the Blood If out of the Vessels they stagnate in the habit of the Parts they must induce not a Fever but a Cachexia or an Anasarcha Compelled therefore we are to fly to the very Parenchyma of the Parts which in every putrid Fever are necessarily fused or melted by degrees and being fused as necessarily become Fewel to continue the Fever For in continual Fevers the substance of the Parts amass'd out of Crude and impure Chyle is continually melted and so maintains the fermentation without intermission until all the Fewel be consumed and then the Fever is extinguished But in intermittent the same impurities are melted by turns or Intervals and in every Paroxysm some portion of them is colliquated into a kind of Sanies or putrid Matter which being remixt with the Blood becomes in a Tertian the Fewel of a Paroxysm to recur on the third Day from its Fusion in a Quartan of a Paroxysm to invade on the fourth in a Quotidian of a Fit to return on the next Day sic de caeteris And as to the Duplication and Triplication of these intermittent Fevers 't is probable that when of a Simple Tertian is made a double one the Simple is not the direct Cause of the double but the later arises from Causes like to those from which the former took its beginning So that a double Tertian may be rightly enough accounted to be two single Tertians alternately succeding and complicated with each other And the same mutatis mutandis may be said with equal congruity also of the origin of a double and treble Quartan But there remains yet another Difficulty greater than either of the two precedent viz. concerning the Suspension of the Action of the crude Matter to the time of the Paroxysm in which it is actuated That the State of which Question may be the better understood let us for instance Sake suppose that in a double Tertian A. B. C. D. are four distinct crude Matters melted and set afloate in the Mass of Blood in four successive Paroxysms Let us suppose also that this Fever first invaded the Patient upon Munday and that in the first Fit it melted so much of the crude Parenchyma of the solid Parts as may suffice to produce a new Fit on Wednesday following Let us suppose farther that on Tuesday another Tertian began and during that first Fit in like manner melted so much of the Crude Parenchyma as may be sufficient to raise a second Fit on Thursday following These things being supposed the Question is why the crude Matter B. melted on Tuesday is
not dissipated or corrected on the Wednesday following when the crude Matter A. causing a Fit is by the Fermentation rarefied and expelled by Sweat Why I say the Matter B. being remixt with the Blood all Wednesday when the Matter A. was fermented is not by that Fermentation corrected and dissipated at the same time but suffered to lye dormant and cause a Fit on Thursday following To untie this Knot therefore I say that the febrile Fermentation doth not much alter any crude Matter that doth not yet actually impede the vital motion of the Blood For the Fermentation is regulated by the vital Spirits which in the Case proposed chiefly oppose and dissipate the Matter A. which alone by its clamminess actually hinders their expansive Motion Hence it is that in the Fermentation hapning on Wednesday the vital Spirits are not much offended with the new Matter B. then melted and sloating in the Blood because it is not actually Febrile nor doth it oppress them so as to incite them to vindicate their Liberty by their expansive Motion And thus the difficulty seems to be solved ¶ WHAT hath been said a little before of the general Fomes of all putrid Fevers as well continual as intermittent viz. that it is in the very Parenchyma or Substance of the solid parts amassed out of crude or impure Chyle may perhaps to some of my Auditors long accustomed to the vulgar Doctrine of Physicians concerning the Genealogy of Fevers seem to be only precarious and as easily denied as affirmed because it still remains doubtful how Chyle crude or impure can be instead of good and laudable Succus Nutritins or Aliment converted into the substance of the solid parts To obviate this their doubting therefore before it settle into a prejudice more difficult to be removed it concerns me to assert that there is many times an imperfect Nutrition or Vegetation and Augmentation as well as a perfect observ'd in the Bodies of Men and consequently that the Succus Nutritius or proxime Aliment of all parts is either pure i. e. perfectly concocted or impure i. e. imperfectly concocted Whence it comes that the Bodies of some Men are even vulgarly said to be more or less pure than those of others Those few who are so happy as to have Bodies in all parts pure and clean from crude and vitiose humours do not only from the right use of the six Non-naturals enjoy perfect health but have this farther advantage that their solid parts not being augmented by the accretion of crude matter they carry in them neither any Febrile Fomes congested in the habit of their solid parts nor the least disposition to any other Disease When on the contrary impure Bodies either through intemperance or too full Diet Surfeits Compotations and other Debauches and Disorders or from want of exercise to correct and dissipate the crudities they have congested are cramm'd and plump'd up with impure nourishment and perhaps also augmented to an unprofitable and unwieldy Bulk These then must of necessity abound with a great stock of crude Matter accumulated chiefly in the Substance of their solid Parts Which when a Fever comes from what cause soever are melted by degrees and dayly afford new Matter to serve as prepared Fewel to the long and dangerous Fever whether continual or intermittent But Bodies clean and pure though perhaps liable to be surprised with a light feverish Distemper are in much less Danger from thence because their solid Parts have not been imperfectly recruited with impure Nourishment and consequently the Liquamen of them is not so Crude as to suffice to renew often or long continue the Fermentation From the Testimony of our very Senses it is evident that in all putrid Fevers the parts of the Body are more or less extenuated and colliquated and that the Crude Liquamina of them are the material Causes of new Exacerbations in continual Fevers and of new Paroxysms in intermittent is highly consentaneous to reason Hence it is that Men recovering from long Fevers if they manage their Health circumspectly and with temperance attain to a renovation as it were of their Youth because all the substance of their Parts that was amass'd out of Crude and impure Matter being by the Fever consumed their Bodies are now repaired with pure and convenient Juices such as abound with sweet Spirits duly exalted and excited by Concoction in the Stomach Hence also we are led to a clear understanding of the true Reason of that Aphorism commended to our Observation by Hippocrates Si febricitanti nec omnino leviter suo in statu maneat corpus nihilque concedat morbo aut hoc etiam plus aequo gracilescat calamitosum hoc enim aegri infirmitatem significat illud vero diuturnitatem morbi For the prognostic holds certain ratione tum causae tum signi If the habit of the Body be not extenuated in proportion to the Violence or duration of the Fever the Cause must lye either in the abundance or in the contumacy that is the great viscidity or clamminess of the crude Matter congested and affixt to the Parenchyma of the Parts and therefore an observing Physician may from thence safely predict that the Fever will prove of long continuance at best if not fatal in the end On the other side if the extenuation be too great it must come from the great force of the heat or fermentation in the Blood that dissipates all things not only the crude Matter preexistent in the habit of the Parts but even the vital Spirits themselves and the insite Spirits that being intimately united with the Vital should reinvigorate the Parts with Life and conserve them And therefore such impetuous Extenuation is likewise both cause and signe of extreme Calamity Exhaustis enim supra modum spiritibus partibus Solidis omnis ratio pepasmi desideratur All these Reasons duely consider'd it must be granted that Bodies cannot possibly continue in all points pure and clean if they be nourish'd with impure or crude Juices Sound indeed and healthy they may be said to be at present because they seem to foster no proxime Cause of Sickness discernable by a Physician and yet nevertheless since they carry about Crudities secretly congested in the very substance of the solid Parts which by occasion of any light feverish Distemper that would not otherwise last above a Day or two may be melted and remixt with the Blood and long protract that Distemper we are obliged to acknowledg that such Bodies are really foul or impure and contain in them a Disposition to a Fever more or less remote Otherwise it will follow that all Bodies actually sound are in respect of the habit of their Parts either equally disposed or equally indisposed to Fevers and to the continuation of them than which nothing certainly can be more false For have we not observed frequently that Fevers as well continual as intermittent have in the beginning appear'd mild and gentle so long as
oblivio obruet CUTLERUS posteritati narratus traditus aeternum superstes erit ¶ Would I were equally secure of Your good acceptance I dare not say Approbation of the mite I am about to contribute toward the accomplishment of his so gloriose Design But alas this is a wish without hope so destitute I know my self to be of all the Faculties of Mind requisite to so difficult an Atchievement my Zeal for the promotion of Anatomy only excepted and much more reason there is why I should apologize for my insufficiency before I farther expose it Notwithstanding this discouragement considering with my self that profound Erudition and great Humanity are like Love and Compassion inseparable I think it much safer to confide in Your Candor and Benignity for pardon of my Defects than to attempt to palliate them by Excuses however just and evident Not to be conscious of my faileurs and lapses in my following Lectures would argue me of invincible ignorance not freely to acknowledge them would be tacitly to defend them to seek by speciose praetences of hast of frequent diversions of natural impatience of long meditation of bodily indispositions intervenient and other the like vulgarly alleged impediments to extenuate them were the most certain way to aggravate them and to conceal them from your sight is in this place and occasion impossible Having then no other Refuge but in Your Grace and Favor I fly to that alone to secure me from the danger of malignant Censures which I am more than likely to incurr nor will I fore-arm my self with any other defense but this If the Matters of my subsequent discourses shall appear to be neither Select nor of importance enough to compensate Your time and patience be pleas'd to remember that saying of Aristotle Metaphys lib. 2. cap. 1. Non solùm illis agendae sunt gratiae quorum opinionibus quis acquiescet sed iis etiam qui superficie tenus dixerunt Conferunt enim aliquid etiam isti habitum namque nostrum exercuorunt Si enim Timotheus non fuisset multum melodiae nequaquam habuissemus Si tamen Phrynis non fuisset nè Timotheus quidem extitisset c. If my Stile shall sound somewhat harsh and ungrateful many times to Ears unatcustomed to any but their Mother tongue as coming too near to the Latin I intreat you to consider this is either no indecency in this place or such a one at worst which I could not otherwise avoid than by involving my sense in the obscurity of words less proper and significant the nature and quality of the Subjects treated of being such as cannot be fully expressed in our yet imperfect Language So that I have a clear right to that honest plea of Lucretius Abstrahit invitum patrii sermonis egestas ¶ PRAELECTIO I. Of Nutrition MAN being consider'd ut Animal Rationale as a living Creature naturally endow'd with Reason and compos'd of two principal parts a Soul and a Body each of which hath various Faculties or Powers the summe of Human Nature must be comprehended in those Powers conjoyn'd Of these Powers some are peculiar to the Soul or Mind others belong to the Body as Organical and animated by the Soul To the Former sort are referr'd the Faculties of thinking knowing judging reasoning or inferring concluding electing and willing all commonly signified by Understanding and Will All which being remote from the Province of Anatomists I leave them to be handled by Philosophers inquiring into the nature of the Soul Of the Later some are requisite to the complement of Man as single or individual viz. the Faculties of Nutrition of Life of Sense and of Voluntary Motion and there is one that respects the Procreation of Mankind namely the Power Generative And these are the natural Faculties to which as principal Heads the Learned Anatomist is to referr all his Disquisitions that at length he may if it be possible attain to more certain knowledge of the Mechanic frame of the Organs in which they are founded But being more than can be tho' but perfunctorily enquir'd into in so few hours as are assign'd to this publick Exercise I have therefore chosen to treat of only some of them at this time viz. Nutrition Life and voluntary Motion not as more worthy to be explain'd than the rest but as more comprehensive or of larger extent I have chose also to begin from NUTRITION not only because the Stomach Gutts and other parts principally inservient thereto being by reason of impurities contain'd in them more prone to putrefaction ought therefore first to be taken out of the cavity of the Abdomen to prevent noisomnes but because Nutrition seems to be if not one and the same thing with yet at least equal or contemporany to Generation it self and that both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in respect of Time and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in respect of Nature For tho' the operation of the Power Gen rative or Formative Virtue may seem to precede that of the Nutritive yet in truth the Stamina or first rudiments of an Embryo are scarcely delineated when they begin to be augmented also by nutrition so that 't is consentaneous as well to the observions of Dr. Harvey and others since as to reason that Formation and Nutrition are but different names of one and the same act of the Plastic power Again Generation and Accretion are not perform'd without Nutrition nor Nutrition or Augmentation without Generation To nourish what is it but to substitute such and so much of matter as is by reason of exhaustion wanting to the solid parts of the body namely flesh nerves veins arteries c. and what is that in reality but to generate flesh nerves veins arteries c. In like manner Accretion is not effected without Generation for all natural bodies capable of Nutrition are by accession of new parts augmented and these new parts must be such as those of which the bodies were at first composed and this is done according to all their dimensions So that in verity the parts of an Animal are increas'd distinguish'd and organiz'd all at the same time by the same Formative power Moreover if we reflect upon the Efficient cause of Formation and Nutrition and upon the Matter it uses we shall on both sides find it necessary that those two works if ye will have them to be distinct be carried on together On the part of the Efficient because idem esse principium efficiens nutriens conservans in singulis Animalibus necesse est nisi aliam formam in puero aliam in adolescente in sene aliam constituamus quod absurdum est On the part of the Matter ex qua because all Animals such as are produced per Epigenesin of which alone is our discourse not of such Infects that are generated per Metamorphôsin are made of one part of the Matter prepar'd by the Formative Spirit and nourish'd and augmented out of the remainder not out of a divers
stomach or both together can do For in all Aliments Vegetables or Animals there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Hippocrates de prisca Medicina calls them certain indelible characters or insuperable qualities that may be as it were tamed or kept under but can never be totally destroy'd Our meat indeed is cookt by fire broken into small pieces by our teeth softned by the liquor salivalis boyl'd in the stomach melted by the acid ferment exagitated by the peristaltic motion of the gutts and therein farther elaborated and separated from its dreggs squeez'd into the milky veins thence transmitted into the common receptacle thence propell'd by the Chyliferous pipes into the subclavian veins and so mixt with the bloud exagitated again by the motions of the heart and impraegnated with vitality by the powerful energy of the vital spirits all these alterations I say it doth undergo and yet notwithstanding it still reteins much of those invincible reliques of its former nature which the Chymists have named mediae vitae characteres and others Seminales impressiones And hence it is quòd omnia animalia sapiant alimenta quibus vescuntur All Animals however praepared or cook't still retain some savor some ragoust of their usual food as Birds that live upon little fishes yield a sishy Haut-goust and the flesh of Swine fed with Sea-Onions is apt to cause vomiting in the Eaters of it c. Wherefore by this last act of Concoction we are to understand only such a change of the Aliment as renders it more familiar and assimilable to the nature of the parts of the body therewith to be nourished for a perfect Assimilation is not to be expected till the same shall be intimately united with them Nor is Chylification what many have conceiv'd it to be an absolute Metamorphosis of the Aliment or corruption of its first form and change of it into a new species there seeming to be no such thing as Corruption in the case but an Exaltation rather or Melioration of the nature of the food by advancing it from the state of fixation to that of Fusion that it may be praedisposed to its succeding conversion into bloud and the Succus Nutritius True it is indeed that the meat is somtimes corrupted in the stomach by vitious humors therein contem'd and depraving it and by various other causes but it doth not from thence follow that absolute Corruption is necessary to the praeparation of the Chyle but rather that the meat if by accident it be absolutely corrupted in the stomach is thereby render'd unprofitable to nutrition for the most part True it is also that the dreggs of the Chyle being by way of Degradation from their former nature changed into Excrements put on a new form in the Colic Gutt and differ in specie from that part of the meat out of which they are made and yet notwithstanding we can not from thence rightly inferr that the Chyle which is by a perfective motion gradually meliorated is necessarily changed also into a new species before it can actually nourish Is no part of the Aliment then in the act of Chylification metamorphosed from one species to another I conceive not unless the Version of the Acidum Vegetabile in salsum Animale be accounted a Specific Mutation If so then this must be excepted from the general rule For certain it is and acknowledged even by Chymists themselves that Vegetable Salt such as is usually extracted from Plants is no where to be found in the bodies of Animals neither in their bloud nor in urine nor in flesh nor in bones hairs nails c. and therefore very probable that every Acidum Vegetabile is transmuted in Salsum Animale either in the stomach or in the descent of the Chyle into the Gutts or soon after Nor is it in my poor judgement at least a thing of small moment or lightly to be regarded that all parts of all Animals are composed of a Saline principle of a divers nature from that of either Vegetables or Minerals yea more that the Saline volatile spirits of Animals come much nearer to the nature of Sal ammoniac than to that of Salts Vegetable or Mineral But whether these saline spirits of Animals may in all things be consistent with the Nitro-aereous spirit asserted by the ingenious Dr. Mayow may with good reason be doubted For although it be said that this Nitro-aereous spirit doth in passing through the Lungs put on the genius of Animal Salt yet it remains still to be inquir'd why Nature should ordain that spirit to be fetch 't from without from the Aire which Animals have in abundance within them in the Aliments praepared in themselves This nicety therefore I leave as I found it doubtful and proceed to inquire Whence it is that the Stomach infects all meats and drinks with Acidity This requisite and remarkable quality seems to be superinduced by the Stomach upon the newly receiv'd aliment by four several wayes viz. First By educing and separating the sweet and benign spirits of the Aliments from the grosser parts of them and then either absorbing them into its Venae Lacteae or transmitting them by the Pylorus into the Gutts or dissolving them into wind For all nutritive juices whatsoever so soon as the sweet and easily dissipable spirits that praeserve them are exhaled grow acid as is commonly observed even in Milk whose fugitive spirits being for the most part drawn forth by the stomach and thence discharg'd by belching the remaining part soon acquires to it self somwhat of acidity But the truth is this Eduction of spirits though it make way for acidity to succeed doth not yet produce it in that degree which we frequently perceive in very sowr belchings and therefore we are obliged to advance to the Second Cause which consists in this that the stomach turns liquors sowr by bringing their Saline principle or element to the state of Fusion For this Saline Principle while it remains fixt retains its saltness but being advanced to the state of fusion soon becomes acid and that so much the more fiercely by how much the nearer it is promoted to Volatility Whence it is that meats and drinks long detained in the stomach are observ'd to acquire vehement acidity So likewise when any of the Glandules that serve either to secretion or to reduction have by reason of their obstructions long detain'd in them the humors that remain to be carried off after the distribution of the Succus nutritius they cause them by that means to grow more and more acid by degrees to the no small detriment of health Of this we have a remarkable Example in sharp and acid Catarrhs which seem to owe their origin to the recrements of the brain and nerves longer than is fit retain'd in the Glands destined to their secretion and exportation and by reason of their stagnation grown acid and which somtimes become so extreamly sharp as to corrode and ulcerate the Tonsills throat nose and other
manner that the Stomach Gutts Bladder Womb c. membranose and fibrose Cavities of the Body when they are above measure fill'd and distended do by spontaneously constringing themselves forcibly expell whatever irritates them And that in every Diastole of the Heart Blood rushes into the Ventricles in a quantity sufficient to distend them seems inferrible even from this that it is abundantly brought in both by the Vena Cava and by the Arteria Venosa and that it is continually driven on thitherward partly from the habit of the Body by the tonic motion of the parts partly from the Lungs by help of their motion according to the fundamental Laws of its Circuition But why do I insist upon Reasons when an easie Experiment offers itself to determine the Question In a Dog opened alive if the two Vessels that bring Blood into the Heart namely the Vena Cava and Arteria Venosa be girt with Ligatures so that the course of the Blood be there intercepted the Ventricles by three or four Systoles emptying themselves their orderly pulsation will cease only a little undulating Motion and irregular vibration will thereupon immediately succeed and upon solution of the Ligatures and influx of Blood the Heart will instantly repete its pulsation I conclude therefore that the Blood causeth the Dilatation of the Heart not by its Ebullition nor by its Rarifaction but only by its replenishing and distending the Ventricles thereof and that the Heart by its spontaneous constriction expresses the Blood into the Lungs and great Artery and so the motion of both is perpetuated I admit nevertheless a certain gentle and pacate expansive Motion of the Blood to be excited in the Ears and Ventricles of the Heart as necessary to the generation of Original Life though not of force sufficient to move the whole Machine of the Heart For the vital Spirits in the Blood though brisk and vigorose in their endevor to expansion chiefly when they are agitated by the motion of the Heart are notwithstanding somewhat checkt and repulsed by the reluctancy of the grosser Particles of the Blood and therefore it cannot be imagined they should suffice to dilate the Heart also I admit also a constant invigoration of the Fibres and fleshy Columns or Pullies of the Heart by a continual Influx from the Brain that they may the more expeditely and strongly and without lassitude perpetuate the Systole of the Heart For that such an Influx is necessary every Moment to recruit their Vigor and conserve the due firmness of their tone is evident from this singular Experiment If the Nerves of the eight pare be constringed closely by ligatures in the neck of a Dog ye will admire what a suddain and strange mutation will thereupon ensue The Heart which before performed its motions moderately and regularly will instantly begin to tremble and palpitate and the poor Animal will labour of anxiety and extreme difficulty of breathing while the ligatures continue on the Nerves above but upon removing them all those dismal Accidents which are perhaps to be ascribed to the surcharge of the Heart and Lungs by Blood not so fast discharged as it is imported and that by reason the Systoles are rendred weak and languid the influx from the Brain that should invigorate the contracting Fibres and Pullies being intercepted all the Accidents I say will foon cease and the Heart renew its pulsation as before To this Anatomic Experiment I might have added Arguments of the same importance drawn from the Palsie and Convulsions to which the Heart itself is liable had not the industrious Dr. Lower Author of the alleged experiment prevented me lib. de motu cordis cap. 2. and were I not conscious that I have staid too long upon the cause and manner of the Excitation of the Pulsation of the Heart and Arteries or second Act of the Blood in the race of Life ¶ Proceed we therefore to the THIRD viz. the Distribution of the Blood into all parts of the Body which is an act wholly Mechanic and to be attributed to the Systole of the Heart and Arteries thereto continued To the Constriction of the Heart because the Blood contained in the right Ventricle is thereby of necessity express'd into the Vena Arteriosa and so into the Lungs and that in the left is thence expell'd into the great Arterie and driven on through the Branches thereof into all the parts of the Body Nor can it seem strange that this Constriction of the Heart should be effected with force sufficient to impell the Blood in a continued stream through the Pipes of the Arteries till it arrive at the extremities of them yea till it enter into the very substance of the parts in which they are terminated For if we attently consider 1 the structure of the heart that it is a Muscle of a substance Solid thick and firmly compacted every where intertext with various Fibres and corroborated within with fleshy Columns and fibrose Pullies and of a Figure fit to perform vigorose Motions 2 that if you put your Hand upon the Heart of any large Animal open'd alive you shall find it hard and tense not easily yielding to the Gripe and if you thrust a Finger into either of the Ventricles you shall feel it to be with great violence girt and pincht by the Systole thereof 3 that if you pierce the great Arterie neer the Original of it with a Lancet the Blood will be in every contraction squirted thence with incredible impetuosity and to great distance 4 that in some Men the Heart invaded by Convulsions hath vibrated itself with such stupendous Force that the very Ribbs have been thereby broken as the observations recorded by Fernelius Hollerius Forestus and Carolus Piso attest 5 that in Horses and Doggs after they have run the beating of their Hearts may be plainly and distinctly heard to a considerable distance If I say we consider these things we shall soon be induced to believe that the Systole of the Heart is more than sufficient to impell the Blood to the extreme arteries And as for the spontaneous Constriction of the Arteries that also must needs contribute somewhat to the Pulsion of the Blood by less'ning the Pipes through which it flows Remarkable it is that the Contraction of the Arteries is not Synchronical or coincident with the contraction of the Heart For the Systole of the Heart is perform'd in the time of its contractive Motion and the Diastole in the time of the remission thereof but on the contrary the Diastole of the Arteries is perform'd when they endevor to contract themselves and their Systole when they remit that endevor The reason is because the exclusion of a sufficient quantity of Blood out of the Ventricles of the Heart being perform'd the first cause that impugned the contraction of the Arteries viz. their distention by that Blood rushing into them instantly ceases and the three Semilunar Valves are shut to prevent the regress of it and at
the same time the rest of the Blood in the Arteries remits its expansive Motion which was the other cause that hinder'd the Arteries from contracting themselves and those two impediments removed for that time the Fibres of the Arteries now prevail and by contracting themselves return to their middle posture of quiet by that contraction pressing the Blood forward on its Journey till it be impell'd into the substance of the Parts From whence after it hath done its Office it is soon forced to return toward the Heart through the Veins partly by more Blood flowing after and pressing it behind partly by the renitency and tonic Motion of the parts partly by the tension of the Muscles in the habit of the Body and in fine by the Pulsation of the Vena Cava which though but light is yet perceptible at its approach to the Heart where to that end it is furnisht with fleshy Fibres so that from thence Walaeus in Epist. de motu Sanguinis concluded that the circular Motion of the Blood beginn's from that part of the Vena Cava If I do not here particularly explain the reason and manner how each of these various Causes conduceth to the effect ascribed to their Syndrome or concurse it is because I presume that the whole History of the Circuition of the Blood with all its helps and circumstances is well known to the greatest part of my Auditors and because I hast to the FOURTH Act in the race of Life which beginns where the distribution of the Blood through the Arteries end 's and is the Communication of Life from the Blood distributed to all parts of the Body For these receiving the Blood impregnate with Original Life are thereby in a moment heated anew invigorated incited to expand themselves and made participant of Life Influent i. e. they are stirred up to the actual exercise of Augmentation or nutrition and of all other their Faculties And this Participation of Life is that vital Influx with so great Encomiums celebrated by Anatomists and the Heat of the Body both actual and vital and the general cause at least Sine qua non of all the noble Actions of the whole Body I say the General Cause because it is this influent Vital Heat that revives and stirrs them up to activity when without it all parts would be dull flaggy and torpid and yet notwithstanding it is not sufficiently able of itself to produce those Effects unless so farr forth as it is at the same time contemperated and determinated to this or that particular effect by that which some call the peculiar temperament and others the Spiritus insitus of that Member or Part whose proper Office it is to cause that effect For this vital Heat or general enlivening and invigorating influence operates one thing in the Liver another in the Spleen another in the Stomach and Gutts another in the Kidneys Sic de caeteris assisting and promoting the faculties of all parts so that no one can execute its proper function without it as the irradiation of the Sun is requisite to make the Ground fruitful and to excite the Seeds of all Vegetables lying in it and indeed this vital Heat is to Animals the Sun within them their Vesta perpetual Fire familiar Lar Calidum innatum Platonic Spark pepetually glowing not that like our common Fire it shines burns and destroys but that by a circular and incessant Motion from an internal Principle it conserves nourishes and augments first itself and then the whole Body Undè Entius noster in Antidiatribae pag. 6. in hunc finem extructum est cor quod calentis sanguinis rivulis totum corpus perpetim circumluit Cumque Plantae omnes à Solis benigna irradiatione vigorem vitamque adeo suam praecipùe mutuentur animalibus caeteris cordis calor innascitur unde tanquam à Microcosmi sole partes omnes jugiter refocillantur Ac propterea minùs placet quòd plantarum germen Corculi nomine indigitaveris Good reason then had our most Sagacious Harvey to sing so many Hymns as it were to this Sol Microcosmi that continually warms comforts and revives us Discoursing of the Primogeniture of the Blood in an Embryon Lib. de Generat Animal exercit 50. he falls into this elegant encomium of it Ex observatis constat Sanguinem esse partem genitalem fontem vita primùm vivens ultimò moriens sedemque animae primariam in quo tanquam in fonte calor primò praecipùe abundaet vigetque à quo reliquâ—â— omnes totius corporis partes calore influente foventur vitam obtinent Quippe calor Sanguinem comitatus totum corpus irrigat fovet conservat Ideoque concentrato fixoque leviter sanguine Hippocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nominavit veluti in lipothymia timore frigore externo febrium insultu contingit videas illicò totum corpus frigescere torpere pallore livoreque perfusum languescere evocato autem rursum sanguine hui quam subitò omnia calent denùo florent vigent splendentque Nec jecur munus suum publicum exsequitur sine influentia sanguinis caloris per arteriam Caeliacam Imò vero Cor ipsum per Arterias Coronarias influentem unà cum sanguine caliditatem vitamque accipit Quippe nullibi est caloris affluentia citra sanguinis influxum per arterias Sanguis denique totum corpus adeo circumflùit penetrat omnibusque ejus partibus calorem vitam jugiter impertit ut Anima primò principaliter in ipso residens illiûs gratiâ tota in toto tota in qualibet parte ut vulgò dicitur inesse meritò censeatur In another place Exercit. 51. vindicating the Supremacy of it over all parts of the Body he breaks forth into this memorable expostulation Si Neoterici quidam verè dicant animalium semen coitu emissum esse animatum quidni pari ratione affirmemus animam esse in sanguine cùmque hic primò generetur nutriatur moveatur ex eodem quoque animam primùm excitari ignescere Certè sanguis est in quo vegetativae sensitivae operationes primò elucent cui calor primarium immediatum animae instrumentum innascitur qui corporis animaeque commune vinculum est quo vehiculo animae omnibus totius corporis partibus influit In a third place Exercit. 70. where he with cogent reasons refutes the vulgar error de calido innato he puts an end to all false notions and all disputes concerning that Subject and then concludes in these words Solus sanguis est calidum innatum seu primò natus calor animalis Habet profectò in se animam primò ac principaliter non vegetativam modò sed sensitivam etiam motivam permeat quoquoversum ubique praesens est eodemque ablato anima quoque ipsa statim tollitur adeo ut sanguis ab anima nihil discrepare videatur vel saltem substantiae cujus actus sit anima
to arrive at the Period of his own within few Hours after ¶ PRAELECTIO V. Of Fevers IT is the custom of Mathematicians as ye most Candid Auditors well know when from a Series of Propositions premised and verified they have inferred the conclusion they sought to add as overplus certain useful Theorems or consectaneous Speculations by the Graecs called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Consectaria sive Coroltaria by the Latins the knowledg of which is many times of equal moment with that of the Verity on which they depend Give me leave then I beseech you so far to imitate this Method of those great Masters in the art of Reasoning rightly as from my discourse on Saturday last in the morning concerning the Primordia perpetual Source and circular race of Life to deduce a few Pathological Consectaries such as may perhaps afford some glimses of Light toward the discovery and nature and causes of a certain Malady which is of all others incident to Mans frail Body the most common most grievous and most dangerous And this Leave I with the greater confidence ask because I intend not to abuse it by digressing impertinently from either my present Subject or my Duty For the Subject of my Speculation designed is the same with that of my antecedent disquisition viz. the Blood and to find out the most probable Causes and reason of curing great Diseases is the principal scope and end of all our Enquiries as well Physiological as Anatomical Of which none can be ignorant who hath perused that little but oraculous Book of Hippocrates de Prisca Medicina where he teacheth that it is the great Duty of all Physicians who desire to render themselves worthy of that honourable appellation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not by discours alone but also by their Works and real succoring of the Sick to be solicitous about investigating the true Nature Causes and Remedies of Maladies above all things Nor is it new to find in the Writings of Anatomists Pathological reflexions subjoyned to the description of the part which is known to be the primary Seat of the preternatural Assections incident thereunto Secure then that what I have resolved with my self at this time to speak cannot in the end be justly esteemed a Parergon or beside the principal purpose I have taken in hand and conceiving great Hope both from the frequency and from the benign Aspect of this learned Assembly that hitherto my dulness hath not been able wholly to overcome your Patience I will presume ye are not unwilling to grant my so equitable Petition In my last Exercitation I endevored to evince as ye may be pleased to remember that the Vital Heat or Motion of the Blood doth formally consist in a certain expansive luctation of the spirituose Particles thereof with the less moveable or unactive repulsed and prevailing alternately but mild amicable benign and conducing to the exaltation of all the faculties and Uses of the Blood Now I come to add that it is not only possible but that it often happens that this Vital Motion although proceeding only from the Spirits that conserve and rule the Blood is by causes beside the institute of Nature invading it perturbed interrupted perverted and sometimes also wholly extinguished the vital Oeconomy being thereby sooner or later utterly subverted Of this we have instances almost innumerable Nor is there any one kind of preternatural Causes assignable by which Nature may not be impeded in her production of this Vital Motion and more or less perturbed as we cannot but observe it within our selves to come to pass sometimes from the immoderate Heat of the Aire surrounding us as in Ephemera sometimes from Meats and Drinks potentially too Hot as in Surfets and drunkenness sometimes from vehement Passions of the Mind as in anger Fear Grief c. Sometimes from a fermentation of the Blood as in putrid Fevers sometimes from venenate effluvia of Bodies as in pestilential and contagious Fevers sometimes from a simple solution of continuity of the Parts as in Wounds so that in fine to enumerate all the various causes by the hostility of which this Life conserving work of the vital Spirits may be hindred and perverted is a thing extremely difficult if not plainly impossible But in all these so various cases this is worthy to be noted as a general verity that the vital Spirits of the Blood are always preternaturally affected and that the disorder from thence emergent ought to be imputed to a p. n. Cause Every thing then that pollutes the Blood and that putts Nature to an effort or essay to separate and eject it from thence as alien and hostile is wont more or less according to the diversity of its Nature and Malice to impugn and repress the vital Motion of the Blood But nothing hath been observed to do it either more frequently or more contumaciously than impurities arising from Crude Humours congested in the Mass of Blood which cannot be separated and extirpated without previous Concoction or Digestion For these constituting a certain peculiar Inquinament or Pollution of the Blood put on the nature and acquire to themselves the efficacy of a Ferment not indeed such as the Leven of Bread or as the Yest of Ale and Beer but such that being in our Bodies mixt with the Blood which perpetually conceives new vital Heat in itself produceth the like commotions therein that those domestic Ferments do in their respective Subjects and may therefore be not unfitly called a Ferment according to the Name given to it by all Modern Physicians For it causeth a manifest Tumult or intestine War in the Blood after this manner The inquinament of the Blood by reason of the crudity and viscidity of its parts impugnes and hinders the benign expansive Motion of the Spirits in which I have declared the Generation of the vital Heat of it to consist and the Spirits on the contrary by their natural tendency to expand themselves oppose that repressive Force and strive to defend themselves from oppression producing by their energy a continuation of the Mication of the Blood imperfect indeed and mixt with Fermentation but the best they are able till they have gained the Victory to produce So that the Fermentation of the Blood in Fevers seems to proceed not from the impurities mixt with the Blood alone but partly from them and partly from Nature i. e. from the vital Spirits conserving the vitality of the Blood For while these are impugned checkt and hindred by those the Motion resulting from that conflict is indeed a certain Mication of the Blood but tumultuous violent unequal and interrupted with little Bubles and Froth I say therefore that this civil War in the Blood as it includes a certain Vital though imperfect and irregular Mication of the Blood cannot be denied so far forth to be the work of Nature but as that Mication is supposed to be tumultuose seditiose hostil and unequal it must be in that respect
floating in the Blood and makes room for the remainder to be more freely fermented and prevents eruption of the Blood out of its Vessels into some noble part To satisfie the Second capital Intention various things are required viz. such as may facilitate the Motion of Fermentation in the Blood such as may moderate the same when it is excessive in point of velocity such as may incite nature to quicken and accelerate it when too slow such as may keep it within due Bounds lest it bring a dangerous flood upon any noble part For the motion of Fermentation is sometimes too turbulent and tumultuose and in that respect exceedingly laboriose requiring remedies to make it more sedate and easie sometimes too dull and slow and to be quickened sometimes it threatens a Flux upon some nobler parts and then ought to be restrained In particular 1. The laboriose Fermentation which the Ancients seem to have meant by the name of Orgasmus or Turgescentia indicates remedies apt to compose it and render it less prone to molest and offend the Vessels containing the Blood such as taking away some Blood by Phlebotomy which by diminishing the Mass lessens the burden of nature and makes room for the freer Fermentation of the rest such also are Acids and Refrigerating and Moistning Juleps not given actually cold but luke-warm nor in the least vinose all which allay the ebullition of the Blood and make it less prone to be frothy 2. The too swift or vehement Fermentation which makes the Fever more acute than the strength and spirits of the Patient can well bear and by consequence ought to be moderated requires remedies that may somewhat retard it and procure a truce to nature that she may have respite to recollect and rally her Forces Of which sort are Blood-letting Anodynes Hypnotics and sometimes even Narcotics either taken in the Mouth or applyed outwardly to places convenient 3. On the contrary the too slow and lingring Fermentation such as causes Lent Fevers calls upon the Physician for Spurs to incite and stimulate nature to accelerate the Conflict In this case therefore he ought to have recourse sometimes to Purging Medicaments to be by Intervals repeated sometimes to Sudorifics and those pretty hot efficacious vinose or rich in spirits for all these quicken the Fermentation and dissolve the clammyness of the Febrile Matter and in both those respects bring great relief to the Patient 4. The Turgent Fermentation which threatens a Flux upon some noble part and imminent danger thereupon directs to the speedy use of the best means for Diversion Here therefore the most urgent Symptom is without delay to be opposed by Remedies Revellent Divertent Repellent as Phlebotomy Cupping-Glasses Leeches Ligatures Vesicatories and other Topics In sine the Conservation of the vital powers is in putrid Fevers of greatest moment because the Febrile Matter tends directly to the oppression of the vital Mication of the Blood and the Fermentation it self proceeds no less from the Luctation of Nature endeavouring to continue that motion in which life consists than from the Ferment that hinders it Hence it comes that the lighter causes of Fevers are sometimes discussed by Cardiacs only by a bitter decoction of Chamomil Flowers and the tops of Wormwood by Carduus Benedictus boiled in Posset-Drink and the like Euporista or domestick Remedies For if the expansive motion of the vital spirits be so far assisted and corroborated as to enable it to overcome the clamminess of the febrile Ferment that tends to the suppression of it Nature certainly will soon obtain the Victory and easily exterminate her Enemy Here then is the opportunity of giving Cordials as they are call'd Antidotes and Specifics or Appropriate remedies vulgarly so named all which conduce to the Conservation of the vital Faculty ¶ Besides the just now described preparation of the matter in putrid Fevers offending to the opportune expurgation of it there is required also a certain preparation of the WAYS or passages through which the same is to be most commodiously carried off that so the evacuation whether by nature her self critically or by her Minister the Physician artificially instituted may be not only seasonable but easie too and beneficial For these being either by their asperity or by their narrowness or by obstruction less passable than they ought to be to attempt purgation is vain and unsafe Of which our Law-giver Hippocrates being fully conscious left us this most prudent counsel Aphor. 10. lib. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Si quis corpora purgare voluerit meabilia ut reddat est necesse But how is the Body to be made more permeable By opening all the passages of it and by cutting dissolving and attenuating the gross and viscid humours that stick in them which may be best effected by Remedies Lubricant Abstergent and Aperient the particular reasons of all which I shall endeavour briefly to explain 1 Lubricantia certainly render the ways more fit to give passage to humors that require purgation by smoothing their roughness and inducing instead thereof a manifest slipperiness so that the humours slide along through them without any sensible renitency or attrition which always causeth Gripes in the Stomach and Belly Now of these Medicaments that are apt to induce slipperiness some are simply Aqueous and remove asperity only by their moisture as Barley Water thin Broaths Whey c. Others are Mucilagineous smoothing the ways with a certain friendly and pleasing Lentor as the Syrups of Althaea of the Flowers of Mallows de Mucilaginibus of Jujubs c. Others Oleagineous as Oil of sweet Almonds Linseed Oil fresh Butter Lard c. Others Saline as the Salt Cream and Magistery of Tartar Others Spirituose as New-laid Eggs but little boiled the Pulp of ripe Fruits Again of these some loosen the Belly also as the Pulp of Cassia and Damasco Prunes which above all things contemperate the roughness of purging Medicines being for that reason chiefly admitted into the composition of the Diaprun Solut. 2 Abstergentia seem to have the like good effect in facilitating the operation of purging Medicaments as Soap hath in cleansing of Linnen For whatsoever sticks to the inside of the Stomach and Guts they wipe away and are found in that respect perhaps to conduce much to the correction of strong and churlish Cathartics by preventing their rough and grating Particles from pertinaciously adhering to the Coats of the Ventricle and Intestines and so inducing Gripes and Contorsions Hence 't is familiar to Physicians to tame fierce Purgers with Salts viz. Sal Gemme Salt of Tartar of Nitre Spirit of Vitriol and of Nitre dulcified Cremor Tartari and the like Not that they confer to the bridling of the fierceness of stronger Cathartics in this name only but because they are usually prescribed chiefly to this end 3 Nor are Aperient i. e. cutting and attenuating Medicaments of less utility in this business where the ways through which peccant humours are
namely into bones cartilages ligaments tendons membranes fibres c. So that all the Organs are at length compos'd of dissimilar parts by wonderful artifice context without the least of confusion or incongruity Which deserves to be reckon'd the seventh Act. 8. In that work of Organization 't is credible the inimitable Artist divides without section only by terminating the parts and unites without glew or cement only by continuing them to the common term or bounds which depends more upon union of matter than upon union of nature By these admirable artifices of Division and Unition the Plastic Spirit perforates separates conjoins cements the yet fluid at least soft Stamina of the parts where how and as often as need requires it deduces and runns out their Rivulets terminated in the fluid matter as by chanels it preserves from confusion the two different Colliquamenta and the Yolk divided as it were by partitions it so distinguishes and disterminates even contiguous and semblable parts that they may be diversly moved at the same time without interfering or impediment and each yield to other when occasion requires and thus almost all fibres very many membranes and in many sorts of Animals the Lobes of the Lungs and Liver and the Cartilages mutually touching each other in the joints c. are divided among themselves In a word by these wayes and degrees here by me from Malpighius his Microscopical Observations collected and rudely described it seems most probable that the Embryo is form'd augmented and finish'd in an Egg. Now therefore that we may accommodate this Epitome to our present Argument if this be the method and process that Nature uses in the Generation of Oviparous Animals and if she uses the like in the production of Viviparous also as Dr. Harvies observations and our own assure us that she doth we may safely conclude that Human Embryons are in like manner form'd augmented and finish'd by one and the same Plastic Spirit out of one and the same matter the Colliquamentum Quod er at probandum I add that the same Plastic Spirit remaining and working within us through the whole course of our life from our very first formation to our death doth in the same manner perpetually regenerate us out of a liquor analogous to the white of an Egg by transmuting the same into the substance of the solid parts of our body For as I said before Nutrition is necessary to all Animals not only in respect of the Augmentation of their parts while they are little Embryons but also in respect of their Conservation after during life because their bodies being in a natural consumption or exhaustion would inevitably be soon resolv'd into their first elements unless the providence of Nature had ordain'd a continual renovation or reparation of the parts by substitution and assimilation of fresh matter in the room of those particles dispers'd and consum'd Having therefore to some degree of probability explain'd the former necessity of Nutrition and the causes of it my next business must be to inquire into the Later Which that I may the more effectually do I find my self obliged to begin my scrutiny from the Causes of the perpetual Decay or Depredation of the substance of our bodies viz. the Efficient or Depraedator and the Matter or substance thereby consum'd and the Manner how The Depraedator then or Efficient cause of the perpetual consumtion of our bodies seems to be what all Philosophers unanimously hold it to be the Vital Heat of the bloud therein first kindled by the Plastic Spirit continually renew'd by the Vital Spirit and by the arteries diffus'd to all parts of the body that they may thereby be warm'd cherish'd and enliven'd This Lar familiaris or Vital Heat continually glowing within us and principally in the Ventricles of the Heart call'd by Hippocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ingenitus ignis by Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 accensio animae in corde and flamma Biolychnii the flame of the Lamp of Life by others and by others again ignea pars Animae Sensitivae is what Physicians generally have heretofore understood by Calidum innatum tho' they seem to have had but an obscure and inadaequate notion of the thing it self as I hope to evince when I shall come to inquire what life is and upon what it chiefly depends Meanwhile supposing it to be an Actual Heat consisting in a certain motion of the various particles of the bloud and in some degree analogous to fire or flame I cannot conceive how 't is possible for it to subsist or continue for so much as one moment of time unless it be maintain'd by convenient fewel which is thereby uncessantly fed upon and by degrees consum'd for it is of the nature of all fire how gentle or mild soever to generate and conserve it self only by preying upon and destroying the matter in which it is generated This Vital Heat therefore without intermission agitating dissolving and consuming the minute and most easily exsoluble particles of the body must be the Depraedator here sought after So that in truth we have one and the same cause both of our life and of our death or to speak more properly our very life is nothing but a continual death and we live because we die For we live so long as while this internal Vestal Heat is kept glowing in the bloud and when it ceases to glow either from want of convenient sustenance or by violent suffocation life is instantly extinguish'd So true even in this natural sense is that Distich of Euripides Quis novit autem an vivere hoc sit emori An emori hoc sit quod vocamus vivere The Matter consum'd I humbly conceive to be for the greatest part the fluid parts of the body chiefly the bloud and spirits which are most easily exsoluble and somewhat tho' but little of the substance also of the solid parts For Experience teaches that divers Animals Bears Dormice Swallows c. sleep the whole Winter without receiving any supply of aliment and yet have all the solid parts of their bodies as large and firm when they awake again in the Spring as when they first betook themselves to their dens or dormitories and the Reason hereof seems to be this that their Vital Heat being all that time calm and gentle consumes their bloud and spirits but slowly and very little of their solid parts as a lamp burns long when the oyl that feeds it is much and the flame but little and calm We have Examples also of Leucophlegmatic Virgins who from a gradual decay of Appetite have fall'n at length into an absolute aversion from all food and endur'd long abstinence without either miracle or imposture and yet notwithstanding have not been emaciated in proportion to the time of their fasting Whence 't is probable that in our bodies there is not so rapid and profuse an expense or exhaustion of the substance of the solid parts as heretofore many learn'd Physicians
Wherefore the native temperament of all fibres is cold and moist indeed but enrich'd with delicate and noble spirits however fixt and consequently they require to be nourish'd with a spermatic aliment The Corpulency or fleshiness of fibres is variable somtimes greater as in strong and laborious men somtimes less as in weak lean and sedentary The Cohaerence of parts ought to be firm and tough that they may be extended without danger of divulsion or rupture and return to their natural posture by spontaneous contraction after extension Their Flexibility depends partly upon their tenacity partly upon their middle constitution betwixt hardness and softness that they may be neither rigid or stiff nor flaggy The Organical native constitution of fibres consisteth in their due situation figure magnitude and continuity all which are included in their former description The influent constitution of them is either Vital or Animal If the vital influx be deficient the force and strength of the fibres soon languishes as in swoonings and faintings Yea if it be but depraved as in fevers their vigour in a few hours decayes If the Animal influx be intercepted as in the palsy they quickly become languid and stupid yea if the brain and nerves grow dull and sluggish the fibres at the same time grow flaccid and loose unapt for vigorous motion 2. The general Uses of all fibres are to corroborate the parts to which they belong and to move them The special uses are various respective to their various formation in divers parts as for instance in the Stomach and Gutts they serve chiefly to their Peristaltic motion 3. The Action of Fibres is either Common or Proper Common when being invigorated i. e. set on work by extension which is against their nature they pull and move the part to which they are connex'd as a chord pull'd by a mans hand pulls a plummet or any other body fastned to it but this seems to me to be in strictness of truth rather Passion than action in respect of the fibres themselves for they suffer extension being notwithstanding their natural renitency stretcht in length by the pulling of the nerves from which they are elonged Wherefore according to my weak judgment their Proper action is only Self-contraction by which they restore themselves to their natural posture A motion common indeed to all Tensil bodies whatever and therefore rightly term'd by Philosophers motion of Restitution the cause whereof I take to be the strong cohaerence of the parts of which they are compos'd If so what need we amuse our selvs by striving to deduce the spontaneous Contraction of nerves and fibres either from natural Instinct which implying I know not what secret suggestion pro re nata from some forein cause whether God or His servant Nature is to me unintelligible or what is equally abstruse from Natural Perception which supposes even inanimate things yea every the least particle of matter in the whole Universe to be naturally endowed with knowledge of what is good or evil to their nature with appetites to embrace the good and eschew the evil and with power to move themselves accordingly faculties that my Philosophy will not grant to any but rational creatures 4. The Passion therefore of a Fibre is the extension of it which is a passive motion coming from a cause without the essence of the fibre it self Which cause unless it actually relax or stupesie the fibres incites or irritates them to contract themselves and the more violent the irritation the stronger is the renitency and spontaneous contraction as is observ'd in convulsions To me it seems impossible that a simple fibre should by its own action alone extend it self in length nor have I wit enough to conceive how this can be done since all extension is a less or greater degree of force tending to the tearing asunder of the parts of the tensible body against which divelling force the firm cohaerence of the parts makes it strive And as for the Cessation of fibres that is when they neither act nor suffer but rest from all either extension or contraction having restor'd themselves to their natural posture of laxity This they attain to chiefly in sleep when all fibres of the whole body those that serve to respiration and the motions of the heart only excepted are at rest and thereby refresh'd acquiring after labour and weariness new strength and vigor from the sweet mild and balsamic juice dispensed to them from the brain by the nerves After this concise survey of the fibres in the membranes of the Ventricle there remains only their peculiar Parenchyma to challenge our observation which it may with the greater right pretend to because there are many who question whether it be real or imaginary because the whole Ventricle being of a white color seems therefore to be made up only of fibres and membranes It concerns us then to be certified 1. Of the real existence 2. Of the necessity 3. Of the quality and 4. Of the various uses of what we call the Parenchyma of the Ventricle as a distinct part thereof 1. To be assured even by our own eyes that there is really such a thing we need only to essay the excarnation of the stomach by laying it extended upon a plain bord and then scraping it moderately hard with a blunt knife in the same manner as Sheep skins are scrap'd by those who make Velom and Parchment or gutts by those who make Sawciges For by this easie means you may scrape off so great a quantity of soft white pulp as will by nineteen parts of twenty exceed all that you leave behind of membranes and fibres which will yet remain as strong and tenacious as they were before Against which experiment I see not what can be objected For if the firm cohaerence of the fibres of the Stomach be not only not abolish'd but not at all diminish'd by this scraping away of the pulp that stufft them it follows that the pure fibres in which alone the strength of the stomach consists still remain intire and that nothing but the Parenchyma or pulp hath been taken away From the same experiment it appears also that the membrane and pure fibres of the Ventricle are in themselves pellucid or transparent as we see in the skins of Sawciges and that they owe all their opacity to their stuffing with this Parenchyma 2. Which is necessary to the constitution of the Stomach in more than one respect Necessary it seems to fill up and make smooth and plain the inequalities arising from the contexture of the fibres which running various courses and riding each over other somtimes would otherwise render the surfaces of the membranes uneven Necessary it is also to stop the pores of the Stomach that it may hold liquors the better and be stanch even to vapors and wind as linnen cloth is made to hold water by dipping it into melted wax oyle and turpentine which fill up the void spaces betwixt
the threads in the same manner as this mucilaginous pulp fills up the interstices betwixt the fibres and so makes the membranes impervious Necessary it is to the augmentation and extenuation of the fibres themselves For the fibres of the Stomach although seldom or never liable to fatness are yet easily capable of plumpness and leanness In men sick of a Consumtion they are alwayes extenuated in fat men alwayes plump and thick But these mutations could not so easily happen if the fibres were not stuff'd with some pulp for all Parenchymata are easily melted a way by degrees but fibres not without great difficulty nor do I know any thing more apt to colliquate their substance and destroy their tone than Brandy and other corroding Spirits how highly soever extoll'd by Chymists that distill them We may see in men languishing of Hectic fevers and ulcers of the lungs the Tendons of the muscles remaining intire when the pulp of them is in the mean time almost wholly consumed Whence 't is evident that the fibres which are more easily obnoxious to augmentation and diminution than other solid parts have much of a pulpy substance in their composition 3. This pulp if softned and diluted with water is like a mucilage or gelly otherwise tenacious tensible and strong like paste so as to be impervious to winds and liquors though apt perhaps to imbibe the thinner and spirituose part of the Chyle Different from the Parenchyma of the bowels and from that of the Muscles also as being neither bloody but white and spermatic nor congested into a mass but spread abroad like plaister so as to bear extension and contraction together with the fibres part of it being stuff'd or cramm'd into the fibres the rest dawbed upon and betwixt them so as to fill up and plane their interstices 4. Besides which two Uses it seems to serve also to three others viz. to the safe conduct of the Venae Lacteae proceeding from the Stomach which probably have their roots in the parenchyma of the inmost tunic thereof where the small Glandules observ'd by Steno and Malpighius are seated to the separation of the mucus or pituita emortua from the bloud brought by the arteries into the coats of the Ventricle of which we shall more opportunely inquire when we come to the uses of the Stomach and lastly to make way for a larger current of blood to pass through the membranes of the Stomach than otherwise they and their pure fibres could through their substance transmitt For Fibres by how much more firm and tenacious they are than the Parenchyma is by so much more they resist the transition of the blood and therefore if here were no Parenchyma certainly the Ventricle would be irrigated with more slender streams of blood and consequently colder than it ought to be Whereas now no less than five conspicuous arteries discharge themselves into its coats Certain therefore it is that a more liberal afflux of bloud is requir'd to the constitution of the stomach than seems possible to be transmitted through the naked membrane and fibres without this pulp Having now at length finish'd I wish I might say perfected my survey of all visible Elements or constituent parts of the Ventricle I should proceed to the functions actions and uses of it But remembring that an empty Stomach hath no ears and considering that it would be double wrong to you should I at once starve both your bodies and your curiosity I choose rather here to break off the thread of my discourse than to weaken that of your life by detaining you longer from necessary refection ¶ PRAELECTIO III. Of the ACTIONS and USES of the VENTRICLE AFTER dinner sit a while is an old and good precept to conserve health Let us then if ye please now observe it And that we may repose without idleness let us calmly inquire into the method causes and manner of Digestion resuming the clew of our discourse where hunger and thirst brake it off when it had brought us to that place where we might most opportunely consider the ACTIONS and USES of the Ventricle whose admirable Structure and various Parts we had so particularly contemplated in order to our more accurate investigation of them In this disquisition Nature her self hath plainly mark'd out the steps wherein we are to tread having assign'd to the Ventricle eight distinct operations or actions to be perform'd in order successively These Actions are 1. Hunger 2. Thirst 3. The Peristaltic motion 4. Reception 5. Retention 6. Concoction 7. Secretion 8. Expulsion each of which hath a peculiar Faculty respondent to it for every action in specie distinct necessarily implies a distinct power But because each distinct faculty and the action respondent to it are though in reason different yet in reality one and the same thing I shall not treat of them separately but describe them together under the more familiar name of action the rather because if we can be so lucky to find out the true reason of any one operation here specified we need search no farther to know the nature of the faculty to which it belongs all mechanical operations conducting our understanding to the knowledge of the proper powers by which they are perform'd Following then the order of Nature in examining these Actions I begin from the first viz. HUNGER Among the many differences betwixt Plants and Animals this is not the least remarkable that Plants are fixt by their roots which serve them also instead of mouth and stomach in the earth so that they remove not from their places in quest of nourishment Unde facundiss noster Entius in Antidiatribae pag. 5. Plantae inquit non sunt quidem gressiles sed humo affixae secum continuè habitant quòd pluviâ solùm ac rore tenuissimo scilicet victu pascantur Ideoque cùm ad rivulos potatum ire nequeant expansis veluti brachiis facundos imbres à Jove pluvio implorant But Animals having their Stomach within their bodies and sucking no juice immediately from the earth are therefore forced to change their stations and range from place to place to find food convenient for their sustenance And because the capacity of their Ventricles and Gutts is not so great as at once to contain a quantity of food sufficient to maintain life for many dayes together necessary it is they should often be recruited by eating fresh aliment To obtain which they must seek it and to oblige them to seek it they must be excited and urged by somthing within them to that quest and to that excitation is requir'd an internal goad as it were and that a sharp one too and irresistible the inevitable necessity of their nutrition consider'd otherwise they would neglect to supply themselves in due time with new sustenance and consequently soon pine away and perish Now the goad that compells them to feed is Hunger and Thirst the one urges them to seek meat the other drink both by
recruited be apt to fail and arefaction soon succeed into the room of it The third and last is a certain impatience of driness without a querulous sensation of it For since this membrane ought according to the institute of nature to be alwayes moistned and yet notwithstanding is for the reasons newly alleged apt to be left destitute of its natural moisture and since it is as I have already evinced of acute sense it follows of necessity that it can not but be sensible of and impatiently tolerate driness which is so repugnant to its natural constitution And so at length have we attain'd to the knowledge of the reason of Thirst and of the manner of its Sensation And as for the various degrees of it they arise from the various degrees of exsiccation and the shorter or longer continuation thereof Having thus found both the formal reason and the proxime cause of Thirst it follows that we inquire into the remote Causes of the same These therefore may be all referr'd to six heads whereof four are General or more remote and the other two Particular and less remote The General Causes are 1. Too long abstinence from drink 2. Immoderate heat of the body and chiefly feverish distempers of the bloud 3. Defect of the general Latex serosus 4. Diversion of the same Latex from the organ of thirst to other parts The Particular are 1. Defect of the Latex in the Glands that serve particularly to supply the membrane with moisture and 2. The depravation of the same Latex by qualities aliene from its natural constitution Each of which causes I should particularly have explain'd had I not consider'd that a simple enumeration of them may be sufficient to the Learned part of my Auditors and that I want time fully to explicate them to the rest Trusting therefore in the memory of those and the equity of these I here conclude my jejune discourse of the second action of the Ventricle Thirst and following the clew of my method pass to the third viz. The PERISTALTIC or COMPRESSIVE MOTION of the Stomach The appetites of hunger and thirst being satisfied the Ventricle pleas'd with that relief closely embraces the newly receiv'd meat and drink on all sides spontaneously contracting it self into a narrower compass and thereby lessning its cavity so as to compress the contents and this spontaneous contraction is therefore by Galen named in his language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 motus compressivus circumquaque as the faculty or power by which the action is perform'd is call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Facultas circum-constrictiva The same Faculty is well defined by Gorrhaeus a faithful Interpreter of Galen in these words est quae alimentum attractum arctè complectitur quò meliùs concoquatur ministra est virtutis retentricis atque inde concoctricis But this definition though convenient to the nature of the thing so far as it extends and to the notion Galen seems to have had of it is notwithstanding too scanty to comprehend the formal reason of the Faculty or to explain the Manner of its operation Let us therefore seek farther in hope at length to discover both To found this Peristaltic Power in the stomach and gutts for we are not now considering any other of the various cavities in the body all which are also endowed with the like power five things are of necessity requir'd viz. 1. A Cavity or receptacle 2. Matter contain'd in that Cavity 3. Tunics or membranes invironing the same 4. Fibres to gird or constringe those membranes 5. Distinct orders and different texture of those fibres For in what part soever these five constitutions are concurrent as they certainly are found in the Ventricle and gutts that part hath a just and clear title to a Peristaltic power and may exercise it whenever occasion requires But the two last constitutions are those in which the power is principally founded the Fibres alone being the active cause of the compressive motion and the different orders and texture of them the causes of the differences of the same motion Our business therefore must be to inquire chiefly into the actions of the several orders of Fibres formerly described by us in the Tunics of the Ventricle from the variation of which the various kinds of this compressive motion receive their distinction This Motion then is observed to be threefold 1. Downward 2. Upward 3. Partly downward and partly upward and the last sort is subdivided into 1. That which is perform'd with a certain Luctation or strife and 2. That which is perform'd not only without strife but with a kind of sport Besides these differences there are yet others subordinate to them The Peristaltic motion with strife is either equal and then it may be call'd Tonic or Aequilibrate or unequal and then it is in the yielding fibres repressing and inverting in the prevailing the Peristaltic motion inverted The Sportive motion is from its use call'd the distributive motion of the Chyle Moreover all those different sorts of the Peristaltic motion have their various degrees by which also they are remarkably discriminate among themselves as being somtimes robust somtimes languid one while torpid and sluggish another while vigorose and quick somtimes placid and sedate somtimes turbulent and tumultuous And in handling all these we are to consider the manner of the conspiracy and co-operation of three orders of fibres beginning from the Peristaltic motion downward which in the order of nature is praecedent to the motion upward because the matter moved must first descend into the cavity of the stomach before it can be therein agitated hither and thither Not that this motion is to be understood to be downward in respect of the Centre of the Earth but of the ductus or passage continued from the mouth to the fundament This Peristaltic motion downwards being sensibly perform'd in the swallowing down of meat and drink in the descent of the Chyle and exclusion of the excrements is sufficiently demonstrated from those actions and perform'd by virtue of all sorts of fibres First By contraction of the Transverse fibres which like Zones making intire circles must by shortning themselves make less circles and consequently by drawing the cavity they gird into a narrower compass compress and squeez out the matter therein contain'd upward or downward Supposing then that they begin their contraction from above as about the upper orifice of the stomach 't is necessary they should depress or squeez down the matter contain'd in the cavity of it For the inferior fibres are supposed to be not yet vigorated or put into action but to give way and to suffer distention from the matter contain'd and this very distention it is that causes them to act by restoring themselves to their natural state of moderate laxity So that by this means the inferior fibres being successively excited to persue this motion from above downward contract themselves successively till they thrust the matter contein'd quite
the stomachs of Animals of divers kinds the ferment being in some sorts different from that in others respectively to the difference of the blood And this is all I have to say of the chief instrument of Concoction the proper and inbred Ferment of the stomach 2. The Constitutions of the stomach in which the Concoctive Faculty seems to be founded are three viz. Vital Animal and Natural Of these the two former are influent the first from the fountain of life the blood the second from the brain the third insite or implanted in the stomach it self from its very formation From all these Constitutions concurrent and by an admirable contrivance of the Divine Wisdom combined there results a certain power which is the Principal Cause of all the operations of the stomach Hence we properly enough say the stomach craves meat and the stomach digesteth For the Seminal Principle of the stomach including both the Vital and Animal influences together with the native Constitution is the whole and so the Principal cause of all its operations But this being a Complex cause cannot be well understood unless the three Constitutions here named of which it is composed be singly consider'd What the Vital and Animal are will be easily collected from what I have designed to say when I come to inquire concerning life and the influence of the brain And as for the insite or congenite Constitution that consisteth in the Temperament in the Habit in the Tone and chiefly in the implanted spirit as the Galenist calls it or as the Chymists and Helmontians Archeus which assisted by the influent vital heat and by the Animal influx is doubtless the grand cause of Concoction and together with the newly describ'd Ferment performs the whole work Which being accomplish'd there immediately succeeds another operation equally necessary to Nutrition viz. The DISTRIBUTION of the Chyle WHICH is perform'd by three distinct actions of the Distributive Faculty of the stomach and Gutts viz. 1 the Exclusion of the Chyle out of the stomach into the Gutts 2 The Agitation of it to and fro by the Peristaltick motion partly in the stomach but chiefly in the gutts and 3 the Transmission of it into the Milky Veins The reason and manner of all which actions I shall endeavor briefly to explain supposing them to be Organical As to the FIRST viz. the Transfusion of the Chyle out of the stomach into the gutts I conceive it to be effected by a double motion of the Chyle one impress'd upon the Chyle the other natural to it or spantaneous The first upward the second downward The impress'd and upward motion by which the Chyle is elevated to the Pylorus I ascribe to the Constriction or closing of the whole stomach For all the fibres of the stomach by the motion of self-restitution common to all Tensiles after they have been extended in length more and more contracting themselves by degrees of necessity lessen the cavity in which the Chyle is contein'd and this coangustation of the cavity of equal necessity raises it up to the Pylorus and the other orifice remaining closely shut up while the whole act of Concoction lasteth forces it out at the same in the same manner as the liquor of a Clyster is squeez'd out at the pipe only by compression of all parts of the bladder including it The natural and downward motion by which the Chyle slides down into the gutts is to be attributed to its Gravity which causes it to descend from the Pylorus into the gutts spontaneously But this later motion belongs not to that part of the Chyle which is carried off immediately from the stomach by the milky veins that are proper to it Which yet cannot be much perhaps not the hundredth part of the whole mass of Chyle because the Venae Lacteae of the stomach are but few their number scarcely holding the proportion of a hundred to one with the great multitudes of those that take in their fraught from the Gutts Nor is all the other part of the Chyle devolved into the gutts together and at once but by degrees as it comes to be concocted For it is constant from the dissection of Animals alive that the Chyle when it is confected is fluid or liquid and visibly distinct yea easily separable from the solid meats not yet dissolved as broath is in a pot distinguishable from the flesh boyl'd in it And because the solid meat is for the most part heavier than the liquor and therefore sinks to the botom of the stomach it must needs by pressure cause the liquor to rise to the Pylorus to give way to what presses it So that the thinner part of the Chyle is always first express'd For the two orifices of the stomach are of equal height and both a little higher than any other part of the same Whence may be collected one good reason why 't is more conducible to health to sit or stand than to lie down upon a full stomach For in a man that keeps the Trunc of his body in an erect posture for some time after meat the load of the stomach creates little or nothing of trouble to the orifices of it but beareth only upon the bottom and sides Whereas he that lies down soon after he has fill'd his belly inverts the order of his meat and turns the liquid part out by the Pylorus before it hath been sufficiently concocted and so fills his body with crudities than which I scarce know any thing more pernicious to health And this seems to me sufficient to explain the reasons and manner of the devolution of the Chyle into the gutts which is the first act of the Distributive Faculty As to the SECOND viz. the Agitation of the Chyle to and fro this equally distributes the Chyle to all the gutts as is not only convenient but of absolute necessity to Nutrition For since Nature hath dispens'd Venae Lacteae equally to all the Gutts 't is fit the Chyle al so should be equally distributed to them all sooner or later that each one may have its share of the dividend Again since only the outward superfice of the matter contein'd in the stomach and gutts bears against the orifices of the Venae Lacteae and since the Venae Lacteae do not hang forth or stand strutting into that matter but are terminated in the interior membrane 't is requisite the matter should be turned and revolv'd to and again that the whole may at length be brought to their doors and offer'd to them Now this is effected wholly by an operation Organical and the Efficient is the Peristaltic Motion of the stomach and gutts proceeding from the alternate contraction and extension of their Fibres as we have this day shewn when we described the Peristaltick motion and gave a Mechanic account of it Choosing therefore rather to exercise your Memory than to abuse your Patience by a vain repetition of the same things I will here consider only the Congruity
Theologues if I take the innocent liberty of believing that this admirable act of Vivification done by the Omnipotent Creator upon Adam was done by way of Inspiration by which according to the genuine and proper Sense of the word is to be understood a blowing in of some subtil and energetic substance into a place where before it was not viz. into the Nostrils of the human Body newly formed of the Dust of the Earth Which will perhaps be found somewhat the more reasonable if the manner and circumstances of the miraculous Revivification of the good Shunamites Son by the Prophet Elisha Kings 2. Cap. 4. be well considered For we read that after the Prophet had layn some time and much bestirred himself upon the Body of the dead Child putting his Mouth upon his Mouth and his Eyes upon his Eyes and his Hands upon his Hands and stretched himself again and again upon him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Flesh of the Child waxed warm and he Neesed seven times and opened his Eyes So that from thence it seems inferrible that as the first Man was inlivened so this Child was revived by Inspiration Both acts doubtless were done miraculously because by the same divine Agent God yet with this difference that the former was performed immediately by God himself the latter mediately by his Instrument the Prophet to whose Breath blown into the Childs Mouth and to whose Heat communicated to the Childs Flesh and consequently to his Blood the Author of Life was pleased to give a Virtue so Efficacious as to restore and renovate the Vital motions of the Blood Heart Lungs and Diaphragm of the Child that had been stopped by the cold Hand of Death and those Motions being recommenced and the Brain reinvigorated by a fresh influx of arterial Blood replete with vital Spirits by strong contraction of its Membranes as it were by a Critical Motion expell'd the material and conjunct cause of the Disease by Sternutation seven times repeted before the Child opened his Eyes For that the Seat of that most acute Disease was in the Brain is manifest even from the Childs complaint to his Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Head my Head I am not ignorant there are some who expresly affirm that the word inspiration is in sacred Scriptures used only Metaphoricaly whether truly or not let Divines dispute Meanwhile I am certain the word Spirit upon which inspiration depends is in many places of the holy Bible used to express Life In Job c. 27. v. 3 quamdiu spiritus Dei est in naribus meis signifies so long as I shall live or have Life And in Ezech c. 1. v. 20. Spiritus vitae erat in rotis seems to me to say the Wheels were living Other Instances I might easily collect if these were not sufficient to my Scope and if I were not obliged to hasten to other appellations and Characters of Life less liable to controversy and used by Philosophers By Hippocrates Life is per periphrasin call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ignis ingenitus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 accensio animae in corde by Aristotle The Hebrews express it sometimes by nephesch sometimes by neschama both which words indifferently signifie Soul or Life The Graecians whose Language is more copiose name it either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to Breath or refrigerate by blowing nor unfitly because to Breath or respire is proper to living Creatures or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aliàs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which Hesychius addeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Latines commonly Vita which is deflected from the Graec 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by cutting off the Vowel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and changing b into v as is usually done and sometimes Anima whch is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies Wind an Etymology owned by Horace himself in this odd exprssion of his Impellunt animae lintea Thraciae in Carmin lib. 4. Ode 12. and before him by Lucretius lib. 6. in these Words Ventus ubi atque animae subitò vis maxima quaedam Aut extrinsecus aut ipsa ab tellure coorta Who often calls the Soul Ventum Vitalem FROM the various Names we come to some few Notions that eminent Philosophers have formed to themselves of Life such as among many others seem to me more memorable than the rest as well for the credit they have obtained in the Schools as for the great renown of their Authors Cardanus a man of admirable Subtility of Wit in his lucid intervalls defines Life to be the Operation or action of the Soul and as Iul. Scaliger in Exercit. 102 Sect. 5. not without Signs of envy observes hath therein many Followers In the number of whom I must not list my self 1 because if Life be an action of the Soul the Body cannot be truly said to live 2 if Life be an action there must be an action of an action for the actions of Life in Man are as Arist 2. de anima truly teaches to understand to have Sense to move voluntarily to be nourished to speak c. and to suppose an action of an action is manifestly absurd In this point therefore I declare my self to be no disciple of Cardans Fernelius equal to Cardan both in time and fame nor inferior in Sagacity of Spirit defines life thus Est Animantium vita facultatum actionumque omnium conservatio But this definition is too narrow for the thing as taking no notice of the Body which yet is participant of Life and upon whose Organs the exercise of all the faculties and actions of the Soul depends Ludovicus Vives describes Life to be Conservatio instrumentorum quibus anima in corpore utitur because saith he when the instruments are corrupted life ceaseth But neither in this description is it safe to acquiesce 1 because Life is conserved not so much by the integrity of the Instruments as by the Faculties which are before the Instruments and upon which all the Functions proximly depend 2 The conservation of the Instruments doth not make or constitute Life but rather follow it as an effect 3 if Life were only the conservation of the Instruments then would it necessarily follow that part of Life is lost or destroyed when any of the Instruments are corrupted or cut off which is absurd life being indivisible and daily experience attesting that one or more of the Organs of the Body as Hands Feet c may be cut off without diminution of Life Which even Lucretius himself acknowledged in these elegant Verses At manet in vita cui mens animusque remansit Quamvis est circum-caesis lacer undique membris Truncus ademptâ animâ circum membrisque remotis Vivit aetherias vitaleis suscipit auras c. Lib. 3. Neither of these three Select Definitions proving in all points absolute and Scientific some here perhaps expect that I who am so bold
plunging of the Body into cold Water would depress and calm it and consequently repress the motion of the Heart but the experience of divers attesteth the contrary For these reasons therefore among many others here for brevities sake omitted I reject the supposed Ebullition of the Blood passing through the Ventricles of the Heart I reject also the suddain and impetuose Rarifaction attributed to it by the greatest of Aristotle's Rivals Monsieure des Cartes and strenuously propugned by Regius and others his Disciples For 1 If you open the Thorax of any more perfect Animal alive and while the Heart yet continues to beat strongly thrust an incision Knife into either of the Ventricles or into the great Artery the Blood thence issuing will not appear spumose or rarified at all but indistinguishable from Blood taken out of the Vena Cava just at its entrance into the right Ear of the Heart 2 If you cut out the Heart itself and squeez out all the Blood conteined in it you shall observe it to vibrate itself a little and to continue the rhythm of its Pulses till it be grown cold and this not from Blood rarified for now there remains none within its Ventricles but most probably from the reliques of the vital Spirits which yet inhering in the Fibres and little Pullies of the Heart are the cause that they alternately contract and relax themselves 3 The musculose Flesh of the Heart is of a contexture too firm and solid to be inflated by a little Froth and a greater force is requir'd so nimbly to agitate so massive and ponderose a Machine 4 If the Blood were so impensly rarified in both the Ventricles of the Heart doubtless the Orifices both of the Vena Arteriosa and of the Aorta ought to be much larger because the rarified Blood would require more of space to its egress than to its ingress 5 There would arise a confusion of the motion of the Heart and its Valves for the diastole of these would be coincident with the diastole of that which would annihilate the use of the Valves both which are repugnant to experience and to the institute of Nature 6 No reason why the Blood should be pufft up by great rarifaction in the Heart only that it may sink and be condensed again so soon as it is thence emitted into the Arteries for what use can there be of the supposed rarifaction which the very next moment ceaseth These then are the reasons that hinder me from believing that a drop or two of Blood can be by the heat of the Heart so extremely rarified as to replenish and distend the Ventricles thereof when the Cavity of the least of the Ventricles in a Man of middle Age and Stature will easily contein according to Harvey's accompt two Ounces much more according to Lower's lib. de corde cap. 3. and when I am fully convinced that in the State of Health and Quiet the whole mass of Blood is transmitted through the Heart at least thirteen times in the space of an Hour supposing no more than 2000 Pulses in that time which would be impossible if only a few Drops were received into each Ventricle in every Diastole and expel'd again by the following Systole For evident it is even to Sense that in the Diastole both Ventricles of the Heart are filled with Blood even to distention so that if you feel them at that time with your Hand they will be found tense and hard and that by the Systole all the Blood receiv'd is express'd the Sides being then strongly drawn together and the Cone pull'd up toward the Basis so that little or no room can be left within to contein Blood If you open an Eel or Viper alive you may observe the Heart to become white in the Systole because all the Blood conteined in it is then squeez'd out and red again in the Diastole from new Blood admitted and filling it Nor are we to doubt but the same happens in the Hearts of greater Animals also though the Parenchyma or muscular Flesh of the Heart be in them so thick as to hinder the Eye from discerning the like alternate change of Colours in their constriction and dilatation Taking then the total Repletion of the ventricles in every Diastole and the total Exinanition of them by every Systole for granted and Supposing that in a Man of a middle size each of the Ventricles of the Heart conteins about two ounces of Blood when it is fill'd and that the Pulses of the Heart made in the space of an Hour exceed not the number of 2000 which yet is the lowest computation I have hitherto met with among Anatomists it will necessarily follow that no less than 4000 Ounces of Blood are transmitted through the Heart in the space of an Hour which amount to 332 Pints at 12 Ounces to the Pint whereas the quantity of Blood contein'd in the Body of a Man of a Sanguine complexion tall Stature and plentiful Diet is not allowed by accurate Anatomists to exceed 25 Pints at most Let us therefore grant our Man to have that proportion of 25 Pints to be transmitted through his Heart by 2 Ounces at every pulsation and the consequence will be that the whole Mass of his Blood must pass and repass through his Heart thirteen times in the space of an Hour or else the pulsation of his Heart and his Life too must cease for want of Blood to continue the Motion But since few Men have either so much Blood or in the state of Health so few Pulses as we have now supposed 't is highly consentaneous that in most Men all their Blood runs through the Heart oftner than thirteen times in every Hour Now to come to the scope or use of this Computation if only a few drops of Blood rarified be transmitted through the Heart of a Man at every Pulse 2000 pulses could not transmit so much as a fourth part of 25 Pints in an Hour and in the mean time all the rest of it must stagnate and grow cold and then what would become of his Life which depends upon the actual Heat and perpetual Circuition of the Blood This argument certainly is if not apodictical yet morally convincing that Monsieur des Cartes his opinion of the impense Rarifaction of the Blood in the Ventricles of the Heart is manifestly erroneous There remain's then nothing to which the Diastole of the Ventricles of the Heart can be reasonably attributed but the Quantity of Blood flowing into and distending them For the substance of the Heart being as well without as within Musculose Robust Thick and intertext with Fibres of all orders or positions and furnish't also with fleshy Columnes which being commodiously placed in the Ventricles help much to the constriction of them so soon as the Blood flowing in hath distended them they being thereby irritated instantly begin to contract themselves by that contraction girding in the Ventricles and squeezing out the Blood After the same
aestimari debeat These remarkable texts I have recited not to prolong my discourse but to confirm whatsoever I have said of the generation of Life original in the Blood and of the communication of influent Life from the same Blood to all parts of the Body that so I might with more assurance leave this fourth Act of the Blood fully explain'd and pass to the ¶ FIFTH and last Which consisteth in the dffusion of the exhalations of the Blood raised by the expansive Motion or actual Heat of it and which reduceth it from the State of Arteriose Blood to that of Venose For the Blood newly impregnate with Life and kept a while in restraint by the thick Walls of the Heart and firm Coats of the Arteries no sooner arrives at the habit of the parts but instantly it begins to disperse its more volatile Particles in Steams or Exhalations and those being diffused it becomes calm and sedate and is in that composed condition transferred into the capilray Veins to be at length brought again to the Heart Of these Exhalations the more subtil and fugitive part exspires into the Aire by insensible transpiration the rest striking against membranose and impervious Parts or perhaps against the very Parenchyma of them is stopped and repercuss'd and condensed into a Dew Which after it hath moistned the parts is by their tonic motion squeez'd into the Lympheducts and by them carried off toward the Centre of the Body In the mean time the Blood after this manner calmed and recomposed returns quietly and slowly toward the Heart therein to be quickned heated and impregnated anew by the expansive Motion of its Spirits being driven on all the way by more Blood continually following and pressing it and by other concurrent Causes by me a little before particularly mentioned And this I believe to be the manner and reason of the perpetual Circuition of the Blood during Life Now reflecting upon the five Acts of the Blood described in the circular Race of Life the Sum of all my perplex and tedious disquisition concerning it amounts to no more but this That the Mication of the Blood proceeds originally from the expansive motion of the Spirits of it somewhat restrain'd and repulsed by the gross and less active parts and incited by that opposition that from this Mication Life Original is as it were kindled in the Blood passing through the Heart that Life influent is communicated to all parts of the Body from the Blood transmitted to them through the Arteries and from the union of the vital Spirits contain'd in the Blood so brought into them with the Spiritus insitus of every part that receives it that to that noble end Nature hath ordained that the Blood should be speedily distributed to all parts through the Arteries by the Heart spontaneously contracting itself and so soon as it hath done that its grand Office of reviving them and diffused its exhalations be brought back again to the Heart therein to conceive vital Heat anew and in fine that the Life of all Animals depends immediately or primarily upon the regular Mication and next upon this perpetual Flux and reflux of the Blood by the glorious Inventor of it Dr. Harvey rightly called not the Circulation but CIRCUITION of the Blood Quòd ejus semper redeat labor actus in orbem How probable these things are Ye who are Philosophers and Anatomists have indeed a right to Judge but ye must pardon me if I adventure to say that ye have no right to Judge whether they be true or not For what Seneca Natural Quaest. lib. 7. cap. 29 with great Wisdom and Modesty spake of his own reasonings about the nature and causes of Comets may be with equal reason applied also to mine concerning Life which in more then one thing resembles a Comet viz. Quae an vera sint Dii sciunt quibus est scientia veri Nobis rimari illa conjecturâ ire in occulta tantum licet nec cum fiducia inveniendi nec sine spe Huc item referri potest quod Atheniensis hospes respondebat Clinio apud Platonem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vera haec esse approbare cùm multi de iis ambigant solius Dei est If you grant them to be consentaneous to right reason and observations Anatomic I may then not impertinently conclude this Disquisition with the same Sentence with which my Master Gassendus is said to have concluded his Life Quantula res est vita hominis ¶ EPILOGUE AUGUSTUS ye know notwithstanding he had long enjoyed whatever the greatest part of mankind calls Happiness could not yet when dying afford to call Human Life by any better Name than that of a Comedy or Farce asking his Friends that stood by him Ecquid iis videretur mimum vitae commodè transegisse And that this Farce consisteth of five natural Acts too I have endevored in my precedent Discourse to evince Why then may not ye expect that I should in keeping of Decorum so far persue this double Analogie as to my short History of Life to subjoyn an Epilogue Supposing therefore that ye do I hold myself obliged to add one such as seems to me to be neither indecent nor impertinent It shall be a short History or Tale call it whether ye please Written by Philostratus in lib. 4. cap. 16. de vita Apollonii Tyanei Which I through hast forgot to touch upon in its due place and in which there occurrs more than one thing worthy to be remarked Be pleased then to hear first the Story itself in the Authors own Words and then my brief reflections upon the things therein chieflly considerable The Story is this The things I thence collect are these 1. That the Maid was not really Dead but only seemed to be so and consequently that the raising of her by Apollonius was no Miracle For the Author himself though in the first Line so bold as to call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Miracle is yet so modest in the second as to render it doubtful by these Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Virgo mori visa est the Maid seemed to be Dead i. e. She was not really Dead and after in his Philosophical descant upon the act of her resuscitation in these Utrum verò scintillam animae in ipsa Apollonius invenerit quae ministros medicosque latuerat an decidens forte pulvia dispersam penè jam extinctam animam calefaciens in unum congregaverit difficile conjectatu est Which is a plain confession that probably she was only in a Swoun because the Rain that fell upon her Face might raise her 2. That 't is probable the Maid lay intranced from a violent fit of the Mother For this terrible Accident invaded her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the very Hour of her Marriage a time when Virgins commonly are most prone to have their Blood and other Humours violently agitated by various Passions which many times cause great commotions
answers to the Bile or Choler 2 A whitish and fibrose Grumus that resembles Phlegm 3 A duskish or blackish and friable Grumus comparable to the Melancholy of the Antients for other Humor that may deserve that Name there is none to be discerned in the Blood Now that we may see how far these Elements or constituent Principles of the Blood can be brought to consist with the Humors of the Antients let us equitably compare these with those According to their several Characters or descriptions the pure and natural Serum by which mixt with the Lympha the Blood is made and kept fluid seems to be the same with the natural and pure Biliose Humor of the Antients and the same corrupted and thereby grown acrimonious and corrosive what they understood by Choler analogous to the Gall. 2 The white and viscid Grumus while uncorrupt and in a natural State seems to agree with their natural Phlegm when degenerate and corrupt with that morbific Humor which they called Pituita Analoga 3 The black and friable Grumus when pure and sincere is the Humor Sanguineus specially so called and that very part of the Blood which impregnate with vital Spirits and the nitrose Spirit of the Air gives it a florid red Colour but despoiled of those Spirits and receding from that Scarlet toward a sooty or black whence probably it received the Name of Melancholy is the Melancholy they imagined to be like the Humor of the Spleen This Parallelism being granted there seems to remain no difficulty in reconciling the Doctrine of the Antients concerning the Humors contained in the Blood with the constituent Parts of it now observed by us and by consequence nothing hinders but these Analogous Humors as we have distinguisht and described them may be the Material causes of putrid Fevers yea more t is necessary that one or more of them be peccant in every putrid Fever Which is what we sought toward the establishing our present Genealogy of putrid Fevers without demolishing what the Antients have delivered of the same ¶ Let us then proceed to enquire into the Origine of Malignant Fevers which ought to be deduced from a certain Ferment of another kind not yet described For malignant Fevers being by their Nature alwaies more pernicious than simply putrid and often also contagious it must be therefore that they take their Original from some Ferment more malicious and more grievously hostile to the vital Motion of the Blood This Ferment then whatsoever we shall at length discover it to be may justly be named in the general FERMENTUM MALIGNUM as coming neer to the nature of Poison properly so called about the reason of whose fierce and pernicious Operation upon the very principles of Life Physicians are strangely divided in their Opinions Omitting all which I humbly conceive that the deleterious or deadly force of any Poison whatsoever doth consist not in any manifest quality but in some Seminal Nature highly adverse and destructive to the Mication of the Blood in Man upon which his Life immediately depends There are I must confess too many other things that with equal speed and cruelty break asunder the slender Ligaments of Life even by their manifest qualities if once admitted into the Stomach as Fire Oyl of Vitriol strong Spirit of Salt Aqua Fortis Lixivial Caustics Arsenic Sublimate c. Which by reason of the extreme subtility and most rapid Motions of their Particles and of their force of Penetrating cutting corroding and dissolving almost all Bodies to which they are applied are as mortal as a Sword or Bullet but all these if they be sufficiently diluted lose their fatal Virtue and become innoxious nor can they be rightly reckned among Venoms no more than a Dagger or Halter because they destroy by manifest Qualities and wayes evident to the Sense But Poyson whose Power is founded in a seminal Nature secretly repugnant and pernicious to human Nature whether it be bred in the Body or introduced by contagion or otherwise is always more or less noxious in a small quantity and in a full Dose deadly so that t is dangerous to trust to a dilution of any such Venom And to this kind are the Malignant Ferments of which I am now speaking to be referred though some of them be more venomous than others and some more contagious For the Malignity of all seems to consist in a Seminal Nature which being communicated to the Blood is apt to impugn retard oppress and when it prevails totally extinguish the expansive Motions of the vital Spirits that conserve it ¶ HAVING thus concisely explained the formal reasons and distinct proprieties of both sorts of Febrile Ferments the Putrid and the Malignant that work immediately and per se by way of Oppression of the vital Spirits 't is opportune for us to inquire into the Nature of them considered first absolutely and then respectively to the manner of their Operation upon the Blood in generating Fevers I advertise therefore that when I speak of Crude Chyle brought into the Mass of Blood and by degrees inducing putrefaction or Fermentation upon it as I have briefly shewn in the Paragraph concerning putrid Humors rendring the Blood impure I do not call such Chyle Crude because I think it wholly unfit to afford some nourishment to the solid Parts though impure and imperfect but because it is not sufficiently concocted and prepared so as that being united with the Blood it should be made the immediate Subject of the vital Spirits or which is the same thing be impregnated with Vitality Now Chyle in this sense Crude hath not yet attained to a degree of inquinament high enough to give it the nature and force of a Febrile Ferment which strikes at the very Root of the vital Motion or Heat For it consisteth in a certain Aptitude to infringe diminish retard oppress and if not overcome and expell'd by the Spirits of the Blood utterly extinguish the vital Mication of the Blood whence Life results For consentaneous it is both to experience and to reason that this appitude is not acquired in a few moments of time after Crudities have been commixt with the Blood nor doth it actually attack the vital Spirits so soon as the Ferment is diffused but doth exsert its Power slowly by insensible degrees and as it were by creeping on like an Enemy that designs to steal a Victory First it gently and by little and little insinuates itself into the Mass of Blood and diffuses itself equally through all the parts of it Then it comes to be united with the Spirits that conserve the Blood as if it were a natural ingredient of the mixture That done if either the quantity or contumacy of it be so great as that the vital Spirits be unable to moderate and reduce it to conformity or to expel and dissipate it it begins to operate to weaken and suppress them affecting them with a kind of Torpor and clogging them so as they cannot
consideration are these I shewed in the first Stadium 1. That the vital motion of the Blood is sometimes disordered impeded and impugned by causes praeternatural and chiefly by crude humors constituting a peculiar Fermentative Inquinament of the Blood and that from thence arises a duel or conflict between the vital spirits on one side and that Inquinament on the other which conflict in putrid Fevers is call'd by the Ancients Putrefaction and Fermentation by the Moderns 2. That the same Ferment in Fevers tends naturally to the oppression of the vital Mication of the Blood in which life it self immediately consists 3. That the crudity of humors generating that Ferment and consequently Fevers doth consist chiefly in this that the spirits of our food receiv'd into the Stomach either have not been by the concoctive faculty thereof sufficiently exalted which always happens in Fevers simply putrid or though excited have not been subdued and tamed so as to become useful and fit to promote the vital Mication of the Blood which always happens in Malignant Fevers 4. That the principal reason why in putrid Fevers it is unsafe to purge before nature hath concocted the crude matter mixed with the Blood seems to be this that in the whole Body are no Secretory Organs destined peculiarly to the separation of humors yet crude from the Mass of Blood 5. That the Analogous Humors of the Ancients are coincident with the Elements by the Moderns supposed to constitute the Blood and that it is plainly necessary that in every Fever of whatever sort some one or more of those Analogous Humors be in fault 6. That the formal reason of a Malignant Ferment is radicated in some seminal nature pernicious to the principles of Life in Man In the Second 1. That the oppressive Energy of the Febrile Ferment described comes immediately from the pendulous Lentor or clamminess of it by which it is apt to render the Blood soul and roapy and to inviscate the vital spirits that should by their expansive motion conserve its purity 2. That these vital spirits are incited to raise a Fermentation not by the exhalations of the Blood retained but only by the said clamminess of the crude matter inducing the Fever In the Third 1. That the Symptoms contingent in the beginning of a Febrile Paroxysm may be most commodiously referred to the aforesaid Conflict or Colluctation betwixt the expansive endeavour of the vital spirits and the opposite clamminess of the Febrile Ferment And 2. that the Symptoms succeeding in the Augment State and Declination may be with equal congruity solved by the same Hypothesis In the Fourth 1. That the cardinal Differences of Fevers are most probably derived from the Different Ferments that induce them immediately 2. That the Origin of all Fevers simply putrid i. e. free from all Malignity may be most congruously deduced mediately from defect either of Chylification or Transpiration and free motion of the Blood whether this happen with or without extravasation thereof 3. That the Blood when inquinated by crude Chyle doth not presently conceive a Fermentation but after some time and by degrees 4. That in intermittent Fevers the matter of each single Fit is not generated anew but comes from a general Fomes existent in the very substance of the solid parts imperfectly nourish'd with crude juices 5. That this very substance of the solid parts is melted into a kind of Sanies or putrid matter and remixt with the Blood in all putrid Fevers 6. That the Analogous Humors of the Ancients result from various Crudities mixed with the Blood and that from thence arise various sorts of Fevers namely biliose pituitose and melancholic 7. That the division of Fevers into continual and intermittent doth immediatly depend upon the Fermentation sometimes continual sometimes ceasing and recurring diversly by intervals 8. That an intermittent Fever simple is not the direct cause of an intermittent double or triple In the Fifth and Last 1. That to the Maturation of the crude matter are required three things viz. Dissipation and Consumption of the unexcited spirits therein remaining Moderation of the Fermentation already begun and Conservation of the Vital Faculties 2. That in order to safe and opportune Evacuation of the same peccant matter is required also due preparation of the Ways or Passages by which it is to be educed and that by Remedies Lubricant Abstergent Aperient 3. That sometimes even in the beginning of putrid Fevers Purgation is requisite specially when vitious humors molest in the first Region of the Body or when the Febrile Matter is turgent or when part of it is transmitted together with the stale Recrements of the Blood to any one or more of the three Secretory Organs or when Crudities are highly redundant in the Mass of Blood or finally when the Fermentation it self is too sluggish and lingring but in no other case whatsoever And this most candid Auditors is the Sum of what hath been in this Session said concerning Fevers Nor have I any thing more to add but only this that if I have by offering you this Abridgement usurped the Office of your Anagnostes it was not from a vain conceit that the positions therein contained are worthy your belief but only from hopes that ye might be thereby more easily inclined to let me understand from your judgment of them how far they may be worthy mine For in this Argument as in all others whether Physical or Pathological I pretend not to know truth but to seek it nor to seek it contumaciously and arrogantly but modestly and doubtingly as becomes a Man a Philosopher and a Fellow of this Royal Colledge of Physicians into which I entered with no other ambition but that of being more and more instructed in Natural Science and all other Virtues ¶ PRAELECTIO VI. OF MOTION VOLUNTARY IN the beginning of time when it pleas'd the Divine Majesty to call this visible University of things the World out of nothing and to create Subjects whereon to exercise his infinite goodness having indowed all living Creatures with Appetites requisite to the conservation of their peculiar Beings and accommodated them with Objects proportionate to those Appetites He saw it convenient to consummate that Emanation of his Bounty by furnishing them also with Faculties by which they might be impowerd not only to discern what Objects are good or convenient what evil or inconvenient to their particular Natures but also to pursue or avoide them accordingly Now among these so necessary Faculties that by which all Animals are inabled to prosecute what is presented to them under the appearance of Good and to eschew what they apprehend to be Evil is what Physiologists call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the faculty LOCOMOTIVE and rightly enough define to be the Power by which a living Creature is inabled to move or transferr from place to place either is whole Body or any Part thereof at pleasure To the putting this noble Power into Act are required as
Brain can ye name which hath not been referred to their Vices either to their defect or excess to their stupidity and sluggishness or their fury and tumults to their interception or too copiose and impetuose Influx to their fixation or incessant exagitation to their depravation by exotique and inconvenient Mixtures to their dissipation by Opiates and Narcoticks or to some other of a thousand accidents to which they are supposed to be Obnoxious Nay some have gone yet much farther and were it not-indecent to divert to Romantic Writings I could quote an Author of no small Fame who hath not many Years past enrich'd the Commonwealth of Philosophy with a whole Legend of the Empire of Animal Spirits their Laws and Constitutions politick their quickness of perception presagition of Dangers Passions of Love Anger Hate their Seditions Tumults Insurrections military Rangings Sallies Excursions Combates Incampings Marches and Countermarches Explosions or Fireings Retreats in order confused Flights and infinite other admirable things such as I for my part should not have had Wit enough to ascribe to any but Reasonable Creatures Nor shall I blush to confess that when I was reading this Fanciful Book I could not but recall to mind many of the Witty Fictions of Lucian verar. historiarum Lib. 1. concerning the Militia and adventures of his Hippogypi Lachanopteri Cencroboli Scorodomachi Psyllotoxotae Anemodromi Struthobalani Nubecentauri Aeroculices Solarii Lunarii Nephelococcygians and other chimerical Nations by him in Drollery described and all the pleasant Dreams of a certain great Lady recounted in her most delightful Histories of the Blazing World and of the Kingdoms of Fayries in ever Mans Brain though I at the same time considered that Lucian and the Lady had written only in Jest to exercise their Wit but the other in serious earnest and with design to reform the State of Physic by new discoveries So true is that saying of a late ingenious Writer Ubi semel occupatum ingenium est novis Hypothesibus licet solis innitantur conjecturis in infinitam conceptuum libertatem se diffundit ne disputare quidem cum rei veritate amplius sustinet Tam irrequieto exultante impetu stimulat in ulteriora voluptas gloriosa And yet notwithstanding after all our speciose discourses of these Emissaries of the Soul Animal Spirits we are distracted by various Opinions concerning them still anxiously inquiring of what matter in what place and how they are generated what are their Qualities Motions Ways and Manner of acting and in fine uncertain whether they be real Creatures of Nature or only the Idols of human Imagination Risum teneatis amici an lachrymas Certè res est hand perfunctoriè lugenda Some have affirmed that the Fluid contained in the Pores and Fibres of the Nerves is the more subtil part of the Blood separated and sublimed in the Brain giving it the noble Name of Spirits but they have not yet by certain reasons or Experiments taught us to which of all the Fluids that are known to us that is like Others therefore proceeding somewhat farther pronounce that these Spirits consist of Saline and Sulphureous Particles highly analogous to the Spirits of Wine But this is to feed our curiosity with fine Words that signifie little of certainty True it is indeed that upon drinking a little Glass of Spirit of Wine we find our Strength suddainly recruited but whether from the Humor we call Spirit or from that other Matter that makes that Spirit Fluid or is perhaps for some other reason joyned to it who hitherto has determined Besides the animal Spirits if any such there be seem to be so so far remote from the subtility Acrimony and volatility of Spirit of Wine that we want not just reasons to convince us they are nor volatile nor actually Rarefied into Exhalations nor acrimonious Not Volatil because if they were such certainly they would offend and trouble the Brain as may be inferred from the Lassitude Headach giddiness and other Symptoms that commonly invade Men next Morning after a Debauch with Wine all which come from the volatile Spirits of the Wine Not actual Exhalations because in that State being mixt with other Humors of the Body they would produce Bubles or Froth or cause also an inflation of the Parts containing them neither of which is to be endured Not Acrimonious pungent or offensive by asperity of their Particles because if such they would continually irritate prick and corrode the Brain and Nerves and necessarily force them into Convulsions and other tumultuose Motions I add that they are not as Fr. Sylvtus imagined them to be apt to Ferment because if such they could not but fret and dissolve the soft and tender Substance of the Brain and the Pith of the Nerves By these and other Reasons induced our most excellent Dr. Glisson de Ventric and Intestin Cap. 8. num 7. formed his animal Spirits of a constitution exempt from all these inconvenient Qualities He describes them to be Mild Placid Sedate Fixt Sweet Nutritive Corroborating and apt to consolidate and in all these respects exactly like the Spirits conteined in the white of an Egg. Their Subject he held to be the true Succus Nutritius distributed from the Brain through the Nerves to all spermatick Parts which he would have to be generated only in the Brain corticem inter medullam by way of Secretion and that the matter of which they are in that manner generated is the more mild and spermatic part of the Blood the acrimonious and more elabourated Part being reduced thence by the Veins for that purpose perhaps distributed into the Cortex of the Brain concluding that the select part is changed into animal Spirits not by sublimation or meteorization as all others held before but by mitigation refrigeration and Whitening So that in fine if their Nature agree with this Character I do not see by what right they can be called Spirits according to the common notion Men have of all things known by that Name In so dense a Mist of our understanding in so great and irreconcilable a dissention of Opinions concerning the matter generation and qualities of animal Spirits how shall we discern the truth Whom can ye give me so sagacious so happy above all other Mortals in explicating the Secrets of the Oeconomy of mans Brain as to be able by clearly defining what they are whence they proceed and how they are generated to put an end to the Dispute For till this be done we shall still be to seek how they can conduce to invigorate the Nerves and Muscles in voluntary Motion In the mean time we can be certain only of this that so great a War of Opinions among the Princes of Phylosophy is a strong Argument that the thing about which they contend is not yet sufficiently understood Equally uncertain it is by what kind of Motion these invisible Emissaries are transmitted from the Brain through the Nerves whether they fly swiftly or