to certain points maxims or rules c. but how if I should tell him that from his own principles it may fairly be deduced that the same maxims and rules are still remaining for if his notion be true that the Colledge hath made no improvement in Physick and are only to be esteem'd the Sectators of Aristotle and Galen no doubt but they retain the same maxims they there espoused although let me tell him for his better information that there are several discoveries in the Physiological part of Physick so clearly demonstrated in our dayes by those great and renowned Physicians he so much contemns that we must deny even credit to our senses if we will not give in our suffrage to the certainty of them which have been so far from rendring our Art more conjectural that they have obtain'd the universal consent of all the ingenious of our Faculty witness the Circulation of the blood its sanguification by the vital spirits and not by the Liver as the Ancients and all later Physicians believed till the incomparable Doctor Glisson discharg'd it of that office the motion of the Chyle through the lacteal vessels discover'd by Asellius it s discharging itself into the common receptacle and from that through the ductus Chyliferus valves of the subclavian veins into the mass of blood happily found out by the industrious Pecquet the Lymphaticks by Dr. Jolive the Ductus salivales and lachrymales by our learned countrey-man Doctor Wharton and that excellent Anatomist Steno and many others which I shall ere long have occasion to mention which doctrines had they been discover'd in the dayes of those Greeks and Arabians he talks of would have been so far from everting all maxims in Physick that I rather think they would have been engraven in letters of Gold and the Authors have had Statues erected to their memory And truly if we well look into the profession of physick we shall not find it so Conjectural an Art as Mr. H. pretends for Medicine strictly so called is very little conjectural as to the rules of it though as to the particular application of those rules to the hîc nunc of a single patient it may be but that is no more than is in Divinity and Law and indeed in all the professions of the world The errors of a mans life consisting in the ill usage of avowed and undoubted principles and misapplying them to particular instances But still as to the Theory of our Art as far as it is strictly Medical it will not be found as I just now mention'd so Conjectural as our Adversaries pretend for as to the subject Physick treats of 't is certain and well known to every one of the Faculty and the end and design of the same is no less agreed upon on all hands and for the general description and Diagnosticks of diseases who ever yet contested about them it being universally agreed that there are such distempers as Apoplexies Epilepsies Pleurisies Gout Stone Feavers Quartane Agues c. which are so specifically differenc'd by their descriptions and diagnosticks that not only Physicians but Nurses are able to know them And for the Pharmaceutick part of Physick so far as it relates to the use of such remedies which by experience have been found of great benefit in several diseases of humane bodies who hath not readily embraced it I might likewise inform Mr. H. that we are generally agreed as to the Causes of diseases so far as they relate to air diet and the rest of the non-naturalia so that 't is plain Physicians have had a standing rule to judge by these 2 or 3000 years nor will they want such a rule to the worlds end But the matters of debate are of a more remote consideration and not so truly Medical as Philosophical I mean the Physiological principles which are borrowed out of natural Philosophy to the building up of an Art which might in all parts be complete And though our Adversaries would pretend that these principles are wholly conjectural yet possibly if they be attentively considered it may be found that our contests as to these are rather verbal than real differences about the focus or minera morbi or it may be about what hypothesis such a humor may be best explicated by whether Galenical Spagirical or Sylvian I shall therefore endeavour to shew both in Acute and Chronical diseases how little our Art may be esteem'd conjectural from such debates as these For instance suppose that the Galenists shall teach us that intermittent Fevers or Agues proceed from excrementitious choler flegm or melancholy congested in some minera of the body and according as those humors do sooner or later tend towards a state of putrefaction and commotion whereby they are conveyed into the blood and ferment therewith do cause those febrile paroxysms to return sooner or later And the Willisians shall tell us that the Essence of the one consists in a more retorrid constitution of the mass of blood being too much impregnated with Saline and Sulphureous particles the other in a more acid and austere one which being deprived of its sweet and balsamick nature is apt by reason of its penury of spirits and too great exaltation of its terrestrial and tartareous parts consisting of salt and earth to degenerate into a fluor and induce a sowrness upon the whole mass the third in a more debile constitution of blood than the former insomuch that the greatest part of the nutritious juyce is perverted into a fermentative matter which occasions the Fits to return so much sooner than in a Tertian or Quartane And the Sylvians as strongly contend that these Intermittents have their focus in the Pancreas and derive their original or primary cause from the vitiosity of the pancreatick juice which at different periods according to its various constitution doth discharge its self through its common ductus into the intestines and there fermenting with an ill affected bile and phlegm doth produce not only the various symptoms that accompany these Agues but the different species of them And thus in continued Fevers the one shall tell you that the putrefaction of the humors in the Veins and Arteries is the immediate cause The other too great an exaltation of the Sulphureous parts of the blood which immediately breaking forth into an effervescence procures that distemper we call a Fever The third shall tell you that the saliva bile and lympha being ill affected and continually circulating through the heart do there excite the foremention'd effervescency which occasions this distemper And thus in most Chronical affections as Hypochondriack melancholy Scurvey Gout Rheumatisms Hysterick affections Madness c. The Sylvians shall tell you that these and many others of the like nature do own their original to a preternatural fermentation of an acid juice or lympha with different subjects or from diversity of acids fermenting with one and the same subject from whence they would explicate all the
phaenomena of those symptoms that are observable in the foremention'd distempers The Willisians will no less probably assert that they proceed from too great an exaltation of the Saline parts of the blood which are perverted in some of these distempers into an acid and austere nature in others into a sowre and corrosive so that the animal spirits and nervous liquor are therewith affected and in others into a state of fixed Alkalies whereby the lixivial parts of the blood being conveyed by the Arteries into several parts of the body and fermenting with the sowre recrements of the nervous juice do produce some of the foremention'd distempers And the Galenists shall teach you that the cause of some of these is an atra bilis which is sharp like Vinegar or Aqua fortis Now let any judicious person compare these several Hypotheses and then tell me whether there be such a difference betwixt them as our Adversaries would pretend to for seeing they all agree as I before mention'd as to the description Diagnosticks and procatarctick causes of these diseases to which give me leave to add Indications for the cure of most distempers which though explicated by different Hypotheses yet are so nearly related to one another that we may find them generally directing but one and the same method of cure and persisting in the use of Medicines of the like nature which surely cannot render our Art so Conjectural as Mr. H. would have it And as for those internal causes of diseases I mention'd which of the Galenists Willisians or Sylvians ever doubted the existence of those acid humors whereby they would explicate the symptoms of several Chronical affections which are so far from Conjectural that there have been several undeniable demonstrations to prove the truth of them One of which is mention'd by the learned Doctor Willis in his Treatise de morb Convuls p. 116. who had a patient whose sweat was so corrosive that like Aqua fortis it would cito exedere corrumpere lintea and in his excellent Treatise de morbis Capitis he tells us usitatum est nonnullos saepe laticem quasi vitriolicum oesophagi ac palati tunicas erodentem vomitu excernere And Skenkius in his observations as quoted by that great and noble Philosopher Mr. Boyl gives us an account of the corrosiveness of some juices which rejected by Urine or Vomit would boyl on brass fret linnen and stain silver And thus I might run through the whole Catalogue of diseases both Acute and Chronical and satisfie all ingenious Naturalists how little prejudice our Art suffers by allowing this freedom of Philosophising for by Physicians comparing these several Hypotheses they may make choice of explicating the nature of diseases by that Hypothesis which they find most universally satisfactory although 't is certain that our Moderns have ill managed their talents in Physick if they have not by enriching our age with so many fresh discoveries made us Masters of the reason of many of those rules which were gather'd from observation only and practice by the Ancients especially considering they have happily found out several humors in the body which our predecessors were unacquainted with as the Nervous and Lymphatick liquors Nutritious juices and other great Anatomick discoveries whereby they might more securely and unerringly found their Hypotheses and more happily solve the phaenomena of diseases And therefore I will not deny that this Age having made so many improvements of the rules that were given by the Ancients may in some part vary the doctrine concerning Indications and methods of Cure the greatest part of which improvements I shall anon shew to be the effect of Anatomical discoveries But this doth not at all invalidate my assertion nor change the main body of practical Medicine in which the chiefest trials are made by Collegiate examinations that still persisting as much the same as a house is the same that it was a 100 years ago though some ingenious Artist by beating out some large windows bringing pipes of water and digging cellars have rendred it more commodious And as for those Theories I mention'd they have not only advanced much the true skill of the present Practisers but have found that allowance among the learned men of the Colledge that they tye not any man so strictly in their examinations to the Hypothesis of the Ancients but are content with such rational accounts of Philosophical questions as his studies have furnished him withal provided be be vers'd in the practical Theory or general maxims thereof which I call the rule of physick nay though in some of them he differs from their opinion not explicating the constitution of humane bodies or conjunct causes of their preternatural affections by the doctrine of the four Elements but instead thereof solidly answers those Physiological questions by the Willisian or Sylvian principles they do not condemn him the only thing they sight against being ignorance and mens impudent reviling of what they so little understand SECT 3. The method of taking Degrees in the University of Leyden HAving now performed that part of my task which relates to those certain foundations upon which our Art is established I shall now make it my endeavour to vindicate the famous University of Leyden with some worthy and ingenious Physicians whom Mr. H. hath so rudely treated which you may find in the 19. 29. 30. pages of his pamphlet although I think neither of them have much reason to take it unkindly at his hands he having been so audacious as to affront High Courts of Parliament Kings Bench and Common Pleas not sparing the Lawyers but representing them as men who would unawares accept of a Bill for a Statute nor yet Mr. Pulton one of the most industrious men of our Age to whom all the subjects in England are highly endebted for his faithfulness and care in collecting the Statute Laws of the Kingdom But to our present purpose and to the giving a faithful relation of the manner of taking Degrees in Leyden which feather in the Cap Mr. H. so much contemns as you may see in the foremention'd pages I suppose because he was as unwilling to pass an Examination there as now he is in England knowing very well that his Certificates would not be accepted by the learned Professors of that University for the surest evidence of his learning and knowledge fit for his Faculty and though he is in some hopes that the Statute of 3 H. 8. may do him some service here yet it was to little purpose to plead it there The method of educating Physicians and taking Degrees in Leyden is after the following manner When persons have studied some years Philosophy and other Arts for their better accomplishment they have liberty allowed them of admitting themselves Pupils to any of the Professors in physick of that University whose office or employment is to read Lectures dayly to their Disciples and those who are admitted under the practick Professors do frequently
be more plentifully conveyed to her Lungs Which truly is not so much to be wonder'd at seeing the Atmosphere is so highly impregnated with nitrous particles which as the Lord Bacon hath well observed are the only refrigerating Cordials that can be exhibited And surely if the motion and florid colour of the Arterial bloud do so much depend upon a due commixture of the air and many diseases and sudden deaths are occasion'd by too great a crassitude roapiness and coagulation of the bloud how much might the free admission of air into the rooms of sick and diseased Patients and it may be where we durst not allow of their rising the bare suction of it by some artificial pipe contriv'd for that purpose tend to their more easie and speedy recovery And if in high Fevers deliriums c. that excellent Physician Riverius would direct the strowing the Patients chambers with green herbs and pouring water out of one tub or pail into another surely these late experiments may encourage us in several cases to admit of fresh gales of air into those Patients chambers who are almost parch'd up or suffocated for want thereof And truly if we consider how many fair and beautiful Ladies in the prime and flower of their years are precipitated into Phthisicks and Consumptions from being too closely mew'd up with their near relations lying sick of those distempers and how many of those afflicted with them are rendred incurable and sometimes speedily destroy'd by the inspiration of air so highly vitiated from their own morbid expirations I cannot imagine but the most ingenious Physicians will allow me that great improvements might be made hereby for the better cure of diseases if we were as diligent in observation as we have been in speculation which otherwise is really no better than as our adversaries term it the ornamental part of physick But now 't is high time to answer their cry'd up objection taken out of Celsus which is as a late Author hath told us in plain English That nothing is more foolish than to imagine that things within a man should be in the same state when he is dying as they were when he was living much more when he is actually dead for saith he most diseases lying in the variations of bloud and humors spirits and ferments of the parts are causes remote from such ocular inspection And that nothing certain can be concluded from the stagnation of bloud or other humors found in any place or passage of the body after death is evident in this that nature upon deaths approach being driven to most violent motions does extravasate intravasate throw blood and humors in and out here and there and every where Cap-a-pee through the most abstruse and unperceivable passages so that if stagnant or coagulated bloud or other humors be found in any part by anatomizing it cannot be concluded it was so before death Thus far hath that ingenious Author endeavoured to defend so ill a cause which endeavours had they been employed to better purposes I doubt not but he might have been more serviceable to himself and the Common-wealth of learning But seeing his inclinations have engaged him to different apprehensions I hope he will pardon us that we refuse to give him our assent to what he hath yet writ on this subject unless his reasons were more cogent or prevailing For I would gladly have this Author acquaint us what alteration is made in the body of a healthful man when he dyeth of a violent death as to those things which we enquire after I mean as to the viscera and solid parts do they lose any thing of their figure connexion proportion c. I confess that they are something alter'd as to their colour but I hope we may satisfie our selves as to the reason of that mutation Which of the vessels do we then find wanting The lacteals we acknowledge do then disappear and the Lymphaticks too some time after death but the defect of these vivi-section will supply And as for the rest of the humors the bloud excepted they receive no great alteration in death as witness the gall urine Lympha c. And as for the bloud it self I hope we may observe both it and its motion in the dissection of living Animals and I am sure we may discover its passages even in dead bodies by injections And what though we readily allow that most diseases lye in the variation of the bloud and humours spirits and ferments yet our Antagonist himself is willing to grant us that the morbid impressions they make upon the several viscera are visible enough and so are the bloud and humors no less in some diseases though he is pleased to assert that they are causes remote from ocular inspection as witness the inflammatory blood that is usually drawn from the arms of Patients in Rheumatisms Quinsies Pleurisies c. And for the humors there is enough to be found for the proof thereof in Sylvius and de Graef who have acquainted the world with what a variety of diseases do owe their original to the preternatural affections of the bile pituita Lymphatick liquor and pancreatick juice all which may easily be obtain'd and that in some considerable quantity in living and dead in sound and morbid bodies And as for what is said of the extravasation and intravasation throwing bloud and humors in and out here and there and every where Cap-a-pee through the most abstruse and unperceivable passages in deaths approaches I must confess that I do not well understand this notion till the Author hath better clear'd it for according to my apprehension the impetuous and disorderly motion that he would fancy the humors to be in at such a time should be so far from directing them into those unperceivable passages that it should altogether hinder their motion through those fictitious Meanders And farther let him give me leave to tell him that I am not of his belief that the bloud and humors are then in such an impetuous motion the languid pulses of most dying persons affording us a sufficient argument to the contrary and for my own part with submission to better judgments I am apt to think that the disorder that is observed in the body upon the approaches of death doth chiefly proceed from the tumult of the Animal spirits which are put into those disorders and irregular motions for want of a due supply of influential spirits from the mass of bloud which alas at that time is so far from being endued with such volatile and luxuriant parts to occasion this motion that I take it not only to be perverted in its whole crasis but a weak confused and depauperated liquor And farther as to what is said of extravasation and intravasation in deaths approaches 't is as difficult to believe as all the former seeing that upon the point of death we rarely observe maculae or exanthemata c. to appear but usually in the beginning or augmentation
by the great Doctor Harvey yet the velocity of its motion and circulation was never so clearly and fully evinced as it hath been by Doctor Lower and how much this may tend to the clearing up of several of the dark and obscure phaenomena of nature as the speedy passage of liquors from the stomach to the reins c. I leave to the ingenious of our Faculty to determine And doubtless great service he hath done us in clearing out the nature origination conveyance and separation of milk in the breasts of women a doctrine so much controverted in former ages And no less service have the learned Doctor Walter Needham and Doctor Lower done us in their experimental demonstrations of the circulation of the Chyle with the mass of blood some hours before its assimilation which discovery with many if not all of the former are to be admired not only for the truth and excellency of their invention but for their great usefulness in physick as I have before mention'd Wherefore 't is apparent that these discoveries have not only tended to the better cure of diseases as I lately proved but have likewise been very advantageous in affording us more useful Hypotheses in physick for our principles having been more certain and demonstrative it were very unreasonable to conceive that our foundations should not be more firmly laid than the Ancients who were not acquainted with the distribution and natural motions of the nutritious humor blood nervous and Lymphatick liquors c. Since the investigation of which the world hath been made happy with the excellent writings both of foreigners and our own countrey-men One of which I mean the learned Doctor Willis hath satisfied the world so well with his excellent and surpassing abilities in that kind that his Name as well as his writings will be admired both in our own and succeedings ages And if as Noble Mr. Boyl hath acquainted us Pythagoras Democritus Plato and diverse others of those whose wisdom made after Ages reverence Antiquity did not only esteem the truths of Nature worth studying for but thought them too worth travelling for as far as those Eastern countreys whose wise men were then cryed up for the best Expositors of the obscure book of Nature How much reason then have we and the learned world to bewail our unhappiness in the loss of one of the greatest and clearest Commentators thereon Witness that ingenious explication of the phaenomena of those stupendous cases he acquaints us with in his book de morbis convulsivis c. and though he frankly confesseth that in his explication of the theory of diseases he doth not tread in the footsteps of the Ancients but his Hypotheses are altogether new yet saith that learned Author they are such quae super observatis Anatomicis fundatae ac firmiter stabilitae aegrotantium phaenomena quaeque melius solvunt symptomatum causas aptius declarant medendi rationes unicuique affectui magis accommodas suggerunt Which being more firmly founded and established upon Anatomical observations do better solve the phaenomena of the sick more aptly discover the causes of their symptoms and suggest more appropriate methods for the cure of every affection And though Sylvius his Hypothesis hath not been so universally embraced by our English Physicians yet in foreign parts it hath met with no less acceptance from the most learned and judicious of our Faculty than the foremention'd his Ternary of humors being question'd by none of the Anatomists of our dayes from the depravation and exorbitancy of which he would derive all the preternatural affections of humane bodies but however whether his Hypothesis be true or not 't is known very well to his friends and enemies too that his success in practice hath given him a reputation not only in the Low Countryes but amongst most of the learned men in Europe Which hath occasion'd your worthy friend M. N. to acknowledg that he hath done the world more service towards the promotion of the Art of Physick than ever any man did before him in the United Provinces and how kind and generous he hath formerly been to Doctor Willis in acquainting all the learned of our Faculty how much they were indebted to him for that excellent Treatise of his de febribus I shall have occasion ere long to acquaint them with But if all this will not satisfie Mr. H. of the improvements that our Moderns have made whereby they have done something more worth than a straw beyond what the Ancients have done I would advise him to read over what I have discours'd of in the precedent particular and what he may find in the latter part of that Section which treats of Chymistry and if he can spare so much time from his quacking avocations I would recommend to his serious perusal that excellent book of Doctor Lower's called Pyretologia Willisiana which was written against his countrey-man Meara upon this very matter of contest between my self and him which having been printed in the same year that his beloved friend's was printed in and received no answer to it from its most avowed Adversaries for eleven years methinks it should be own'd for a much more unanswerable book than M. N's which hath had four satisfactory answers already to it whereby I should be in some hopes that he might happily be reduc'd to his wits again which were unfortunately lost when he wrote this scandalous Pamphlet against the Colledge of Physicians though he spared not for pen ink nor paper And though Mr. H. and some others of his acquaintance would seem to commend the Ancients by this assertion that our late Anatomists have done nothing by Anatomy worth a straw beyond what was done by the Ancients I take it to be not out of judgment or skill in them of which they are generally ignorant much less out of love to them whom they contemn as oft as they are thwarted by them as witness the principal if not sole design of the foremention'd book Mr. H. so highly commends which tells us that we must proceed by other definitions of the nature of diseases and indagations of their causes and invent other remedies and reasons and rules of curation than what have been delivered by the Ancients and not confine our selves to their conceptions aphorisms and inventions c and chargeth the Aristotelians and Galenists for superstitious devotion to their old heathenish authors and their Sectators as drones of the old methodical Hive that practise in the ordinary dog-road of Physick and therefore calls them the herd of vulgar Methodists and the old way of practice lazy its principles dull and the bane of our profession c. which is a plain demonstration that Mr. H. in this assertion did only use the Ancients as an engine to pull down modern discoveries Whereas we profess our selves to have a great respect and veneration for them as having done great things in Physick in their times for which we and our posterity
Author which they fancy may be made serviceable to their designs as they have been with their confutation of the learned Doctor Willis in the title pages of their books but I hope that none of our Faculty will ever give credit to any quotation of theirs without a due examination of the Authors design for 't is plain by this account that I have given of Mr. Boyles quotation that he hath been so far from discoursing against Anatomy that he hath spoken as much in the favour thereof as any of our Moderns would have done and therefore as if he had foreseen this vile sort of men that would abuse these excellent passages he wrote them with so much caution that one could have scarcely imagin'd that a man who pretends to cure the poor members of Jesus freely for his sake durst have been guilty of such apparent and malicious falsehoods and that to maintain so bad a cause I shall therefore for the prevention of these Empiricks for the future from quoting any passages out of Mr. Boyl against Anatomy acquaint the world out of this very book what a great honour and veneration he hath for this noble Art where you may find in the first part of it p. 5. that telling us that one would think that the conversing with dead and stinking carkases that are not only hideous objects in themselves but made more ghastly by putting us in mind that our selves must be such should be not only a very melancholy but a very hated employment And yet saith he there are Anatomists that dote upon it And I confess its instructiveness hath not only so reconciled me to it but so enamour'd me of it that I have often spent hours much less delightfully not only in Courts but even in Libraries than in tracing in those forsaken Mansions the inimitable workmanship of the Omniscient Architect And in p. 9. he tells us that were we not lull'd asleep by custom or sensuality it could not but trouble as well as it injures a reasonable soul to ignore the structure and contrivance of that admirably organiz'd body in which she lives and to whose intervention she owes the knowledge she hath of other Creatures And in the second part of the same book p. 9. he positively asserts that since diverse things in Anatomy as particularly the motion of the bloud and Chyle cannot be discovered in a dead dissected body where the cold hath shut up and obliterated many passages that may be seen in one opened alive it must be very advantageous to a Physicians Anatomical knowledge to see the dissections of Dogs Swine and other live creatures which puts me in mind of what a very learned Physician ingeniously observed that Dogs Pigs and Monkyes have contributed more to the advancement of Physick than this sort of men ever did or are like to do But to proceed in a further account of the great estimation that this noble Author had for Anatomy which you may find in p. 46. of the same book where he tells you that not only the dissections of sound beasts may assist the Physician to discover the like parts of a humane body but the dissection of morbid beasts may sometimes illustrate the doctrine of the causes and seats of diseases For that this part of Pathology has been very much improved by the diligence of modern Physicians by dissecting the bodies of men killed by diseases we might justly be accused of want of curiosity or gratitude if we did not thankfully acknowledge for indeed much of that improvement of Physick for which the Ancients were they now alive might envy our new Physicians may in my poor opinion be ascribed to our industrious scrutiny of the seat and effects of the peccant matter of diseases in the bodies of those that have been destroyed by them And in the same page he blames the acute Helmont for not having been a more diligent dissector of beasts And in the following page he tell us that here we may also consider that there are diverse explications of particular diseases or troublesome accidents proposed by Physicians especially since the discovery of the bloods circulation wherein the compression obstruction or irritation of some Nerve or distension of some Vein by too much blood or some hindrance of the free passage of the bloud through this or that particular Vessel is assigned for the cause of this or that disease or symptome Now in diverse of these cases the liberty lately mention'd that a skilful Dissector may take in beasts to open the body or limbs to make Ligatures strong or weak on their Vessels or other inward parts as occasion shall require to leave them there as long as he pleaseth to prick or apply sharp liquors to any Nervous or Membranous part and whenever he thinks convenient to dissect the Animal again to observe what change his experiment hath produced there Such a liberty I say which is not to be taken in humane bodies may in some case either confirm or confute the Theories proposed and so put an end to diverse Pathological controversies and perhaps too occasion the discovery of the true and genuine causes of the phaenomena disputed of or of others really as abstruse Now pray Mr. H. can any unprejudic'd or impartial person read this account Mr. Boyle hath given of his estimation for Anatomy and yet believe that little is to be expected from it and that he doth not see wherein by any of those new discoveries any thing hath been done to better the cure of diseases I am apt to think he cannot and if so what reason hath Mr. H. to peruse these passages with blushing Cheeks if he hath either ingenuity or modesty left him and come and supplicate pardon of that Noble person for that injury he hath done him in publick print The third Assertion was this That the greatest Anatomists and Practisers of our Age have been the greatest Chymists For the proof of this I need not take any great pains seeing two of our latest Anatomists and greatest Practisers may afford us so clear a testimony to the truth of this Assertion I mean the eminently learned Doctor Willis and Sylvius both which excellent Physicians have obtained an universal reputation throughout the world for their admirable accomplishments in the Anatomick and practick part of Physick and how highly they did esteem of Anatomy their great industry and pains therein with their learned writings drawn from that fountain will sufficiently testifie to all posterity witness that incomparable book of Doctor Willis de Cerebro with what he hath wrote de ventriculo intestinis pulmonibus and Sylvius his disputationes Medicae and though a friend of Mr. H. would perswade us that Sylvius his doctrines had not their rise from Academies but from his own and others Laboratories yet I believe he will scarcely be credited by any ingenious Physician that hath been conversant in his writings for 't is plain that Anatomy not Chymistry laid the
writings of the learned Quercetan Zwelfer and other eminent Chymists who had never been capable of doing half that service in Pharmacy for which the world is so much endebted to them had they not been as great Philosophers as they were Operators And therefore that excellent Chymist Le Febure hath well observed the two following maxims 1. That Chymistry doth not meerly consist in the skill of preparing well a remedy as many do erroneously imagine but in the using of it with due circumstances and respect to the Theorems of Art which is properly the true Physick 2. That whosoever meddles with Chymical remedies without the previous grounds of Theory can deserve no other name than of an Empirick since he is altogether ignorant of the internal efficient causes of their effects and cannot give the physical reasons why he doth administer such a remedy for such and such disease And further I can acquaint Mr. H. with several of the members of the Colledge of Physicians now living who for their elegant and rational prescriptions and true knowledge of the materia medica do not only excel Mr. H. and all his Society but are highly honoured for their admirable and surpassing improvements therein by all of their own Faculty as witness the most accomplished Dr. Thomas Cox Dr. Wolf c. And though Mr. H. is pleased to tell us p. 20. that remedies well prepared by Chymical Art seem to be as the hands of God reached down from heaven in this latter age in exceeding mercy to poor man when his iniquities have so altered the whole scene of diseases c. which makes them exceedingly different from what they were in the dayes of Hippocrates and Galen and indeed from what they were a hundred years ago and less so that the old Art and remedies are insufficient to deal with them To this I answer that in my opinion Mr. H's Divinity is as heterodox as his Physick hath been for 't is a little odd to conceive that the iniquities of men should have been the procuring causes of exceeding mercy I do therefore very much fear that Mr. H. hath been as great a stranger to his Bible as he hath been to Philosophy else he might have observed and that without the help of Spectacles that all the judgments that God Almighty hath inflicted upon poor man have been procured by his sins amongst the number of which Judgments Mr. H. might well have ranked his Chymical remedies which have proved so indeed to some that have made use of them as I have lately mention'd and then I am sure they can procure but little commendation to his Art And as for his discourse of the great alteration of diseases since Hippocrates and Galens time from whence he would prove that the old Art and remedies are altogether insufficient let me tell him that there are so full and satisfactory Answers given to his friend upon that subject that I should injure those learned men should I now dwell or insist long upon that controversie and therefore I shall recommend to his perusal those four books which were written against his friend's Medela medicinae ten or eleven years agone only by the by let me tell him that 't is possible that the old Art and remedies may be sufficient to deal with the diseases of our dayes though much altered from those in former times but that 't is Mr. H's and the rest of his Companions misfortune that they understand not how to exhibite them being so great contemners of a rational methodical practise by which I must frankly own that I have seen far greater cures performed with Chicken-broth Whey Milk and Water c. than by all their applauded Chymical Arcana And further for that alteration of diseases they discourse of I could tell them of a Physician of the learned Colledge they so much decry who hath done more service to the publick in acquainting the world with a faithful History of the Acute diseases of our dayes with their specifical differences and happy cures by the old remedies they so much damn than they or any of their Predecessors have done by all their books that ever they printed or medicines they published And though we may allow that the Theories of Fevers and other distempers may possibly of late by the industry of Collegiate members have been built upon more solid foundations than formerly yet this is so far from occasioning us to reject the good old remedies and methods of practise that Doctor Willis hath well observed Quod indicationes quaedam antiquitus receptae adhuc ratae perstant erúntque in perpetuum observandae quia Experientiae primae hujus artis magistrae debentur that some indications that were of old received are yet approved and will for ever be observed because they owe their original to experience the first mistress of Art And to the same purpose he discourseth of the remedies that were used by the Ancients and no less valued by the Moderns And no less ingeniously did the learned Doctor Castle acquaint the world in the Epistle to his Chymical Galenist where he solidly and rationally asserts that the practical part of Physick being grounded upon experience doth not so much depend upon the notional that this being overthrown the other must necessarily fall to the ground the Fancies and reasonings of Philosophers and Physicians being built upon the practice and signifying not much more to the Fundamentals of the Art of Physick than pinnacles to the body and foundation of a building which though they be blown down may stand unshaken much of the Therapeutick part of Physick being as he hath well observed like Dials and Almanacks which agree as well with that of Copernicus as Ptolomy's Hypothesis Therefore saith he as the Ancients made a true use of the light and heat of the Sun in distinguishing and measuring times and seasons and managing of their husbandry though probably they err'd in their notion of his motion round the earth so did the Physiâ—ians no less happily imploy Apollo's Art in the Curing of diseases though they were ignorant of the true motion of the bloud and of the Sun of the Microcosm the heart But to conclude this discourse about Chymistry I would gladly know of Mr. H. why the Chymical mineral medicaments set down in the London Pharmacopoeia are things but of the lowest form in Chymistry and neglected by knowing men in this Age of improvement And that because I find upon a serious perusal of them that the learned Quercetan and Sir Theodore Mayerne whom you will own I hope as most eminent Chymists have been the Authors Approvers and Defenders of some of them and have raised so great a reputation to their names by their successful administrations that they both became eminently famous in our own and foreign Courts and Cities but now it seems they are neglected by knowing men in this Age of improvement I confess I should be very thankful to Mr. H. to acquaint us