Verses which were made in imitation of the mysterious and aenigmatical expressions of the Chymists Ignis in igne fuit sed non fuit ignis in igne Lux sine luce fuit non sine luce fuit All that any sober man can conceive of the Archaeus or Spirit is That it is the most fine volatil and aethereal part of the blood contained in the Arteries Veins and Nerves and I grant that the Dyscrasie of the blood their Vehicle is the cause of many Diseases But this is a very different thing from the words of M. N. and I suppose too from his Notion of the Archaeus which is either unintelligible by any rational man or else must be the very same which the Ancients had of the Vital Animal or Natural Spirits and therefore upon either account is very vainly offered as a new particular of great moment and weight for the meliorating the Practice of Physick As to his Quotations out of Fernelius and Heurnius those Authors speak no more than what is said by Hippocrates and Galen and all their Followers That the Spirits the impetum facientia are the immediate instruments of the Soul that by them all motions sensations and operations in human bodies are perform'd Wherefore the learned Sennertus though he allow Paracelsus and his Disciples to impose new words upon new things justly blames them For introducing new improper insignificant and barbarous terms upon notions and things anciently receiv'd Sennert de Con. Dissen Chym. cum Gal. c. 5. and rejecting such as by long use and custom had been rendered proper familiar and intelligible And he asks Paracâ—lsus What necessity there was to bring into use the word Archaeus since that upon diligent examination that signifies nothing more than the Faculty and natural Virtue or the natural Spirit the Servant of the natural Faculty do in the Schools of the Philosophers and Physitians And he adds That neither Paracelsus or Severinus are such great persons that we must presently for their fancy or humor reject those familiar terms which have alwayes been us'd by the learned World and in their stead without reason admit of the Paracelsian Gibberish And certainly if we consider the nature of the Spirits aright we shall find that nothing more than what is signified by them can be meant if that term signifie at all by the Archaeus of the Chymists For the vital Spirit is nothing else but the more fine more sublim'd and subtilifed part of tho Blood by which the Fermentation and internal motion of the Particles of that Liquor is maintain'd and that in its circular motion preserv'd from Coagulations and Stagnations and when the body remains in the state of health a separation is continually made of all immiscible and heterogeneous bodies which are either taken in with the Aliment or else come into the blood from the Ambient The animal Spirit is nothing else but the same vital more volatilised and refin'd in the brain and from thence distributed together with the nervous juyce through the Nerves to perform the offices of Sense and Motion The natural I take to be some of the animal Spirits which take up their residence in the extream Fibers of the parts and there remain and are continually refreshed and recruited by an influence from the brain and these the Schools call the innate Spirit Faculty or Virtue of a part Either one of these or all must be meant by the Archaeus of the Chymists or else that term be altogether insignificant Vox praeterea nihil And whether it be considered as an idle word or a new term to express an old Notion it cannot but be absurd to offer it as a particular considerable in order to the Practice of Physick in the place of the old Fundamentals which he pretends to have demolished CHAP. IX IN his Ninth Chapter M. N. proceeds to an examination of divers old Doctrines which more immediately relate to the Practice of Physick and first he cashiers the Doctrine about Critical days which he calls as childish a conceit as ever was owned by any Long-beards called the Children of Men. But I shall plainly prove That this Doctrine is not so easily to be blown away being of so absolute necessity to the true management of Fevers that except a diligent heed be had to the Critical motions of those Diseases the best and most proper Remedies prove as dangerous to the sick as a drawn Sword in the hands of a blind man who lays about him at random and knows not upon whom or where the edge will light For though the Ancients possibly might be ignorant of the true causes of the Critical motions of Diseases that did no more hinder them from making true observations upon them than the disagreement of Philosophers concerning the reasons of the Fluxes and Refluxes of the Sea does cause Mariners to be ignorant of what Tides will carry them into and out of several Harbors And though it must be confessed that in these Northern Countries wherein we live Fevers are neither so constantly nor so orderly terminated by Critical Evacuations as punctually to agree with the descriptions of Hippocrates and Galen by reason that in this colder Climate which is perpetually liable to alterations from the Air the Blood when it is fired into a Fever does not burn with so equal and constant a flame and therefore cannot observe so exactly the times and periods of its burning and consuming the sulphureous or combustible part And for that the Blood of most Persons being tainted with the Scurvy cannot so easily concoct and at once separate the adust Recrements but that they are often instead of being Critically evacuated translated upon the brain and nervous parts Yet is not the Credit of those grave Authors by every impertinent Man to be called into question concerning the truth of the observations which they made upon the motions and burning of Fevers in the Countries wherein they liv'd and practis'd Physick since they have been always reputed by the most Learned of unsuspected Faith and integrity in delivering matters of fact which fell under their own notice And indeed if we consider the true causes of critical Evacuations we cannot question but that in continual putri'd Feavers in those parts of the World in which neither the coldnesse of the Air nor the Scorbutick distemper made the difference Nature was as precise in observing her periods as she uses to be with us in Quotidians Tertians and Quartans For indeed a Crisis in a continual Feaver is the very same with a Paroxysm in an Intermittent as Doctor Willis very well observes Willis de Feb. c. 9. for sayes he as in an Intermittent when the mass of blood is overcharged with the Particles of the deprav'd Alimentary juice which can by no means be subdued and assimilated that falls aworking and by its fermentation depurates its self and sends out by the pores of the skin the heterogenious matter so in a
and contagion of the place with which the Romans being altogether unacquainted knew not what else to assign for the cause of this Distemper except the drinking of the water the impurity of which I confess might possibly concur in corrupting of the Blood and producing the Scurvy That the Scurvy was anciently Endemial to the more Northern parts of the World and consequently of no new upstart Original may be farther argued from the very nature and formality of that Disease and the common general cause which produces it That the Scurvy consists in the Bloods being degenerated from its spirituous Balsamick and volatilized condition into a salt sharp and austere Liquor wherein the volatil Spirits are either evapotated or deprest and the gross Salts either being disjoin'd from the rest of the Principles run together and are said to be in the state of Fluidity or continuing only their Combination with the earthy parts of the Blood render it wholly fixed and unactive in which states it becomes either sharp and eager like Vineger or dead and flat Sâ—nnert 〈◊〉 l. 3 â— 5 Sâ—ct 2. c. 2 like decayed Drinks is the Opinion of Sennertus and Dr. Willis de Feb. c. 1. Willis those Learned Authors And indeed I do not find that any Hypothesis gives so satisfactory an account of the Phaenomena and Symptoms of that Disease as this by them assigned for if we run through the affections of the animal the vital and the natural Faculties from whence Eugalenus and other Writers have drawn all their Diâ—gnosticks we shall find they may be all very naturally derived from the Saline Dyscrasie of the mass of Blood whereby it is rendered unfit to separate the heterogeneous Particles both of the alimentary juyce which is perpetually supplied from the stomack and of the Air drawn in by the Lungs which though it furnish the Blood with a Nitre most necessary to life yet oftentimes it comes impregnated with Atoms very destructive to the Being of Man which if they be not seasonably exterminated and separated by the active and volatil spirits of the Blood in time easily corrupt and destroy the temper and mixture of that Liquor Hence disorderly Fermentations Obstructions Spontaneous Weariness Difficulties of Breathing Varieties of Pains Defects in Motion Palpitations Giddiness Paralytical Affects Spots Scurfs and many more Distempers reckoned up in Eugalenus and other Writers which of necessity must afflict the body of man when the blood is once become unfit to maintain a regular flame in the heart and duly to supply the nervous parts with a soft juyce and well rectified animal spirit Wherefore I make little question but that even in the time when Julius Caesar invaded this Island a man who had been long sick of a Quartan or tedious Feaver especially towards the Sea-Coasts must in time have grown Scorbutical For in long sickness the volatil Salt of the blood is much wasted as appears from Mr. Boyle's Observation in his Essay of the Unsuccessfulness of Experiments That Chymists assure him Mr. Boyle's Ph. Essayes who have occasion to distill it in great quantity that they find a notable Disparity betwixt Vrines that of healthy and young men abounding much more with volatil Salt than that of sickly and aged persons And though in Spain Italy and other warm Countries men do not after tedious Feavers and Quartans notwithstanding the volatil Salt of their blood must be allowed to be confiderably wasted usually fall into the Scurvy yet the Air in these Northern parts of the World Gâ—ssâ—nd Epicur Philos Metcor abounding with fixed Salt to which Gassendus ascribes the freezing and â—ongealing virtue of the Wind is apt to dispose and alter the blood into the same temper if it be not furnished with a sufficient quantity of volatil Salt to maintain its own Liquor from too much fixation and to subdue and volatilize those Salts of the Ambient Air which the Lungs perpetually draws in andmingles with the mass of blood For that Respiration is necessary to life not upon the score of cooling the blood and Heart since then Fishes might live in water which is colder without Air which yet many of them cannot do but for the drawing in of Nitre to keep afoot the fermentation of the Heart Ent. Apol. pro Circ p. 98. is the Opinion of the Learned Doctor Ent and other sound Philosophers And Fernelius is inclinable to that Opinion Fernel de Calore innat p. 4. c. 2. where he sayes Si nulla in nobis esset tenuis spirituosa substantia vix ulla profecto nos ad inspirandum necessitas impelleret Now if this be true as is most probable I suppose the Air in the Countries which are infested with the Scurvy to afford a Nitre to the blood less pure and volatil and more infected with adventitious Salts than that which is breathed in Countries free from that Distemper That there is this difference in Nitres Mr. Boyle observes Mr. Boyle's Phi. Essayes and that the Salt-Peter of East-India is much to be preferred before that of Europe and that Barbary Niter before it is refin'd abounds very much with an adventitious Salt which tastes much like Sea-Salt From which difference of Niters in the Air I conclude That the firing of the blood in the Heart and the fermentation of it afterwards in the Vessels may be so diversified as to cause all the Symptoms observable in the Scurvy It is farther to be Noted That the chief Specificks used in the cure of this Disease are such which perform their effect by the volatil Salt with which they abound and with which they impregnate the flat and languishing blood such are generally all things which strike the Tongue and Nose with a quick smart and brisk taste and smell which though they for the present give relief and change the habit of the body to the better yet do they seldom make so perfect a cure but that upon the intermission of the use of them the Air by its ill Impressions reduces in short time the blood to the Scorbutick or Saline Dyscrasie from which it is no longer able to defend its self than it is inspired with the nimble and volatil Salts of those anti-Scorbutick Remedies The general cause then of this Endemial Disease the Scurvy being the constitution of the Air is peculiar to the Northern parts of the World and there appearing no reason why we should believe that to be altered for the worse in our times from what it was in former I shall be apt to conclude That it alwayes had the same effects upon the bodies of those men who breathed it and that anciently as well as in our times it produced the Scurvy in those Bodies which through Errors in Dyet want of Exercise or antecedent Diseases it found disposed to receive it As to the increase of it of late in the Bills of Mortality as that ingenious person Mr. Grant has observed I suppose since the Scurvy
impraegnata in lue Venerea afficiantur The Sum of what this learned person asserts is That nitro-sulphureous Spirits or Salts are as it were the Soul of the World and the Authors and Causes of all Productions and Generations These Seeds Spirits or vivifick Salts are certainly much more exactly elaborated and exalted in Animals than Vegetables and in those which are more perfect than in the less for that there are Instruments and Organs purposely ordained and contrived by Nature which are to give a perfection to the Seminalities of Men and other Creatures which are endued with a regular shape proportionable to the nobleness and exactness of the Fabrick which they are to design and build when they are employed for the continuance of the kind in the act of Generation Willis Dâ—script Nerv Therefore as Dr. Willis does very well demonstrate The Arteries do after the same manner instill into the Testicles a genital juyce for the making of Seed as they do into the Brain an animal Liquor for the production of Spirits which in the Veins and Arteries contrived for that cause with infinite turnings and windings is made more subtil and volatil and the Parts are in their passages exactly mixed the more gross and terrestrial are separated and at length the refined and exalted Liquor is sent into the inward substance and body of the Stones where being farther elaborated and mingled with the volatil Salt the innate ferment of those parts it becomes Seed It is farther to be considered That when the Ferment implanted in the genital parts comes to be sufficiently ripened and by a long digestion has arrived to its perfection Men and Women attain to that state and maturity which we call in Latin Pubertas At that time the genital parts grow hot and being filled with seminal Spirits discharge themselves continually of some part of them by the veins into the mass of blood from whence the nervous Juyce and Spirits become tinctured and impregnated with the seminal Ferments so that about that time the blood grows high and luxuriant and in Women being hardly contained within its own limits is emptied every Month by a periodical turgescency There is at this time a great alteration wrought in the manners and behaviour and the ranck acid scents vented by the Emunctories of the Nerves do declare That the Juyce which passes in them is inspired with the geniture Now if for want of seasonable Evacuation by Coition this genital spirit does not only too much abound in the blood but also in its frequent Returns by the Arteries to the Testicles is overdigested and too highly elaborated which is called by Physitians contracting a malignant quality it renders the spirits upon all slight occasions especially in Women whose Nerves and Brains are weak liable to sudden and impetuous Fermentations so that upon the Orgasms of these unruly Seminalities and a forcible disunion of the saline part from the sulphureous those Explosions and Convulsions are caused in the Abdomen and other parts This Notion I acknowledg to Dr. Willis which are so violent for the most part and impetuous that they cannot well be imagined to be produced by any other cause than such as must at least equal the force of Gunpowder And we find how apt these spirits are to take fire in the blood and nervous juyce by the causes which in Women liable to the Fits induce a Paroxysm For passions of the mind violent exercise sweet smells or any slight cause whereby the blood and spirits are chafed presently brings on a Fit that the abounding of the seminal spirits in the body may be one cause of the Fits of the Mother and certainly it is the most violent is confirm'd by the observation of Riolan who affirms That upon the Dissection of Hysterical Virgins he has found their Testicles bigger than his Fist filled with seminal matter But certainly as the Seed is one cause of this Disease so is it oftentimes produced from other causes and oftentimes when the genital parts are not in fault Nay it is often obvious to be observed That a defect in the uterine Ferment as in Cachectical Green-sickness Maids has occasioned them to be much afflicted with Hysterical Passions For the blood in such Women for want of the seminal tincture which ought at a due time to enliven and inspire it remains crude slimy and does not as it ought cleanse its self by its menstrual Purgations by which means many Impurities are cast upon the Brain with which the nervous juyce becomes to be much vitiated and to prove an improper Vehicle for the spirits and by exciting preternatural Fermentations in the nervous parts to cause Hysterical Paroxysms which happen for the most part periodically and at set-times when the body expects its lunary benefits for at such times the nervous juice as well as the Blood being saturated with Feculencies indeavours by fermentation to depurate it self by which the Animal Spirits are put into disorder and the nerves drawn into convulsive motions These two The Seed and Menstruous blood retained are the onely causes of Hysterical fits which are assigned by almost all Authours except Riverius who adds that other humours likewise retained in the womb and genital parts have likewise their shares in producing those Symptoms which he concludes from observing That many Old-Women who are neither troubled with Seed or menstruous blood are oft-ten very obnoxious to these distempers To which he adds a Notion of his own which he sayes is of very great moment and seems very agreeable to this Hypothesis That Hysterical Passions are not onely excited by vapours raised from the forementioned substances But the very humours which find no vent by the passages of the womb which is a kind of Sink to the body through a suppression of the Menses Riv. pr. l. 15 c. 6. or the Whites are sent back to the upper parts and infect them with an ill quality which they have contracted by too long a stay in the vessels of the womb by a contagion from the Seed and menstruous blood To these Causes which are delivered by Writers may all such be added as Authours of this Distemper which are apt by vellicating the extremities of the nervs to cause Convulsions Such are sharp juices in the womb spleen and other bowels schirrous tumours not onely in the womb but in the stomach mesentery breast and other parts The same accidents will wounds in the nerves produce and in Women subject to Fits even gentle Vomits which work by causing a convulsive motion in the stomach will put them into Hysterical Paroxysms as I observed lately in a Lady my patient to whom being above fifty years of age upon very urgent indications I gave onely Ê’iii's of infusion of Crocus metallorum and because I knew her to be Hystericall and had formerly observed in others Paroxysmes induced by Vomits before she tooke it I ordered an Hysterical plaister to her Navel The Vomit
a pain and Swelling of their Belly a rumbling in their Sides under the Ribs They have a weak Pulse a trembling at the Heart a pain in the Head a redness in their Lips Face and Eyes which are sometimes distorted sometimes so fast shut that they can hardly be opened And being now high in the Fit they are ready to be strangled are deprived of Voice Sense and Motion except such as is Convulsive some cry out with a despairing Voice and presently fall down for dead their Pulse is then very weak and sometimes none to be felt When the Fit is going off their Cheeks redden they recover their Senses their Eyes with a very dull and heavy Aspect are opened and at length fetching deep sighs and sometimes pouring forth showres of tears they come to themselves This is the Picture of that dismal Disease which most frequently afflicts poor miserable Women though Men are not exempted from it In some all or most of these Symptoms meet in others only the strangling or danger of being choked with some other Accidents are observable But generally the Fits are so terrible and amazing to them who consider not the reasons of these affections that by the Vulgar the persons subject to them are believed to be bewitched or possessed by the Devil The ancient Physitians do with one consent deliver That Seed and menstruous Blood corrupted in the Womb and Genital Parts do send forth malignant Vapors which with violence carry up the Womb against the Diaphragm and Organs of 〈◊〉 spiration and thereby suddenly stop the motion of the Heart and Lungs and from this impetuous motion of the Womb they suppose to be caus'd that sense of a Globe rising upward in the Belly But they who have so much insight in Anatomy as to know That the Womb is immoveably fixed to its place by Ligaments and that in Virgins it is usually not much bigger than a Walnut and do consider that in Women with Child the Womb presses upon the very stomack and yet never causes these Accidents And that oftentimes in Dropsies of the Womb that part is extended to a vast bigness and is full of putrid Humors and yet none of these Suffocations or other Accidents are caused They I say who consider this cannot allow that these stupendious Symptoms can be produced by that cause The Learned Doctor Highmore in his Exercitation upon the Hysterical Passion having examined all the Hypotheses invented either by the ancient or modern Physitians Highm de Passion Hystericâ to solve the Phaenomena of this Distemper and finding them all very insufficient to give a satisfactory Account delivers most ingenuously his own Opinion and supposes all the Symptoms to be caused by an overstuffing of the Ventricles of the Heart and Vessels of the Lungs with thin servous and fermenting blood which does so distend and fill them that the Lungs are thereby rendred unfit to comply with the motion of the Diaphragm and Chest and the Heart disabled to discharge its self by its Pulses of the burden which oppresses it though it attempts to rescue its self by more frequent pulsations and from hence necessarily to follow first A difficulty of Breathing and then a Suffocation which that Nature may avoid she calls to her Succor the Animal Faculty which lest she perish together with the Vital pours forth the whole force and strength of her spirits though in so much disorder that by their confused Sallies those irregular motions are caused in the Body which men call Convulsive This is the account according to my best apprehension of his meaning of the descriptive Definition which that excellent person gives of this Disease And I am so much of his Opinion as to believe That very often a Dyscrasie or Distemper of the Blood and probably of the Serum or Whey of it is one cause of this Distemper But I beg his pardon if I am apt to believe That even then when these Fits are caused from a Serous Dyscrasie in the Blood they are rather to be attributed to the Impurities and sharp Salts which are either cast off upon the Brain and from thence distributed through the Nerves into remote parts of the Body or else upon some of the Bowels where those pungent juices pricking and vellicating the extremities of the Nerves cause the original and whole system to participate of their disorders than to the Bloods stuffing and distending the Vessels of the Lungs and Heart For besides that there are many Women Cachectical and Hydropical whose Vessels are filled with little else but waterish Blood and Whey who are notwithstanding very free from Fits of the Mother It is often observed that Women of a ruddy Complexion who have a brisk and lively heat in their Blood and that rich with spirits which purges its self every Month in its constant periods are oft-ten miserably afflicted with Hysterical Paroxysms For they are not seldom such as have an excellent good appetite and digest their meat well whose Lungs are not flabby weak or disposed to a Consumption and whose Blood when it is let out of their Veins and setled is observed to be thick and full of Fibers all which are Qualifications quite contrary to those which are required by Dr. Highmore's Hypothesis if I mistake him not to render a person liable to Hysterical Passions Moreover in my Opinion crude and waterish Blood is altogether unfit to be set so impetuously on fire as to cause so extravagant a Fermentation in the Ventricles of the Heart that by overstretching the Lungs they should be unable to disburden themselves of the Blood For we find that Cachectical and Hydropical persons and Maids in the Green-Sickness are troubled with a shortness of Breath upon Exercise and walking up steep Places or Stairs which undoubtedly is caused for that the Blood of such persons being thin and waterish and wanting its due proportion of the sulphureous and inflammable part does not afford a sufficient quantity of vital Oyl to the Lamp of the Heart and therefore when upon exercise and motion there is a greater quantity of Blood than ordinarily sent into the Heart that being not well rarified and fired in the right Ventricle passes not so swiftly through the Lungs to theleft as it ought to make room for that which is to succeed so that at the same time the Lungs and Heart are overburdened upon which a difficulty of Breathing a beating and throbbing at the Heart must necessarily ensue Besides in Feavers where the Blood is most of all rarified and fermented except the matter of the Disease be cast upon the Brain Hysterical Symptoms do not constantly happen and yet the sulphurious part of the Blood fired is much more apt to fill and distend the Chambers of the Heart and Vessels of the Lungs than the Whey It is farther observable That Women who have their Courses too frequently and vent by the Womb overgreat quantities of Blood are often troubled with
is often found in those Animals whom we account bloodless as Oysters and the like by reason of the heat which excites the fermenting Salâ—s which lay intangled and as it were asleep in the more slimy and unactive parts of those Animals and possibly the reason why Snails and such other Creatures are not endued with Blood is because the Ferment of their Heart lies idle all the Winter The other way of producing a red colour is by addition of a salt Menstruum Dr. Ent. Thus Juleps are colour'd red with Spirit oâ— Vitriol Infusions of Senna with Oyl of Tartar And Berigardus tells us He had a Chymical liquor into which if he put but a little piece of a certain Salt Berig Cinc. Vn p. 9. the Liquor would turn from being white and cold to be so red and hot that he could not endure to hold the Bottle After the same manner the milky juyce of the Chyle is most probably turned into Blood for meeting with the Salt or Ferment of the Heart it is turned from white to red and boils no less than the Chymists Liquor Having thus endeavoured to explain the manner of Sanguification and having deduced it chiefly from the firing of the Chyle in the Heart I do not find but that upon this Hypothesis agreeable to the experience of the World even in many Scorbutick Affects Phlebotomy may be most necessary but especially as in some persons where the Scorbutick Ferment is as I may call it a Stum to the Blood as I have found it in many especially in a Woman in Berkshire above 50 years of Age who every Fortnight or three Weeks has her Courses in so violent and large a manner that except the Flux be by seasonable bleeding often moderated she is continually in danger of bleeding to death Nay even in other cases of the Scurvy where by the adustness and sharpness of the Blood the Chyle is perpetually corrupted and depraved by seasonable bleeding the Blood is ventilated and enabled there being more room for the mass to ferment in to cast off many of its faeculent Salts by Urine and Transpiration and the Chyle the vitious fermentation of Scorbutick Salts being by breathing a vein somewhat allayed comes more sincere and less perverted to the heart I come in the next place to his Exceptions against Purgation in the Scurvy Mâ—â— Md. P. 88. By the Pills Electuaries Powders and Infusions reputed Classical and Authentick which he tells us work by offensive irritation of Nature rather than an amicable Clâ—se with her What his amicable Close with Nature is I understand not except he has explain'd himself in his cleanly Discourse of the French Disease But as to Purgation any man who shall seriously consider how Medicins purgative perform their effects shall find all those which are properly call'd so work either by a vellication of the Fibres of the Guts and Bowels or by exciting a Fermentation in the Blood or both wayes Those which work by irritating of the Fibres cause the Guts to thrust down their Excrements and by contracting themselves to expell â—em forth of the Body Those Purgatives which by the Lactials and possibly by the ends of the Meseraicks pierce into the mass of Blood work their effect by fermenting the juyces of the Body and stimulating the fibrous parts in the most inward recesses of the Bowels by which often the Morbifick matter is exterminated into the Guts as Barm in the fermentation of Liquors is separated and forced out of the Barrel Now as the Medicins differ in their Natures so I suppose may a different Fermentation be excited in the Blood and likewise a different Excrement or Barm be vented and wrought off upon which I suppose the whole business of elective Purgation to depend and whatever his Specificks be which he so much magnifies they must necessarily perform their business by one or other of these wayes except without Canting he can demonstrate a more reasonable In his Discourse of Contagion and of the Infection of the French Disease and Scurvy at a distance the Author of Medela as everywhere else discovers as much want of Civility as Philosophy and treats the learned Fernelius and the most acute and judicious Philosopher Sennertus with â— more respect than he does the Colledge of London and Universities and after he has made bold with several pieces of this Learned Author to patch up a Chapter he gives him the Lye tells him That he 's gross P. 128.130 and that it matters not what his or other Physitians phansie is touching a particular Disease And all this is because that these Learned men do not contrary to their observation and experience allow those Diseases to be communicable at a distance and without corporal contact in which though their own experience and observation be of abundantly more weight than his ill digested ratiocinations yet will it not be impertinent to shew that though these Diseases are very deservedly accounted Contagious or Infectious and that Contagion is caused by the insinuating of the Emanations of smal bodies from the morbifick matter into the Blood and Juyces of the persons infected and that from all Bodies do continually flow streams of Atoms yet does it not in the least follow that whatever infects or poysons by immediate Contact will also work the same effect at a distance Thus we see the poyson of a mad Dog insects not by the Effluvia from his Body but either by bite the touch of the some or his blood The Tarantula communicates venom by his bite the Scorpion by the sting and the like may be said of almost all poysons nay some require as in Bees Wasps Hornets and the like that the venom be conveyed by the sting through the very skin into the blood without which it may be questioned whether barely thrown upon the skin it would produce the effects of poyson And we evidently find that these Creatures poyson not by any effluxes from them but when the venom is closely applied to the Body and by Contact communicated to the Blood Consonant to this is an instance in an Epistle of Crato to Thomas Jordanus Crat. Epist Med. l. 2. of a kind of Plague in Moravia which only infected those persons who were bled with Cupping-glasses and that it seized upon them in that place where the skin was scarrified and the Cupping-glass fastned and that way the venom got into the whole mass of Blood and insinuated it self into the nervous parts And discoursing of the reason of this Disease he makes mention of a relation of the Emperor Ferdinand concerning a poyson used in Spain made of the juice of White Hellebore with which the Huntsmen of Spain use to poyson their Arrows and with them kill Deer and other wild Beasts In the beginning of Summer sayes the Author they who prepare this poyson press out the juice from the whole Plant expose it to the heat of the Sun till it be prepar'd and then
Domini 252. there was so universal a Pestilence that no Province in the World was free from the same These Instances sufficiently consute Helmont whom I will dismiss with Mr. Boyle's Censure of him in his Preface introductory to his Sceptical Chymist of whose Ratiocinations sayes that Learned Gentleman not only some seem very extravagant but even the rest are not wont to be as considerable as his Experiments In the next place M. N. tells us Me. Med. p. 166. That the French Spirit called Lues Venerea haunts not only the inward parts of Men but the outward also appearing in the form of Vlcers hard Bumps in the Flesh inflamed Tumors purulent Apostemes as also renders Wounds hard to be cur'd insomuch that the best Chirurgions do complain with admiration That of late even the slighter Wounds will hardly yield to the usual Remedies so that there is need of a new foundation for Chirurgery as well as Physick And the better to prove this he acquaints us That in the Year 1661. he himself had a hot fiery Impetigo which ran through his Beard round like a Red Half-Moon from one Ear to the other and after all manner of Vnguents Waters Lotâ—ons c. used for Twelve Months in vain he devis'd a Scorbutick Liquor and infus'd in it a Mercurial Powder which only by wetting the part therewith slightly with the top of his Finger twice a day took it instantly away But to what purpose is this Story of the Beard and Ears since it proves nothing but that the French Malady was got very near his Nose and that his Ears which he has so often forfeited are still upon his Head I know well that Bodies infected with the French Disease do usually break out in Bumps Ulcers Sores and Apostemes which do not yield to ordinary Remedies and only to such as do specifically respect the poyson of that Distemper But the question in Dispute is Whether all sound Bodies which never have contracted any Venereal venom by gross and corporeal Contact are notwithstanding so infected by the wandring Steams or Atoms of the Pox that as much as a Cut-finger or Broken-pate cannot now adayes be cured without the assistance of Antivenereal Remedies and as to this Point M. N. has not in the least prov'd it or by his Beard shew'd himself to be a Philosopher I come now to the Scurvy which I willingly grant may be often complicated with other Diseases and indeed it must be confessed that most Fevers which invade English Bodies towards the declination when the deflagration of the Blood is over and the Mass is left impoverished of its Spirit and richer part do leave the Blood in almost a necessary tendency and disposition to the Scurvy And therefore judicious Physitians very usually after the Crisis is over have recourse to Antiscorbutical Remedies as the Salts of Plants the acid Spirits of Minerals Preparations of Steel Juices and Extracts of Vegetables and the like by which the languishing Ferments of the Bowels are reviv'd and the Spirits of the Blood quickned and restored and the mixture of the Chyle with the old stock of Blood the better and more orderly performed But to make the Pocky and Scorbutick Ferment in all Diseases as general a Refuge and Sanctuary for Ignorance as the Devil and Occult qualities among the vulgar renderers of causes is very unworthy of a Philosopher and will at length so much debauch that most significant term of Ferment that it will bring it into discredit with enquiring men who cannot permit themselves to be satisfied with words except something be represented by them For in good earnest I do not see how M. N. has better explained the Nature of the Disease which he has treated of by the word Ferment and other terms insignificant as he uses them than if he had fled to the Asylum Ignorantiae Occult qualities For there is not one question you can ask him in Physick concerning the cause of any Disease or Symptom but he is presently ready to answer That it flows from a Combination with a Pocky and Scorbutick Ferment A very compendious way indeed of being a Philosopher but no whit more satisfactory in Physick than Bellarmine Thou lyest in answering all the difficulties and objections in Divinity CHAP. V. THe Third Point from whence M.N. inferrs That all Diseases are altered from their ancient state and condition is forsooth Vermination or breeding of Worms and he pretends That in these dayes they are more frequently appearing in all manner of Fevers and other Diseases than in former time and his Reason is Because by the intermixture of the Pocky and Scorbutick Ferments Humors are more vitiated and a more poysonous putredinous disposition or corruption is introduced into mens Bodies than was wont to be in elder time But that this is no new thing that it is not more frequent in Diseases than formerly or happens upon any score of the Pox or Scurvy the Authority of the Ancients the enquiry into the reason of the production of those Animals and the observation of their Generation throughout all the Families of Nature will evidently discover First then as to the Authority of the Ancients Hippocrates Galen and other Writers do not only treat of three sorts of Worms which are usually generated in the Guts but they have likewise some cases of Worms which in these days rarely have occurr'd to observation For Example Hippocrates treats of Worms being generated in Children whil'st they are in the Womb which is seldom taken notice of by Modern Writers Plutarch gives an Account of a young man at Athens Plut. 8. Symp. who voided Worms mingled with his Seed Alsaravius in his Chapter of the Cough Alsarav Cap. de Tussi treats of Animals generated in the Lungs as one cause of it And without doubt they may often be the cause of the Consumption and Ulcers of that part though I have not met with any Modern Writer who takes notice of it except the Learned Muffet who quotes a Story out of Hieronymus Gabucinus of a Lady Who spit up a Lump of Phlegm in the middle of which there was a Worm The same thing hapned not long since to a learned Friend of mine who affirm'd to me That having an untoward Cough he began to be very suspitious of his Lungs and being himself a Physitian to use those Remedies which he judged most fitting And one day observing diligently his Spittle he observ'd a Red Spot to move in the midst of a Clot of it which when he had disengag'd from the slimy Phlegm which encompassed it he discovered to be a long Red Worm with many Feet After this he Coughed up another of the same kind and then grew very well and has since continued free from his Cough There was a Disease of Worms amongst the Ancients though in their Times and Countries the Scurvy and Pox were not stirring which is seldom to be met with in our Age it was called by
not seem strange to any man that these rare Productions of sundry species of Worms should happen in mens Bodies if we consider That in our Meats Drinks and Air the Salts or Seminalities of sundry Insects may be conveyed into and mingled with our Blood which are kept under by the dominion of the Spirits and never are permitted to exercise their own natural Operations till in Diseases and Disorders of the Body they come to be set at liberty Now the causes and reasons of the generation of Insects as well in humane as other Bodies being as ancient as the Creation it self in which the Seeds of Worms as well as Vegetables received their power of multiplying there appears no reason why Worms should in these times be more frequently appearing in Fevers and other Diseases than in former or that any alteration should by vermination be brought into the nature of Diseases Now as to the Experiments of Kircher though I will not question the faith of that Author in delivering them yet I do not doubt but in former Ages by the help of a good Microscope the same Observations might have been made And though I will allow that in times of Pestilence by the indisposition of the Air and the rambling of pernicious steams flowing from infected Bodies more plentiful swarms and numerous productions of insects in the Air and other Bodies may insue than in other more healthful seasons yet I must beg leave of Kircher to apprehend some difficulties in assenting to his Hypothesis since the manner of infection from the plague may be more easily made out from the figure and motion of Atoms than by those swarms of living creatures perpetually vented from the infected Body which if they poison the sound Body by turning its Blood and Juices into the like pernicious Vermin I see no reason why they should not fill the whole Air with their fatal progeny and impregnating the Winds with their Venemous Colonies permit no man to be safe though removed at a considerable distance from the places which are infected Whereas it is found true by constant Experience except by some common cause which has corrupted the whole aire the plague be produced The pestilence insects not at a far distance but only within a narrow Sphere It is very possible that not only the Blood of men in Feavers but also that of healthy persons may sometimes be observ'd to be full of Mites or Worms as well as Milk and Vinegar and yet no malignant Distemper much lesse the plague be produc'd by them For we find that these Liquors though almost constituted of innumerable little Animals are not in the least adverse to the nature of man and on the contrary the best and sharpest Vinegar which most abounds with Worms to be an excellent Antidote and preservative against the plague Neither will M. N. I must tell him be er'e the nearer as to the curation of Diseases from this Notion of Kirâ—her For even those Remedies which will destroy great Worms in the Stomach and Bowels are perhaps apt to produce little Mites in the Blood as in the Experiments quoted out of Dr. Ent the Spirit of Moscatel produces Flies and Vitriol which is an admirable resister of all putrifaction in Water or Wine produces Worms As to the Cure of malignant Feavers though I know well that in them Worms are often produced in the Bowels and other parts from the putrifaction of the Aliment and corruption of the Ferments of the parts yet they are not seldome free from those accidents and when they happen Nature and Physicians have so ordered the matter that generally most Medicines which are Alexipharmical are likewise proper against the Worms Riverius River Obs 91. in his Observations recommends it as a thing worthy of especial notice That Bezoar is of admirable virtue against VVorms and in another place highly commends Scordium The virtues of Treacle Mithridate Diascordium Harts-horn Coral Pearls Trochisks of Vipers the acid juices of Minerals and Vegetables the Compound waters of the Shops as Aqua Scordii Composita Theriacal frigida Saxon and many other Remedies used both by the Galenists and Chymists are sufficiently known to be of admirable Virtue and Use in both cases So that the very same Remedies which are of force against the malignity of the Disease are also very prevalent in destroying VVorms As to the Plague as I have before intimated the account which the Learned Gassendus gives of it seems to me abundantly more satisfactory than what Kircher pretends to by his animated Effluxes Videtur inprimis sayes that Learned Author halitus pestilens idem posse proportione praestare in aere quod Coagulum in lacte Gassend c. de Calore Subterraneo Ut enim dum Corpuscula coaguli per lactis Substantiam diffusa excurrunt ita situm partium illius commutant ut ex fluido fixum consistensque reddant eo modo quo si confusam fluxamque congeriem tessularum exquisite aequalium perflans Ventus sic emoveret ut facies faciebus exquisite coadunaret Sic Corpuscula halitus pestilentis insinuata in aerem intelligi possunt ea ratione invertere commutareque ejus situm ut ex salubri insaluber evadat qui prius egregie naturae animalis accommodabatur incommodus illi summopere fiat Neque mirum sit si qui prius animalis Corpus fovebat continebatque in suo statu illius partes deinceps conturbet immutare coactet Deinde videri quoque poteâ— halitus idem sive in aere sive in animalis corpore quod flamma ignisve praestare Ut enim dum flamma aeri admota in quem Naphtha halitum pinguem corpusculis-ve igneis turgentem circumfuderit ipsum sui similem facit creatve in eo flammam quatenus corpuscula ignis subeuntia in halitum quae sunt in eo sui similia hoc est ignea Corpuscula ex ipsa halitus textura quam discutiunt extricant iisque similes suos motus reddunt Sic dum halitus pestilens aeri Corporive animalis admonetur intelligi potest subeuntia â—ejus corpuscula ita emovere illa quae in ipsis sui similia reperiunt ut ea in texturam novam segregent motus suis similes exitiales utpote induant Nempe ut nemo diceret esse in illo aere circum Naphtham fuso neque etiam in ligno corpuscula ulla calorifica quatenus propter conditionem ejus naturae ad quam spectant indicium caloris nullum exhibent sic nemo etiam diceret esse in aere viso puro animalive habito sano venenata ulla pestiserave corpuscula quae esse tamen omnino valeant utcunque ob eam Contexturam quam attinent se minime prodant Possemus id uberius ex Gangrenae effectu aliisque multis declarare And indeed the Hypothesis which explains the way of the working of the pestilent Infection upon the Air and Blood of sound persons by the comparison of the Runnet's coagulating and fixing
congealing power Farthermore every days Experience informs us what changes and alterations are made upon our Bodies as to Epidemical diseases by the hot cold moist or dry Constitutions of the Seasons and Years And I cannot but wonder that the Chymists should exclude the four first Qualities from having any causality in diseases when in their own operations they observe a notable disparity between the effects of a dry and moist heat and they employ heat as the common instrument of almost all their operations But whil'st I assert the Essiciency of the first qualities in the causing of diseases in the humane Body I would not be understood to mean by the word Quality a Being or Entity distinct from matter or Body But that I apprehend by hot cold moist and dry the parts of matter or Atoms so figured and moved as to produce those Effects which we call heating cooling moistning and drying For Example We use to have an apprehension or notion of heat from the relation it has to the sense or as it is the efficient cause of that acute passion or sensation which we feel in our skin or any other organ of touch whil'st we are burnt or heated But this being too particular an effect of heat only as it works upon an Animal we ought therefore to consider it from its more general and comprehensive effects upon which this which is more special does depend which is to enter into the Pores of a Body to penetrate through the parts of it and to force or rend them asunder from one another and so to dissolve the union and continuity of the Body This cannot be understood to be done by a bare naked quality but by certain Atoms which are endued with such a motion figure and fize as are fit to penetrate discuss dissolve and perform all those effects which we usually attribute to heat On the other side since we find cold the most opposite thing in the World to heat if it be the property of heat to dissolve discuss and tear asunder it is then the property of cold to congeal fasten and close together and those Atoms which by their shape and figures are fit and proper for those effects may with very good Reason be called Atoms of cold and Bodies made up of such Particles cold Bodies Thus the Air which is the common Receptacle of heat and cold upon the blowing of North-winds is usually filled with such Atoms as bind and congeal the Earth and Water and in the body of man both by mingling with the blood and closing the pores or breathing holes of his body oftentimes produce considerable disorders As for humidity or moistness it seems to be nothing else but a kind of fluidness and Liquors are commonly said to be moist inasmuch as when they are poured upon hard and compact bodies some small parts of them are left behind either sticking in the little Cavities of the Surface and then the body is said to be wet or else have insinuated themselves into the most inward pores and recesses of the hard body which then we commonly say is moistned And on the contrary driness is nothing else but a kind of firmness inasmuch as a dry body is upon that score the more firm for being void of all moisture And now I cannot see why these four first Qualities as they are term'd should be excluded from having a share in the number of the causes of Diseases since they are notably active especially the three first modifications of matter and not only apt to excite various motions and cause as well new Combinations as dissolutions of bodies in the great World but also powerfully to alter the Microcosm and produce fundry different Symptoms in relation to the motions and harmony of the humane Engin. In the next place though it be utterly untrue that there are in the Vessels four distinct humors but whatsoever is contained in the Arteries and Veins is either the stale deflagrated blood or the alimentary juice fresh come into the Vessels or else the Serum or Whey returned by the Lymphaticks or else some Particles of Nitre and other bodies received in by the Lungs and Mouths of the veins from the Ambient And though the blood differ in several persons only as to the abundance or defect of natural heat yet are men not improperly said to be of a melancholick cholerick or some other temperament inasmuch as by how much the more vigorous or remiss the natural heat is in their bowels and entrals by so much the more weakly or powerfully concoctions are perform'd and consequently the blood apt to be overcharged either with stale and adust or else crude and phlegmatick Excrements In which respect the person either way disposed is not improperly said to be of a phlegmatick or cholerick temper and if the adust or raw Excrements be not rightly and duly separated out of the mass by the effervenscy of the blood I see no reason why I may not say that a man abounds with a melancholick cholerick or phlegmatick humor and if so the Notions about Pharmacy aiming at an evacuation or else alteration of these humors are not framed amiss nor whatever M. N. argues to the contrary without very good reason For I suppose it alters not much the case as to practice whether a man suppose that there is too great a redundancy of one of the humors in the blood or whether which is the right Notion he apprehend the blood depraved either with phlegmatick and raw juyces or the bilious Excrement consisting of Salt and Sulphur or the melancholick in which the Caput mortuum or earthy part is most predominant For either of these Notions will direct us when the blood is unable to fine its self to assist it with those alteratives which time and experience has recommended to us as proper in those cases and those Purgers which have been long observed more particularly to make a separation either of the pituitous cholerick or melancholick parts of the blood For though it be irrational to think that Purgers do with a certain knowledge or choice lay hold of one humor rather than another yet is that distinction of Purgers into Chologoga Phlegmagoga Melanagoga and Hydragoga of very good use and founded upon observation and experience inasmuch as these several Purgers by causing very different Fermentations and variously agitating the Particles of the Blood may with very good reason cause different separations and so one Purger to evacuate that sort of Excrement Barm or Lee which another cannot And in this matter I do not find that the Improvements which have been made in the Theory of Physick have much altered the Practice for the indication for Purging was not founded upon the Notion of the four Humors but upon long observation that when Distempers discovered themselves by such and such signs the body was to be emptied and by frequent tryals one Purger as especially Hellebor in Melancholy was found more essectual than
far greater quantity of fixed Salt than the Bodies And we see that in Dropsies Chachexies Obstructions and the like Diseases which will not yield to vulgar Medicins the learnedst practitioners betake themselves to Medicins of Tartar Steel and Vitriol as a certain Refuge in the greatest Extremities and it cannot be imagin'd how these Medicins should perform such certain and admirable effects but that by fermenting the Blood with their Saline Particles they supply the defect of the natural ferment For as long as this is vigorous and the passages are open from the Spleen into the masse of Blood the Splenick leven by continually maintaining an intestine motion of the small Particles of the Blood preserves that Liquor in its due mixture and consistence so that the grosser and finer Particles being exactly mingled one with another and the Spirits free and at liberty the Blood is rendered fit to circulate through the most streight and narrow passages and not apt to curdle and stagnate in the Vessels And by this means Crudities are concocted Obstructions opened tough and slimy humors attenuated and the Blood defecated of all its Excrements and Impurities by the vents and emunctories of the Body By this means not only the Juyces which run in the Veins and Arteries are rich pure and spirituous but likewise from these a soft subtil and well rectified Spirit and Liquor is communicated to the Brain and distributed into the Nerves for the use of the Animal Function and exercise of Sense and Motion in all the Instruments and Organs designed by Nature for those uses Furthermore it is very probable that the Splenick Ferment does by the Arteries out of the masse of Blood supply the stomach and Bowels which serve for the concoction of Aliment with a Menstruum not unlike those Liquors with which the Chymists dissolve Mettals and other Bodies for the dissolution of meat and reducing it to Chyle For we cannot with Reason assign that work to Heat since the most intense fire cannot by roasting baking boiling or any other way of applying of that Element reduce bread flesh and other meats in many dayes into a substance so fluid and thin as the Stomach can in a very few hours Now as the Spleen whilest it dispenses a sincere and rightly elaborated ferment is a Bowel of great use and importance for the preservation of the blood and Spirits in their due temper and motion so does it often cause very considerable disorders and extravagancies in the Oeconomy of the Body when it degenerates from its natural constitution and infects the Humors and Spirits with an impure and ill digested Leven For that the Blood may duly and orderly ferment and circulate it is most requisite that the intestine motion of the little Particles which constitute it be neither too furious and tumultuous nor too heavy and sluggish And for this reason is it as I suppose that the fixed Salt is separated from the Blood in the Spleen and again returned and mingled with the Masse by the Veins For indeed fixed Salt consisting of parts which are indued with some kind of Acrimony and yet being not too severely acid seem to be Bodies most proper to maintain a leisurely and orderly Ebullition But if the ferment once grow too sharp and acid and acquire parts apt to provoke irritate and prick the sensible parts of the Body and the fixed Salts become to be fluid it presently fects the whole stream of the Blood puts it into violent and disorderly motions vellicates the nervous parts fixes the Spirits puts all the humors into a hurly burly and makes them apt to congeal and stagnate For when this Ferment is rightly made it consists of Salt with the addition of a moderate quantity of earth by the mutual Conjunction of which fixed Salt is produced but if by any means there be a seperation made of the Saline part from the earthy then are the Salts said to be in the state of fluidity because they run together into a Liquor as Spirit of Salt Spirit of Vitriol and the like Thus when the Ferment of the Spleen becomes fluid it acquires the fierce sharpness of Vinegar or Spirit of Vitriol This is the fault of it in Hypocondriacal Persons For in men who labour of those Distempers all the fixed Salts of the Blood which circulate through the Spleen are there made fluid till at length they come to prevail over the other principles of the Blood and turn the whole stock of it into a Liquor as sharp as Vinegar or Spirit of Vitriol by which means all the Spirits are depressed and kept under The sowre Belches and Vomits of Hypocondriacal Persons which oftentimes are no lesse sharp than Spirit of Vitriol are a very sufficient argument of the sharpness of their Juices which prick and tear their stomachs bowels and nervous parts with continual pains and torments and sometimes with their Corroding acidity flea their Tongues Throats and Lips And the violent and irregular motions and boylings of the blood do very evidendently convince that the Constitution of that Liquor in Hypochondriacal Persons is become sharp and eager For we find it most true from sundry expriments that such tumultuous Ebullitions are caused from the mixture of fluid Salts with fixed and in Liquors which are void of fluid Salts we meet with no such fermentations or where they are but in small quantity mingled the fermentation is lesse and more leisurely and nothing so tumultuous In quick-Lime and Juices which abound with acid Salt as soon as the fluid and fixed meet with one another presently a noise heat and boyling do ensue Thus we see Salt of Wormwood Scurvy-grass or the like Coral Pearl Oyster-shells and other testacious bodies when Spirit of Vitriol Sulphur juyce of Lemons Berberies Oranges or any acid liquor is poured upon them presently fall a boyling and hissing Many more Instances of this kind may be given but because they are obvious to every man who is in the least versed in Chymical operations I will pass them by and farther endeavor to prove from the way of cure of Hypochondriacal Distempers by the Medicins most approved and famed by the best and most learned Authors That the cause of those affections consists in a sharp and eager Distemper of the Blood and Juyces The Remedies which in this case are most commended are such as consist of Steel Tartar Vitriol fixed Salts and all testacious bodies as likewise diuretical Remedies which abounding with fixed Salts do very much precipitate the blood For we find by Experience That these Medicins do sweeten all sharp Liquors and abate their Pungency for the Acrimony of Salts is not blunted by Sulphurious but Saline bodies by reason that fixed Salts by an intimate and close union to the fluid do obtund their points and edges as a thick piece of Steel exactly fitted to the blade of a Knife will abate the cutting or dividing power of the edge Thus the corroding sharpness of Spirit
pag. 40 All the Symptoms of that Disease easily deriv'd from thence pag. 40 41 Men fall into the Scurvy after Fevers by reason of the wasting of the volatil Salt of the blood in them pag. 41 The Vrin of healthy and young men abounds much more with volatil Salt than that of aged and sickly persons pag. 41 The Air in the Northern Countries abounds with fixed Salt and disposes the blood to the Scurvy pag. 41 42 Respiration necessary to life for the drawing in of Nitre to keep afâ—ot the Fermentation of the Heart pag. 42 There is a great difference in Nitres pag. 43 The Specificks for the Scurvy perform their effects by their volatil Salts ib. Why it is increased in the Bills of Mortality pag. 44 The Rickets a new Disease ib. The Reason of its first breaking forth in England pag. 45 Not altered since pag. 45 Not akin to the Pox and Scurvy ib. The Reason of the increase of the Consumption in the Bills of Mortality pag. 45 46 The stopping of the Stomack the same with the Asthma ib. The Rising of the Lights the same with the Suffocatio uterina ib. Men as well as Women subject to the Disease call'd the Hysterical Passion pag. 48 Why Women are more frequently troubled with Fits than Men. pag. 49 The Hysterical Passion described pag. 49 50 The Causes of this Disease and its Symptoms according to the Ancients pag. 51 They are rejected pag. 51 52 The Causes assigned by Dr. Highmore pag. 52 53 Reasons why they are insufficient pag. 53 54 55 56 The animal Constitution is primarily affected in this Disease ib. The motion of the Heart is caused by the animal Spirits pag. 57 An Experiment to prove it pag. 57 58 The Hysterical Symptoms are Convulsive motions pag. 58 The Nature of the Seed pag. 59 A nitrosulphureous Spirit the Author of all Generations pag. 59 60 61 How the Seed is made in Men and other Creatures out of the Blood pag. 61 62 How the Seed may cause the Hysterical Passion pag. 62 63 64 How a defect in the uterine Ferment may cause Hysterical Fits pag. 64 65 A suppression of the Menses often causes them ib. Ill Humors flung upon the Brain and nervous parts will cause them ib. Some other causes of them pag. 66 The Cause of the Rising of the Mother pag. 67 68 CHAP. III. THe Pox and Scurvy cannot alter all Diseases from their ancient state and condition pag. 70 The Pox and Scurvy not infectious at a distance pag. 71 Blood-letting in Agnes and Fevers in the Northern Countries is justified pag. 72 Dr. Harvy 's Opinion of it pag. 72 73 In the Rheumatism Blood must be taken away ten or twelve days together pag. 74 A mad Woman cur'd by being let blood seventy times in one Week ib. The Liver is not the shop where blood is made pag. 75 The use of it is to separate Choler and how that is perform'd pag. 75 76 77 How the Chyle is turn'd into blood pag. 77 78 The Heart the chief shop where the Chyle is turn'd into blood pag. 79 80 The innate Spirits Salts or Ferments of the Heart are the makers of blood pag. 80 The Fermentation of the blood in the Heart compar'd to the Ebullition which is caus'd when Spirit of Nitre is poured upon Butter of Antimony pag. 81 Of Colour pag. 81 82 How Colours are produced ib. New Colours are produced by mingling things which ferment with one another ib. Two wayes of producing a red Colour in Bodies by the action of Heat upon them or by the addition of Salts pag. 83 84 Phlebotomy is very necessary in many Sâ—orbutick Affects pag. 84 85 How purging Medicins perform their effects pag. 85 86 The Pox and Scurvy are not communicable at a distance and without Corporal Contact pag. 87 Whatever infects or poysons by immediate Contact must not necessarily work the same effect at a distance ib. Instances to prove this Assertion pag. 87 88 A Plague in Moravia which only infected those persons who were Cupped and Scarrified pag. 88 A strange Poyson us'd by the Huntsmen in Spain made of the juyce of White Hellebore pag. 89 90 An account of the Original and spreading of the Pox out of Guicciardin pag. 91 92 93 That the Pox infects not at a distance is argued from the Cure of it pag. 94 That the Scurvy infects not at a distance is argued from the Nature and Formality of it pag. 95 96 CHAP. IV. THe Pox and Scurvy are not complicated with all Diseases pag. 98 69 The Pestilence is not from a Complication with the French Ferment more frequent and violent now than in former Ages pag. 99 100 Instances of many depopulating Plagues in former Ages pag. 100 101 CHAP. V. WOrms are not more frequently appearing in Fevers and all manner of Diseases in these days than former pag. 105 As strange Cases of Worms observed by the Ancient as Modern Writers pag. 106 Worms generated in Children in the Womb observed by Hippocrates ib. In the Seed by Plutarch ib. In the Lungs and treated of as one cause of a Cough by Alsaravius pag. 106 107 The Drancucula of the Grecians and Vena Civili◠〈◊〉 Medena of the Arabians what kind â—â—â—â—sease pag. 107 108 Animals generated under the Skin observ'd by Aristotle ib. The Lady Penruddock kill'd by that Disease pag. 109 Worms ingendred in Metals Stones Fire and Snow the Bladder of Gall Vinegar pag. 111 Worms bred in all sorts of Animals not subject to the Pox and Scurvy pag. 112 Worms bred in Mill-stones pag. 113 A live Toad found in the Center of a huge stone ib. The Cause of the Production of Insects in Mans body pag. 114 Why they often accompany putrid Fevers pag. 114 115 Why Children are usually troubled with them at the time of their breeding Teeth ib. Insects produc'd by their seminal Salts pag. 116 A Disease in Germany and Hungary which the Polonians called Stony Robac and the Germans Hauptwurn pag. 117 The Seminalities of Insects may be conveyed into our Blood in our meat drink and air pag. 118 The manner of infection from the Plague is better made out by the figure and motion of Atoms than by Kirchers animated Effluxes pag. 119 120 Kirchers notion not conduciâ—â—e to the practise of Physick pag. 120 An account of the Plague given by Gassendus pag. 122 123 The comparison of Runnets coagulatiâ—â— Milk servâ—â— very well to explain how the Pestiâ—â—â—â— infects tâ— Blood and Air pag. 12â— The spots in the Plague are quar'd flakes of Blood pag. 124 CHAP. VI. MAny Maxims in Physick will remain truth the Worlds end They are grounded upon Experience and were in use long before the notions of Causes were invented pag. 127 Doctor Willis his opinion as to this point pag. 127 128 What Medicins are to be accounted Secrets pag. 129 Medicins the products of Chance not Invention pag. 130 131 132 CHAP. VII VVOrds imposed by the first Inventers of the Art
of Physick and established by the use and consent of both Galenists and Chymists are to be retained pag. 134 The first qualities are causes of Diseases pag. 135 Proved by sundry Arguments pag. 136 The meaning of the word Quality ibid. The nature of Heat pag. 137 Of Cold. pag. 137 138 Of Humidity and Driness pag. 138 Though there be not in the Vessels four distinct humors men are not improperly said to be of a Phlegmatick Cholerick Melancholick or Sanguine temperament pag. 139 It alters not the matter as to practise whether a Physitian suppose one of the humors or the rawness or overstaleness of the Blood to be in fault pag. 140 Purgers are properly divided into Chologoga Phlegmagoga Melanagoga and Hydragoga pag. 1â—1 Hepaticks must be used in Diseases caused from imperfect Sanguification though the Liver do not make Blood pag. 141 142 The Spleen is the Receptacle of Melancholy according to the opinions of Bartholinus and Doctor Highmore pag. 143 144 A Digression concerning the use of the Spleen and Hypocondriacal Distempers pag. 145 A Description of the Spleen pag. 146 147 It prepares a Ferment for the Blood pag. 149 Two sorts of Ferments pag. 149 150 How the Ferment is made in the Spleen pag. 152 Fixed Salts ferment the Blood pag. 153 How Medicins of Tartar Steel and Vitriol perform their effects pag. 153 How the Ferment of the Spleen comes to be deprav'd pag. 156 157. What is the fault of the Spleen in Hypocondriacal persons pag. 161 162 163 The causes of the Symptoms in Hypocondriacal persons pag. 163 164 165 The Head and nervous parts how affected from the Spleen pag. 166 It is proper to say there are bilious or cholerick complexions and Diseases pag. 167 168 M. N's ignorance in Chymistry pag. 168 Sulphur is not lighter and more aetherial than Spirit pag. 169 CHAP. VIII THe particulars offer'd by M. N. in the room of them which he pretends to have demolished are not conducible to the practice of Physick pag. 171 The growing of Diseases from Seeds according to Paracelsus and Severinus a ridiculous fancy pag. 172 173 The number of Concoctions assigned by the Ancients sufficient pag. 174 Helmonts notion of a Disease unintelligible pag. 176 What the Archaeus of the Chymists means pag. 177 New words are not to be imposed upon old notions and things pag. 178 How the Vital Animal and Natural Spirits differ pag. 179 The Archaeus either an idle word or a new term to express an old notion pag. 180 CHAP. IX THe use of the Doctrine about critical dayes pag. 181 The ignorance of their true causes did not hinder the Ancients from making true Observations upon them ibid. Feavers in the Countries where Hippocrates and Galen liv'd observ'd regularly the critical motions which are by them describ'd pag. 183 A Crisis in a continual Feaver is the same with a Paroxism in an Intermittent ibid. The cause of critical motions according to Doctor Willis ibid. Sweat the best way of Crisis pag. 184 The cause of a Crisis by an Haemorrhage pag. 184 When a Crisis is to be expected pag. 185 186 The Dootrine of Pulses is justified pag. 188 189 The respective differences in the motion of the Arteries may be observ'd as well as the absolute pag. 189 The reasons of the different motions of the Pulse assigned by Doctor Highmore pag. 189 Paracelsus his whimsies concerning the Pulse pag. 190 The use of the Doctrine of the Pulse in Feavers pag. 191 192 Direction must be taken from the Pulse for the giving of all sorts of Physick in Feavers pag. 193 What accidents may cause an alteration in the Pulse pag. 194