does not go from the Vena Cava to the Vena Pulmonalis as is generally affirmed but rather terminates in the left Auricle it self and Canalem Arteriosum Now I hope the Doctor will never say that Sanguification is the work of the Lungs when the Blood is made for Nine Months in the Foetus and they never once concurr After the Doctor hath considered and soundly answered this Objection if I can raise no other against it I shall adopt his New Hypothesis But till such time I expect he 'll not be offended if I shall assert Sanguification to be a Function partly Organical and partly Similar i. e. in the Liver Reins Pancreas c. Such Particles as could not turn into Blood are deposed and so its Organical Also by the continual Motion thereof the sulphureous and nobler Particles of the Chyle are assimilate to the Blood for which it is called Similar Yet I am so ingenuous as to grant to the Doctor that Sanguification hath more help from the Lungs the Blood descending always more florid and brisk by the Vena Pulmonalis as it did ascend by the Artery as from any other part whatsomever Nevertheless they concurr only as an Instrument with many others albeit they may perhaps be the principal As for that Argument so much insisted on by the Learned Glisson it creates me no great difficulty For albeit I cannot but grant ocular Inspection having demonstrat it to me that the Blood appears in the Embryo before any Organ and so consequently cannot be made by that which is posterior to it self Yet I still think there is great difference betwixt Sanguification in the Foctus and in an Adult Person For in the former it is not simple Chyle that is converted into Blood but that which already circulating in the Mothers Body hath demitted its Bile in her Liver its Urine in her Reins c. by which it is disposed to turn into Blood So that if it had not experienced already the organical part from the Mother the similar action in the Foetus should hardly have produced the effect For which I hope none will deny as the same Subject may be differently affected by diverse Agents so the same Agent will produce divers effects upon various Subjects As expert seems the Doctor to be in Chymistry as either Anatomy or Physiology In all his Book there occurs nothing that savours of that Noble Art save one passage from Helmont and Tackenius which without any prejudice to either Author or Book might have been omitted it being beyond all debate now that alcalizate or fixed salts are not formerly preexistent in any Body being only produced by the acting of the Fire so cannot as the Doctor would have it be dissolved and extracted by the Aire before they exist He ought rather to have said That the Saline there being a great difference amongst Salts and Sulphureous Atoms which by joining together do constitute fixed they not being Natural but Factitious or alcalizat Salts while the Herbs are a drying exhale and fly away After having dwelt so long upon the Theory of Fevers it 's time to proceed to their Method of Curing Which indeed is the principal Thing it being no great Matter how wild a Mans Opinions be in Speculations providing he do not apply them to practice No Man must expect here a Description of all the various Indications which may and ordinarly do require Attention in a dogmatick and methodical Cure My design being only as I often said to propose the Good Old Rational and Successful Method and to vindicate it from D. Brown's Objections who hath not himself albeit the Author of a New One noticed the half of what deserves consideration in a Rational Cure Which nevertheless I 'le readily grant in some Epidemick Constitutions or Seasons and in certain Subjects especially where the Critical Motions of Nature happen per secissum which is not once in a hundred times to prove unsuccessful This only I would say that it is the most frequent and therefore deserves the Name of the best Method And where nothing happens about the Patient that is singular it ought always to be practised Before I go further it will not be impertinent to lay down some general Axioms which being founded upon sound Reason and frequent Experience have extorted Assent from and Credit with Physicians of all Ages Nevertheless they are not understood or rather not much regarded by our Learned Author I. Cures are threefold 1. Cura Curatoria which respect the Continent Cause as in Fevers and all acute Diseases 2. Praeservatoria which especially regards the Antecedent Cause ex gr in a person troubled with Gout Gravel c. after the removal of the Paroxism we Purge Bleed c. to prevent the Accession of another And 3. Cura Paltativa v. g. in a Patient troubled with incontinency of Urine which cannot be Cured the Sphincter of the Bladder being lacerate we apply such an Apparatus as Van Heer in his Observations provides for such a Strait II. Indications ordinarly sometimes they be moe but they are only particular are Three 1. Indicatio Curatoria which levels at the Disease and its Continent Cause 2. Conservatoria preserving the Strength that being by all means to be cherished And 3. Mitigatoria for it is principally occupied against the urgent Symptoms Such as Thirst Pains Watching c. which being sometimes more troublesome as the Distemper it self do require Attention even with the neglect of the primary Disease Some indeed there be who have denied this any room among Indications alledging that the one being removed the other will necessarly cease Symptoms following only the Disease as a shadow does the Body But to this moment I never heard of any who refused an Indication to the Continent Cause and Disease it self as Dr. Brown in the 71 Page of the V. S. hath precariously done Where leaving the Essence of the Disease he prosecutes the Antecedent cause Can any Person that knows or hath a respect for Physick and Physicians read or hear this without offence And this really is the Fountain from which many of his Errors do flow But consider Doctor and I intreat you as you love your Neighbours Safety and your own Quiet do Continual Fevers are not Intermittent in which the Antecedent Cause continues in the first ways and from thence is gradually and successively carried in to the Blood so that whoever can take away the Fomes may expect in all reason to prevent the accession of a new Paroxism though never hinder the present Whereas in Continual Fevers the whole Antecedent Cause is Semel Simul carried into the Blood and excites the Fever Which we must especially regard and not the Antecedent Cause which now is not it being turned into the Continent Further when the Doctor is called to a Patient is it to Cure the present Fever or to prevent a future If it be to prevent a future then he does well to look to
Malign And such are great Anxieties Inquietude sudden Prostration of the Strength Spots cold Sweats Tumors about the Glands called Parotides c. In enquiring after the Cause of these Malign Fevers I can find nothing save obscurity in the different Opinions of Authors While some with Willis fancy to themselves a great Coagulation of the Blood Again others who follow Sylvius strive as much for a lixivious and urinous Acrimony of the same De la Font pleads hard for an Arsenical and Corrosive Poyson inspired with the Air. For me in such ambiguity I willingly profess my Ignorance But still enclines to look upon their Cause as always Epidemick coming either from the Air Meat or Drink And whenever it effects seazeth especially upon the Head we ordinarly observing Symptoms of the Brain to insult whilst Pulse and Urine suffer small or no change And hence I suppose is the Proverb Good Pulse good Urine and the Patient Dies Acute Fevers are such as terminate against the 9 14 20 or 21. day But continuing no longer as the 7 they are called Peracute Yea sometimes they Kill in the Third and Fourth Day and so get the Name and that deservedly of Peracutissimae While these who extend themselves to the 40 day are termed Acutae ex Decidentiâ And all that exceed this Term whether Fevers or other Distempers have obtained the general Denomination of Lent or Chronick Diseases It is certainly beyond all question that this Diversity ariseth from the weakness or strongness of the morbifick Matter which in Lent Diseases at the beginning brings litle or no alteration to the Humane Body but through process of time partly by defatigating the Body partly by rendring more of the Blood like unto it self proves exitial to the Patient Which is too frequently seen in a Hectick it being of all Lent Fevers the most formidable Lastly Fevers were divided into Primary and Secundary or Symptomatick The first are such as have their Cause within themselves and own their Being to no other Disease as do the others called Secundary or Symptomatick Which be sometimes excited by pain as in the Gout Gravel c. sometimes they accompany Wounds Inflammations Ulcers and many other Maladies By all which the Motion of the Blood as well Circular as Intestine may be augmented and that which we call a Fever produced In the Page 185 of the V. S. the Doctor 's Exactness and great Skill in Physick is very conspicous For there he asserts Fevers and Tumors I suppose he means Inflammations Tumors being of a large extent to be perpetual Companions So that according to his Pathology the one cannot exist without the other Whereas all the World knows yea dayly finds it that Fevers can exist without his Tumors yea not one of ten Thousand without all Hyperbole hath them True it is indeed that Inflammations are ordinarly yet not always followed by Fevers and they are among the number of these I called Secondary or Symptomatick Many Things appertaining to Fevers and their Theory as Symptoms Prognosticks c. do as yet remain But I being far from presuming to give a particular Account or Description of that Disease knowing it to be a Load too heavy for my young and tender Shoulders finds my self nowayes obliged to mention them here My purpose being only to give a general and for what appears to me the easiest and best Description of the Malady into whose Method of Curing I resolve to inquire Neither will I labour it being more my desire to do well my self than to discover that others have done ill in refuting the Opinions of others as the Doctor doth though with Arguments I confess sometimes against but as often for them Yet I must pass some Reflections upon the Doctor 's New and Mechanical Hypothesis left my passing it by should offend its Author And to speak ingenuously his description of the Disease is as obscure as his Method of Curing is dangerous Have then the Scheme of the New and Mechanical Hypothesis in the Author 's own words P. 104. Seing then for the five Pages which go before contain only the Fundation though very unproportionable to the Noble Building afterwards erected in little more as one the returns of Repararation to the parts and functions ought to be made both in time and quantity in proportion to the waste by the efflux of the arterial Blood from the Heart as the Vehicle and thorow the Arteries as the Conduites of these Recruites When this is done Vegetly Integrally without any stop or delay then redounds Felicity Ease and Integrity of the Functions and Life But when that Efflux is retarded or stopt either by reason of the Blood it self or some stopage in the Extremities and small Channels of the Vessels or by reason of immoderate and unusual waste beyond the proportion of the ordinary supply as falls out in immoderate Exercise and Motion And so I say when by reason of any of these Causes the Heart cannot convey and lay in the desired Supplement in due proportion and timously by Stroaks repeated at the usual Intervals then it does by precipitating the Stroaks and straitning the Intervals of the Pulsations endeavour what in it lyes to overcome the slowness of the Motion of the Blood and to come so near as it can to the due and proportionable distribution of Nutriment in respect of the waste But if notwithstanding of these sedulous Endeavours of the Heart by redoubling of the Pulsations that slowness of the Blood shall by a gradual encrease of the thickness and of Obstructions in the Capillary Vessels prove yet so obstinate as still to be augmented then this leads straight to the Porch and Gate of Death Death being nothing else but a total and permanent Cessation and defect of this distribution Behold the Description of a Disease and it never once named Is this Doctor because it is so clear that who runs may read it surely then my Capacity is very shallow For had not the Title of that 7. Sect. promised a New and Mechanical Hypothesis I should from this Description never have inferred it and had not the very next Paragraph proposed an Objection I should further have looked back for it Yea I believe it would puzle your self were it not for these Marks to find it For my part I see nothing here described save Death and that perhaps not undeservedly for by means of the New Method Death and Fevers are become Synonima and so the one with you may safely go for the other But Thanks be to God it is otherways with us who walk in the Good Old and Experienced Path where it becomes but sometimes a passage unto it But why pray a New Hypothefis it being as old as since Bontekoe write de Febribus It is indeed very hard to know that Author's proper Opinion he being more taken up in refuting others as in explaining himself And what he hath said is so harsh and obscure that he can scarcely
the Antecedent Cause which still respects the future and so he institutes that Cure in the first Axiom called Praeservatoria But if it be to Cure the present then Sense and Reason require that he should level at its Continent Cause and Essence Whereas according to the New Method the present Distemper is committed to Nature while the Doctor only labours to prevent a future Evil which really as I am informed he does sometimes very successfully by putting them beyond all fear of Misery as well as Happiness except what 's Eternal III. The Third of our Axioms is That Contraries are Cured by Contraries and the like preserved by the like By some a Controversie is here again moved as if Diseases were sometimes Cured by the like v. g. an Hemorhagie by Bleeding a Flux by Purging c. But it ought to be considered the question is not about the Disease and its Remedy which may indeed sometimes prove alike but betwixt the Indicans and the Indicanus or that which indicates and that which is in dicated they still being oppositite Loosness ever indicating binding it matters not much by what mean it be done IV. Whatever is natural ought to be preserved and that which is preternatural must be removed V. Of two Evils the least is to be chosen VI. Critical Evacuations are wisely to be discerned from Symptomatical The not distinguishing of which is a mater of great Moment and of bad consequence while it brings the Physician into the greatest of difficulties and errors as well as the Patient into the greatest of Hazards Out of which nevertheless both the Physician and Patient may be easily extricate by rightly ponderating the following four 1. The times of the Disease are prudently to be noticed the Coction and Crudity of the Humours discernable especially in the Urin must exactly be observed the Evacuation which happens in the beginning of a Distemper with the signs of Crudity being still Symptomatick 2. The place where the Evacuation happens signifies much for if it chance in a place whither Nature in that Malady useth to tend other things concurring it is still convenient So a loose Belly is alwayes more suspected in a Feaver as sweat this being natures ordinary path in that Distemper whereas a Flux is still looked on as dangerous And if there were no more as this Natures own Course it is sufficient to evert the whole new Method 3. The quality of the Humour voided if such as it ought is to be noticed And 4 Neither should the quantity be neglected for larger Evacuations make us still affraid VII Whatever is to be evacuat drive it to the way it most tends according to the 21. of the first Section of Hippocrat's Aphorisms VIII Concocted not crude Humours are to be expelled by the 22. Aphorism of the same first Section IX The Times of Diseases are precisely to be noticed it being safe to do at one time that which is perfect Death at another Which times are four the Beginning the Increment the Status and Declination X. The vast difference betwixt Purges is also worth the considering Some being so Gentle that they only evacuat the Ventricle and first ways never reaching the Mass of the Blood and are ordinarly designed by Laxantia Others tend farther in the Body precipitat the Serum and properly are called Purges or Catharticks Which division of Purges acknowledged and admitted by all Will I hope stand us in no small stead At length I come to the Method of Curing wherein to keep close to the matter according to the second Axiome a skilful Physician proposeth to himself these three Indications 1. To remove and expell the Disease and its continent cause as preternatural 2 To preserve as much as he can the Strength it being natural And 3. To mitigat the urgent Symptoms if any such appear I am abundantly sensible that there occure many other things in a Feverish person which require attention But as I said before these are the ordinary and general Indications and under them most others may come therefore can only be treated of in a general Method For the Removal of the Disease and its cause it will be convenient to remember what was formerly said concerning the Nature of Fevers in general When I asserted their Formality to consist in a preternatural Exagitation of the Blood being most frequently thereto excited by Heterogeneous Atomes transferred into it Therefore to ende vour the Removal of the Disease is to lay this commotion and to expell the cause is to banish the Body whatever it is that sets the Blood thus a working And this we labour to accomplish by several means and Medicaments as well Alterants as Evacuants but concerning the last I am now especially engaged As to the second Indicant of preserving the strength and the third of mitigating the Symptoms the Doctor and I do agree at least his Book contains nothing of them Therefore I whose only purpose it is to defend as much of the Old Method as D. Brown does molest and to refute his wherein it goes opposite thereto am no ways engaged to treat of all that in an accurate and exact Method ought to be practised Especially I said by Evacuants we remove the Disease and expels it's cause Among which the first that offers its self to our consideration is that Noble and excellent Remedy if duely and skilfully applied of Bleeding Which as the Doctor observes P. 143. is granted by all as very beneficial And if this be true as certainly it is the Doctor hath given us no new Method as to this part and so might have spared his Labour in Writting a Book to convince the World of that of which never Nan doubted When and how often the Doctor useth this Remedy which was absolutly necessary in an accurate Method there being four very different times as the 9th Axiome observeth he does not inform us and therefore I can say nothing against him However I must not omit to reprehend that Vulgar as well as pernicious Error of Bleeding all persons and in all Fevers For so long as a Plethory is the only Indicant of Bleeding of Revulsion Derivation and Exploration which do frequently call for and allow of the same I am not now speaking it can never safely and with advantage to the Patient be Administrat but where that Plethory is So that if a Fever fall out in a Young and robust person where any natural Evacuation is suppressed in one using a good and laudable Dyet in a word where the way of Living or any other circumstance may perswade us of abundance of Blood no doubt the Physician does wisely who adviseth it's Eventilation if he cannot set a working the natural Evacuation it self Providing it be in the beginning and Increment of the Malady otherways when Nature is endeavouring her own Liberation he may be apt to disturb her Motions But that rash and inconsiderat Course of Bleeding without any difference subjects of all
are either Heterogeneous Bodies mixed with the Blood which by stimulating the Ventricles of the Heart the interiour Coats of the Vessels and muscular Fibers of the Parts cause frequent Contraction and consequently swiftness of Motion or inciding and volatile Medicaments which partly attenuating and inciding the Mass of Blood partly amplifying and inlarging the Pores and Passages produce the same effect with the former When I speak here of intending the circular Motion I mean only that of the Arteries for both Reason and Experience teach us that the acceleration of the returning Motion by the Veins would rather prove a hinderance as a help to this as well as to all other Secretions First It is clear from Reason for if the Blood were as readily taken up by the Capillary Veins as its is brought in by the Arteries it must necessarly return again to the Heart from whence it came Whereas admittance being denied by the Veins it seeks another way or passage which is that of Secretion Neither does Experience deny its assent to this perpetual Truth For if you will tye the social Vein of any Artery by which Blood is carried to the secerning Organ v. g. the Vena emulgens you shall quickly observe the Secretion to be far more copious than when the regressive Motion was allowed So that I may reasonably affirm The slowness of the refluent Motion of the Blood by the Veins to be none of the least among the efficient Causes of Secretion And this much for the First Secondly I come to give some Reasons why in the Cure of Continual Fevers Physicians of all Ages have adopted and practised this Method of Sweating As also why we at this day especially while D. Brown offers a Surer and Better do imitate them in that which to speak in his Language is pernicious and destructive to Mankind Indeed if without Reasons and these weighty ones too we should do that which according to the V. S can be nothing but horrid Murder and devilish Malice In stead of being Cherished Honoured and Entertained as in all Ages and among all civilized People Physicians have been we ought to be taken and Hanged for Villains and publick Murderers But if I can prove our Method to be right which I 'le endeavour now and his to be wrong which is to be done hereafter when discoursing of Purging Then let him judge upon whom the Punishment ought to be inflicted It were easy to accumulate Arguments in Favours of Diaphoreticks but I shall satisfy my self and I hope my Reader to with the following three Let us then First According to the seventh Axiome consider the motion of Nature I mean the course it takes when left to its self as in many mean and Indigent People it ordinarly is And this is continually to seek its own Relief by Sweating so that not one Fever of a hundred and that of all sorts is Cured another way Is there any Country Clown so foolish but in a Fever he 'll cry for a Sweat and if either by Art or Nature he can procure it he will promise himself speedy Relief and certain safety Now this being granted the Dr. himself not darring deny it should not the Physicitians who have taken to themselves that modest Denomination of Natur 's Servants and whose duty it is to assist her when doing right and to Correct her when doing wrong as by all she is looked upon to do when endeavouring to ease her self by Seige in a Fever except perhaps once in a hundred times when it comes critically should not they I say imitate her in Curing Fevers by Diaphoreticks the ordinary yea I I may say the only way by which she removes that Distemper yea certainly they should and that according to good Old Hippocrats excellent Aphorisme Whethersoever Nature enclineth to go thither lead her and it conduceth Besides this it becomes us Secondly to consider the Seat of the Morbifick matter in Fevers which none will deny to be in the Arteries veins Likeways the conformation of these Vessels deserves our attention Their Roots being in the Heart while their Branches tend to all parts of the Body that I may shun all occasions of Objections I know that properly speaking the Origine of the Veins is in the parts and they terminate with one Root in the Heart Now let us consider by what way that which is contained in these Vessels may be best and easiliest expelled Surely any Man of sense and Reason will freely confess by their Extremities or ends of Anastomoses or Inosculations I have said what I thought necessary before which acknowledged we can not but also grant that whatsomever part of the Body manyest of these Extremitieâ— run to or where most of the Arteries end in there will be the readiesâ— and most natural way providing iâ— be as patent as others to discharge whatsomever is contained therein But most of these Extremities do terminate by far in the habit and that this way is as patent as any other insensible Transpiration which by the Doctors own concession exceeds all other Evacuations of the Body no less as three times does clearly evince Therefore from these premises I may lawfully conclude the habit to be the readiest and best way to expell whatsomever is contained Heterogeneous in the Blood It was not unadvisedly that I said where most Arteries end there will be the readiest way to expell the Morbifick matter For whosoever is not altogether ignorant of Anatomy will easily allow that whatever once enters the Veins can never be eliminate till such time as it again run through the Arteries At their small end it cannot be seing what once enters there can by no means return First because of their valves Secondly Because of the tonick motion of the parts And Thirdly because of the continual Influx of the Arterial Blood And as it cannot happen at their small ends arising from the parts so far less can it be at the great end which terminats in the Heart Nothing entring its Ventricles in the Diastole but what is again thrust out into the Pulmonal and great Artery in the Systole from all which it is clear that neither Secretion nor Excretion can be of the Venal Blood Yet here I 'll present the Doctor with a stronger argument for Purging in Fevers as his whole Book hath done to his Readers And it is this being I assert what no Physician if he be not destitute of Anatomy and Physiology the want of which bring inexpressible Damage to Physick will deny that wherever Arteries end and depositate what is in them contained there must needs happen the Expulsion of the Morbisick matter But the Arteries some of them at least end in the intestines Ergo there in these intestinal Glands must happen the secretion of the Morbifick matter All which I grant and acknowledge yea farther confirms by avowing the faces Ani to be not only Excrements of the first but also of the third and second Digestion
which may be proven by several Observations one of which at this time shall suffice viz. in the Foetus the Meconium is still observed to have its beginning and greatest quantity in the crass intestines Nevertheless all this concludes nothing against what either hath already or shall hereafter be said Because First the Arteries are but very few in respect of that infinit number which direct their course to the habite from the Coeliack and two Mesenterick Branches which tend to the Intestines Secondly Neither do we altogether for as little as it is neglect it but partly by applying Clysters partly by giving these Medicaments in the 10 and last Axiom called Laxantia drive away what may be lurking in the first ways But we never give Purges properly so called which by entring the Mass of the Blood do play therein their unlucky Tragedy except we intend which God forbid so wicked a Thought should ever enter a Physicians Heart to send the Patient to the House of all Living Yea farther it is with respect to this that after the Recovery we ordinarly advise Purging My Third and last Argument shall be the general Practice and constant Observation of Physicians in all Ages in all Countries and of all Perswasions yea of the Excellent Sydenham himself as shall afterwards be shewn Who as one Man acknowledge not only the great Advantage of Diaphoreticks but exclaim against the constant use of Catarticks in the Curing of Fevers What would the Doctor have all these so ignorant as that they should not know how to Cure the most ordinary of Distempers or so malicious and wicked as when they knew it yet neither to practise it themselves nor communicat it to others or were they so stupid as not to have known what they used neither from whence the Cure did proceed Were there never Physicians so conscientious in the World before D. Brown came to it as to confess the damage of Diaphoreticks or were they so blind that they could not see it Was Hippocrat was Galen Fernelous Sennert Harvey and all the rest of these brave Souls who have enriched the noble and useful Art with their curious Observations excellent Inventions and judicious Reasonings were all these I say besides many others who practised this Method themselves and recommended it to their Successors Fools or Ignorants Nay nay it is far better to say that D. Brown is both But of Experience more hereafter Therefore I go on to the Examination of the Arguments urged by the Doctor against this Old and long Practised Method Which we find in the 71 Page of the V. S. where the Common and Diaphoretick Method is considered and rejected forsooth and they be neither moe nor stronger as the following Two First We have no Specisick in Continuat Fevers therefore must not level at the Continent Cause which is truly the Disease According to which way of Reasoning I will go on and conclude We have no Specifick in any Disease save Intermutent Fevers therefore except them none must be Cured The consequent of the one is as native as that of the other and truly in both it is none at all Physick and Physician are obliged to the Doctor for bringing the Imployment to this weak pass Is not this a strong Argument to destroy a Theory of some Thousand Years standing Yet it is as strong as the other to be found in the same 71 Page where he farther inveighs against this our approved Method in these words This indeed were no unfit Design c. I look upon it as needless to resume what is formerly said anent Fevers and their Causes which I hope do sufficiently prove the Doctor 's Hypothesis to be none of the best I shall rather here observe that the force of this sham Argument drives at these Two First That Sudorificks translate the morbisick Matter or antetecedent Cause from the Ventricle Mesentery and Intestines into the Muss of Blood and by that means turns the Antecedent Cause into the Continent And Secondly That by the same we drive it to the Head whereby we produce these terrible Symptoms under which Nature not being able to overcome must of necessity succumb To which I answer these Three 1. All save D. Brown do know and confess that in Continual Fevers the morbisick Matter is in the beginning translated to the Blood and so does procure the Disease which otherways we should never have but only an Apparatus to it Yea in this seems to me to consist the difference betwixt Continual and Intermittent Fevers That in the former the morbisick Matter is translated all at once and so produces one great and Continual Fever whereas in the latter or Intermittent Fevers it is conveyed at several times and so constitutes several Paroxisms which may be said to be as many Continual but shorter Fevers By which we may clearly discern how falsely the Doctor alledges that by Diaphoreticks we carry the Matter from the first Ways to the Blood that being a thing already done else there could be no Fever And really all along it appears that it is not a Fever but an Apparatus thereto the Doctor would Cure So that instead of intituling his Book A new Method of Curing Fevers he should rather have named it A new Method for preventing them Secondly How any thing can be more urged on the Head by the use of Sudorificks I suppose if the Doctor were asked he could not well tell it being a meer precarious Assertion grounded upon no Foundation and he might with as good Reason have said the same of the Hands Feet or any other part of the Body For as they were only the Artertae Carotides and Vertebrales which furnished the Brain with Blood before So for ought I know by the use of Sudorificks no other are added Neither is there any other way by which any thing whatsomever can be carried to the Head save by the forenamed Arteries I hope the Doctor is not come to that Pitch of lgnorance to averr that Diaphoreticks by some occult quality are offensive to the Brain True it is indeed that Sudorificks by intending the Motion as well Circular as Intestine put all the Humours and perhaps the Spirits too in a little confusion But this carries nothing to the Head rather as to other places which went not before But Thirdly Where learned the Doctor that Sudorifick Medicines had their operation in the Ventricle Mesentery and Intestines Can any Man read this without Laughing Surely this is another Errour in which Physians till this time have been in for they still taught that Diaphoreticks did work in the Blood and not in the first Ways So then to grant what the Doctor desires which nevertheless so long as Physicians are Masters of Reason will never be That the Continent Cause for the Antecedent is no more it being converted into the Continent lodges about the forenamed places it will profit him nothing since Diaphoreticks will never awake it they working only in
First To oppose Reason to Reason still consulting Anatomy and Physiology And neither insisting on Experience which is nothing to the purpose while I can oppose a Thousand to One nor yet using Railery and Cavills which are by me all along declined they being most averse to my Humor and I often have observed that in stead of uniting Mens Opinions they rather separat and disjoin their Minds and Affections Secondly I wish it may be in the Latine Tongue in which the Controversy cannot only be better managed it being very hard to express Terms of Art in the English Language but also our Debates will be thereby concealed from the Vulgar who seing us blame one another may be apt to conclude us both in the wrong And Thirdly I hope he will do it shortly left when he is pleased to appear I may perhaps be removed Finally Let not the frequent use of the Word Nature offend the Learned Reader I have read Boyle on that Subject and means nothing thereby save the different Figure Structure Texture c. of the Parts by which they are enabled to act as Second Causes A brief Defence of the Old and Succesful Method of Curing Continual Fevers c. ALthough it be a Work of no small pains and require the knowledge of no few things rightly to act the part of a Physician Yet not a few there be aiming more at their own profit than their Neighbours safety who as they find it most Easie so they think it most Safe to acquire in some few Years I had almost said Months some general Compend and universal Method of Curing which they ignorantly and dangerously apply to all Distempers Not unlike to that Medicaster spoken of by the Learned Wedelius in the Preface to his Pharmacy who shufling all the Physical Receipts he had heired from his Father in a Bag desired the Patient to try his own Fortune And if the Cure chance at any time to be as successful as his was when called to a Countess lying sick of a Squinancy who trying her Luck did obtain a Clyster which causing her laugh did break the Imposthum immediatly they set up for Masters and are not satisfied to use the same Remedy in all other Distempers though never so different themselves unless it be also imployed approven by others It 's far from my Design to apply this to the person against whom I am now engaged at whom I have neither any Prejudice nor of whom I know any Evil save the Writing of the Vindicatory Schedule My Intention being only to endeavour the Vindication not only of these excellent Physicians who have gone before us but also of such who at this Day do either at Home or Abroad practise their Method and that Blessed be God with both Credit to themselves and Advantage to their Patients from theÌ„ calumnious Imputation of either Ignorance as if they knew not the right or wicked Maliciousness and horrid Murder that knowing the Right would yet do the wrong From one of which providing it be true what the Author of the V. S. most falsly alledges they cannot be absolved Among all these Miseries and Diseases unto which Man by his Fall was made liable a Fever perhaps is the most frequent A Fever it is which in all Countries and in all Seasons without respect to either Sex or Age does daily Invade Afflict yea and Kill many Persons Neither can it other ways be seing our Life seems no depend upon the circular and intestine Motion of our Blood Which Motion can hardly be troubled without the production of one sort of Fever or other So of necessity a Fever must be of all Distempers the most frequent as well as most dangerous I am not ignorant my self far less I 'm sure any of these in whose Defence I write how many and great Debates there be among Authors concerning the Definition as well as Division of Fevers However I shall concern my self in none of them here where I only resolve to give a short and for what appears to me the most probable Account of the Disease in so far as it may serve for clearing its Method of Curing For as I am very far from presumiug being abundantly conscious of my own Weakness to usurp the part of a Teacher So I â—ould never much value that vain and ostentive way of some who force all they can find Rare and Learned in Authors though never so remote from and alien unto the subject they treat of into their own Books and thereby make them as Ridiculous as the Picture described by Horace in the first Book of his Art Poet. which is a thing not unfrequent in the V. S. where all that concerns Fevers and their Cure might remain suppose the largest half of the Book had got the desert of the whole which is either the Fire or the S And how happily this Plagiary hath succeeded with the Doctor we shall perhaps afterwards have occasion to show in an instance of Anatomy Physiology and Chymistry To me then it seems not improbable that the Formalitie Essence or if you please a Term of Art the continent Cause of a Fever consists in a Commotion or Exagitation of the Intestine as well as Circular Motion of the Blood Whereby the Oéconomie of the Body is disturbed with divers and sometimes right grievous Symptoms Which Commotion for the most part may arise from some Heterogeneous Body conveyed into it That the Blood is the Subject of Fevers I suppose will be called in question by none seing not only the Changes and sometimes Advantages which do accrue to the Patient by its Evacuations are very observable but also the Crudity and Coction of the morbisick Matter in the Urine is discernable In a word the Jaundice which sometimes solves the Disease the Alterations of the Pulse c. are sufficient to perswade the morosest of Antagonists I look upon it as needless either to trouble the Reader or my self here with that more curious as useful Question Which of the Blood 's two parts is most frequently affected It being in my Opinion not unreasonable to acknowledge in the same a more liquorous and crass Substance which is moved besides another more Spiritual or Aetherecal which moves All the Arguments alledged in favours of the Aetherecal Portion such as the power of Opiats in Curing Fevers and these continual as well as intermittent the Effects of the Fancy and Apprehension in the same Case the unchangableness of the Urin and Pulse in malign Fevers and the like By any judicious and skilled Physician will be as soon Answered as they can be Proposed Yea it seems to me highly probable that sometimes the one sometimes the other but most frequently both may be the Theatre of this unlucky Tragedy It was not unadvisedly that I preferred the word Exagitation or Commotion to that of Fermentation For by this means I not only evite all these Debates and Altercations which I have observed betwixt
the adjacent Parts that the Doctor nor none for him shall ever by rubbing or Attrition procure Heat to a sphacelat Member Where nevertheless there be Muscles and Bones both but wants Blood and Spirits Yea Fifthly I humbly think that not only Motion but the Motion of Determinat Sulphureous Oyly c. Particles is requisite to excite Heat Which in my Judgement may hence be proven That not only Sulphureous Bodies are most ready to contract Heat Flame c. and according as there is more or less Sulphur in the Body so the Heat will be the greater lesser or none at all but also the intestine and confused Motion of the Minute Particles may sometimes be intended without the increase of Heat yea with the production of a sensible degree of Cold to the very same Hand as may be learned from Boyle in his Mech Orig. of Heat and Cold I being at the time removed from my Books can neither Instance the Experiment nor Page but sure I am severals are there to be found And here by the by I would seriously advise to the uniting of these Two viz. The New Philosophy and Chymistry which to the great prejudice of solid Learning have too long been unluckily separat For the former being mainly taken up about Motion has almost intirely neglected the Matter While the latter on the other hand being as much concerned with the Matter have wholly over-looked the Motion What is said I think may suffice to evert our Author's Position When in his 8. § he engages to prove Heat in Fevers to be the genuine Effect of slow Motion in the Blood It being rather produced while the Motion thereof especially Intestine is intended and the sulphureous Particles do move as it were from the Center to the Circumference I proceed to the Second and ordinary Symptom of Fevers vix A frequent and hard beating Pulse which the experienced Slyvius to whom the Hypothesis of the Ancients was unsatisfying made enter the Definition of Fevers as the Genus Nevertheless this his Opinion is lyable to the same Censures with the former For neither the beginning of Fevers have still the Pulse augmented nor yet can we always call it a Fever where it is accelerate As in congrumate Blood Commotions of the Mind Worms contained in the Heart c. is easily demonstrable Moreover by the by I cannot but observe that these further Discoveries made in Anatomy about the Bile Succus Paner c. do noways destroy this Hypothesis which are nevertheless given by the Doctor as the only Reasons why he rejects it For it can very well stand without that prope and hath been and still is maintained by these who never adopted his Triumverat The Cause of this frequency of the Pulse I take to be nothing else as the frequent and violent Contraiction of the Heart by which the contained Blood is squeezed out and so distendeth the Arteries Thirdly It is also to be noticed that Cold is not only a Symptom of all Intermittent Fevers But frequently also it is observable in the beginning of Continual Ones Which Cold any person acquaint with the experimental Philosophy the Doctor pretends to be so much versed in will think to be a more native product of the slowness of the Blood 's Motion as Heat In a word the Coldness of the Members in persons troubled with Sounding where the Motion of the Blood as well Circular as Intestine together with the Pulse is sensibly diminished does abundantly prove it The Fourth and last of these Symptoms I purpose to speak of is a change in the Urine and it admits of the same Exceptions with the former as to malign Fevers which in respect of their Consistence generally turn thicker seldom thinner As to their Colour the Natural or Citrin is often turn'd red and fiery and sometimes pale and watry but especially in the beginning these are remarkable while in the Progress and Status they appear still red and thick In rendring Causes for these Phaenomena I noways incline to follow them who run instantly to Acids and Alkalies Albeit I readily grant this Hypothesis to be of pretty large extent and conveniently applicable to several Cases yet I cannot in all acquiesce in their Sentence for Reasons perhaps to be afterwards rendred I shall suppose now with the Excellent Bohn and Experience That the elemental parts of Urine are Water Salt Sulphur and Earth So that the Urine whose watry and limpid portion is most saturate with these Saline and Sulphureous Particles is always observed the thickest and crassest Hence I conclude the cause of thick and turbid Urine to consist in the confused Admistion and unequal Dissolution of the solid Particles in the aqueous Vehicle So sometimes we observe the Urine to be clear when voided and afterwards to turn thick crass and turbide Which is commonly called Vrina turbata And in my Opinion ariseth hence That these saline and earthy Particles being more closly and naturally insinuate in the Pores of the watry part when first voided do permit the Rays of the Sun to penetrat and so it appears Diaphanous But if afterwards either by their own gravity and looser Cohesion or by the constriction and straitning of the Pores of the Serum by the ambient frigid Air they chance to be turnèd out the passage to the Rays is thereby intercepted and the Urine turns turbide and opack as I formerly said Again it is sometimes evacuate turbide and persisteth in that confused condition whence it is named Vrina confusa and this is ordinary in the Increment and Status of Fevers Perhaps there being many Heterogeneous and Terreous Particles unequally mixed with the watry portion which nevertheless are so firmly adjoined to the Serum all being yet in a state of Crudity that neither by their proper weight nor by the help of the external Ambient can they be thence separate And Thirdly the same Urine is sometimes especially in the end of the Status and beginning of the Declination emitted Thick and Turbide but does shortly after become Clear and Limpide Probably the Concoction being then approaching these Heterogeneous Minima which being kept in motion in the Body did still run up and down the containing Liquor whereby if seemed confused do now being voided and acquiring rest yea some two or three or more of them joining together become heavier inspecie as the Serum and consequently of necessity must seek to the bottom where they constitute the Sediment But if they Hang in the midle they are called Suspensio and if they swime above go under the name of Nubecula Upon the other hand that Urine which should ordinarly represent and a Ly mid-way boiled does sometimes turn thinner and this especially in the beginning of acute Fevers is observable For the explaining of which it will not be impertinent to distinguish betwixt Vrinam potus and Vrinam Sanguinis for the Urine of the Drink being never digested in the Ventricle nor assimilate to the
Blood in the Veslels passeth the Reins without all alteration But the cause of this thin consistence in the Urine as we speak of the Blood may be a twofold Crudity First That in the Stomach where the Aliments being frustrate of their due Digestion cannot supply the Serum with its ordinary Salts And the second is that in the Reins whose Tubult being thereby obstructed admit only the thin and Watery excluding the gross and terreous particles The Citrine or natural Colour of the Urine as it depends in a natural state which I think none will deny from the saline and sulphureous Particle of the Chyle in the different Digestions extracted and more intimatly therewith commixed So from the greater or lesser quantity of these Minima admixed in a praeternatural state their Colour is sometimes highned sometimes darkned However I never intend to exclude other Causes such as congrumate Blood the use of Rhubarb c. And this shall suffice for the Changes of the Urine upon which I have insisted the longer because they are wholly neglected in the Vindicatory Schedule suppose of all others they give us the greatest Light both as to the Prognosticks and Cures of Fevers Neither was this Omission of the Doctors altogether without reason for not only the Signs of Crudity and Coction which ever have and still will be observed by Learned Physicians in Fevers and by which the New Method is intirely destroyed from them and them only are to be had but also few or none of the Moderns from whom the Doctor might expect help have write any thing tollerably of them Having briefly handled some few of these Symptoms with which a Fever is ordinarly attended I come next to enquire after the antecedent Causes which may and ordinarly do produce this Exagitation or Commotion in which I have been labouring to prove the continent Cause of Fevers to consist And these I think for the most part never intending to exclude all others will be found the following Four viz. Obstruction too violent Motion Natural Evacuation suppressed and especially Cruaâ—ties transferred into the Mass of Blood By Obstructions I would have nothing else understood as the Coagulation of that limpid and serous Humour which being secerned in the Subcutaneous or Miliar Glands is excerned through the Pores of the the whole Habit and that in no small plenty under the Name of Insensible Transpiration Which Excrement being condensed and coagulate by the cold ambient Air or any other Cause does interrupt not only the further Transpiration But also disturbs the whole Circulation in the capillary Vessels or rather muscular Fibers By which means the Motion of the subsequent Blood being intercepted the Fibres of the Muscles as well as these of the Vessels are irritate and thereby urged into frequent and irregular not unlike to Convulsions Contractions by which both the circular and intestine Motions of the Blood are notably intended and that which we call a Fever produced It being enough here for brevities sake to suppose from Pathologie that the Motion of Fluids is augmented either by the Movent Mobile or Canals And this account seems to me and I hope will also to others far more reasonable than with the Learned Author of the V. S. P. 106. seq to attribute Sense and Reason to gross and stupid Matter Concerning Obstructions more may perhaps be found hereafter when I come to consider our Author 's New and Mechanical Hypothesis For of all other Causes I look upon them as the most seldom It is easie to gather from what is immediatly said that these Anastomoses or Inosculations of the Arteries and Veins which with the Ancients some of the Learned Moderns do admire as very convenient if not absolutly necessary for the Explication of the animal Functions are not by me admitted I desire to move a Debate to no Man therefore shall suffer them to abound in their own Sense who embrace them providing they will only allow me to give some Reasons why I reject them Without which I never have neither I think ever shall adopted or repudiat any Opinion because it was defended by this or impugned by the other Man And to let alone Secretion and Nutrition which to me these Inosculations being granted seem altogether unexplicable There be two Experiments to be found in some place of the Learned Bohn his Cire Anat. I not having the Book by me cannot design the Page but sure I am of them having oftner as once seen them tryed which do clearly evince the Bloods Extravasation As First Inject with a Syphon tepid water into an Arterie v. g. of the Arm of any subject whatsomever a knot being cast upon its fellow Vein The Water will never run out at the wounded Vein it being lanced betwixt the Ligature and the Arterie till the whole Arm and Hand be exceedingly distended i. e. The Pores of the Muscles be all replenished Secondly Injection being made of melted Wax into an Arterie as also of the same but of another colour into its neighbour Vein They will be found to have penetrate to the extremities of both the capillary Vessels but especially in the Arteries the Valves hindring much in the Veins but we shall never discern any intermediate Canal communicating with both The grand yea only Objection formed against this Opinion is That this Extravasation being admitted a continual Hemorhagie must of necessity follow and that the Blood would rather diffuse it self through the Flesh as enter the small capillary Veins This Objection indeed appears to be plausible and to create some difficulty But yet there is nothing in it what serious and after reflection will not easily remove which were no hard matter to shew if my design and leasure did not hinder me now I shall at this time only desire the Objectors to consider and say whether or not there be any difficulty in the Extravasation of the Blood which is not in each of the following Three Observations I offer to their consideration The First of which is That ordinary way of separating Waters from Oyls commonly called Filtratio per Elychnium where the Water or Oyl any of them in which the Cotton is dipped will by means of the Wool be carried from one Glass to another without the loss of so much as a drop And why pray may not the Blood be carried the very same way by the fleshy Fibers from one Vessel to another especially since the Tonick Motion of the Parts and influx of the Artereal Blood do help much Whereas the Experiment with the Oyl hath no other Assistant than the gravity of the Air. Secondly That Experiment first tried by Burnerus de Paner and afterwards succeeding to others as also to my self does in my weak Judgement not a litle confirm what I am saying And it is this Blow with a Tub into the Weazand of a Goose whose Intestine being tyed nothing can descend the Flatus will enter the open Extremities of the Mesaraick Veins and
tend to the vena porta From which Experiment without any constraint the following Conclusion I think may be drawn That the capillary Veins may be open and yet no Hemorhagie or Effusion of Blood will follow Thirdly This is further made probable per purgationem menctruam where no doubt the capillary Vessels by which that Excretion does happen are always patent There being none I think who will affirm that they being otherways closed should at the due and set time get open If that were objected I know no other cause that could with the least appearance of Reason be assigned for their so doing save the Blood it self which being yielded it could hardly be refused that whatever gave the Cause the first being would beyond all question still endeavour its perpetuation from whence there must of necessiry arise a continual Hemorhagie the contrary whereof is nevertheless dayly experienced What needs more these Anastomoses are repuggnant to Reason and they yet never appeared to the Senses The Second of the antecedent Causes I alledged to be too violent Motions of the Body I may perhaps also add these of the Mind It were needless to produce Observations for proving this my Assertion there being abundance to be had from the general Collectors I mean Forrest Schenkins Hildanus and others I shall rather explain the ways by which they seem to produce their Effects Which may be the following Two First By attenuating the Blood and accelerating its Motion as well Circular as Intestine Which is done either by rarefying it self or by opening the Pores and admitting calorifick Atoms Though this last chances very rarely for it rather happens that the Pores being dilated cold Particles get entry by which these Obstructions formerly mentioned are procured And this I think may be the other way too violent Motions work in exciting a Fever In the Third place ordinary Evacuations suppressed come under our Consideration whose concurrence I expect by none will be denied Seing that not only Blood-letting prevents yea sometimes Cures Continual Fevers but also Nature it self does frequently endeavour and sometimes obtain its own Relief by bleeding at the Nose and elsewhere But this as a thing conceded by all I shall leave and rather consider the Description afforded us by our Author of insensible Transpiration it being of all most frequently suppressed in which he shews nothing of that knowledge and exactness that might reasonably be expected from an Author of a New Method It 's needless to mention how impertinently and prolixly he insists not only upon the Invention Utility and Greatness of this Secretion But he must needs discourse also of Chylification Respiration and fixed Salts how skilfully shall be afterwards shewn all which are transcribed from Sanctorius Majou Etmuller c. and for any thing I can see upon no other Design save to enlarge the bulk of his Book For all that can any ways concern Fevers in that large 9. § consisting of 14 Pages may be easily contained in seven Lines Yea surely it must argue no small Folly in a Man to bring in such stuff as neither the subject requires nor he himself understands First How he makes the Air the principal efficient of Transpiration I cannot understand for to any considering Man it is evident that the Ambient by its Gravity and Elasticity will rather impede as promove it But that I may shew him all the Favour I can I suppose it is rather that which according to him is mixed with the Blood in Inspiration he here intends Yet in the mean time it is no small Debate whether the Air be mixed with the Blood in Respiration or not as he may see in Harvey de Circ San. Higemore Disq Anat. Needham de Form Fort. c. And really it must be confessed there want not Reasons on both sides However grant it were so none who hath the least knowledge in Physiology will call it the efficient Cause of Transpiration That being acknowledged by all to be nothing else as the circular Motion of the Blood which nevertheless noways depends upon Respiration as Maurocordatus would have it The Doctor may make the Experiment in himself it being in his power to stop his Breathing though not the Bloods Circulation Ay there is no School Boy in the Kingdom but knows that by Runing the Circulation is accelerate the Pulse augmented and insensible Transpiration intended to Sweat Secondly By what Figure our Author comes to call that no natural Excretion in the 128 Page which in the 119 he says and that truly does twise exceed all other Evacuations whatsomever perhaps he himself hardly does know Unless it be for the Reason immediatly after Page 128 subjoined viz. That Sweat is only profitable in so far as it shuns a greater Evil was ever such Reasoning heard For what pray are all other Evacuations natural or are any whatsomever natural Nay really by this New Method of Reasoning they are not Thirdly Who will ever believe that insensible Transpiration suppressed condenseth and thickneth the Blood while in the mean time except what goes to the Spirits its thinnest and subtilest Portion is thereby retained and so by its abode does rather render it thin and aqueous than crass and viscid Yea all Practitioners whatsomever advise Sweating as a fit and proper Expedient to render the Blood thick and consequently its suppression insensible Transpiration and Sweating differing only secundum majus minus must have the contrary effect in making it thin Will the Doctor answer These condensed Particles being absorbed and carried back do of necessity render the other more viscid But to this I reply These by their being suppressed do not only impede the Excretion of Twenty times as many thinner and watry ones and thereby abundantly compense their own thickness but also it will appear no great Paradox to say that these crass and absorbed ones are by the far greater quantity of the Blood and its continual Motion reduced to their former and limpid condition By all which it is clear that insensible Transpiration suppressed rather attenuates as thickens the Blood contrary to the mind of the Author of the V. S. P. 126. And hence I conclude that all or most part the stoping of insensible Transpiration does in procuring Fevers is only by creating Obstructions and so disturbing the Blood in its Motion The Last and by far the most frequent of the Four named antecedent Causes of Fevers viz. Crudities conveyed into the Mass of the Blood do as yet remain To insist in proving of this which is universally acknowledged were a meer consumption of Time and Paper Yea from hence it is that the generality of the Moderns have perswaded themselves that the Formality of a Fever consisted in a Fermentation Conceiving this Heterogeneous Body under the Notion of a Ferment which when it could not be assimilate to the Mass of Blood did therein raise an Effervessence I gave my Reasons before why I could not fight under their Banner
who delight in the Terms of Ferment and Fermentation therefore shall not repeat them here I think then in few words a Fever may not be ineptly conceived as a Wrestling or Strugling betwixt Nature and what is Heterogeneous thereto under which it does either succumb or expel whatever is offensive and injurious to it There are Two Things here to be noticed ere I further proceed First When I speak of Crudities transferred to the Blood I understand not only Crudities proceeding from the first ways though I easily grant these to be the most ordinary which may be inferred not only from the great efficacy we find in Emeticks in the Cure of Continual as well as Intermittent Fevers but also from the great Hurt daily observed in them both by Errors committed in the first Digestion but admits also morbisick Atoms or Effluvia which may enter either by the Pores or Respiration from the ambient Air As likeways Raments from Ulcerous Scirrous and Gypseous pardon these uncouth Terms for I can give none more plain Viscera Secondly I must own my dissent from these otherways Learned Men who are pleased to call this Ferment as they speak always Acide For as I could never forgive them who endeavour to build all upon no surer Fundation as an Acid and Alcali so I can hardly either pardon these who trouble us so much with them in Physick And that for many Reasons without which I 'le deny no Mans Hypothesis but especially the following Three 1. Their Expeperiments and Arguments prove noways what they are brought for 2. In their Explication of both Acid and Alcali they are still very obscure and could never satisfy me yea I believe hardly themselves And 3. A great many Phaenomena ex gr Gravity Levity Colours c. Are by them unaccountable But besides these Reasons against the Hypothesis in general I shall endeavour to obviate the Arguments produced for it here in particular The chief of which I take to be the following Two First According to the different degree and increase of the Fever the Urine is also observed to intend and heighten its Colour and that not unlike to those who are impregnat with Acids v. g. Vinegar Spirit of Salt c. To which I answer by granting the whole though not always yet frequently to be so as also that it may perhaps be that this Ferment may sometimes prove Acide Yet that this change of Colour is always and only the Effects of Acids I positively deny seing by Saline and Sulphureous Agents the same may be wrought and dayly is in statu sano in which nevertheless no Acid has ever yet been obseâ—ved In a word they commit that general Error in Physick as well as in Philosophy of forming from particular Experiments general Hypotheses So observing Acids and Alcalies to Ferment they have laid it down as an universal Axiom that wherever Fermentation is found there must of necessity an Acid and Alcalie exist while yet succeeding Experiments inform us that very high Acids v. g. Oyl of Vitriol Butter of Antimony besides many others which can be instanced by such as are aquaint with Chymistry will effervesce together Their other Argument which is of the same force is taken from the great and good Effect of Salts Salia salsa I mean which are composed of Acids and Alcalies and constitute a Third very different from both Testaceous and Alcalick Powders in Curing of Fevers Which being contrary to Acids makes them conclude dum contraria contrarus curantur the morbifick Cause to be always soure To this it may be replyed That they fall into the same Fault which was reprehended in the former viz. Of drawing universal Conclusions from particular Premises For I can safely say that Acids themselves v. g. Spir. salis Elyxir Vitrioli Mynsichti c. are frequently and that not without desirable success imployed in Fevers It were very easie yet further to move a great many Arguments against this Hypothesis Such as an artificial Fever excited by the Inunction of the Oyl of Beetls Fevers not unfrequently owing their arise to Fear Anger c. but I suppose it needless Having already insisted longer on this as I designed I proceed to the Division after I have told what every person at least Physician knows that the Procatartick Causes which give occasion to the Antecedent and set them a working be the sex res non naturales I shall neither trouble my self nor my Reader with that infinite Division of Fevers to be had in Sylvius and others thinking it enough to consider the following Four under which all others may be easily comprehended And First They are divisible into Continual and Intermittent Which Continual may again be divided into these called Continentes which from the beginning to the end without all exacerbation observe the same Schem And into these called Continuas which never leave the Body without a Fever but yet have Exacerbations sometimes once a day and then they are called Continuae Quotidianae sometimes once in two days when they go under the Name of Continuae Tertianae c. And to me they appear nothing else as a Continent and Intermittent Fever joined together Secondly Fevers are devided into Benign and Malign Thirdly Into Acute and Lent And Fourthly Into Primary and Secundary or Symptomatick All that hath already been said is concerning Continual Fevers and applicable to them So I proceed to consider these called Intermittent which have created as great Trouble to Physicians in this Age in assigning them a true and congrous Cause as they did to these in the former in finding a proper and successful Cure I cannot now stay to cribrate the various Sentiments of different Authors but shall propose what to me seems most probable which in few words is this Every Paroxism of an Intermittent Fever is Analogous to an intire Continual one and hath its arise from Crudities carried through the first Ways and Vasa lactea into the Mass of Blood in which they being thereto hardly assimilable raise and excite these Tumults before described And do now constitute a Quotidian now a Tertian now a Quartan c. at one time an Erratick at another time a Periodical Fever First Because of the Matter which is now more copious now more scant now crasser and thicker now thinner and fluider in one person at certain in another person at uncertain times thither transferred Secondly Because of the diversity of the subject the Blood of one being easilier set a working as that of another In a word when ever there comes so much Matter to the Blood as can raise a strugling therein a Paroxism is produced But after all I think no shame to confess that there occurrs to me somewhat here which seems unaccountable and therefore I shall never obtrude upon others what I do not enough understand my self Benign Fevers are these called Continual but not accompanied with these horrid Symptoms which being present do give them the Name of
Ages Constitutions and Sexes is a practice which neither Reason perswades to nor Experience allows of We all acknowledge and not without Cause that our Life and Strength consists in our Blood It 's also confessed that Nature and Strength do Cure Diseases The Physician only assisting where Nature is weak and directing when she 's wrong Why then do we evacuate that Blood which we expect should Cure the Disease and relieve the Patient Ay but say some with the Doctor The ill Blood comes away and leaves the good behind I answer this is a Reason so ridiculous in its self and so repuguant to the Laws of the Circulation that hardly any save Gardners Old-wives c. to whom that Noble Invention is a Mystery will ever pretend it For whatever comes to the Vein good or evil is also evacuate Yea the Evil is so intermixed with the Good that till it self have made a separation no Art can disjoin them For Example suppose a sick Man having in his Body Twelve Pounds of Blood Eight of which are Good and Four Evil Now being all circulate through the Heart at least twise every quarter of an Hour is there any Man so absurd as to affirm that only the Evil and only at that time will come to the Vein which is wounded while the Good being strangely sagacious and desirous to stay in the sick persons Body to restore him his Health will go to the other and remoter places Is there I say any Man so absurd as to maintain this prodigious Fancy Nay I think it is far more credible that of the whole Twelve one Pound being evacuate two parts will be Good and one Evil just as it was in the Body And all the Advantage which the Patient by Bleeding does reap is only this That before he had Twelve Pounds of Blood Eight whereof were Good and Four Evil but now he hath only Eleven in all whereof Seven Pound with Four Ounces are Good and Three Pound with Eight Ounces are Evil. However the Doctor for his timous assistance to this decaying Opinion deserves to be listed with if not to get the precedence among the forenamed Medicasters For says he P. 151 As in a River we observe the heterogeneous Body still to tend towards the Brink so in the Veins the feculent and ill Blood runs to their sides and runs first out while the finer returns to the Heart A notable Invention indeed to preserve this feculent and exploded Figment What way pray can the fine Blood return not by the Arteries that being absolutely impossible for grant their Motion should invert which yet no Man of common Sense will imagine the three Semilunar Valves do still hinder Neither by the Vein for your Band put betwixt the Orifice and the Heart stops the passage So that of necessity whatever enters the Vein good as well as bad runs out at the Wound For do we not see that the Ligature being removed and passage being granted neither good nor bad appears a sure Evidence that it being present both of them evacuates When Doctor Brown finds the third way he hath gained the point If the Doctor had only given this as an Answer to some of the impertinent Questions of a Patient I could have forgiven him and applauded his Wit but seriously to propose it in a printed Book is absolutly inexcusable The Chirurgical Fountain does further supply us with Vesicator Platsters from which in Fevers whatsomever we obtain no small Advantage But especially in Malign and where the Head is affected yea in all Cephalick Distempers their use by reiterated Experience is approven But there being no debate about them and their use I proceed to Pharmacie which assists us with moe Weapons to strugle against this destructive Enemy The First whereof shall be Vomiters which providing they be timously and warily administrate do oftentimesnip the Evil in the very Bud and by stricking at the Root do with one blow dislodge this unkind Guest From what hath been said I suppose that for the most part the Antecedent Cause of a Fever comes from the Ventricle If then in the beginning of the Malady before the Antecedent Cause be all transferred to the Mass of the Blood and there become the Continent we use this Remedy we do thereby purge the Stomach withdraw the Matter and either extinguish or at least so notably asswage the Fury of the Fever that after it is hardly ever able to make great disturbance Nevertheless they are not to be given indiscriminatly but with great wariness as all other Remedies whatsomever Albeit the D. in his whole Book hardly ever mentions one Caution And First We are to consider where the Matter does lodge For if the Antecedent Cause should be any Evacuation supprest great Motion and the like There could be nothing more ridiculous than to advise Vomiting but if it be in the Stomach which is easily known by the Hypocondria Swelling frequent Rifting Nauseating c. they can hardly be neglected but with the Patients eminent danger Providing his Constitution Age shape of Body and other Distempers v. g. Hemorhagy adjoined do not disswade it All which being carefully observed they are most innocent as well as powerful Remedies in the beginning of Fevers It is likeways to be noticed that if the Circumstances require Bleeding it ought to preceed Vomiting lest by the shaking of the Body some small Vessel burst Next I come to Diaphoreticks which I may truly call the universal Cure of Fevers Nature pointing with its Finger to their use while in the universal Declination of Continual and in the parricular Declination of Intermittent Fevers Sweat breaks forth in a very great plenty This nevertheless is the Method which our Author rejects wherefore I shall take the more pains to confirm it Which I 'le endeavour to do by the following Three First By declaring how they work Secondly By giving some Reasons why we use them And Thirdly By answering the seeming Objections instanced by D. Brown against them About the First I need not be very prolix for if we consider what Conditions are requisite to insensible Transpiration and Sweating in a state natural Betwixt which there is no greater difference as that in the former the Matter is excerned in a lesser quantity and so absorbed by the Cloaths or ambient Air under the name of Vapour whereas in the latter or Sweat it chances in a greater abundance and so cannot be sweept up but rather constitutes Drops called Sweat I say whoever will be at the pains to consider the Conditions requisite for this insensible Transpiration and Sweating while they are natural Which are Fluxibility in the Liquor a due Amplitude in the Pores and a Briskness in the circular Motion will easily understand how Diaphoreticks work when given according to Art Whatever can either attenuat the Blood in its Consistence quicken it in its Motion or dilate and amplify the Miliar Glands and Pores will certainly procure Sweat And such
the Blood not in the first Ways In the 165 Page the Doctor inculcates a new the damage of meer Diaphoreticks for I shall do him the Justice to conceal none of his Arguments and the Reason is this Because thereby the Vascous matter is impelled to the Pores in great abundance and so begetteth new Obstructions And which is wonderful to prevent this Inconveniency he adviseth the use of Paregoricks which as all the World knows do incrassate extremely and so instead of weakning the Malady he strengthneth its Hands However I would have the Doctor to know this Fear of his to be vain and groundless we never forcing the Matter till once incided and till we observe the Signs of Coction in the Urine as shall afterwards God willing be said Neither is the Philosophick Comparison which he brings to illustrate this his Argument beyond all exception For the greatest Fool in the Kingdom does know that the Church Doors can be no way dilated or widned whereas we know certainly that occasion requiring the Pores of the Body may be double enlarged and distended It is in the 167 Page where the Doctor runs to that pitch of Boldness as to exclaim against a Method direct to a Crisis Boldness I must call it and the Reader will perhaps judge worse of it when he considers with me that there be only Four Ways by which Diseases are terminateâ— whereof a Crisis is ever desired as the best Which happens when after â—wrestling betwixt the Disease and Nature the last at length obtains the Victory and with one blow ejects this its hostile Enemy Which is done sometimes by Bleeding at the Nose sometimes by Purging sometimes by Vomiting but an hundred times for one by Sweating The second Solution of Diseases is that by Physicians called Lysis When there comes no critical Motion which is still desired by all it being beyond all question the best but rather the Malady decays slowly and gradually and this is most frequent in thir our Cold Countries Thirdly the morbifick Matter is sometimes discussed or translated from one place to another per Metastasin which if it happen to be from a nobler to a meanner it is good although it were better to have it altogether expelled the Body by a Crisis but if it chance contrary is most dangerous The Fourth and last way of Diseases terminating is by Death when the morbisick Matter subduing Nature renders the organical Body uncapable of obeying the Inclinations of the reasonable Soul so that it must needs forsake its Mansion and leave it a dead Cadaver If there be any other way of Diseases terminating they do not to me now occurr yea after sometimes thinking I cannot conceive them Now let my Reader yea D. Brown himself judge how good reason he hath to cry out against that Method which aims at a Crisis Before I leave Diaphoreticks it will be necessary to inform the Reader that neither in the Beginning nor Increment of the Fever we imploy them yea never till we have once incided and attenuate the Matter with proper and convenient Medicaments do we use them And then when we behold the Signs of Coction in the Urine we hasten away the Malady sometimes with weaker sometimes with stronger Medicines just as the Circumstances allow and advise It is also worth noticing that there is no material Difference betwixt Inciders and Diaphoreticks For every Incider providing its Dose be augmented will prove Diaphoretick And whatsomever provokes Sweat given more sparingly does only incide Wherefore whatever hath been said in defence of Sudorisicks may also be applyed to Inciders Especially since they are repudiate by the Doctor for one and the same Cause which to speak the Truth is none at all Purging comes next to be discoursed of for neither can the Cure of Fevers always want their Assistance which nevertheless are not to be advised as D. Brown does at all times and of all kinds Wherefore I shall here shew First When and how they are and have been imployed by Physicians in all Ages Secondly Bring some Arguments against the perpetual use of such of them as properly go under the Name of Purges And Thirdly endeavour to obviate any Arguments afforded by the Doctor in their behalf Before I go farther I am necessitate to observe and complain that the Author should have Printed a new Method and yet never so much as once inform us when and to what Patients it is and safely may be applyed Nor yet does he mention the Medicaments he then imployeth none of which besides many other things ought to have been neglected by him who presumed to Write an intire Method but far less by the Author of a New One. For whoever hath the least knowledge in Physick cannot but be sufficiently acquaint with the difficulty of purging where a few hours some few grains or some conttrary Indicants may readily bring Death to the Patient And really for my part suppose I were sufficiently convinced both of the Reasonableness and Success of D. Brown's New Method which nevertheless without other Arguments as I have yet seen I never will be yet I durst not upon that trivial and superficial account he gives of it adventure to use it But to return to the things proposed in prescribing of Purges to persons in Fevers we are to consider 1. The Division of Purges as it in the 10 and last Axiome in Laxantia propriè purgantia 2. The different times of the Disease also above in the 9 Axiome specified are carefully to be observed And 3. The Malignity sometimes adjoined is by no means to be neglected for at certain times to give a Purge when it is present it is not without great and imminent danger So that by Physitians of all ages not only the Begninnig but also in the Increment and status of the Disease where there is no Malignity present in which condition the very giving of a Clyster was still suspected these Purges called Laxantia which go no farther as the first ways have over been advised Which Laxantia are sometimes given at the Mouth and so respect the Ventricle with the rest of the Intestines but oftner they are applyed in the form of a Clyster which reaches no farther as the valves of the Intestine Colon nevertheless by there stimulating augment the peristaltick motion of the whole and help the Excretion of the Faeces contained therein Yet sometimes in the beginning and before the antecedent cause be turned into the continent by its going from the Ventricle and first ways to the Mass of the Blood it may not be improper to advise a Purge However were I the Physician I had rather if all circumstances allowed thereof and for the most part make use of Emeticks which do ordinarly cause also three or four Stools But the use of Purges properly so called is frequently delayed till the solution of the whole Distemper if critical Motions advise not the contrary when concluding some of the Morbifick matter
ordinary and which he in his Treatise de Curand Febr Con. had both practised himself and commended to others And by this time I think it is clear how little reason D. Brown hath to boast of Sydenhams Authority No it is a meer Fiction of D. Browns to apply to all occasions what D. Sydenham meaned only of particular Constitutions How can D. Brown think to impose upon us at this rate he must thinke us all very negligent and so we do not read or else very ignorant and so cannot understand what we do Read Truly it seems we must be both according to his Calculation But grant D. Sydenham were of this mind as it is clear he is not what then does follow For we all know and believe that no honest nor ingegenuous Man will wittingly and wilingly cheat or deceive yet we count it no Heresy to think and say both that out of ignorance and uncircumspectness he may What concerns the unparalelled danger he was saved from I fear least in using that as a cogent Argument the Doctor prove himself as ill a Divine as all along in his Book he he appears to be a Physician There being no doubt but that Gods good Providence is still Exercised about all things good as well as bad permiting and suffering them to his own wise and good ends and small as well as great Yet that special acts of preservation will either prove the person himself or the end for which he is preserved to be good in its self for I know and believe that God does nothing but what some way or other tends to his own Glory as also to His Peoples Good eventually as the permitting of an Impostor c. and intentionally is a thing which I very much doubt For we know they are the Wicked who prosper in their way while the Righteous are chastened every Morning And suppose he and all the Episcopal Clergy in the Kingdom should Swear that the French King's Deliverance from his Fistula was for some good end and great benefit to Mankind yet I shall ever look on him as the Scourge of the True Reformed Religion which God at length will I hope cast into the Fire And by this way of Reasoning the Doctor will answer Epicmus his Objection against Providence Cur males benè bonis malè by granting the whole It is no small Evidence of the Doctor 's desperate Cause when he flies to such Arguments for the maintenance thereof as the Commendations bestowed by Learned Men upon the person whom he would perswade us though falsely to be the Author thereof But especially considering that these Encomiums were given before the Hypothesis was known For Etmuller died at Lypsick Anno 1683. Sponius write his Epistle An 1681. Dalaeus his Encyclopaedia An 1685. Whereas the Schedula Monitoria never saw Light till the Year 1687. If then there be any strength in that Argument as I think there is none it militates intirely against the New Method Their Commendations being given upon account of the old professed and practised in his Book de Meth Curand Febr the Schedula Monitoria not being at that time published Doctor Morton is indeed a Great Man and deservedly esteemed by our Author for his excellent Treatise written formerly de Pihisi as also for his late Book de Febribus wherein as I am informed I not having indeed perused it as yet which I am almost ashamed to profess he does noways follow our Doctor 's New Method which is no great proof of his overvaluing it Nevertheless upon other Scores he might and that deservedly too applaude D. Sydenhame Concerning these Excellent Men Goodall Harris c. I have nothing to say but perhaps it might be that in some Epidemick and Anomalous Fever they did find that Method successful and so did imploy it But surely therefore it must not be applyed to all And now I think I have sufficiently Answered our Doctor 's Arguments as also confirmed the contrary Hypothesis Yet there remains one which both in his Books but especially among his Admirers and Patients he principally insists on viz. His great and successful Experience This is a thing the greatest Empericks boast most of yea they will hardly grant a Patient ever to have died in their Hands I have nothing to say against Experience it self it being with Reason the Foundation of Physick Neither will I here in an English Book discover the Fraud of some Mens Experience but I will offer to the Reader 's and the Doctor 's Consideration the Five following Things 1. I wish the Doctor were as ingenuous to tell us how many Died as he is careful to publish how many Recovered by this his New Method 2. To one I can oppose a hundred not only of such as were Cured by Old and Antiquated Physicians but of such as live and practise in this very Age. 3. As blessed be God all our Patients do not Die so neither I suppose do all the Doctor 's Recover And surely if any of these two were it would be a far more effectual mean to gain the Doctor Imployment as his writing of the Vindicatory Schedule No Thanks be to the Physician of Souls we have no reason to complain 4 How many persons Recover not only when no Mean is used but even when that which is certainly Evil is applyed So that a litle success in a few Patients deserves not the Name of sound Experience in Physick Especially when 5. we are sometimes right uncertain whether the Apothecary hath rightly dispensed or the Patient rightly used that which the Physician prescribed None of which Doubts are without all ground as too frequent Experience tells us and I could easily evince But I have no Inclination to discover my Father's Nakedness As for what he brings in the 14 Sect. for corroborating his Theory of Fevers from the Helpers and Hurters c. as things of small Moment and savouring nothing save Ignorance in Anatomy and Physiology I pass them As also the Solutions he gives of Difficulties moved against it are of the same Mettal as hath clearly been shewn in his Account of Sanguification Chylification c. Only it deserves the Reader 's Attentation that Page 77. where he proposeth that true and most probable Method as he is pleased to call it I find mention and only mention of Paregoricks without any Advertisement how and when they ought to be used albeit of all Medicaments whatsomever they should be advised with the greatest Cautions I shall neither insist on them nor their use They be these unto which both he and we are forced to flie when other Refuges fail And they be of two sorts First Such as either by obtunding the Acrimony of the Humours or laxing the Tone of the Fibers do really mitigate the Pain by removing somewhat the Cause and they are commonly called Auodyns And the others are these who do not remove the Cause but lay it a sleep and renders it quiet by stupefying the Senses and they go under the Name of Narcoticks Concerning the first or Anodyns there is here no question they being frequently applied outwardly But for Narcoticks I cannot conceive upon what account he adviseth them in Fevers except when Symptoms grievously urge unless it be to stop critical Evacuations there being hardly any thing which does it more happily And if this be a good Design whatever the Doctor may pretend let the World judge Now to shut up all I shall lay down a brief Scheme of that Method which we dayly and Blessed be God with good Success practise and I have been here labouring to defend I say a brief one for I noways pretend to play the Dictator but only to shew in few words what it is I have been wrestling for Yea there are so many Circumstances and Accidents which both may and frequently do occurr and fall out about feverish Persons that they make it absolutly impossible to commit all to Paper what a skilled and judicious Physician will find expedient When then called to a Patient in the First Second or Third Day after he hath found a Coldness and Grewing through his whole Body which is ordinarly accompanied with or at least is shortly after followed with a Pain in the Head and Lassitude of the whole together with a frequent Pulse red and thick Urine great Thirst dejection of Appetite Watching Heat c. By which we easily conjecture a Fever to infest I say when called to such a Patient immediatly if his Age Sex Evacuations suppressed kind of Life c. do allow we advise Bleeding more or less as the several Circumstances permit however if need so require we think it still safer to evacuate at different times as all at once But the Prohibents exceeding the Permittents it ought to be totally neglected After that if the Patient hath been or is yet troubled with Nauseating Rifting c. a Vomiter providing nothing disswading the same be present is next advised And then through the whole Course of the Cure our principal aim is levelled at the Continent or Conjunct Cause of the Disease which by giving Inciders and Aperients ever till we observe the Signs of Coction in the Urine we labour to Incide and Digest Which Signs appearing with stronger Sudorificks we assist Nature endeavouring its own Liberation and so we bring the Malady to a Crisis or rather Lysis In the mean time we neither neglect the consideration of the Strength according to the second Axiom Nor yet do we forget the Antecedent Cause as is in the first but partly by Clysters partly by Laxants given at the Mouth we absorbe and cleanse the first Ways and so prevent the further accumulating of Crudities which by running into the Mass of the Blood might increase the Fever And while these are a doing with proper and fit Medicaments we provide yet even sometimes as it is in the fifth Axiom with the neglect of the primary Disease against the urgent Symptoms such as Thirst Watching c. After this Method God assisting we Cure Tutò Citò Jucunde FINIS