powerful Remedies a slower and more uncertain yet seemingly milder for such as have patience and will run the hazard Diseases may of themselves for a time be quieted and their Fermentation interrupted and sometimes also by Art to good purpose but never was any Cured without Evacuation general or particular natural or artificial as by Vomiting Seige Vrine Sweat Sneezing Imposthumations or other Eruptions Bâ—â—oding Fluxing Blistering or Cupping with or without Scarifications according to the sound Judgment of a well experienced and honest Physitian And of this his late Majesty hath been a late famous Example when attacqued with that dreadful Fit to the terrour of the whole Nation who was only relieved by speedy Evacuation of all sorts Which fair way of Practice would not scare Patients with an Apothecary's Bill amounting to 15 l. or 20 l. in an ordinary Case It may boldly be affirmed that Cordials commonly in Use never Cured any Distemper which would not as certainly have been Cured without them 'T is confest many Cordials so called tend towards Evacuation by Vrine or Sweat and some to Sweetning and Quieting the former do very little or nothing assist Nature in comparison to larger Evacuation and the latter only Palliate or Quiet for the present and soon after the Torrent if not prevented by Evacuations breaks forth again with greater Violence the proper use of Cordials being with more speed to restore Spirits exhausted by Labour violent Workings of Physick or Diseases already in a great measure overcome because Potu citius quam Cibo reficimur For otherwise Impura Corpora quo magis nutrieris èo magis laeseris And consequently Cordials then hurt more than help As for Example Compare a Disease in the Body to a Parcel of Wood in a Chamber which always incumbers though sometimes without danger and admit an unexpected Fire kindles that Wood as an accident may rouse a latent Ferment in the Body then the Room becomes in danger of burning and the Patient of being destroyed by a Feaver or the like The Question will be What may best secure this Chamber and Patient Whether with Water to extinguish the Fire and leave it smothering and more apt to receive a new Inflamation Or suffer it to burn out whereby the Chamber is also indangered Or cause it to be carried away by a brisk stout Fellow So whether to palliate the Patient's Disease with a quieting Medicine to bridle the present Ferment leaving still behind some uneasie Symptomes the Reliques of an Imperfect Cure or Chronical Distemper instead of the Feaver Or suffer the Feaver to make its own way and Nature to struggle for the Mastery to the hazard of the Patients Life Or by proper and powerful Catharticks or other Evacuants carry off this Morbifick Matter this Fomes and cause of those Appearances which by mistake are called Diseases For Instance A Feaver continual or intermitting a Vomiting or Looseness a Cholick or Convulsion Jaundice or Dropsies c. are no more the Disease than a Cholera Morbus Feaver and Convulsion caused by the taking Poyson is then the Disease Whether therefore at such a time a quieting astringent Opiate may more properly be administred for the Patient's Recovery than a Cup of Sack for the Relief of a wearied Porter would be more acceptable than the taking the Burden off his Back Sickness may be said to be the various Passions of the Body which happen when Nature is attempting to free it self from whatever is troublesome or useless or thus every Humour received bred or so altered within the Body as by reason of its quantity or quality is unapt to be converted into the Use or Nourishment of the same but è contra irritates interrupts or burthens either the Natural Vital or Animal Functions Nature therefore for the most part attempts to expel as a Disease whatever it cannot digest into Use by Fermentation arising from a Confusion of the Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Matter or Humour retaining the first for the Service of the Body and expelling the last as Excrementitious and possibly most purging Medicines work no other way but as a Ferment cast in to awaken Nature by the help of which Fermentation Diseases are often purged away by the strength of Nature through the common Vents or Emunctories as by Siege Vrine Sweat Haemorrhages or Nature otherwise throws off some or all of the Morbifick Matter upon the habit of the Body or remote Parts where it after becomes a Chronicle Disease or Tumour as Gout Scurvey Bubo c. These Expulsions are either Critick or Symptomatical Critical when Nature dischargeth the Whole or greater Part and Symptomatical when the Peccant Matter so abounds as to destroy or at least endanger or incommode the Patient by attacquing him in several Parts and different Manners notwithstanding the Particular Evacuations The true and only Causes of all Obstructions and Diseases are the Abuse of or Errours in the six Non-naturals Solutio continui Contusions venemous Stingings and Contagion may also be reduced under the same Heads which Errours alter and vitiate the Humours and they the Solid Parts Observe therefore That Health is preserv'd by Good Ayre Wholsome Meat and Drink Moderate Excretion Retention Regular Exercise and Rest Fitting Sleep and Watching Orderly Passions of the Mind and lost by Bad Ayre Vnwholsome Meat and Drink Immoderate Excretion Retention Irregular Exercise and Rest Unfitting Sleep and Watching Disorderly Passions of the Mind Which six Particulars are both the Cause and Cure of Sickness and Health Temperance therefore and Content goes a great way in its Preservation In short Repletion and Inanition or if you please Addition and Substraction with the Passions cause all Diseases the first by receiving what is unfit in Quantity or Quality for the Support of the Body or retaining what ought to be discharged as Useless the last by not supplying what is necessary for the Support of the Body or expelling too soon by Wound Purge or otherways what is so supplied and ought longer to have been retained By these means the Blood is either coagulated whence Stagnation and Suffocation or rarified so as the Spirits get loose and vanish by both which Death only enters Diseases produced by the forementioned six Non-naturals are to be distinguished by their taste colour and consistence as Bitter and Yellow Sower and Greenish Salt and Glassy Insipid and Viscous And were antiently the four Simple Humors called Excrementitious Choler and Phlegme Whey and Melancholly of which only the two former are allowed by the Learned Lister together with the various Compounds and Mixtures of these which when they exceed their Limits and predominate bring forth divers Symptomes or as they are often called Complicated Distempers according to the several parts they possess sprouting up like many Branches from one and the same Trunk Thus Medicine over-dosed and Food in an undue quantity create dangerous Humours or Diseases for a Scruple of Mercury precipitate a Dram of Opium
recover strength and much sooner than no Remedy or but a weak one Here followeth a Short Direction formerly designed for the English Army in Flanders THe Poverty and Discontents of the ruined Inhabitants in Flanders The Intemperance and thence the frequent Indigences of the Soldiers whence their Troubles of Mind The Change of Air and Diet the want of Shifts and their uncleanliness The straightness and illness of their Lodging The want of due Exercise most of them having been Labouring Men Are sufficient Causes to produce camp-Camp-Diseases which the unseasonable heat of the Air actuates into Malignant and then is easily communicated by Contagion to such as converss with them whose Bodies are thereto predisposed For which the Remedies are First To Preserve the Sound indicated by the Causes And Secondly To Cure the Sick To which purpose the Peccant Matter and Humours being thus produced in the Body and not possible to be reduced to their Pristine State must therefore be carried off To effect which the usual and most approved ways are by Antidotes and Alexipharmicks which sometimes by Vrine and most by Sweat discharge the Body of that Enemy but because they may be slow and uncertain in their Operation and that oft times there are other Indications Therefore as soon as taken ill after a Clyster is administred if Costive order a Vomit which may the next day without danger be repeated if there be Indications for it The Night after the Vomit an Alexipharmacal Medicine mixt with Hypnoticks will prevent all ill Symptomes Afterwards Purge but if Matter be cast forth by the common Emunctories or Habit of the Body then Drawing-Plasters to the Boyls and Sudorificks inwardly with Blisters and Applications to the Feet perform the whole Cure Of the Jesuits Powder ACcording to my promise in the Preface I think my self obliged to offer some of my Exceptions against the present unreasonable and too frequent use of the Cortex Patrum or Peruviana commonly called the Jesuits Powder and therefore without repeating the Description of the Plant the Place whence 't was brought the time when first Imported into Europe the manner how the Virtues thereof were first discovered with other particulars relating to the same which have been already at large treated upon by divers Authors to which I refer my Reader my Province shall be to take notice of some of the Reasons which have induced many Physitians to make it so general a Febrifuge and now almost a Panpharmacon and then modestly to propose to the consideration of the Impartial and Judicious Reader what makes me dissent from the Practice of so many Learned and Eminent Profâ—ssors The principal Motives I presume are the original Recommendations from abroad Talbor's Blind and General Applicatlon together with the sudden and surprizing success they suppose immediately follows the Exhibition of the Cortex whereby the Fit is soon interrupted and the Patient pleased with a seeming and sudden Recovery whereby many to my knowledge are obliged to tedious Courses of the Cortex even six times longer than was expected for the Cure and which often fâ—iâ—ing hath been at last effected by by quite other Methods of which may be given divers Instances but that every day will furnish faithful Inquirers with plenty of Examples To proceed therefore please to observe That 't is on all hands agreed that the Essential and manifest Quality of the said Bark is Stiptick or Astringent Yet at the same time such as do not rely upon any occult Quality will have it endued with a Property to open empty and remove the morbifick Cause by some unintelligible invisible and let me add preposterous manner of working That it hath the Binding Quality besides the foresaid acknowledgements is manifest by the Retention of the Morbifick Matter in the Body which appears to be so from its being let loose and returning to its old Course as soon as or in a few days after a Purging Medicine operates upon the Patient which had it been evacuated as those Gent. would have it could not possibly be brought back again into the Body by a Purge or Vomit His late Majesty to justifie the supposed Skill of the deceased and according to the Proverb fortunate Knight Sir R. T. was pleased to offer as a Tryal of Skill to the Physitians that Persons cured by the said Knt. with the Jesuits Powder should by taking a Purge be again reduced to their pristine state for the Physitians to imploy their best Endeavours to help them if they could This was a sufficient concession that the Fomes still remained in the Body and only by the quieting or stiptick Quality of the Cortex was hindered from exerting for the present its peccant Motions For what can else be the Cause of the almost certain Return of the Ague after three weeks or a Month but that the force of the Medicine being spent the Cause of the Ague will no longer obey but attacques the Patient afresh And if by chance the Ague appears not so soon nor in its proper Colours yet what reason can be given that at least two in three that have taken any quantity of it after the Expiration of three or four Months are infallibly troubled with a Shortness of Breath loss of Appetite a Hectique Rheumatisme Colick Jaundice Scurvey c. or suffer a severe Augmentation of such Distempers to which they were formerly subject whereby it becomes almost Habitual and oft times destructive to the Life of at least one in five that had the misfortune to be therewith treated 'T is confessed that it often cheques the Fit of an Intermitting Feaver and that frequent Repetitions of the same may so disguise the Distemper as the Patient may believe himself Cured when alas the best is but a truce and though it may never return in the same shape yet it seldom gives over haunting the Patient in different Manners which occasions many to make most grievious Complaints of their want of Health Suffocations or other Maladies as abovesaid that infest them as bad or worse than their Ague So that it may be said that the Jesuits Powder cures the Ague but at the same time destroys the Patient Which Dr. Willis seems to allow in an other Case pag. 19 of the London Practice of Physick where he concludes the Cause of divers ill Symptomes of the Brain and Nerves to proceed from the inward restraint of the malignant Matter driven thither by the means of Opium or the like Astringent Nevertheless as often as the Looseness and Vomiting returned those affects were presently appeased To prove this further consider that 't is generally owned that the Cortex hath no Opening but as already intimated a Binding and Astringent Quality now unless it had withal a Transmuting Quality to change the Morbifick Matter into Nutritive I cannot see how possibly the Patient can be safe and that there is no such Transmutation appears by the frequent return of the Distemper after a few Weeks especially upon the
only empty as the Vulgar imagine the Stomach from which all parts receive their Nourishment and when foul can never have good afforded but both the neighbouring and remoter parts as the same and other Authors readily acknowledge And though of the six only Inlets of Diseases the Errours of the Non-naturals Food is but one yet shall the Stomach be affected and sympathize with most if not all the other parts though the Disease be caused by any of the other five for instance tread upon a Man's Corn and he shall immediately be sick at Stomach bring him ill Tydings and though never so sharp set before his Appetite presently flags and 〈◊〉 a Head-ach be caused by Wind or Sun 〈◊〉 Stomack shall not escape Vomits reach those Humours no other sort of Evacuation can touch at least 〈◊〉 so certainly nor without more frequent Repetitions And prepared accordingly may be given to Old and Young Men or Women with Child or not but with great Cautiousness to the Female Sex in most if not all Distempers Beginning Increase State or Declination at all hours Day and Night when-ever the Stomach is principally or by consent disordered always discerned by loss of Appetite Pain Heaviness or Fulness at the Stomack Vomiting or Reaching to Vomit Quercitan spâ—â—â—ng of Vomits in the 17th Chapter of his Pharmacopeia declares That Art must alâ—â— follow Nature which of its own 〈◊〉 endeavours all sorts of Evacuation 〈◊〉 there enumerated as Stool Vrine Sâ—â—â—t and Vomit for the General and the Excâ—â—ments of the Nose and Mouth by Sâ—â—ivaâ—â—â—n and Spitting for Particulars all wâ—â—ch Arâ— â—mnstâ—mitate Voâ—its 〈◊〉 he antiently were in great Esteeâ— and much more in Use than now for our late Physitians reject them by reason they do as they suppose very much disturb the Body introducing dangerous Symptomes and that our Climate being colder than Graece where Hypocrates and other Graecians used them and our Inhabitants more Flegmatick Vomits are not so needful But these are generally granted to be idle Reasons and therefore exploded for on the contrary Vomits are found to be very useful and necessary for rooting out the most desperate and most difficult Diseases no ways else to be effected the mention of which alone affrights our Hen-hearted Physitians But how can they then boast themselves Friends to Nature who neglecting the most powerful Remedies without daring so much as to make Tryal prove rather her Enemies and Flatterers seeking to defend her with Helps too weak and inconsiderable never thinking to attacque her Foe with powerful Weapons who in the mean time remains unhurt by their gentle Medicines even despising the milder Vomits after which in vain applyed they dare not return the second time to the same Remedy This Author enumerates some Cautions in giving Vomits and afterwards declares what Spontaneous Vomiting is and further adds that the Ancients ordered Vomits more unsafe than those of late Days invented making mention of divers extraordinary Cures of Rulandus and afterwards cites two in the first of which he relates the great Agony a Patient suffered by a Vomit but yet was Cured tho forsaken by all the Doctors before The last is more considerable for the strange matter brought away and the great success ensuing so that he resolves to publish it to the World to the end those Physitians who through a worse Fear than that of a Hare wickedly condemn this way of Purging may see their great Errour Riverius in his Institutions acknowledgeth That Humours contained in the Stomach and Neighbouring Parts are easier Purged off by Vomit than Stool it being the shortest way and though Vomits are not much in use yet 't is very certain that being discreetly appointed they work admirable Effects for many Intermitting Feavers remaining notwithstanding other Medicines immoveable are by Vomits only eradicated as appears by frequent Experiments which he pursues with divers Instances and for a further Confirmation please to take notice of a late Instance of the King of France the 1st of July 1658 who being taken with a Malignant Feaver removed to Calais where his life being despair'd of the Physitians finding his Strength dayly decay his Disease increase and that the second bleeding in the Foot on the 8th of the said Month gave no Relief upon a full Consultation in the Presence of the Cardinal resolved to give him an Antimonial Vomit which the King took with great hopes of Relief accordingly the Operation was so happy and speedy that after emptying the Stomack and Bowels of a great deal of malignant and adust Matter he found himself much eased the same Night next Morning being the 10th he took the second Purge which altho more gentle work't notwithstanding so well that in five or six days he was perfectly recovered If this Remedy had been delayed twenty four hours longer or that it had not work't within twenty four hours the King's Recovery had been absolutely desperate This Relation was taken out of the History of the Treaty of Peace Concluded on the Frontiers of Spain and France Anno 1659. Diseases says Böetius are Cured by the Aegyptians either with Fastingâ— or Vomits every or every third or fourth day for say they All Diseases proceed from Superfluity of Dyet therefore that is like to be the best restorer of Health which takes away the Principles of Diseases Sydenham quoted by Bonetus in the English Translation fol. 159. Sect. 13 14 intimates That if he were permitted he would give Vomits in the beginning of all Feavers and Dropsies Vncerus in Answer to Objections in Chap. 14. Book I. of the Stone asserts That Vomits do not weaken the Stomach unless irregularly given but on the contrary strengthen it by carrying off the Humours that infest it That Vomits are given in Vomitings to root out Choler the sooner That Vomitings in the Stone are not to be hindered but furthered That Vomits have been extreamly helpful in the Stone That whatsoever removes the Cause of Diseases and cleanseth the Stomach of the tartarous Matter is useful in the Stone which Vomits do That Vomits take off all Humours prevent the Stone and Cure it and may as well be given for it as Purges which none scruple All which he strengthens by Quotations out of divers eminent Authors in the following 15th Chap. To which again he briefly subjoyns his own Opinion Willis pag. 26 27 of his Rational Pharmacy saith That as the Operation by Vomit is more violent than by Stool so in most Distempers where 't is with Judgment directed it doth more good than ten Purges For by this the heavy Flegm untouch'd by Purges is removed besides the Neighbouring Parts are cleansed So that Obstructions there made and Stagnation of Humours in the Blood are easily helped Praeternatural Ferments and deeply rooted Diseases can by no other means be removed epecially of the Brain and Nervs Then giving an Account how they work He concludes That most desperate Diseases are best Cured by Vomits and hardly without them