A New and Needful TREATISE OF SPIRITS and WIND Offending Mans Body Wherein are discovered their Nature Causes and Effects By the Learned Dr. Fienus And Englished By William Rowland A. M. For the Improvement of Physick and more speedy Cure of Diseases LONDON Printed by J. M. for Benjamin Billingsley and Obadiah Blagrave at the Sign of the Printing-Press at Gresham-Colledge-gate near the Church in Broad-street 1668. To the Royal Society the Virtuosi SInce the Evening preceded the Morning in the account of the first Day and the most precious of Lights sprung out of Darkness as it much countenances thâ—â—… Philosophers Privation and their Veritatem in puteo so it seemeth to tax their presumption who speak frequently of the Light seldom of the Darkness that is in them Whilst you the true Off-spring of the first and purest Virtue in your noble and masculine Humility though you had very large Accomplishments to boast of deemed it your highest Glory to obtain a Royal Commission from the most Heroick Spirit of England to dig unitedly for Truth and Knowledge as for hidden Treasure And this not like those envious Monasticks who what they found would ever have confined soly to their reclused Cells but most ingeniously for dispersing of it to the Universal Benefit of all Mankind without exception If then small things may hold Resemblance with greater and the least Addition of Knowledge to your own Country cannot but be matter of rejoycing to your goodness I shall not cease to hope but this Translation and Contribution of this kind of knowledge to the English and its humble Dedication will have a fair and kind Acceptation with your Wisdoms Not in the least supposing either the Subject being of Wind and Spirits or this Discourse can be strangers to your general reading but some what to stir up your joynt and inspective minds to the advancement of these Studies to farther degrees of Perfection and if possible to reduce them to the needful use of Physick Not only all Diseases Pains and Distempers being of late imputed to venomous Spirits generated in Mans Body but their Cure also to the efficacy of those undescernable forces in Nature benigne Spirits But may some reflect what must we now dig for Winds as for hidden Treasures Seriously you may without disparagement it being no Solecism to admit of Flatum as well as Veritatem in puteo And indeed in the sense of this worthy Author Where may not you find them Or is it not rather a question What can be performed without them Or rather if once throughly understood in their various differences and properties What may not be done by their assistance And that the Spirit of Spirits may constantly be your guide shall ever be the earnest desires of the Admirer of your generous Aims and Intentions William Rowland A New and Excellent TREATISE OF Wind Offending Mans Body In which is described the Nature Causes and Symptoms of Wind Together with Its speedy and easie Remedy By W. R. M. D. LONDON Printed by J. M. for Benjamin Billingsley and Obadiah Blagrave at the Sign of the Printing-Press at Gresham-Colledge-gate near the Church in Broad-street 1668. To all those whose Bodies are troubled with Wind or any Diseases caused thereby IT is confessed by all that no temporal Blessing is better then Health therefore it is to be admired that most men should so much slight and neglect it the worth whereof if we consider we must say with the Poet Amphion O blessed Health with thee 't is ever spring And without thee there is no pleasant thing She is the cherisher of all Wisdom Science and Arts and the only solace that we find in this troublEsom life By the presence of health all humane actions and strength of body beauty riches and whatsoever is esteemed among men do flourish she failing by malignity of evil causes all other things fail which were before in request and a disease follows which is the fore-runner of death Now who can expel a disease but by avoiding and excluding the causes that breed and feed it nor can the causes be avoided or excluded before they are known Therefore the chief way to cure a disease is to know the causes And if we carefully consider them it will appear that no thing in the whole world is more miserable then man and if you except his diviner part the Soul nothing is more frail and obnoxious to the injuries of all things For what is there in the whole Creation by which a man is not assailed and opposed and sometimes hurt For the Heavens and the Stars by their conversions and malignant aspects bring plagues heats and extreme colds and divers inconveniences to Mankind And the Elements are plainly perceived to be more injurious then they For the Air hath been infinite ways pernicious to Mankind as by Hail Rain Storms Thunder and Lightning And the Earth by terrible motions and quaking and opening of it self and by breathing forth pestilent vapours from its Dens and Caverns And the Water with stinking vapours from Inundations Fens and standing Pools And the Fire also by many Conflagrations Moreover all sorts of living Creatures by one unanimous consent seek the destruction of Mankind nor are the Herbs Shrubs and Trees with their fruit freed from that pernicious Spirit Besides all these as if they could not do mischief enough to Mankind man himself is enemy to himself by Thefts Brabling Murther and Wars and many innumerable wicked actions And which is worst of all man is so cruel to his own Nature and so mad that he torments his weak body by inordinate lusts daily and nightly riotings and surfeits so that he runs head-long into all manner of diseases and defiles his divine part the Soul and brings the wrath of God upon himself Therefore he said well that compared mans life to a warfare upon the Earth Hence it is that wise men to oppose so many mischiefs desired nothing more then to invent some Art to preserve them and theirs from the injuries of the things mentioned and free them from diseases Therefore Apollo gave noble Principles at first to the Art of Physick which were after celebrated by Aesculapius and then by Machaon and Podaleirius so that all did highly esteem them as Homer writes The learn'd Physitian that can cure well Doth all Professions in the world excel The Sons of Aesculapius delivered this Art to their Posterity not by writing but by traditional instruction to the time of Hippocrates Hippocrates that came from Hercules and Aesculapius grew so excellent in Physick that he got great Renown by his Works in Coos and among the Thessalians and Athenians that gave him divine honour next unto Hercules He was the first that committed this Art to writing and left us his Works which Galen purged from thorns and weeds and put it into such Order and Method that he made it almost compleat But nothing in the world of this sort can be so exact that
to the finger and the spleen is pricked and extended but without heaviness and it comes sooner When vulgar Physitians understand not these two tumours of both Liver and Spleen how blindly do they go to work with thousands of Juleps and they protract the cure that they may be largely rewarded and when they have done more hurt then good they affirm it to be a Schirrus and from Galen incurable But they are very ignorant for this cloudy wind fixed on the bowel in time by the natural heat somentations fasting an extenuating and hot diet given by women and Empericks being discussed the humour vanisheth and the pain also and the foolish Doctors contemned I exhort therefore the ingenious that love their honour and the truth to search narrowly and learn to know Symptoms from those of other diseases It is hard but excellent For many Patients as ready to dye for pain cry out only from wind which if corrupted and come from a putrid and venomous matter and run through the members with intolerable pain needs an exact Artist to know the wind and the matter producing it and distinguish the disease from others To this belongs the Tympany Dropsie when wind gets into the membranes of the belly with pain and so into the spaces Hippocrates Aph. 2. Sect. 4. speaks of this thus They that have pain about the Navel and Loyns that will not be cured by medicines will have a dry Dropsie There are three sorts of Dropsies Anasarca Ascites and Tympanides which Hippocrates calls the dry Dropsie Anasarca is a preternatural increase of the bulk of the body here the feet swell first at night chiefly after exercise or when they have long hung down they pit with the finger the body is all soft loose and pale weak and tired with the least pains it is like the Green-sickness in women only the Dropsie swells the body but in the other there is paleness and trembling of the heart in motion and shortness of wind going up stairs and the body is heavy and sluggish The cause is the same in both too much cooling of the Liver and Veins The Liver cooled the sanguification is hurt then comes crude and watry blood which taken into the hollow vein goes over all the body and there is Anasarca and if the water from the Liver stretch the skin without there will be bladders If these break the water gets into that part of the Peritonaeum which is by the lower belly and then there is the second kind of Dropsie called Ascites With this by degrees the belly is filled and it swells unmeasurably the skin being loosned and the rest of the body pines away If the body or the belly be turned the water makes a noise But in a Tympany there is no fluctuation of water but the sound of a drum when you strike or fillip the belly with your finger For Galen aph 12. sect 4. saith in these the air is beaten which is contained by the skin as in this kind of disease the wind is struck by the skin which is below Cold of the bowels and veins is cause of all these Dropsies The Ascites or watry Dropsie is from more cold the Tympany from less for water cannot be turned to wind without heat Great thirst follows all chiefly Ascites and Tympany the first because the water is salt and putrefied that is detained and the other because there is seldom wind alone in the belly without water which putrefies also the wind takes away the moisture of the stomach and then it is dry and desires drink This is thirst the desire of moist and cold or both In externals we see that though the Earth be very wet with rain yet when wind comes it dryes it wonderfully in a short time and consumes the moisture The same is done in the body for one in a Tympany hath a thirst beyond Tantalus the more he drinks the more he may and to satisfie the enemy in his bowels he destroys himself with much drink Also they in the Colick thirst from the same cause Also wind swells the Cods and the Womb it gets by invisible passages into the cavity of them or after Child-birth by the Orifice of the womb or after bathing or fomenting or it breeds there from some other cause and there is straitned and so it stretcheth the womb If the stretching be in the upper part of the womb by force of the wind sent thither it ascends and goes to the Midriff and stomach and lyes like a ball there and oppresseth it Hence it is often driven down by the hands or fists or by other solid bodies into its proper place But if either side of the womb be distended or stretcht more then the rest it gets by a Convulsion into the right or left Croyn the Pecten and the lower belly are blown up and pained sometimes a noise is heard all over the body there is belching and swelling of the Loyns and pain in the Reins and Hips and when the belly is smitten with the fingers there is a sound like a drum and the wind breaks forth at the mouth of the womb Soranus said this was called a flatuous cold As wind gets into the womb of a woman so it gets into the Cods of a man with a disease or without and is a disease by it self I have seen in a Tympany the Cods of a man swollen as big as a Hogs bladder For the wind which at first was only in the membranes of the Abdomen and Peritonaeum being now increased and requiring great space breaks them and gets into the Cods and fills also the whole body Wind also extends the Cods without a disease in man and chiefly new born children and makes the Hernia called Pneumatocele or windy Rupture Sometimes it gets within the common membrane of the stones and puffs up all the Cods alike but when it gets between the tunicles of either stone called Erythroides and Dartos then one side of the Cod is only tumified This tumour is transparent and not heavy as that of You may try it in the dark with a Wax-candle held on the part opposite to your view Priapismus a Symptom of the Yard hath two causes one is the fulness of the Arteries of the Privities the other is wind bred in the fistulous Nerve This fills the Nerve so that it swells and makes the Yard stand without a venereous desire Galen meth med 12. saith there is another kind of Priapism when the Yard extends against desire For the Nerve that makes the proper substance of the Yard being hollow and filled with wind causeth it So Priapism is a permanent enlargement of the Yard in length and thickness without desire of Venery and wind is the cause as appears by its quick rise and sudden fall which no humour could make But Palpitation goes before this Priapism of wind but not before that which is from the dilatation of the Artery We have shewed how wind fills the internal
and apply it Or this Take Cow-dung two pound Sulphur Cummin each three ounces with Honey make a Cataplasm I have cured many Children by often heating them against the fire and with dry Fomentations with hot clouts often applied CHAP. XXVII Of Priapismus taken out of Aetius I Shall add nothing of mine own because I never cured this disease and none writes shorter and better of it as Galen lib. 4. meth saith He saith that Priapismus is a standing of the Yard swelling in length and breadth without lust from heat and wind with pain It is called Priapismus from Priapus the Satyre who is painted with such a Yard as natural It is from the mouths of the Veins and Arteries stretched in the Privities or from wind Galen saith it is from both but oftnest from the Orifices dilated Some have it from want of Venery having much seed and that used Venery and abstain from it and do not by much exercise abate the blood It chiefly comes to such as dream of Venereal fancies and the pain is like the Cramp for the Yard is as in a Convulsion being pufft up and stretched and they dye suddenly except cured and then the belly is swollen and there is a cold sweat as in other Convulsions when they dye Therefore against the pain and inflammation presently open a Vein and use a small Diet three days and foment the parts about and the Yard with Wool dipt in Wine and Oyl give a gentle Clyster not sharp and feed him with a little Corn and Water If it last long cup and scarifie if there be much blood use Leeches to the part and Cataplasms of Barley flour loosen the belly with Beets Mallows and Mercury boiled And give the Decoction of Shell-fish use no strong Purges and beware of Diureticks or provokers of urine Use Corn-food that attenuates gently without manifest heating Lay Coolers to the Loyns as Nightshade Purslane Housleek Henbane Let the space between the Fundament and the Yard be cooled with Litharge of Silver Fullers Earth Ceruss Vinegar and Water A Cerot of Rose-Oyntment washed often in cold Water and applied to the Loyns and Privities doth much good He must lye upon one side and lay under him things against the emission of Sperm And he must see no Venereal pictures nor hear no wanton discourse CHAP. XXVIII Of an Inflation or windy Impostume INflations come from Wind under the skin or the Membranes of the Bones or Muscles or gathered in fleshy parts Now as Aegineta saith it is either from the thickness of the members or grossness of the wind A gross vapour distends the place that contains it by its plenty and makes a tumour not such as is loose or will yield to the finger when pressed or pit like an Oedema The common way of Cure of these tumors is to evacuate what is preternatural wheresoever contained Now it cannot be evacuated except that which is gross be relaxed and the thickness of the vapour be extenuated Both are done by Extenuaters and things potentially hot I have shewed that Oyl which is of an extenuating quality wherein Rue or hot Seeds are boiled doth cure the stomach and other bowels stretched by wind Now I shall shew how other parts as Joynts and Muscles or Membranes about the Bones are cured when stretched with wind This is sometimes with pain sometimes without and that from a single cause namely a weak heat or a contusion For an inflation without pain according to Galen lib. 4. meth a Lixivium with a new Sponge will cure it As Take Rain-water or Wine let Ashes of a Fig-tree or Juniper be infused therein twenty four hours Or thus Take Bay-berries Orris roots each an ounce Bay leaves Rosemary Nip each a handful Lavender flowers a pugil Cummin six drams Boil them in Water to half in four pints infuse ashes of Fig-tree Beans or Coleworts foment therewith with a new Sponge hot It cleanseth drys consumes and discusseth wind and the tumour If there be pain use no Lixivium for by sharpness it will increase it but use relaxing Oyls as that of Dill Rue or Chamomil If Diseases come from Contusions when the Muscle or the Membrane of the Bone is bruised then lay the Sponge aforesaid upon the Membrane of the Bone But when the Muscles are pained use a more mitigating or asswaging Remedy To these we use not Lixivium alone but add to it boiled Wine and Oyl It is best at the first to use no Lixivium but Wine and a little Vinegar and Oyl with Wooll to foment the part And if pain be great use more Abaters or Asswagers of it If there be no pain oppose the Inflation by stronger Medicines as Lixivium Vinegar and then Wine And when you are not to asswage pain put in more Lixivium and Vinegar For such Inflations as by neglect are worse first use things made of a Lixivium then some Plaister such as that which is made of Sweat from mens bodies But the use of that being forgotten in our Age we order instead of it the Plaister of Bay-berries or this Take Melilot Plaister and that of Bay-berries each three drams Nitre Cummin Sulphur unslak'd Lime Salt each a scruple Oyl of Bayes and Wax as much as will make a Plaister If the wind that makes this Inflation be smoak-like evil and corrupt and from a venomous matter with great pain and heat running through the members it is best when it is setled to tye the part above and beneath and to open the Inflation with a Lancet or hot Iron that the venomous vapor may get out Then fill the Orifice with Aloes and Bole Armenick dissolved in Oyl of Roses and Vinegar After three or four days fill the wound with flesh and heal it up And in this case of a venomous Inflation use a slender diet and purge and give a little Treacle sometimes HItherto Courteous Reader I have shewed according to my abilities the Nature and Effects of Winds and the Diseases from them and their Cures for the good of the Ignorant and help of the Diseased and that learned and ingenious persons may take occasion from hence to write better Therefore take it in good part for it was written for profit to all not for contention If you accept of these first fruits expect better hereafter The CONTENTS of the Chapters of this Book CHap. 1. That Flatus is a Spirit and of the Division of Spirits Fol. 1 Chap. 2. Of the Analogy or Proportion of Flatus with Wind. 4 Chap. 3. What the Wind in Man is 9 Chap. 4. Of the Place where Wind is bred 10 Chap. 5. Of the Manner how Wind is bred in the Body 13 Chap. 6. Of the Differences of Wind bred in the Body 16 Chap. 7. How many Kinds of Diseases are produced by Wind. 18 Chap. 8. Of the Causes of Wind. 21 Chap. 9. Of the Signs of Wind. 30 Chap. 10. Of the Symptoms coming from Wind 33 Chap. 11. Of the Prognosticks of Wind. 52 Chap.
cold raiseth no vapours because it cannot extenuate nor dissolve nor concoct so vehement heat overcomes for the most part what is comprehended extenuates the food beyond the generation of vapours except it be such as easily turns to wind If the heat be weak it dissolves the food but doth not concoct perfectly and hence comes wind And as in external things as a cold season chiefly when the North wind blows makes the air clearer and a very hot season makes the air pure but the middle constitution of air produceth clouds so it is in Animals heat when very weak or very strong doth not cause wind but the mean between both But Galen 12. Meth. med saith that wind is not only from a mean but vehement heat as appears by their generation there mentioned and by his way of cure For he saith if by any accident a vaporous spirit be joyned with gross glutinous humours that cannot break forth of the body there is very great pain and that from two causes obstruction or heat For obstruction keeps the wind in and gross glutinous matter when it is hot causeth wind And a little after how then saith he shall we cure those pains which a cold humour shut up in the guts hath caused Not by Cataplasms and Fomentations which heat violently for all clammy humours that are gross and cold are discussed into wind by things that heat except they also strongly digest Therefore they must be cut and concocted at the same time by attenuaters which are not too hot From these words of Galen it appears that a vehement heat doth not hinder breeding of wind or discuss them being bred but will cause them from the subject matter to breed anew when they were gone Therefore Lib. 3. cap. 43. he saith we must beware of nothing more in the abundance of such humours then immoderate heat that will melt them and turn them into wind but not digest them The Italian Doctor knew this well who as Paul Aegineta saith cured almost all Colicks with cold remedies and Paul knew it when he wrote that pains from cold clammy and tough humours are to be cured with respect that the medicines be not vehement hot for so they will be melted and turned more to winds Also strong heat doth not only make wind of flegm which it cannot consume but also of any over-much moisture received as in such as have drunk too much Wine or Beer or Broth or stuffed themselves with any gross or clammy food which the heat cannot consume So vehement heat also raiseth wind This is clear in Feavers also in which though preternatural heat abound much drink swells the belly because Nature is thereby restrained Therefore three things are required in the breeding and understanding of Wind heat naturally too weak or so by oppression that the part be sensible and fit and the matter proper to produce wind CHAP. VI. Of the Differences of Wind bred in the Body THe wind is of divers natures one sort is quiet another moved The quiet is gross and of flow motion cloudy and cold that brings seldom any Symptoms but a swollen Belly and Hypochondria without much pain This troubles such commonly that drink thick sweet Ale or Milk or Water between meals chiefly for that corrupts concoction and weakneth the action of the stomach as if you should pour cold water into a boiling Kettle and thence there will be cloudy vapours and fluctuations that will swell the Belly like a Drum which will fall with sobriety and a stool or two But if it stay long between the tunicles of the guts it threatens a dangerous Colick A moved wind because it is thin and running about with great pain is like a changeable Proteus It is either cast out or retained goes forth with or without noise by the mouth or Fundament By the mouth the belch is sour or smoak-like and unsavory by the Fundament it is with or without noise These are of so much concernment in the body of man as the Stoicks according to Cicero Lib. 9. epist epist 22. said that a fart ought to be as free as a belch And Claudius Caesar made an Edict to give leave for any to fart at meat because he knew one endangered by refraining through modesty Suet in vita Claudii cap. 23. But when wind is sent out at neither part but detained it causeth a swelling a Symptom of the stomach not able through weakness to expel the abounding cloudy spirit Also Galen 3. Symp. caus lib. 6. cap. 6. saith there are divers parts of the guts in which the wind moves which though they have not distinct names yet may they so be declared that any ingenious person may understand what kind and how much the excrement is and in what part it chiefly moves For if it sound sharp and shrill it is carried through the strait gut and is more pure and aerial If it puff up it will make a small noise while it goes through the small guts but not so sharp and shrill All these noises are in the spaces of the empty gut usually make the less noise the lower they go Other noises are humming like that of Pipes which cannot give a pure sound by reason of the matter they consist of and the passage being large makes the sound greater Such winds are in the thick guts when they are empty and if any moisture be contained in them it will cause a kind of Bombus which is a rumbling which shews a moist stool to be at hand because it is from Nature moving and it is moist because it rumbled before Also the noise that follows the stool if it rumbles signifies more stools but if it be pure and clear it shews that either the gut is empty or that hard excrements are in its upper part That which is shrill is from the straitness of the passages and little moisture We might here add the different sounds of the wind in the ear but we shall reserve that for the eleventh Chapter where we shall speak of the pains of the ears CHAP. VII How many kinds of Diseases are produced by Wind. GAlen made three chief sorts of Diseases a Similary Instrumental and a Common which is the solution of unity A similary disease is that which overthrows the natural constitution An Organical or Instrumental is that which hinders the fashion in conformation number magnitude or composition The Common is when unity is dissolved in part Let us see which of these wind will produce Hippocrates Lib. de flatibus saith when a body is full of food and much wind prevails and the meat lies long in the stomach and cannot get out for abundance and the lower belly is stopt or bound wind goes over all the body and gets chiefly to the parts full of blood and cools them And if the parts be cooled where the blood comes there is chilness over all the body For when all the blood is cold the whole body must be chill Galen
Meth. med 12. confirms this saying that such diseases are in those that are stuffed with gross clammy food that is cold when the wind in the tunicles of the guts cannot get forth For the tunicles are double and the humour being between them is turned into wind it is gross and cold and of slow motion When it is detained it stretcheth the tunicles and the juyce whence it comes cools the guts it toucheth and they are doubly afflicted By these instances it is plain that wind by its coldness can make a similary disease that consists in distemper and also the solution of unity For there is pain and stretching of the tunicles which cannot be without laceration For there are two universal causes of pain one is an unequal distemper which comes suddenly and another when continuity is dissolved For parts dissolved by a humour or wind are pained by the separation Because if Hippocrates say cold is biting to Ulcers for no other cause but it contracts and condenseth and constringeth all parts it toucheth and so twitcheth the soft parts of the continuity and dissolves it Also if in acute fevers nervous bodies are most dried and therefore have Convulsion and if too much repletion that pulls it up and down and makes it shorter and so separates continuity how much more difficulty of solution of continuity will wind cause which for that only cause produce such strange Symptoms that require the whole care of a Physitian Thirdly it will appear by what follows that the whole Abdomen or Panch swells by wind as in a Tympany and the Liver and Spleen are wonderfully stopt thereby and hard as a Schirrhus and swollen as also the stomach and all these are instrumental diseases therefore organical diseases are also from wind Also Galen de diff morb saith when any part is swollen and so its passage stopt if that part hath no proper operation that stoppage is only called a disease but the tumour is not but only is the cause of obstruction But if the part affected hath any proper office then the obstruction and the tumour of the part are both diseases Therefore the three sorts of diseases distemper of simple parts and disorder of instrumental and solution of united parts are from wind CHAP. VIII Of the Causes of Wind. THere are few or none in the world but are troubled sometimes with winds for the stomach which is the Kitchin for the first concoction attracts the meat by the Gullet as by a long hand and embraceth and keepeth it and changeth it separating the pure from the impure casting the one into the guts but the Meseraick veins sucking the other carry it to the Liver When the stomach through weakness embraceth not the food attracted nor contains it it rumbles and tosseth about and then it cannot well concoct For it must be strong as Galen saith which consists in an excellent temper of the four qualities by which it turns the food into the proper quality of that which is nourished by help of the bowels about it the Heart Liver Spleen Reins Midriff which lye about the stomach as a great fire under a Caldron But sometimes a bad diet for none can be always punctual in the rules or some external force dissolves its strength or weakens the fire and then the virtue of the stomach abates and it alters according to the greatness or smalness of the cause Also outward cold as in cold Countries and in Northern winds piercing to the inward parts in thin and weak bodies offends the native heat Also too hot Air casts out disperseth the natural heat and takes it from the bowels and then concoction is hindered and wind bred But strong natural heat overcoming for the most part things comprehended by it extenuateth the meat more then that it can produce vapours except it be of its nature windy For the stomach though strong and force of Nature flourisheth and the heat not decayed is offended often by food that is proper to breed wind Therefore all Physick and food that is properly by its nature windy or by its coldness or multitude dissolves the strength of the stomach and oppresseth its natural heat is the cause of wind as Pulse raw Corn and Fruits All these Galen de alim fac lib. 2. saith and such as we eat before they are ripe are windy but they are soon digested therefore he argues thus in the beginning of that Book All the food mentioned in the first Book were the seeds of Plants little differing from fruits But all horary fruits are windy and all seeds more or less And boil Beans as much as you will they are windy some add Onions to prevent it because hot and attenuating things correct wind But fry them or any other pulse and they are not windy but very hard of concoction and pass away slowly and make gross juyce But any way dressed they swell the body He that will observe the distempers that follow every sort of food shall perceive a stretching of the whole body as by a wind after eating of Beans chiefly if he have not used to eat them formerly or eat up not well boiled Pease though like Beans are not so windy These are with us plentiful and usual and therefore we perceive less the hurt they do For what we eat freely and with pleasure the stomach embraceth closer and retains better and digests easier Fetches are windy also but few desire them it is good with any of these to boil Calamints Onions Dill or Pennyroyal Lentils puffe up the stomach and guts Also all Summer-fruits are like these for they are crude and full of excrements and unprofitable juyce especially when not ripe they are also flegmatick and windy Also if immoderately taken by their cold and moisture they abate the natural heat so that the stomach cannot discuss the wind it raiseth Mulberries and Plums are the worst of these chiefly green and after meat All sorts of Cherries chiefly the Spanish Cherries and Melones Pompions Cucumbers Gourds Apples Pears are alike but boiled they are less windy chiefly if eaten with seeds or hot and dry extenuaters or expellers of wind Anise or Coriander Figs saith Galen lib. de aliment nourish more then other autumnal fruits but are windy but the wind soon vanisheth because they are laxative Chesnuts eaten plentifully cause Headach swell the belly bind it and are hard of concoction Also Roots Turneps Radishes and the like are windy and Corn Milium Wheat chiefly boiled Barley but Rapes and Radishes are most windy All Fish are the like flegmatick and windy chiefly the great and the less that are slimy as the Eel and Salmon Lamprey Tench chiefly if boiled broiled or fryed they are not so windy chiefly if the flesh be soft as the Brook-fish Though Celsus lib. 2. c. 26. saith they are not windy All Pulse and fat meats do swell with wind and sweet things and Broths new Wine Also Garlick Coleworts Onions and all Roots except a
as fulness stretch the body receiving it side-ways and downward and make the length of the part shorter so it is in the inflation of the stomach the Gullet is contracted and the sides and the bottom stretched Erasistratus saith that if the muscles be filled with wind they grow broader but shorter Moreover when from plenty the whole is stretched the effect of distension is perceived all over and because the Diaphragma is compressed for it is an instrument of respiration the breath is difficult from the stomach puffed up and so this inflation sometimes so increaseth that it makes a tumour on the mouth of the stomach These are allayed by stools and breaking wind upward or downward The Colick is next which is not always in one part of the belly in all but as the Colon is moved so it removeth now to the right then to the left side sometimes to the Kidneys Navel or over all the belly but chiefly the left side For the Colon is a thick Gut through the hollow of the Liver on the right side is carried to the left Hypochondrion upon the bottom of the stomach and lyes upon the Spleen then bending backward it adheres to the left Kidney Therefore in what part the wind chiefly gets there is greatest pain but when it fixeth in one part it is raised from a crude and cold flegm shut up in the turnings of the Gut nor is the wind then wholly included This flegm corrodes the Gut and tears it and is like an Auger that pierceth it which causeth great pain and loathing and vomiting of flegm and it departeth not after breaking of wind But a pain from wind without flegm is wandring in divers parts of the belly and rumbles often and being shut up close will not break forth above or below This useth to breed much in the Colon for Nature hath made no other receptacle for wind which the first concoction in the stomach hath bred therefore wind is lodged in this gut with great pain chiefly when by reason of obstruction from gross flegm or hard and dry excrements it cannot get forth The dung is hardned from divers causes chiefly from idleness and labouring to keep from the stool Rest makes retention as motion evacuation and binds as motion opens rest makes things unmoveable and motion moveable It causeth vomiting stools sweat urine and all natural expulsions and rest hinders them Some women complain that they have not a stool in five or six days some in eight days These are idle cold gluttonous and obstructed so that motion doth not help nor Choler by reason of cold provoke the Guts to expel Also the obstructions hinder the Choler from the Cuts and a perverse order in eating binds the belly Therefore it is no wonder women are more windy then men Also costiveness doth not only cause the Colick but other great accidents for the dung sent down by Nature and by its heaviness falling to the lowest parts if from other business or urgent occasion it be detained it will grow hard because being kept long it drys by heat and the Meseraicks do always suck some juyce from it for they are in the thick as well as the thin Guts So the excrements being by degrees very dry stop the passage against themselves and the wind and cause the Ileon or Convolvulus sometimes but the Colick often and other great Symptoms For when the wind cannot get out it flyes from the bottom of the belly again to the stomach and stretcheth it and twitcheth so the Weasant and contracts it that they can scarce swallow or speak Also because the mouth of the stomach is very sensible it is pained with Convulsion so that the heat of the outward parts goes in to expel what hurts Nature and then they wanting their heat are chill and the Nerves are contracted the Legs weak and the body in a great strait Who would think that such deadly and cruel Symptoms should come from a little wind but I know it to be so by long experience The excrements voided in this fit are windy for they swim upon water and are like Ox-dung and there was crudity loathing and vomiting before This disease is like the stone in the Kidneys fixed in the Ureters and hard to be distinguished from it Galen was deceived by it in his own body and knew it not but to be the stone till he injected Oyl of Rue and voided glassie flegm and was freed presently from all pain We shall speak next of windy Melancholy it is bred from three causes from heat of the Liver and the Meseraicks coldness of stomach and a crude and gross humour of flegm or melancholy A cold stomach desires too much and digests too little A hot Liver attracts crude and gross meats before perfect concoction And because the second concoction which is in the Liver cannot correct the defect of the first the Veins of the Mesentery are obstructed by gross Chyle and much crudity is gathered in them This boils by preternatural heat and sends forth filthy vapours that are not easily discussed and there are rumblings and breaking of wind Also Galen from Diocles saith there is another disease in the stomach like the other called melancholy or windy as when meat of hard digestion and hot is taken there is much spitting belching sowre wind heat in the sides not presently but after retention Sometimes great pains of the stomach that reach to the back in some cease after concoction and come again after meat When the fit comes the stomach and Hypochondria are mise rably tormented and not freed till the matter be voided by vomit or stool that extends the Hypochondria with wind That which is vomited because the stomach is cold and weak is flegmatick clammy and crude white and sometimes without taste or sowre or bitter That which is sent down is black and windy Melancholy from this sometimes a black vapour ariseth and hurts the brain causeth troublesom dreams and disturbs the mind with doting This wind shut up in the stomach and guts and striving to get out gets into the small veins and membranes of the Liver on both sides cavous and gibbous and is like a Schirrus or so stretcheth that there is a tumour like a Schirrus only it is bred in a shorter time It is so great sometimes that it fills the Hypochondrion and you cannot feel the ribs there nor put a finger under it and there is no shape of the Liver This is known to be from much gross vapours because there is not only heaviness but distention as Galen lib. 5. de loc affect saith The Spleen is in like manner stretched with wind as Trallianus saith as in other parts so in the spleen there is wind that grows to a tumour it is like a Schirrus but thus distinguished in a Schirrus there is hardness not yielding tumour and heaviness in the left Hypochondrion In a tumour from wind it doth not strongly resist the touch but yields
much windy For they are cholerick and Choler will not suffer wind to raign but discusseth it But Phelgmaticks and they of a moist and cold stomach and the sanguine are troubled with wind and easily have the Colick And all know that great pains of the Colick are more dangerous then less and a total collection of excrements and wind into one part of the Colon is worse then when they run about many parts Therefore there is less danger when wind is broken by Clysters and the stools take away the pain then when not But if wind cause a a doting contraction of Nerves fainting cold limbs cold sweat constant vomiting stoppage of all excrements as it doth when it comes from venomous matter it is deadly and there is a Convolvulus It is best to be without wind or easily discuss it but this cannot be without diligent caution and good diet in the use of the six natural things CHAP. XII Of Diet to be observed by windy Bodies TO prevent breeding of wind by diet or discuss it when bred four things are to be observed chiefly in such as have bodies apt to breed it Order Manner Time and Substance The Order is that they begin not dinner nor supper with drink nor drink a great draught as the custom is after they have eaten a bit or two Drink is best when you have taken most part of the food Also let liquid things be eaten before hard and loosners before astringents and those of easie concoction before those of hard The Manner is that more food be not taken then can be concocted without difficulty by rising with an appetite and not drinking more then to quench thirst and wash down the meat which will make the body lazy and oppress the native heat Some are never satisfied except they carouse exceedingly when they eat some drink so that they can eat little or nothing this causeth fluctuation and inflation because the stomach cannot embrace the quantity Time also must be observed that they drink not fasting nor between meals or after supper or in bed nor eat before the former is digested nor sit long at meat They must abstain from gross meats they stop the narrow passages such as produce a clammy juyce hard of concoction salt Beef and Pork from cold and sowre and sharp things and all Summer-fruits crude or boiled Pulse Sallets Milk and all Milk-meats all Junkets as Fritters Pancakes Sweet-cakes c. chiefly that which our women call White-pots or that made of Eggs Butter and Honey in a Frying-pan or an Oven And from that of green Cheese Beets Paste Eggs and Oyl which the Italians call a Tart. Also the Italian Dishes are very hurtful Turtellae Lasaniae Macaroons Worms and the like made fit for the palate These fill the body with gross humours and so oppress the natural heat that the stomach concocts worse after being not able to overcome the tough and clammy humours But some will devour such trash and junkets and contemn better food and yet find no inconvenience or very little To which I answer That all food made of paste causeth gross and clammy humours and many excrements and obstructions and matter fit to breed wind But if they be taken by a good and firm stomach and well concocted which I think scarce can be and they find no hurt thereby worth notice it doth not therefore follow that they are of themselves without harm For all know that to drink great draughts is an enemy to Nature and that a medicine of Hemlock presently killed Socrates Therefore he concludes nothing that saith therefore these things are not hurtful and not to be dispraised because some Drunkards will drink off great bowls and the Athenian old Woman used to eat Hemlock and because one or two make food of paste that nourisheth For the stomach embraceth sweet things and such as are eaten with great delight more close and easier digests them Therefore three things make food which is of its own nature hurtful to be innocent and milder use or custom pleasure and a strong firm stomach For the best nourishing food hurts the stomach if it loath it and Brook-fish cause trouble to it if it be weak And let these men if they will not be admonished by me be moved with the threatning of Constantine with which he affrighteth Gluttons let them not rejoyce when they eat bad food for though they are not hurt by them at the present afterwards they will not escape To this belongs variety of meats which causeth many crudities and winds in the body For many things of divers natures are confounded and these being unequally concocted and distributed the natural heat must needs be put to it You must avoid all great and Fen-fish and such as live in mud on putrefaction their flesh is slimy and clammy cold and hath much excrement Also let windy people abstain from wine too much cooled from water and from great draughts of drink drawn from a cool Cellar chiefly when they are hot out wardly or weary after exercise or labour and from all excess of air chiefly cold which presently reacheth the stomach if not kept warm-clothed and from cold and moisture at the feet Sitting long upon cold stones hath often caused great Symptoms from wind Let him avoid idleness also and sleeping in the day these raise vapours but discuss them not set upon concoction but bring it not to perfection whence comes crude flegm the true material cause of flegm When the stomach or guts are distended or stretcht with wind let them abstain from meat and drink and feed very stenderly and be sober For when the usual diet is taken from the body or abated the native heat is not so put to it to alter and concoct food but is active and flourisheth and spreads it self and shews its strength first it concocts crudities and attenuates the gross humours cleanseth the tough takes away the cause that will breed wind sends them for that the right passages and disperseth such wind as is bred and keeps it from breeding And to be short fasting alone is sufficient to cure any disease from crudity or wind It is true that there is more trouble from the flying about of wind in the body that is empty in such as fast and use a spare diet but this will not be long for they will presently break forth and free the patient from all pain and the sooner by use of exercise For it is the Doctrine of Hippocrates Epid. 6. agreeable to this my opinion fit to be written in gold in every house That we ought not to eat to fulness and to be ready to take pains And Galen de sanit tuend lib. 2. reckons up many sorts of exercises Wrastling Fencing Running c. which we shall not speak of only let this suffice that moderate exercise at ball or fencing running or walking fasting and after the body hath discharged the excrements doth wonderfully recreate all the faculties and spread
12. Of the Diet to be observed by windy Bodies 55 Chap. 13. Of the common Cure of windy Diseases 62 Chap. 14. Of the Cure of the Pain of the Head from Wind. 63 Chap. 15. Of the Cure of the Noise in the Ears from Wind. 68 Chap. 16. Of the Cure of the Toothach from Wind. 71 Chap. 17. Of the Cure of a windy Pleurisie 73 Chap. 18. Of the Cure of a windy Palpitation 76 Chap. 19. Of the Cure of the Puffing of the Stomach with Wind. 82 Chap. 20. Of the Cure of windy Melancholy 86 Chap. 21. Of the Cure of the Colick 91 Chap. 22. Of the Cure of the flatuous Obstruction of the Liver 98 Chap. 23. Of the Cure of the flatuous Obstruction of the Spleen 101 Chap. 24. Of the Cure of the Tympany 102 Chap. 25. Of the Cure of the Inflation of the Womb. 107 Chap. 26. Of the Cure of a windy Rupture 109 Chap. 27. Of Priapismus taken out of Aetius 111 Chap. 28. Of an Inflation or windy Impostume 113 FINIS An Advertisement of Books worth buying sold at the Printing Press in Broadstreet London by Benjamin Billingsley and Obadiah Blagrave 1. The History of the World or an Account of Time compiled by the learned Dionysius Petavius and continued by others Together with a Geographical Description of Europe Asia Africa and America in Folio 2. Mr. Nicholas Culpeper Physitian and Astrologer his last Legacy left unto his Wife being the choicest of his Secrets in Physick and Chyrurgery newly reprinted with an Addition of above 200 choice Receipts lately found not extant in any of his Works before 3. Culpepers Translation of the London Dispensatory 4. Culpepers English Physitian Enlarged 5. Culpepers Directory for Widwives both Parts 6. A Touchstone for Physick directing by evident Marks and Characters to such Medicines as without Purgers Vomiters Bleedings Issues Minerals or any other disturbers of Nature may be securely trusted for cure in all extremity 7. Dr. Manwaring on the Scurvy 8. The Morning Exercise methodized at St. Giles in the Fields being 28 several Sermons preached by several eminent Ministers of the City of London upon the chief Heads of Christian Religion with their names to each Sermon 9. A compleat Collection of Farewel Sermons preached by the London and Country-Ministers containing 42 Sermons with their Prayers being the most exact as hath yet been printed 10. Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment wherein is shewed what Contentment is the holy Art and Mystery of it several Lessons Christ teacheth to work the heart to Contentment the Excellency of it the Evils of Murmuring the Aggravations of the sin of Murmuring 11. Dr. John Mayer his Exposition on the whole Bible in six Volumns Folio 12. Downhams Christian Warfare against the Devil World and Flesh Folio large 13. Hudsons Vindication of the Essence and Unity of the Church Catholick Visible and the Priority thereof in regard of particular Churches 14. Observationes Astrologicae or an Astrological Discourse of the effects of a Notable Conjunction of Saturn and Mars and other Configurations concomitant From whence is rationally predicted the Quality and Time of the Principal Transactions that are probably to ensue in England and several other parts of Europe To which is prefixed a Brief Institution or Tutor to Astrology for the better understanding the following Discourse or any other of the like Nature And also added a most ingenious Discourse of the true Systeme of the World By Richard Edlin Student in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences 15. The Posie of godly Prayers fit for every Christian to use An Advertisement of a new Book in the Press now printing 16. An Epitomie of the whole Art of Husbandry comprising all necessary things belonging to the Country-man as Plowing Sowing Gardning how to cure any Disease in Cattle how to order Bees c. 17 A large and curious Bible printed at Cambridge with Service Apocrypha and a new large Concordance thereto Dr. Pierces and Buckworths famous Lozenges for cure of Colds Coughs and all Diseases incident to the Lungs All sold by Benjamin Billing sley and Obadiah Blagrave at the Printing-press in Broadstreet near the Church by Gresham-Colledge-gate Where you may also be furnished with several sorts of School-Books Bibles c. and Stationary-ware and the best Ink for Deeds and Records