Sudorific Medicine THe Scurvy is not a particular Disease limited to this or that part of the Body but extends it self throughout the whole as appears by the variety of Symptoms in several parts of the Body and being of this extent Medicine also must have the same Latitude of Operation to prosecute and reach into its utmost and farthest quarters Purgation that cleanseth the Central and more inward parts as the Stomack Guts Mesentery Liver and Spleen Transpiration that respects chiefly the habit of the Body and external parts purifying the Mass of Blood and vital streams These two Operations are necessary for Cure in most Scorbutic cases as the following discourses and observations in Practice recited does manifest Some there are that deceive themselves and lay the whole stress of the Cure upon Purging and that they prosecute very often and it were well if the purgatives be proper but the effects may inform and tell them that there is something else requisite and they find it so The Scurvy is not so easily dislodged and thrown out by a single Operation of Medicine but requires rectifying and strengthning of the Digestive Faculties also and depuration of the Blood The Body of man is perspirable and in his due state of health continually more or less doth transpire and breath out humid vapours and a superfluous moisture by the Pores of the Body hereby the Mass of Blood and habit of the Body is cleansed and discharged of that which is superfluous or impure and unfit to be retained and this insensible Evacuation is so requisite that without transpiration the Mass of Blood cannot be depurated but remains muddy and defiled which forceth Nature to a distempered fermentation and morbific Eruption Proper and amicable Purgation doth well acts a good part and ought to be praemitted in most cases which alone do check a Disease and lessen it by carrying off a I morbific matter in the lower Region of the Body but if the Mass of Blood and habit of the Body be tainted and corrupted the vital stream and those parts irrigated and fed from thence are not purified as they ought but by Exsudation and Transpiration and the Spirits that are clogg'd and infested by impure matter which darkens their light causing Melancholy and indisposed heaviness are hereby relieved and unfettered become brisk aery and lively as before And in promoting this Operation we imitate and assist Nature which continually does Emittere Transpirare per Poros at least ought so to breathe forth superfluous vapours and humidity and when this is cohibited and restrained by occlusion and shutting up the pores by cold or otherwise or Nature unable thus to relieve and discharge her self by reason of debility and insufficiency in separating and protruding it is not long but some Disease or many ariseth from the course of Nature thus impedited either a sudden febril aestuation or erratic pains in this or that part or a slow eruption of grosser matter sticking in the skin discolouring and spotting of it or bringing forth Scurf Pustules or other Extretions By this you may understand the benefit that doth arise by the regular course of Nature in her daily Operations and Excretions and the profitable assistance of Art in promoting them when impeded as also the prejudice and damage by the contrary And here I shall relate to you the Case of a Scorbutick Patient pertinent to the proceeding Discourse A Gentlewoman aged between Forty and Fifty formerly fatt and fleshy but reduced to a lean state being troubled for some years with a lassitude or weariness in her Limbs and Indisposition to Action and with pains at some times afterwards in Autumn a weakness and numbness possessed her Limbs that disabled her in going All this while she was not negligent to seek for help had such Advice as the Country did afford and used many Medicines but her Disease prevailed still each Spring and Autumn being worse than the former it hapned that a Relation of her case was sent to me she living a great distance from London what was wanting in the first Relation I interrogated in my Answer and the next Account I received did fully satisfie me I found the Scurvy disguised to act in several Scenes after a different manner the Medicines she had used were proper for the Symptoms that did appear barely considered but not as they had a Relation and were grounded upon the Scurvy which being undiscerned did frustrate all the Endeavours for Cure Letting of her blood was injurious and she grew worse upon it soon after a Stupor or Paralytic numbness seised her To be short she was committed to my care and management I sent her three Anti-scorbutick Medicines namely my Scorbute-Pills Elixir and Sudorific Extract to be used in that order and method as the Medicines and her Condition required at the months end she gained the use of her Limbs but were something weak yet no pains as formerly and upon the use of the Sudorific Extract some spots were driven forth and the Latent Scurvy did appear and satisfied them more fully what I had determined of her disease The Winter being very sharp did sometimes interrupt her Course and retarded the compleating of a Cure which else might have been finished in a shorter time At the beginning of March I set her into the same Course again which was diligently observed and in April following she was perfectly restored In the Course of these Medicines according to the Account received I observed her pains to lessen and cease upon the use of the Sudorific Extract and not before which Medicine chiefly restored her the use of her Limbs and it was reason to expect the greatest benefit as to that particular in the Case should acrue from a Diaphoretic Medicine that searching and penetrating the habite of the Body by transpiration and breathing Sweats should dissodg and discusse the Scorbutic Matter which infested the Nerves and Muscles impeding and disabling the parts in their Motion and Action By such Examples as this and other different Cases as to the Symptoms yet parallel with it as to the parts affected and Morbisic Cause I was fully satisfiâ—d that a Sudorific Medicine was of necessary use in many Scorbutic Cases and without which a Cure could not be performed I therefore prepared a Medicine that might effectually answer the scope of that intention which might operate by Transpiration and gentle sweating and by a kindly assisting of Nature in that operation might depurate the whole Masse of blood and free the habite of the body from any Scorbutic Impurity and Degenerate Matter which at certain seasons of the year and by accidental promoting Causes ferments and produceth various internal Distempers and Diseases Scorbutic Feavers continual and intermitting Quotidian Tertian and Quartan Head-aches and Pains in several parts Pleurisies Asthma's c. or external and Cutany-Difedations as Spots Scurff Scabs Pustul's Tettars Ringworms Tumors c. And because our blood especially in these Northern
takes a disgust to a Medicine she seldom agrees with it after à levioribus incipere procedere ad fortiora est ordo Sapientum though it be never so good therefore at the first begin with a little dose for tryal though the Medicine be very amicable and the next time you may encrease and take a little more The manner of taking is thus Roll it in a little Sugar and swallow it down Take it at Night having eaten but a little Spoon-meat for your Supper in Bed covered warm and a quarter of an hour after drink a draught of Rosemary-Posset or Mace-Ale then you may sleep as you find your self disposed Or you may take this Medicine in a Morning very early after the same manner and lye in Bed half that day sleep if you will that does not check the Medicine you will have the benefit of Transpiration in your sleep Somnus Cohibet omnem evacuationem preter Sudorem aph nor are you to expect great Sweats but only moist Breathings not at all troublesome Some perhaps being too hasty and desirous to effect their Cure may think one or two great Sweats may do as much good as half a dozen gentle breathings Saepius mediocriter Sudomovere melius est quam Semel modum excedando viresprosternere and so shorten the time of their Cure but I cannot approve that Course to impair Nature by violent and large Exhaustions you thereby frustrate the benefit of the Medicine which rightly used will prove very succesfull for the purposes appointed This Sudorific Extract may be taken twice in a week on the intermitting dayes when you do not purge having first taken three doses of the Scorbute Pills to cleanse the stomack and bowels before you begin to Sweat that the grosser matter and impurity of those parts be not driven into the habit of the body For going abroad observe this if you take the Sudorific in the Morning you must not go out that day the Pores being open but if you take it over night the weather not cold and searching but temperate or hot you may go forth next day if your disease strength and condition of body admit Those persons that use the three Antiscorbutic Medicines before mentioned do observe this order except in some special Cases and complicated Diseases by particular advice First they begin with the Scorbute-Pills to cleanse the Center of the Body as the Stomack Guts Mesentery Liver and Spleen The next day and all the intermitting days between Purging they use the Elixir to strengthen the declining Faculties and rectifie the Digestions and after three doses of Purging Pills taken they begin with the Sudorifick Medicine to purifie the Blood and cleanse the habit of the Body and these are to be used twice in a week proceeding also with the other Medicines in their turns as before But now you are come to use the Sudorifick Extract you may take the Scorbutic Pills but once in the week whereas before you took them once in four or five days this is my course and practice in curing the Scurvy and 〈…〉 it is a 〈…〉 according to the Canons of Art is also verified by much experience to be most effectual The chief reason why I am so large here in the general use of these Medicines is to avoid the daily trouble of directions in writing to each particular Patient except there be good cause I have now finished what I proposed in my self to make Publick The Nature of this spreading Disease the Scurvy its variety of Symptoms and appearance that it may be known though in a various dress and disguise the usual complicated affects that associate and attend it its internal essential Causes manner of Generation and seat of Radication in the Body the external procuring and promoting Causes the chief indications so Cure three Anti-scorbutic Medicines laid down as exemplars answering the scope of those curative intentions and some remarkable Observations in Practice And this is the summ of the whole Work FINIS
infirmities and gave over Physick nere six months But meeting with one formerly a Patient of mine that I had cured though a different case encouraged him to come to me or acquaint me by Letter first with his condition whereupon he wrote to me living at a great distance and gave me a full Relation of his case defiring my advice and assistance the ein submitting to what course I should appoint him I considering the whole story I was sufficiently satisfied of the Disease that he was deeply seised with the Scurvy as the Syndrome and Concurrence of symptoms did certainly discover Whereupon I sent him my Treatise of the Scurvy to contemplate his Difease at large and to be useful to him as a Guide with a Box of Scorbute Pills and an Elixir and bad him proceed in the use of them according to Directions which he did for Three weeks then gave me an account that the violence of his Disease was much abated the Symptoms more mild and easie and not so frequent those nights he took a Pill he slept more quietly then at other times in his stools came away little lumps of a slimy jelly of a dark colour or blackish after which he was much at ease his Belly and Hypochonders were more flat and soft that since his Physick some dark spots appeared in several parts of his body with a moisture upon his skin as enclining to sweat some nights but chiefly towards morning This I liked well and farther appointed him the Sudorisick Medicine hereafter mentioned to help forward and procure breathing Sweats twice in the week which I judged to be of great advantage to him this he diligently performed seven or eight times until the spots vanished and then his spirits were more brisk and chearful and more fit for business having thrown off that impure matter and dispersed the Cloud of Scorbutic vapours that clogged and darkned his spirits his sleep now was quiet and to be short the symptoms that formerly molested him did not appear but was reduced beyond expectation I gave him some cautions and advice lest he might relapse which he punctually observed and stood firm for seven or eight months after Since I hear nothing of him but suppose him to be well for which he was not ungrateful I might Comment largely upon this case and illustrate the Scurvy in the several Symptoms though disguised by various names usually given not respecting the causes but I pass on I have yet a farther Account of these Pills how and in what principal Cases I have used them successfully for diseases and infirmities of the Head so accounted though arising from inferior parts most often as Apoplexy Epilepsies Convulsion Palsies Vertigoes Soporiferous and drowsy Infirmities Rheums Head-aches c. This Medicine is profitably used by Eradicating their causes that require Abstersion and Evacuation in the lower Regions of the Body Diseases ascribed to the Head though appearing there yet for the most part do arise from inferiour parts occasioned by their Impurities Obstructions and Disorder for one that is Idiopathically Afflicted ten are Sympathically affected by consent of parts and transmission of some Morbifick matter thither the Disease appears in one part but the foundation and cause is Radicated in another and to that part must the cure be directed And therefore if well observed we frequently meet with Scorbutic Palsies Scorbutick Convulsions Apoplexies Sleepy Diseases pains of the head Giddiness trembling of the Nervs Deafness dull Sight and Blindness and all these arising from the Scurvy or Scorbutick impurity of the body oftentimes and these are not cured but by Anti-scorbutic Medicines and those that endeavour otherwise with their Specificks and appropriate Medicines to the parts where such Symptoms and Diseases do appear labour in vain and are frustrated in their intended Cures I might instance in many more cases wherein this Medicine hath done me good service but that would be too tedious to relate therefore in general I must say for Sorbutic persons and the various Symptoms that attend that Disease whether in this part or that part these Pills are the best Abstersive and Purgative Medicine I ever made use of being so amicable and friendly to nature in their Operation performing with so much ease and gentleness that I have given them to the weakest bodies with good success proportioning the dose according to the ability of the body I shall here set down the Dose and Circumstances that belong to the taking of these Pills The ordinary Dose for man or woman is three Pills some Bodies though very seldom require four and sometimes two Pills is sufficient for weak bodies and such as work freely with a small matter So much difference there is in bodies for purging that two of these Pills are sufficient for some but most commonly three Pills are required seldom four therefore try your body first with a lesser Dose then if it require more you may add to the next and in so doing you will not err For example If you have a stubborn body difficult and hard to purge and the first Dose works but little Tutius est peccare in defectu quā in excessu the next Dose you may take one Pill more but if you have a lax gentle body freer in Operation than you expected then abate a Pill if the first work too nimbly with you The difference of bodies is such in Operation especially purging that they require a different Dose or quantity for their proportion which cannot so exactly be determined and appointed by the praescience of the most skilful Physician but by a rational Conjecture untill the first experiment and tryal of their bodies which uncertainty is not in the Medicine but in the diversity of bodies and after the first Dose taken your own reason then considering the condition of your body with the former will prompt you in the next whether to keep to the same to augment or abate * Solutiva enim fortia cum succis texuperanibus magnam spirituum faciunt solutionem And remember this as a necessary caution that you covet not strong Purges and large Evacuations to have many stools in a day a common error which offers violence to Nature and forceably sweeping down both good and bad together * Eradicativa evacuatio optimè perplures per sicitur eva cuationes minorativas but rather choose to draw away the offending matter gently by degrees giving Nature time for separation the pure from the impure and noxious four or five Stools in a day is sufficient but not to exceed six and that number I intend you to aim at and no more and thus doing you will find Physick much more beneficial nature more kindly assisting and not at all weakned Some there are who unless their Physick work half a score or a dozen times think they have kept House for nothing and their Money cast away accounting the goodness of their Physick by the number of Stools but they