the University of things into two Globes the Superiour and the Inferiour The superiour contains the Fire and the Air The inferiour contains the Water and the Earth The Properties of the Elements being considered we may more easily search forth the Nature and Properties of the Spirits for the Seeds and Stars of all the Elements do somewhat imitate the Nature and Poperties of their Matrix If first we consider the Fire we shall deprehend the most forcible impressions of the Element of Heaven as also most vehement impressions of the Element of Heaven as also most vehement impressions in regard of the power of operation unless they be tempered with the confluence of more benign and less violent Elements Water temperates the Element of Fire the next unto it â—â— Air and the Earth hath the lowest place CHAP. II. Of the Spirits and Stars of the Elements THe Elements are twofold Spiritual as Fire and Air and Corporal as Water and Earth Of these all natural things are compounded and are resolved into them again and from these they do not only receive life and being but also they receive nourishment from them for the conservation of life wherefore it is truly said of Hippocrates We are nourished by the same of which we are compounded though not actually yet potentially for all our aliment which we receive from the Elements is conveyed to the mechanical spirits of our bodies by which it is transmutated into the substance of our Balsam Nutriment is twofold by reason of the Elements Spiritual and Corporal The Fire and the Air do yield us spiritual nourishment The Water and the Earth yield us Corporal This nutriment whether it be spiritual or corporal contains in it three Principles and animal Balsam for the bodies of all the Elements consist of Salt Sulphur and Mercury Our first-begot spirit or in-bred heat or vital Balsam useth this spiritual aliment and it requires the resolutions and fruits of the Celestial and Aery seeds which are conjoyned by great necessity and this spirit doth not only receive alteration and refrigeration from this aliment but Substance Body and Nutriment yet such as is agreeable unto it In the Doctrine of Transplantation we have demonstrated that in all the Elements and first pure seeds of things there are permixt and implanted tinctures or roots or stars the Authors of Transplantations which induce and bring the anatomy of Diseases and Death into the Common-wealth of life whatsoever therefore receiveth and sucketh life and aliments from the Elements doth therewith receive Diseases for all aliments are seeds but yet permixt with impurities From these we collect that there are four stars or spirits of Health in the Elements so also stars or spirits of Diseases lurk and are closely contained in the Elements And these are in the Macrocosm In the Microcosin also there are four stars of Health and four of Diseases Paracelsus lib. 1. Param de origine Morb. cap. 369 ex tribus primis cap. 2. CHAP. III. Of the visible Stars of the Firmament COncerning that which the Astrologers say that the good and bad fortune of men doth depend on the fortunate or malignant aspect or position of the stars we will not stand on it neither do we reject or approve of their fictions and writings concerning Nativities or of the fore-deeming Astrology in this place Seeing we consider the nature aswell of fixt stars as of erring stars and by what means they cherish and conserve these inferiour bodies and how they bring and endeavour corruption and destruction to the resolved stars and spirits of the Diseases The stars of the Firmament which are the most perfect bodies and are represented by a visible form are contained in the other Elements in vertue and vital power for we see the Golden chain of Homer and the Society of the invisible nature with the visible and we deprehend it in the conspiration of the stars as well of Health as of Diseases In the superiour Globe we see the Fire of the Heathen Baths or Waters hot by Nature and we find the same poperties in the stars of the Heaven or Firmament and they are by so much more forcible by how much there is the greater difference of these Elements In the inferiour Globe we see Crystal and stones to be cold by Nature likewise we see some visible stars having the same property The Loadstone hath an attractive faculty the like attractive faculty is in many stars by influences These operations of the stars are not to be ascribed to the Heat or Cold of the stars but they are contained in the faculties and sciences of their principles of which they consist Concerning the offices of the visible stars they are created of God for signs and seasons that they may make day and night and that they may distinguish the times not that they confer any thing to the heat pulchritude nature and properties of Man or fruits of the Earth or Water as many Astrologers do trisle but that the Sun and the Stars should be as instruments of digestion even as our material Fire and our Vulcan for without the visible stars we cannot live seeing that the heat and cold and digestion and maturity of natural things which we use in our Meat and Drink are caused from them The more principle visible stars are seven Sol Luna Saturn Jupiter Mars Venus Mercury so likewise there are seven orders of the fixt stars of which every one is referred to a principal star so that some stars are Saturnine some Jovial some Martial some Mercurial some Solar some Venereal some Lunar which at the accomplished and decreed times do either produce many fruits of Soundness or of Diseases CHAP. IV. Of the Being of Stars A Being is a thing or substance which hath power to govern change and affect our bodies Paracelsus in param de entibus Morb. he reckoneth five kinds of these Beings 1. The Being of the Star 2. The Being of Poison 3. The Bâ—ing of Nature 4. The Being of Spirits that is of Enchanters 5. The Being of God These five Beings are five Originals or Causes of Diseases of which Causes every one hath full and perfect power of procreating all Diseases so that according to the Beings or Causes there are five kinds of the Plague five kinds of the Dropsie five of the Jaundies five kinds of Fevers and so of every Disease there are five kinds and not one kind of every Disease as Physicians have fasly perswaded themselves hitherto seeing that every Being is able to engender all the Diseases and as in the inferiour Globe of Water and Earth we see the fruits which generate the Stone the Tartar the Sand the Gout the Pining and the Dropsie so in the superiour Globe some stars have the same Properties and corrupting tinctures and seeds of Diseases and are able to produce all Diseases which thing Hermes Trismegistus the Father of the first sacred Philosophy testifies when as he saith It is true and no
lie it is certain and most true that that which is below is as that which is above and that which is above is as that which is below This saying of Hermes is not only to be understood of the Conspiration and Harmony or Conflux and Consent of the First and uncorrupted Matter or of the stars of Generation in both the Globes but also of the Conspiration of the superadded tinctures and stars of Transplantation The Holy Ghost confirms this Hermes his concord of the superiour and inferiour things and as well of the first perfect Nature as of the corruptible and superadded Nature by John in the Apocalyp where it is writ that Apoc. â— the star of Wormwood fell upon the Waters and made the Waters bitter for the Destruction of man Furthermore this star and other like in properties are The Transplantation of Water and Earth deprehended to be in the superiour sphere â—â—ars of the Firmament So also the properties of Arsenick Colocynthis Devils Milk and Scammony and all the properties of things and of superadded tinctures according to the sentence of Hermes and Doctrine of the holy Ghost are found to be in the superiour Globe and visible stars which properties are hidden in the bodies of the inferiour Globe We were ever happy Astronomers Philosophers and Physicians if we knew that concordance of Hermes then we could truly interpret that which God spake by Moses That they were for signs which thing we see with half shut eyes these Concordances being not known Certainly many Physicians do neither believe nor do grant that from the stars of the four Elements as from universal causes of all Diseases as well spiritual as material acute as chronical all Diseases do rise seeing that the stars are such clear beautiful and lucid bodies which do absolve and finish a certain Course From hence it appears that they only read the Writings of the Heathen and that they have lost the great book of Nature and the book of Philosophy and art of Physick and that they have not read the Bible from which as from a Fountain all Wisdom floweth for if they had read the Bible with judgment they would have found it in express words writ in Job that the stars before God are not pure but contaminated with impurities and tinctures superadded wherefore as the Earth for the fall and prevarication of the first man was Cursed and filled with thorns and briers even so the superior bodies the like spiritually which the inferiours receive corporally which Hermes and all real Astrologers confirmed by Experience do affirm CHAP. V. Of the Being of Poison in the Visible Stars SEeing that in the visible stars of the Firmament there are found not onely the form of the Wheat but of Darnel and not only the Nature and Properties of Gold and Silver Balmmint and Rose but of Arsenick Woofsbane and Poppy it follows necessarily that the Being of Poison is contained in the Being of the stars though it differ from the being of poison in the inferiour bodies because it is in the stars spiritually but in the inferiour bodies corporally for Paracelsus in his book de ente Astr cap. 9. writes that there do not more poisons exist in the Earth than do in the stars when as he says all the kinds of poisons which the fruits of the inferiour Globe of the Earth and Water do shew unto us are likewise contained the stars of the Firmament And furthermore he saith of those exalted stars poisoned with impurities and resolved seeds that they can produce all Diseases which these inferiour bodies by the being of their poison can produce for the original and cause of all Diseases is the being of poison and all Diseases are generated from poison Wherefore Physicians perswade themselves that all Diseases as well spiritual as corporal have their original and beginning from the spiritual or corporal being of poison The being of poison is rightly distinguished for the difference of the superiour and inferiour bodies into the spiritual in regard of the superiour and corporal in regard of the inferiour bodies We have said in our Philosophy that no Element doth bring forth fruits in his own proper place but in a strange place and that the fruits of the Firmament were absolved and perfected in the Air for as the fruits of Sanity flowing from the Firmament are absolved in the Air so also the stars of the Firmament do lay down the fruits of Diseases and Death in the bosom of the air that there they may attain the predestinated term and perfection But seeing that the necessity of the air is so great to all living creatures that they cannot want it for a moment It comes to pass that not only brute Animals do attract corrupt and infected air by breathing but also men for the aliment of the Microcosm as of the superiour Globe is altogether invisible and spiritual Hippocrates in his book de flatibus shews the unresistible necessity of this aliment The necessity of breathing is so great to all mortal creatures that though man abstain from all other things so that he neither eat nor drink yet he may live two or three days or moe but if any man have the passages stopped by which breath enters into the body he dies in less than a moment of an hour Again men may cease from other labours but there is no rest or ceasing from breathing granted to any Paracelsus in his book de ente Astror cap. 7. calls the Air a great Mystery but yet for some analogy or similitude for by the air he understands the stars of the air which give life unto all things And it is truly said of Paracelsus in the same Treatise cap. 7. that all bodies and Elements are preserved by the air but not by the air alone but by seeds and stars for all aliments and nutriments are seeds but mixt with impurities Neither is the air alone as far as it is an Element infected with poisonsome properties but that great Mystery from the resolution of the poisonful tinctures is Transplanted and transmutated which gives aliment to the vital Balm So that this aliment being received and the great Mystery being Transplanted and transmutated the animal and vital Balm is also infected whereupon follows the Transplantation of the body into a calamitous chance Although this aliment be invisible and want external signatures by which they make differences of the aliments of the inferiour Globe as Taste Solidness Crasness Tenuity Clamminess Heat Easie or Hard Digestion yet it is not destitute of the interiour signatures for the spirits and resolutions of fruits of the superiour Globe are neither sweet nor sowr bitter nor sharp white nor black and very often admit or receive stinking smells In this aliment four qualities as the qualities or faculties of some poisons exist and triumph which neither by taste nor smell or any manifest qualities shew and manifest their occult qualities But pernicious resolutions are
as the Fern having a very white root in the waters use and experience will teach us many remedies out of the assigned art Mandragora Woolf-bane and the inverted Grape perfect this cure for under the greatest poison there lies the most vertue which is to be noted well Thus prepare the foresaid Essence of Beaver stone â„ž the right Beaver stone for the counterfeit are often sold for true ones make it into subtil powder then dissolve it in a pure well rectified spirit of Salt then abstract the spirit of Salt from it again and upon it put the best and highest spirit of wine digest them together in Balneo then decant off the spirit of wine clear from the feces and in Balneo distil off all the spirit of wine and behind will remain the true essence of the Beaver stone CHAP. X. Of the Excrements of the Brain and of Plegm DIstillation with the Greeks Catharros The Catharr is a preternatural flowing of plegmatick humours from the Brain to the inferiour members a Rheum is a falling down of supervacaneous humours from the head unto the members This name is taken generally of the late writers but the old writers have only taken it for that rheum which falleth unto the jaws therefore the cause and matter of pain is the excrement of the head The descending distillation hath his name from the place whereupon it is said if the rheum flow unto the breast it is called a flegm if unto the jaws it is called branchus if unto the nostrils it is called corysa Galen in his 3. book cap. 4. De symptomatum causis Elsus book 4. Chap. 2. The procatarctical causes of the flux of the head are too much drinking sleep at mid-day night-watching unseasonable studies The procatarctical cause of the plegm especially after meat for vapours ascend unto the Brain and over charge it because the mouth of the Ventricle is not yet shut which vapours are resolved into humours whereupon the colours of the rheum are which are called A suffocative rheum suffocative rheums unto which those for the most part are obnoxious which watch much Those rheums oftentimes descend in great aboundance unto the jaws and lungs where they threaten death very often Fernelius The excrement of the head is twofold distinguishes the excrement of the head into the internal and external The internal is that of which we speak which descends unto the inferiour members and is collected in the Ventricles of the brain especially under the skin of the Crown of the head where the ends of the veins are which go through the Face and Temples unto the Head for as often as these veins do swell with much excrement and humour they effuse the relicks and superfluities of the aliment under the skin which can scarcely evaporate by reason of the thickness and crasseness of the skin This is the fountain and fosterer of all external pain from hence a distillation flows unto the external parts of the body as unto the Eyes Gumms Teeth Neck Shoulders Arms Sides and Loins c. But what needs many words here is the fountain of diseases of Galen and Fernelius He which remembers those things which we have said concerning the Generation of Tartar in the parts of the body Read the 2. Chap. of this tractate of the causes of the head-ach and above Chap. 23. of the Tartar of the marrow will laugh at the seutence and opinion of Galen and Fernelius and he will easily confute their opinions concerning the external flux The true cause of the rheum Paraâ—â—ss The cause of rheum is resolved Salt when the corrosive Salt is mixt there rises pains from it being resolved The cure Every indication of cure consists in this that The indication the head be strengthned and that the flux and superfluous humidities of the brain be exiccated In the mean time a regard must be had of the Ventricle that it perform his office These three herbs take away the rheum that is the essences of them namely Balmmint Lunary and Spurge do purge and take away all humidities and flux of the head Sarcocolla or Gumm of a tree in Persia the Eldertree Anaxardium or tree in India Garden Saffron Colloquintida Thime the wild-Vine Hermodactylus Pellitory Euphorbium Mullein the Salgemme Theophrastus Read the same 2. book de signis Zodiaci sub signo Arietis These following purge the flux of the head and melancholy and indurated bloud of the head namely Polypody Ellebor Fleawort Cataputia or Spurge Tithimalus or Sea Lettice Centory and Agarick If the flux of the head descend unto the breast let him use Diacodium Diapapaver Phrisius in his speculum lib. 2. cap. 14. saith that the composition or electuary and the aurea Alexandrina expels and consumes the flux of the head which possesseth the Eyes Ears and Gumms Phrisius in his speculum the cited book and Chap. Pliny lib. 25. cap. 8. writes that these following be very expedient for the rheumatick namely usual Plantain compound Hierapicra with Agarick given at morning and at night for a dosis Ê’ purges the head from the flux likewise Ê’ of the root of Mechoacum administred purges the bloud and flux of the head Against the flux of the head and obstructions of the Ventricle take of Eyebright and Silexis Montanus and Saffron ana Ê’ of the seeds of Filipendula or Dropwort Fennel-seed Ê’ij of Marjo am Sorpillus of Pepper of the grains of Paradice ana Ê’ of Sugar Ê’ij let them be pulverized and mixt and taken in a draught of Wine or Ale The herb Bugloss is threefold the greater the less and the mean The mean Bugloss hath blew flowrs the less hath red flowrs and it is a manly kind if any carry this in his hat or on his head it is made very moist for it attracts the humours very strongly out of the head These crude medicaments do somewhat effect but yet there are far stronger vertues against the fluxes The spirit of Vitriol the spirit of Sulphur the spirit of Turpentine Terra Sigillata which by their specifical properties consume and dissipate all the matter of fluxes and distillations There must be administred three or four drops of the spirit of Vitriol in a covenient liquor in the morning or at night with Ê’ of Terra Sigillata for a dosis Preservatives as A preservative against theum in all other diseases do much avail The chief preservative is the flowrs of Sulphur which like fire consume all the superfluous matter left of Nature and stir up the natural heat that it may work strongly in the expulsion of the excrements But in the preserving much care is to be had of the Ventricle by comforting medicaments and such as stir up the native heat lest that crudities be left from the heat in the Ventricle which are the causes of most grievous diseases This can be done by no medicament as by the antidotum of Mithridatum which must be taken twice
or thrice every week of the quantity of a pease or two in the morning with a fasting stomach This medicament consumes the rheum impinged and seated in the tunicles of the Ventricle and that which is left or remaineth from the crudities and it strengthneth the native heat of the Ventricle wonderfully This is also effected by the confection of Ginger CHAP. XI Of the Diseases and Symptoms of the Eyes and their Causes THe rheum is the mother of all diseases Of the pains of the Eyes and their cure Read Paracelsus lib. 13. 14. Parag. The causes of the affections of the Eyes The affections of the Eyes are twofold The internal affections and it procreates an ill off-spring for all the affections of the eyes have their original from the flux unless they be produced from some manifest cause The affections of the eyes are twofold interiour and exteriour The interiour I call which are caused within the fleshy membrane and have their original from the inmost seats of the brain I call the external those which exist within or without the fleshy membrane Furthermore of the internal affections which hurt this bowel some exist in the discerning spirits some in the brain some in the optick spirits some in the crystaline humour The spirits that they may see quickly and distinctly ought to be many and Ethereal for if there be many spirits but yet crass they fee things far off and near but not distinctly This is almost the disease of old men Blindness obscurity and every imbecility of the sight whose cause is not conspicuous Blindness is a privation of sight caused by reason of the corruption of the optick spirits in the eye rises from the hurt of the optick sinew or crystaline humour The hurt of the optick sinew is obstruction which is from the influx of more crass humour or it is a disruption caused from the external or internal sharp and corrosive humours The peculiar hurt of the Crystaline humour is a removing of it out of his proper place either by falling or smiting by which the eye is vehemently smitten and hurt The Glaucoma is a mutation of the crystaline or Glaucoma vitreous humour into a gray or brown colour They being hindered by this hurt suppose themselves to see through a smoke or mist The suffusion is a collection of humour The suffusion is an obscurity of the horn-like tunicle caused from the commixtion of crass humour in the superficies of it nigh the apple besides nature either in the pupil or betwixt the third skin of the eye and the crystaline humour it falleth from the brain through the optick sinews and that by little and little so that it can scarcely be perceived in the beginning though sometime the crass and consummated suffusion be collected in one day for if the crass humour fall suddenly into the optick sinew it suddenly blindeth him The hurts of the pupil appear manifestly unto the The hurts of the pupil sense and these are Dilatation Imminution Divulsion and Ruption Dilatation whether it be caused at first or rise afterward from some disease hurts the sight so that it causes the spirits to be diffused and dilated and dissipated abroad The native imminution because it girdeth constringeth and incrasseth the spirits makes the sight most quick but yet it is diseased because it hath a preternatural cause which makes it worse The divulsion and ruption neither occaecates nor hurts the sight greatly furthermore the humour causes a dilatation in the Grape like tunicle which also being included and abounding it distends and amplifies the little hole which is the pupil But wherefore doth the dilatation of the pupil follow the hanging forth of the eye and the chirrus and Plegm one and Imposthume of the eye But the Spupil is diminished made straiter in the Pâ—hisis Atrophie of the eye and as often as the vitreous humour is consumed for any cause Also the fourth Grape-like tunicle being contracted and compressed straiâ—neth and girdeth in the pupil for the same causes and also by violence and hurt of external causes the divulsion and ruption of the tunicle is caused These are the inward affections of the eyes now we will handle the external The external affections which possesses the third pannicle or membrane The Caligo or mist is an obscure or dark The Nebula is an obscurity of the third tunicle caused from some subtil vapour or humour occupying part of it seeing caused from the more crass and dense tunicle of the third tunicle This defect is seldom from a disease but frequent from age whereby a certain membrane and nails are made crass The mist is a thin humour sticking in the third tunicle whereby one thinketh that he saw all things through a mist a vapour or smoke this humour waxing crass begets at length a white spot in the eye for the white is a crass and white humour in the third tunicle or else collected and condensed above it so that it darkneth and dulleth for the most part the quickness of seeing These two hurts do increase under the sense and often they are caused from the Opthalmia and Epiphora sometimes they are caused from a proper clammy humour which for the pupil is effused by little spaces which are betwixt the adherent membrane and third tunicle Hallucination or erring is because the Hallucination or pravity of sight is when man â—râ—eth in seeing and conceiveth things otherwise than they are in themselves third tunicle is infected with a strange colour whereby all things without seem to be tincted as in the Jaundies and red inflammation The Rhexis is a bursting or cutting or eating of the third tunicle from which the white humour floweth first and leaveth the eye less by much The Ragoides or third skin falls down and then the falling down of the eye is caused which of the Greeks is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The confusion of the eye is divers from this in which the humours are mixt by smiting and are confused without any eruption And thus much of the affections of the third tunicle The affections of the adherent membrane are these The Vnguis a sinewed hard and white membrane rising from coagulation extending it self and covering the pupil of the eye it rises from an adherent membrane by little and little in a long time increasing and waxing hard if it be permitted Of all the Epiphora and Opthalmia infest and annoy the Epiphora Ophthalmia eyes most often from which most sharp dolours and many other diseases do expullulate and arise The Epiphora is a small humour caused by the manner The Epiphora is a proternatural flux of humour unto the Eye of tears in the eyes This humour is somewhere without pain heat or redness somewhere it is sharp and salt and molestful and hurtful by pain heat acrimony and redness from whence issues the exulceration of the eye-lids The Ophthalmia is
cured by the medicines for rheum The pushing forth of bloud is diversly cured Take shepherds purse and the herb Polygon a like quantity let them be bruised and the juice extracted one or two drops of this being attracted or instilled stays the bloud Give in the too aboundant flux of the bloud four drops of the oil of iron in a draught of wine and it forthwith stays the bloud so the essence of Corals is exceeding good Thurnens in pisone lib. 4. cap. 4. cures the flux of bloud forth of the nostrils by the water of the stone Haematites and of Lapis Judaicus and Bergrota CHAP. XIV Of the hurts of the Mouth and Face and their Causes THe skin which covereth the Face because some of the flesh under it is more dry contracteth many Burning pushes hurts unusual unto the other parts of which kind are burning pushing or wheals which smell in the nose and other parts of the face with much unseemliness The Galenists affirm the cause to be a small and vicious bloud But Paracelsus de tribus primis substantiis cap. 5. saith The cause of them that all kinds of pushes are generated from Mercury and that the disease of pushes or blisters is caused from the essence of Mercury Lib. 6. Parag. cap. 3. he says that the Leprosie rises from blisters In the same book cap. 4. he saith that blisters are a sign of the red Leprosie lib. 2. param de origine morbor ex tribus substantiis cap. 5. he saith that Salt namely Mercurial Salt causes and generates the Alopecia the Pustula the Cicatrix the Condyloma or inflammation from bloud the Leprosie and the Morphaea In the same book cap. 4. he saith that the Blisters French Pox and the Leprosie have their beginning from Mercury The universal redness dispersed through the whole face without blisters is of this rank and order it is called of Physicians gutta rosacea Citron colour Pale White or any other bad colour is not to be ascribed to the distemperature of the Liver but to the radical moisture and Mercury of the Microcosm which causes like flowrs or colours as it is in the face for the colour of the face is nothing but the flowr of the Mercury of the Microcosm Paracel de ente Naturae at the end says that there is a great number of such deformities which because they hurt not the functions of the body are not amongst diseases but because they are altogether preternatural they are to be accounted symptoms The teeth are wont to be diversly affected sometime they are gag-teeth or hang forth sometime they are worn with eating or by violence of some external causes sometime they are made black and covered with silthy slime The teeth shake and are loose by the hurt of scraping them by the eating of hot and sweet things as also by breathing forth crudities and by smiting of an external cause and when the roots abound with moisture and their gumms are made looser then they are grievously pained and that almost for the pain which is in the membrane of the jawbone or in the sinew of the teeth or in the flesh of the teeth Thee phrastus lib. 12. parag fol. 16. saith that the pains of the teeth with their accidents are in the roots of the bone c. f. 417. The first cause of the ach of the teeth is from the sharpness of the Salt Sometime the gumms The swelling and growing forth of the Gumms Aphta are little pushes appearing in the superficies of the lips swell above measure that almost they cover the teeth especially in such as have soft and spongious gumms and such as live in moist and watery places as ship-men do The Aphta are Ulcers not very hollow insinuating it self into every part of the mouth palat gumms and into the sides of the tongue and into the root of it These are very common to children but in those come to age hot vapours cause them rising from the Liver sometime salt flegm doth cause them which flows from the head these are frequent in Fevers sometime they are without Fevers There are grievous ones observed of which kind are observed to be sometime when womens flowrs are supprest The cure Without controversie it is that these blisters are generated from impure bloud that is from Mercurial poison contained in the bloud seeing that like are cured with like and contraries with contraries all the kinds of blisters are altogether cured by the essence of Mercury This essence of Mercury is not so manifest and perspicuous in any metall as in Mercury and it is not so excellent and vertuous in any mineral as in Antimony there is none more effective in any wood than in Ivory Ash lignum sanctum and Juniper there is none more effective in herbs than in the herb Serpents Tongue Arsemart and Serpentine The same cures gutta rosacea but if it be inveterate it can be cured by no external medicaments The spots of the face and gutta rosacea are cured in the beginning with maids milk the description of which is thus Take of Lithargy of Silver â„¥ iij. pulverized of distilled Vinegar of best wine lb ss mix them strain it through a linen cloth mix this water with the water of Salt let this water be made of â„¥ of Salt well powdered Take also lbss of rain water mix them very well and you shall see that water white like milk which is called lac virginis wash gutta rosecea and the spots of the face with this milk Some boil Lithargy with distilled Vinegar some put to Ceruse which all are approved The cure of the bad colour in the face consists in the renovation and restauration of moisture Read of this cap. 16. de cura Phthisis The oil of Amber cures the intollerable pains of the teeth the rottenness of the mouth the Aphta and the corrupt gumms it also makes black teeth white Gumm from the wild Olive especially that which is biting helps the corroded and corrupt gumms Bartholomeus Anglu lib. 17. cap. 14. against the pains of the teeth saith anoint the affected part with the oil of St. Johnswort and lay a hot linen cloth to warm them If the pain come from distillations use three or four drops of the spirit of Vitriol in the spirit of wine and it consumes and disperses the flux Again pour another or two drops upon the affected tooth and forthwith the pain ceases A most present remedy against the pains of the teeth is take the seed of Mastick bruise it and put it into a linen cloth and put it to the teeth it hath a wonderful force and vertue of extracting clammy and slimy humors as also of taking away the pains Paracels lib. 12. Parag. 417. in cura dolorum dentium c. CHAP. XV. Of the Diseases Causes and Symptoms of the Tongue and Jaws THe tongue which is an excellent member The Psellotis is a preternatural affect when as man omitteth some
when these hurts are present the courage and strength fails and there is a crudity of the Ventricle and a slow dejection of the belly and much wind do make a noise The coarctation and straitness of the Intestines is somewhat like the obstruction and it is caused by the vertue of those which are ingested or carryed in whether they be meats or astringent glisters But this is frequent from the tumour of the mesenterium or bowels pressing the Intestines The inflammation also doth happen unto the Intestines when the seeds of Arsenick Sulphur and Auripigmentam are resolved in them Then a pain at first sharp and lancing is begot fixt in the same place The burning Fever and frustrate desire of sitting concomitates and accompanies this inflammation The imposthume being burst there comes forth at first a filthy and excrementitious filth afterward a white and concocted out of the fundament and it is either dreggish or somewhat before the dregs in which it is wont to be clensed and expelled and then the pain fever and other symptoms are mitigated and the belly the obstacle being removed doth freely avoid yet there is an Ulcer remaining from the Imposthume and Tenasm This pain is fixt of whose sense the Intestines are debilitated oftentimes they depose their load and belch forth sometime a bloudy sometime a purulent filthiness and that if it be hollow because it consists in the humid part and that which is easily passed through it remains long filthy and scarcely at last is obducted and covered with a scar unless heed be taken diligently it almost ends in a Fistula or Cancer He that will resolve the tartar and open the obstruction The cure Observation in the obstruction of the Intestines must not apply any glister unto the patient as they most use to do But apply unto him a hot cloth with the fat of Yew and put it upon the place of the belly afterwards give him inwardly the spirit of Turpentine which resolves the tartar that the excrements may descend unto the belly and that they be evacuated by the accustomed way The Ulcer which is wont to concur in the Intestines is cured by vulnerary simples in a vulnerary potion These are the simples hyrundinaria centaurea and pyrola boil them together with wine in a vessel well stopt untill the Consumption afterward in a vessel full of water CHAP. XXV Of the Symptoms of the Intestines and their Causes and Signs THe Cholick passion is as grievous as if The Cholick passion is a grievous and intollerable pain caused in the inferiour and crass Intestines with the constipation of the belly one have a stone imprest in the one Ureter or be boared through with a wimble in the affected place as Galen speaks of himself lib. 2. cap. 5. de locis affectis Concerning from whence the kinds of the Cholick read Sev. fol. 240. According to Theophrast lib. 1. de tribus principiis cap. 5. The Cholick is caused from Salt predominating in the Intestines and it produces divers kinds of the Cholick One kind when the Salt is resolved another when it is too much hardned So also â—ractat 4. de origine morbor ex tartaro he saith that the Cholick is begot from the effusion of choler which is thus to be understood when the tartar of the gall sends forth his flowrs it with the choler produces the Cholick so also de tartaro cap. 11. The Cholick and Iliacapassio is a grievous and intollerable pain caused in the superiour and small guts with the constipation of the belly the Iliack are begot from tartar and not from humours In the Cholick there are three potent properties of the principles the acute suddenly penetrates by his vaporous sowrness infecting the continuated parts They do not emit and send forth spirital resolutions indued with the same faculties at the first from which the contracture at length ariseth Concerning the cause of the contracture which ariseth from the Cholick read the book de membror contract tract 1. cap. 3. Oftentimes there happen contagious impressions of them which have the Cholick unto the Anatomy of the Ventricle which cause loathing vomiting and other symptoms of the Ventricle You may read a more full and perspicuous explication of the Generation of the Cholick in Davus fol. 238 239 240. Concerning the Iliack Lientery The Lientery is a flux of the belly wherewith the meat is forthwith avoided especially by stool either crude or somewhat digested or Caeliacal passion read the Galenists The cause of the cholick passion is not crudeness nor the weak concoction of the belly but the bad distribution of the chyle which is caused for the obstruction of the mensenterium Milt or Liver or the imbecillity of the attracting faculty or for the immoderate aboundance of aliments especially of unsetled and fugitive fruits and of drink All the superfluous humour being evacuated the flux ceaseth voluntarily sometime the same day it began sometime on the second or third day Hippocrates lib. de affectibus saith that in the Lientery the meats succeed not putrifacted and liquid there is no pain and the body is attenuated Concerning this disease read more at large in Galen in Aphoris Hippocrates Cem. 6. Sect. 1. Comment 4. Sectione 17. Barthol Anglus lib. 7. cap. 50. Phrisius in speculo part 4. Alexander Benedictus lib. 20. cap. 7. 8. Theophrast lib. 1. parag de morbo dissoluto Theophrastus makes the cause to be corrupted and resolved Salt he saith that every loose disease is ruled by Salt as the Dysentery The Diarrhea is a flux of the belly whereby humours especially excrementitious are avoided immoderately by the stool without exulceration of the guts The Dysentery is a flux of the belly whereby bloudy humour is avoided by the stool Diarrhaea and Lientery therefore the cure must be made by Salts and Sulphurs in lib. de tribus principiis cap. 5. Concerning the Diarrhaea read the Galenists The Colliquation or melting away of the Intestines may be referred to the Diarrhaea in which that which proceeds from within seems as it were perfused with fat or oil hence it comes to pass that the substance of fat or flesh or of solid parts being newly congealed may melt and flow away into the bâ—unch by the protracting disease This kind of flux is very usual unto those which have the pestilence fever and melting causes the Hectick and Phthisis sometime to those that have the atrophia and inflammations of the bowels The Dysentery is a difficulty of the belly Hippocrates seems to take it not for the Ulceration of the Intestines as most Physicians do but for the bloody flux of the Intestines Celsus makes the Dysentery simply to be wringings Hippocrates de affect saith this disease is begot when Choler and Flegm burthen the veins and belly The bloud corrupts and the corrupted departs The Intestine is diseased gnawed and exulcerated This disease becomes long laborious and mortal if the patient
O happy concealed Sciences and good Arts if that onely Masters and skilful Artists judge well of you Those which profess this Philosophy if it please God are to be marked with the marks of Deceit Sottishness and Infamy by the excellent Philosophers If that it can be no otherwise then we must tolerate it for the envy of others should not fright and terrifie us from our province For truly to be derided of those wicked ones which are ignorant of the mysteries of God and the secrets of Nature it is nothing else than to be praised but on the contrary to please such is to be dispraised CHAP. III. Of the Essential Form VIrgil writ well in the first book of his Georgiâ—ks The man is happy which can attain to the knowledge of the Causes of things for this knowledge is the most difficult of all and cannot be attained but by long use for it is very difficult and remote from our Senses and wholly ariseth from the inspect and knowledge of Nature and Essence But because that all Knowledge proceeds from the Causes and then we are said to know a thing whenas we know it from the fountain of Causes as Aristotle writes perspicuously in the 2. chap. Analyticor posterior where he defines that to Know absolutely is to Know by the Causes by which every thing hath being None can open and enter in at the gates of Minerva the Goddess of Wisdom much less can he approch unto her queenly throne and attain the glorious and delectable aspect of this Queen which is not instructed with accurate and exquisite knowledge of these Causes No man shall be able to steal away the golden Apples of the three daughters of Atlas in the Garden of Tantalus whiles the Dragon watches but when he sleepeth Wherefore seeing the knowledge of the Causes is so necessary in the first place the universal internal principle or Beginning offers the consideration of it unto us whose contemplation being neglected and not throughly seen into many and great Philosophers have cast themselves head long into divers labyrinths of Sophisms but assuredly he which will bestow his study in Philesophy must aim at the real Being as one which saileth and aimeth at the pole-star and he must never suffer it to pass out of his mind which we describe thus The Interiour and Essential Form is a Vital Principle or Beginning containing in it all the Causes of the proper kind by which it frameth the Body for it self and it doth as it were forth of her bosom draw forth Colours Tasters Qualities Magnitude Figures and other signatures which are convenient and agreeable for their functions and purposes This is the Sphere of the Pythagoreans diffused equally through all the parts of the World and the Elements which is infinite and whole within the body and whole without whose Centre is every where and Circumference no where which if we shall weigh more profoundly in our judgments the images of heavenly knowledge will more nighly be beholden and the works of God in these shadows and his majesty in these images that is in the Vital principle will be acknowledged This is the sweet and noble Intelligence which is to be converted to the aspect of the Divine Sun CHAP. IV. Of the First Matter Whether the First Matter be the same with the Essential Form THe Peripateticks call the First Matter the Subject from which every natural body is generated by it self and not by accident and into which at last it is resolved So they explain the first Subject though all mix'd bodies arise from the Elements notwith landing all these Elements have so nething preexistent namely the First Matter for which and by which they are obnoxious to manifold transmutations And whenas the Form of the body vanisheth away and is corrupted notwith â—anding the Essence of it remaineth the same forthwith receiving another form Furthermore they call the First Matter the first subject of Generation therefore they conclude that things must return and be resolved at the last into the same matter But this is not to be understood that they must be resolved immediately into it but that every Corruption must necessarily at length be terminated in the First Matter How strange these be from the First Matter of the Philosophers it shall be manifest if that we recall the things forenamed unto our due consideration The Peripateticks have signified nothing else by these Arguments than a rude principle and vile mass from which the Elements were created which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning which Ovid writes in the first book of Metamorphosis they made it the common receptacle place and matrix of all Forms because nothing can rceive Forms unto it unless it be a corporeal substance In like manner they affirmed that the destruction or corruption of one Form was the cause of generation of another Form in the matter by the virtue of Privation But our First Matter doth bring forms to all natural things and it sustains them not materially but effectively and formally There doth not any destruction or corruption happen unto our First Matteâ— neither is it altered either by necessity or nature seeing it is indivisible as Hippocrates witnesseth From hence it appeareth that they lest the true First Matter of the Philosophers unsearcht and untoucht which the Creator infused into that first Mass by his incomprehensible wisdom and wonderful Decree by the power of the Word and his Spi iâ— which moved upon the waters seeing that this Matter is not subject unto the judgment of sense and common notions of the mind it is invisible and naked and doth not enter into the company of mortal men but it hath vestures the princiâ—ples of Bodies and the Elements by which it keeps it self from the sight of impious and sottish men These vestures of the Elements have bewitched the eyes of Aristotle and Galen and many other Philosophers for they supposed that they apprehended the interiour and essential form of the Creature and as it were held the kernel in their hands whenas they attained but unto the barks husks and foul nature of the superficial Elements Nevertheless invisible things may be made visible whenas their vestures be put off and hid things may be made manifest This Matter is naked Diana without any vesture which doth not easily shew it self or put off the garments with which it is covered of God unless they be put off by the subtile and skilful art of Sepaperations That First true Matter of the Philosophers though invisible and spiritual yet it abides and remains with us and it is very often presented to the sense of the Wise by the help and benefit of the bonds and nigh bodies that is the beginnings from which it cannot be separated but by these and in these it exercises the operations But the vestures may be put off these principles that is the Elements may be separated from their beginnings Divine Plato pursued this First Matter
more diligently searched their work-houses or mines Wherefore Aristotle hath truly delivered that life is contained by heat and that neither Animals nor Plants could live without heat Again he defining Death he opposed not cold as a contrary to heat but extinction which is a privation of heat To which also Hippocrates ascribeth all the actions of the whole Animals he also affirmed that all and most diverse faculties are absolved and perfected by the benefit of this heat at fit seasons and places Philosophers searching the nature of this heat they have fallen into strange errours in that they did not distinguish the ethereal and celestial heat from the elementary heat which is in all things rising from the mixtion and temperature of the Elements but this is fruitless and void or a companion or adjunct-embassadour of the thing compound But the natural or vital heat is altogether alienated from the conditions of the Elements whereupon they called it Celestial and altogether Divine Again any man may easily distinguish and discern the vital heat from the elementary heat in Plants and cold animals as in the Poppy the Lettuce the Mandrake and the Serpent which being exceeding cold in their temperature it is certain that they do not live by this but by sole vital spirits and heat Again they brought it into controversie whether heat which is the worker of life be a substance or an accident Lastly after much contention of words they concluded it to be an accident but yet altogether celestial and divine as the light or the heat of the Sun is and every other virtue or power conveyed from the Heavens unto the prepared body They also affirm that that nature or form which consists in the matter by the mediation of the spirits or heat to be altogether one substance and that wholly celestial and divine not participating at all of the Elements The later is beaten upon and vulgar amongst the more secret Philosophers but they have not received the first But because Philosophers do intreat of vital heat they do not consider it as an accident but they comprehend together the in-bred spirits and the radical matter that is the native humidity in which the heat is seated under the name and appellation of heat for truly every thing may be found forth by it self The cause of this errour is because they have not known the original of forms which thing we wil demonstrate and explain more amply and copiously in the Chapter Of the original and differences of Forms The The divers names of Vital Heat more profound Philosophers have called this Vital Heat the Internal Sun the Internal Element and the Mineral Sun in which all the grounds of Nature are contained Arnoldus de Villa nova in his book of Conserving youth and deferring old age the third chap. he consirmeth it in express words saying That which hath not an equal is the Mineral Sun And wise men have compared the prepared body to the natural heat and sound youth for which similitude the wise men have used to call this heat by the name of an Animal for vital Sulphur and radical humidity is the store-house of all Nature for by the onely power of it all the cures of all diseases may be accomplished Galen being adduced by the notable and wonderful power of the actions in the second book of his Art unto Glauco he calleth the native Heat the Substance of the faculties and vertues which thing he doubted much in another place concerning the substance of Nature and the Soul Aristotle in the second book of the Generations of Animals the third chap. ascribeth all the faculties of all natural things to this vital heat in these words There is something in the sense of all things which causes the seed to be fruitful namely that which is called vital heat not fire for it is not any such faculty but the spirit which is contained in the seed or foamy body and the nature which is in that spirit in proportion is correspondent to the element of Stars Plato which came nigher to the shut gates of Nature called this heat or spirit the Defence of the form which heat is incident in Animals and Plants from the original He also writes that from this universal spirit of the World which alone consociates and conjoyns the soul to the World and contains the virtues that it was thereby caused and conserved for it comprehends the The Seed of every thing and the power of Procreating seminal reasons and hidden proprieties of all Procreants it filleth all and it is diffused through all and it is propagated into all Animals Plants and Metalls and these as it were of the green wind of Sulphur Concerning the native or first-begor Humidity there First-begot Humidity is required an accurate distinction of the Humours in every natural body for the attaining of the true knowledge thereof seeing that there is one humour Elementary another Alimentary another Native or first-begot and that there is much difference of them For the Elementary and Alimentary humidity do differ much from the Native and first begot humidity in the substance essence and nature The Elementary humidity is a waterish humour by which as it were with glew the dissentient and repugnant Earthly parts of the body do cohere and are united and this is common to all things which are generated by the commixtion of the concreated Elements The Alimentary is that which is attracted spiritually The spirit are â—o 〈◊〉 ed for diâ—â—erence or distinction from vapours or mists which are called spirits of the mechanical Spirits existing in the parts of the body and is exhibited or communicated to the body for nourishment or aliment which humidity all Individual things namely Vegetables and Minerals both greater and less which lie occult in the Centre of the earth attract untill they come to the predestinated limit or tearm of their continuance Afterwards the Planet ceaseth Every nutrition or nourishment is spiritual or it is made by the spirits From hence is the dewish moistening of the Microcosm and forsaketh the compound as the Philosophers affirm in these the Spirit ought neither to serve for sence or motion The Native or Inbred moisture which is also called the Vital moisture is called of the Philosophers the quintessence which may be extracted from all living roots There inhereth a matter representing Oil which is the subject of Heat and Spirits it is also indissolvable from which natural spirits and vital heat floweth as forth of a seminary and perfuseth the whole living body from which also the strength and firmness of the parts arise This fat humour which is very like Oil is not fat with Of the Microcosm which we see many parts of the body covered but it is other fat very much different and aery which flyeth the sight of the eye nevertheless it may be distinguished by art and industry and this is the Original both of spirits and
an Organical body every thing that giveth it life and causes the vital actions is to be judged to be the Soul which is the perfection of the whole Furthermore seeing that they can no other way know the essence they leaving the obscurity of essence do pass unto the proper functions of it which are more manifest and they attain knowledge from the differences of the Soul so they define the Soul to be life as from the proper functions of it and from the differences of life they make certain kinds of the Soul and so they comprehend in their mind three differences of living things namely Natural Sensitive and Intelligent because that some bodies do live by the benefit of sole Nature others have Sence others are induced with Reason and Understanding as if Sence and Reason were not aswell natural and have their foundations in the very essence of Nature which thing Hippocrates expresses manifestly by a luculent testimony in his first Book de diata And these differences of living things are not to be ascribed to their functions faculties sciences gifts and interior signatures but rather to the Essence of the Soul Here you may see the calamity of Aristotle and Galen which are fallen and do cast themselves headlong into very foul and unfortunate errours by their subtilty for they do attribute that to the faculties and functions of the Soul which are to be attributed to the very Essence But they may say that that which is natural in Plants is a Soul from which we say that Plants are animated though they be not animals and that Sensitive faculty which governs and directs brute Beasts is also a Soul which doth not only make them animated but also animals Lastly there is none which will say that the Intellective faculty of man is not a Soul These Souls are so severed and distracted that neither the Intelligent Soul of Man is a Sensitive Soul nor the Sensitive Soul of a Beast is a Natural Soul So that Man is not Beast nor Beast is a Plant otherwise there would be great confusion of the kinds and natures of things To whom I answer with Hippocrates Of what kind the sciences and gifts of the natural spirits of the Soul of the hot Fire are there are such like signatures or sealings exprest in the bodies and the whole ornature or comeliness of the whole body is contained in the anatomy that is in the Soul for the Soul is the cause or beginning of the organical body for from this the body is caused by the vertue and power of it the elements and principles are mixed augmented and changed from spiritual into bodies having their figures magnitude colours and such paintings that is signatures agreeable to the Soul which make much for the absolving of the pre-ordinated functions and offices Hippocrates doth illustrate the unity of the Soul by an excellent testimony in his Book de diaeta saith he Male and Female may consist together and each one constitute other and he addeth this reason because the same Soul is in all living bodies but the body of them all do differ Therefore the Soul is the like as well in a greater as a less that is in an infant as one come to years for it is not altered neither by Nature or Necessity but the body is never the same either by Nature or Necessity Now it is separated from all otherwise it were commix'd Here he calleth the Soul the Root and the vital beginning because this thing is common to both Sexes in all kinds of animals therefore they may consist together Again the Male and Female are rooted in the same root and mutually propagate themselves for the Souls which are vital beginnings and the radical tinctures of things are stable and perpetual not subjected to mixtion therefore they persist the same and altogether like themselves The natural description of the Soul whether they be in less Individual things that is in weaker and unfirmer or in greater that is in more stronger and firmer The unity of the Soul being thus demonstrated I call the Soul Vitalspirits the Chorionium of Paracelsus the Powers of Hippocrates Spiritual and Vital powers Tinctures Vital qualities which being dispersed through the whole anatomy of the living body nevertheless they are concentred and united in the more principal parts which communicate true essence to the body The Essence of this Soul though it be obscure and unknown of Aristotle and Gallen nevertheless it is perspicuous and manifest enough to us for by the industry of the workman it is subjected to the eye which we call the Native liquor the Radical moisture the mystery the mean of the Soul the golden vigour of the Soul the flowr of the Soul and the efficacy of the spirit in the elements which we call Jupiter in heaven Juno in the air Neptune in the water and in each of the parts of these the Ancients have called it by divers names of the Gods PART II. CHAP. I. Of the Original of Forms THe most have supposed Heaven to be the Father of all things which are generated upon Earth and the Earth to be the Mother They called the Heaven the Father because the Water falling from thence supplies the place of Seed they call the Earth the Mother because it receiveth it after the manner of a Mother and brings forth For the same cause we find the Moon called of many after Mankind because it is affirmed to have the Dominion over the humours and doth perform a manly work in the administration thereof Which thing Tertullian and Cornelius Severus profess which Charisius cites the Epithete of Phoebus being adduced from the Male kind he saith Now the fiery Stars did shine in the Heaven O Phoebus the succeeder with thy Brothers Horses In the secrets of the Hebrews which they call Cabalistical all the vertues of the Stars and the heavenly images are received and contained in the body of the Moon from which afterward the species of things fruits animal sand all new things which are in power to be generated by the several elements are immitted into the inferiour matter and genital seed Aristotle and other which imitate him deduce the forms and first substances of all things from heaven Galen derived the specifical form or essential property of every thing from a certain congress mixtion and temperature of the elements These are the famous doubts which obscure very much the knowledge of natural things from this fountain there is derived an overthrow which hath corrupted all Philosophy and begot obscurity and transplantation by the Laws and confuse administration of mixtion In whose steps must we now insist whom shall we trust shall we trust ancient Writers as Aristotle and Galen Unto these Aristotelians methinks I hear Moses speak who many years before the history of the created World following the Eternal God and instructed in all kind of things said that God had put a natural power or vertue in the created
of Salt is to congeal Bodies and to make them solid and firm from hence is the hardness of the Adamant and the solidness of Gold which Aristotle and Galen ascribe to Cold. The office of Sulphur is being of a fat and clammy substance to temperate the foresaid congelation with a benign commixtion lest that the mechanical Spirits being bound and girded with the solidness and commixt proportion of Salt should commit unjust losses of their actions and offices The office of Mercury is to repair and cherish by continual moistning those which hasten unto driness and age and to make the mixtion of them to be of a sluid and moveable substance for this necessity Mercury is adjoyned to Salt and Sulphur but more sparingly and in a less measure in the Vital beginning the Elements are in the Vital sulphur the First Matter and the Balm and these three Bodies Salt Sulphur and Mercury that is the Balm makes and compounds the Domestical principles or beginnings like unto themselves from the Elements so that it requires the common and latter Elements as external Vestments These three by whose ministery or benefit all things are connext and do conspire together are the Bonds of the corporeal continuity of all Bodies Sometimes Hippocrates designs these spiritual Bodies by the name of the Soul as when he saith that the Soul of Man is united to the Soul and that by a Physical liberty Those three beginnings of Bodies in which the faculty of every beginning doth manifestly shew it self are adorned of Philosophers by the name of Spirits These means in Nature and mean Bonds that is the three beginnings of Bodies seeing they agree most highly with the Architectonical spirits and roots or seminary beginnings of things they are named of Philosophers by the name of the First Matter Now follows the tractate of the Causes and Cures of Diseases The general and special Explication of all Diseases Astral and Material or of all Elementated and Hereditary Diseases from the Book of Nature the Book of Philosophical and Physical truth with the Opinions of Ancient Writers added as Hippocrates Galen and Celsus and others In the particular curing of Diseases it is handled of the mysteries of Cures of the brevity of the Signs of the secrets of the Remedies And first the old Precepts of Galen and of others are brought and afterward it is demonstrated by the Experience of Paracelsus Thurniserus and of Excellent new Writers and Philosophers and the Medicines for all the Diseases from anatomy and the signed art as well simple Remedies as compound by shewing the work Man the Microcosmus or little World out of the Macrocosm or great World containeth in him the anatomy of health and sanity In Man are threefold Diseases Namely 1 From Fire and Air. Which two Elements generate and infect the Spirit of man from whence there are Diseases in man which they call Epidemical or Astral Diseases 2 From Water and Earth These two Elements cause the Tartar and the â—tone and all Tartaâ—ous Diseases which â—â—â— many in man 3 From the seed of Parents and they contain in them 4 courses 1 The 4 courses of the Elements from whence all sharp Diseases arise 2 The 7 courses of the Planets from whence the Chronical Diseases arise which ensure as long as the couse of the Planet 3 4 courses of the humours from whence are Salts and that of divers Tasts 4 Courses of the qualities from whence the complexions are The Microcosmus man hath not been only created according to the Macrocosm but also made subject to Diseases and Death as in the book of Theophrastus of the Astral Diseases so also of the Invisible Diseases as also of the falling Sickness as also of the Meteors and that part is called Astronomy read the books of Theophrastus of the Tartareous Diseases The old Physicians have writ nothing of these things neither knew they any thing of them if they knew any thing it was not much Saturn Hath Dominion in the Milt Jupiter Hath Dominion in the Liver Mars Hath Dominion in the Gall Sol Hath Dominion in the Heart Venus Hath Dominion in the Reins Mercury Hath Dominion in the Lungs Luna Hath Dominion in the Brain Bloud Phlegm Choler Melancholy Is Savory Sweet Bitter Sowr Salt The Galenists call the Salts Humours when as they are Salts and of divers Tasts and qualities Of these Galen writ Hot and moist Cold and moist Hot and dry Cold and dry But Theophrastus from the light of Nature found forth that all beginnings consist in Salt Sulphur and Mercury In these three the substance of all creatures consists and is conserved to the Predestinated term or limit as Paracelsus in his book de tribus Principiis and in his book Paramid Philosoph de quatuor Elementis which four Ements do arise from three beginnings Of Generation Mixtion and Transplantation The solid and firm ground of Nature being laid and the truth and Nature of the Principles being found and established and confirmed and the original differences and degrees of Forms being set down we come to the engendring of Diseases And first it is needful to prepose the Generation of natural things and the Laws and grounds of mixtion and Transplantation And then we will shew whether the beginnings of generation be spiritual or corporeal Again it is behoveful to consider whether Animals Minerals and Vegetables are generated after the same manner for those that know not the Laws and Foundations of Generations Mixtions and Transplantations and those which do not consider the Powers and Vertues and Courses of the Spirits they persist in a great Errour that bodies are only of bodies Veâ—ily they cannot tell how to free themselves in the Inquisition of Diseases which are from the bodies from whence it comes to pass that many proclaim divers Diseases to be incurable Concerning the Foundation or ground of Generation Three things are required necessary to the administration of every Generation First the Elements and Matrices Secondly Seeds Stars First Matter or Soul Thirdly the beginnings of bodies All which though divers yet they are contained in the least portion of the matter which is altogether similar as appeareth by the testimony of the sense and so they command us to worship the Divinity of Nature neither are they confusedly or rashly comprehended but they are instructed with a Vital and most forcible Power or Vertue and with an infallible science It will bring much light to our contemplations if we explain the offices of these There are more common offices of the Elements the Matrices or Receptacles and they obtain the name of the matter they are the offices of the seeds the first matter or stars Furthermore they are called fruitful because they are the Bonds of visible and invisible things and because they contain in them the Laws of Motions the Predestination of Times and the Laws of Generations Mixtions and Transplantations as in the efficient agent cause from which all actions proceed
Mercury is called the Renewer and Restorer of mans body So also the Antimony of all the Waters is the best Cordial in which so great power and vertue of Balm is occultly contained so that it is able to cure all desperate and deplored Diseases as well sharp Diseases as Chronical What shall I say of Vitriol which alone is able to cure the fourth part of all Diseases and to root out altogether all Tartareous Diseases I let passe Sulphur indued with infinite properties and Sal-niter which helpeth and cureth the greatest Diseases beyond our expectation so also I let passe Sol and Luna Margarits and Corals and other Individuals of this kind The Minerals demonstrate their Vital qualities with such a vertue of their actions and they demonstrate the differences of the Vital qualities that is of the first qualities from which all actions proceed from them Paracelsus fetches seeds which are Vigent and bear sway in the Treasures of the Elements for to administer the Worlds province and that they might come forth into aspect they do unite with the Spirits but yet with such Spirits as of which bodies may be constituted and compounded And this Wedlock or Union is the connexion of the seeds and principles Afterward when as they have found forth fit Matrices and Receptacles for every Element bringeth forth the Fruits not in his own proper place but in a strange or unusual place they admit rather the company of visible bodies than of compound and mixt bodies Then the Elements constitute not the common bodies but the bodies proper unto the Minerals In like manner the principles of bodies that is Mineral Sulphur Mineral Salt and Mineral Mercury do constitute Mineral Fire and Mineral Air Earth and Water and this is the union or connexion of the Elements and Principles These being absolved and perfected they produce all Congelations Colours Signatures which are Vegetive in the seeds stars or Vital principles thereof and they demonstrate Metals or Minerals very nigh unto Metals In our Astral Philosophy it it said that there is a corporeal Second part cap. 2. life in all things which lie hidden in the Centre of the Elements which life is subject to the wills of workmen by wonderful Providence and Wisdom of God For the mechanical Spirits or Soul hath made a firm and constant union or connexion with the body but yet not with the external Crasse and last bodies which are altogether unvalid and unfirm but with the internal aed sâ—irituâ—l bodies which are destinated unto properties Furthermore those which have their Roots fixt in the Centre of the Elements live obscurely be cause they are not distracted with the offices and varieties of actions neither serve they for sense and motion But those which live obscurely have a common Hermophrodites seed agreeing with many Spirits that is the Nature of all things living obscurely and lying hidden in the Centre of the Elements is so framed that they participate something of all kinds of their kind and for the Harmony Society and Constellation of their Nature they most easily conspire These things are illustrated and made more plain by examples Alexander a Suchlen in a certain Querâ—itanui against Anon p. â—4 Treatise of Antimony writes that he found in one Root of Antimony not only three united principles the Roots of Minerals but also Gold Silver Mars Jupiter Saturn except Venus So from Venus and Mars Vitriol is drawn by art from Metal Mineral is drawn and contraiwise This is that which Severinus Davus pag. 124 saith by the great power of Nature we have wondred and admired in the seed of the Minerals not only the unexpressed variety of the Sex but also the united principles of the Individuals and Spirits in one and the same seed These are the mysteries and secrets and wonderful things of God placed in the Majesty of Nature Let these suffice concerning the Generation of the Element of Water Now we proceed to the Generation of the Element of Earth and we will intreat of Vegetables All Vegetables are those which have Roots fixt and fastened into the Earth and are sustained by a Vegetive Soul Furthermore Plato called the Plants Animated or Vegetables There are especial differences of Generations in regard of the Elements and of the seeds The seeds and stars are ever the same in Nature Virtue and Essence but the Elements differ much amongst themselves in subtileness and moveableness as the Element of Water is more subtile and moveable than the Earth so the fruits and things generated from it are more subtile moveable valid or firm and more excellent than the fruits or things begot from the Earth From hence it is that the seeds of Vegetables have a clammy soft crass body in respect of the Minerals and Animals whose seeds are more spiritual and subtile bodies Concerning the manner of Generation of Vegetables those which proceed of their own accord without mans industry have almost the same manner of their Generation with the Minerals for the seeds of Vegetables rise forth of the Matrix of the Earth and at first unite with the Spirits and so constitute their principles Vegetable Salt Vegetable Sulphur begot Vegetable Mercury Vegetable Water and Vegetable Fire Earth and Air. But this is to be observed which is most worthy to be noted that the fruits or effects of every Element retain and reserve the properties nature and conditions of the Matrix in which they lie hidden from the beginning and they never depose them So Paracelsus in his third book 2 Chap. of degrees brought this difference he made the fruits or the effects of the Earth to be of the first degree the fruits of the Air to be of the second the fruits of the Water to be of the third to the fruits of the Fire he ascribeth the fourth degree where he adjoyneth these words he laboureth in vain whosoever he be which would get the quintessence out of Earthly things which is like to that which is got forth of Air. In like manner that quintessence which is from the Air cannot be compared to that which is brought forth of the Water upon this Sentence so it is to be judged of the fourth Element Concerning the extracting of the quintessence forth of the herb Chelondine it is not that thou labour to attain the quintessence of Gold by the quintessence of Chelondine though there be more secret in Balmemint Chelondine and Valerian than in the rest only so far proceeds the degree that the secret may excel in many parts so that in every degree one Element exists higher than another wherefore it is to be observed in things made of Earth whether the Chelondine excel the Balmmint and whether the Balmmint excel the Valerian so likewise it is to be judged of the three other Elements The spontaney or free Generation of the Vegetables cometh nighest unto Nature and is almost like the Generation of Minerals excepting that the seed of the Minerals according to their
do voluntarily rise out of the Earth nor are submitted by the industry and labour of man but the seeds having attained a fit matrix they proceed unto the Generation of perfect Animals where they perfect the animals complementally The Laws and Foundations of Generations and Mixtions being demonstrated and the spiritual beginnings of Generations being explained and also the manners and differences of the Generations of Vegetables Minerals and Animals being adduced and inferred it remaineth that we handle of Transplantation superadded to Generation which happeneth to all the orders of Generation for those which put the light of Generation and Transplantation before things unknown in Philosophy and the art of Medicines the difference being rightly understood they prepare for us not any passage and entrance unto any vulgar Philosophy and art of Medicine insisting in qualities but unto Philosophy grounded on the Laws of Nature Certainly none can understand the death of things and the dissolution of the Soul from the Body which knows not throughly this difference and if he know not the death of things and the dissolution of the Soul from the Body that Physician will never attain unto the preparations of medicines for how shall he separate things from life which hath neither known life nor death and attributes the functions of life unto dead things what shall I say of the knowledge of Diseases Those which absolve this difference by qualities will never see how death comes to life or how by the Laws of Nature the dissolution of the Soul and Body happens But that we may come to the matter we say that Transplantation is a symptom of Generation but this is not to be understood in general of every Transplantation but in particular for Transplantation is considered Transplantation is twofold two ways for either it is subject to the will of man or it depends of Nature alone That which is subject to the industry and labour of man is perfected either by seed or cutting In this Transplantation whether it be effected by material seeds or incision two things are to be considered Times and Place It is behoveful to observe times in the Transplantation which is to be perfected by the ministery of hands because there are defined and set Periods in which the force of the seminal flowr appears in Plants and Vegetables for unless the flourishing and vigour of the flowr were transplanted by the time all labour were frustrate and Generation were in vain So some material seeds of Plants have their flourishings and vigour of the seminal flowr in the beginning of the Spring some in the midst some in the end some in Summer some in Autumn There is the same reason of trees which also have divers times of their flourishing and seminal vigour of the matter as the Quince-tree and the Damsin-trees are transplanted very seasonably after Winter the Cherry-trees and Almond-trees about Winter Mulberry-trees before the Springs Equinoctial It is also convenient that there be places fit for the Transplantations done by mans labour for except these subjects of mans Transplantations shall find a fit matrix the Transplantation will be frustrate and in vain whether it be done by incision or by seed Therefore it is behoveful to observe such places in our Transplantations as Nature affecteth and in which places Nature will bring forth freely and planteously fruits of this or that kind for every ground doth not bring forth all fruits some fruits Spring pleasantly in funny places some in shadowed places which Nature he observeth thus such like and such Plants being transplanted our Ladiesgloves love little Hillocks the Poplar the Willows and Arsemart love the Waters and Mercuries Fingers and Melilot as we have explained in the Generation of Vegetables We will apply this first Generation of Transplantation fitly in the difference of the Generation of Diseases The other kind of Transplantation is that which proceeds from Nature alone or it is that which is caused by the more effective tinctures of the Elements neither is it subject to mans sense For the right understanding of this Transplantation it is behoveful to explain the roots or tinctures of things which help both for Generation and Transplantation though the roots or effective tinctures the efficient causes of Transplantations have not been explained at any time of any Philosopher but they have adumbrated or over-shadowed them by figures metaphors and allegories And these tinctures are twofold either perfect and first or else corruptible and superadded The perfect and first Roots of things are Stars Seeds Roots of Transplantations and of the Philosophers they are called the tinctures of the Elements The seeds or roots of Transplantation shew the cause of death and dissolution The seeds or stars of Generation are explained both in Philosophy and in the difference of the Generation of natural things now we will handle of the Stars Seeds and Roots of Transplantation For we say that every Generation by the superadded Transplantation is removed and displaced from the degree of dignity whereby the Seeds Stars and Roots of Generation are lesse able to manifest their gifts and in-bred sciences for every transplanted Generation that is Transplantation of spirits doth not change unto the better but unto worse and the properties and gifts of every transplanted Generation namely of the spirits are much weakned by the superadded impressions and concurring Stars of Transplantation The tinctures of the Elements Stars Seeds and Roots of Transplantation or Impressions which cause Transplantation are the Being or Essence of poison which especially is found forth and appeareth in Minerals as in Arsenick Sulphur Vitriol Mercury Antimony and in Saturn In Vegetables as the Nettle Woolf-bane Hemlock and the Poppy But it is circumspectly to be observed that Transplantation in regard of the tinctures is twofold namely the universal and the particular The universal Transplantation is that which extends together unto all natural things by Gods curse for there is nothing free from Transplantation in the whole Nature of things but it hath impurities admixt and adjoyned unto the veins guests and tinctures of the Elements and unto the Stars Seeds and Roots of Transplantation for the Stars themselves as Job witnesseth are not free from this Transplantation neither Gold Silver or Gemms are excepted from this Transplantation though they seem to carry an anatomy of soundness or purity Paracelsus in Chirurgiamajore 2 Book cap. 8. of his 3 Tractate saith that Gold by his Nature hath Realgar or being of poison which is separated from her by Antimony for if that Gold wanted Realgar or poison as Paracelsus speaks the Spagirical Philosophers would not so strictly command that before the preparation of potable Gold that the body of Gold should be separated from poison and impurities So amongst Vegetables every body hath poison and those which be called alimental of Physicians That Vegetable which cannot be rightly separated neither by artificial or natural concoction of the Ventricle is the cause of many
most grievous Diseases Whereupon with Paracelsus and other true Physicians this being of poison is celebrated to be almost the most noble amongst other beings of Diseases Of which being of poison and more common cause of Diseases we will more largely handle in the differences concerning the Generation of Diseases This general Transplantation contains in it a spiritual Transplantation in regard of the tinctures which bear sway in all the Elements The spiritual Transplantation is twofold The first is the Transplantation of Individuals The second is of the kinds The Transplantation of the Individuals is in which the utmost Signatures are only changed as Colours Smells Tastes Magnitude Figure c. yet this transplantation is not to be read so that it be not made with the superadded tinctures of the Elements but by Seeds Stars and Roots of the same kind as Vegetables with Vegetables Minerals with Minerals c. Seeing there be many seeds in Vegetables in which the Sciences and predestnated gifts of many Individuals are conjoyned which by the judgment of the sense do seem to differ in some sort in kind it is no marvel if that they pass into new Familes by a light moment Severinus p. 141. as if Watercresses be transplanted into Mint Rape into Radish the herb Imperatoria into Angelica This Transplantation is neither to be ascribed to the tinctures of the Elements nor being of Poison but to the Star Seed or Root of Mint Radish Angelica and to the Roots of Watercresses Rape and the herb Imperatoria by the perfect mixtion of the Individuals superadded In this Transplantation the power of the Root and his family or kind remaineth and sheweth certain signs though it be very much changed The Generation of Gemms is a Transplantation of this kind which are produced from the first and common Root of Metalls the Stars Seeds or Roots superadded and concurring So from the Roots of Lead the Adamant is transplanted from the Roots of Gold is the Saphirus transplanted from the Roots of Copper is the Smaragdus transplanted from the Roots of Iron is Berill transplanted c. Those which are spoke of the Stars Seeds and Roots of Transplantation namely those which manifest the anatomy of death and dissolution are not to be understood of the Transplantation of the Individuals but of the general Transplantation and of the kinds nevertheless the general Transplantation is also to be referred unto the Transplantation of Individuals for no natural body or which is produced of four Elements wants impurities or being of poison The Transplantation of perfect animals pertains also unto this Transplantation of Individuals for it is above said that a woman is a transplanted man for in the Generation of perfect animals if the Star Seed and tincture of the Menstruum concur and be indued with a strong power all the seed shall be adorned with properties and parts in the Menstruum If that the Star or Seed of the Male shall domineer it produces the Male and mans Members But here an Inquisition may be made how it comes to pass how Hermophradites are generated having both Male and Female members The answer is that if the Stars and Seeds of the Male as well as of the Menstruum shall be equal in vertue in the mechanical process of Generation Hermophradites are generated for that seed or star doth sometime predominate and hath the nature of the one forthwith it abounds with propension to beget man forthwith to beget woman That Transplantation which rises from the congress of animals of divers kinds is often barren neither can there be a natural Transplantation unless their seeds conspire with exceeding great Society and Consent for animals do difficultly admit Transplantation which are separated by the perfect distinction of the Sex Hither is referred the Generation of Minerals which hath as a Companion of Generation Transplantation adjoyned nigh the nature of an Hermophradite with Balm The Fruits of the superiour Globe are also obnoxious to this Transplantation and that if they be perfected at the same time and have conspired by the Society of the beams as Snow and Rain and there are made Transplantations of the bodies of the Fruits namely the qualities of the bodies being altered by violence frequency aboundance and diuturnity The Transplantation of the kind is where not only the external signatures but also the internal are changed and thereby the Root and First Matter This Transplantation proceeds from most valid and effective tinctures and only adheres to the Individuals of things that is to the beginnings of bodies Again it hath possest the very Root of the thing so that there is no further hope that these first Transplantations may be mended The tinctures of the Elements are proper unto this Transplantation and it differs in nothing from the general Transplantation of things but that the Transplantation of the kind may be caused by more valid and effective tinctures of the Elements but the general Transplantation is caused by more light tinctures The Transplantation of the kind and mutation of the Root appears in the Tare and in the Darnel in which Transplantation the Root of the Wheat is transplanted by the tinctures of the Elements into a calamitous chance Hither pertains Antimony and Anarchisite Sol and Luna It is to be observed that those tinctures of the Elements are not altogether disagreeable from the thing to whom they are superadded but in some sort they conspire with them though they endeavour for dissolution and make divers deceits against life for if they had not some affinity with the Roots Stars and First Matter of things they could not be mixed and so the Counsel and intent not only of Generation but also of Transplantation shall be anihilated and frustrate A true and Philosophical Explanation of all Diseases both Astral and Material Acute and Chronical CHAP. I. Of the Beginnings of Diseases GAlen and his imitators have made the grounds of Philosophy to be the Elements and Qualities adjoyned unto them and the Principles of the art of Physick to be the Humours These grounds and principles being laid of Philosophy and Physicks they make an easie compendious way unto the top of them without any labour and sweat But yet concerning the Spirits of Diseases both Galen and his Sectators are silent The power and force of which rise immediately The Reciprocal Nature of the Spirits is to be noted for the Material Diseases for Bodies are produced from Spirits and again Bodies are resolved into Spirits and the Beginnings of Material Diseases are spiritual that is vaporous which afterward end in Coagulation which in the curing is to be reduced into the First Matter that is into a vaporous substance from Spirits Winds and Vapours as Hippocrates testifieth in his book de flatibus where he professeth that all Diseases as well Astral as Material Acute as Chronical rise from Spirits Winds and Vapours Here we must have respect unto the Philosophy in which we have distinguished
agree and are linckt together by an Herculean knot and all things disagree with a deadly hatred from whence it comes to pass that like things are cured by like things and contraries are Remedies for contraries because things which agree do communicate their vertues and help so likewise contraries expel their contraries which things being so and the unity of stars in the World being celebrated it makes one cure of all diseases being divided into kinds Astral or Spiritual Material or Corporal Paracelsus in his book de morb ament saith that in Astral or Spiritual diseases Astral and Spiritual Remedies are required for whatsoever are required for a cure are contained in the power of the spirits The star of Transplantation produces Diseases The star of Generation cures them Every disease is twofold Spiritual and Corporal so the Physician ought to administer a material or spiritual Medicine In the impressions of the stars or astral diseases howsoever it must be administred we will refer the three Beings of diseases to the one star of Transplantation to whom we apply the star of Generation as a true and perfect cure CHAP. II. Of the Causes of the Pain of the Head and the true Cure of it HOw difficult and intricate the explication of diseases is the Family of Privations of the Aristotelians doth manifest and declare and the natural defects of the Platonicks granting and yielding diseases unto infiniteness as it were by the Quintessence Nature and Properties as if vain names were in the subjects for the hidden and occult seeds of diseases have obtained hidden and unknown Transplantations and Generations which are not subject to sense nor decrees of discourse Though it be so hard and difficult to explain the seeds and Generation and Transplantation of diseases nevertheless we being urged and pricked by the compulsions of vertue and verity as also by the magnanimous and couragious mind of Hippocrates and Paracelsus for we will insist in the paths of more sincere Philosophers and enter into the explication of diseases and that with better success because we have explained hitherto the great book of Nature God still helping us and we have seen more works of the Spagirical art by the Ministery or help of Fire therefore we will descend from the Head to the Foot and throughly view and search into the whole Microcosm according to his parts and places All the affections of the Head which use hath observed are partly symptoms partly diseases we divide these affections into three Orders in regard of the affected place or seat Some affections possesse the Membranes of the Head some the Substance of the Brain some the Passages some possesse the Pipes thereof The Membranes of the Head are the thin film enwrapping the Brain and the Pericrany in which pains are caused for that they have exquisite sense The dolours of the Head are twofold in respect of their efficient causes for the dolour or pain is either caused from external causes or internal causes The pain of the Head from external causes as too much labour or heat of the Sun or from the cold distemperature of the Heaven or from Gluttoning Venery grievous Smells and smiting of the Head The pain which rises from these causes is a weak and fainting pain without a fixt and vital impression The pain of the Head rising from internal causes or from fixt and vital impression proceeds either from bloud or resolution or obstruction Parcel in his 10. book Parag. de capitis adversitatibus internis The bloud produces the pain of the Head by accidental digestion that is by the bubling sorth of the spirits or wandring of the first three causes In this pain caused from bloud let the Head vein be cut and the pain ceaseth and a true cure is made thereof but if the condition of the sick cannot abide the cutting of the vein administer unto him Narcotical moistures of which kind are the liquor of Corals Rose the ever-living Root of the Nightshade Margarites and such like and they are given too within essentially or else applied outwardly in the manner of a Plaister The resolution of the vapours or Tartareous spirits beget the pain of the Head namely when the mouth of it is not shut by reason of the weakness of the Ventricle and then the vapours ascend or the spirits of the Tartareous Salt smite unto the Membranes and the Brain from hence is the pain as also the doloriferous fluxions and distillations In the cure of this disease the cause is first to be removed the Tartar being resolved in the Ventricle is reduced expelled and consumed by oil or spirit of Vitriol which is sweet like to a smell and hath a sweet sowreness also the sowr spirit of Sulphur The opilation or obstruction of the more principal bowels causes the Head-ach Paracelsus in his second book Tract 3. de Tartaro fol. 330. when there is not digestion made in the Reins and the attractive vertue hath not which it may attract then the Reins generate nutriment from the Liver but if the Liver be obstructed the Reins attract nutriment through the Back-bone from the Head and first pains are caused in the hinder part of the Head afterwards in the Hemicrany sometime it possesses the whole Head therefore in the Hemicrany and every pain of the Head the only cure is that the Reins be first cured and that the obstruction of the Liver be taken away that the Reins may have nutriment which is not only to be understood of the Reins but of other principal Members Here the sowr water of Mercury bears sway and the spirits of Vitriol and the spirits of Tartar In the pain from the Reins there is pain felt about the Reins if the pain be from the Liver there is a pain felt in the Liver if it be from the Ventricle there is a pain in the Ventricle if it be from the Matrix then the Matâ—ix feels a pain if from the Spleen the pain will be in the right side viz. in the place of the Spleen are begot the Cephalia the Hemicrania and the Cephalalgia from the Tartar of the Head lying hidden in the glew which It is then a 〈◊〉 and 〈…〉 is known when as there is no obstruction of the bowels nor bubling forth of bloud nor resolution of the Venâ—â—icle hereupon is the usual pain of the Head very oâ—â—â—n affecting men for a light occasion for many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cephalia affects the whole Head or the greatest 〈◊〉 oâ— it The Hemicrania affects onely the one part and it begins by the beating of the Temples The Chephalalgie comprehends both the kinds as â—â—mp â—he Cephalalgy is a pain which man feeleth in the Membranes and sinewed parts of the Brain-pan also every disease whether it be from Fevers or the heat of the Sun or from Drunkenness or from some other evident cause In the curing of the pains of the Head there are to be administred medicines which put away pain by
grievousness of the Fever five grains of Laudanum and therewith the Fever was expelled and he sleeped six whole hours The grains of the oil of Pearls and the herb Sena administred in his proper liquor extinguishes the inflammation of the Brain The strengthning of the Brain is made by the green liquor of Silver the secret of Vitriol the oil of Bread the liquor of Saphire the liquor of Musk the balm of Sulphur the water of Silver The tincture of oriental Saffron being applied about the Nostrils or Temples will help the Frentick or Sottish men Bartholomeus extols and commends the essence of Topaze lib. 16. cap. 96. The Urine of the Frentick which is of a pale colour fore-shews and Prognosticates death green Urine with a green circle shews the most present danger of death The said green Liquor of Silver being an Excellent Medicine for all Infirmities of the Brain is thus prepared â„ž pure Silver dissolve it in Aqua fortis and precipitate it with Salt water then dulcifie the Calx with hot common water the more the better till it be fully free from the Salt tast which being done mix it well with flowrs of Sulphur then reveâ—berate it under a Muffel to a vrey subtil Calx upon which put a high rectified Spirit of Wine Tartarized and set them to digest in Balaneo moneth then distil off the Spirit of Wine and return it on again which work of Cohobation must be reiterated seven times and then have you your foresaid Calx in a Liquor which you must set in Balneo again to digest a moneth then will it become a pure green juice most prevalent in all affects of the Brain much conducing against the Stone in Reins and Bladder and very succesful in all hot Fevers CHAP. IV. Of Out-raging Madness WHen black Choler is begot by the adustion of melancholy or bloud or yellow choler then the Mania invadeth and possesseth which comes often unto the melancholy waxing hot This black humour as likewise melancholy is collected sometimes in the films of the heart sometime in the whole body sometime in the head alone when this humour is hot it causes horrible and Out-raging doting but if it puâ—rifie Of the Causes Differences and Cure of the Mania Cap. 1. Of the Treatise of Diseases of Mad-men The Mania is a great Sottishness without a Fever it bringeth a Fever but if it only boil vehemently then it causeth a solitary Out-raging madness without a Fever and also it adjoyneth the signs The Mania is of us called a furor or Out-raging madness which immitateth the doting of the melancholick neither in thought word or deed but yet with brawling chiding and shouting as likewise the man possest with it is of a terrible look Again the Mania doth impel and possesse the patients with a greater violence and trouble and perturbation of the mind so that they invade men immodestly and fiercely like wild beasts with their teeth nâ—ils and hands The signs and proper adjuncts of those which are Out-raging are demonstrated by experience The cause in which all the Galenists insist and agree of shall be manifested by Paracelsus whether it be true or false The Mania according unto Paracelsus is twofold The one which invadeth a sound man and it is a disease the other is a symptom of a disease as in the Plague and Fevers Paracelsus in his book de morbis amentum writes in the second Chap. that the Mania rises from three principles or beginnings and in the same Chap. he divides the Mania into two kinds The one is that which rises from pain when as a vapour remains in the Head the other riseth from sublimation and is coagulated in the Head In the Cure we must respect these two causes viz. that the vapours from pain be consumed and dissipated and that that be resolved and reduced which is coagulated of sublimation The Mania hath his original either from Bloud Veins Ventricle Intestines Reins Liver Spirit of Urine and the Lungs de morb amentium cap. 2. It cannot be sufficiently known where the mine and procreant cause of the Mania is for it is an astral disease The true cause of Mania is in what part of the body soever Mercury lyeth hid and is reverberated into slime and is dissolved in very strong water which being dissolved is mixt with the spirit of life and inflames it there is such a subtileness in this strong water that it will not bide in the bottom but rises up unto the top The extreme acrimony of that humour appears from sneesing which provoking quality rises from the greatest acretion which comes to pass if any receive in at his Nostrils the smell of the spirits of Aqua fortis Salt and Vitriol This reverberation of Mercury proceeds from too much heat as for example If the spirit of Salt be mixt with the spirit of life it is of such a subtilty and power that as soon as it comes to the Brain it causes the Mania and extreme madness The Cure of the Mania is twofold the one which refrigerates and coagulates the faulting matter The other which altogether disperses and consumes the matter of which it is generated The refrigeration and coagulation of the matter faulting is caused by the curing of the Falling-sickness Receive of the oil of Camphora Ê’ of the oil of Musk Ê’ mix them and administer them at every time This medicine is most excellent in the cure of the Mania for it doth wonderfully coagulace the matter of the Mania and it extinguisheth the heat of the body and the boiling of the bloud and it altereth the matter as cold changes Water into Air. This oil may be applyed outwardly about the Templâ—s and Fore-head Also these remove the Out-raging madness by a secret specifical vertue The quintessence of Silver the quintessence of Lead the quintessence of Iron the quintessence of Quicksilver the dissolving of Christal and Coral so also the appropriate extraction of Camphora the extraction of Gold The medicines which remove the hurtful matter of the Mania are these which may be applyed either outwardly or inwardly Chief sleeping medicines the quintessence of Mandragora of Opiates of the Poppy Henbane The chief Cure of the Mania consists in Laudanum prepared with Pearl lib. 2. cap. 4. he setteth down a secret of Salt Peter which so strengthneth the Brain that neither turning of the Head nor the Phrensie nor Mania can hurt it By that Salt Peter he understands in that place distilled Salt Peter with the Spirit of Wine alcosiated and rectified Again let it be circulated untill it be made spiritual volatile and essential which essence is to be administred with claâ—ied Wine Pythopaeus says that he cured some which were Out-raging mad with the spirit of Lead Read Theophrastus Tom. 7. fol. 186. he understands by Gilla Salt Peter The said Laudanum prepared with Pearl â„ž old Opium â„¥ 4. cut it in thin slices put them in a Pewter dish so that they touch not
one another then put that dish with the Opium into an Oven assoon as the bread is drawn out when it is so dry that you may crumble it between your fingers take it out then make it to powder and put upon it good distilled Vineger in a glass which keep in Balneo a fortnight then decant the clear from the thick and filter it through a brown paper that being done distill off the Vineger in gentle Balneo till the Opium remain thick as Honey â„ž of that thick extract â„¥ s. and add thereto Salt of Pearl and Salt of Coral ana Ê’i Tincturae Ambergrece 12. drops of Tincture of good Saffron made with spirit of Wine Ê’i and stir them all together with a stick then keep it in a Silver or Pewter box for your use make it so dry as you may make Pills of it Dose from gran 2. to 3. or 4. at most CHAP. V. Of Melancholy It is a Sowerness THe other kind of Sottishness without a Fever is melancholy He is melancholick in whom sowrness excels Melancholy is a great Sottishness accompanyed with Fear and Sorrow which is caused according to the Galenists of black and putrified humours and vapours occupying the seat of the mind That humor is generated when yellow choler or choler degenerates into black choler Sometime the humour consists in the milt sometime in the nigh parts sometime in the head alone sometime it is esfused into the veins and the whole body Hereupon melancholy is threesold that which is of the fore-â—art of the belly the primary and that which is caused by the hurt of the whole body The Hypocondriack melancholy is called also the slâ—tulent melancholy and it is caused when black choler cometh unto the seventh Traverse or Diaphragma from which a black and obscure vapour is conveyed into the seat of the mind The primary melancholy is when the Brain is primaâ—ily affected either with a peculiar hurt or by the hurt of the whole body from hence we may understand that melancholy wearies without affecting the Heart-roots which is caused by the hurt of the whole body They call this Melancholy Solitary Out-raging madness but yet falsly for melancholy is not the cause of Out-raging madness but the spirit of life infected with the poison of Mercury of which Paracelsus writes cap. 4 de morb Amentium tractat 1. cap. 5. that there are four kinds of melancholy men according unto the four complexions as they call them If these complexions beget Sottishness the cause is because they expell and drive away their spirit for their too much abundance But what are the spirits of the humours or complexions a snarp bitter or sowr or sweet taste But what is the taste that which hath a great power as Hippocrates Of the contracted Members Tract 1. c. 4. Melancholâ— hath his seat in the whole body sâ—eaks What is that that hath the great power Salt Sulphur and Mercury for in them all the powers as well of Health as Diseases are contained so the spirit or taste of every humour containing in it the three first powers as well of sanity as of diseases may produce melancholy in as much as such poison commixt with the spirit of life is more languid and faint In this disease the spirit of Salt predominates for it is a Chronical and fixt disease In the cited Chap. Paracelsus saith that melancholy and madness are oftentimes caused by Meat and Drink Cups hurt Men and also Women Melancholick men are oftentimes sorrowful and sad and fly the company and sight of men Others suppose that they must not be spoke unto but that they must live all their dayes in quietness and taciturnity The cure of melancholy the Galenists which say that melancholy is the cause of the disease of sadness when as it is only the name of a disease they endeavour to cure this disease by contraries Melancholy is say they cold and dry therefore it is to be removed with hot and moist things wherefore in that they endeavour to cure it they administer these hot medicines Diambra Mithridates Diamargarita the hot elect Plorisanoticon so also the conserve of Borage of Buglosse and of Sorrel so also Diaboriginatum Diabuglossatum and the confection and compounding of dulcis diamascus though these are not to be contemned for in some sort they refresh the vital spirits but yet they do not remove the disease but as much as in them lies and as far as they can exercise their vertues not yet reduced unto perfection they strengthen Nature The decree and opinion of Paracelsus will ever be firm and constant that melancholy or heaviness cannot be removed by the decoctions of Apothecaries In the curing of melancholy the specifical vertues of the secrets are to be considered The specifical vertue which expels melancholy is in the flowrs of Antimony for by the flowrs of Antimony those are freed wich have been bound in chains for some moneths The flowrs of Antimony are administred in a little quantity of Theriaca in the morning twice or thrice or four times by reason of the contumacy of the disease In the fifth Chapter of Paracelsus de morbis amentium The quintessence of Antimony is a perfect cure of madness so in the sixth Chapter The oil of Antimony preserves from all the kinds of madness The tincture or magistery of Saffron expels sadness desperation and melancholy for Saffron is the chief medicine for melancholy for when as any begins to despair it doth wonderfully refresh the prostrated spirits It is a general deoppilative or unobstruct of the vital spirit and it is the chief joy of the heart The Armenial stone and also the Jazal stone being prepared are more commodiously administred by much The Confection of Alchermes which is commended of all Physicians removes Madness and Melancholick Affections for it strengthneth the spirits and expels all poison The essence of Silver cures all melancholy affections The essence of Ellebor administred It is very expedient against all the affects of melancholy The Smaragdus not only drunk but if hanged about the neck it removes all melancholy affects The essence of Thime Epithime and Origanum take away melancholy Paracelsus tract 3. de generatione hominis Chap. 5. ascribes hereditary foolishness and madness to the unproportionable form of the Brain and bad conformation He setteth down the cause of it viz. The immature seed of undigested liquor of life for he which hath a vicious liquor cannot profuse good seed for the body of the seed is puâ—rid and such like are generated thereof thereof Foolishness and Madness do not rise from the seeds but in as much as some hurts are left from Generation from which many diseases of the figures and cavities descend He that would know more kinds of madness let him read Paracelsus de morbis acutis amentium these kinds which we have explained are more common but the other are more rare Confection of Alchermes much better than
vehemently by sweat as diaphoretical Mercury diaphoretical Gold of life the flowrs of Antimony the spirits of Tartar with the addition of Paracelsus Terra sigillata given with a quantity of Mithridatum These diaphoreticks are not once to be given but twice or thrice or four times until the poison be expelled and the sick restored unto his strength Buzzing singing cracking and sounding are to be The cure of the singing cured by the internal medicaments mentioned in the rheum It is not altogether safe to put something in the A caution ears in the heavy hearing and deafness sometime this rises from vapours existing in the instruments of hearing sometime it rises from humours and obstruction If less convenient medicaments be administred the hurt is exasperated If the hurt rise from humours let there be given unto the patient three Pils of Hierapicra or bitter confection of Galen for they extract the humours from the instruments of hearing and free the head from them Artists have a Silver crooked pipe which they put in the ear and blow through it if the patient feel a cold wind then the deafness doth not rise from obstruction Crato the Physician takes Carduus Benectictus and sprinkled it with the water of a thistle and caused it to be distilled and being put into a linen cloath he putteth it into the ear of the half deaf whether they have pain or do not hear he confesseth that he found no medicine more available than this which he hath tried Some put a drop of the oil of Turpentine in the ears and they bring it back again and by this means they free many from deafness CHAP. XIII Of the Diseases of the Nostrils their Causes and Symptoms THe Nostrils are destinated for the purging of the The Ulcers of the Nostrile brain and these have their diseases The diseases of the Nostrils consist either in an Ulcer or growing forth of some flesh in the Nostrils as also in all the parts of the body Ulcers rise But these Ulcers do not rise from the excrements of the brain and their acrimony as the â—alenists fable after this manner falling down and so by their acrimony exulcerating the Nostrils But the cause of these Ulcers is contained in the bloud and veins of the nostrils as of all other Ulcers in all the parts the universal cause is Salt which is separated from the bloud and lurketh in all the veins and all the parts it is corrosive sharp sowr and bitter The destruction of Salt saith Paracelsus de origine curatione morbor t is the cause of Ulcers there is in this Salt Arsenicks putrefactive poison The Ulcers of the Nostrils for the most part are putrid from which there falls a filthy Scab and from which there runs a stinking excrement The Ozena of Theophrastus de ulceribus The Ozena Theophrast is an Imposthum The Ozena is a putrified and stinking Ulcer of the Nostrils caused from corruption of sharp humours flowing from the Brain to the Nostrils cap. 59. is called an imposthume therefore he that hath the imposthume smells ill both to himself and those which are nigh him as also he is molested with the contagion of the obscure spirits Oftentimes daily Ulcers spread abroad which exceed and putrifie the wings of the Nostril or the place within or the tender bones thereof as also the hole they eat the pallate oftentimes with great deformity and especially if they bear the form of Cardinoma or if they be produced from the filthy lues Venerea which is most frequent The fresh Ulcers being neglected oftentimes there Sarcoma grows forth a piece of flesh which is called Sarcoma of that length that it hangs forth in the Nostrils or else the flesh falls unto the jaws and then it is called Polypus for that flesh is like to the flesh of the fish Polypus is a fleshy loose and porous tumour begot in the Nostrils besides Nature which for his many feet they call Polypus Galen de compositionibus pharmacor lib. 3. cap. 3. so also de tumore praeternaturali c. 16. Aegineta lib. 6. cap. 25. The symptoms of smelling are the diminishing and The symptoms of smelling abolishing or deoriving of swelling for smelling perisheth or is diminished the passage of Nostrils or of the bone being stopped by which breath and smells are drawn and this is done either by the Sarcoma or Polypus or inflammation of bloud or heaviness If none of these signs appear the cause of hurt ought not to be referred either to the former Ventricles of the brain or unto their couples in which the sense of smelling is In these the aboundance of humours or corruption contaminates the sense and the spirits thereof sometime about those places imposthumes are caused with no Fever and less pain from which being burst sometime a pure filth is blown forth of the nose as also there flows forth filth out of ears full of filth and that by no discommodity of health The Gravedo is a flegmy distillation into The Gravedo of the Nostrils The Corysa or Gravedo is an obstruction of the holy bone in the superiour part of the nose the bone Aâ—thmoides and his membranes effused from the parts which are about the brain or the Ventricles thereof by it the head waxeth heavy and breathing is made more difficult neither can breathing be made except with a wide and gaping mouth The voice as before sounding hath some sound and is caused in the Nostrils in the beginning little after more gross â— furthermore bloud bursts forth of the nostrils the vein being burst opened or eaten which ends there The Hemorrhagy of the Nostrils is called The Hemorrhagy of the Nostrils The Hemorrhagy is a bloud bursting forth of the Vessels by the Nostrils of Physicians a violence the veins do not go from the inmost seats of the brain into the nostrils but from the mouth and palate they are sufficiently detected and large that they may be as it were an Emissary or Pipe for the superfluous bloud for the expelling the Ulcers of the Nostrils The Ozena or imposthume is cured by the herb Aristalogy Of the cure of the Impoâ—â— hum Pliny lib. 25. cap. 13. Therneâ—s lib. 5. cap. 40. cures it with Betony Fengreek Savory the stalk of Apples and Penniroyal Those which have these Ulcers The cutting of a vein are cured by the cutting of the head-vein in the chin or end of the nose Rulandus says that such Ulcers are best cured by the oil of Lead and the sweetness of Mercury by the water of Mercury by the oil of Antimony which Paracelsus describes in his Chirurgia vulner de corruptis Vulneribus so also by the balm of iron the oil of Auripigmentum and the oil of wax Paracelsus cured the Polypus which is a stink of the nostrils by the oil of Vitriol with wax The symptoms of sinelling if that they be not caused from manifest causes are
often troubled with the distillation and cough especially old men which have strait Lungs The beginning of the Asthma is counted to be Dysponia that is a certain difficulty of breathing the disease as yet increasing When the affected cannot breath without a tatling and noise then it is called the Asthma When breathing cannot be made except The Cough pining and Peripneumonia are Jovial diseases The Orthopnoia is a great difficulty of breathing with the neck strecht forth the neck be stretcht forth then it is called Orthopnoea Here it is to be observed that the Asthma is not only begot from distillations but from the proper tartar of the Lungs which remains in the Lungs separation and expulsion being frustrated as we have demonstrated in our general explication of diseases Fernelius doth here agree with Paracelsus for he saith that the clammy humour in the Generation of the Asthma doth coagulate into hail and after into stones with which we see sometime the Lungs filled when as they be cut The Peripneumonia is an inflammation of The Peripneumonia is a Pleurisie of the ancient c. Sev. p 250. Quercitanus de mediâ—ina prisc fol. 401. 402. 403. The Peripneumonia is a hot imposthume begot in the substance of the Lungs the Lungs whose root and cause are the spirits of Arsenick Sulphur and Auripigmentum which spirits do not alone in their resolved and liquid form but in their vaporous and spiritual form come unto the matrices therefore they having attained a confluence in the anatomy of the Lungs they introduce their tinctures and seat themselves and that more strongly and sooner if they have stars indued with more potent tinctures but if the tincture be more debile and weak they perfect their work by frequency and assiduity they absolve Transplantation and afterward they fetch aliments from the weaker parts as well the nigh as the remote untill they attain unto maturity from the nutriments daily attracted they constitute bodies both filthy excrementitious sanguine coagulated resolved ill-smelling red black yellow of divers colours bitter sharp and having such like signatures therefore the roots being set and the bodies constituted the continual nutrition and fermentation being digested Sev. p. 250. they expect the times of maturity and separation which being instant there bursts forth an ebullition of spirits â—ev f. 251. 252. these spirits flying forth they produce the first vapours of Fevers invested with their signatures which are permixt with the vital Elements of mans anatomy and cause coldness horrours and rigour After follows resolutions and sulphureous inflammable vapours inquinating and tincturing mans Elements with the same signatures from whence are the alterations of the pulse thirst disdain of meat restlesness watching dotings bloudy filthy and excrementitious coughing and from hence the difficulty of breathing ariseth The Galenists make a twofold Peripneumonia one which rises by it self the other which succeeds the Squincy or Pleurifie also humour is suddenly carryed from the jaws or sides into the Lungs which doth not succeed any other disease but hath his first original from it self it is caused from small and cholerick bloud coming from the right side of the heart through the arterial vein very vehemently and aboundantly into the lungs which doth not only fill the lungs veins and arteries but the whole body and cistends it above measure it is also coarctated and putrifies and causes the inflammation of the Liver not that which is collected after the manner of other inflammations but that which is effused in the whole bowel The Imposthume of the Lungs is a little Imposthume or a collection of filth in some part of the Lungs which the proper membrane doth as closely include as a chest so that scarcely any filthy matter can be breathed forth into the heart This Impostume which is named Vomica vomiteth much filth from whence it takes his name viz. Ã vomendo It is generated from the poyson of Arsenick The cause of the imposthume Iron and Sulphur or root of the Plague which is the cause of filth The Galenists say that the cause of it is a distillation of blood into some part of the Lungs following the opening bursting or eating of a vein and there it putrifies and by little it is changed into filth and at last dries and makes a receptacle for it self Surely The signs of an imposthume it is a lurking and hidden hurt for oftentimes it is neither known to the diseased nor to the Physician neither doth the diseased lose his functions nor thinks that he hath such a disease and he carries the cause of his death within his bosom Those which are thus affected are of somewhat a wan colour in their faces and their tongues are full of a certain clamminess especially when they have long abstained from meat Many die quickly in a quarter of an hour in which being anatomized there appears no other cause then the suddain disruption bursting of the Impostume in the Lungs from which filth peirces into the heart which is the enemy thereof and perchance extinguishes and overwhelms the inbred heat All those which are thus affected long before the Impostume burst have a bloudy avoyding out of the Liver and that with coughing the breath also is grievous and stinking there is a heaviness also of the body a light oppression of the brest and a difficulty of breathing but the pining doth seldome accompany them but these signs are common to other affections Paracel lib. 3. param de origine morbor ex tartaro tract 4. fol. 167. saith that from the tartar of the Lungs there is begot the Astma the Cough difficulty of breathing the Phthithis and the Hectical Feaver The Phthithis or pining is either a consumption of the whole body or of some part and it is either universal or particular The universal is The universal is without pain The particular is with pain and parox Pining is a preternatural extenuation of the body caused from the Hectick Fever The cause of the pining that which is effected with the Consumption of the whole body The particular is that which is a Consumption of one member alone The immediate cause of the universal is Phthithis is an hidden impression of the Sun of the Microcosm namely when the vital and animal spirits are as a destroyer of the Microcosm the inferiour heaven that is the native liquor and moisture preserving the body from corruption and destruction which heaven being destroyed the parts of the body melt away and pine The antecedent or remote universal cause of the Phthisis is the tartar which obstructs Thurnens in Neptuno l. 4. cap. 8. the members serving for nourishing The being of poison violates the harmony and consent of the parts and hinders the stars of the inferiour Globe whereby they are less able to produce their Roses Violets Balmmint Gold Silver Rubines Saphires Valerians Vines and Fruits from aliments So in the anatomy of health there
is a Transplantation into the causes producing barrenness and diseases so Gold is changed into Auripigmentum Balmmint into Hemlock the Valerian into Woolfsbane Wheat into Darnel This is that which Paracels saith in Labyrintho med fol. 222. The destroyer native heat of the Microcosm takes the Realgar of the Microcosm that is the Transplantation of fruits from tartar that is that the anatomy of health is transplanted into the anatomy of death and pronounceth death and destruction unto him So the pining is often caused from the tartar of the mesaraâ—cal veins because The signs of the pining of all the parts they are altogether obructed by tartar so that no nutriment or very little can come to the Liver Paracels lib. 3. param de origine morb ex tartaro tract 4. saith that the Phthisis is begot from the tartar of the Lungs so is also the Phthisis of the Brain Heart Liver Reins Milt Ventricle Flesh Bones Veins Sinews Joynts the Glew and Marrow The trembling shews the phthisis of the heart The cough and avoiding of filth is the sign Lib. 5. parag de marb f. 1. of the Phthisis in the Lungs the multitude of Urine shews the consumption of the liver reins though the cough concur in the Phthisis of the Reins and Liver So also inflammations prickings and pains of the sides and the burning of the gall are a sign of the Ventricle pain and compression of the Ventricle Hardness and Clifts in the skin contraction of the sinews exsiccation of the bloud pains of the glew of the body clifts of the skin especially about the knees are the signs of an incurable Phthisis It is to be marked that every principal member which is obstructed more densly and fully may bring the Consumption of the whole body for great Eclipses Conjunctions and Aspects happen unto mans Astronomy from the Transplantations of the times and prevarications of the confluences therefore the bonds of harmony being broken and viciated of the superiour and inferiour heaven in the Microcosm there ensues necessarily sterilities and pining The Galenists make the cause of the The cause of the Phthisis is twofold according to Galen Consumption to be twofold The one is the vicious and bad constitution of the Lungs the other is the humour which eateth and gnaweth the bad constitution of the Lungs he doth not call it the distemperature or distempered constitution but a soft tender substance of the Lungs prepared and obnoxious unto corruption from hence they gather that the most have this hurt of the Lungs from their Birth and from their Parents with which all at length do pine though no distillation or certainly very little is from the brain or happen otherwayes But we do not ascribe the cause of hereditary Consumption to the Lungs but to the tartar and we affirm that those which are bred from a tartareous and pining stock The cause of the hereditary phthisis do necessarily pine away as it were by hereditary right and Law We have seen this evil assail and infect all those which were of the same stock and Family The Asthma Strangling Rheum and consumption The cure arise from the obstruction of the Lungs The cause of obstruction is to be removed and the hurt part is to be corroborated The principal member in the body being obstructed for two or three moneths begins to putrifie from which putrifaction divers diseases arise and lastly death rushes upon the life of the body as Paracels speaks de vita longa The Obstructions of all the diseases of the whole body are to be taken away thus Administer the spirit of Vitriol for three or four days in the morning in the spirit of Wine The obstruction being taken away for three or four days administer in the morning the spirit of Turpentine in a convenient liquor for it corroborateth and strengthneth the weak corrupted and hurt members and restoreth them which began to putrifie These two spirits being rightly applyed effect very much in the cure of the Asthma There is nothing more profitable than Balm and the magistery or oil of Sulphur of which a few drops must be given in the spirit of wine or water of hysope Paracelsus lib. de viribus membror Cap. 14 c. saith that the oil of Ash is wonderful in the Asthma and difficulty of breathing if taken every morning Thurneserus in Piso lib. 15. cap. 24. saith that it is cured by the Barberry-tree the Laurel-tree and Diamosion So also by Diacatholicon Diacameron and Diamargarita Phrisius in speculo lib. 2. cap. 14. part 3. tract 1 6 7. So also by philonium majus taken in wine The Spirit of hysop is available in the Dysponoea The cure of the Asthma is twofold one which resolves the other which exsiccates The resolving cure is to be given in the coagulated tartar that which dryeth is to be given in the dry cough which exsiccates where too much filth is cast forth by spitting untill the matter be consumed For preservation from the Cough Asthma in all obstructions and putrifactions there is no more excellent medicament than the flowers of Sulphur sublimated seaven times every morning The flowers of Sulphur rightly prepared mixt with Sugar in the evening and morning cure the most vehement Cough This medicament expels all obstructions of the bowels it corroborates the weak venticle and softens the hardness of the Milt Take the root of Azon prepared and the root of Galingale and pimpernel dried and prepared and the calcinated eyes of Cancer Take of the seed of Cresses and Sugar and make a mixture of all these let the dosis be one spoonful in the morning Josephus Quercitanus in his answer to Anbertus p. 18. 19. saith that wormwood is an excellent medicine in all obstructions Paracelsus lib. 5. de viribus memb saith that from the obstruction of the spirit of life there arise Fevers Apostemes the Pleurisie Plague Jaundies Ulcers and all diseases which begin with a Fevers paroxism from obstruction putrefaction rises Galen in his medicinal definitions saith that the peripneumonia is an inflammation of the Lungs with a sharp Fever and difficulty of breathing Seeing that in inflammations and sharp Fevers the Indication greatest poison namely of Arsenick Mars and Auripigmentum c. that the very root of the Plague predominates In the first place labour must be taken to expel that poison by preservatives against poison convenient Diaphoreticks The spirit of tartar with the addition of Paracelsus namely the flowrs of Antimony by them the obstruction of the spirit of life is removed and nature The expulsion of filth corroborated for the expulsion of filth which remaineth in the Lungs the sulphureous spirits being dissipated and consumed there must be administred the spirit of Turpentine with the flowrs of Sulphur The Galenists for the Peripneumonia give Diapenidium cold Dragant Diacalamentha Diaireos Salomonis Philonium majus and Trochiskes of Camphora water of
Phthisis of the Ventricle or Consumption is begot in all other parts of the body so likewise in the Ventricle the cause of it is above-mentioned That all things may be made more manifest and clear the Generation in the Ventricle is this when the sides or plaits in the Ventricle are obducted and covered with tartar and the passages and pores of it be obstructed there follows an oppilation of the spirits of life and from the oppilation there insues corruption and putrifaction of the whole member from hence is the Consumption of the Ventricle of which the whole body hath a compassion and feeling and deplores the destruction most vehemently it being destitute of aliment The Convulsive Hicket is a motion of the Hicket is a Convulsive and sounding motion of the Ventricle for to expel the offensive matter contained in it Ventricle which Hippocrates affirmed to be caused either from repletion or emptiness like as the Convulsion of the members from evacuation as from the immoderate flux of bloud and from immoderate purgation from repletion as in Children and those which are addicted to surfetting These are the causes of the Hicket which are wont to be adduced besides which others more grievous do exist for oftentimes spirits or malignant and poisonful vapours cause a worse Hicket of which kind we have seen in malignant and pestilent Fevers and in the inflammation of the Liver and especially when the figure of it is straitned and the heart is overwhelmed with the vehemency and malignity of the disease There is no better remedy for the preservation of the The cure Ventricle in these diseases than the vertue and power of the Vitriol of Copper so that afterward there be made a liquor and spirit from it and this is the hungry acetocity or sowrness of it which excels in so many vertues that it will consume all things which are contained in the Ventricle whether they be tartareous or sulphureous impurities as also it will comfort and corroborate the stomach that it may be able to concoct all things as the Estrich concocts and digests iron Concerning this acetosity of Copper Paracels writ in his book de morb tartareis Chap. 16. where he distinguishes sowr things into natural things and artificial The natural sowr things are hot baths and sowrness The artificial are extracted from metalls minerals and ill juices and it is the salt of them The same is effected almost as well in the preservation as the cure by the spirit of Vitriolum Vngaricum Romanum of which Paracels writes in his book de mineralibus that it is able to cure all tartareous diseases But yet not too much of it must be taken for nimiety or too much of any thing is hurtful and an enemy unto Nature therefore it must be taken with discretion that the mouth of the Ventricle may be shut Take the root of corrected Azon powder of Betony and the sweet Cane burnt into Salt let them be powdered and mixt of which powder let him take after dinner and supper the quantity of two pease but let him drink no more The confection of Anise which is for to shut the mouth of the Ventricle is made with distilled Vinegar put into it by macerating and then exsiccating the Anise for the space of 24. hours and afterward again by macerating and exsiccating it in Vinegar and so it must be done thrice for the dosis there must be given pugillum 1. after dinner and supper for the evacuating of the Ventricle there must be given iiij grains of the slowrs of Antimony in an Electurary In the resolving and consuming of the tartareous and sulphureous matter in the Ventricle Antimony is available which purges by Vomit the Belly of the confection of Urine In the griefs of the stomach the preparation of Mastick is good Take of Mastick of the Alcool of wine of Galingal distil them through an Alembick the dosis must be smal to comfort the stomach The confection of Ginger made of the Quince-apple Diacinnamon Diatrion Pepperwort oil of Wormwood oil of Mastick Balsam of Sulphur the oil of Lawrel-Berries rectified 10. or 12. drops taken in broth looses destroyes the pain and mixeth with the peccant matter c. The Cardiaca or Cardialgia is cured by the oil and magistery of Pearls Barth Anglus lib. 16. cap. 72. so doth the Saphire stone in the same book Chap. 87. waters made of Antimony cure and mitigate this disease so also waters made of Salt Peter Thurnens in Pisone lib. 5. cap. 25. Of Musk Civet Beavers stone Unicorns horn Ivory the horn and bone of the Hart there is made an excellent medicine for the Heart-aches and such other affects Josephus Quercitanus in his answer unto Anbertus pag. 21. saith that there is the same cure of the inflammation of the Ventricle and of the Squincy or Prunella or Pleurisie c. The oil of Anise 5. drops administred in wine or other decoction and the navel being anointed with it expels the hicket Read Phrisius in speculo lib. 2. part 4. tract 2. cap. 11. Barth Anglus lib. 7. cap. 45. Alexander Benedictus lib. 12. cap. 19 20 21 22 23. The magistery of Pearls made with Origanum help the concoction so the waters or subtilties of common Salt Salgemmae and Salmaris Thurnens in Pisone lib. 4. cap. 7. The preparation of Salt Gemm that it may strengthen the digestion in the stomach and preserve from putrifaction Take of Salt Peter and common salt which are fusible and of Salgemmae ana of Gallingal let a powder be made of them and the dâ—sis four grains in the morning with a fasting stomach Read Theophrast lib. 1. de praeparatiombus tract 4. Gilliflowrs corroborate the Ventricle and head and provoke and stir up the Appetite they also help the Liver so the water of Mint with the spirit of Vitriol CHAP. XX. Of the Hurts Causes and Signs of the Liver OBstruction is very usual unto the Liver and no The obstruction of the Liver bowel is equally unto it troubled with this disease because vena porta which is dispersed through the substance of the Liver into little branches is obstructed as also other branches not less small come from vena cava unto it by which all aliment should be transported and conveyed The obstruction is caused from tartar which obstructs the veins and hinders the course of the bloud it hath these marks heaviness and distension happeneth to the right Hypochondrium with an obtuse pain and then especially when one goes to exercise presently after meat The obstruction of the Lungs is twofold one is of the veins from whence the Dropsie is the other is of the substance from whence the phthisis and inflammation are The Galenists have left this difference unexplained and have used one for the other Theophrast lib. 1. de tartaro tract 2. cap. 3. fol. 226. when the obstruction is in the Liver then man is discoriated and his colour is changed in a dayes
have a strong body he may be cured and there is hope of life but if the belly be melted and altogether ulcerated there is no hope of life The principal cause of the Dysentery is Gods punishment which is set down Levit. 26. and Deut. 28. God punishing man useth second causes as his instruments and infects the air with the properties of Saturn Arsenick Colocynth and Ellebor which men attracting by breathing do inquinate and corrupt the Balsam of life their body is transmutated by those corrosives purging tinctures so that the excrements may eject and cast forth the humid radical nutriment by the superiour The bloudy dejection of the belly and inferiour members The bloudy dejection of the belly is seldom caused of the imbecillity of the Liver often from the opened internal Haemorrhoides The Lumbrici or worms especially of all the parts The Lumbricy are great worms of the body do occupy and corrode the guts And these worms are of three kinds round broad and long small and short concerning which read Galen in Aphoris Hippocrat Comment 6. Sectione 26. Concerning the Causes and Signs thereof read the Galenists The Cholick and the Iliack differ 1. The Cholick is The difference of the Cholick and the Iliack in the gut which is called Colon but the Iliack is in the small gut which is called Ileon 2. The Iliack is above the Navel below the Ribs The Cholick is below the Navel 3. The pain of the Iliack is greater than the pain of the Cholick 4. The Iliack casts forth excrements and worms by Vomiting but so doth not the Cholick Theophrast saith that the Iliack passion of which we speak in the obstruction of the guts rises from tartar which sticks in the small guts Mix the fat of Yew with the oil of distilled Chammomum The Cure of the Iliack dip a linen cloth in it and put it upon the affected place and if the pain cease not give somewhat inwardly and this dissolves the tartar so also anoint the affected place with the oil of Juniper and Laurel-berries Barth Anglus lib. 7. cap. 8. It is cured also by the Salt and oil of common Salt or Sea-salt or Salgemmae Thurnens in pisone lib. 4. cap. 7. lib. 5. cap. 7. The Cholick is cured by the spirit of Vitriol three or The cure of the Cholick four drops of it being taken in water or by the Balm of Sulphur or oil of Turpentine The Cholick is begot from Salt therefore it is necessary that mans Salt and natural Salt of mans body be corrected by the Elemented Salts All kinds of stones which are found in the heads of Fishes being bruised and given in wine mitigate the cholical passion and bruise the stone which lyeth fixt in the Reins Theophrast saith that the constipation is to be removed and taken away by the quintessence of Corals and it cures the Cholick so also anoint the belly with the oil of Chammomum and put upon the round of the belly an hot ointment and a hot cloth The water of Quicksilver doth altogether expel the Cholick it hath a sowr taste whose process is thus Quicksilver is The preparation of the water 〈◊〉 Quicksilver first reduced into water then infuse other crude and purged Quicksilver into half of this water which turns into water and ascends the vessel Twelve or thirteen drops of the spirit of Turpentine administred in the appropriated or alone is a most present Remedy so is The cure of the Caeliaca Laudanum Opiatum The cure of the Caeliaca is that the obstruction of the Milt Mesenterium or Liver be taken away with medicaments which resolve the tartar and that the attractive vertue be strengthned For the curing of the Leintery let the tartar be expelled with the medicaments mentioned above in the obstruction Quercit de medic Spagir praeparat cap. 3. saith that the Spagirici extract a most subtil substance our of Iron especially out of steel which they make thinner than the water of the fornance And they prepare their crocus Martis forth of which they make an oil for the Diarrhaea Lienteria and Dysenteria and flux of the Liver and the corroboration of the Ventricle and all the Haemorrhaegies both internal and external it is a most excellent medicine and no biting medicine if the conserve of Roses be mixt with it Read the cited places There is a Caution to be annext that the flux of the belly must not be stayed too unseasonably and too suddenly with astringent medicines for that is wont to be done for the most part with the danger of life Such medicaments are to be given which strengthen Nature that it may expel contraries for it hath known best the mean and limit of staying or stopping neither are purgging medicines to be given which the Galenists counsel Terrasigillata with the common Lemnia put in the drink and let him still drink of it and sometime a piece of Lutum put to cures the Lyentery the Diarrhaea the Dysentery and divers fluxes of the belly Johannes Montanus saith that he cured very many with this medicament The Diarrhaea is cured by the water of the stone called Eat-flesh or by terra sigillata especially by the red terrasigillata or Lemnia Austriaca which is found and digged not far of from Neustadium Read Theophrast lib. 1. parag Titled de morbo dissoluto so also the first tract lib. 1. praeparationum lib. 1. tract 2. praepar tract 3. The general preservative method for the Dysentery is The preservative method reconciliation with God and in the next the air is to be altered with Laurel-berries and White-ash Let them take of Lingwort and Pimpernel ana ℥ ss of black and white Frankincense ℥ of Citrine and white Amber ℥ of Mastick Asedulcis and Camphora ana ℥ Let them be pulverized and commixt and insperst upon to coals Thirdly the body is to be purged from impurities and there must be a temperate diet Fourthly Alexipharmical and Diaphoretick medicines or pestilential potions are to be administred One day in the morning let him take of Alexipharmical Medicines about the quantity of two Pease The next day let him take three drops of Diaphoretick or Pestilential potion in a convenient drink This preserves from all infections and strengthens the balsame of nature As soon as any shall feel himself infected let him take The Curative method of Alexipharmicum the next day of the Pestilential potion or our Diaphoretick and this every other day he ought to continue some few days in taking of the Pestilential potion or Alexipharmicum untill the poison be alltogether expell'd All those have erred exceedingly which have endeavoured according to Galen to cure the Dysentery without antidotons expulsion of poison which experience testifies After the expulsion of the poyson let him use appropriated curatives prepared Spagirically about the magnitude of a bean until the Flux be stencht alltogether Let the younger sort take of it
Reyns viz. Theophrast lib. de tartaro â—ract 3. Cap. 3. fol. 233. The Inflammation the Obstruction the Impostume and the Ulcer The Inflammation of the Reyns according unto more sound philophy is begot from the being of poyson of Sulphur Antimony and Arsenick in other parts of the body so likewise in the Reyns Lithiasis is a general word signifying the Stone of the reyns and The stony passion is a preternatural straightness in the cavity and passage of the reyns caused from the obstructing stone of the bladder According unto the Galenists the stone is begot in five places of mans body in the lungs guts reyns bladder and the jawbone But experience witnesseth that they are generated in the brain mesenterium milt liver ventricle matrix joynts and many other places of the body and this is confirmed by the industry and diligence of anatomists Fernelius makes a more effective De part morb sympt lib. 6. Cap. 12. and frequent cause of the stone then the Gallenists he saith whosoever hath derived the inbred slimy and stony constitution from his parents will scarcely by any means escue the Stone because this disease is most hereditary So that the Stone is procreated in the reyns of many The Stone of the reyns according to Paracelsus is generated from the tartar of bloud and urine Read the book de morbis tartareis Cap. 13. fol. 304. And of the Mechanical process of the generation of the stone of the reyns and the bladder From hence the substance of the reyns is thrusted forth into an hollow and pulled out and divulsing a part of the reyn to which it cleaves without the sense of pain and as it were dilacerating or tearing it it produceth a filth which is avoided with the urine and makes it crass turbulent and somewhat black The stone of the bladder if it be little not long after it comes to the head of the Ureters from whence it proceeds into the bladder which great violence and most intollerable Nephritical pain If it be somewhat crasser rough and sharp it sticks longer in the passage and dilacerates the Ureter with a great torment it remains in the capacity by reason of the thickness of it and because the passage of the Ureter is not broad enough The Nephritical pain is a most cruel torment of the Reyns or else of the Ureter which certainly hath an excellent sense This pain is nothing but a paroxism of the Stone sticking in the reyns or ureter This pain is usual and frequent unto many The inflammation is cured by the expulsion of poyson The Cure by Diaphoreticks The obstruction of the reyns is cured by the subtilty and secret of Copper Amongst these secrets the essence of the Vitriol of copper bears the preeminence which by great vertue and power openeth the obstructions of the reyns and expells the enemy very strongly and effectually The Nephritical stone brought from nova Hispania is commended to be effective in the Nephritis or Stone of the reyns and pain of the Stomach by an occult and hidden faculty if so be it be hanged about the neck For this cause the Indians carry it which hath divers colours It is affirmed to have such vertue that if it be hang'd on the arm and carried about the patient will forthwith be lightned and the pain diminished and the most of the sand and stone expelled If any shall make a bracelet of that stone which he may carry about with him continually the patient shall be affected with no pain of the stone while he carries it so The same effect is seen in the Nephritical wood which hath most effective virtues in the affects of the reyns the difficulty of Urine in the obstruction of the Liver and Milt whether it be decocted or drunk in wine or any commotion of the humours which is wont almost to follow other medicines or any other more exquisite order of the dyet so that it be moderate that it do not strangle the admirable medicamental vertues of this wood Read Phrissus in speculo part 4. lib. 4. tract 4. cap. 2. Barthol Anglus lib. 7. cap. 54. Alexander Benedictus lib. 22. Let those which have the stone in the reyns drink ale seasoned with Betony berries of Laurel Peniroyal or Mugwort So also take the ashes of greater Beans and pour them forth into wine and drink every day of it This drink is very good for those which have the Dropsie by reason of the salt of beans it dissolves the tartar of the reyns Dialacca Lithou dribondia Calamenthum Diatrion Pepperwort and Diasulphur are effective 3 drops of the oyl of rectified Vitriol given every morning in the water of Petrosiline are likewise effective The spirit of Vitriol accomplisheth the same Quercit de mod spagir praeparat fol. 98. Many through all Germany and Italy use the spirit and oyl of Vitriol for the Epilepsie and the cure of the Stone and Asthma and that with great profit and utility for the stone of the reyns and bladder is nothing but a tartar or salt of tartar The spirits of Turpentine or Vitriol administred in the spirit of wine resolve and expel the stony matter Lapis rubeus bruiseth the stone This rubeus is found almost in all sowen sparages and it is very new because these sparages be very rare which want it Lapis Judaicus which is generated in Jurie and Lapis Lynacrius or the stone which is generated of the urine of the animal Linx or spotted Beast by the generation of Amber because as Amber at the touch attracts chaff so it attracts the stony matter Quercitanus in his answer to Anbertus fol. 13. c. saith that the stone of Sporage adusted glass moistned with goats blood the ashes of Cockles the calcinated stone of Jurie and the bone of Cuttlefish do wonderfully profit the stone of the reyns or tartar the reason is because salt resolves for salt resolves the stone and expels it by urine fol. 13. saith that amongst the rest of the medicaments which cure the stone reverberated crystal is to be numbred from which at length salt is extracted by whose resolution there is made a most excellent oyl in the moisture for to remove all the obstructions of the bowels de spagir med praeparat fol. 111. A specifical remedy and often proved by experience for the expelling of the stone of the reyns which is thus made take the little stones which are found in March in the ventricle of an Oxe with white wine so also in May there is found a little stone in the bladder of the gall of the Oxe which if it be put in wine it gets a Saffron colour the tast being a little changed let the patient drink of this being dayly affused or sprinkled with new wine untill the stone which is put in the wine be consumed by this means it is approved by experience that the stone will be bruised and diminished so also the black and red
the space of three years and he was cured with this medicament For it was such a salt as did especially consist of the salt of Vitriol and not of all the kinds of Vitriol The Diaphoretick of Tartar much availeth in the Podagra in a convenient liquor The Podagra is cured by the liquor of the Cedar Theophrast in lib. de temperte tract 3. A most excellent remedy against the Podagra is Armoniacum sublimated seven times and made spiritual let it also be dissolved in wine and dip a linnen cloth in it and put it upon the affected place let it also be given inwardly with wine or ale and let the patient sweat Antimony or the mineral Unicorns horn being of a solid substance and of the nature of a confection easeth much and mitigates the pain of the Podagra by reducing and consuming the peccant matter which we have seen in those which have lacked the use of their hands by their taking this Medicine had use of their hands again In the pains of the Arthritis anoint the affected place with the oyl of Juniper and the patient will forthwith be eased The said Armoniacum how to sublime it seven times for the Gout â„ž the Scoria made with Antimony Tartar and Saltpeter when you make Regulus of Antimony per se make a lixivium of it which filter and boyl to the consistency of hony then by degrees of heat bring it to a fixt powder Take that powder and grind it well with pure salarmoniack which hath first been dissolved in distilled water filtred and coagulated and being well ground together put them to sublime first will come over a little spirit then will the Salarmoniac sublime in flowers and this you must do seven times every time with fresh fixt powder of the Scoria so have you the right Armoniack for the Gout and likewise the spirit some of which ascendeth in every sublimation which also is very effectual in the same disease CHAP. XXXIII Of the Plague and the Causes thereof THe Plague is a singular scourge affliction and contagion for the sins of man it is of an invisible spiritual and astral nature proceeding from no The Plague is a burning contagious feaver continually afflicting the patient and brâ—nging death unless it be restrained by nature and art internal humour or liquor of man but immediately from God It is either spiritual as that which comes immediately from God or natural when as God punishing men works by second causes and uses them as his instrument and rod For God when he punisheth men exercises uses anothers works and means The Supernatural plague is from God or else from Satan permissively The supernatural plague is a punishment and scourge sent of God Exod. 9. Levit. 26. Deut. 28. 1 Chronic. 22. The supernatural plague permissively from Satan is when God permits Sathan to punish men for sin This most tyrannous enemy both of God and man is sorry that he cannot overthrow God and man as Job witnesseth in his history Again the plague rises from conjurers Exod. 7 8. of which Christ speaks Acts. 8. Matth. 7. The natural plague is twofold one is generation from the impression of the Stars the other is from the imagination of the Microcosm The plague of impression proceeds from the firmament of Heaven God punishing men by second causes uses the conjunction of Mars and Saturn or the Ecclipses of malevolous Stars as the father which punisheth the son useth the rod. The beams of these stars being of the nature of Arsenick of Sulphur Mars Woolfs milk Woolf bane and Hemlock infect the spiritual and corporal nutriment This is the generation of the plague from the astral influence But men infected with the Haemorrhoids and Plague infect the sound onely with their look But much more many are infected from the look of women which are affected with the menstruum and Plague Again the Plague may come by breath heat sweat smells dwelling in some place and by the clothes of the infected The Plague may rise from Imagination Paracels de occulta Philosophia sets down preservatives in the time of the Plague It is not disconvenient to change the air This changing or mutation must be instituted according to the Astronomical Science otherwise any man endeavours to fly in vain For the preservation in the lague let him take pestilential drink of Paracels prepared truely Spagitically in his bed in the morning and let him sweat This medicine preserves six days from the Plague The second preservative is calcinated Sulphur taken with Mirth and Aloepaticum and Sugar preserves that day from all astrall impression The third preservative the Zenecthon of Paracels hang'd about the neck hinders the attractive virtue of the Microcosm The fourth the herb Celandine gathered in the full moon and carried about is a preservative against the poysonful look of women and men The fift preservative those which are busied about the infected let them hold Francincense in their mouths and let the infected hold the roots of Juniper The sixt the essence of the bloud of the Hart and stork are most excellent preservatives Seventh the most excellent of all is the Alexipharmacum spagiricum taken in the morning about the quantity of the lesser bean with sugar or any other convenient liquor A perfume for to fresh and better the air Take of Sulphur lbs of francincense â„¥ 2. of mirth â„¥ 1 s of laser medicum â„¥ s bruise them and mix them Add unto this powder twice as much of the barks of berries of Laurel half the part of Amber put upon the coals twice or thrice every day Ê’2 of this powder at every time this is the best means to refresh the air the same may be done by the wood and berries of the Juniper The Universal cure of the Plague is made by the spirit of Gold with Diaphoretical ☉ of life the essence of Gemms Hyacinth Smaragdus Saphires Tinctures Corals and of Antimony with Solificatum and Perlatum Laudanum These mysteries of nature if they be given in a convenient dosis they will expell the Plague alltogether The particular Cure As soon as the infected feels the poyson of the Plague let those which are come to years take a spoonful of the abovenamed pestiential potion of Paracels let the younger sort take two spoonful or more or less according unto the conditions of the patient and let him sweat well four or five hours when six hours are past let him take the third dosis especially if the pricking hath left him for by the third dosis God assisting all the poyson is expell'd by sweat let the patient take three days following every morning one dosis of the forenamed drink whereby he may be corroborated and comforted The same is effected by the Spagirical Alexipharmacum of which let those which are come to years take and that thrice in 24. hours let the younger sort take three days following let him every morning take a dosis in wine and
diffused abroad very much it begins to decay and corupt and so the dry and cold matter is left which is held to be the last of all For the vital spirits whose force is fiery do consume nutriments and aliments hourly so that there is need of continual restitution mixtion and composition therefore it is most truly said of Hippocrates I find saith he that we are nourished from those things of which we consist and that by them generation and nutrition is continued From hence Aliment is named of Paracelsus seed because in all aliments there is the Balsam of the animal Whether doth Gaeln make Hippocrates the chief in his folly or no Let us I pray you pardon Galen for he is ignorant of the Spagirical art and hath never attained unto the secrets of Hippocrates whereby it is come to pass that he hath left the Essence of Nature untouched and uncomprehended As likewise he was ignorant of the forms of things and therefore he could not obtain the forms of things from their bodies For the confirmation of this namely that Hippocrates understood by the name of Fire Nature it self we may bring the testimonies of other Philosophers lest that we be thought to depend on the authority and judgment of one man alone though that the testimony of Hippocrates being an excellent Philosopher might abundantly suffice us Paracelsus also in his book writ of the Generation of Natural things so also in his book de Electro he calleth the Soul or Nature by the name of Fire with whom Fernelius Alanus consents in his Sayings which he hath consecrated to posterity he calleth Nature by the name of Fire of Wisdom Alexander a Suchten calleth Nature by the name of Living Fire Raimundus Lullius calleth Nature the Living Fire of Nature so also he calleth Living Fire by the name of Nature Geber the Prince of Philosophers calls this Fire of Nature the Incombustible Sulphur Paracelsus in his first book of the Secrets of Creation calleth this Fire by the name of Middle Nature and forthwith in the same place he annexeth some few things and calls it the Nature of Viridity or Greenness for this is the blessed and happy Greenness which makes all things bud This is the Green Lion of the Physicochemists to the which Paracelsus ascribes all the cures of all diseases in his book de tincturaphysicorum The ancient Author in the Apocalyps of the Spirit of the secret world amongst the rest he affirmeth this celestial spirit the Heaven to exist in a waterish body more than perfect and clarified he affirmeth this to be the inferious Heaven whose sparkle is the Alcool of wine which is spirit water and fire This is that which is so much commended of Paracelsus in his writings as also of other great Philosophers of notable wits affirming thus The Fire and Azoth are sufficient for thee which are the great mysteries of Nature as Paracelsus speaks in his Archidoxes In this place I have communicated and opened the gates of Nature by these which are said very benignly I might also bring more without envy but that it is a caution in the laws of Philosophy That there be some tedious things left for the Scholars Concerning the cited place of Hippocrates Hippocrates explains himself in his first book de diaeta which may fully certifie what he meaneth by the name of Fire for saith he either Fire hath distinguished in the generation of Man three circuits diverse in faculties yet conspiring both in vardly and outwardly by a mutual society which have circuits in the cavities which are workhouses of the humours That is in the Bowels which serve for nutrition They relate the power motion and maturity of the Moon but those which absolve the resolutions outwardly where the more solid members consist do imitate the properties of the Stars which do consist in the midst that is in the heart they contain the nature of most forcible fire which is present without and within through all the parts and hath dominion over them all and it in secret silence is not perceived by sight nor feeling In this fire that is in the Stars the soul of this middle revolution understanding prudence augmentation motion diminution transmutation sleep watchings are secretly contained The spirits being there mechanical workers are ascending spiritual bodies and they are the immediate instruments of the actions and have roots In the same book he hath described the faculties and sciences of this Divine Nature Hippocrates saith that Nature is the governour of men this causes the attractions of the elements the mixtions of the parts dispensations conspiâ—ations of those which agree the expulsion of those which disagree This is that which expells which attracts which gives and receives and which proportionateth less things for less places but greater things for greater places and this it doth by altered and well-tempered mixtion Furthermore Orpheus calls Nature as it were a thing adorn'd with the Laws of the Fates which word Hippocrates uses for there is a Law or Reason grounded in the essence of Nature and it is that essence which impells moves and governs all things and because it is in bred it perfects the decrees more sorcibly Because of the diverse in comprehensible gifts of Nature Hippocrates said that Nature was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is taught or instructed of none This is the Light of Nature this is the Predestination of Paracelsus in which he deservedly glories that he knew it wholly and perfectly I say this Nature is the Vegetable secret of Nature the vigour or efficacy of the name the fruitful vertue of the light which is of a perfect body the bright force of Sulphur the hidden virtue of the Heaven the most pure laâ—p the fire of truth which cannot be attained the ensigns of a living form the flower of Nature the house of tincture and the noble branch CHAP. VII Of the Soul What the Soul is and the substance of it ALL living bodies inasmuch as they live whether they be contained in the bosom of the Elements and live obscurely or they live manifestly I say all these are compounded of three parts namely Soul Sâ—irit and Body The Body and Spirit may in some sort be sought forth by sense but the Soul and the essence of it seeing it flies sense is obsecurely and too darkly known for it is no obvious or easie thing to attain thereunto Wherefore the understanding must apprehend it from the operations functions and effects arising from thence conspicuous and objected unto the sense even as every occult cause is to be enquired and sought forth These are Aristotelical and Galenical opinions taken from the same ground They endeavour to proportionate the anatomy of Troy by Geometrical partitions and figures but in vain Thus they define the Soul The Soul is the beginning and cause of the functions of a living body Or the Soul is the perfection of an Organical body Seeing that every living body is forthwith
fol. 21. So there may be made medicines from Musk Civit oil made of Bevers stones and Unicorns horn Ivory the Horn and Bone of the Hart are effective against the heart-ach and other affects as are Lemmons Garden Cresses The dolours of the heart are cured by cutting the middle vein The water of the Carbuncle is a most excellent comfortative of the heart half a spoonful of it being taken So terra sigillata Stregonensis the Balsam of sulphur and the spirit of tartar Read Theophrastus tract 3. praeparationum and in the same place tract 5. lib. 1. de signis Zodiaci about the end An Excellent Balsam of Sulphur for the Heart and Lungs â„ž the best yellow Sulphur grind it small and sift it through a fine laune serce or rather which is better Take flowrs of Sulphur and put them in a glass and pour thereon oil of the Salt of tartar made by solution per deliquium a hand-breadth above it set it in gentle heat and in few dayes the Sulphur will dissolve red as bloud pour off the solution into a glass and upon it sprinkle good distilled Vinegar so much as will make all the Sulphur precipitate to the bottom of the glass which it will easily do and that with a profound stink let it well settle then decant off the oil of tartar and dulcifie the Sulphur well then dry it not in the Sun or heat but in a dry air Take the dry Sulphur put it again into a glass and pour upon it a Philosophical spirit of wine let them stand together in gentle heat three dayes in which time the spirit of wine will receive into it the purest part of the Sulphur the excellent tincture of Sulphur decant that extraction and distill it with strong heat in sand so will ascend with the spirit of wine a pleasant odoriferous oil then in very gentle Balneo separate the spirit of wine and the Balsam of Sulphur will remain behind in form of an oil Dose is 6 or 8. drops in a spoonful of wine CHAP. XIX Of the Diseases of the Ventricle THere is a nutritive vertue in the Ventricle because from thence nutriment is derived into the whole body and it disposes the meat and gives it a nutritive faculty The Ventricle is subject and obnoxious to divers diseases which are begot by reason the separation and expulsion are frustrate of which kind are the pains of the Ventricle Etosions Burning Wind Inflammations Fluxes Pinings of which Alexander Benedictus lib. 11. in his Proem and in the Chapters following and in the 12. book through the whole book doth intreat wherefore that the Ventricle be sound great regard is to be had Tobias Hess The seeds of diseases in the anatomy of the Ventricle are rooted for the most part in the superficial sulphureous fetide and excrementitious impurities which for the debility of the in-bred Balm and mechanical spirits by whose ministery the impurities should be expelled and resolved by the accustomed wayes they find convenient and fit Receptacles The seeds of diseases which are planted and rooted in the Ventricle consist in sulphureous and excrementitious Of the seeds of diseases of the Ventricle impurities in which two excrements are mixt namely of Sulphur and Salt which two are in all aliments and are separated from all nature being perfect in vertue and strength These two excrements unless they be mixt and expelled together do interpel and interrupt daily the administration of natural actions because the strength and vertue of nature is diminished Therefore when as they have introduced their roots into the anatomy of the Ventricle they generate diseases If Sulphur be commixt with a tartareous stiptick and alumish excrement The Fever of the Ventricle and filth then Fevers are generated in the Ventricle Of Paracels they are called mitrosulphureous diseases when as Mucilaginous Salt or Tartar alone remains in the Ventricle by continual nutrition at length it produces divers symptoms noted by divers names but altogether rustical and phantastical The rustical are Imbecility Bradypepsia vitiated concoction Bradypepsia is a weakness of digestion when as the Ventricle doth difficulty and slowly concoct and turn aliment into chyle and crudity The phantasie hath begot the distemperature These symptoms have their names from the properties of their roots or causes from which they rise but more rightly they are called mucilaginous and sulphureous diseases from the alumish Vitriol and cacochymical spirits or from biruminous and sandy colours from the properties of the spirits and such like the causes of all symptoms ought to be explained which are superadded to the foresaid diseases of the Ventricle The mechanical spirits being corrupted and the tartareous alumish and stiptical tinctures of the Ventricle being inquinated and depraved they cannot absolve as they ought the separation of the pure from the impure The cause of slow conâ—octions and they perfect very slow concoctions but if those tartareous spirits the authors of Transplantation shall be hotter and do overcome the in-bred spirits by enmity and malice then they produce perfect crudities and keep the mechanical spirit of the Ventricle bound and captive and from hence are begot crudities inflations belching heaviness sloth drowsiness Belching is a violent and sounding expulsion of wind existing in the stomach by the superiour part Nausea or loathing is a frustrate endeavour to vomit The cause of cruditees inflations and belching Vomiting is a violent expulsion of crass and palpable matter which molests the stomach by the superiour parts Sev. p. 278. Orexia Launcing Cardialgia is a pain of the superiour part of the Ventricle when as the supreme Orifice of the Ventricle is molested and offended Bulimus â—anina fames The Bulimia or Dog-like â—â—petite is an insatiable desire to eat â—he inflammation of the â—entricle by which disease â—uther died loathing vomiting and infinite more torments and pains of this kind When the tartareous spirits possess the superiour part of the Ventricle namely the mouth then there arise the Orexia the burning the launcing and most cruel dolours by reason of the exquisite sense of the mouth of the Ventricle from whence rises the Cardialgia for the mouth of the Ventricle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or stomach viz. for the consent of the heart and the mouth of the Ventricle elsewhere is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or biting of the heart The mouth of the Ventricle hath a most exquisite sense for the many sinews collected there The Vitriol spirits oftentimes cause the Bulimia or Wolfish and Dog-like appetite There are not only excrementitious mucilaginous and tartareous impurities implanted in the Ventricle but Arsenical Auripigmental Antimonial and Inflammatory impurities find confluence there which little or not at all differs from the pleurisie A most burning Fever a great tossing of the body and restlesness unquenchable thirst a continual vomiting a frequent exolution of water watching and doting for the most part ensue this Inflammation As the Phthisis The