danger CHAP. VI. Of the Consumption BEcause in this Country the Consumption is an evill so ordinary and tremblable we will speak something thereof seeing of many it is not well understood Every pining of the body not a consumption for the people under that name doth comprehend every pining away of the body It is therefore to bee noted that if wee retaine the generall signification of the word there is almost no disease which a Consumption may not succeed But indeed the people doe erre when they speak of the Consumption as of a disease different from others For it is not a disease but an accident following many other diseases especially if they be long For seeing that the substance of our bodies doth daily decay unlesse it be repaired with food if the strength of naturall heat and of the parts ordained for concoction be impaired by diseases the body cannot be well nourished and therefore necessarily the bulke thereof doth pine away So that such Consumption doth happen First from externall causes Severall causes of a consumption as a hot aire want cares troubles watchings too much evacuation and other emptying causes Secondly it happens through a decay by reason of age in the Marasmus of old age for naturall heat is weakened in old men and radicall moysture is spent the losse whereof is irrecoverable Thirdly leannesse of body is naturall to some as in hot and dry bodies which are easily made lean by causes that are of a dissolving faculty and such bodies live longer than grosse bodies They that are grosse by nature 2 Aph. 44. doe sooner die than they that be slender Which is to be understood of them that are very grosse whose veines are small and blood little Fourthly it followes burning Feavers which doe by their heat wast their alimentary humours and the substance of the body Hippocrates writes They that die of a burning Feaver Lib. 1. de morbis doe all die through drinesse the extremities of the body as the hands and the feet are first dryed up and then the dryer parts And some Authours report that all the blood hath been consumed Cap. 2. lib. ad Glaâ—â—â— as * Argenterius writes of Mutius Medices Captain of the Castle of Pisa in whose dead body not one droppe of blood was found And though the sick dye not yet it is usuall for the body to consume away in a violent feaver whereupon it is called a hot and dry passion and therefore Hippocrates prescribes a moystning diet in the sixteenth Aphorisme of his first book that it may hinder that drying which the feaver causes Hither also ought to be referred those feavers which are melting feavers Fifthly it may follow the affects of the spleen and tumours of the same Febres syntectica Hippocrates in his booke de locis in homine and * Galen and * Averrhoes doe affirme Gol. 2. de facul nat cap. ult Averrh 4. Colliget 56. that when the spleen growes the whole body decayes therefore the Emperour did compare the spleen to the Kings excheques for as the Kings exchequer sucks up the wealth of the people so doth the spleen the substance of the body The same might be said concerning the liver and other the inward parts whose evill affects doe consume the body The dropsie * The watry dropsy ascites or * The tympany or windy dropsy tympanites doth often succeed a hard spleen in which maladie it is usuall to see the belly swolne when not withstanding the upper parts doe very much pine away through penury of good blood and it doth much resemble a consumption thus I have seene dropsick persons whom the people have thought to be in a consumption and indeed one disease doth easily bring in another for as we have said the pining and wasting of the body is not a disease of its owne kind but an accident proceeding from very many both externall and internall causes Therefore every wasting of the body ought not to be called a consumption But coming closer to the businesse we affirme Sixthly that a consumption is properly taken for a hecticke feaver Hecticke feaver is a consumption properly in which the substance of the body is wasted by little and little and insensibly for in this feaver the heat at the first approach seemes to be milde and gentle afterward it is sharpe and biting the sick perceives neither a feaver nor any other malady and yet he feeles his strength decay by little and little Seventhly that word consumption doth agree with * A disease when the stomacke receives meat and yet the body is not nourished Atrophia which likewise is the consequent of many diseases and in generall also by Atrophie any wasting of the body may be understood But now properly it is when the body pines away neither for want of foode nor by immoderate evacuation nor by reason of any other evident causes nor by an acute disease nor by a hecticke feaver nor by the ulcer of the lungs but when softly and by degrees the body is not nourished though it take foode either because the nourishment is badly attracted or badly retained or badly concocted or lastly the superfluities of of it not well expelled The causes of an Atrophie although many that have written of Atrophie have produced all the causes of leannesse in the body Eighthly and lastly by the name of Consumption most properly ought to be understood Phthisis Phthisis is most properly called a consumption hard to be cur'd which is an ulcer of the lungs consuming the substance of the body with a gentle continuall feaver It is a disease much to be bewailed and hard to be cured yea perhaps impossible for three causes alledged by Galen First because an ulcer is cured by the voiding out of the matter now it is voided out by coughing and the ulcer is made larger through a cough Secondly because the vertue of remedies reaches scarce to the lungs but being much weakned for their vertue perishes in the stomach liver hollow veine and other passages Thirdly because to the cure of an Ulcer there is need of rest but it is necessary that the lungs do alwayes move Adde also that to the ulcer there is joyned a fever which requires cooling and moystning but the ulcer drying remedies for the cure of every ulcer is drying Besides it is to be noted that this disease is contagious as * Hipp. 3. Epid. Hippocrates * Gal 1 de diff feb cap. 2. Galen and other Authors have observed and that augments the danger Now that the people may not be too much deceived they must know that this disease is not so much to be feared in children and old men Old men and children not subject to the consumption of the lungs for according to the rule of Hippocrates in the ninth Aphorisme of his fifth book The consumption of the lungs is especially in those ages which are from
inbred propriety of nature Hence the * Marsi and * Psilli were not hurt of serpents and Pyrrhus his finger was not burnt by fire And hence it is also that some even in a most raging plague remain free from all hurt and some are infected upon the least occasion By the same occult quality it happens that what is poyson to one is wholsome a remedy yea and sometimes meat to another Seeing therfore that the natures of bodies are unlike very different thence it is that some are overcome and infected presently but others not without much difficulty For no cause can act without a disposition of the patient otherwise all that dwell together under the same Sunne Lib. de flat should be alike sick of Feavers or otherwise alike affected Hippocrates saith one body differs from another one nature from another and one temperament from another And for that cause the same things are not profitable or hurtfull to all To this concurres also a moderate diet a healthfull body voyd of corrupt humours of free transpiration temperate dry rather than moyst Lib. 7. cap. 50. cold rather than hot Therefore Plinie hath observed that old men are not so soon infected with the Plague as young men because of the coldnesse of their bodies and especially if they use a moderate diet and exercise CHAP. VIII Whether it be lawfull to fly in the time of Plague or no. THe second was whether it be lawfull to fly The Turks fear not the plague and withdraw a mans selfe out of danger although the Plague be defined to be contagious The Turks as Prosper Alpinus relates in his first book of Egyptian remedies doe not regard the Pestilence because they thinke that God hath destinated to every one his manner of death so as he that must perish in warre cannot be killed with the Plague of which opinion are some Christians also It is the office of Divines to enquire more diligently into that whether it be lawfull for a Magistrate or a Master of a Family or Children and such as be bound to others by a naturall or civill right to fly and in what cases I will only adde thus much that holy men seeme to have feared death because never any man hated his own flesh for both Elias and Moses fled Abraham chused rather to expose his wives Chastitie to hazard than his own life Yea and it is lawfull to avoyd all dangers Though GOD send a Famine for the punishment of our sinnes yet it is lawfull yea it is necessary to shunne it for he is guilty of his owne destruction who doth thrust himself into present danger Who will not shunne the raging enemy who will not avoyd flaming fire who is he that in swimming if he can will not save himselfe from present drowning Ought no man with clothes and fire to drive away cold because it is a punishment of God or being wounded or sick entreat the help of the Physician God promises long life as a blessing it shall therefore be lawfull by any meanes to preserve it from eminent danger The end of reason Therefore reason is given to man not that he may promise to himselfe the immediate help of GOD but that he may wisely and discreetly make use of those means which he hath created and ordained What man that is in his wits will expose himselfe to a roaring Lion and will not rather provide for himself by flight or some other means But the Pestilence as Galen teaches is as cruell as a wilde beast Lâ—bâ—de Theri ad Pisonem sometimes depopulating whole Cities Wherefore if a mans calling hinder not no man will suffer himself to be perswaded to stay among those that are sick of the Plague Which policy I see many do wisely follow neglecting the rash pietie of some For that Christians ought not to feare death is to be understood that they must not bee daunted in courage with the fear of death nor yet are sins to be committed that death may be avoyded And lastly in death if by no meanes it can be avoyded they must not despaire And therefore Hippocrates saith it is the safest way Hippocrates his counsell to fly soon and farre and to returne late Yet it is not expedient for all to fly for some are to be appointed to provide things needful for them that be sick But they to whom it is not granted to fly let them take heed to themselves by alteration of the aire and by Antidotes CHAP. IX What kinde of death may be prevented by the help of Physick THe Turks as we have already said out of Alpinus doe rush adventurously into all dangers because they are strongly perswaded that there is destinated unto every man a certaine manner of death either by Famine or Warre or Water or Hanging or by a Disease or by Age. Yea amongst us there are some so superstitious A superstitious conceit and I have known many such who would have a certain number of daies assigned to every man that it is not possible for the life to be prolonged beyond it and if any man chance to perish by the default of the Physicians or of the by-standers they excuse them because it is impossible to save him whom GOD calls to himselfe Thus word by word I have expressed their opinion Which absurd opinion doth very much favour some mongrell Physicians who at hap hazard without any art attempt the cure of diseases For thus the choice both of Physicians and Medicaments is taken away nor matters it whether to a learned or unlearned to an experienced or ignorant man the life of man be committed seeing of necessity he must have dyed whom the rashnesse or ignorance of Physicians or by-standers or some other mischance hath taken away God can doe whatsoever he pleases But because he doth usually work by the help and means of secondary causes except a man make use of them he hastens his own death as he that hanged poysoned or otherwise killed himself made his life shorter which might have been longer The art of Physick doth not promise any man everlasting life for at the length wee must all yeeld unto Fate as the God of Nature will have it who therefore made the principles of our bodies passive that at length by causes internall and externall they may be overcome Nor yet doth it excuse the Physician by whose default the sick doth perish but it keeps off the eminent dangers of our life lest it perish before the time and before mature old age Who knows not that the body is shaked and weakened by the violence of diseases and that it is patched up againe by Physick and that by the neglect or unseasonable use of remedies it doth at length sinke under the burden Who knowes not that a man by a fall or a stroake or by some other way may be wounded and that he may die thereof unlesse it be well cured who otherwise might have lived longer
custome and inclination of nature to a mans own Country aire and usuall manner of diet which wee acquire by little and little without changing of that proper and inbred temperament which we derive from our parents from whence it comes to passe that some live better in their owne Country aire although unwholsome than in another Avicenne saith that an Indian would be sick if he were in Sclavonia Although that is not always true for it may be that some Englishman may live more healthfully in Spain than in his own native Country CHAP. XV. Of them that referre almost all diseases to a Cold. IT is a thing very frequent and ordinary when any falls into a disease or is not well to blame some externall cold from which he hath not carefully preserved himself And indeed this may oftentimes be the cause of many diseases For the aire is attracted by us continually by inspiration and transpiration and it doth impart its qualities to us whatsoever they bee But it hurts most of all when the pores being opened through heat a cold comes of a sudden for it obstructs and stops them presently from whence by reason of the fuliginous vapors retained fevers doe ordinarily ensue in cacochymick bodies but in others pain wearinesse difficulty of breathing Cold aire being inspired makes the gristles of the lungs become stiffe so that the lungs can scarce bee dilated Hence oftentimes the vessels of the lungs are broken and of other parts also and the bloud runs into some capacity and putrifies corrupts and stirs up naughty symptomes But concerning this thing it will not be amisse to give some notice of a few monitions First that all that blame this cause are not therefore sick by reason of it for there are sundry other externall causes of diseases Therefore commonly they that live in a cold aire reap not any evill thereby but the same parties even in the height of Summer and being well clad with cloaths doe notwithstanding complaine that they get cold to their hurt the same may be said of other externall causes of diseases In one and the same City there are many that breath in the same aire use the same exercises and the same diet yet when they fall into diseases they are troubled with sundry and in every respect different diseases If any man shall say that he is sick through a surfeit of meats or drinks perhaps he had eaten or drunk as largely a hundred times before and without any harm to himself which in like manner may be said of cold aire and immoderate labour when many a time hee hath endured a colder aire and undergone the same labour without receiving the least hurt it is a wonder how now he should bee sick thereby So we often see the last meat or that exercise that one hath last used or the last cold which he hath taken before the disease to be blamed as also the last remedy is thought to have procured health Where it is to be noted that these are called externall causes and that they doe not alwayes and at every time affect the body but then onely when an inward disposition lurks in the body and a morbous preparation which such causes do stir up Secondly they must take notice that those externall causes doe vanish away and continue not but their effects to wit the diseases stirred up by the inward causes do remain in the body and therefore the contemplation of externall causes is not always necessary for the knowledge or curing of diseases but of the internall alone which stirre up and foster the disease For wee see a disease that hath had its beginning from a cold aire neverthelesse not to be cured although the temper of the aire be changed but often to continue hard to be cured From whence also Thirdly it is to be noted that remedies are not to be measured according to the nature of externall causes for they indicate nothing For so hot things should bee alwayes good for them in whom cold hoth been the cause of the beginning of a disease which is not true for many times cooling things doe profit more From a cool aire as we have said many times burning feavers doe arise as also from baths that are too cold whereby the pores of the body are stopped and the fuliginous vapours retained by which the bloud is inflamed If the people doe here as usually they are wont encounter the disease with remedies that are of a heating quality they will be so farre from vanquishing the disease as that they will rather increase it more In this case inward cooling medicines and as Galen often teaches letting of bloud is the principall remedy In the eighth book of Method hee lets bloud in a diary that is generated by the obstruction of the skinne lest there follow putrefaction For though the externall cause bee cold yet the internall to which alone the cure is to applyed is often hot and is made so by reason of the corrupt humours that are kept in POPVLAR ERROVRS The Third Book Of the Errours about the Diet as well of the Sound as of the Sick CHAP. I. Of the goodnesse of Waters HIppocrates Galen Avicenne and other of the principall Physicians doe so commend the drinking of water in diseases that next to the letting of bloud they attribute thereunto the chiefest place in curing burning feavers and it is also the ordinary drink of many Nations Yet now a dayes some doe so much abhorre from the use thereof that they think it almost present poyson Now they think that the waters in England in respect of the coldnesse of the Climate are more crude and not so pure and wholsome as those in France Spain and the hot Countries And indeed every one ought to be solicitous of the goodnesse of the waters The best is discerned by the smell colour taste levity of it in the hypochondres and by the quick and speedy receiving of heat and cold So as that is best which is bright and cleare to the sight tastes and smells of nothing at all as also which is the lightest thinnest and soon passes through the belly Since then such water may bee found every where Good waters even in cold climates even in the most frozen Countries and I have often found such in this Country we may conjecture of their grosse errour that doe generally condemne their owne Country waters Now this is their errour that by the coldnesse of the Country they reckon the goodness or unwholsomenesse of the water hence they think that it is excessively cold and therefore crude and hard of digestion which Hippocrates calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which thing is not to be admitted for the water borrowes not its crudity or goodnesse from the Sun because the heat of the Sun cannot warm the water in the bowels of the Earth for it cannot penetrate so far which scarce pierces through the roofs of our houses unto us This doe the cellars under
through such and such Signes in the mean while the opportunity of helping the sick which is said to be swift and variable in the first book of Hippocrates his Aphorismes will be lost so as perhaps the like will never after offer it self again because as Galen saies in his Commentaries occasion is said to be very quick and soon gone in regard that our bodies are daily changed not only by externall causes as the Aire and Stars but also by internall From whence it comes to passe that they that fall together into diseases at the same time ought notwithstanding to be purged on divers daies for although there be the same aspects of the Stars and the Moon yet the inward temperature of the body doth diversly alter concoct and expell the humours which the Physician who is a Minister of Nature not of the Stars ought to consider that he may administer all things to the sick in due season For the curing of diseases is varied according to their different times Now seeing that the times of diseases are in some longer and in some shorter if we waite for the aspects of the Moon and the Stars we thereby lose that healthfull indication which the times of diseases do afford unto us For in some diseases we do not purge untill a perfect concoction of the matter be made but in others in the beginning now in some diseases the beginnings are sooner gone and they quickly come to their height whereas in others they are very long Wherefore the same time of purging cannot be seasonable for all which it should be if the aspects of the Moon were to be observed for so it may fall out that when Nature requires purging the Moon may hinder it and so all were to no purpose and therefore have the most learned Physicians as well ancient as moderne with good grounds rejected these observations But it is more absurd and frivolous which they talk concerning the formes of remedies An absurd opinion of Almanack makers for seeing that the very same remedies may be prescribed by a Physician in forme of a Potion Electuary or Pills even as he pleases in vain is the Moons influence regarded For it is an easie thing for a Physician to administer the Electuarie Hamech Diasenna Catholicon or the like in form of an Electuary or to dissolve it in broth distilled waters or some other liquor to make it a Potion It seems those Astrologers do not know what Electuaries or Potions are for although all Potions be not made of Electuaries yet Electuaries may be changed into Potions yea we commonly use the same purging Simples Sene Rubarb Polypodie c. both for Potions and Electuaries Physicians do prescribe a divers form of Physick sometimes to please the sick of whom some do more willingly take solid Medicines than liquid others the contrary Sometimes for the better purging of the remote parts or because of the toughnesse of the matter and other the like intentions The same may be sayd of Pills for even the ancient Physicians Aetius Paulus and others did dissolve Aloes Coloquintida and whatsoever we take in Pills even what is most untoothsome of all and gave them to the sick to be drunk which we administer in a solid forme because of their too much bitternesse and that they may stay longer in the stomach when we would draw from the head and the remote parts Lastly it is to be observed that what remedies soever are taken in a solid form do melt in the stomach before they put forth their strength into the body which is all one as if the Apothecary had dissolved them in some liquor for both Nature and Art do the same thing Yea those things that are administred in a liquid substance do sooner beginne to work than the other because they being already dissolved by Art are more easily overcome by Nature and therefore in Apoplexies and other cold diseases Physicians do dissolve Pillulae Cochiae which are very bitter in Aqua vitae or some such like water that they may the sooner put forth their strength In like manner Another grosse Errour of Astrologers that which Astrologers talk of blood-letting is but vain and frivolous for whatsoever the influence of the Moon be bloodding is never good for a Flegmatick man or for one that is sick of any disease that arises from Fleame except together with the Fleame there be also an abundance of bloud Galen likewise forbids to let melancholly men bloud unlesse the bloud which is voided doe appeare to be melancholick It is good only for cholerick and sanguine complexions let the Moone be in what signe it will if the disease age and strength of the party doe permit and that for the reasons already alledged And therefore Galen sayes well in his book de venae Sect. that we may let bloud at any time of the disease if the indications of bloud-letting doe appeare yea though it be on the twentieth day from the beginning of the discase Now the indications are these to wit the greatness of the disease and the strength of the party and not the disposition and aspect of the Stars which if we should observe as wee have already said we should lose the opportunity of using convenient remedies to the great hazard of the sick CHAP. XI That it is not hurtfull to purge in the Dog-dayes SOme perhaps may be found who slight and laugh at the aforesaid observations of Astrologers but who is he at this day that takes not notice of the Dog-dayes A grosse errour and feares not to take a purge at that time of the year grounding that their conceit upon the 5th Aphorisme of Hippocrates his fourth book where hee saith That under the Dog and before the Dog cures are difficult So that many although they be at that time sick of those diseases which have need of blouding or purging doe neverthelesse abhorre from the use of these remedies not taking notice of these two things First that in so doing they leave the diseases to nature alone to bee cured when it stands in most need of the help of Physick Secondly if in the Dog-dayes diseases may be cured without Physick why not also at any other time of the year and so the use thereof might bee quite abandoned in curing of diseases But let us weigh the reasons why Hippocrates said that purges are difficult in the Dog-dayes which according to Galens Commentary seemes to be threefold First because the body being inflamed through the heat of Summer cannot endure the sharpnesse of Medicines Secondly because nature being feeble enough already by reason of the heat is made weaker by purging Thirdly because the heat of the aire hinders purgation for it drawes the humours from the center of the body to the circumference and the Physick drawes them back againe to the center and so there are made two contrary motions so that there is either no purgation at all or if any it is
flowers for it rather provokes them more violently For it is an hot and dry spice and withall opening and therefore very fit to provoke the flowers as saith Dioscorides in his chapter de Cassiâ which according to the judgement of Matthiolus and Dodonaeus is no other then our Cinnamon called by the French Canelle it hath saith he a heating quality as also a vertue of provoking urine drying and of a gentle binding it drawes down the flowers and a little after hee addes that it produceth the very same effects that Cinnamon doth concerning which hee writes thus in the following Chapter All Cinnamon heateth concocteth mollifieth provoketh urine being drunke or applyed with Myrrhe it expells both the flowers and the birth If these things bee thus then it necessarily followes that they are in a great Errour who prescribe Cinnamon to stay womens fluxes But this is a matter of no great moment The same might be said of some knowlittles that practice Physick and are ignorant of the vertues of remedies railing on them that that are better than themselves and yet taking no care to get more learning Some are so skilfull that they think that Syrupus de Artemisi◠is onely fit for women that Syrupus de Stoechade is only a cephalick medicine yet Philonium ought to be prescribed only to provoke sleep and divers such things doe sometimes occurre which they are ignorant of neverthelesse if any man do but seriously consider the simples of which the aforesayd remedies are compounded The vertue of Mugwort and the syrupe made of it they ought to be esteemed no lesse profitable for many other things as for example in Syrupe de Artemisiâ there are many simples very good for divers affects Mugwort doth not onely provoke the flowers and help forward the birth but also heats dryes opens obstructions and is good against the stone of the Kidneyes It extenuates saith Bondeletius and heats fleame and dries the nervous parts and the wombe and is good against old and inveterate Catarrhes and performes the same that Syrupus de Prassio doth The same may be said of Syrupus de Stoechade which is good against all the diseases of the bowels as also Philo's Antidote which Philo and Mesue affirme to bee good for all cold diseases And so of many others CHAP. XLIIII That Opium rightly prepared ought not to be feared SEeing sleep is the strength of the inward parts and that nothing is thought to bee sweeter and more effectuall than sleep for repairing of the strength and furthering the concoction of the humours it is both profitable and necessary by all meanes to provoke it in many sick persons which spend a great many nights without sleep yet many times it is not so easie to do for sometimes the causes of diseases are so vehement that they will not suffer the body to be brought to sleep scarce with indifferent strong somniferous Physick Now to provoke sleep sundry sorts of remedies both internall and externall are used Divers internall medicines are prescribed although commonly to little purpose as Almond-Milk Poppy-seed which the people in many places do use to eat the oyle of which they ordinarily use instead of Olive-oyle But Opium is now brought into use the rest being layd aside Yet the people doe abhorre from the use thereof and avoyd it as present poyson Opium in the hand of a discreet Physician is a harmlesse thing when notwithstanding being rightly prepared and administred in a convenient dose it is a very harmlesse and wholsome medicament The Ancient indeed thought it to bee poyson but that is onely when it is taken in too great a quantity But thus nothing is so wholsome which by corrupt use may not become hurtfull and nothing so hurtfull which may not bee made wholsome Now there are divers sorts of poysons Divers sorts of poysons some are poysons in their whole substance which can doe the body no good after what manner soever they be taken although they be given in so small a dose that they cannot kill as Arsenick But the nature of others is contrary and different from these in that they doe not hurt the body but in a certaine quantitie otherwise they may doe much good to the body such is all Physick especially purging medicines For whatsoever is administred in such a quantitie that it overcomes nature it doth assume the nature of poyson thus milke curdled in the stomach and the juice of Lettice are thought to be poysonous which neverthelesse may do good to mans body being rightly and moderately used Moreover we find in history of certain maids that have fed upon Monkes-hood and Hemlock But it is to be noted that among those things which cause sleep Opium is the most innocent for divers causes First that Opium which wee use is for the most part Meconium of Dioscorides which is made of the strained juice of the leaves and heads of Poppy but the right Opium is a * Or gum Lachryma Now Meconium is far weaker according to Dioscorides than Opium and Matthiolus in his Epistles is of the same opinion likewise Wherefore if it hurt it must bee administred in a greater dose than Opium And Dioscorides saith that Opium taken in the bignesse of a Vetch doth asswage pain concoct and provoke sleep but if it be taken in a greater quantity it doth harm And he writes of one Mnesidemus who approved of the use thereof onely in smell because it would so procure sleep but disallowed it otherwise as hurtfull but Dioscorides addes Experience shewes that these are but idle fictions for the effects of the vertues of this medicament do beget credit Secondly it is to be noted according to Galen that there are divers sorts of Narcoticks for some do moisten others dry Moyst narcoticks are dangerous those which doe moisten as Hemlock Mandrake the like are hurtfull as also those that are poysonous in their whole substance as sleepy nightshade which things are never wont to bee used by Physicians to provoke sleep But those things that are taken inwardly without harm to the body ought to have a drying qualitie as * Galen teacheth 5. Simpl. 18 where he saith those things which cause sleep do refrigerate the body and drying medicines are the fittest for that intention And in his first booke of the causes of diseases he saith that those things which do refrigerate and moysten do not cause a sweet sleep but a long and dead sleep and stupefaction but those that are of a drying qualitie as Opium are not so hurtfull Therefore according to the judgement of Dioscorides and Galen Opium moderately taken is not so much to be feared Besides many compositions that are to bee sold in shops have Opium in them as Triacle Mithridate Dioscordium Philonium and the ancient Physicians were wont to put it into almost all their Antidotes and they used it familiarly in divers diseases yea sometimes they made use of worse
I could finde by urine alone a certaine knowledge of a womans conception nor of the epilepsie nor of a quartane feaver for it is but a deceitfull and equivocall messenger Which things indeed doe very much agree with our times I have often seene that opinion which by the urine the Physician had declared to have beene changed when he saw the sicke partie and which is more many simple fellowes that impudently meddle with Physick being called to the patient by whose urine they had before fully explained the disease not onely to have changed their opinion but to become lesse able to judge at al of the disease although they had both the Patient and his urine before their faces Fiftly the urine is altered by meates drinks exercises aire sleepe washing and divers other causes and so makes the judgment to be but conjecturall therefore Avicenne after six houres others after two houres would not have an urine looked into How grosly then doe they erre that rashly judge of urines that be brought to them many miles Hence it comes to passe that many that are noe Physicians but meerly made to cheat the people doe promise more then good Physicians are able to performe Nor can I except even ministers that practise Physick who of all men should be most holy Sixthly * Galen sayes well that in urine there are noe signes that doe certainly portend the frenzy 2. proch text 2. or the affects of the head for it onely signifyes saith he the distempers of the liver kidneys and bladder but there be other signes and symptomes of the diseases of the braine Yet Actuarius saith that the diseases of the liver braine necke breast yea and of his joynts also may be discerned by urine and Hippocrates writes that when a mans urine is like to the urine of a beast it shewes a paine in the head In like manner the excrements of the whole body have recourse as Physicians say to the belly and the urine by which it may be changed thus thinne fleame falling from the head makes a frothy urine 4 aphot 73. and Hippocrates thinkes that the grievous frettings and gripings of the gutts and hypochondres may be resolved by urine But this belongs onely to prognostickes for the very gripings themselves cannot be knowne by the urine much lesse their solution But the most witty Argenterius did deservedly laugh at Actuarius for endeavouring to point out in urine the signes of diseases in the braine the breast and the joynts For though the excrements of the whole body may be evacuated by the urine yet that happens not alwaies for many parts although grievously affected doe not alter the urine at all Moreover the excrements are but the causes of diseases and not diseases themselves As for that which may be said of the headach and the frenzy Galen answers it Text 4 Sect 1. proch * where he saith that the signes of the frenzy are either those that are alwayes in the phreneticke and in them onely or which are alwaies in them but not in them onely or which are neither alwaies in them nor in them onely but sometimes are apparent and sometimes not and happen from other causes From whence it is manifest saith hee that neither in urine nor in dejections of the belly nor in spittle nor in vomits are there any signes of the Frenzy Neither doe troubled Urines nor such as have any elevation aloft nor frothy Urines alwaies betoken the aforesaid affects but doe likewise proceed from other causes and if at any time they declare any of these they doe it with other signes for the aforesaid affects may bee without such Urines From whence it may bee concluded that those signes which doe not alwaies accompany a disease nor yet folely cannot indicate any disease but such are urines For Galen teaches that they by chance may betoken a frensie because they iddicate a windy blood but not by themselves and properly Therefore saith he in the afore cited place what hath been said of Urines makes nothing to a judgement of the Frensie yet they doe conduce to the discerning whether the sick bee in any great danger or no. And therefore in all diseases it is not amisse to consider the Urine that the danger may be discerned Galen teaches in many places that the excrements are signes of the parts affected and of the disease as that the dejections are signs of the belly the spirtle of the breast snot of the brain and the urine of the liver and veines to wit that they are signes of the concoction which is made in those parts but seldome of the diseases themselves Therefore Urine cannot shew forth all diseases as for example the Plurisie is known by a paine of the side a Feaver a hard Pulse difficultie of breathing and cough without the urine and spittle for if these come likewise they shew the cause and prognosticks of the disease already known by other signes For though the Plurisie and Frensie cannot be knowne by urine yet if the urine appear very much changed it is an ill signe for it hetokens a distemperature not onely of the vitall and animall but of the naturall parts also And when many parts are out of frame the sick lies in so much the more danger Moreover sometimes the Urine shewes whether the disease be joyned with a Feaver or no for Galen teaches that in the affects of the belly 2. De Cris cap. 7. if they be without a Feaver only the excrements of the belly are to be looked into but if with a Feaver then the urine likewise not that wee may know the disease it selfe but that we may the better judge what will be the issue of the disease already known CHAP. II. That the sexe and being with childe cannot be discerned by Vrine whereof a certaine story THey that bring Urines to Physicians doe often aske them whether it be a mans or womans water and whether the woman be with childe or no. It is admirable to see how cunningly some in this case deale with the people But that neither the sex nor graviditie can bee discerned I will demonstrate For although the Urine of a young man and an old man of a man and a woman be different each from other yet that is onely in colour and consistence which seeing they may bee changed by divers other causes it will not properly shew whether it be a mans or a womans for a cholerick woman after exercise and the use of hot meats will make higher coloured urine than a flegmatick man Moreover she which hath a Feaver or some other disease without doubt changes her urine according to the nature of the disease How shall he therefore that lookes into an urine discerne the Sex when he knowes not the temperature of them that made the urine Therefore if a healthfull man be compared with a healthfull woman a cholerick man with a cholerick woman and a sick man with a sick woman
account thick and and troubled urine a good signe because the obstructions seeme to be opened and the humour that breeds the disease to be evacuated This happens indeed sometimes in the stone in criticall evacuations and by vertue of medicament They betoken crudity But when such waters are made without a diminution of the disease they argue a crude and stubborne disease and heat and cruditie of humours for all concoction makes cleare urines But they are the worst of all which are pissed out troubled and continue so because of the very great agitation of the humours in the veines and the great conflict that nature hath with the disease and as Hippocrates observes they foretell the head-ach frenzy convulsion death 7. Epidem Polyphantus with such an urine was distracted in his mind and dyed in a convulsion CHAP. V. That the consumption cannot be knowne by the urine IT is a familiar thing also with many when they bring their waters to Physicians to aske them whether they thinke the sick party is in a consumption or no. In which particular they erre two manner of wayes First in that they doe not distinguish the true consumption from other diseases but call every wasting of the body by what cause soever it comes a consumption as we shall treat more at large in the following chapter Secondly because neither the ulcer of the lungs nor the hecticke 〈◊〉 which are properly consumptions can be known by by urine Nor have Galen and Hippocrates taken any signe of these diseases from urine the reason is because no proper nor unseparable signe of a consumption can be drawne either from the substance colour or contents because urine is the whey of the humours that are contained in the veines therefore upon the diversitie of humours the change of of urine doth depend But in them that have the consumption the lungs especially are affected and the whole body in hecticks and not the humours Wee have said already that the diseases of the lungs are discerned by spittle not by urine and though it be good to looke into urine yet it helps not to the knowledge of the disease but onely to the prognostication of the danger that is like to ensue for if it appeare to be naught it increases the danger But the Arabians said that these urines are fat and oyly whom also many of our late writers doe follow although they doe not agree among themselves yet for the most part they grant that in the beginning of a hectick nothing certaine can be knowne by urines but in processe of time when the fatty humidity is consumed such urines doe appeare as we have already said But Alexander Trallianus makes noe mention of fatty urines but thinne and fiery and crude for in regard that concoction is made by the solid parts if they be distempered the urine cannot be well concocted but be thinne fiery and crude as in a hot and dry distemper Neverthelesse from thence it cannot be concluded that a Physician not seeing the sick can by urines know a hecticke feaver for such urines appeare in other affects and may happen through divers causes and therefore except other causes doe concurre they note no certaintie The same may be said of oyly urines of which much might be spoken seeing that there is a diverse acception of this word with Galen and other Physicians But in this place those urines are meant which have fat swimming aloft which Hippocrates will have to be a bad signe 2. progn tex 35 If fat like to spiders webs float aloft it is to be disliked for it betokens melting Yet it doth not from thence follow that these urines doe shew the consumption for such urines are oftentimes seen in them that be in health 4. de sanitat tuendâ as Galen observe For seeing that grease and fatnesse are made of blood well concocted it is noe wonder if some portion thereof swimme above the urine as is usually found in coole broths Moreover it may come to passe by much lying upon the backe the fat of the kidneyes growing hot therewith and these two cases are very ordinary and there are few that cannot observe such urine in themselves But those that come from causes preternaturall doe appeare in malignant and burning feavers which we call * melting or wasting syntecticke feavers seldome in a consumption and hecticke in which no such melting doth appeare but the humours are wasted by an insensible transpiration 10. meth cap. ult Hence Galen puts this difference betwixt syntecticke hecticke feavers that in these what is wasted is resolved in forme of a vapour but in them it flowes downe into the belly for the heat of a hectick is but very little and gentle so as the sick do scarce perceive themselves to be in a feaver Therefore neither Galen nor Hippocrates nor the ancient Physicians who observed these urines did ever attribute them to hecticks but to burning and pestilentiall Feavers onely But if any fatnesse do flow out with the urine in hecticks it argues that another Feaver is joyned with the hectick to wit a malignant or burning Feaver which case is exceeding dangerous I have now while I write this a hectick in cure in whom such urine never appeared which I have often observed in others that are not sick at all And although we should grant that such urines appeare in those that be in a Consumption yet because they may also proceed from other causes how can the Physician that onely lookes upon the urine and perhaps knows not the party himselfe certainly finde out the disease But as we have said enough of the deceitfull judgement of Urines I will only adde thus much that it was wisely prohibited by the Colledge of Physicians at London that any Physician professe that counterfeit divination These are the words of that order It is a ridiculous and foolish thing by looking into Vrines alone Judging by urine a ridiculous custome to goe about after the mannor of Witches and Conjurers to divine any thing as certaine and solid either of the kinde and nature of diseases or of the state and condition of the sick Wee admonish therefore all Physicians that they behave themselves for the future in this particular much more warily than hath been wont heretofore to be practised by many And for this cause we forbid all that practise physick that they preseribe any thing in Physick for those idiots and silly women that carry about the urinals of the sick except they either first know well or see the sick party himself or at least be plainely fully and sufficiently informed by them that aske their counsell of the whole disease wherewith the sick doth labour and of the severall circumstances thereof For by this meanes we shall both better mainetain the dignitie of the Physician and also more fitly and skilfully bethink our selves of those remedies which shall be most profitable for one that is in
is to be preferred before better but lesse pleasing where he doth not grant corrupt meats but onely such as are a little worse so that the sick bee very much delighted therewith and prefers them before such meats as the sick doth utterly abhorre which are never to be given to the sick Thus Galen did yeeld to some that were sick of Feavers to taste simits 1. ad Glavcon As therefore I doe not approve of too austere Physicians Too much indulgence in a physician not good yet they that be too indulgent are worse such in times past was Asclepiades at Rome who granted to the sick bathes wine flesh and whatsoever was liked and wished for by the sick and so with a wonderfull craft he drew unto him the mindes of men doubtlesse not without the apparent danger of many From what hath been already said another errour is conspicuous for in Agues when the sick are cold all over their body they give them drink both actually hot and very heating that they may drive away the cold fit which is contrary to the judgement of Hippocrates 1. Acut. and of the ancient and moderne Physicians who forbid to administer any thing in the fits and perswade rather to lessen the quantity of their meat and drink Hence Hippocrates commands when the feet are cold to abstain both from supping meats drink for drink especially if it be hot is soon corrupted and exasperates the aguish heat therefore in the beginning it is best to give nothing at all but when the heat hath descended to the feet as the same Hippocrates saith something may be given but it must be such as is not hurtfull for the disease as those hot drinkes usually are CHAP. VII Of the drinke called a Posset IT is an ordinary thing to preseribe for the sick a Posset to drink now it is made of curded milk which I doe not disallow in that it hath the vertue of whey which is opening But I will here only note some abuses First that sometimes the milk is coagulated with strong Ale or Wine either French or Spanish and then as it may indeed fitly profitably and delightfully be given to the healthfull so it hurts them that be sick of Feavers and of any cholerick disease for it hearts the body increaseth the causes of Feavers inflames the Liver by reason of its sweetnesse and penetrating quality troubles the head and causes the same evils which the drinking of wine is said to bring upon them that are sick of Feavers Secondly this drinke is alwaies administred hot to the sick whereas cold drinkes are more pleasant and more profitable to them that are sick of Feavers for it is not so fitting to give to them that bee thirsty hot and heating drinkes and therefore Galen prescribes cold water to temper the heat As therefore in some diseases I doe not dislike this drink so in acute and cholerick Feavers especially I think it not fit But if at any time the by-standers would administer it to such as are in Feavers or the sick themselves desire it let the boyling milke be coagulated either with the juice of Lemons or a little vinegar adding thereto a little sugar taken take away the curd and so there remains the whey alone mixt with the acide juices an excellent remedie to coole Feavers and to open obstructions As for the healthfull they may use it prepared any way even as they please Also if the milk be curdled with thinne beere or small ale it will not hurt the sick for it is of a cooling and opening quality and may doe very much good to the body for small beere is of the same vertue with barley water which Avicenne and others doe highly commend I finde in Dioscorides a darke manner of making a Posset Dioscorides his way of making Possers under the name of Lac Scissile The milk saith he must be boyled in a new earthen pot and stirred with a green figge-tree branch and after it have boyled up twice or thrice so many cups of vinegar mixt with honey must be put to it as there are pints of milk and so the whey is separated from that which is congealed into curd Although now adayes so much art bee not used yet the manner of preparing it is the same for first the milk boyles up once or twice then by powring thereinto Wine or Ale there is made a separation of the whey from the thicker substance Lib. 1. cap. 88. Cap. 96. lib. 2. tetrab 1. and Dioscorides approves of this kind of drink to whom assents * Paulus Aegineta and * Aetius But more plainely Galen makes mention of a whey made with Oxymel which he commends for those that are in Feavers to purge choler and loosen the belly Com. 4 de tict cat in acut and he teaches the forme of making it It were therefore better if in imitation of Dioscorides Galen and the Ancients our possets which are at this day so common a drink in England were made with acide juices or oxymel for so they would bee more convenient for Feavers and cholerick diseases CHAP. VIII That the decoction and broth of an old Cock is not well prescribed for nourishing of the sick IT is confessed of all that meats that are easie to be concocted and of good juice and quickly nourishing should be prescribed for the sick and therefore very well are gellies and restorative broths made for them But many times the flesh of which they make these broths is not so fit and proper Among others its ordinary to make these sorts of broths of the flesh of an old and fat Cock This practise hath drawn its originall from the counsels of Physicians misunderstood among whom the decoction of an old Cock is in singular esteem Of this did Dioscorides a very ancient writer make mention and it is also in frequent use among our moderne writers in Physick but not to nutrifie forasmuch as all old flesh is of hard digestion and makes thick chyle and and yeelds but little good and alimentary luice and therefore it is in no wise convenient for the sick to whom nothing ought to be given but that which is * easie of digestion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and which * yeelds good juice Lib. 2. cap. 43. Diosâ—oâ—ides teacheth that for saith he Broth made of an old cock loosens the belly drawes down grosse and raw humours black choler and excrements is good for long feavers sighings the diseases of the joints and winde of the stomach and hee teaches the manner of preparing it and Galen in his 11. Simpl. saith that Hen-broth hath the vertue of binding the belly as that of old Cocks hath the force of loosing where likewise by the way take notice Hens broth not good in purges that the broth of a Henne is not to be administred to them that have taken a Purge before compleat evacuation for although it doth nourish yet it staies the belly
needfull to bee done he ought not to recoile from it That Physitian goes wisely to worke who having fully found out the diagnosticks and prognosticks of a disease doth apply remedies convenient in quantity time manner and place But if he bee mistaken in the knowledge of the disease as sometimes it happens it is lawfull to change not onely the remedie but also the Physitian himselfe or at least to call another to him that consulting together they may diligently seeke out the nature of the disease which when they have well and perfectly found out the patient committing himself to them ought to hold on in the use of remedies How to know when remedies are to bee charged Now that hee may know when the remedies are to be changed this is to bee noted First if the remedies that have beene administred doe helpe a little it is a signe that that the nature of the disease was thoroughly knowne and those must not be changed for Physitians doe gather the signes of diseases even from those things which doe good and harme Cures saith Hippocrates doe shew the natures of diseases Cornelius Celsus in the beginning of his third book saith that in acute diseases remedies that helpe not ought presently to be changed but in long diseases of which wee speake in this chapter not so for wee must persist so long in the use of remedies untill their operation being often frustrate we perceive that the nature of the disease was not well knowne Secondly if by the administration of the remedies the symptomes be exasperated it is a signe they were contrary to the disease and are therefore to be changed to wit in cronicall diseases for in acute diseases if the exasperation of the symptomes doe happen with signes of concoction it is a token of a disease tending to a crisis Thus Antonius Musa Physitian to Augustus Caesar when hee perceived the paine of Caesars stomack to become worse by the use of hot things he applyed cold remedies and so cured him But some will say Ob. remedies by daily use doe become at length familiar to nature and so are unprofitable I answer Sol. the remedies may be changed and their quantitie but not the manner of curing so long as the disease remaines the same and yeelds the same indications for if the disease it selfe be changed as if of a Tertian bee made a Quartane or the patient become weaker or there be a flitting of the humours from one part unto another or the like not onely the remedie but also the method of curing ought to bee changed Therefore I thought good to annex this chapter because it often falls out that the patient which hath used perhaps a good Physitian if the successe which he expects doth not presently follow abjuring the Physitian consults with empiricks and silly women Now those medicine-mongers do after the manner of the Andabatie that is to say blindfold at adventure fight with diseases try divers remedies and never hold on in the use of that in which they should have persisted Usually the last remedie is applauded those that went before are of no moment with the people as letting of blood purgation alteration and the like which notwithstanding subdued the greatest part of the disease It falls out also many times that the Physitian himselfe being overcome with the importunity complaints both of the sicke and the by-standers is forced to make too much hast with his remedies and contrary to reason to change them wherefore those that be sick ought patiently to wait for the time of the cure which cannot bee the same in all diseases CHAP. V. Of them that reject all remedies if they be not presently cured OThers as wee have said in the foregoing Chapter doe utterly reject the use of Physick if they be not cured by the first or second remedie who besides the wrong that they offer to nature it selfe which will have all things to be done in time doe injure themselves most of all for diseases neglected doe take deeper root in the body and become at length altogether incurable and past all helpe of Physick Or others that by their proper nature doe usually tend to health of which sort are intermitting feares which as Hippocrates saith are not dangerous at all for Fevers after what manner soever they intermit aph 43. lib 4. are void of danger those diseases I say continuing long and being neglected do stamp such a blot upon the bowels that they leave behind them perilous diseases although they perhaps went away of their owne accord Galen in divers places teaches that the cause of a tertian is seated in the liver of a quotidian in the stomack of a quartane in the spleen nor is it any wonder if the parts by whose oeconomie the whole body is served be at length enfeebled and therefore many times very grievous diseases doe follow in those parts after fevers that have been neglected as grosse obstructions putrifaction scyrrhous swellings scurvie dropsie and others which because the temperature of the bowells is quite overthrowne are altogether incurable as too frequent experience manifests Physick preserves the inward parts though it perfect not a cure But this is the excellency of the art of physick that though it doth not performe the cure yet it preserves the inward parts and doth so weaken the causes of diseases and dull their force that the noble parts are not harmed thereby and so those great perrilous diseases are prevented Yet what hath beene said ought not so to be understood as though there ought never to be an intermission of the use of remedies for Physitians doe in very long diseases wisely allow some respit to nature after they have for a few dayes together administred preparing evacuating and corroborating medicines and other such which they thought convenient and afterward they returne againe to the cure thus they provide for the preservation of strength which might have beene wasted with a constant use of Physick CHAP. VI. That remedies are not to be rejected for their unpleasantnesse WHen I reade the writings of the antient Physitians who have bequeathed unto us the vertues of remedies and their precepts of Physicke I cannot but wonder at the multitude and abundance of remedies wherewith they pestered their patients as also at the unpleasantnesse of them so bitter unsavoury and ungratefull to all the senses yea and many times rudely prepared were many of them it being a familiar thing with them to dissolve those things and give them to bee drunke which we take in pills to deceive the tast and prepare more finely for a Physitian should endeavour to cure quickly safely and pleasantly Citò tutè factlè curandum Thysick is neatlier administred now then heretofore What shall we say then of the frowardnesse of the sick in this age who though they have more toothsome pleasant remedies administred to them then our forefathers had doe neverthelesse detest Physick for
disease doth indicate evacuation either by blood-letting or by purging it cannot be that custome should indicate and betoken these remedies because as we said it hath reference to nature but one and the same remedie cannot be betokened by diverse things If in any man abundance of blood or some other such cause require blood-letting lest he fall into some grievous disease Nature will not necessarily the next year require the same remedy unlesse he labour with the same disease unto which nature custome hath reference because only the cause of the disease and not nature doth indicate this remedy If therefore he must be let blood againe it is in respect of the cause of the disease not because of custome Nor doth it follow if this year Socrates his blood be so faulty that there is need of evacuation that there shall be the like faultines the next Spring for both the temper of the man and of the aire and his manner of diet may be changed Otherwise diseases should never be perfectly cured if he that hath been once abundantly vacuated must necessarily relapse into the same disease Therefore custome it self doth not urge unto a reapplication of a remedy but permit the same because accustomed evacuations are lesse hurtfull and they that are accustomed to it may more boldly admit of evacuation Thus custome alone makes nothing unto future evacuations unlesse there be the cause of a disease with it but if some diseases use to return every yeare as the Gout pain of the joints melancholy and the like because the causes of these diseases do lurk in the body it is very good to prevent them with convenient remedies as Galen saith he did in his Comment upon the forenamed Aphorisme which remedies are convenient to be applyed not for assuefaction and custome but in respect of the causes of the disease which so often as they appear ought to be corrected with such remedies But all diseases are not of that nature that there is eminent danger of them every year and therefore there is no fear of accustoming a mans self to Physick except the disease also be made accustomary and familiar The remedy that cures the disease is not the cause of the return of the disease afterward which it should be if use should inforce a necessity of the remedie because only the cause of the disease requires evacuation from whence it would necessarily follow that the use of evacuation doth afterward encrease the cause of the disease unto the administring of the like remedy CHAP. IX That no regard is to be had of the Stars for letting of Blood and Purging IT is an usuall thing with many in taking Physick to observe the Signes to wit whether the Moon be in this or that Signe which is thought to governe this or that part Others take notice of the Conjunctions and Oppositions of the Starres when they must Purge or let Blood as when the Moon is in Conjunction with the Sunne they think it to be a dangerous thing to use these remedies 4. Fen. lib. 1. Some do advertise saith Avicenne that Cupping-glasses be not applyed in the beginning of the moneth because the humours are not yet swelled up to the height nor in the end of the moneth because then the humours are lessened but in the middle of the moneth when the humours are in their height following the increase of the Moon at which time also the braine is increased in the Skull and water in the rivers that ebbe and flow Which his interpreters do referre to other of the great evacuations during the same cause And here two opinions are to be weighed the one of Hippocrates and Galen the other of Astrologers Hippocrates in his Book de aëre aquis locis advises to observe the great changes of times and seasons and the Solstices that we neither administer Physick in them nor Cauterize the parts about the belly nor make any incision till at least ten daies after Now by those great Changes he understands the variations of heat and cold which happen at the Solstices Equinoctials under the Dogge-starre and before the Dogge-starre and at the rising and setting of some Constellations For hee addes Both the Solstices are very dangerous but especially the Summer Solstice so both the Equinoctialls are perillous especially that in Autumne the rising of the Starres are also to be observed principally the rising of the Dogge-starre Arcturus and the setting of the Pleiades Because at those times diseases do either end or else are changed These things therefore according to the opinion of Hippocrates are to be known in respect of the sudden changes of the aire which are wont to happen at the rising of some Starres Some to the forenamed Constellations do adde the Moon which hath great dominion over these inferiour things and experience shewes that it hath much soveraigntie over the humours of the body and * Galen also acknowledges the same But Astrologers have gone further for they attribute the signes of the Zodiack to the severall parts of the body and when the Sun and Moon are in those signes they hold it a dangerous thing to use remedies which concern those parts over which those signes are thought to have dominion and the common people in reading of Almanacks which come forth every yeare are very cautelous in observing them whereof wee will treat more at large in the following Chapter But if all these observations of Galen and Hippocrates be true there will scarce any time remain for administring Physick for in both the Equinoctialls Solstices at the rising and setting of Arcturus and the Pleiades we must forbear ten daies and before and under the Dogge-star at least forty daies so likewise according to Astrologers we must abstaine from Physick in all the Oppositions Conjunctions and Quartile aspects of the Moon All which if they should be superstitiously observed there would be no time left for Physick although we neglect those Starres whose influence is not yet observed some of which may perhaps hurt as much as the rest The Starres are not to be considered in the curing of diseases as they are in the Firmament but for their influences and those alterations which they make in the Aire as Hippocrates forbids purging under the Dog-star only because of the heat of the Aire Neverthelesse whatsoever the alteration of the Aire be the same cannot be equally good nor alike bad to all for evacuation but to some it will do good to others harm according to the different constitutions of men nor was there ever such a temper of the Aire and Weather which was not more or lesse healthfull or hurtfull to some For some Natures in Summer 2. Aph. lib. 3. some in Winter are better or worse saith Hippocrates so likewise some diseases are made better or worse in regard of other accidents 3. Aph. lib. 3. and so are some ages according to times places and manner of diet because the influences of the
Stars which evermore are universall do act after the same manner only and do hurt to some and good to others according to the different nature of diseases and the patients as also according to their age country time of the year and other such circumstances which do limit the operation of universall causes Again the concourse of the Stars is only a procatartick and universall cause which moves and stirs up the internall causes Now these are known by their proper signes Nor is there any necessity to consider the stars but only the motions of inward causes which make the times of diseases But as concerning Astrologers they do with a vain conceit attribute all the parts of the body to the stars to wit to the Planets and the signes of the Zodiack And because the Planets and the signes of the Zodiack have not one and the same motion some of the Planets having a swift others of them a very slow motion but the Signes the same motion alwaies equall it will seldome happen that the Planets concurre with the Signe that is referred to the same part For the Moon runs through all the signes every moneth and therefore is often conjoyned with them all But Saturne which they set over the Spleen doth very seldome meet with the signe that is dedicated to the same part The Stars therefore which are said to have dominion over the severall parts of the body have influence either into the substance or into the conformation of the parts but not into the substance because there is no organicall part in the body which is not made up of sundry parts which are of a diverse nature as the hands and feet consist of bones nerves arteries muscles which cannot be equally subject to this or that Star And seeing the like parts for substance are in the other organes likewise as bones in the feet hands breast head why shall not one and the same Starre bear rule over them all It remaines then that they have influence into the conformation onely which is accidentall to all the parts for every part severally may be without the same conformation as bones may be as well crooked as streight and be well nourished too The conformation of every part depends on number magnitude scituation and figure The influence cannot bee made into the number of the parts because number in respect of it selfe is not ens reale that is hath no reall existence as also because one particle being added or taken away the influence into the part is not thereby changed as if one finger of the hand bee wanting the influence ceases not In like manner not into the magnitude for then the influence into an infant should differ from that into one that is grown up to ripe age not into the scituation because so the scituation being changed the influence should also be changed as into the hand stretched out and laid upon the head or on the feet Lastly not in the figure it selfe because in like manner the figure being changed the force and efficacie of the signes into the part is still the same Hence it appeares that the attribution of this power and dominion to them over one part rather than another is nothing else then an idle fiction But if any such thing be granted it is likely that that same influence will extend it selfe onely to those parts which have their proper substance distinct from the rest as the Heart the Brain the Liver c. and not to the Hands and the Feet and other such like parts whose similar parts are the same for substance and differ only in conformation In very deed many Physicians seem to have given but little regard to those Astrologicall observations I have seen many sick in the Solstices and Equinoctials to whom the forenamed remedies were applyed with good successe which if they had been omitted peradventure the sick had died And therefore in acute diseases as the Apoplexie Squinancie Pleurisie burning Feaver and the like it is very dangerous to omit or deferre necessary remedies for the disposition of the Heavens but wee ought rather to have regard to the times of diseases and natures working and according to that observation prescribe sometimes one sometimes another remedy as at sundry times the disease requires But when a Physician prescribes Purging or Blooding only for prevention of diseases he may observe the four quarters of the Moon and use the forenamed remedies rather in the first than in the last Quarters because the Moon having a manifest power over the humours when it increases they are augmented and it decreasing they are diminished In like manner he may avoyd the Equinoctials and Solstices But in the sick these cannot be observed without danger seeing that diseases do not permit such great delaies But the figments of Astrologers touching the dominion of the signes over all the parts of the body are altogether to be rejected as faigned subles for it is an absurd thing to suppose that one Star rules over this part and another over that seeing that all the Stars do rule over all the parts and act not immediately but by the alterations of the aire by which the whole body is changed and altered CHAP. X. Of the ridiculous Physicall observations of Almanack-makers WHo can hold from laughter at those Caveats whereof Astrologers do every year warn the people in their Almanacks about the taking of Physick among which that is not the least of which we have already spoken that they attribute the parts of the body to the signes of the Zodiack We will now prosecute the rest And First they say the best time for Purging is when the Moon is in the watery signes to wit in Cancer Scorpio and Pisces Secondly when the Moon is in such a signe purge with Electuaries in another signe with Potions and in another with Pils Thirdly in such a signe purge Choler with Electuaries in such an one with Pils in such an one with Potions and so of the other Humours In like manner they say it is good to let the Phlegmatick blood when the Moon is in Aries or Sagitarius the Melancholique when it is in Libra or Aquarius the Cholerick in Cancer or Pisces and so the Sanguine when it is in either of these But it is to bee noted That any kinde of diseases may happen at any time Aph. 19. lib. 3. and be exasperated as saith Hippocrates Because as Galen teaches in his Commentaries not only the Aire is the cause of diseases but also the proper temperament of the sick and the peculiar manner of every mans diet whereby it may come to passe that even in Summer any man may be taken with cold and flegmatick diseases Seeing therefore at one and the same time many men may be sick of sundry diseases all neither can nor ought to be purged after the same manner and in diseases that are acute there may be danger in delay while we stay till the Moon hath run
vessels A pitcher that is half full of iron or heavy stones is not so full as if it were filled to the top with the most light spirit of wine although the former weigh heavier So likewise in emptying a vessell he takes more away that out of one vessell drawes a pottle of the spirit of wine than he that out of another takes half a pottle of stones although perhaps this weighs heavier Seeing then there is the same reason in bloud because one is more ponderous than another if in letting bloud we only consider its weight we shall never define well the quantity thereof for it is contained in the veins not as heavy but as filling unlesse one imagine the same ponderosity and weight of bloud in all men which I think no man will dare to affirm The quantity of bloud saith Galen is indicated by the more or lesse faultinesse of it and by the strength of the party and according to these two is more or lesse bloud to be drawne So that in a great distemper of the bloud the strength being vigorous we must use a larger evacuation but in a light distemper the strength being feeble we must let bloud more sparingly But if you judge of the quantity by the weight it may so fall out that when the sick is feeble in strength you may draw more bloud than when he is most lively vigorous which is a grosse trespasse against the rules of Physick For if in debility of strength the bloud be lighter and in validity of strength it be heavier if in this latter case you take halfe a pound of bloud and in the former but foure ounces the vessels into which these foure ounces are taken will be as full by reason of the levity of the bloud as those vessels which receive the half pound of the other ponderous bloud and so the same quantity of bloud is taken from them both which should not have been done Nor do I see any reason why the drawing of bloud should bee defined by weight more than the dejections of the belly in a purgation seeing that out of the veines the humours also are purged for under the manition of the vessels is purging contained as faith Hippocrates 2 aph lib. 1. Seeing therefore the vessels are not replete with any thing as heavy for the capacity of the vessels is not varied although the weight of the contents be different and it is apparent that a greater quantity of oyle than of honey goes to an ounce it will be better for the future if the quantity of bloud be accounted by measures and not by ounces and pounds seeing the judgment thereof may be so deceitfull I know there were among the Ancients as well pounds in measure as in weight for their vessels were drawn about with lines whereby the pounds and ounces were marked out and whatsoever they measured after this manner they called Mensurall As for example a mensurall pound of oyle or wine which perhaps Galen meant when he drew bloud according to ounces and pounds But because the things that were measured were of divers weight the pound in weight did seldome countervaile the pound in measure for though there may be the same measure of oyl wine and hony yet there is not the same weight and therefore that manner of measuring was very uncertaine and we now adayes have no such vessels as doe marke out ounces and pounds nor if wee had plenty of them could wee use them without a manifest errour in respect of the different weight of the bloud Therefore though I doe not disallow the received custome yet I thinke it safer to judge of the quantity of bloud by measure than by weight CHAP. XXVI That Sleep and Drink ought not to be wholly forbidden after bloud-letting AMong many observations of the people this is not the least that they are very wary lest the sick sleep or eat and drink presently after he hath been let bloud which was also the opinion of some Physicians because they think the bloud returnes to the heart which neverthelesse is not alwayes true except there bee an immoderate evacuation of bloud or timorousness which may cause swouning However no reason enforces that that return of the bloud should be so pernicious And first concerning sleep the bloud is wont in sleep to recoile into the inward parts to the exceeding great refreshment of nature The benefit of sleep to the sick Now in them that be sick who have not slept for many nights all men know what great benefit a little sleep affords for it repaires the strength concocts the morbous humours and corrects them wherefore we are oftentimes forced to apply remedies to provoke sleep Therefore if immediately or a little after bloud-letting sleep doe ensue it may be good both as a signe and a cause As a signe because it shewes that nature which was oppressed with the morbous humours is now refreshed and so doth performe its naturall functions As a cause it may be good because when once sleep ensues nature doth concoct the remainder of the morbous humour In what cases sleep is forbidden I know in some diseases sleep is not good as in the inflammations of the internall parts in the beginnings of fits and in pestilentiall diseases Therefore in those diseases it is not good to sleep immediately after bloud-letting but in other diseases I see no reason why the Patient may not sleep Galen saith that if the sick after long and tedious watching do fall to sleep it indicates a perfect crisis for sometimes it falls out Ex 2 Prorhetic * that the sick after the crisis sleeps a whole day especially when he hath not slept of a long time before and that to the great solace and refreshment of nature Yea sometimes it happens that the sick sleeps in the very crisis If therefore sleep be good after other evacuations why not also after bleeding Moreover sometimes it falls out that in some feavers such a preternaturall sleep possesses the sick that he can scarce be awakened and yet many times in such feavers it is very good to let bloud as of late I did to a woman that lay in an acute feaver possessed with an heavy sleep who otherwise had scarce recovered being adjudged of all as a dying woman If therefore with good success bloud may be drawne from one that is actually asleep why shall sleep be hurtfull immediatly after blouding Galen seemes to account it a good thing 9 method cap. 4. that the sick after blouding falls into a sound sleep Two houres saith he after hee was let bloud having given him a little meat and commended him to rest I departed And returning at the fifth houre I found him lying in a sound sleep insomuch as he did not feele me when I touched him Then comming againe at the tenth houre I found him still fast asleep Afterward having beene abroad to visit some other Patients I came againe in
offended with the Pestilentiall aire Hence it is that old men are not so soon infected with the plague as young men are because of the coldnesse of their bodies as also Plinie observes But in that this plant is said to be good for poysoned wounds and the bitings of venemous beasts it followes not therefore it must have an antidotary faculty for the Spaniards did first use sublimate for such wounds and wee doe usually prescribe divers things which in their proper nature are not preservatives against poyson but are either such as draw out the venome or that extinguish it as an actuall cautery and such like And it may bee that Tobacco may likewise bee good for that too although it hath no proper or peculiar vertue for to resist poyson CHAP. XXXV Of the unseasonable use of Cordialls BEcause in all diseases speciall care ought to bee had of the strength of the patient it is no wonder if the sick be so desirous to have their strength preserved from whence arises such a frequent use of cordiall remedies Therefore it is that some are often blaming Physicians because they doe so seldome prescribe Cordialls and Antidotes for them especially at night and when they lye down to sleep Notwithstanding the unseasonable use of them doth most commonly more hurt than good as doth Triacle Mithridate and the like For not every thing that is said to be cordiall doth by and by strengthen nature nay it may destroy it and thus the drinking of cold water doth more help one that is in a Fever than Aqua caelestis Imperialis Triacle water or any other strong water whatsoever And it is to be observed that the imbecillitie of the heart and the decay of the strength which depends upon the spirits in the heart may proceed from divers causes now every sort of remedy is not convenient for causes so different But if the cause of the disease bee encreased by some kind of remedy although it may be sayd to be a Cordiall the Cordiall is no better than poyson to the sick as if an hot remedy bee applyed in an hot discase the diseaseis increased and the sick is not a whit strengthned but made weaker Therefore they are too blame who without judgement and skill doe prescribe these cordiall and strengthning medicines Moreover it is observable that it is possible that Triacle Mithridate and other such like which are in most frequent use may doe much hurt For as Galen saith 5. Simpl. they are a meane betwixt the body and poysons so that there is the same proportion betwixt the body and the Antidote that there is betwixt the Antidote and the poyson and therefore hee saith that all those things that are of the nature of Triacle Cordials do hurt if there bee not matter within to work upon and Mithridate being taken in too great a quantity do hurt the body as also unlesse there be some poyson within upon which they may worke I know this comparison of Galen doth not please Averrhoes that subtle Physician and Philosopher 5. colliget cap. 23. who notwithstanding confesses that they do the body no good at all unlesse they bee taken in a stomach that hath in it some poysonous matter for them to worke upon and therefore saith he they are not good for them that be in health but become as poyson to them as likewise do all those things which are commonly called Bezoarticks For by their forcible working unlesse they bee discreetly administred they hurt the body like poyson and therefore Galen forbids Triacle to them that are hot and dry as also to children Although therefore I do not absolutely dislike the using of these sorts of medicines nor judge them to be venemous or pernicious yet hence it follows that they are to be used very warily for they have qualities in them that are many times very hurtfull to the body except they meet with an object in the body for to worke upon And therefore corroborating and cordiall remedies are to differ according to the variety of diseases hence it is that some of them are cold some hot some temperate some corroborating the heart with an occult and unexplicable property some resisting poysons which cannot bee fit for all those different causes from whence a decay of strength may come And therefore those things may very fitly be numbred among Cordials which doe relieve nature by evacuating the causes of diseases and by altering which thing many of our ordinary Cordialls doe not performe and such remedies ought to be called Cordialls by accident onely neverthelesse they are the most certaine of all others Lib. de viribus cord Therefore Avicenne saith very well that in seven respects a medicine may bee said to bee cordiall First because it recreates the spirits as wine Seven kinds of cordiall remedies egges broth and those meats that are easie of digestion and of good nourishment And indeed the strength is much augmented by meat seasonably administred but if it bee unseasonably taken it is much impaired by it as wee have said already Secondly because it doth cleare and purifies the spirtis as Pearles and Silk Thirdly because it compacts the substance of the heart by hindring the resolving of the spirits as doth Garrabe terrae sigillata Bolearmoniack but these are not good for all because they are astringent remedies which in some cases may doe much harm Fourthly because it is delectable to the heart as are sweet things and odiferous as Aqua caelestis Imperialis and Maria. Fifthly because it doth corroborate the heart by manifest qualities as that which is temperate as Borage Buglosse Gold Sixthly because it doth purifie by evacuating the melancholick humour and by purging out whatsoever is hurtfull to the heart as do Myrabalanes Seventhly because it corroborates the heart by an occult qualitie as the Hyacinth But all these severall things cannot be proper for all causes but now adaies when the people desire comforting and cordiall medicines they doe not meane broths or bloodding or purging but Triacle Mithridate Strong waters good Ale burnt Wine and such like which oftentimes may not onely do harm to the sick but to such as are in perfect health too CHAP. XXXVI Of the Errours about the Bezaar Stone BEcause we have been treating in the precedent chapter concerning Cordialls something is to be said of the Bezaar stone which is now adayes had in such familiar use being thought by many to be endued with an admirable vertue of corroborating the heart and a very strong Cordiall to which neglecting all others they fly as to some sacred anchor But they erre in three particulars First in that they attribute too much to that stone Secondly in that they are ignorant of the quality of it Thirdly in that they do not mete out a due quantity of it Concerning the first some derive the name of the stone from the word Paser What the Bezaar stone is which among the East-Jndians
stone Men should not therefore give credit to them that prescribe remedies for it Duretus upon Hollerius reports that hee saw the bladder exulcerated with such remedies and death ensue the stone not being worne at all A certaine man as Duretus reports fearing the extreame paine of cutting by the advice of some drank juyce of Limmons for 3 months together and died with exulcerations in his stomack caused by that juyce For sharp medicines must of necessity molest and exulcerate the parts through which they passe with their sharpnesse Sanctorius in his Commentaries upon Galens Ars parva tells a story of an Italian Physician who while hee used Electuarium de vitro to break the stone of the bladder in stead of lessening the stone brought in a mortall dysenterie flux He tells also of another who by the advice of a certaine quacksalver used very forcible diureticks which when by their abstersive quality they had evacuated very much fleagm insomuch as the sick seemed to be more at ease yet the stone being made sharper began to prick the bladder more vehemently and made a Gangraenous Ulcer as was seen when the body was dissected and so the sick died miserably Capivaccius also confesses that hee knowes not any remedies which can break the stone of the bladder Cap. 94. text 3. And Galen in Arte parvâ reckons onely cutting among the remedies for the stone in the bladder where Argenterius observes well that even from hence is their opinion refuted which think the stone may be cured with remedies taken by the mouth CHAP. XLII That the wormes of the belly are not presently to be killed in Fevers IT falls out sometimes that both children and young men are grievously troubled with wormes and that divers diseases in the body do arise from thence among which a Feaver is not the least which is of a double nature for either it is caused by the wormes themselves and then it is a very gentle Fever or it comes from other causes Dangerous Fevers from wormes and concurres with the wormes and this is usually a malignant and violent Fever which is thought to have been sometimes called by Hippocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fierce and wilde as a beast In the curing of these wormes the people many times doe erre much First in that they thinke when there are wormes together with a Fever that the fever is alwaies caused by the worms when rather the wormes doe oftentimes proceed from the matter of the Fever For as Aetius teaches Cap. 39. lib 1. tetrab 3. if they breed about the beginning of the disease they take their substance from the corrupt matter if about the height from the malignitie of the disease if about the declination from the change to a better which also are quickly voided Therefore in the beginning of acute diseases they betoken a malignitie of the disease for when wormes are the cause of a Fever that Fever is never violent and acute but most commonly they appear in a malignant fever which is to be noted for in the former case the cure of the wormes is the cure of the Fever but in this latter when the Fever is cured the wormes are wont to be cast forth by nature it selfe the disease tending to a crisis as Hippocrates teaches in divers places as in his Prognosticks and in his booke de crisibus Secondly they erre in that in this case they consider onely the worms and presently direct their cure to them neglecting the disease on which they depend or making it worse with their remedies undiscreetly administred for oftentimes those things which kill the wormes doe increase the feaver Seeing therefore worms Note because they are in every respect besides nature are to bee killed and expelled yet that ought not to be done with any kindes of remedies indifferently but the nature of the disease that doth accompany them is to be regarded to which especially remedies must be applied for when it is once cured nature it selfe casts them out in the declination of the disease Wherefore because they are so ordinary in malignant Fevers those remedies which do cure malignant Fevers do serve for them likewise such are many Cordials as Harts-horne Unicornes-horne Corall Triacle Mithridate the seed of Citron c. And there are scarce any Cordialls which are not good against wormes although not alwaies hence it is that we see many of those remedies which are said to bee good against wormes to doe no good at all namely because they are used after the manner of Empyricks without any difference of causes and regard of the other circumstances which ought to be respected Let us hear what Rondeletius saith excellently concerning this subject in his Chapter of Wormes When Wormes saith he are voyded in acute diseases as burning Feavers and other diseases of old men and children wee ought not to convert our whole intention against them as women doe and Physicians that study to humour them whereby it comes to passe that the sick do perish in that the disease is neglected or because they bend themselves more to the curing of the wormes then of the disease as if one bee holden with a continuall Fever or some other Cholerick disease or a flux of the belly or if in the beginning of acute diseases one chance to voyd wormes they commonly give Wormeseed which doth inflame the Feaver more or else they are wont to administer Corall and other things which are astringent to kill the wormes all which are very ill for the principall diseases as very bitter things for the Fever and flux of the belly and astringent and drying things for Fevers Wherefore the Physician ought diligently to distinguish whether the Fever depend upon the wormes or whether the wormes which are alwayes within the belly be cast out by some other cause And if one perceive that the Fever doth proceed from another cause because it is a Quartane or a Tertian or a true Quotidiane and that there is no other ill symptome they must be let alone or only those medicaments prescribed which are good against the principall disease and the worms Which words of his we have set downe at large because they doe so plainly explicate this whole businesse Forestus also in his observations and Mercatus in his Chapter of the worms and others do observe the same CHAP. XLIII That Cinnamon is not well prescribed to stay womens fluxes IT often falls out that women are troubled with an immoderate flux of their flowers or of their courses or other humours for the curing of which I have oftentimes known Cinnamon to be prescribed by other women as a very astringent remedy Indeed in a Diarrhaea and the fluxes of the belly I deny not but it may sometimes be good for it corroborates and strengthens the stomach and bowels whose weaknesse is many times the cause of a flux of the belly but it is to no purpose at all to use it for the staying of the
wax growes foft So Diphne for my love feeles changes oft Thus Hector Boetius and others doe report of some that have beene roasted with a gentlte heat by an imâ—ge of wax laid to the fire as Duffits King of Scots So they cause heat or cold and other affects when they list upon them that are absent the which all men grant cannot bee done by naturall causes Who have not heard that Witches which have anointed themselves with a magicall oyntment have been carried through the aire But that which Paracclsus writes in his Chapter of Invisible diseases makes much for our purpose if any man be hurt a foot or hand or some other member is to be drawn after the forme and shape of that which is hurt or if you will a pourtraicture of the whole body and it must be anointed and bound up and the man shall be free from paine yea and hee sayes that some who have been sick of other diseases have been cured after the like manner Who can beleeve that this is done by naturall causes and yet it is as easie in this to have recourse to magnetical vertues and sympathies and the spirit of the World as in the weapon-salve Here are examples of Magicall cures at distance which are in all respects like to the anointing of the weapon for as the image is anointed and bound up for the curing of the wound so is the weapon and as the Image laid to the fire or exposed to the frost doth burn or congeale him that is absent so doth the unguent laid upon the weapon and as the King of Scots in Boëtius was almost consumed in the waxen Image so the same may easily from the anointing of the weapon happen to him that is wounded if he that annoints it doe malitiously lay it to the fire or in some place that may communicate its harme to the person wounded and who sees not that this may be also a sort of Witchcraft If he that doth this by the help of the image douse the Devill who is the spirit of this world as an instrument to set on the charm it is likely that this magneticall cure as they call it hath the very same Author which they call by this name that they may cloak their knavery with a seeming shew of naturall actions And deservedly may the remedie be suspected even because of the Authors of it who were suspected for Magick For Paracelsus and Crollius do in divers places commend Magick and will have it to be a thing very needfull for a Physician But suppose wee that there is nothing magicall in it at all yet wee will further prove it to bee false and altogether a frivolous forme of curing Fifthly if then the spirit of the blood doth effect all these things and the ointment hath analogie and familiarity with the spirit which is in the blood why cannot other diseases likewise bee cured by the strengthning of the spirits and the balsame of blood For Crollius confesses that the cure is made by the balsame of blood and indeed the spirits and the vertues of the balsame in the body doe perfect all the cure Sixthly if according to Hartman the fixed salt of the bloud would not draw the spirit out of the ointment without the annointing it followes that there is no magneticall vertue in it at all because a corporeall contact is necessary and from hence it will follow likewise that without the corporeall contact it cannot worke at distance nor diffuse its strength so farre as to the person wounded The bloud hath the vertue either in it selfe or from the ointment If in it selfe then is the ointment in vaine Not from the ointment because what sympathy with the spirits of the partie is attributed unto it it hath it from the blood flesh fat and mosse which are ingredients in the composition by reason of the spirits which are thought to bee in them it followes then that the ointment hath no vertues in it which did not lie before in the spirits and so we conclude that the ointment is in vain also Seventhly the spirits which are in the blood fat and mosse are either of a diverse nature or of the same If they be of a diverse nature among themselves without doubt they are also of different operation and have not the same manner of sympathy with all the parts but the spirits of bloud have a greater affinitie with the blood the spirits of flesh with the flesh and the spirits of the Mosse with the Skull And therefore that the cure may succeed the better and sympathy be preserved besides the blood of the person wounded both his fat and his bones ought to bee mixed with the ointment on the wepon that a compleat cure may be performed and the magneticall vertue be without faile carried to the affected parts for verily there is not the same sympathy in the aforesaid spirits But if those spirits be all of the same nature that curiositie in adding thereto blood fat flesh and mosse is in vaine and superfluous when onely the blood which containes in it all those spirits may suffice Eighthly I have read a story of a horse whose feet had been hurt with a naile A horse shod in the quick cuted by this salve for the cure whereof the naile was aunointed with the aforesaid ointment and so the horse became sound againe And Crollius also relates the same From whence it follows that there is a certaine sympathy and familiaritie betwixt that ointment and the spirits of a horse and a certaine learned man confesses that there is the same vertue of healing in a man and in an horse Which if it be true in vaine is mans bloud preferred before an horses bloud for those things which are the same to one third are the same among themselves yea Crollius faith that not onely a horse but also all creatures that have flesh and bones may be cured with this ointment And in very deed if this manner of curing were certaine and infallible even any vulnerary ointment would bee as fit as this for the vertues thereof might bee conveighed to the sick by meanes of the spirit as well as the vertue of this ointment Ninthly seeing that the cure not onely of simple wounds but also of great and inward wounds is oftentimes perfected by Nature alone without the help of Art for to unite and to generate flesh are the works of Nature and not of Art and Crollius confesses that naturall Balsame doth work in this magneticall cure it is a wonder why that liniment is not rather applyed to the sick himselfe why it cures not ulcers seeing every wound doth at length become an ulcer and seeing bloud may flow also from ulcers and the principall indications of a wound are found likewise in an ulcer Why is it not also used for the curing of wounds made by Pistoll-shot and for such wherein there is a losse of substance Why hath Crollius excepted the wounds
of the Nerves Arteries and principall Members It is because it is good onely for fimple wounds and such as are onely in the flesh which nature by binding alone doth conglutinate with the help of naturall Balsame that is to say of the innate heate of the body hence it is easie for the wound being wrapped every day in clean clothes and washed with warm urine to grow together again of it self without the use of any ointment at all Therefore that ointment is altogether unprofitable nor availes that any thing which they talk of experience for without doubt those wounds might have been eured without the ointment For that ointment doth neither dissolve nor purge away the excrements of the wounds nor preserve the temperature of the parts for the parts of the body which may bee wounded are of divers sorts as Sanguine Spermatick Nervous Membranous fleshy and men themselves may be Cholerick or Sanguine Melancholick Phlegmatick Plethorick Cacochymick and bee troubled with some other diseases also for all which one and the same remedy cannot bee so convenient But enough of this CHAP. XLIX Of the curing of the Kings-Evill by the touch of the Seventh-Sonne BEcause of late I have heard of some who reporting that they are Seventh-Sonnes do promise great matters about the healing of the Kings-Evill which they professe to doe by touch alone and so beguile the too credulous people something must bee sayd concerning them This chapter I have added at the request of some Physicians of principall note That some diseases are sometimes cured only with the touch of some remedies it is plainly manifest by the authority of the most excellent Physicians Such are those which are called amuleta and periapia being remedies that are hung about the neck or laid to the body Thus Galen commends the root of Peionie hung about the neck for the Epilepsie others the stone called aëtites bound to a womans Thigh to facilitate the birth and divers such examples are found in Authors which many say they have observed although I have sometimes made triall of peionie * A stone which is found in an Eagles nest without which as it is thought she cannot lay her egges and the stone aëtites for the aforesaid affects without any successe Neverthelesse I deny not but there are occult sympathies and antipathies nor doe I goe about to thwart experience and the authority of able Physicians But it is farre more which these men professe they can doe namely cure the Kings evill by their touch alone and that because they are Seventh Sons That this is naturall I thinke scarce any will believe For whatsoever is naturall doth depend on inward principles and may be done by every individuall of that kinde so it be entire sound and according to nature in every respect as all Rubarb parges choler and every man is risible Nor doth it depend on number for number according to Philosophers is of no force to act for actions are of the things themselves and doe depend on the formes of things But this seventh Son is said to have some peculiar power which is denied to the six former brethren to wit because he is the Seventh It must needs follow therefore that that power must arise some other way since it proceeds neither from the forme nor the number It depends not on the Touch for Touching as Touching hath onely the power of Touching Indeed if there be either any noxious or salutiferous quality in the body it is communicated by the Touch. But the Touch it self hath no such force Furthermore seeing that all diseases are cured onely by the taking away of their cause those Wondermongers cannot take away the Kings evill unlesse they first take away the cause Now seeing that the cause of the Kings evill is fleagm as Physicians say setled in the kernels which in other parts breeds other diseases he might be able by the same touch and by the same vertue to cure other diseases that come from the same cause which thing seeing hee cannot doe it must necessarily follow that the cure is miraculous or else that it depends on the imagination of the sick But seeing the imagination of the sick is so different being in some stronger in others weaker an uncertain event must be looked for from an uncertain cause Therefore it must of necessity be either miraculous or false or diabolicall I scarce believe that it is miraculous The Apostles and Primitive Christians did heale by touch alone to the greater glory of God and the propagating of Christian Religion But God will not have miracles to be wrought at every mans private pleasure thus whatsoever the Apostles did they professed that they did it not by any power of their owne but in the name of our Lord Iesus Christ And therefore those seven Brethren the Sonnes of Sceva a Jew who went about in the same name to conjure the uncleane spirits were beaten by the Devill and suffered the punishment of their rash boldnesse Thus it is not lawfull adventurously to attempt the working of miracles In like manner the power of curing the Kings Evill is by the blessing of God granted to the Kings of great Brittaine and France which is denied to other Christian Kings And so Edward the Confessor for his singular piety cured not only the Kings Evill which prerogative redounded to his Successors after him but also other ulcers by touch alone which his Successors could not doe Seeing then this priviledge is onely vouchsafed to the aforesaid Kings and is wholly performed in the name of our Lord Iesus Christ if other Kings should attempt the same it were too much rashnesse and a grosse tempting of God who hath not given any such power to them Therefore in Spaine where this disease of the Kings Evill is epidemicall and popular Francis the first King of France being taken Prisoner by the Spaniards cured it by his touch alone as he was wont to doe France concerning which Lascaris hath this Epigramme Hispanos inter sanat Rex Choeradas estque Captivus superis gratus ut ante fuit Indicio tali Regum sanctissime qui te Arcent invisos suspicor esse Deo In English thus The King in Spaine though Captive heales their sore And is as dear to God now as before Thus they who by his goodnesse are reliev'd Are but unto a greater vengeance repriev'd Moreover it is to be noted that the aforesaid Kings on whom God hath bestowed that favour have it upon a certain condition nor is it derived unto their successors unlesse they be lawfull heires and abide in the Christian Faith For if an Usurper as there have been such in times past and God knowes what shall be the destinies of Kingdoms should depose a lawfull Prince from his Imperiall Throne hee should not with the Kingdome obtain this prerogative to himself Nor if any King though a lawfull Successour to the Crown should renounce the Christian Religion as mens dispositions are variable
lie If not supported groveling on the sand It holds no dirt 't was culd by a cleane hand I praise thy smooth Translation that doth teach The Vulgar Errours in a Vulgar speech Their Errours else the Vulgar had not known In Latine Primrose was i' th bud now 's blowne It s blowne so faire too that all doe confesse No wit can put it in a fairer dresse On thy Translation one may looke an age Yet finde no Errours but i' th Title page John Burnsell in Art Mag. The Judgement of Doctor Zacutus the Jew a famous Physician in Amsterdam concerning this Tractate of the Popular Errours which I finde printed before the Hollands Impression directed to the Printer MY dearest Iohnson I have perused this Book of the most excellent man Iames Primrose wherein he discourses accurately concerning the Errours of the people in Physick It is an excellent and pithy piece full of variety pleasant and profitable and worthy to be prized by Physicians This learned Author reasons strongly answers objections acutely and refutes wittily Goe too Mr. Iohnson print it without delay no clear-witted man will slight this wholesome counsell but it will be very much approved of and delighted in by the Learned and in their esteeme it will like the Rose-buds every day flourish more and more For it detects the ignorance and Errours of Quacksalvers who goe about to enrich themselves by mischieving others cheating the silly people with false and feigned promises of more then they are able to doe such as insolently oppose the knowne principles of Physick and envy them that with admirable care and dexterity doe make more safe and speedy cures These this Tractate armed with the most rationall Method of Hippocrates as it were with Hercules his club levells with the ground and utterly overthrows their erroneous opinions it curbs the foolish vaunting and arrogancy of Quacks and stops the proud attempts of those fond Bablers For I abhorre to think on this one thing that a sort of silly Plebeans and deboyst idle Empyricks should dare to take to themselves the honourable Titles and employment of the Learned Even as the country Curres seeme to follow the sent as doth the generous Hound and as the Proverb hath it the Goat would seeme to be like the Rhinoceros But to let passe these You Mr. Iohnson whom I know to be an entire lover of Learning make haste to print this gallant booke for it will bee entertained with great applause in these Belgian Provinces in Europe yea throughout the whole world Farewell and love Amsterdam Iune 4th 1639. Your affectionate Friend Zacutus Lusitanus Med. Dr. The Authours Preface HIppocrates said well in his booke De Lege that Physick is of all Arts the most excellent for the antiquitie and necessity thereof and the noblenesse of its subject to wit mans body do sufficiently manifest the same But be addes further In respect of the ignorance of them that practise it and of those that judge rashly of them it seemes inferiour to the other Arts. In which words he seemes to point out two causes of all the Errours which happen in curing The first concernes Physicians themselves the second all others that judge of Physicians and Physick Touching Physitians be saith that many of them are like to dissembling Stage-Players who represent the person which notwithstanding they doe not sustaine so as indeed there are many Physicians in name but in performance very few which as in Hippocrates his dayes so also in our age experience shewes to bee most true The second cause concerns them that judge amisse of Physicians every one wishes alwaies the best for himselfe but who is he that is able to discerne well the good from the bad for many doe oftentimes make use of them whom either boldnesse or the favour of some friend or the proud bragging of a malapert tongue not the sound knowledge of Physick hath set forth which fault was also familiar in Plinies time Men presently saith he give credit to every one that calls himselfe a Physician when notwithstanding in no one thing can there be a greater Errour for oftentimes a greater danger is like to happen by the Physician than by the disease it selfe From these two causes all the Errours of the people we have said doe arise For many of them that practise Physick being ignorant of the rules of Physick have perswaded the people of many things which stick so deeply in their mindes that they can scarce be rooted out by any force of reason For there are very few Errours abroach among the people to which heretofore some Physitian or other hath not given a being by reason of some Theoremes and rules of Physick by them ill understood Nor ought any to marvaile at it seeing that among the learned and well created Physicians themselves exceeding great difference varietie of opinions not yet fully composed may be found But it is not my purpose in this place to treate of the controversies of Physicians but onely to shew forth certaine Errours of the people which disturbe the right reason of curing Of this subject but few have written Laurentius Joubertus indeede a frenchman hath meditated something like to it but he hath left the worke imperfect and hath unfolded but a few Errours and those not very grosse and in my judgment little concerning the people When therefore I had observed here some Errours apparent enough I thought good briefely to declare my opinion concerning them That old common custome of foretelling by urine which also at this day many Physicians doe foster and follow first gave occasion to this worke of which when a certaine friend long since had requested my opinion I gave it him in writing But afterwards observing other Errours I noted downe some thing touching them for my owne use especially At length when I had perfected a Centurie and this booke had growne up to this bulke I put an end to it perhaps hereafter as occasion shall serve I may note more especially if to good and learned Physicians this tractate shall seeme acceptable and profitable for unto their judgment doe I referre all In this booke I have compiled the Errours not of one Country onely but of many that what is here written in the generall every man may fit for himselfe if he finde the same in his owne country And this shall be the order of this tractate the first booke comprehends the Errours about Physicians to wit about all those that cast their sickle into this harvest The second is conuersant about the nature and signes of some diseases the third about the diet as well of the sound as the sick The fourth and last doth treat of certaine remedies of diseases misconceived of the people Now let us set upon the worke POPVLAR ERROVRS The First BOOKE Which concernes Physicians CHAP. I. Of Physicians in generall SEeing then as wee have said in the Preface the number of Physicians is so Great we must explaine in
it is farre otherwise For now Surgery doth challenge unto it selfe five kindes of diseases to wit Tumours besides Nature Wounds Ulcers Dislocations and Fractures whereof the three first in proper right belong to a physicall consideration and in them a formall method of curing is very conspicuous Therefore Galen beginnes his Method of healing with the cures of Ulcers and ends it in the cure of Tumours And although in times past surgeons were different from physicians yet they did never vindicate to themselves these parts of physick That they doe belong to a physicall notion it will appeare if we consider that these diseases doe not onely happen to the externall but to the internall parts likewise Tumours besides Nature of all sorts may be in the internall parts the Frensie is a phlegman or erysipelas of the Braine the Plurisie is a phlegman or erysipelas of the Membrane that covereth the Ribbes as also the Liver and Spleene may be troubled with a phlegman erysipelas or a schyrrous Tumour In like manner Ulcers of all sorts doe happen in all the internall parts of the body among which notable is that in the breast which we call the Consumption They that have written Tractates of Surgery doe treate of Ulcers and Tumours without the determination of any part Now if a physician know not the generall way of curing Ulcers and Tumours nor their differences causes signes and prognosticks how shall he be able to cure those that arise in the inward parts It is needfull then that he know those things But if he know them that better many times than the Surgeon himselfe Not improper for a physician to practise surgery in respect of his learning which now a daies is not desired in a Surgeon why shall he not practise Surgery after the same manner that he doth physick to wit by prescribing not by applying remedies Hence is it that whosoever have written any thing of Surgery worthy of praise from Hippocrates his time unto this our age have been alwaies physicians except a few late writers who have presented nothing to us but what wee had before Yea a physician had need to be skillfull in that part which concernes chyrurgicall operations because without the advise of a physician the Surgeon himselfe ought not to meddle with those Chyrurgicall operations as is usually observed in many countries beyond the seas And in some countries no man doth practise Surgery but he that is doctour of physick which is a very good and laudable custome CHAP. XI Whether a Physician may make up his own Medicines or no. FUrthermore a physician ought especially to be skilfull in * Pharmacie The art of curing by medicines which consists in choice preparation and composition of simple Medicaments For now adayes many of our Apothecaries are to seeke in this point being altogether ignorant of the operations that belong thereunto and yet are so bold that they dare practise physick because when they have served their Apprentiship perhaps under a Master ignorant enough too they thinke well of themselves and if they have reserved some of the physicians Bills they use them too boldly But some thinke it a thing unbeseeming the dignitie of a physician to prepare his Medicines and that Apothecaries were therefore ordained by publique authority that they might ease physicians of that labour This custome hath been in force ever since * Galens time 7. de med secundum locos cap. 3. And Horace in his Satyres makes mention of Pamphilus an Apothecary â— ejusdem The same * Galen doth distinguish a physician from Herbarists such as let blood those that make or sell sweet ointments and others whom hee calls a physicians servants Neverthelesse that in times past physicians have compounded their owne Medicines the history of Philip King Alexanders physician doth sufficiently manifest Galen himselfe made a Triacle Pachius an * Hiera A purging medicine Horatius Augenius doth highly commend that physician which makes up his own Medicaments Plantius in the life of Fernel reports that that great physician was wont with his own hands to compound his Remedies Therefore I thinke times and places are to bee distinguished for Galen did not compound at Rome because there were there Workmen for that purpose onely at Pergamus hee did For whereas at first of old physicians did performe both themselves at length for the multitude of patients they left that care to their servants as now adaies Apothecaries doe commit it to their servants and Apprentices and so by little and little it became a profession of its owne kinde Yet nothing hinders but physicians when they please may prepare their own remedies And that it is not unbeseeming a physician Physicians may make up their owne medicines not only the forenamed examples but even reason it selfe doth illustrate For remedies doe cure without a physician but not a physician without remedies therefore the nature of remedies is more excellent then the physician wherefore it is no disgrace for the physician who is only a Minister of nature to prepare and compound them But because something must be yielded to place and custome which hath differenced Apothecaries from physicians the Physician will have nothing for sale but he may compound some speciall medicines for himselfe the rest are to be committed to the care of the honest and diligent Apothecary CHAP. XII Of them that are thought to have some secrets NOw because nothing is perfect in every respect it may so fall out that common remedies and they perhaps ridiculous ones may be extolled by many for great secrets which they will reveale to no man and wisely done too because they have nothing that is worthy the name of a secret Therefore let us say something of these secrets for they that professe themselves to have them may easily obtrude them upon the people and if any man should lay claime to a common remedy knowne to all as proper to himselfe he shall scarce be convicted of a lye Therefore in the first place it is to be considered 3 things necessary to the curing of diseases that there is necessary unto a cure the knowledg of the disease the method of healing and the use of indications without which no remedy can be applyed For remedies are the finger of God but as a sword in the hand of a mad man they are good indeed to him that uses them aright but dangerous being administred by him that neither knowes well the disease nor the method of curing Secondly the diseases being found out the physician ought to know the matter of remedies and the method of compounding that he may answer the Indications If he know well these 4 things the disease the method of curing the matter of remedies and manner of compounding he needs not these secrets for he is able to prescribe as good remedies yea perhaps better then those secrets are which are so highly boasted of I have read a story of Gapivaccius in
eighteen to five and thirty and in his third book the 29th Aphorisme Spitting of bloud and Consumptions doe happen to young men for seeing that young men have abundance of hot and bilious bloud and at that age the body grows but little it comes passe that both by the plenty and heat of the bloud and by salt fleagm arising from choler the vessels are corroded and broken as also by their immoderate exercises and other defaults in diet But they do seldome happen to children or old men to them because of their gentle and vaporous heat unlesse the naturall conformation of the body do incline to this disease or the contagion of another that hath the ulcer of the lungs doe hasten the maladie and to these because in an old mans body there is but a little quantity of humours and heat Therefore Celsus erred who translating this Aphorisme into Latine corruptly placed the 12th for the 18th as Mercurialis observes Avicenne in an error Avicenne likewise was mistaken who would have old men especially to be subject to the ulcer of the lungs except it be understood of the Marasmus of old age which in a manner happens to all by reason of old age but not of the ulcer of the lungs For although incurable catarhes and distillations of rheum happen to old men yet the humour is not so sharp that it can exulcerate the lungs Therefore he that hath not contracted this evill in his youth in old age by reason of his proper temperament needs not to fear it although I deny not but it may happen some other way as by the plurifie inflammation of the lungs corrupt matter betweene the breast and the lungs and other diseases but not by reason of the proper constitution of old men Which things I thought good to adde that if at any time some of the people aske a Physician whether the party be in a consumption or no he may know how to distinguish of the divers acceptions of a Consumption and need not feare the principall kinde thereof in old men and children I know Cornelius Celsus among the severall sorts of consumptions reckons the Cachexie in which the habit of the body doth rather swell than fall and I believe if we look unto the nature of the thing it is true yet because to the sight it rather appeares contrary I was for that cause willing to omit this signification If I had added here the causes of all these diseases the signes diagnostick and prognostick and manner of curing which once I was determined to do the book had grown into too great a volume nor doe I think that to be needfull for it is my purpose only to demonstrate the Errours of the people and not to teach Physick the people may for that advise with learned and honest Physicians Let us now hasten to other things CHAP. VII Of the Plague whether it be infections or no. SOme men are so froward Stoicall and obstinate as that they go about to take away from the plague all contagion and infection Others although they doe admit of it yet they think it an impious thing for a Christian to fear the evill or to fly from it Touching the former sort experience shewes and the authority of great men doth confirme that the plague is contagious No plague if no contagion Yea that is no true plague which wants contagion for though some diseases doe kill like the pestilence yet they are not the pestilence if they be not contagious but malignant and pestilentiall diseases without a plague The scab or itch otherwise a very light disease the skall leprosie madnesse the ulcer of the Lungs the Ophthalmie or inflammation of the eyes and the french pox doe infect those that are neere why not also the plague And unlesse it be contagious it could not be conveyed from one City to another which often happens without any precedent fault of the aire Indeed Galen Hippocrates and the Ancients made no manifest mention of contagion Yet Thucidides affirmes that that plague which he described was most contagious and therefore he perswades unto an early flight and a late returne of which counsell Galen being mindfull withdrew himselfe from Rome and in his 1. book de differ feb 2. he observes that it is not safe to converse with those that be infected For seeing that whether wee will or no wee must inspire aire there is no way to escape it but by removing far from them into some place where the best aire is and by late returning It matters not therefore what Petrus Salius a Physician otherwise very learned alledges to prove that there is not alwayes contagion in the pestilence First that Hippocrates Galen and the Ancients neither made any mention of it nor feared it Secondly that the Turks and other Nations think it to be an impious thing to avoid the company of them that are infected therewith Thirdly because many that converse among them that bee sick of it are not infected That Galen and Thucidides knew the contagion of it it is evident by what hathe been already said But yet we must confesse that they did not so exactly search out the nature and manner of it Aristotle in his problemes hath said something of it but very obscurely Galen also spoke a little of it 1. de differ feb but darkly and covertly The Ancients knew not all things they have left many things to be added by them that come after many things to bee changed many things to be more clearly explained Nor ought the Turkes example to move us Foelices errore suo quot ille malorum Maximus haud urget lethi metus they are happy in their owne errour whom that greatest of evils the feare of death doth not molest Therefore so often as the pestilence strayes among them it rages so cruelly that sometimes in one City it destroyes an hundred thousand men Nor is that which followes of more power to perswade that we see many men alive who without harme have conversed with infected persons who without doubt had perished if there had been any force of contagion in it But yet if so many thousands of men whom this communicated disease hath swept away and the families that have been wholly abolished should returne from death againe they would easily refute the opinion of a few survivours To set on an action 3 things are required the dominion of the agent over the patient the preparation of the patient and a convenient space of time for nothing acts in an instant To the dominion of the agent not only the operative vertue of it but also a due quantity is required for even deadly poysons doe little in a small quantity a spark of fire burnes but little The preparation of the patint is either manifest or occult Marsi are a people of Italy so called from Marsus Circes son Psilli are a people of Libia whose bodies are venime to serpents from an
There is a certaine naturall death Naturall death and its causes proceeding from the principles of life exhausted in extream old age which God hath appointed for all men which therefore no art can keep back And those terms of life are divers in respect of the diversitie of temperaments and other causes therefore some live longer some shorter some wax old sooner some later but every one when his innate heate is spent dies in his own time appointed by nature as the flame of the Lampe dies out when the oyle is spent For there is an order of all things in nature and every time and life is measured out by circuit 2. De gen corrup cap. 10. as Aristotle sayes to whom all Philosophers and Physicians doe consent There is another death violent and untimely What kinde of death is to be prevented by physick which is caused by Feavers and innumerable diseases and other chances against this it is that a wise skilfull faithfull Physician goes forth and by the right administration of wholesome remedies hee calls back into the breast the life that was ready to depart For what else is it for a sick man to be delivered from a dangerous disease then for death to be deferred The Squinancie Apoplexie Plurisie Pestilent Feaver and other such acute diseases may by their own nature bring death unlesse they be driven away by remedies What else is it to prevent diseases then to keep back old age and death which is incident to it Naturall heat weakned many waies How many sundry causes do weaken our naturall-heat as a corrupt diet surfeiting want watchings troubles cares which doe call in untimely old age But a good manner of living according to the direction of Physicians doth prevent these that the substance of the body be not too soon dissolved but that it may come to extreame old age which old age hath its appointed limits in nature known to God alone which may indeed be hastened from divers causes but yet by taking away all the causes that alter heat it cannot be put off or prolonged any further and such a death happening in extreame old age is very rare For who ever led such an exact course of life that he never harmed himself by those six things which physicians call non naturales For they that doe not keepe a wholesome manner of life dye sooner then nature hath appointed as saith Galen 6. de sanit tuendâ CHAP. X. Whether intermitting fevers commonly called Agues becurable or no. MAny are of opinion that against intermitting feavers which they call Agues there is no remedie but that they doe transcend all force of Physick But seeing experience shewes that to be false Agues curable for men may see them often cured by Physicians we need not say much of this matter They proceed from divers humours cholericke plegmaticke melancholick If they be exquisitely cholericke they are easily cured Aph 59. lib 4. For an exquisite tertian in seven fits is judged the longest therefore it will be much shorter if it be helped by remedies seasonably administred And it stands with reason For if other diseases that arise from the same humours may be cured why not also intermitting feavers Onely this is it that deceives the people because some of them continue very long and become chronicall as doe some bastard tertians and quartanes Neverthelesse that takes not away the possibility of curing them seeing that these diseases have been often cured although not alwayes in all that have them otherwise it might be said also that al continuall feavers are mortall Diseases are of 3 sorts because some have dyed of them Diseases are by some Physicians divided very well into such as by their owne nature tend unto health such is the one day feaver secondly into perpetuall and incurable A sort of leprosy such is the * elephantiasis and lastly into those which are sometimes cured sometimes doe kill of which sort are very many diseases among which intermitting feavers are to be reckoned which in some haply are soone cured but others doe continue a long time for all diseases of the same sort have not alwayes the same times and the same end but some doe end sooner some later Some diseases are longer some shorter and why some are cured and some doe kill according to the diverse disposition of the peccant humour in quantitie thicknesse toughnesse acrimonie malignity according to the state of the patient and and his strength time of the yeare country temperature of the weather manner of diet constitution of the noble parts diligence of the Physicians others that be conversant about the cure and other circumstances the explication of which belongs not to this place 4. aph 4 3. Hippocrates saith that Feavers after what manner soever they intermitte are not dangerous at all They are therefore curable by a wise and learned Physician although perhaps unskilfull fellowes by a preposterous way of ministring Physick may make them incurable aph 25. lib. 2. Thus summer quartanes are said to be short but Autumne long especially those that reach unto winter That in some men many diseases remaine incurable for divers-causes it is not therefore to be thought that they are such by their owne nature nor is it to be concluded to the dishonour of Physick that they cannot be overcome and conquered by art Neverthelesse men should not give credit to the boasting words of some moungrel-Physicians who feare not to try and spare not to promise any thing and yet performe but little If they chance with a doubtfull remedie to cure a hard disease not well knowne of them with what words can the glory of so great a miracle be expressed with what reward can it be requited But if the cure succeede not well they lay the blame not upon themselves but upon the negligence of the patient or the by-standers or on the wilfullnesse of the sick CHAP. XI That the heat of the liver cannot be known by the heat of the palme of the hand IT is an ordinary thing with many when the palme of the hand is very hot to thinke that they are affected with a preternaturall heat of the liver which notwithstanding is not very certain although some Physicians also have been of the same opinion For what greater sympathie is there of the liver with the hands then with any other part No extraordinary sympathy between them Galen in Arte parvâ writes that if the liver be hot the whole bulke of the body is not likewise unlesse the heart doe hinder it and in like manner the whole body is made hot by the heart if the liver hinder not and therefore it ought not to be attributed to the hands onely Againe that unusuall heat of the hands doth rather proceede from the heart which communicates to the whole body hotter spirits and warmer blood then the Liver Moreover Galen in his booke against Lycus proves
That blood retained because for the smalnesse of the young one in the beginning of her graviditie it is not at all spent for the nourishment thereof doth putrifie and hath recourse either to the noble parts or at least annoyes them with filthy vapours which it sends forth from whence arise the aforesaid symptomes in the stomach intrailes belly head and the whole body as vomiting loathing of meat unsatiable longing and lusting gripings dizzinesse of the head and such like Seeing therefore the husband hath not in him the causes of these affects but his wife onely it stands with reason that shee onely should be sick Nor if any husband be sick when his wife is with childe was hee infected by his wife for that distemper may happen through some peculiar fault of his owne body As while I write this it raines yet neither is my writing the cause of the raine nor the raine of my writing It is no new thing for husbands and their wives to bee both sick together But it is a wonder and heretofore a thing unknown that graviditie or a womans being with childe is a contagious disease and that not other women but men only whom nature hath freed from this travaile should be infected therewith Furthermore it is observed that the same symptomes do not happen to all women or at least not all to every one and yet it often falls out that when the woman is in good health the husband is sick yea sometimes being many miles off But if he endure that by his wives being with childe how comes it to passe that she continues well at the same time For naturall causes doe sooner worke upon the near than upon the remote subject And for that cause seeing the woman carries about her such noxious humours she should be sooner and more grievously sick I know something might be said of simpathy antipathy contagion fascination and other such trifles But if these things be so why do not maids and widows who are very often troubled with the like symptomes through suppression of their flowers infect their bedfellows and familiars seeing there is the same cause and without doubt they may have a sympathy with some of them To cause a contagion not only the efficacie of the agent but also a disposition and analogy in the patient is requisite But who believes not that another woman is more prone to receive and take the symptomes of gravidity than a man seeing they were all created for propagation of children and therefore one woman ought to take great heed to her self of another Moreover it may happen that a woman that is sore troubled with the green sicknesse as they call it is married to a man whom notwithstanding although her flowers be suppressed she shall never infect why then when the same woman is with childe and there is no other reason of sickness then suppression of the flowers shall her husband be sick Men would be in an ill case if as often as there were a suppression of their wives flowers so often they not their wives should bee sick But because by the very relating of it the absurdity of this errour doth appeare I will adde no more Iupiter bore Bacchus in his thigh and Pallas in his brain but let this be proper to him alone CHAP. XIIII Whether forraine Physicians and Aliens can know the temper of the sick of another Countrey TO know the temperature of the sick conduces much to the knowledge of diseases and their cure and this businesse requires a long and difficult handling I will onely say thus much that some are of opinion that Strangers cannot know the temperature of them of another Country as French men of the English But that is repugnant to the nature of the Art of Physick the precepts whereof are generall The precepts of Physick are generall and may easily be applyed to any Country For every art is of universals not of particulars therefore here in England all that are skilfull Artists doe practise Physick according to the precepts of Galen and Hippocrates which if any man doe well understand he is able to discerne the diversitie of men according to their ages countries and the different temper of the aire and what medicaments are convenient for them Concerning which Hippocrates hath written an excellent book of aire waters and places For the Art of Physick wheresoever it is taught doth lay downe marks and signes which are taken from Countries both for the knowledge and prognostication of diseases and indications which the diversitie of Countries doth afford for the appointment of a right diet letting of bloud prescribing of purges and administring of all other remedies Otherwise it were no Art if it should accommodate its precepts to some particular place only Galen who was borne and brought up in Greece practised Physick at Rome Hence 3 prognost Hippocrates saith that his documents may be applyed to any Country either hot or cold to Lybia Delos Scythia and the rest Also the Arabians have borrowed from the Greeks their precepts of curing which are the very same with the Galenists which we promiscuously follow Therefore it was wisely ordered by the Spaniards and Portugals that in India where they beare rule Physick should be practised after the self same manner that it is in Europe according to the doctrine of Galen and Hippocrates I know much might be said of that variety of temperature which Countries doe give to the inhabitants for even in one and the same Kingdome there is a great diversitie of inhabitants in respect of the divers situation of the Countryes nature of the soyle blowing of the wind and other causes for the diligent search of all which the Art of Physick layes down rules And yet whatsoever the Climate and Country be even in the most Northern Climates there are men of every temper hot cold cholerick flegmatick sanguine melancholick One that without license practised Physick a Surgeon by profession that he might doe me a displeasure was often wont to say that Frenchmen cannot understand the nature and constitution of the English I once asked him what was that constitution of an Englishman wherein he differs from a Frenchman by what signes he could know it seeing that in every place are men of every temperature which things seeing they cannot be knowne but of a learned Physician it is no wonder if every simple medicine-monger be ignorant of them For it is a thing exceeding hard to be known Therfore Galen said that if he could but perfectly know the temperature of his Patients he should be another Aesculapius I will now only adde thus much that what is talked by the vulgar concerning the temperature of divers people is well understood but of few for all men have their proper temperaments differing from others ingendred in them from the principles of generation they cannot therefore have any thing common in which all men can agree That same therefore is onely a certain
promises Fabers Errour taxed after the manner of the Chymists seems to me to be injurious to the God of nature in saying that the mixture of pure and unpure that is to say of different parts in one and the same mixt body doth proceed from the Creators curse for sinne As though if man had never sinned God had created onely spirits and not corporeall substances oyle of cinnamon and not cinnamon which is an absurd thing to suppose And therefore he doth falsly define a medicament to be a purity of nature which doth by altering help and succour our nature when it is violated and oppressed with a disease and hee will have only that which is pure and without mixture to be a medicament because that alone is capable of action and efficacie O fine pate Are not remedies compounded out of the drosse of things excrements dregs things of least reckoning out of use and in a manner nothing worth Who ever denied the power of working and of altering the body even to those excrementitious parts which of the Chymists doth not make use of excrements for Medicine Verily there is no part of the drugs which hath not in it some vertues wholsome for mans body either for externall or internall uses But let us look back to our own task Not only in aliments is this mixture of gross and subtile parts profitable but in medicaments likewise Wee often give Rubarb with good successe to purge but powdered this is a kind of preparation but more commonly we administer it being infused when we do not stand in need of the grosser part for the vertue thereof is kept in the infusion But in the extract which is a Chymicall invention and is exceeding profitable in many things part of the vertue is exhaled Therefore the infusion of the Galenists is better than the extract of the Chymists Prepare Rubarb chymically by distilling drawing out the salt and extracting the spirits and it will then be good for nothing all the vertue of purging will perish quite although the Chymists will have the salt thereof to bee cathartick likewise Moreover as we said in the first Chapter in thickning binding corroborating and drying medicines the matter and substance is requisite thus experience shewes that the conserves preserves and powders of the Galenists are oftentimes more safely given than the oyles and spirits of the Chymists for there is often need of whole medicaments nor ought all things to be chymically prepared And therefore many times the Chymists are forced to cloth those their medicaments with another body which but a little before they had separated from their owne for who dares taste of oyles of Origanum Brimstone Vitrioll by themselves without mixing them with another liquor and therefore they adde these same to opiats lozenges julips apozemes in a very little dose otherwise they would scarce worke without a great deale of danger and harme to the body for that part which first they should but touch they would alter not without apparent hurt Therefore not every separation of the grosse parts from the subtile is wholesome for the body but sometimes pernitious and deadly Wherefore there is no reason that for this cause the Chymists should preferre their own except in some few Medicaments nor is there the same vertue in the whole that is in the dissolved parts Secondly they do not only deceive the people but perhaps themselves also while they so commend the separation of the grosse parts from the thinne and the security of their own remedies for the noxious part is not alwaies severed from the other in a chymicall preparation but is many times increased whiles that it being all contracted into a little bulk doth worke more strongly Let I pray all the purging extracts and the other chymicall preparations of purging Medicines be duely weighed whether any of them bee voyd of danger yea they are oftentimes worse although by such preparations they many times lose their own strength for the noxious qualitie is not alwaies in the thick substance but oftentimes in that thinne substance which is extracted The Trochisks Alhandal doe purge very well the extract is as hurtfull and the sediment which remaines from the extract doth loose in a manner all the noxious qualitie of the Colliquintida because this together with the purging qualitie goes all into that liquour out of which the vertue is extracted which as usually they do in other things they call by a fond name Menstruum whereupon the Chymists doe no lesse use correctives with those extracts than the Galenists Admirable with them is the extract of Opium called Landamum the Opium being prepared with divers mixtures to correct it which after they have used all their art in preparing and changing it they dare not yet administer without correctives as they call them Whether then hath this chymicall preparation taken away the violence from the catharticks and the noxious quality from the Opium or no Now as concerning the small quantity and pleasant relish these do not alwaies accompany Chymicall Medicines We will exemplifie in purging extracts and other things which are exhibited in a large Dose and are no lesse unpleasant for the purging quality is a little exhaled If some things by their too great quantity be noxious they have it common with all meats yea and Medicines though chymically prepared neither if strong Catharticks be hurtfull are they therefore to be rejected seeing that all remedies if they be ill used may doe harme Therefore chymicall Medicines are not alwaies the more pleasant the extracts of Colliquintida Rubarb and Aloes are no lesse bitter and unpleasant then they are whole and yet they are administred in a greater Dose yea if a Drugge have an unpleasant relish it can scarce be taken away without losse of the strength Take away the bitternesse from Aloes and Wormwood and you take away their vertue What I pray is the extract of Rubarb but the infusion of it vitiated for when the infusion is by a gentle decoction brought to the consistence of an extract the subtile parts in which is contained the purging vertue doe evaporate insomuch that the infusion of two Drammes of Rubarb will purge better than the extract of four Drams Thus the juice of Roses purgeth excellently the distilled water not at all The extract of Coloquintida is exceeding bitter although it be a chymicall preparative and notwithstanding that it is administred in a greater dose than the Trochisks of Coloquintida called Alhandal And indeed in respect of cathartick vegetables the chymicall preparation must give place to the ordinary and common but in purging Mineralls especially those that provoke vomit the chymicall hath the preheminence The smalness of the Dose renders it suspirious Now the smalnesse of the dose alone whereof the Chymists make great bragges ought many times to be suspected seeing it is not alwaies requisite and argues a certaine venomous qualitie or at least not so benigne as appears in
its unpleasantnesse and had rather lye long under a disease then be cured with a very few remedies Wee must confesse indeed that very many remedies have by the care and diligence of moderne Physitians beene made more neate and pleasant then heretofore they were but yet all unsavorinesse is not taken from them In which particular wee may admire Gods wonderfull providence for if he had put the like relish into medicine that he did into meare mankind had long since either utterly destroyed or much weakened it self therewithall For all remedies have in them a nature in some measure contrary to our body because they after it otherwise they were not remedies and so they may also do harm We use them that we may reduce the body from a preternaturall to its naturall state againe But if the sick use them either preposterously or longer or oftner than is meet of healthfull causes they may at length be made the causes or diseases and imprint on the body their qualities which are so different from the nature thereof and therefore it is well said in the Proverb Qui medicè miserè They live miserably that live Physically Wherefore it were not amisse if many both men and women did take Physick more sparingly for they prejudice their health and they that are ever and anon taking Physick doe seeme almost alwayes to have need of it In like manner others that are sometimes sick are to be admonished that they do not for a little unpleasantnesse of taste or smell perversly reject wholsome remedies that are discreetly administred by an able Physician CHAP. VII Whether home-growing Remedies can bee sufficient for any Country IT were to be wished that England were as well able to furnish it selfe with Remedies as it doth with food and rayment There were in times past and even at this day are very many that have endeavoured to reduce the whole body of Physick to common and home-growing remedies rejecting such as are brought from Forraine Countryes Plinie the great Antagonist of Physicians was of that mind blaming Physicians that call in the Indians Aethiopians and Arabians for help At length saith he the craft and subtilty of men invented those shops in which every mans life is proffered to be sold to him then presently compositions and unutterable mixtures are provided Arabia and India are brought in for aid and for a little ulcer Physick is fetched from the red Sea when every poore man eates dayly to his supper the right remedies But that could never yet be brought to perfection nor hath ever any Nation been so happy that it could be sufficiently furnished with its own remedies India sufficiently furnished with its own remedies except the Indians For seeing that the same things doe most commonly grow in diverse Countryes it is certaine that they cannot every where be of the same vertue and goodnesse It is therefore lawfull to fetch them out of those Countryes where the best doe grow for the vertue of plants doth vary according to the nature of the places The Arabians say that some plants are hot in the third degree which the Grecians will have to bee hot but in the second the Germanes in the first Wherfore Galen who lived in a most temperate Climate did not think his own Country remedies to be sufficient but received Lemnian earth out of the Isle Lemnos approved of Candy dittander Macedonian parsly and such like And in purging medicines it is most manifest for they doe not grow at home but it is necessary that they bee brought from forraine Countryes as Sene Rubarb and many others some whereof being transplanted although with good dressing they be made to grow in our Gardens yet not without a manifest wasting of their strength nor in that plenty which may be sufficient for the whole Country Thus we dayly use sugar pepper spices wine which are supplyed unto us from other Countries The Lybian Iris saith Galen doth differ as much from the Illyrian as a dead body from a living no smell at all proceeding from the Lybian but the Illyrian yielding a very pleasant savour God would not that every Country should abound with all things nor alwayes that humane society might bee maintained For as in every Country one City supplies necessaries to another so one Country to another If one City doe stand in need of the help of another why shall not one Country supply the defect of another But they think that those remedies which grow at home have a greater affinity with the temperature of the Inhabitants than the other But experience shewes that we doe use profitably and without any hurt wine and spices that are brought from abroad Again Physick is not agreeable to nature but after a sort contrary because it alters nature and therefore it is necessary for a Physician to use those remedies which can most fitly performe it and seeing that the same medicament even in the same Country doth changes it vertues according to the situation and nature of the places it ought to bee gathered there where the best grows and therefore sometimes to bee fetched from forraine countryes But if this can be done with equall commoditie let the home-growing remedies be alwayes preferred before the forrain CHAP. VIII Of them that feare to bee let bloud and purged lest they accustome themselves to it THere are many that doe willingly use purging and bloud letting every yeare to wit in the Spring and Autumne for the voyding of ill humours lest afterwards namely in Summer and winter 47. Aph. lib. 6. they fall into diseases which Hippocrates perswades unto They that finde bloud-letting and purging to doe them good ought to purge and let bloud every Spring which words he repeats againe in another place * 53. Aph. lib. 7. Yet some are so timorous and fearfull that though they stand in need of these remedies yet they refrain to use them lest they accustome themselves thereunto For they think that if they should use them once or twice and afterward leave off A grosse Errour they must either of necessity be sick or not be in sound health whose Errour it is my purpose in this place to declare although some Physicians have been also of the same opinion forbidding any man adventurously to accustome himself to such great remedies as letting of blood and purging lest by intermitting or leaving off that custome he fall into dangerous diseases But herein they are mistaken for it is an Axiome of Physicians One thing is indicated or betokened by one And custome it self doth not properly indicate any thing but together with other signes it indicates somewhat for it hath reference to nature being also called a second nature whatsoever indicates any thing doth indicate either the conservation or removeall of it selfe conservation if it be according to nature and removeall if it be besides nature as a disease and the cause of a disease Seeing then only the cause of the
oftentimes happens to Physicians that when they prescribe a Clyster or a Purge for their Patients the by-standers especially women and such as keep the sick whom nothing can please but they desire alwaies to dissent from Physicians these I say doe intercede for the sick that he is weak and takes nothing at all when notwithstanding in secret they do preposterously urge him to eat meat and do even glut him therewith Yet it hath been often observed that such as have so much loathed meat have with a very gentle Clyster voided many excrements dried and hardened with the violent heat of the Feaver And it is to be noted that purging is not prescribed onely for the emptying of the belly but to purge out morbous humours for that want of appetite to meat wherewith the sick are usually troubled doth arise from vitious humours which requires purging out which being evacuated the appetite and stomach to meat doth come againe For the loathing of meat bitternesse of the mouth and other the like symptomes doe manifest that purgation is necessary saith Hippocrates Aph. 17. lib. 4. Loathing of meate paine of the heart dizzinesse of the head and bitternesse of the mouth in one that hath a Feaver doe note that there is need of a vomit For these symptomes are caused by the humours which lay about the mouth of the stomach Therefore though the sick take nothing yet they have lurking within their bodies many vitious humours which unlesse they be voyded out by a Cathartick the appetite will never returne of it selfe but the disease becomes every day worse than other and perhaps at length is made incurable CHAP. XVIII That a Purge is not much to bee disliked because sometimes it is cast back by vomit I Have sometimes heard the sick complaine that when they have a Cathartick whereby they should have been purged downward a contrary effect succeeded and they were purged upward to wit by vomit which manner of evacuation is indeed very troublesome for vomits do usually offer much violence unto nature Now they must know that it may often come to passe that the working of the Physick may be changed and a purge become a vomit and a vomit a purge The body indeed by an ordinance of nature is emptied rather by siege than by the mouth for the belly seemes to have been created for that purpose as also the humours by their proper inclination do flow to the belly and there are a great many Mesairaick veines that carry the humours unto the guts Now a purging medicine becomes a vomit either by reason of the medicine it self or by reason of the sick Of the Medicine First if it be strong and do greatly provoke and pull the mouth of the stomach Secondly if it be very unpleasant of a strong smell stinking and noysome to the stomach Thirdly if it be light thinne and do easily swimme above as if it be mixed with fat or oyly things Fourthly if it engender windinesse as Sene Epithymum Agarick which windy vapours being carried up to the orifice of the stomach do trouble it and so provoke vomit Fifthly if it be taken in a very great quantitie and by these means not onely medicine but meat also may cause vomit Also sometimes by reason of the sick a Purge becomes a vomit as if he be of a very weake stomach and exquisite sense if hee looke upon things that are unpleasant to him smell such as are noysome and stinking or use violent motion for motion causes vomiting as appeares in them that saile upon the water Furthermore it is to be noted that when one hath taken Physick if after an houre or two he vomit it up again there is no danger at all for in that space the Medicine is dissolved by the heat of the body and as Physicians speak is brought into act and so doth diffuse its vertue throughout the whole body whereby it purges no lesse than if it had been all kept in the body It is sometimes good to vomit after one hath taken a purge Yea many times it is very good to vomit it up for it carries out with it grosse flegmatick and other such humours that stick fast to the stomach which happily it had never purged out by the stoole Wherefore it is not to be imputed as a fault to the Physician or the Apothecary if the Physick do sometimes work the contrary way for thereby no harme at all but many times a great deale of good doth come to the sick CHAP. XIX That purging ought not to be feared though there be a flux of the belly THe common people many times wonder at it and think it a needlesse thing yea and dangerous when one hath a flux of the belly that Physicians do sometimes prescribe a purge which is rather a means to encrease the flux and to weaken and spend the strength of the sick But the thing is quite contrary for nothing doth stay the belly like to a purge In health it is good sometimes to bee loose in the belly so as it be not too great a laske nor impaire the strength if so be as Celsus saith it stay within seven daies But in them that be sick it is sometimes good sometimes evill to have a laske in respect of the diverse nature of the disease constitution of the sick and time as if it be a criticall flux if such things be voided as ought to bee and it be such as the sick is well able to bear Therefore sometimes it is to bee let alone sometimes to be stayed but if it be stayed by astringent remedies the noxious humour being retained in the body is oftentimes the cause of a greater evill to the body and corrupts and infects by its contagion the rest of the humours whereby afterwards the noble parts are hurt or else the flux returns worse and is more malignant than before It is a common proverbe among Physicians The causes of diseases must be taken away before the diseases themselves can be cured So likewise in such a flux the safest way to cure it is by taking away the cause which thing purging among other remedies doth most fitly and safely perform so that the working of it the flux either staies of its owne accord or if it doe not stay yet it may more commodiously and without danger bee stopped by astringent remedies I have often seen the sick which by reason of a lask went to the stoole many times every day whose loosenesse was stayed by a purge of Rubarb to which though sore against their wills I had perswaded them which nature of it self could scarce have cured Therefore it is a common axiome among Physicians one flux is cured by another and one vomit by another not that all diseases are cured by their like but by accident only insomuch as the causes of the flux being voided out the flux stayes of its owne accord CHAP. XX. That the use of Clysters is void of danger MAny
such a discase that of necessitie I was to give her a purge and such an one it was that none would thinke that a woman with childe taking it in but a small quantitie could save her childe unhurt and yet shee tooke it without any harme to her selfe or her childe but when afterward I perceived that shee was with childe I was sorry for that mistake and craved pardon for it of God and shee brought forth a sonne whom I have now at home with me Thus Avenzoar a Physician of principall note among the Arabians Hercules Saxonia writes that while he was as yet in his mothers wombe and Physicians thought him to be a * Or false conception Mole they administred very strongremedies to cast out the Mole but all in vaine for the infant remained unhurt and afterwards became a most excellent interpreter of Physick This happens oftentimes because the force of the Physick is much weakened before it come to the infant and the wombe endeavours to its utmost to keep in the childe and but with great violence will not part with it before the time There is another reason taken from the birth for when the womb endeavours to put forth the perfect infant then doe these remedies help the travail but they availe little or nothing when the womb strives to retaine the infant I have often seen blooding and purging even in the eigth moneth prescribed with good successe for women that laboured with an acute disease CHAP. XXVIII That Physick is good for women in child-bed WHat wee have said of women with childe may be said likewise of women in childbed if they bee sick of acute diseases as a Fever Pleurisie and such like for they are wont to bee troubled with many diseases in that very respect that they are in childebed but there is a different reason between them and women with childe for in women with childe their flowers are stopped and doe never flow without danger to the infant but in women in childbed the humours that were gathered together in the matrix do flow out and are never suppressed but with very much danger and thereby they fall into grievous diseases for the curing of which Physick is to be administred Speedy help is to be procured for women in childbed and by so much the more speedily as in them all things are most dangerous For besides this that the secundine or after birth sometimes staies behinde their flowers also doe either flow too fast or are suppressed or flow but slowly from whence divers great and perillous diseases as continuall Fevers The diseases to which they are usually incident burning Fevers Frenzies vomiting loathing of meat Epilepsies inflammation of the bowels Plurisies and other such diseases do arise So likewise it may fall out that by an ill regiment of body alone together with corrupt humours lurking within exagitated and stirred up in the birth as also by an erroneous diet although neither the flowers be suppressed nor flow immoderately such diseases may happen These cases are difficult and dangerous and can scarce by natures strength alone be amended For if they come by suppression of the flowers they cause grievous symptomes and fevers with watchings and frenzie but if they arise from an 〈◊〉 wholsome regiment of body they are so much the more dangerous in women in childbed because they betoken a great putrefaction of humours within the body which the expurgation of the flowers could not take away nor amend When these things happen it is necessary by the consent of all Physicians to attempt something by blood-letting and purging and other altering remedies which the Physician shall think convenient But what veine must be pierced when how and with what remedies she must be purged is not my purpose to explicate in this place in that I am not now reading a Physick Lecture but onely discovering to the people their Errours in Physick Onely thus much I will adde that it is not safe to open the upper veines lest the flowers bee thereby suppressed and drawn back again into the body CHAP. XXIX That it is not hurtfull to take Quicksilver by the mouth THis Errour is to bee pardoned in many because it is maintained by the suffrage and consent of ancient Physicians Lib. 5. cap. 7. * Dioscorides saith that Quicksilver drunk hath a deadly qualitie and that by its ponderositie it gnawes the internall parts Lib. 6. cap. 28. and in * another place he saith it causes the same symptomes that the spume of Silver doth Tetrab 4. serm 1. cap. 79. With whom assents * Aetius And Galen himselfe reckons it among the poysons And so doth Avicenne although he differs from himselfe when he writes concerning the qualities of it Lib. 1. tract 2. cap. 47. for in * one place he saith it is cold and moyst but in * another place Fen. 6. lib. 4. tractatu 1. cap 3. hee reckons Quicksilver among hot and sharp poysons Some will have naturall Quicksilver to be cold and the artificiall hot which controversie in this place we will not spend time to decide Also some moderne Physicians will have it to be a poyson If it be taken in too great a quantitie it congeales the blood saith Conciliator producing the example of a certaine Druggist who being in a burning Fever instead of a glasse of water to quench his thirst unhappily chanced to light on a glasse full of Quicksilver and drinking up a great quantity thereof he dyed congealed insomuch as when his dead body was opened the Physicians found the blood about his throat congealed and frozen Fernel likewise is altogether against the using of it But others more rightly taught by experience do affirme that it is not so hurtfull As for Dioscorides he saies that it hurts onely by reason of its weight and ponderositie which it cannot doe unlesse it bee taken in a great quantity Galen confesses that he never made triall of it whether it kills or no being taken by the mouth or applyed outwardly so that if at any time he reckoned it among the poysons he seems to have done it according to other mens opinion not out of his owne judgement and experience And the moderne Physicians have found by experience that it may safely be administred if it doe not exceed due measure For no medicine is taken in excessive quantitie without hurt to the body And therefore if it did congeale the blood as Conciliator speakes that was onely by reason of the too great quantity and for that cause it must not bee thought to be of a more noxious quality than other medicaments Neverthelesse Rorarius tells a contrary story 9. simpl In contrad Galeni 20. I knew saith he a Germane who being drunke and sleeping in a Goldsmiths house hee awaked out of his sleep being very thirsty and groping about for drinke by chance he lighted on a vessell in which was three pound of Quicksilver and powring out that
this sweet Mercury is made out of sublimate which is a most violent poyson whereunto they adde some crude quick-silver which is sublimated the second time and so by the mixture thereof the corroding vertue of the spirits of the salt and vitriol doe vanish away and it is made a sweet powder which before was very sharp Here I doe not see any preparation at all but onely a certain mixture and addition of quick-silver the nature of which doth for all that remaine whole and entire and with a slight art is brought to its former temper But if Mercury sublimate be such a deadly poyson the ensuing addition of live Mercury doth not take away the force thereof but only allay it and so the strength being dispersed it is weaker than when it was united And it is manifest for this reason to wit because there is the same reason of naturall things of the same kinde When it is first sublimated the mixture of the salt spirits with the quick-silver makes it to become noxious yet the quick-silver it selfe doth not take away from those spirits their force and violence but rather friendly unites it selfe with them Afterwards when fresh quick-silver is added thereto to make it sweet in regard that it is of the same nature with the former it doth likewise conjoyne it self with the fore-named spirits and can no more abate their violence than the former quick silver But because there is a greater quantity of quick-silver added than was in it before although the aforesaid spirits in their owne nature are no lesse forcible than they were yet they cannot do so much harm because they are allayed and corrected as a few drops of the spirit of vitriol mixed with water may be drunk which otherwise is a corrosive medicament And therefore this sweet Mercury is not so safe as that which hath not been sublimated But if crude quick-silver being mixed with mercury sublimate doth take away the poyson thereof Nihil dat quod non habet and makes it harmlesse much more shall it self be harmlesse Nothing gives that which it hath not If therefore it doth give relish and sweetnesse to that most strong poyson without doubt it hath it in it selfe for propter quod unumquodque est tale illudest magis tale If then the onely commixture of the crude quick-silver doth make the sublimate to become wholsome and profitable to mans body much more shall it self be wholsome and profitable The stories recited in the precedent Chapter doe manifest as much from which it plainly appeares that quick-silver even unprepared hath been administred with very good successe Wee must confesse indeed Cautions in using of quicksilver that if it bee taken in too great a quantity or if there be no corrupt humours in the body for it to work upon it may doe harm as also it is not so good for the cholerick and melancholick as for the phlegmatick But if for that cause quick-silver were to be rejected in like manner almost all remedies should be abandoned from any use in Physick For they are never so good for one but they may hurt another yea even all if they be taken in too great a quantity or unseasonably We will adde here the testimony of a late writer and a most excellent Chymist to wit Hartmannus one that taught divers wayes of preparing Mercury yet treating concerning the curing of wormes in the belly he saith The most excellent remedy of all is quick-silver either taken crude by it self from a scruple to a few drammes or else first quenched with the juyce of Lemmons but then the dose must be lesse because being quenched it stayes longer in the belly Where he seemes to preferre the crude before that which is quenched as wee have already sufficiently manifested CHAP. XXXI Of Tobacco BEcause Tobacco is growne so familiar in use that there are few or none but take it something must bee said concerning it and first of the nature of it Many thinke yea and some have written that Tobacco is * Stupefactive Narcotick and therefore they call it Henbane of Peru whose opinion experience seems to confirme for it provokes sleep and asswages paine Which opinion although it hath learned men for its Authors and Abettors yet to me it doth not seem altogether agreeable to verity For that which provokes sleepe doth it by a vapour either stirred up in the brain or carried up thither or by furthering concoction for then do we sleep most soundly when the stomack is not overcharged with meat It asswages paine because it either takes away or alters the cause thereof but it doth not benumme the part affected by any narcotick quality thus I have seen inveterate head-ache cured with Tobacco Tobacco is not narcotick That it hath not any narcotick quality may be known by divers tokens First because as they confesse Tobacco is hot and dry and doth attenuate penetrate and resolve the humours which is found true by experience But all these are repugnant to the nature of narcoticks not that I thinke that all narcoticks are cold for many of them are hot but because whatsoever is narcotick doth thicken the humours so that if the paine arise from gross humours they do a great deale of harme because they make the humours more grosse and so the disease is made harder to be cured But Tobacco is best for cold natures and cold humours contrary to the nature of narcoticks Secondly if there be a great evacuation of the belly or a flux of bloud which cannot be stayed with astringent medicines we use narcotick and stupefactive remedies as a principall meanes to settle the humours But Tobacco doth purge the body both upwards and downwards in a violent manner like Hellebore or Antimony And any man shall as soone prove Hellebore to bee a narcotick as perswade mee that Tobacco is so It may perhaps stay a vomiting but that is in regard it takes away the cause as a vomit cures a distemper of vomiting Thirdly Stupefactions being applyed outwardly doe bereave the part of sence and refrigerate very much but Tobacco doth no such thing as any man that pleases may make experiment CHAP. XXXII Of the right use of Tobacco ALlthough I never yet took Tobacco nor doe I desire to take it yet I have observed very many of every sort of men to use it as the slender grosse cholerick phlegmatick and others who receive no harme thereby insomuch as I cannot approve of their opinion who think it to be very hurtfull unlesse when it is immoderately used and thus the Proverb is true Too much of one thing is good for nothing The Indians doe think so reverently of this plant that they believe it to bee the most wholsome and sacred of all other and I have commended it to many who by using it have been very happily restored to health Lewes Mercatus a famous Physician among the Spaniards doth in sundry places highly extoll it and he
for drinke and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cuppe Seeing therefore the hornes which are carried about for the Unicornes horne are diverse in colour magnitude and figure it is probable that they come from diverse creatures Therefore whether it be the horn of the Indian Asse which Aelian commends or of the Rhinoceros or of some water creature it is all one so there be experience of the vertue of it Wherefore I would not curiously enquire whether it be an Unicornes horn or some other creatures so it be good and efficacious yea and it is no matter whether the creature hath two hornes or but one Yet it is most certaine as we have said before that Elephants teeth and Whale-bones and Sea-horse teeth and common hornes burnt and those which are digged out of the earth which we have spoken of and other counterfeit and artificiall hornes Elephants and Sea horse teeth commonly sold for Vnicornes hornes are commonly sold for the true Unicornes horne Cardanus saith that Elephants teeth may bee made so pliable by art that they may be made streight like hornes and so set out for the Unicornes horn Neither give eare to them saith Amatus the Portugall who when they goe about to try an Vnicornes horn do infuse the scrapings and powder thereof in water which they say forthwith is troubled and bubbles up for you may perceive the same to happen from the scrapings of any bone infused in water as you may make triall in Ivory So likewise we must take heed that wee doe not give credit to other such experiments which some use to prove the goodnesse of the Unicornes horne for they say that if poyson or some venomous creature be neare unto it it sweats as if it did suffer and were affected with the poyson as also they bid make a circle of the powder of it into the middle of which or into an hollow horn they put a spider which if she passe over they will have it to bee a counterfeit horn but if she burst and die it is naturall all which are false but enough of this CHAP. XXXIX Of certain distilled waters ordained amisse for to drive away feavers BEcause it is such an usuall thing here in England both for men and women to hoard up remedies for divers diseases and to communicate them to one another for secrets we will speak somewhat of certain feaver curing waters which many use especially for agues the which although sometimes they may do good yet many times they are hurtful and pernicious In some Physick-Authors also such waters are found described Quercetanus in his Pharmacopoeâ restitutâ as he calls it names two which he saith are speciall waters for all sorts of feavers especially agues but principally for bastard and exquisite tertians so confidently doe these Chymists make promises of health 1 ad Glauc 3 de simp med Galen himselfe prescribes worm-wood a very hot plant for Tertians and in another place he commends cammomile for the same There are some that will provoke sweat with such hot things And in generall all those waters that I have seen were distilled out of hot simples which adventurously they will use in any intermitting feaver many times to the great hurt of the sick First therefore it is to be noted that intermitting feavers are caused by divers humours both hot and cold unto which one and the same remedy cannot fitly be applyed Secondly seeing that every disease is cured by its contrary it is certain that cholerick humours are inflamed more and increased by the use of these hot remedies and so of an intermitting feaver it may become a continuall Thirdly the cause of an intermitting feaver most commonly lies in the mesentery veines the panereas and other the first passages which dregge it is too dangerous to bring into the habit of the body by such remedies lest the bloud of the veines be polluted especially in cholerick feavers whose cause is for the most part thin and very moveable Fourthly Galen forbids to use vehement and hot remedies in the beginning of a quartane ague which is caused by a cold and dry melancholick humour and he tels a story of Eudemus a Philosopher who in that he did unseasonably use triacle for a quartane ague of a simple it became a double quartane whom neverthelesse Galen cured with the very same remedy seasonably and rightly administred Therfore these hot things are good in those feavers only which are procreated by cold humours or in a bastard Tertian in which there is a great quantity of flegmatick humours mixed with the cholerick Aguish waters not to be used till the humour be concocted or when there are very gross and stubborne obstructions and the bowels very feeble and weakened but not before the concoction of the humour thus Galen for a quartane prescribes a medicine of succus cyrenaicus but not untill the humor is concocted So hee commends wormewood in a Tertian but utterly dislikes it before concoction In like manner and by the same reason these hot waters are to be rejected but after the concoction of the morbous humour in a stubborne disease they may be profitable Therfore these hot things are not to be rashly administred in feavers for one that had adventurously used them in a quartane feaver of a simple made it a double quartane as we said before And there is the same cause of feare likewise lest the same happen by the use of these waters The advise of a learned physician ever requisite Therefore let the advice and counsell of a skilfull learned and faithfull Physician bee alwayes taken who may appoint convenient times for all remedies Nor let the people rashly trust to their Receits as they call them for they are even the hand of God when they are administred by a skilfull Physician but as it were a sword in the hand of a mad man when one meddles with them who doth not well understand the rules of Physick CHAP. XL. That Iuleps and other cooling Potions are to bee administred in a large dose I Have often observed when Physicians prescribe Apozemes Juleps and other cooling potions for them that bee sick of feavers that the by-standers doe usually administer them in a very little dose as but 2 or 3 spoonfuls But here is to be noted that those remedies that are prescribed to prepare the humours are not of the nature of them that contain much strength in a very little quantity but contrary wise seeing they work by the first and second qualities unlesse there be a proportion in quantity betwixt the humour that is to be altered and the Physick it is but in vaine prescribed for if they doe notovercome the humour they are overcome by it and corrupted In a very hot feaver if the aforesaid Juleps be either altogether denied The necessity of cooling and altering juleps in feavers or but sparingly administred the body is dried by the heat of the feaver and decaies so as
mountaines walls windes and of the chest in which with the weapon it is layd up especially when those things which carry the spirits are corporeall which may be letted by the interposition of other bodyes or at least by how much the further distant the object is by so much the more is the vertue thereof diminished and there is good cause to fear lest in a great distance of places the force of the medicament doe perish quite Hartman writes that this communication is made by a magneticall vertue even so as the sent of the carkasse is communicated to the Vultures many miles distant But smels are not diffused in any unlimited space whatsoever and besides they may be diversly hindred as by raine windes and such like To no purpose also was it that Goclenius alledged exampies of many sympathies for it followes not because there are sympathies in other things that therefore there is a sympathy in the ointment Besides the sympathy which is sayd to bee in this ointment is farre different from the sympathy of other things which do insensibly diffuse their vertue into the aire and need not the spirit of the world to carry them and do never worke unlesse the object bee present and are terminated and limited within a certain space But that there are some cessations and fallings off from this sympathy the Loadstone shewes which being rubbed over with Garlick doth not draw iron which manifests that there is not an efflux and wasting of the qualitie only but of some thinne substance also Secondly there is not a reall contact of the agent and patient for it touches not the wound it self but the weapon which is farre distant from the wound which is neither the subject of the disease nor yet of the cure and which needs not to be cured Therefore one said well hee that bindes the weapon that the wound may be cured doth as if one should cover a stone which hath made the hand cold that the hand may be made hot thereby Nor let any man say that there is a vertuall contract the spirit of the world carrying the vertue of the ointment to the wound for this spirit of the world if there be any such thing is common to all things that are in the world otherwise it were not the spirit of the world And yet it operates not in other sympathies for unlesse the object bee present there are none at all Moreover this sympatheticall vertue of the ointment which is joyned with the spirit of the world in such a friendly society is not seated in any artificiall thing as artificiall but in something that is naturall and they might do well to tell what is that naturall thing in the ointment which peculiarly hath so much familiarity with the spirit of the world As wee Galenists say that in every organe there is some particular part which is the seat of the facultie and on which especially depends the action without doubt there ought to be the same thing in this ointment for all the simples which are put into the composition of it cannot so equally agree with the spirit of the world that it should carry their vertues from place to place at the will of him that annointed therewith Therefore the cure shall result either from the similitude of the weapon to the wound but that cannot be for in relations there is no power of acting but there should rather be antipathy betwixt the weapon and the person wounded Or else some vertue flowes from the ointment to the wound for according to Crollius the ointment is of a conglutinating and drawing nature but they do not touch one another Nor is that sympathy of nature sufficient which Crollius with naturall Balsame makes the cause of the cure for if there be any such sympathy the annointing is superfluous for the vertues which are carried after a magneticall manner through so great distances of places doe not need a corporeall application But in this ointment the contrary is apparent for nothing is done without the anointing of the weapon Therefore its working is materiall and after the manner of other unguents it cannot operate without a corporeall contact as appeares by the anointing for if it may worke magnetically without a corporeall contact the anointing is in vaine And in vain also doth Grollius observe a forme of anointing on the upper or neather part of the weapon for the vulnerary vertue thereof might out of the box wherein it is bee diffused even to all that are wounded for it hath a sympathy with all Seeing then it doth not operate without reall application and a certaine and determinate manner of anointing it is plainly manifest that it can act only after the manner of other remedies upon that thing to which it is applyed and no further Thirdly why is bloud fat and the mosse of mans bones put into this ointment is it because the spirits which are thought to bee in them although putrified But there are more such spirits in the body than in the ointment or in the bloud that comes from the wounded Therefore it is either the vertue of the oyntment that cures or else the vertue of the spirit that carries it If the vertue of the oyntment be the cause of the cure it must be principally seated either in the fat bloud and mosse or else in the other naturall remedies which are ingredients also in the oyntment to wit oyles and powders If the vertue of the oyntment depend upon the former the ointment is unprofitable because in the body of the party wounded there is already both a greater plenty of them and they are of a more forcible operation But if it flow from the other simples which are put into the composition of the oyntment the former things to wit the bloud fat and mosse are added but in vaine because they give no vertue to the oyntment So any vulnerary remedy if the bloud of the person wounded be applyed thereunto shall bee able to cure the wound by a magneticall quality to wit the spirit conveying the vertue of the oyntment to the part affected And indeed there is no reason if this sympatheticall ouring bee naturally possible why it may not bee good in all oyntments that mosse and bloud be put into them not for their vertue of healing but for their sympathy only as if a wound be to be deterged take the bloud of the Patient to which adde a deterging ointment and the spirits which are in the bloud by reason of sympathy by means of the spirit of the World will carry the vertue of that oyntment to the person wounded and so performe the cure In like manner any remedy may be made sympatheticall thus purges may be instituted or other intentions of Physicians perfected by adding to some convenient remedy a little of the Patients bloud whose vertue may be afterwards carried to the sick by means of the spirit of the World But if the spirits themselves have in