OF THE Reconcileableness OF SPECIFICK MEDICINES TO THE Corpuscular Philosophy To which is Annexed A Discourse about the Advantages Of the Use of SIMPLE MEDICINES By the Honourable ROBERT BOYLE Fellow of the Royal Society LONDON Printed for Sam. Smith at the' Princes Arms in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1685. August 24. Imprimatur Hen. Maurice Rmo D â—o W. Cant. Arch po a sacris THE PREFACE THE rise of the following Tract intimated near the beginning of it was not such a fictitious thing as the Reader may imagine But tho' I really receiv'd a Visit from a Physician known to me but by his Reputation purposely to propose to me his Objections against the Corpuscular Phylosophy and he had a long conference with me about them yet because the Historical passages of that interview cannot be circumstantially related in few words I suppose the Reader will willingly allow me to imploy this Preface in giving him Advertisements about the scope and design of the Treatise it ushers in I shall therefore advertise him that he will be much mistaken if he shall expect as I perceive several have done already to find in this Book a Collection of Receits of Specifick Remedies For a moderate attention to the Title Page will enable him manifestly to discern that the following Paper in its own nature and in the direct and immediate design of it is a Speculative discourse since it tends but to show that in case there be Specifick Medicines as 't is probable there are some their experienced vertues are reconcilcable to the principles of the Corpuscular or as many call it the new Philosophy and at least do not subvert them if these Effects and Operations be not clearly explicable by them And as this is the avowed scope of the following Essay so I chose to treat of it less like a Physician than a Naturalist For Physicks being a Science whose large extent invites and warrants its Cultivaters to search into the nature and Phaenomina of things corporeal indefinitely it must often happen that the Medicinal Art and this Science will be conversant about the same subject tho' in differing ways and with differing scopes For there are divers hurtful or advantageous accidents and changes of the humane Body whereof the Naturalist takes notice but as they are Phaenomina or changes produc'd by Natural causes in the Body of an Animal whilst the Physician considers them as Symptoms of Diseases or Effects of Medicines the former directing his Speculations to the discovery of truth and the other his Theory to the recovery of health But because I else where particularly consider the Cognation and distinction between the Discipline that the Naturalist and that which the Physician cultivates I shall for bear to mention them in this place but rather acknowledge that I scarce doubt but that I might have inrich'd the following discourse with some choice particulars if I would have perus'd and borrow'd from the learned writings of the famous Dr. Willis But besides that I had not his Books at hand I was unwilling to be prepossess'd or byass'd by his notions and I presum'd the Person I wrote to would not be unwilling to see what without their help the consideration of the thing I treated of suggested to me About this I shall now proceed to observe that tho' the direct scope of the following discourse being to explicate the Phaenomena of some bodies which from their use are call'd Medicinal and declare how possibly they may produce the Effects ascrib'd to them the ensuing discourse is for the main of a Speculative nature yet the consequences that may be drawn from it and the applications that in this industrious Age are like to be made of some things that it contains may probably render it practical For I have more than once observ'd that divers considerable Remedies and some not unpromising methods too have either remain'd unthought of both by many Galenical Physicians and divers of their modern Antagonists too or if propos'd by others have been rejected or slighted barely upon this supposition that no rational account can be given of their way of working or how they should do good and 't is said to be unworthy of a rational Physician to make use of a Remedy of whose manner of operating he cannot give a reason How prejudicial it may be to many Patients that Physicians be prepossess'd with a bad opinion of an useful Remedy may be guess'd by him that shall consider what multitudes of Teeming Women that probably might have been sav'd by the skilful use of Phlebotomy have been suffer'd to dye for want of it upon a dislike of that Remedy that Physicians for many Ages thought to be grounded upon no less authority than a positive Aphorism of Hippocrates And therefore if to remove the specious objection newly mention'd against that whole kind of Remedies call'd Specificks the following Tract has been so happy as to show that 't is at least possible that Medicines said to be Specifick may perform their operations by ways which tho' not explicable by the vulgar Doctrine of the Schools are intelligible and reconcileable to the clear Principles of the Mechanical Phylosophy If I say this have been done by the Theory propos'd in this Treatise it may conduce somewhat to inlarge the minds of many Physicians and invite them to make use of several Remedies of which they did not think or against which they were prejudic'd And since Specificks where they can be had are wont to be free from any immoderate manifest quality and for the most part to work more benignly as well as more effectually caeteris paribus than other Medicines I think that to bring them into due request and invite Physicians to search for new ones as well as imploy those already known may tend much to shorten many Cures and make them more easy and more safe Est aliquid prodire tenus si non datur Vltra THE Advertisement OF THE PUBLISHER THE Author had occasion to touch upon some of the same Subjects that he here treats of in a Book The Usefulness of Experimental Philosophy long since publisht but he had the misfortune to be reduc'd to write the following Discourse about Specifick Medicines and the Utility of Simple Remedies in a Village where he had not that Book at hand and could not call to mind all that he had therein published seventeen or eighteen years before On which account though he studiously forbore to repeat the particulars that he remembred to have set down in that Treatise how opposite soever they would have been to his present purpose yet having since the following Discourse was sent to the Press got a sight of that other which he had not read in many years he finds upon a transient View that some of the same things are mentioned in both Books at which discovery though he be somewhat troubled yet he is the less so because they are but few in comparison of the new ones and set
Advertisement I presume I may offer you two or three considerations that may lessen the force of the lately propos'd objection And first tho I readily grant that there are Diseases whereof each may proceed from differring causes and that a Remedy may be available against it When 't is produc'd by one of those causes without being so when it flows from another yet it may also easily happen that in one case the Disease may be cur'd by one simple Medicine and in another by a Remedy not compounded Nay it may also happen that the same simple may cure a Distemper by which soever OF the two causes it is produe'd This I have in another Paper endeavour'd to make out And what we see of the Effects of the Jesuits Powder as they call it in different kinds of Agues as Tertians Quartans c. and of pacating Medicines most of which indeed owe their vertue to Opium but some are Mineral and have nothing of the Poppy in them in appeasing Pains produc'd by Humours and other causes very differing may keep what has been said from appearing improbable And if I mistake not it may divers times happen that whatever it were that at first produc'd a portion of Morbisick matter that first produc'd matter is the cause of the continuance of the Disease by vertue of some peculiar Texture or Noxious Constitution which if a generous Medicine can destroy the Disease will at least little by little cease 3. It not unfrequently happens that several Symptoms that seem very differing may so depend upon the primary or principal cause of the Disease that if a Medicine how simple soever be capable to destroy that cause all the various Symptoms will by degrees at least vanish of themselves as we often see that when Mercury tho perhaps but crude is skilfully apply'd and raises a kindly salivation a great variety of Inconveniencies that afflicted a Venereal Patient and seem'd to require many differing and topical Applications are remov'd by the same Remedy insomuch that not only frightful Ulcers but such Modes as one would think searce possible to be dissipated by the strongest Plaisters are sometimes happily cur'd by well prepar'd Quicksilver taken in at the mouth as I have been assured by more than one eminent Physician upon his own Experience And tho not unfrequently there be several sometimes very different Symptoms that accompany that Disease of children that in England we call the Rickets and of which there dye several almost every week in London alone yet that Medicine which I have elsewhere describ'd under the name of Ens primum Veneris made of strongly calcin'd and well dulcify'd Colcothar of Dantsick Vitriol and elevated with Sal Armoniack into the form of a reddish sublimate has prov'd by Gods blessing on it so successful that partly by a Sister of mine to whom I communicated it and partly by my self and those I directed to take it or to give it I think I may safely say that two or three hundred children have been cur'd by it and that almost always without the help of any other inward Medicine or using any Topical application at all 4. But the main thing that I intended by way of answer to the foreseen Objection was that in a simple Medince nature her self does oftentimes so well play the Apothecary as to render the compositions made in his shop unnecessary For tho we are wont to look upon this or that Plant or Mineral as an entire and simple Body yet we may much mistake if we look upon it as a Homogeneous one In several Plants that are organical Bodies this Truth is manifest as for instance in Oranges the Succulent part is soure and cooling but the Yellow Rind considerably bitter and hot and so in Lemons the Pulp the Yellow part of the Rind and the seeds have their differing Qualities and Medicinal vertues And even in such vegetable Substances as are Homogeneous as to sense there may be Parts whose operations may be not only differing but contrary as is manifest in the Root we call Rhubarb which affords as well notably Astringent as Laxative and Purgative Parts And so in Minerals themselves good and clean Lead-Oar for instance tho an uniform body as to sense consists of very dissimilar Parts and affords Sulphureous and perhaps other Recrements besides Malleable Lead which is it self a compounded Body Thus also shining Marcasites tho they appear Homogeneous will by barely being expos'd for a competent time to the moist Air afford an Efflorescence that is perfectly vitriolate and consequently contains an Acid Salt two kinds of Sulphur a Terrestrial Substance and at least one Metal for oftentimes it holds both Copper and Iron tho one predominate which last nam'd Substances themselves are neither of them simple Bodies 5. And if we admit the Chymical Analysis of mixts to be genuine we shall find that almost all those that belong to the Vegetable Kingdom or to the Animal and many that are refer'd to the Mineral Kingdom how uniform soever they may appear to the Eye do each of them contain several different and sometimes hostile Substances Thus Hartshorn tho it appears a dry and Homogeneous Substance will in distillation afford a volatile Salt an urinous Spirit a waterish Liquor or Phlegm a swiming Oyl and a sinking one a white and porous Earth or Terra damnata and perhaps some tho but very little fixt Salt Thus also in the Vegetable Kingdom Tartar for instance may without addition be made to afford as Experience hath assur'd me a volatile Salt very like that of Urine a Phlegme an Acid Spirit another Spirit too which I have elsewhere given the name of Adiaphorous two faetid Oyls whereof one will sink in Water and the other swim on it an Earth or Terra Damnata and a fixt Lixivial Salt upon which the newly mention'd Acid Spirit manifests such a hostility that when they are put together they tumultuate with noise and Bubbles and in the Conflict mortify each other And thus likewise in the Mineral Kingdom not to repeat what I lately said of the compoundedness of Vitriol Nor confidently to urge the Opinion of divers Eminent Physicians that Mars as they call Steel and Iron affords parts whereof some are Astringent and other Operative because I am not yet sure these contrary qualitys do not proceed from the differing degrees of Fire and other Circumstances of the preparations of the Metal We see that Native Cinnabar affords by Distillation besides running Mercury a dry substance whence I have obtain'd a Sulphur that would presently gild Silver and a Terrestrial substance whose nature I had not occasion to examine And I the rather take notice of these differing Parts in Native Cinnabar because it is a Mineral that I much esteem and tho here in England it is very rarely or scarce at all imploy'd as an inward Medicine yet I know some Forraign Physicians of several Nations that look upon it as one of their
have been enforcing that I know a Young man who having been bitten by an English Viper which he too rashly laid hold on though the tooth pricked but his hand yet the venom convey'd by so small a hurt which perhaps equal'd not in quantity the hundredth part of Pins head quickly produc'd in him the bad Symptoms that usually follow the Biteing of that Serpent And among others for I particularly ask'd him about that a violent vomiting of ill condition'd stuff I know also a person that practis'd Physick in the Isle of Iava where Scorpions are held to be more venemous than in Italy who having after he had drank some what freely provok'd and bin stung by a Scorpion thô the Hurt was but in his Thumb and was so small that I could not perceive the least scar it had left that it put him presently to such violent tortures for some hours till he had procur'd Specifick remedies that he look'd upon himself a dead man and felt so raging a heat within that he thought to use his own Expression that hell-fire was got into his Body Nor is it only by mere poysons that a Humane Body may be greatly affected thô the agent be but very inconsiderable for bulk and weight for we see that divers Women otherwise strong and healthy will be cast into sounding fits and perhaps will complain of suffocation and be put into convulsive Motions by the fragrant Odours of Musk or Civet though if all the Effluvia that cause these Symptomes were reduc'd into one aggregate this would not probably amount to a hundredth nor perhaps to a thousandth part of a grain And I have oftentimes speedily suppress'd such fits by the odour of the volatile Salts Harts-horn Sal Armoniac or the like or of destill'd Spirits abounding with such Salts though perhaps all the Particles that actually relieved the patient and calm'd these frightful Symptoms if pack'd together would not have equal'd either in bigness or in weight the tenth not to say the fifteenth or the hundredth part of a grain of mustard-seed And as for inward remedies 't is vulgarly known that in the infusion of Crocus Metallorum Corpuscles that render the Liquor vehemently vomitive and Purgative are so very minute that great proportions of Wine or other Vehicles may be strongly impregnated with them without any sensible diminution of the Body that parts with them And of this we have a not less if not more considerable instance when Quick-Silver is decocted or long infus'd in common Water For Helmont observes that though the Liquor be not altered in Colour or Tast nor the Quick-silver at all sensibly chang'd nay nor grown any thing lighter in a ballance yet the Liquor does by means of these insensible and unponderable Effluxes of the Quicksilver acquire a notable virtue against worms for which purpose not only Helmont but before him that experienc'd Chymist Hartman and another eminent Writer extoll this Medicine And on this occasion I remember that a fine Boy born to be heir to a very illustrious family falling into a dangerous Feaver which was judg'd to proceed from worms or verminous matter a famous and Experienc'd Physitian that treated him confess'd to me that he was out of hopes of him Because the Child having been bred to have his will and tir'd with unsuccessful Remedies was so obstinate and carefull in refusing to take any thing that smeld or relish'd of a Medicine that he forbore in spite of all the art us'd to deceive him even to drink any thing but small Beer Whereupon I perswaded both the Doctor and the Lord whose son the child was to impregnate his small beer with Mercurial particles by frequently shaking it with good Quick-silver in it By which means the patient perceiving no change of Colour or Tast in the Drink swallow'd it greedily and through the blessing of God was soon after restor'd to a Health which the Parties concern'd ascrib'd to the Mercurial remedy I should condemn my self for having bestowed so many words upon one objection but that I hope the Answer given to it in this place will facilitate and shortens several things relating to my present Subject Specifick Medicines About which I shall now proceed to offer my thougths in some Propositions and short discourses upon them Having now dispatch'd the first of the two formerly propos'd Inquiries I proceed to the second namely whether the Mechanical Hypothesis can be accommodated to Specifick Medicines so as that they may be either intelligibly explicated by a or at least shown to be reconcilable to it I presume you will easily believe that there are few writers more inclinable than I'am to confess the dimness of our knowledge and the obscurity of many things in nature or that are more forward than I to grant that many of the operations of Specifick Medicines are to be reckoned among those abstruse things whereof nature seems to affect the concealment But notwithstanding this when I consider how comprehensive and fertile the principles of the Corpuscular Philosophy are I cannot despair bur that it will be found that divers of the effects of these Medicines may be in a general way explicated by them and not any will appear inconsistent with them This I desire may be here taken notice of once for all that retaining the Scope of the following discourse still in your memory you may not think it strange that I content my self on most occasions to give in general possible explications and to shew that Specifick Medicines may operate on some such account as I propose without affirming that they certainly do so I observ'd soon after the beginning of this Paper that there were three sorts of virtues to which Physicians thô not unanimously have given this Title of Specifick namely such as evacuate some particular humour such as are peculiarly friendly to this or that part of the Humane Body and such as in an unknown way cure or much lessen this or that determinate Disease But yet I shall now apply my discourse peculiarly to the last sort of these Medicines as being both more considerable in it self and the chief subject intended in present Discourse giving nevertheless as occasion serves such additional Hints and observations as may make the Reflections belonging to this Third sort of Specificks easily applicable Mutatis Mutandis to the other two And I shall begin with laying here for a foundation what I have in another Treatise had occasion to deliver and make out namely That a living Humane Body is not to be look'd upon as a mere statue or a mere Congeries of the Materials 't is compos'd of Flesh Blood Bones Fat Nerves Veins Arteries c. But an admirably fram'd Engine consisting of Stable Liquid and Pneumatick Substances so exquisitely adapted to their respective functions and Uses that oftentimes the effects of an agent upon it are not to be measured so much by the power of that agent considered in it self as by the effects that are
disorder'd nature may have in a diseased Body produc'd Acids of several sorts which are not particularly known to us and that some of these may be of such a nature that none of our common Alcalies as such is able to mortify them and which yet may be mortify'd at least by the way of Sheathing by some appropriated or peculiarly modify'd Corpuscles of a Specifick Remedy which may be illustrated by what is elsewhere observ'd that thô neither Spirit of Vinegar nor Spirit of Salt nor Oyl of Vitriol it self would as far as I have try'd dissolve a stone taken out of a mans Body yet Spirit of Niter which does not dissolve several Podies that I have found dissoluble in Oyl of Vitriol will readily work upon it and thereby lose its Corrosiveness Before I leave this Subject 't will not be amiss to intimare a couple of things that perhaps you will not think impertinent to it One of these is that whereas I not long ago distinctly nam'd Acids themselves and their Productions I did it not out of Inadvertence but because I think Preternatural Acids do not only disaffect the Body whilest they continue sensibly Acid but may in divers cases be the causes of some Distempers whereof most men would think them more likely to be the remedies For thô Acids be reputed to have an Incisive and Resolutive vertue and therefore Oxymel and some other Acetous Medicines are commended to cut tough Phlegm and Spirit of Vitriol is us'd for the same purpose and to dissolve coagulated Blood Yet as I am willing to grant this vertue unto Acids in some cases so there are others wherein I much suspect that obstructions and consequently the diseases that usually attend obstinate ones may be occasion'd by Acids as they coagulate some Fluids in the Mass of Blood that are dispos'd to be thicken'd by them and by that consistence made unfit to pass with the rest of the circulating Blood through the smaller Vessels and strainers of the Body where upon that account they make obstructions This I shall exemplify by the coagulation that I have made by some Acid Salts as Spirit of Salt of the White of an Egg especially if by beating reduc'd to an Aqueous Consistence And the like coagulation may easily be effected in Milk which may not only be speedily curdl'd with Spirit of Salt but as is known by Bodies not Chymically prepar'd as Rennet and Juice of Lemons And Experiments purposely made have shown that if some Acids be convey'd immediately into the Mass of Blood they will coagulate even that Liquor whilst it continues in the Vessels of the yet living Animals The other thing I lately told you I was to observe is that thô Acid Corpuscles are those that modern Physicians and Chymists are wont to take notice of as hurtful both in the Blood and stable Parts of the Body except the Stomach and perhaps some few neighbouring Parts as the Spleen and Pancres And thô some ingenious men proceed so far as to impute almost all Diseases to the bad Effects of Acids yet I am very inclinable to think that divers maladies and ttoublesom Symptoms proceed from Corpuscles that whether they be of a Saline nature or not are different from Acids properly so call'd For I consider that there may be many Bodie which may as 't were result from the combination of Acids with other Saline Particles that much alter their nature as I have elsewhere noted that Spirit of Salt will with Spirit of Urine compose a kind of Sal-Armoniac and Spirit of Niter with Salt of Tartar dissolv'd in common Water will concoagulate with it into Salt Petre or a Body exceeding like it and the same Spirit of Niter or Aqua Fortis with Spirit of Urine or of Blood or the like will afford a very fusible Salt differing enough from what either of the Ingredients was before their conjunction And 't is vulgarly known that Oyl of Vitriol and Oyl of Tartar per deliquium do by their coalition produce Tartarum Vitriolatum in which the Acidity of the former and the Alcalisateness of the latter are very much infring'd a third Body being by resultancy produc'd that differs much both from the former and the latter Oyl or rather Saline Liquor And when besides Instances of this nature I consider how many differing sorts of Corpuscles so fruitful a Principle as nature may have form'd that without being Acid may yet have notable and hurtful Effects upon the Blood or some particular solid part of the Body It seems probable to me that there may be other Qualities requir'd to mortify or disable these Morbifick Corpuscles than a contrariety to Acid Salts and consequently that a Medicine that affords Corpuscles peculiarly fitted to correct or enervate this particular sort of hurtful ones may deserve the name of a Specifick And here I further consider that as in the Body there may be divers coagulations made by Saline Corpuscles manifestly Acid so there may be others produc'd by Corpuscles Whether Saline in tast or no that are not manifestly Acid but perhaps rather of a contrary nature which observation being wont to be overlook'd by Physicians and yet in my opinion of no small importance may deserve to be a little the more carefully made out I have sometimes for curiosity made a Liquor that was not in Tast either Acid or Urinous to which having put a moderate proportion of a distill'd Liquor which it self was not in tast either Acid or Urinous or lixiviate it would in a very short time perhaps in not many minutes be coagulated into so consistent a Body that thô the wide mouth'd Vessel were held with the Orifice downwards nothing would fall out of it I have taught in another unpublish'd Paper that if upon a certain solution which I there show how to make one drop some Spirit of Urine or anorhet Volatile Alcaly there will presently be produc'd a Gelly whose consistence and colour may make it easily be taken for common Starch ready to be imploy'd to stiffen Linnen The like Gelly but more transparent I have more than once made without the help of any thing that is sensibly Acid or Urinous I have also to convince some virtuosi showed them somewhat to their surprise a substance I had prepar'd without the help of Urine or any volatile Alcaly and sometimes almost in a trice that would in very few minutes coagulate above twice if not thrice its weight of highly rectify'd and inflamable vinous Spirit into a stable Mass And to shew you that 't is not requisite that a Liquor be strongly or so much as sensibly Acid to coagulate an Animal Substance as I lately noted that the Spirit of Salt did the White of an egg I shall add that well dephlegm'd Spirit of Wine will do the same thing as well if not better PROPOSITION III. Sometimes the Specifick Medicine may help the Patient by precipitating the Peccant matter out of the Blood or other Liquor of the Body
prefer before those pompous compositions wherein men seem to have hop'd to surmount diseases by the multitude of the Ingredients upon the following Reasons In all which I desire the advantages ascrib'd to simple Medicines above others may be understood not in an absolute and indefinite sense but as they speak caeteris paribus which I here give you notice of once for all And the first advantage that I shall mention is That it is much less difficult to foresee the operation of a simple than of a very compounded Medicine So that Physicians may proceed more securely in imploying the former than the latter sort of Remedies And indeed if I do not greatly mistake we often presume too much of our own Abilities when we believe that we know before hand what the Qualities and Effects of a Mixture of many Ingredients of differing Natures will be Since many Bodies by Composition and the change of Texture consequent thereupon do receive great and unexpected Alterations in their Qualities Several manifest Instances of this Truth may be met with in our History of Colours In divers of whose Experiments the Colour produc'd upon the Mixture of Bodies is quite different from that of any of the Ingredients As when a blew Solution of Copper made in Spirit of Urine does with Syrup of Violets which is also blew produce a fair Green And even since I began to write this Section a Tryal purposely made has afforded me a new Instance of the same import For having put together some Tincture of Iron made with good Spirit of Vinegar and a Volatile Tincture of Sulphur which I elsewhere show how to make from a Confusion of these two very red Liquors there emerg'd in a trice a very dark and almost Inky Mixture that retain'd nothing at all of Redness The like notable changes I have several times produc'd by Mixtures in divers other Qualities of Bodies than their Colours as in their Odours Tasts c. And why such Alterations may not be also effected by Composition in some of the Medicinal Qualities of Bodies I do not yet see Quick-silver it self inwardly taken does usually cause either no manifest evacuation or one that is made at the mouth But if it be dissolv'd in Spirit of Niter and Precipitated with Sea-Salt this white Precipitate being edulcorated if it be warily given in a just Dose doth as far as I can yet learn seldom fail of working and yet seldomer work by Salivation but by Siege On the other side Glass of Antimony made per se whereof a very few Grains given in substance are wont to work violently upwards and downwards being dissolved in Spirit of Vinegar which is not easily and quickly done will not usually either Vomit or Purge tho the Menstruum be drawn from it and tho it be given in a larger Dose than that of the uncompounded Glass And tho if Crude Antimony be flux'd with Niter and Tartar as in the ordinary way of making Crocus Metallorum there is produc'd as is vulgarly known a Medicine so Emetick and Cathartick that an Ounce or less of the Wine wherein it has been infus'd without sensibly loosing its weight is wont to work strongly enough both upwards and downwards Yet I have known some that would without scruple take several Grains of Crude Antimony in substance and one particularly that continued the use of it long without being vomited or purg'd by it And Tryals purposely made have inform'd me that if instead of Salt-Peter and Tartar Antimony be prepar'd with well dry'd Sea-Salt and a little Salt of Tartar tho both these amount not to above half the weight of the Niter and Tartar vulgarly us'd yet the Antimony well flux'd with these for about an hour is thereby so alter'd and corrected that it affords an useful Medicine of which one may give from 12 or 15 Grains to half a Dram or more in substance without ordinarily working either by Vomit or Siege but usually by Sweat and sometimes by Urine Whence we may gather that Antimony may be either made a more dangerous or a more friendly Medicine than of it self it is according to the Ingredients 't is associated with tho these be in themselves Innocent and perhaps of kin to one another And even Chymists as well as other prescribers of Remedies may be found tho less frequently to add to a Simple such things as rather deprave than improve it As one of their great Patrons a happy Practitioner complains that Flower of Sulphur by being sublim'd as by many it is from Calcin'd Vitriol and one or two other things under pretence of purifying and subtillizing it does really acquire a hurtful Corrosiveness And if I had here the Leizure Instances enough might be brought to show that Chymists sometimes mistakingly produce by their additions to a Medicine other Qualities if not also worse than they design'd or expected § II. ANother Advantage of Simpler Medicines is that caeteris paribus they are more safe than compounded ones especially if the Patients be valetudinary persons 'T is too much the custom both of many Herbarists and several other Writers on the Materia Medica to give us rather Encomiums than impartial Accounts of the Simples they treat of enumerating and magnifying all the vertues they have and sometimes more than they have without taking notice of their ill Qualities upon whose account nevertheless they may be inconvenient if not hurtful and dangerous to some Constitutions and in divers Cases We know that divers Perfumes as Musk and Amber tho very grateful and refreshing to most Mens Spirits are yet very hurtful to many Women and especially to those that are Hysterical And I have known the smell of Musk very much disaffect an eminent Person though otherwise of a robust Constitution I have also known several Persons not all of them of the same Sex very much offended by the smell of Roses which yet is very moderate as well as to most Persons whether Men or Women very grateful I know a very great Person to whom Honey whether inwardly taken or outwardly apply'd is almost as hurtful as Poyson having several times produc'd strange and frightful Symptoms even when the Patient knew not that any Honey had been imploy'd and consequently could not be thus oddly distemper'd by the force of Imagination I think I have elsewhere taken notice of the harm that both I and others subject to Diseases of the Eyes have receiv'd even by the moderate use of Parsley On this occasion I shall add what occurr'd to me long after I had dictated what I said of Parsley that Worm-wood tho for many uses an excellent Plant has been found by many so apt to disaffect the head and so unfriendly to the Eyes that I have for some years forborn it my self for fear of the head-ach and forewarn'd others of it that are subject to weak Eyes But I know a very Learned Man whose Elegant Pen has made him deservedly be taken notice of by many
make the Plantain or Rose-water 't is to be dissolv'd in considerably strong of it And for Burns I have seldom seen any thing equal to it and therefore have often us'd it upon my self barely dissolv'd in Common or else Plantain Water But I fear 't is not so safe as effectual in some inward Distempers of the Bowels that are judg'd to be caus'd by Acid humours unless it be very warily and skilfully given But as to its external use I presume I need not tell so skilful a Doctor as you NB. how great it is in healing and in the mean time appeasing the Pains of divers sorts of Ulcers And therefore I shall mention but one Particular which 't is like you have not met with namely that I know a very Ancient and experienc'd Person who besides a vast practice otherwise was Chyrurgeon to a great Hospital who professing much kindness and owning some obligation to me confess'd to me that amongst all the Medicines he has try'd to stop Bleeding and prevent Accidents in Amputations that which he oftenest us'd and most rely'd on is a solution of Saccharum Saturni in Plantain Water or for a need in pure common Water for having dissolv'd ℥ j. of the former in about a Pint or pound of the latter as soon as ever the Limb or other part is taken off he immediately apply's Stupes drench'd in this Liquor as hot as the Patient can well endure and having bound them carefully on he makes no hast to take them off but allows the Medicine time enough to perform its operation To countenance this I would tell you an odd experiment of mine of the efficacy of a Saturnine Liquor to resist Putr faction in the Bodys of Animals but that the relation would take up too much time 5. Perhaps I need not tell you that I could here mention divers other Experiments as well upon Saturn as the other Metals I have nam'd above but that my Scope confines me to such Preparations as wherein the Metaline Subject is compounded but with very few others and also that of those that are more remote from simplicity you may meet with several in some of my other Papers which I am not in this to defraud What has been above noted about Metals may be extended to Minerals namely that when there is need to compound them it may of tentimes be sufficient to associate them with one or two or at most a very few Auxiliary Ingredients if I may so-call them this is apparent in several useful Preparations of Antimony that are vulgarly enough known To which divers may be added that are made of common Sulphure by slight additions Of which sort because I elsewhere deliver several I shall now mention but one which though I have many years ago describ'd in the History of colours I shall not scruple to take notice of here because I there consider not its Medicinal vertues which yet are very great especially in Asthmas and Coughs in which I do not remember that I ever gave it without benefit to the Patient nor was it less successful in the hands of Physicians that were willing to try it for me especially in those of a Person who though well furnish'd with choice Remedies of his own often came to me for a supply of this Spirituous and penetrating Tincture with which he assur'd me he did notable things in Asthmatical cases and particularly in one that was very obstinate and had lasted many years But not having had quite so many opportunities as I wished of giving it my self I shall be glad that further Tryal may be made of it by so skilful an Administrer as you And therefore lest you should not have the Book lately refer'd to at hand I shall here repeat that our Medicine is made of Flowers of Sulphur exactly mix't with an equal weight of finely powder'd Sal-Armoniac and somewhat more than an equal weight of good Quick-lime separately reduc'd to a Suttle Powder For these three Ingredients being diligently and nimbly mix'd and put into a Retort to be plac'd in a sand Furnace and fitted with a large receiver very well luted to it This Mixture I say being duly distill'd in such vessels will afford a Blood red and smoaking spirit exceeding Sulphureous both in smell and oven Mechanical Operations And in this Distillation the Sulphureous Parts sometimes came over accompany'd with such store of saline ones that a good part of what past into the Receiver shot into the form of a Volatile Sulphureous Salt And I remember that having for curiosity's sake added to the Fluid Tincture a due proportion of an Ardent Spirit such as that of Wine exactly dephlegm'd I had a Mixture whether in the form of a Coagulum or not which afforded me some odd Phaenomena not here to be mention'd and which we subled with a gentle fire to unite them into a composition that may for distinction sake be call'd Sa trium regnorum because it contains Urinous Particles Vinous ones and perhaps some of Soot and Sulphureous ones whereof the First belongs to the Animal the Second to the Vegetable and the last to the Mineral Kingdom as Chymists are wont to speak But what vertues this Salt that would presently gild Silver and the Spirit that may be made to accompany it may have in Physick I had not occasion to try But yet I have mention'd it upon the by that you may make use of it if you think it worth while to do so To whch I shall here present you with no Inducements since I perceive that the Particulars above mention'd about simple preparations of Gold and other Metals have already made this Section enormously great And yet I hope you will not be displeas'd at it since to so sugacious a person as Dr. F. these passages may afford some not altogether useless hints and at least 't is an Encouragement to Industry to know that the subjects a man works on are capable of affording Excellent things §. VII 1. I Foresee it may be objected against the frequent use of simple Medicines that oftentimes it happens that a Disease or a morbisick Matter is not the effect of a single Cause but is produc'd by the concurrence of two or perhaps more Causes which producing several symptoms 't is not probable that one Simple Drag will be able to answer those different Indications This Objection I confess is considerable there are cases wherein I acknowledg it to be so weighty as to invite warrant a Physician to imploy in them a Medicine consisting of more Ingredients than one or two which I can admit without prejudice to any Design since I formerly declar'd I did not intend to perswade you to consine your self to Simple Remedy's so much as in the late sense above intimated of that Term but only to imploy them where they may suffice and where they cannot to make use of Medicines as little compounded as the case will permit 2. But having premis'd this