does not go from the Vena Cava to the Vena Pulmonalis as is generally affirmed but rather terminates in the left Auricle it self and Canalem Arteriosum Now I hope the Doctor will never say that Sanguification is the work of the Lungs when the Blood is made for Nine Months in the Foetus and they never once concurr After the Doctor hath considered and soundly answered this Objection if I can raise no other against it I shall adopt his New Hypothesis But till such time I expect he 'll not be offended if I shall assert Sanguification to be a Function partly Organical and partly Similar i. e. in the Liver Reins Pancreas c. Such Particles as could not turn into Blood are deposed and so its Organical Also by the continual Motion thereof the sulphureous and nobler Particles of the Chyle are assimilate to the Blood for which it is called Similar Yet I am so ingenuous as to grant to the Doctor that Sanguification hath more help from the Lungs the Blood descending always more florid and brisk by the Vena Pulmonalis as it did ascend by the Artery as from any other part whatsomever Nevertheless they concurr only as an Instrument with many others albeit they may perhaps be the principal As for that Argument so much insisted on by the Learned Glisson it creates me no great difficulty For albeit I cannot but grant ocular Inspection having demonstrat it to me that the Blood appears in the Embryo before any Organ and so consequently cannot be made by that which is posterior to it self Yet I still think there is great difference betwixt Sanguification in the Foctus and in an Adult Person For in the former it is not simple Chyle that is converted into Blood but that which already circulating in the Mothers Body hath demitted its Bile in her Liver its Urine in her Reins c. by which it is disposed to turn into Blood So that if it had not experienced already the organical part from the Mother the similar action in the Foetus should hardly have produced the effect For which I hope none will deny as the same Subject may be differently affected by diverse Agents so the same Agent will produce divers effects upon various Subjects As expert seems the Doctor to be in Chymistry as either Anatomy or Physiology In all his Book there occurs nothing that savours of that Noble Art save one passage from Helmont and Tackenius which without any prejudice to either Author or Book might have been omitted it being beyond all debate now that alcalizate or fixed salts are not formerly preexistent in any Body being only produced by the acting of the Fire so cannot as the Doctor would have it be dissolved and extracted by the Aire before they exist He ought rather to have said That the Saline there being a great difference amongst Salts and Sulphureous Atoms which by joining together do constitute fixed they not being Natural but Factitious or alcalizat Salts while the Herbs are a drying exhale and fly away After having dwelt so long upon the Theory of Fevers it 's time to proceed to their Method of Curing Which indeed is the principal Thing it being no great Matter how wild a Mans Opinions be in Speculations providing he do not apply them to practice No Man must expect here a Description of all the various Indications which may and ordinarly do require Attention in a dogmatick and methodical Cure My design being only as I often said to propose the Good Old Rational and Successful Method and to vindicate it from D. Brown's Objections who hath not himself albeit the Author of a New One noticed the half of what deserves consideration in a Rational Cure Which nevertheless I 'le readily grant in some Epidemick Constitutions or Seasons and in certain Subjects especially where the Critical Motions of Nature happen per secissum which is not once in a hundred times to prove unsuccessful This only I would say that it is the most frequent and therefore deserves the Name of the best Method And where nothing happens about the Patient that is singular it ought always to be practised Before I go further it will not be impertinent to lay down some general Axioms which being founded upon sound Reason and frequent Experience have extorted Assent from and Credit with Physicians of all Ages Nevertheless they are not understood or rather not much regarded by our Learned Author I. Cures are threefold 1. Cura Curatoria which respect the Continent Cause as in Fevers and all acute Diseases 2. Praeservatoria which especially regards the Antecedent Cause ex gr in a person troubled with Gout Gravel c. after the removal of the Paroxism we Purge Bleed c. to prevent the Accession of another And 3. Cura Paltativa v. g. in a Patient troubled with incontinency of Urine which cannot be Cured the Sphincter of the Bladder being lacerate we apply such an Apparatus as Van Heer in his Observations provides for such a Strait II. Indications ordinarly sometimes they be moe but they are only particular are Three 1. Indicatio Curatoria which levels at the Disease and its Continent Cause 2. Conservatoria preserving the Strength that being by all means to be cherished And 3. Mitigatoria for it is principally occupied against the urgent Symptoms Such as Thirst Pains Watching c. which being sometimes more troublesome as the Distemper it self do require Attention even with the neglect of the primary Disease Some indeed there be who have denied this any room among Indications alledging that the one being removed the other will necessarly cease Symptoms following only the Disease as a shadow does the Body But to this moment I never heard of any who refused an Indication to the Continent Cause and Disease it self as Dr. Brown in the 71 Page of the V. S. hath precariously done Where leaving the Essence of the Disease he prosecutes the Antecedent cause Can any Person that knows or hath a respect for Physick and Physicians read or hear this without offence And this really is the Fountain from which many of his Errors do flow But consider Doctor and I intreat you as you love your Neighbours Safety and your own Quiet do Continual Fevers are not Intermittent in which the Antecedent Cause continues in the first ways and from thence is gradually and successively carried in to the Blood so that whoever can take away the Fomes may expect in all reason to prevent the accession of a new Paroxism though never hinder the present Whereas in Continual Fevers the whole Antecedent Cause is Semel Simul carried into the Blood and excites the Fever Which we must especially regard and not the Antecedent Cause which now is not it being turned into the Continent Further when the Doctor is called to a Patient is it to Cure the present Fever or to prevent a future If it be to prevent a future then he does well to look to
Malign And such are great Anxieties Inquietude sudden Prostration of the Strength Spots cold Sweats Tumors about the Glands called Parotides c. In enquiring after the Cause of these Malign Fevers I can find nothing save obscurity in the different Opinions of Authors While some with Willis fancy to themselves a great Coagulation of the Blood Again others who follow Sylvius strive as much for a lixivious and urinous Acrimony of the same De la Font pleads hard for an Arsenical and Corrosive Poyson inspired with the Air. For me in such ambiguity I willingly profess my Ignorance But still enclines to look upon their Cause as always Epidemick coming either from the Air Meat or Drink And whenever it effects seazeth especially upon the Head we ordinarly observing Symptoms of the Brain to insult whilst Pulse and Urine suffer small or no change And hence I suppose is the Proverb Good Pulse good Urine and the Patient Dies Acute Fevers are such as terminate against the 9 14 20 or 21. day But continuing no longer as the 7 they are called Peracute Yea sometimes they Kill in the Third and Fourth Day and so get the Name and that deservedly of Peracutissimae While these who extend themselves to the 40 day are termed Acutae ex Decidentiâ And all that exceed this Term whether Fevers or other Distempers have obtained the general Denomination of Lent or Chronick Diseases It is certainly beyond all question that this Diversity ariseth from the weakness or strongness of the morbifick Matter which in Lent Diseases at the beginning brings litle or no alteration to the Humane Body but through process of time partly by defatigating the Body partly by rendring more of the Blood like unto it self proves exitial to the Patient Which is too frequently seen in a Hectick it being of all Lent Fevers the most formidable Lastly Fevers were divided into Primary and Secundary or Symptomatick The first are such as have their Cause within themselves and own their Being to no other Disease as do the others called Secundary or Symptomatick Which be sometimes excited by pain as in the Gout Gravel c. sometimes they accompany Wounds Inflammations Ulcers and many other Maladies By all which the Motion of the Blood as well Circular as Intestine may be augmented and that which we call a Fever produced In the Page 185 of the V. S. the Doctor 's Exactness and great Skill in Physick is very conspicous For there he asserts Fevers and Tumors I suppose he means Inflammations Tumors being of a large extent to be perpetual Companions So that according to his Pathology the one cannot exist without the other Whereas all the World knows yea dayly finds it that Fevers can exist without his Tumors yea not one of ten Thousand without all Hyperbole hath them True it is indeed that Inflammations are ordinarly yet not always followed by Fevers and they are among the number of these I called Secondary or Symptomatick Many Things appertaining to Fevers and their Theory as Symptoms Prognosticks c. do as yet remain But I being far from presuming to give a particular Account or Description of that Disease knowing it to be a Load too heavy for my young and tender Shoulders finds my self nowayes obliged to mention them here My purpose being only to give a general and for what appears to me the easiest and best Description of the Malady into whose Method of Curing I resolve to inquire Neither will I labour it being more my desire to do well my self than to discover that others have done ill in refuting the Opinions of others as the Doctor doth though with Arguments I confess sometimes against but as often for them Yet I must pass some Reflections upon the Doctor 's New and Mechanical Hypothesis left my passing it by should offend its Author And to speak ingenuously his description of the Disease is as obscure as his Method of Curing is dangerous Have then the Scheme of the New and Mechanical Hypothesis in the Author 's own words P. 104. Seing then for the five Pages which go before contain only the Fundation though very unproportionable to the Noble Building afterwards erected in little more as one the returns of Repararation to the parts and functions ought to be made both in time and quantity in proportion to the waste by the efflux of the arterial Blood from the Heart as the Vehicle and thorow the Arteries as the Conduites of these Recruites When this is done Vegetly Integrally without any stop or delay then redounds Felicity Ease and Integrity of the Functions and Life But when that Efflux is retarded or stopt either by reason of the Blood it self or some stopage in the Extremities and small Channels of the Vessels or by reason of immoderate and unusual waste beyond the proportion of the ordinary supply as falls out in immoderate Exercise and Motion And so I say when by reason of any of these Causes the Heart cannot convey and lay in the desired Supplement in due proportion and timously by Stroaks repeated at the usual Intervals then it does by precipitating the Stroaks and straitning the Intervals of the Pulsations endeavour what in it lyes to overcome the slowness of the Motion of the Blood and to come so near as it can to the due and proportionable distribution of Nutriment in respect of the waste But if notwithstanding of these sedulous Endeavours of the Heart by redoubling of the Pulsations that slowness of the Blood shall by a gradual encrease of the thickness and of Obstructions in the Capillary Vessels prove yet so obstinate as still to be augmented then this leads straight to the Porch and Gate of Death Death being nothing else but a total and permanent Cessation and defect of this distribution Behold the Description of a Disease and it never once named Is this Doctor because it is so clear that who runs may read it surely then my Capacity is very shallow For had not the Title of that 7. Sect. promised a New and Mechanical Hypothesis I should from this Description never have inferred it and had not the very next Paragraph proposed an Objection I should further have looked back for it Yea I believe it would puzle your self were it not for these Marks to find it For my part I see nothing here described save Death and that perhaps not undeservedly for by means of the New Method Death and Fevers are become Synonima and so the one with you may safely go for the other But Thanks be to God it is otherways with us who walk in the Good Old and Experienced Path where it becomes but sometimes a passage unto it But why pray a New Hypothefis it being as old as since Bontekoe write de Febribus It is indeed very hard to know that Author's proper Opinion he being more taken up in refuting others as in explaining himself And what he hath said is so harsh and obscure that he can scarcely
the adjacent Parts that the Doctor nor none for him shall ever by rubbing or Attrition procure Heat to a sphacelat Member Where nevertheless there be Muscles and Bones both but wants Blood and Spirits Yea Fifthly I humbly think that not only Motion but the Motion of Determinat Sulphureous Oyly c. Particles is requisite to excite Heat Which in my Judgement may hence be proven That not only Sulphureous Bodies are most ready to contract Heat Flame c. and according as there is more or less Sulphur in the Body so the Heat will be the greater lesser or none at all but also the intestine and confused Motion of the Minute Particles may sometimes be intended without the increase of Heat yea with the production of a sensible degree of Cold to the very same Hand as may be learned from Boyle in his Mech Orig. of Heat and Cold I being at the time removed from my Books can neither Instance the Experiment nor Page but sure I am severals are there to be found And here by the by I would seriously advise to the uniting of these Two viz. The New Philosophy and Chymistry which to the great prejudice of solid Learning have too long been unluckily separat For the former being mainly taken up about Motion has almost intirely neglected the Matter While the latter on the other hand being as much concerned with the Matter have wholly over-looked the Motion What is said I think may suffice to evert our Author's Position When in his 8. § he engages to prove Heat in Fevers to be the genuine Effect of slow Motion in the Blood It being rather produced while the Motion thereof especially Intestine is intended and the sulphureous Particles do move as it were from the Center to the Circumference I proceed to the Second and ordinary Symptom of Fevers vix A frequent and hard beating Pulse which the experienced Slyvius to whom the Hypothesis of the Ancients was unsatisfying made enter the Definition of Fevers as the Genus Nevertheless this his Opinion is lyable to the same Censures with the former For neither the beginning of Fevers have still the Pulse augmented nor yet can we always call it a Fever where it is accelerate As in congrumate Blood Commotions of the Mind Worms contained in the Heart c. is easily demonstrable Moreover by the by I cannot but observe that these further Discoveries made in Anatomy about the Bile Succus Paner c. do noways destroy this Hypothesis which are nevertheless given by the Doctor as the only Reasons why he rejects it For it can very well stand without that prope and hath been and still is maintained by these who never adopted his Triumverat The Cause of this frequency of the Pulse I take to be nothing else as the frequent and violent Contraiction of the Heart by which the contained Blood is squeezed out and so distendeth the Arteries Thirdly It is also to be noticed that Cold is not only a Symptom of all Intermittent Fevers But frequently also it is observable in the beginning of Continual Ones Which Cold any person acquaint with the experimental Philosophy the Doctor pretends to be so much versed in will think to be a more native product of the slowness of the Blood 's Motion as Heat In a word the Coldness of the Members in persons troubled with Sounding where the Motion of the Blood as well Circular as Intestine together with the Pulse is sensibly diminished does abundantly prove it The Fourth and last of these Symptoms I purpose to speak of is a change in the Urine and it admits of the same Exceptions with the former as to malign Fevers which in respect of their Consistence generally turn thicker seldom thinner As to their Colour the Natural or Citrin is often turn'd red and fiery and sometimes pale and watry but especially in the beginning these are remarkable while in the Progress and Status they appear still red and thick In rendring Causes for these Phaenomena I noways incline to follow them who run instantly to Acids and Alkalies Albeit I readily grant this Hypothesis to be of pretty large extent and conveniently applicable to several Cases yet I cannot in all acquiesce in their Sentence for Reasons perhaps to be afterwards rendred I shall suppose now with the Excellent Bohn and Experience That the elemental parts of Urine are Water Salt Sulphur and Earth So that the Urine whose watry and limpid portion is most saturate with these Saline and Sulphureous Particles is always observed the thickest and crassest Hence I conclude the cause of thick and turbid Urine to consist in the confused Admistion and unequal Dissolution of the solid Particles in the aqueous Vehicle So sometimes we observe the Urine to be clear when voided and afterwards to turn thick crass and turbide Which is commonly called Vrina turbata And in my Opinion ariseth hence That these saline and earthy Particles being more closly and naturally insinuate in the Pores of the watry part when first voided do permit the Rays of the Sun to penetrat and so it appears Diaphanous But if afterwards either by their own gravity and looser Cohesion or by the constriction and straitning of the Pores of the Serum by the ambient frigid Air they chance to be turnèd out the passage to the Rays is thereby intercepted and the Urine turns turbide and opack as I formerly said Again it is sometimes evacuate turbide and persisteth in that confused condition whence it is named Vrina confusa and this is ordinary in the Increment and Status of Fevers Perhaps there being many Heterogeneous and Terreous Particles unequally mixed with the watry portion which nevertheless are so firmly adjoined to the Serum all being yet in a state of Crudity that neither by their proper weight nor by the help of the external Ambient can they be thence separate And Thirdly the same Urine is sometimes especially in the end of the Status and beginning of the Declination emitted Thick and Turbide but does shortly after become Clear and Limpide Probably the Concoction being then approaching these Heterogeneous Minima which being kept in motion in the Body did still run up and down the containing Liquor whereby if seemed confused do now being voided and acquiring rest yea some two or three or more of them joining together become heavier inspecie as the Serum and consequently of necessity must seek to the bottom where they constitute the Sediment But if they Hang in the midle they are called Suspensio and if they swime above go under the name of Nubecula Upon the other hand that Urine which should ordinarly represent and a Ly mid-way boiled does sometimes turn thinner and this especially in the beginning of acute Fevers is observable For the explaining of which it will not be impertinent to distinguish betwixt Vrinam potus and Vrinam Sanguinis for the Urine of the Drink being never digested in the Ventricle nor assimilate to the
the Antecedent Cause which still respects the future and so he institutes that Cure in the first Axiom called Praeservatoria But if it be to Cure the present then Sense and Reason require that he should level at its Continent Cause and Essence Whereas according to the New Method the present Distemper is committed to Nature while the Doctor only labours to prevent a future Evil which really as I am informed he does sometimes very successfully by putting them beyond all fear of Misery as well as Happiness except what 's Eternal III. The Third of our Axioms is That Contraries are Cured by Contraries and the like preserved by the like By some a Controversie is here again moved as if Diseases were sometimes Cured by the like v. g. an Hemorhagie by Bleeding a Flux by Purging c. But it ought to be considered the question is not about the Disease and its Remedy which may indeed sometimes prove alike but betwixt the Indicans and the Indicanus or that which indicates and that which is in dicated they still being oppositite Loosness ever indicating binding it matters not much by what mean it be done IV. Whatever is natural ought to be preserved and that which is preternatural must be removed V. Of two Evils the least is to be chosen VI. Critical Evacuations are wisely to be discerned from Symptomatical The not distinguishing of which is a mater of great Moment and of bad consequence while it brings the Physician into the greatest of difficulties and errors as well as the Patient into the greatest of Hazards Out of which nevertheless both the Physician and Patient may be easily extricate by rightly ponderating the following four 1. The times of the Disease are prudently to be noticed the Coction and Crudity of the Humours discernable especially in the Urin must exactly be observed the Evacuation which happens in the beginning of a Distemper with the signs of Crudity being still Symptomatick 2. The place where the Evacuation happens signifies much for if it chance in a place whither Nature in that Malady useth to tend other things concurring it is still convenient So a loose Belly is alwayes more suspected in a Feaver as sweat this being natures ordinary path in that Distemper whereas a Flux is still looked on as dangerous And if there were no more as this Natures own Course it is sufficient to evert the whole new Method 3. The quality of the Humour voided if such as it ought is to be noticed And 4 Neither should the quantity be neglected for larger Evacuations make us still affraid VII Whatever is to be evacuat drive it to the way it most tends according to the 21. of the first Section of Hippocrat's Aphorisms VIII Concocted not crude Humours are to be expelled by the 22. Aphorism of the same first Section IX The Times of Diseases are precisely to be noticed it being safe to do at one time that which is perfect Death at another Which times are four the Beginning the Increment the Status and Declination X. The vast difference betwixt Purges is also worth the considering Some being so Gentle that they only evacuat the Ventricle and first ways never reaching the Mass of the Blood and are ordinarly designed by Laxantia Others tend farther in the Body precipitat the Serum and properly are called Purges or Catharticks Which division of Purges acknowledged and admitted by all Will I hope stand us in no small stead At length I come to the Method of Curing wherein to keep close to the matter according to the second Axiome a skilful Physician proposeth to himself these three Indications 1. To remove and expell the Disease and its continent cause as preternatural 2 To preserve as much as he can the Strength it being natural And 3. To mitigat the urgent Symptoms if any such appear I am abundantly sensible that there occure many other things in a Feverish person which require attention But as I said before these are the ordinary and general Indications and under them most others may come therefore can only be treated of in a general Method For the Removal of the Disease and its cause it will be convenient to remember what was formerly said concerning the Nature of Fevers in general When I asserted their Formality to consist in a preternatural Exagitation of the Blood being most frequently thereto excited by Heterogeneous Atomes transferred into it Therefore to ende vour the Removal of the Disease is to lay this commotion and to expell the cause is to banish the Body whatever it is that sets the Blood thus a working And this we labour to accomplish by several means and Medicaments as well Alterants as Evacuants but concerning the last I am now especially engaged As to the second Indicant of preserving the strength and the third of mitigating the Symptoms the Doctor and I do agree at least his Book contains nothing of them Therefore I whose only purpose it is to defend as much of the Old Method as D. Brown does molest and to refute his wherein it goes opposite thereto am no ways engaged to treat of all that in an accurate and exact Method ought to be practised Especially I said by Evacuants we remove the Disease and expels it's cause Among which the first that offers its self to our consideration is that Noble and excellent Remedy if duely and skilfully applied of Bleeding Which as the Doctor observes P. 143. is granted by all as very beneficial And if this be true as certainly it is the Doctor hath given us no new Method as to this part and so might have spared his Labour in Writting a Book to convince the World of that of which never Nan doubted When and how often the Doctor useth this Remedy which was absolutly necessary in an accurate Method there being four very different times as the 9th Axiome observeth he does not inform us and therefore I can say nothing against him However I must not omit to reprehend that Vulgar as well as pernicious Error of Bleeding all persons and in all Fevers For so long as a Plethory is the only Indicant of Bleeding of Revulsion Derivation and Exploration which do frequently call for and allow of the same I am not now speaking it can never safely and with advantage to the Patient be Administrat but where that Plethory is So that if a Fever fall out in a Young and robust person where any natural Evacuation is suppressed in one using a good and laudable Dyet in a word where the way of Living or any other circumstance may perswade us of abundance of Blood no doubt the Physician does wisely who adviseth it's Eventilation if he cannot set a working the natural Evacuation it self Providing it be in the beginning and Increment of the Malady otherways when Nature is endeavouring her own Liberation he may be apt to disturb her Motions But that rash and inconsiderat Course of Bleeding without any difference subjects of all
are either Heterogeneous Bodies mixed with the Blood which by stimulating the Ventricles of the Heart the interiour Coats of the Vessels and muscular Fibers of the Parts cause frequent Contraction and consequently swiftness of Motion or inciding and volatile Medicaments which partly attenuating and inciding the Mass of Blood partly amplifying and inlarging the Pores and Passages produce the same effect with the former When I speak here of intending the circular Motion I mean only that of the Arteries for both Reason and Experience teach us that the acceleration of the returning Motion by the Veins would rather prove a hinderance as a help to this as well as to all other Secretions First It is clear from Reason for if the Blood were as readily taken up by the Capillary Veins as its is brought in by the Arteries it must necessarly return again to the Heart from whence it came Whereas admittance being denied by the Veins it seeks another way or passage which is that of Secretion Neither does Experience deny its assent to this perpetual Truth For if you will tye the social Vein of any Artery by which Blood is carried to the secerning Organ v. g. the Vena emulgens you shall quickly observe the Secretion to be far more copious than when the regressive Motion was allowed So that I may reasonably affirm The slowness of the refluent Motion of the Blood by the Veins to be none of the least among the efficient Causes of Secretion And this much for the First Secondly I come to give some Reasons why in the Cure of Continual Fevers Physicians of all Ages have adopted and practised this Method of Sweating As also why we at this day especially while D. Brown offers a Surer and Better do imitate them in that which to speak in his Language is pernicious and destructive to Mankind Indeed if without Reasons and these weighty ones too we should do that which according to the V. S can be nothing but horrid Murder and devilish Malice In stead of being Cherished Honoured and Entertained as in all Ages and among all civilized People Physicians have been we ought to be taken and Hanged for Villains and publick Murderers But if I can prove our Method to be right which I 'le endeavour now and his to be wrong which is to be done hereafter when discoursing of Purging Then let him judge upon whom the Punishment ought to be inflicted It were easy to accumulate Arguments in Favours of Diaphoreticks but I shall satisfy my self and I hope my Reader to with the following three Let us then First According to the seventh Axiome consider the motion of Nature I mean the course it takes when left to its self as in many mean and Indigent People it ordinarly is And this is continually to seek its own Relief by Sweating so that not one Fever of a hundred and that of all sorts is Cured another way Is there any Country Clown so foolish but in a Fever he 'll cry for a Sweat and if either by Art or Nature he can procure it he will promise himself speedy Relief and certain safety Now this being granted the Dr. himself not darring deny it should not the Physicitians who have taken to themselves that modest Denomination of Natur 's Servants and whose duty it is to assist her when doing right and to Correct her when doing wrong as by all she is looked upon to do when endeavouring to ease her self by Seige in a Fever except perhaps once in a hundred times when it comes critically should not they I say imitate her in Curing Fevers by Diaphoreticks the ordinary yea I I may say the only way by which she removes that Distemper yea certainly they should and that according to good Old Hippocrats excellent Aphorisme Whethersoever Nature enclineth to go thither lead her and it conduceth Besides this it becomes us Secondly to consider the Seat of the Morbifick matter in Fevers which none will deny to be in the Arteries veins Likeways the conformation of these Vessels deserves our attention Their Roots being in the Heart while their Branches tend to all parts of the Body that I may shun all occasions of Objections I know that properly speaking the Origine of the Veins is in the parts and they terminate with one Root in the Heart Now let us consider by what way that which is contained in these Vessels may be best and easiliest expelled Surely any Man of sense and Reason will freely confess by their Extremities or ends of Anastomoses or Inosculations I have said what I thought necessary before which acknowledged we can not but also grant that whatsomever part of the Body manyest of these Extremitieâ— run to or where most of the Arteries end in there will be the readiesâ— and most natural way providing iâ— be as patent as others to discharge whatsomever is contained therein But most of these Extremities do terminate by far in the habit and that this way is as patent as any other insensible Transpiration which by the Doctors own concession exceeds all other Evacuations of the Body no less as three times does clearly evince Therefore from these premises I may lawfully conclude the habit to be the readiest and best way to expell whatsomever is contained Heterogeneous in the Blood It was not unadvisedly that I said where most Arteries end there will be the readiest way to expell the Morbifick matter For whosoever is not altogether ignorant of Anatomy will easily allow that whatever once enters the Veins can never be eliminate till such time as it again run through the Arteries At their small end it cannot be seing what once enters there can by no means return First because of their valves Secondly Because of the tonick motion of the parts And Thirdly because of the continual Influx of the Arterial Blood And as it cannot happen at their small ends arising from the parts so far less can it be at the great end which terminats in the Heart Nothing entring its Ventricles in the Diastole but what is again thrust out into the Pulmonal and great Artery in the Systole from all which it is clear that neither Secretion nor Excretion can be of the Venal Blood Yet here I 'll present the Doctor with a stronger argument for Purging in Fevers as his whole Book hath done to his Readers And it is this being I assert what no Physician if he be not destitute of Anatomy and Physiology the want of which bring inexpressible Damage to Physick will deny that wherever Arteries end and depositate what is in them contained there must needs happen the Expulsion of the Morbisick matter But the Arteries some of them at least end in the intestines Ergo there in these intestinal Glands must happen the secretion of the Morbifick matter All which I grant and acknowledge yea farther confirms by avowing the faces Ani to be not only Excrements of the first but also of the third and second Digestion
which may be proven by several Observations one of which at this time shall suffice viz. in the Foetus the Meconium is still observed to have its beginning and greatest quantity in the crass intestines Nevertheless all this concludes nothing against what either hath already or shall hereafter be said Because First the Arteries are but very few in respect of that infinit number which direct their course to the habite from the Coeliack and two Mesenterick Branches which tend to the Intestines Secondly Neither do we altogether for as little as it is neglect it but partly by applying Clysters partly by giving these Medicaments in the 10 and last Axiom called Laxantia drive away what may be lurking in the first ways But we never give Purges properly so called which by entring the Mass of the Blood do play therein their unlucky Tragedy except we intend which God forbid so wicked a Thought should ever enter a Physicians Heart to send the Patient to the House of all Living Yea farther it is with respect to this that after the Recovery we ordinarly advise Purging My Third and last Argument shall be the general Practice and constant Observation of Physicians in all Ages in all Countries and of all Perswasions yea of the Excellent Sydenham himself as shall afterwards be shewn Who as one Man acknowledge not only the great Advantage of Diaphoreticks but exclaim against the constant use of Catarticks in the Curing of Fevers What would the Doctor have all these so ignorant as that they should not know how to Cure the most ordinary of Distempers or so malicious and wicked as when they knew it yet neither to practise it themselves nor communicat it to others or were they so stupid as not to have known what they used neither from whence the Cure did proceed Were there never Physicians so conscientious in the World before D. Brown came to it as to confess the damage of Diaphoreticks or were they so blind that they could not see it Was Hippocrat was Galen Fernelous Sennert Harvey and all the rest of these brave Souls who have enriched the noble and useful Art with their curious Observations excellent Inventions and judicious Reasonings were all these I say besides many others who practised this Method themselves and recommended it to their Successors Fools or Ignorants Nay nay it is far better to say that D. Brown is both But of Experience more hereafter Therefore I go on to the Examination of the Arguments urged by the Doctor against this Old and long Practised Method Which we find in the 71 Page of the V. S. where the Common and Diaphoretick Method is considered and rejected forsooth and they be neither moe nor stronger as the following Two First We have no Specisick in Continuat Fevers therefore must not level at the Continent Cause which is truly the Disease According to which way of Reasoning I will go on and conclude We have no Specifick in any Disease save Intermutent Fevers therefore except them none must be Cured The consequent of the one is as native as that of the other and truly in both it is none at all Physick and Physician are obliged to the Doctor for bringing the Imployment to this weak pass Is not this a strong Argument to destroy a Theory of some Thousand Years standing Yet it is as strong as the other to be found in the same 71 Page where he farther inveighs against this our approved Method in these words This indeed were no unfit Design c. I look upon it as needless to resume what is formerly said anent Fevers and their Causes which I hope do sufficiently prove the Doctor 's Hypothesis to be none of the best I shall rather here observe that the force of this sham Argument drives at these Two First That Sudorificks translate the morbisick Matter or antetecedent Cause from the Ventricle Mesentery and Intestines into the Muss of Blood and by that means turns the Antecedent Cause into the Continent And Secondly That by the same we drive it to the Head whereby we produce these terrible Symptoms under which Nature not being able to overcome must of necessity succumb To which I answer these Three 1. All save D. Brown do know and confess that in Continual Fevers the morbisick Matter is in the beginning translated to the Blood and so does procure the Disease which otherways we should never have but only an Apparatus to it Yea in this seems to me to consist the difference betwixt Continual and Intermittent Fevers That in the former the morbisick Matter is translated all at once and so produces one great and Continual Fever whereas in the latter or Intermittent Fevers it is conveyed at several times and so constitutes several Paroxisms which may be said to be as many Continual but shorter Fevers By which we may clearly discern how falsely the Doctor alledges that by Diaphoreticks we carry the Matter from the first Ways to the Blood that being a thing already done else there could be no Fever And really all along it appears that it is not a Fever but an Apparatus thereto the Doctor would Cure So that instead of intituling his Book A new Method of Curing Fevers he should rather have named it A new Method for preventing them Secondly How any thing can be more urged on the Head by the use of Sudorificks I suppose if the Doctor were asked he could not well tell it being a meer precarious Assertion grounded upon no Foundation and he might with as good Reason have said the same of the Hands Feet or any other part of the Body For as they were only the Artertae Carotides and Vertebrales which furnished the Brain with Blood before So for ought I know by the use of Sudorificks no other are added Neither is there any other way by which any thing whatsomever can be carried to the Head save by the forenamed Arteries I hope the Doctor is not come to that Pitch of lgnorance to averr that Diaphoreticks by some occult quality are offensive to the Brain True it is indeed that Sudorificks by intending the Motion as well Circular as Intestine put all the Humours and perhaps the Spirits too in a little confusion But this carries nothing to the Head rather as to other places which went not before But Thirdly Where learned the Doctor that Sudorifick Medicines had their operation in the Ventricle Mesentery and Intestines Can any Man read this without Laughing Surely this is another Errour in which Physians till this time have been in for they still taught that Diaphoreticks did work in the Blood and not in the first Ways So then to grant what the Doctor desires which nevertheless so long as Physicians are Masters of Reason will never be That the Continent Cause for the Antecedent is no more it being converted into the Continent lodges about the forenamed places it will profit him nothing since Diaphoreticks will never awake it they working only in