good is exclusively taken from us but are silent concerning that positive real evil that infests us having an absolute Entity in it consisting of a seminal power a fermental transmutation an operative Spirit and a lively Idea All which Endowments make a Disease to be Ens reale verum something in Reality That Maladies have in them a Spermatick power is evidently known by some hereditary Diseases that are propagated and traduced from the Father to the Son and from the Grandfather to the Grandchild which lie a long time unseen unfelt closely couched in the blood and at length break forth into Act upon some irritating occasion How is it possible that the Small Pox should lie above Twenty years in our bodies before it shoot out if it were not contained in a Seed which according to the disposition of each Individual when the fulness of time comes breaks forth sooner or later into Buds and Branches The Gowt and Stone are sometimes so concorporated with our seminal principles that it may be thought as difficult to separate light from fire as to part two such Companions fundamentally conjoined in our Conception Moreover as it is the Nature of every Seed whether Vegetal or Animal in the very moment of breaking forth into Act to ferment that thereby its vertues may be diffused readily into all parts and likewise an equal distribution of Spirits made In like manner morbos seeds have their fermentation which though invisible at first yet at length are plainly apparent by effects So requisite is fermentation for the production of all things that without it the Spirit remains drowned and overwhelmed in untractable and indisposed matter Did not the poyson of the Pest most contemptible for quantity ferment and season the whole mass of blood by altering the position and texture thereof by coagulating and changing it into a tartarous substance it could never cause such a tragical Catastrophe in mans body quite subverting its well composed frame For it is grand Ignorance to think that bare Qualities which are transient and momentany depending upon the influence of substantial Forms which cause a Flux and Reflux of the heat cold moisture and siccity according to the Motion Collision Exaltation Degradation Indigence and Abundance of Spirits in the body should on a sudden cause such a stupendious Metamorphôsis in this little admirable World wherefore nothing but that which causes a Zumôsis an Effervescence and leavens the whole lump of blood by its deletery diffusive property can turn all topsie turvy in this manner and bring a speedy ruine to this magnificent Structure Neither is there wanting in Diseases an Architectonical Spirit which is the Faber and Vulcan that hammers out and forges every kind of malady observing an exact Copy Rule and Canon which was at first imprinted in it by a vigorous Imagination As this Stamp Figure Idea or Character doth direct the Archeus so it begins proceeds and at last concludes according as the impression lasteth This pure restless Spirit that at first moved upon the waters is ordained by the great Creator of all things to be an exact Fabricator of whatsoever hath a being which alwayes at first pourtrayes and delineates the scheam and fashion of whatsoever is afterwards to be done by it And although it was never intended by that Fountain of this universal Spirit that any thing hurtful or destructive to man should be produced yet ever since there was brought an Ataxy irregularity and inconformity upon the spirit of man through the disobedience and rebellion of the Protoplastes it hath minted and coined exorbitant monstrous exotick Images by direction of which it acts to its own calamity and ruine consuming spoiling making havock of that through foolish vain Terrours Inquietudes Anxieties and Fury which ought to be preserved and cherished by regular and peaceable operations Now no sooner is it touched by any thing that is disagreeing and disproportionable to its natural constitution but it is affrighted perplexed fretted raged and disturbed and put quite besides it self if it cannot presently be rid of it yea the very thoughts of an approaching mischief doth sometimes cause the Archeus from a groundless fright to bring that really to an existence which otherwise would never have been as is apparent when a timerous person hearing a relation of the Pest and the terrible symptoms accompanying it doth through the power of strong imagination making somewhat of nothing sowe a pestilential Seed in the blood which fermenting and swelling up doth forthwith entertain the vital spirit that makes in it self a perfect Idea of that Disease which never ceases as long as it continues to diminish and at length to extinguish the bright shining Lamp of life Did not the vital Spirit at first running away afterward entertain treacherously as it were into its privy Chamber shaking hands and hugging in its bosom that which is virulent poysonous and deletery and thereby appropriate the same to it self entering into a firm league with that which is Tristissima mortis Imago the lurid and dismal Picture of lethiferous dissolution conspiring and co-operating with an irreconcilable Enemy to mans health neither the venom of any Mineral Vegetable or Animal nor the Heteroclite poyson of the Pest could injure us or any way damnifie us But as the Case stands Perditio nostra à nobis and that which was in the beginning ordained for a sole preservative to us doth often become our bane and destruction And Spiritus ille vitalis qui Actiones sanas etiam morbosas edit That Archeus which is the instrument of Sanity is likewise the Author of Maladies and that saying is too true to our sad experience Nemo laeditur nisi à se ipsa We are indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Self destroyers and do exactly patrize daily putting in practice what the First of Men taught us 'T is not the outside that simply defiles us but all our Misery flows from within 't is this domestick Enemy that doth infest us our familiar Friend with whom we continually converse that lies in our own bosom that betrayes us and delivers us up for a spoil to the ambient Air Diet and other necessary things we are forced to make use of for a subsistence to support this brittle and friable clod of earth These poysonous Atoms that lurk in the pores of the Air and are wasted up and down with every blast slighly entering into our bodies unfelt unseen cannot of themselves make the Pest unless our Archeus become an efficient and formal cause of its Quiddity so that it hath its immediate being from our vital Spirit which comes to pass in this manner So soon as these loathsom Particles enter in either through the larger or smaller passages of the skin the Custos or Centinel of that part where it first makes an impulse perceiving that its Territories is invaded by a cruel potent Adversary a destroyer of Nature being surprized with horror and confusion forthwith flies giving advantage to
its Foe to take possession of that part and giving all over for lost It suffers the fermenting poyson to alter the natural well disposed mumial ferment in our bodies and to change it into the same condition with it self upon this the Archeus the forenamed Custos that keeps guard always watches and wards Night and Day for the preservation of the whole being full of Consternation and Terror throws away the Reins of orderly Government and yields it self up captive to the imperious Placits of a Truculent Tyrant uniting it self intimately with full consent to demolish this beautiful Edifice and to that end doth immediately frame a seminal Idea and an absolute draught of what it intends to accomplish Then is the first beginning of the Pest and is as it were in Ovo acquiring maturity by degrees sometimes quickly sometimes slowly according to the strength or weakness of imagination vigorous power or feebleness of mumial ferments the subtlety or dulness of the Poyson the activity or drowsiness of the Archeus So long as the pestiferous occasional Cause whither it arise from within or without continues not actuated and as it were not animated by our Archeus it can do us no harm but remains like an unpolished mishapen piece of Timber which was never yet brought into a form by a dextrous Mechanick So soon as the Architectonical spirit enters into this deletery matter it informs the same and brings that into an actual being of which otherwise it would have been deprived once quickned it never leaves to play a sad Tragedy unless the venemous matter be suddenly excluded the Idea obliterated and the Archeus highly fortified upon the Theatre of this Microcosm with variety of dismal Scenes as several individual Constitutions admit from the Prologue of its Birth to the Epilogue of its Death CHAP. III. Of the Subject Part where the Pest doth principally reside and act these Tragical Scenes in Mans body I Have not been a little anxious but not presumptuous as the Galenists have falsely aspersed me to find out the chief Palace or Chair of State where this mortiferous Tyrant the Pest doth principally sit enthroned where by its beck and insolent frowns it makes this little World and all that inhabit in it to crowch creep and tremble That this Poyson doth enter in and ride in the Triumphant Chariot of the vital Spirit both innate and influent is an undoubted Truth For as I said by means of it the Pest moves and hath a being and without the same it is as nothing for the pestilential matter whether generated within or hath an ingress from without through the Hand the Foot the Eye the Nostril Mouth or any other place still the Custos the vital Spirit of that part gives it entertainment by cowardly running from the poyson and so betraying that trust that was reposed in it by yielding up treacherously it self and a strong hold to the fury of a potent Enemy to which the Archeus becomes a Vassal to perpetrate those things that tend to Ruine and Desolation Notwithstanding this particular damage and nocument that arises from a dedition and timorous submission of the Archeus to this pestiferous Gas making an incursion and invasion upon the Borders and Confines of this flourishing Kingdom Mans living Body were far more tolerable were not this venom conducted to the very Center and Metropolis thereof the Stomack where the Soul it self keeps Court which incircled with all necessary Officers sends forth wholsom Edicts for the preservation of the body Natural In the Bed-chamber of this Noble Membrane the Stomack doth this usurping Disease take its lodging darting Basilisk-like his virulent beams into all parts circumjacent in a Heteroclite and Anomolous manner sometimes causing a stupor and lethargical drowsiness like Opium sometimes a phtenzy or fury like Hemlock or Nuces insanae at one time a Numness or Paralytical disposition like the Fish Torpedo At another time an inquietude or incessant motion like the poyson of a Tarantula Now an insatiable thirst and a scorching flaming heat like one bit by the Serpent Dypsas then again a Coldness Rigour and Shivering like the venom of a Scorpion provoking in one man a hungry appetite a little before death in another an aversation and loathing of all Food producing a manifest Feaver in this man and in that none at all or hardly any sensible striking down one as if he were Syderated or Apoplectical and tenderly handling another as it were in a dallying flattering and sporting way curiously spinning out the thread of his life for some dayes yea weeks and then at length cutting it off Thus this raging venom being once ushered by the desponding Archeus into the innermost Recesses and Closet of life is by this means become Master of the whole vacua dominatur in Aula and having quite confounded the Eutaxy and good Government that was before in the vital ingenite spirit of the stomack quietly and sedulously working 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 causes the same to be irregular exorbitant hair-brain'd foolish and furious careless what becomes of itself and what belongs to its tuition For the Confirmation of what I have delivered That the Region of the Hypocondries especially the Stomack is the principal place where the Pest taketh up its abode We are to take special notice what strange alteration is made in the Region Epigastrick by violent passions and how the Oeconomy of the whole body thereby is put into a disorder perhaps upon an imagination sometimes of that which is not at all real as it happens when a panick fear extraordinary anger an excessive joy some sad and dreadful News brought to us doth in a trice distract us making the first impulse upon the stomack and us Helmont excellently observes spoiling an eager appetite to our food in an instant quite taking off the edge of the stomack which before was sharp set And although the Galenists are plensed erroneously to separate the irascible and concupiscible Appetite so that they divide them into two distinct stalls placing the one i. e. the irascible in the heart and the other the concupiscible in the stomack the lower adjacent parts yet if they weigh the truth of things seriously they may be better informed that the Orgiastick as well as the Epithymetick are chiefly lodged in the mouth of the Ventricle which the Ancients for that excellency they conceived of it adorned with the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being of that power and soveraignty that according to its benigne or maligne Aspect it causes a serenity or obscurity in this little Horizon Here is the Bench where the sensitive Soul sits as Judge which if rightly tuned and well composed censures and strait puts to an end the manifold Conflicts Tumults Broils and Uproars in the Body Natural but if out of order and have an Atony it embroils all in Wars being the Ring-leader Promoter and efficient cause of all Disorder and Confusion Now as from this Fountain the
The Manner of Dissecting the PESTILENTIALL BODY Printed for Nath Crouch at the Rose and Crowne in Exchang Ally ΛΟΙΜΟΤΟΜΙΑ OR THE PEST Anatomized In these following particulars Viz. 1. The Material Cause of the PEST 2. The Efficient Cause of the PEST 3. The Subject Part of the PEST 4. The Signs of the PEST 5. An Historical Account of the Dissection of a Pestilential Body by the Author and the Consequents thereof 6. Reflections and Observations on the foresaid Dissection 7. Directions Preservative and Curative against the Pest. Together with the Authors Apology against the Calumnies of the Galenists and a Word to Mr. Nath Hodges concerning his late Vindiciae Medicinae By George Thomson M. D. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dii talem terris avertite Pestem London Printed for Nath Crouch at the Rose and Crown in Exchange-Alley near Lombard-street 1666. IMPRIMATUR 1666. To the Truly Honourable WILLIAM Earl of CRAVEN Vicount of Ovington and Baron of Hampsted Marshall MY LORD YOU have so obliged this whole NATION to Love and Honour you for those many eminent Graces and Virtues conspicuous in you especially that transcendent Charity towards your Neighbour in time of Extremity that should I conscious of your Noble Actions having so fit an opportunity neglect to render you Thanks and to celebrate your Praises for your bounty and liberality to this miserable City when the Contagion was grassant to the depopulating and depauperating of it I might deservedly be reckoned among ungratefull men Augustam Animam Augusto in pectore gestas you have a Soul like the Image of the Great Creator of a vast extent diffusive communicative beneficial to good and bad Sir you have given such example of Charity upon this late Exigent as more powerful to convert this hard-hearted Age than the Tongue of Men and Angels Certainly the presence of your Person hath been a means to counterpoise the evil effects of fugitive Physicians so that many probably have evaded the fury of the late Pest through a strong Imagination that it was not so Contagious and Mortal as was conceived because a Person of your Dignity did dare to tarry here when it was most outragious Blessed be the Wise Disposer of all things who hath preserved you to be an Instrument for his further Glory the Benefit of your Countrey and the maintenance of FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS against all Opposers And now I draw a little nigher your Lordship offering to you the First-fruits of my Difficult Labours collected in the time of the Raging Pest. The Substance of this Discourse is Practical no idle Dogmatical Fancy of a Non Ens no Necessary Directions from Hearsaid But I have here laid open what I visibly and experimentally have found to be true what I have handled with these hands and seen with these eyes Really Noble Sir all that I begg of your Honour is That you would be pleased to favour me so far as I Speak Write and Act according to Truth which I know is so prevalent that maugre all Adversaries it will at length be Triumphant and bestow upon all Honest Endeavours an Immortal Crown of Glory Your Lordships most Humble and Affectionate Servant GEO THOMSON To the READER Courteous Reader I Know thou art Cloy'd with multitude of Books that this Scribling Age is fertil in Thou must needs nauseate Cramben Millies coctam the same homely Service a Thousand times set before thee the same things still repeated perhaps false or little for thy satisfactory Instruction So that it is enough to make thee look askew and scorn what I have here offered to thy Perusal expecting no other from me than Cuculi Cantum sed siste Gradum If you please to make a Halt awhile I may deliver something thou may'st not repent to spend time to hear take pains to read tending to thy Health that Goddess Salus without which no Temporal Felicity can be enjoyed by means of which so long as it favours us nothing but may be purchased I have ventured my own Life to save thine passing through a way little trodden full of Bryars and Thorns and finding a shorter Cut I have given thee such Directions which if thou strictly follow may make thy passage through this vally of miseries more happy I have declared in this following Treatise how we are begirt on every side with infinite occasional Causes that seek to ruine us and what a Domestick Enemy we carry about us ready to betray us to the violent power of preternatural things infesting us I have been above this Twenty Years sollicitous and sedulous to find out the genuine proper Causes and Cures of all Diseases malignant but especially the Pest for which end I visited all sorts of People the Poor as well as the Rich administring to them Medicines of my own preparation observing from one what might be useful to another yea I was so eager in the pursuit of Therapeutical Truth that I was restless till I had the full view of the inward parts of a Pestilential Body whereby my Iudgment was confirmed in some things and my Intellectuals instructed in others I have acted many Years formerly but especially now of late when there was most need the part of a Physitian Chyrurgion and Apothecary as becomes every honest able Man lawfully called to this Noble Faculty Take it for an infallible Verity and I assert it without the least Rancour and Malice to any Person that it is impossible without miraculous Inspiration for a Physitian to discharge his Duty in this honourable Profession unless he bring to Unity that which of late hath been made a Trinity through the Laziness Pride and Covetousness of a Company of Dogmatists I speak not this to disparage or discourage any able professed Apothecary or Chyrurgion that is laborious ingenious honest and furnished with competent Learning as for those that are otherwise qualified I look upon them as so many Iack-alls or Lurchers that hunt up and down for a Prey for their Masters that they may have a share and snip with them with some of whom I am acquainted who are an Honour to their Society for whom I have no small respect and kindness and so much that I prefer them without Partiality before many Titular Prescribers Grandia gradientes that carry a fair outside make a great noise in the World admired of a company of Idiots that gaze and dote upon them ut pueri Junonis Avem and yet are grosly ignorant in Materia Medica and the right preparation of the same My Iudgment is That it is no such preposterous thing as some Philo-Galenists account it who are as it were riveted into a fond opinion and applause of that Sect for a Physitian that intends to acquire excellency in his Science to begin with Pharmacopoea and Chyrurgia supposed that he have some considerable knowledge in the Tongues Neither should I have thought it any Disparagement to me if I had been as they falsly alledge at first professedly instructed and
the very foundation of the Galenical Doctrine for the radical Cure of any Disease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in general and in particular this that is called malignant c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Pest is sandy and tottering not able to stand before a spirituous and fierce Orial of that subtile all-searching Spagyrick power which like Lightning penetrates to the Center of things dissolving them into their first Principles destroying what is superfluous in them and extraneous keeping entire and untouched that which is pure and defaecate Had I not been Passive as well as Active to find out the truth of Curing I might have remained to this day in the Cimmerian darkness of Dogmatical Vanities to which I confess I was too much wedded at first At length wholly resigning my self to be led freely by the thred of Nature through the manifold Tortuosities and Meanders of its wonderful operations I am throughly informed and shall endeavour to instruct others concerning the Being Cause Cure and Event of this late Pest as real Experience in my self and others hath taught me without deviating one tittle wilfully from the truth of things as they are in themselves CHAP. I. Concerning the Name Essence and Material Cause of the Pest. I Very well know the curious Linguist will expect the Nomenclature of the Pest in various terms wherefore to satisfie his desire I shall deliver them thus The Hebrews call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à radice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 locutus est vel ut sumitur in sensu malo perdidit quod sit res à Deo edicta vel decreta vel quasi sit perditio The Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 corrumpo to corrupt or spoil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 percutio vulnero to smite or wound The Latins Pestis quasi perestis à peredo to eat up or devour vel Plaga The English the Plague the Pest the Sickness or Disease per excellentiam vulgarly the Infection Contagion or Distemper From the Name I pass to the Essence and Quiddity of the Pest which is a Contagious Disease for the most part very acute arising from a certain peculiar venemous Gas or subtile Poyson generated within or entering into us from without At the access or bare apprehension of which the Archeus is put into a Terror and forthwith submitting to the aforesaid Poyson invests it with part of its own substance delineating therein the perfect Idea or Image of this special kind of Sickness distinct from any other Touching the Material Cause it is a venemous Gas or wild Spirit produced either inwardly from some degenerate Matter conceived within the Body or outwardly received from some fracedinous noisom Exhalations contained in the pores of the Air taking their Original from several putrid bodies excited to fermentation rarified and opened by the Ambient altered and moved by Celestial Influences and so disposed to this or that condition whereby an expiration is made of virulent Atoms which sometimes close pent up and drawn in by the Lungs do by their deletery power put to flight confound suffocate and mortifie the Archeus or vital spirits in as short a times as the strong fume of burning Brimstone doth destroy any small living Insect held over it I suppose I may well compare this mortiferous odour to the Gas or fume of Brimstone called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 forasmuch as Hippocrates calleth that abstruse Malignity of which a manifest prompt Reason is not to be given 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is something above the Elements difficult for humane Capacity to render a Cause thereof To say truth 't is not for a Galenist that is clogged with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Temperaments and Humors to understand the sublime Mystery of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for none can apprehend this but he that is Divinitùs doctus able to soar aloft by virtue of the nimble wings of Mercury which will by degrees carry him up to a high pitch of the true Philosophical knowledge of natural things This material virulent substance endued with exceeding Leptomery or subtilty of parts hath free passage through the pores of mans Body which are patent both for admission and emission of minute particles either friendly and agreeable to Nature or hostile and pernicious which the vigilant Custos the innate spirit of every part can easily distinguish and judge of detesting and abhorring the one with a perfect Hatred Terror Consternation and Confusion but embracing and hugging the other with confidence complacency and sweet delight Now the Concordance and Sympathy the Discord and Antipathy of all things in the Creation is plainly visible for Natura natura gaudet whatsoever is Symbolical and Congruous with another doth easily unite and shake hands with the same what is Antibolical and disproportionable to it is rejected loathed and nauseated Thus there is a continual Syndrom and Concourse with like matter to like and Naturae Bellum inferre is odious both to the Macrocosm and Microcosm Water in an instant is conjoined with water not so easily with that which is Heterogeneous How quickly do the many Globes of Mercury coincide and couple into one making a larger Spherical body How extraordinary fertile do some Lands shew themselves by an injection or superaspersion of some matter agreeable and consentaneous to their Condition Nature and inherent Property Behold how greedily the Air imbibes and swallows up any body attenuated to a high degree seeming as it were to be converted into an Identity with it This doubtless deceived the Ancients supposing from this Affinity and Parity between each an absolute essential Transmutation of one into the other which cannot be sith the primogenial simple and virgin Elements are stable never capable to undergo an Alternate vicissitude of one into another so that according to Mechanick demonstration it may be made good That there is not one grain more or less either of Air or Water since the very first moment of the Creation of both 'T is certain the Air is not only Separator Aquarum but likewise a Disparter and Segregator of all Tangible bodies whatsoever insomuch that the more it appropinquates any thing the more it breaks it into Atomical parts according to its own constitution and the disposition of that matter it doth surround Now the Air being ready according as it is qualified to admit Dilatation and Contraction and as it is thus modified so it penetrates insinuating it self so far as there is the least passage for it suffurating and insensibly carrying off whatsoever is capable to be volatilized hence all Concretes that have the least Humidity do continually expire sending out various emanations sutable to their grosser matter whence they arise which acquiring an inward Ferment or torn into invisible parts by violent torture of the fire are all greedily suckt up into the spongy Spaces or Magnale of the Air which obnoxious to many Changes
disposed to be wholsom or unwholsom to us for we find experimentally That the Pest is most outragious when the pores of tangible bodies are most ready to expire by the ambient Air which the nearer the Sun approacheth the hotter it is and thereby a Rarefaction and Subtiliation made of those parts which otherwise lie constringed dormant benummed as it were and mortified by extream cold for it is the nature of Cold to destroy the seminal power of all Concretes as moderate heat on the contrary excites the seed of all things and provokes them to act We commonly see that a most putrid and putid substance congeled by violent Frost desists to send forth that horrid ill odour which the warmth would quickly extract from it questionless had not Divine Providence ordered That the middle Region of the Air should be extraordinary cold on purpose to spoil various Exhalations of their Ferments and Seeds it were impossible but that all things should have been long ago reduced to their first Chaos So efficacious do we find cold Seasons through the distance of the Sun from us in powerfully restraining this feral Disease the Pest that in this part of the World there hath seldom any great Mortality reigned amongst us in a very sharp Winter And I have observed that the late Contagion although it had taken deep root in mans body and endeavoured to pullulate and shoot out fresh yet was it so curbed and tamed by the Autumnal Frost that it could never rise up to any height or get head its fermenting power being still kept under by the surrounding cold Air which is changed according to the remotion appropinquation interception and obscuration of the solar Beams which though innocuous lovely and glorious of themselves yet shining upon a stinking Dunghil or Kennel and opening the body of any putrilaginous substance do accidentally cause a Fermentation in its parts and thereby an Expiration of unsavoury and noysom Atoms prejudicial to mans life Hereby not only inanimate things induce a detriment to our health through a multiplicity of their copious Exhalations continually altering and making impression upon our spirits weakning their Tone debilitating their Vigour dissipating confounding and destroying them by their deletery property but likewise the Respiration Emanations or Effluviums of divers sorts of Animals do often prove hurtful to our Natures especially one mans body doth easily affect and infect another by reason of a symbolical Affinity that is between one mumial ferment and another for there is an easie transmigration of virulent Particles from body to body where there is a magnetism a capable reception thereof and under the guise of a friendly Guest a mortal Enemy is sometimes entertained And doubtless there are some Men and Women seemingly healthful whose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Breathings Aporrhaea's or Effluviums are very pernicious to others causing great inconvenience and disturbance in the Archeus yet perhaps not sensibly to be discovered Sith then we are thus beset on every side with an invisible fracedinous Gas how is it possible that materials should be wanting for the framing the Pest and other innumerable Diseases Thus much concerning the antecedent occasional matter That which is next to be enquired is Materia conjuncta or Conttnens of the Pest which is part of the Archeus contaminated by the Pestilential Miasm which primarily seats it self in the privy Chamber of the vital spirit which becomes one and joins with the Occasional Antecedent matter to dissolve the goodly structure of this Microcosm for the antecedent matter could do us no harm were not the Continent united to it so as to become capable to receive the true figure character or impression of this determinate disease the Pest where it remains till such time the foresaid matter be profligated or proscribed by the strength of the residue of the Archeus as yet untouched and free from Contagion or the Image of the Pest expunged and thereby a Manumission and Redemption of the captivated spirit from that slavery it was before kept under by a domineering Idea Neither ought it to seem strange that I reckon part of the Archeus for the conjunct matter of the Pest contrary to the Doctrine of the Schools who never dreamed of any such thing till that great Deliverer of Philosophical verity Helmont brought it to light forasmuch as nothing exotick or venemous could do us any hurt did not the Archeus the vital spirit cowardly first yield it self Prisoner to the assailing Poyson and then afterward become confederate to act with it to the demolition and devastation of that Fabrick which otherwise might stand unmoved CHAP II. Of the Formal and Efficient Cause of the Pest. MAtter of it self is effete languid and dead if it be not quickned and actuated by some spirit which contrives moulds and fashions it into such a form that doth specifie and make it distinct from another by its essential Properties and inseparable Accidents This spirit Archeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of all Things is chiefly seated in the Seed for without a seminal power nothing can have production Every thing that acts is furnished with some portion of the universal Spirit and even those things that seem to be vapid dull and torpid to our senses have in them latitant a spirit dormant which gave them and maintains their being Now there are many different kind of Seeds Ferments and Spirits all derived from the Universal as there are things in the World which act according to the disposition of the Matter and capacity of the Subject For unumquodque recipitur secundum captum recipientis and Ex quovis non fit quodlibet Which is to be understood of a secondary concrete matter not primary simple Elementary sith according to Helmont and the best Philosophers all things take their Original from Water which transmuted to this or that according as topical Ferments and innate Seeds lead it However all compound bodies perfect and imperfect are confined and stinted only to bring forth their like and to act within the sphere of their activity without interfering grating incroaching and intrenching upon anothers Commonwealth and within these bounds of their Monarchy do they still continue till they have acted the last Scene and taken their Exit and are so resolved again into their first aqueous Element from which daily arise new Actors in several Dresses To this do many Philosophers subscribe as Truth as it relates to Minerals Vegetals and Animals that have a manifest principle of generation but they will not allow Diseases to be taken into this Catalogue sith they arise from a depravation and distortion of Nature through the fall of the first Prevaricator who by his lapse put the creature in Arms against himself and all Mankind So that a disease with them is only a privation or mutilation of our health a defection from Sanity proceeding from divers Accidents that daily affect us preternaturally For they think they have spoken enough in telling us that some
Stomack and its Co-partner the Spleen which make according to Helmont a Duumvirate springs our Health the greatest felicity in this world so from the same root arises sickness and infirmity the bitter ingredient that marrs all that delicious mess which either Nature hath provided or mans ingenious Cookery can invent In hac Olla continentur mors vita This is that Pandora's Box which Adam to please his brutish appetite ventured to open for the reception of the forbidden fruit which was no sooner ingested but out flew infinite calamitous Maladies that vexed him and torture us his Posterity to this day In this little membranous Field was first sown the rebellious seed of all Diseases which ever since never ceased to propagate and multiply it self over the universal face of the globe of Mankind in a direful manner Here is the Plantation and Nursery of all sort of Feavers for never did I know any afflicted in this kind but still the digestive ferment of the stomack became impaired and degenerate from its Native goodness hence come those multiplicity of sad Symptoms which appear as Nauseousness Anorexy extream Thirst bad Sapour Sopour tedious Watchings Dotage Melancholy Madness and the like Here is the Mine where the Stone and Gowt have their Ens primum are first embrionated and lie in their rude Principles In this Duumvirate is the Nest where the Asthma Sqinsie Pleurisie Vertigo Epilepsie Apoplexy Lethargy Phrensie Diarrhaea Lienteria Dysuria Stranguria Ischuria Scorbute and this terrible blow Plaga excellens the Pest are first brooded hatched fed and at length perfected and able to subsist of themselves In this admirable Cavity is erected the Mint royal where the lively Image of Sanity and Infirmity are stamped and the lineaments of every Languor drawn out as it were with a Pencil that it may act uniformly in one continued series and tenour according to its kind and various constitution it meets with For even a vulgar Head knows how to distinguish a Quartan Ague from a Quotidian and both from a Tertian a continual from an intermitting Feaver the Spasm or Cramp from a Palsie the Dropsie from an Atrophie or a macilent Consumption and several other Diseases one from another And this is deduced from the Parts affected the certain Symptoms Accidents and Products that inseparably accompany each of them The silly old Women called Searchers can report upon the bare Aspect of a pestilential Corps when thy see Tumors of the Emunctories Cauterizing Carbuncles Blains Pustles and those stigmata nigra they call the Tokens in the superficies of the Skin that this or that Person dyed of the Sickness Wherein although they are sometimes mistaken by reason of some intervening outward Accidents which may hinder the eruption of these pestilential Blossoms yet an expert Physitian that hath a more intuitive knowledge into these things than the common People will hardly ever be mistaken in the Diagnôsis of the Disease And certainly this could never be discovered aright were not the Idea and Platform of every grief as it were shadowed out limmed and sigillated in the ingenite Archeus of the tender tractable Stomack and Spleen Neither ought it to seem strange that the Ventricle being a Membrane should have such admirable properties and rare effects bestowed upon it by power of the sensitive Soul there taking its principal habitation sith the womb of the same Texture doth sometimes act stupendiously even to the seeming imitation of a new Creation out of nothing as when the Idea of a Cherry Mulberry or the like is impressed by the uterine Imagination upon that part of the Infant according as the hand of the Mother shall be directed at that time of her earnest longing which fictitious fruit shall afterward flourish sooner or later as the Native Soil and Climate of that place doth bring real fruit to a speedy or late maturity Now forasmuch as the Stomack and its Compeer the Spleen the Duumvirate of this Commonwealth have such power committed to them that they are as the Key to open the Door to Health and Sickness and as it were the Helm that turns and winds this Vessel at pleasure In what ought a true Physitian to be more sollicitous than in preserving them in Eutonie Eucrasie Eumetrie and to have special care of this excellent Organ lest any thing assumed may injure the ferment of these parts disturb disquiet and annoy the Archeus thereof Away then with the seculent and dirty Medicaments of the Galenists which I can demonstrate to their faces if they dare to stand a Tryal are not fitting to be received into such a Noble part for the Cure of any deep rooted Disease whatsoever And were not their Patients grosly ignorant in that which concerns their own life did they but understand the notable damage both present and future that attends those that enter into this Wire-drawing Galenical course of Physick they would utterly abominate such dreggy stuffe if more pure and defecate Chymical Remedies could be obtained Never let any Lover of Learning harbour a thought that such an Elephant like Gigantical Disease the Pest is like to be detruncated and overcome by a Galenist who I 'le make it appear ipso facto knows not how to remove a trivial ordinary Feaver radically and fundamentally And all this proceeds for want of a clear understanding of the right use of the Stomack the powerful influence it hath upon all parts the Nature of its Ferment and the tender respect that is to be given to the Archeus the diligent Custos and watchful Janitor of the Orifice and Pylorus Suffer not then any that pretends to Cure thee to exhaust the innocent blood profusely by opening a vein in the Arm for the Cure of that Malady whose cause doth only Centrally depend upon an Exorbitancy Discord Dearticulation and Apostasie of the vital Spirit in the Duumvirate from the genuine well-disposed Constitution that ought to be in it CHAP. IV. Signs of the Pest. JUdiciously to dicsern the Pest from other Diseases is sometimes a Task of no small difficulty in that it hath no certain peculiar proper Pathognomonical inseparable Sign emergent with it not common to others So that an able Physitian may sometimes be puzled at first Access positively and absolutely to determine whether the Patient be smitten by this superlative stroke or afflicted with some other inferiour sickness He alone that is Omniscious can infallibly tell in what instant time this pestilential poyson is conceived or enters into mans body so closely doth it lie for the most part that none but he that knows things à priori can punctually discover that such an one carries about him a mortal Arrow shot into his Praecordia To see a man eat and drink liberally to be jocund frolick seemingly enjoying a Jubilee to exercise Venery and several Disports as at other times and yet to carry about him the very Picture of Death within is a Plague of the Plague To be undermined by a
which doubtlesse could never be had there been the same adaequate cause present which was before Well be the Cause never so abstruse I am sufficiently perswaded That the adjunction of this Bufo nigh my Stomack was of wonderful force to master and tame this Venom then domineering in me and thereby subjugate it to the dictates of the vital Spirit somewhat more pacified and freed by degrees from that hotrid deformed pestilential Idea imprinted in it so that it was enabled to proscribe part of that tartarous Excrement through a place most opportune but not often frequented by such an evacuation the Fundament where appeared in some few dayes a very great Bubo of the bigness of a Tennis-ball quite stopping up the passage of the Anus My Head being now pretty well setled I was better able than before to reflect upon my self and to consult more rationally for my own safety wherefore after some serious considerations of my present condition I thought it fitting to give vent to this Tumor and to let out immediately the foul gore conteined therein For this end I sent to an honest industrious young man a great lover of Chimistry one who was lately convinced by Fact of the Truth therein desiring him to apply Leeches to this swelling which he performed with much dexterity Three Sanguisugae having filled themselves usque ad nauseam a filthy corrupt blackish ichorous staining Recrement issued forth much like that I found in the Cadaverous Dissection By this Excretion I was exceedingly Recreated Nature discharging every day a great quantity of virulent moisture for the space of nigh three Weeks Thus continuing the frequent use of Tinctura Polyacaea and good spirituous Liquors I lay in a perpetual large Sweat Six dayes compleat sometimes dejected almost Lipothymical and as it were dead in the Nest upon a reflux of the Venom to the Central parts and then again upon its Efflux to the Peripheria the Circumference of the Skin forth-with elevated chearful and lively Upon the Sixth day I arose and walked about the Chamber with so firm a foot that my Brother and others wondred at the strength of my progressive motion that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impetum faciens the vital Spirit being kept up with good Liquors and pure Chymical circulated Spirits agreeable to our Nature And I am perswaded upon the first setting my Foot upon the Floor after this sickness had not that painful Swelling in the Fundament hindred I could firmly have walked a Mile out-right which thing considering the Atrocity and Outragiousness of the Disease and other Circumstances if ever it was or will be performed by meer Galenical Physick I will be bound to undergo Martyrdom for the approbation and testimony of their way as best Upon the Eighth day I went down Stairs to visit my Landlady Mrs. Ladyman most dangerously ill who notwithstanding her abortion miscarrying was saved from the Grave by an Almighty hand working by Chymical Remedies No sooner was I got up but my Maid-servant and my Apprentice about Thirteen years old fell down being wounded with the same Arrow both of which escaped through a blessing upon the means That Four in one House should have the Pest about the same time and all escape when it raged most Mortally is a Mercy never to be forgotten by us Having recovered the Ferment of my Stomack in great part enioying a sharp Appetite and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having lost my flesh suddenly I thought I might according to Hippocrates advice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 get it again as speedily Sed difficile est modum tenere I went beyond the bounds of Sobriety eating and drinking too liberally presuming I could correct a small Errour at my pleasure forgetting Hippocrates Aphorism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And going abroad too soon out of a Zeal to visit my Patients being not throughly rid of a relique of Malignity that lay lurking within me and something more perhaps added by those loathsom Expirations of the Sick I was conversant with a Scald head being soon broken I fell into a most desperate Relapse with great oppression at my Stomack a Loosness difficulty of Respiration exceeding weakness Restlessness fruitless Sweating c. So that I thought it not possible to hold out that Night but this wanzing and ready to go out spark of life was once more blown up to a flame by that comfortable refreshing blast of former Chymical Remedies repeated in great quantity and so in four dayes I made another evasion from my tedious Bed resolving to be more cautious for the future I was fully confirmed in my health for which benefit I hope I shall be grateful to the most High Dum Spiritus hos regit artus At that very time whil'st I did undergo many a sad Brunt many a trepidation of the heart and conflict of Spirit two of my most esteemed Consorts Dr. Ioseph Dey and Dr. George Starkey two Pillars of Chymical Physick were both reposed in their Graves before I knew of their Deaths concealed on purpose from me lest upon the apprehension of so great a loss my Calamity should be aggravated and I swallowed up in the gulph of Despair They are gone and at rest free from Persecution Slanders and Obloquies of their Enemies and have left me behind to deal with those that are alwayes supplanting and contradicting the Truth Well I must be content considering Quicquid patimur venit ab Alto This came not out of the Dust but from the hand of him Above who for our abominable Crimes and our Ingratitude the grand Sin of this Nation was pleased to deprive us of Two such eminent Lights of which this wicked World is not worthy unless they could have prized them better 'T is not for my own so much though great as for the publick interest that I heartily lament the Translation of these two brave Souls into a better place whose Praises all Candid and Ingenuous men will I dare say Celebrate and none but Sordid Envious Ignorant Spirits will ever detract from them It was I confess a most unhappy malevolent juncture of things at that instant that we should all Three fall sick at the same time neither of us being able to relieve each other for I am perswaded had Divine Providence been pleased to have spared any one of us from the severe stroke of his Indignation we might have been at this day all three alive for 't is the nature of this fly Venome to strike so unawares at the brain and to cause such an adiathesis a discomposure and disturbance in that Organ that a man hath not free libetty of his Reason to act what may be convenient for the securing his own life as it was too apparent in these Physicians of singular Parts One of whom i. e. Dr. Dey I visited in the Evening a little after I had Anatomized the Body relating to him what I had done which he was much delighted to hear At my departure from him that night I
adustion according to their definition of a Feaver as if there were a fire no whit different from a Culinary in our Bodyes converting that which is white into black and black into white by a strong reverberating heat Suck like fond and foolish opinions have they harboured these Sixteen hundred years and upward for want of the knowledge of the Doctrine of Ferments which can never be so well illustrated as by Chymical Experiments which those Pseudo-Chymists boast they are acquainted with only I am certain in a formal manner sufficient to delude the world otherwise they would not deny the power thereof in their Actions If they did really understand how a little Leaven doth infect the whole Lump they would forthwith leave their bare beggarly Qualities in curing Diseases as Hot Cold c. Relollea as Paracelsus calls them things transient and momentany ebbing and flowing every minute according to the disposition of the Subject and insist more upon substances whose intrinsecal transmutation depends upon powerfull ferments Observation VI. What a Soveraignty and Influence the Stomack hath over the whole body may be proved by multitude of Instances and Examples that I could produce but this was eminently conspicuous that when any thing was taken in that disturbed the innate Archeus and required some difficulty to digest many horrid Symptoms did strait break forth as Vertigo Cephalalgie Delicium Phrensie Inquietude Dyspuoea Sopor defection of the Spirits a cohibition of Sweat and other cutaneous Fxcretions c. This was plainly apparent in this Stripling who having an indiscreet Nurse attending him suffered much damage when she offered him that which was by no means to be admitted as tolerable the natural ferment of the stomack being perverted by the pestilent Poyson And I doubt not but the period of his life was accelerated by the unwitting Dose of Milk which though it be the best Nutriment where it is well altered yet it often proves the worse corrupted Hereby we may learn not to ingest any thing into this noble Vessel but what may agree with the innate Archeus may increase the vital Spirit rectifie the enormous Ferment cherishing that which is genuine may be quickly altered and leave very little Dross and Recrement behind and such are those things that abound with noble Spirits as good Wine and strong Beer or Ale well brewed as for Flesh Broths Gellies Watergruel Ptisans Barley water and such like dull vapid things c. they are all to be abandoned and excluded from entering into this Palace where the sensitive Soul sits so long as such a grand Enemy stands in defiance of it and seeks to destroy it Observation VII In all parts I took notice of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great coagulation and some small colliquation of juyces except in the Stomack where this Negro liquor did flote without any Concretion or Coaction whereby I gather That the kindly and familiar Ferment of the Stomack made to dissolve and open any hard tough food and to change it into a fluxible white Chile that the nutritive and excrementitious parts may be the better separated being now degenerate and hostile did still retain a property like the former though tending to Ruine tabefying and colliquating what it touched and changing it into a black instead of a white juyce On the other side the Ferments of the Fourth and fifth Digestions ordained lightly to incrassate thicken and to bring one portion of the blood to a moderate fibrous consistence and to subtiliate another becoming exorbitant and losing that primitive gift with which they were endued and acquiring a virulent Nature transcending their former bounds of Mediocrity and Modification of this red Balsom to be afterward assimilated doth now compinge and closely streighten the part thereof depriving it of that continual Circulation which is necessary for the generation of vital Spirits the immediate instrument of the sense and motion of every Animal and turns another small part into a venemous variegated Ichor or Serosity Observation VIII That whereas there is a power inherent in the Veins and Arteries to preserve the blood from Congelation even when the body is dead so great is the concretive force of the pestilential poyson that the blood is suddenly put to a stop and becomes grumified turning into Glotts in a living body with nigh as much expedition as the Spirit of Urine changes Spirit of Wine into a white thick lump Observation IX That a kind of glandulous substance like a Lambs stone should be found in the right Ventricle of the heart instead of an obscure clot of blood doth shew how sollicitous Nature though violently hurried away by a contrary Idea is to save it self from destruction sith that when the Haimopoietick power was lost she carries out of the stomack a small quantity of a rude Chyle passing a short way through some of the Sanguineous Vessels without receiving a rubicund Tincture into this noble Cavity and not able to give it the stamp and signature belonging to this vital Nectar was forced to yield it up to that impression which the exotick Ferment did make upon it Observation X. It being granted that blood doth make blood as I can demonstrate that it is in being before the conformation of the Liver and that when the Sanguis this pure defaecate sublimely graduated crimson juyce stands still and loses its virtue then the milky Chyle cannot receive a vital Character and be tinged as it ought How cautious should we be to exhaust and spend prodigally this treasure of Life as the Galenists who to satisfie their erroneous Documents without any solid Reason or approved Experiments rashly let it out in many trivial Diseases which might easily be Cured by proper Medicaments Observation XI Any Artificial evacuation of Blood except that which is performed by immediate Derivation being degenerate in the Pest Spotted Feaver Small Pox Meazils or any Malignant Disease whatsoever that hath alwayes in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aliquid sanguinis congelativum somthing in it that doth condense and fix the blood is absolutely pernicious and brings certain perdition or at least great Calamity if thee be not present extraordinary vigour of Nature whatsoever the perverse Galenists pretend to the contrary that they empty an Athletick full Habit of Body and thereby cause Motion in the blood and so hinder the coagulation of it which opinion if rightly cavassed is notoriously false for they take a meer contrary course that diminish the good blood in this case which cannot be avoided when vent is given to a large vessell for out flies the best as well as the worst together indistinctly and hereby the Archeus must needs be disenabled to resist the poyson to attenuate profligate and tame any pertinacious viscous and noxious matter for I am sure if Hippocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Helmonts Archeus i.e. the Vital spirit the principal Author and efficient Cause of Sanity be wanting nothing benevalent can
be expected That Phlebotomy in the foresaid sense doth cause this inconvenience I can make appear both Logically and Optically for the more good blood the more good Spirits and consequently in Reason all Vital Actions must needs be performed the more successively and a stronger expulsion made of what is offensiue as on the contrary defect of blood and spirits causes all manner of mischief Experimentally also and visibly 't is true For I never saw any deprived of any great quantity of blood 〈◊〉 with that Alacrity stability celerity and safety as he that was cured dextrously à phlebotomos without emission of blood and spirits And through this indirect Course I frequently observe that those that are ordered after the Galenical Method fall from Acute Diseases into Chronick and Tedious Languors meerly because their Physicians either exhaust their Blood consume their Spirits by deletery uncorrected Catharticks torture crucifie and gaul them with Blisterings Cuppings and Scarifyings Or keep them at a low ebb with their sluggish flat and spiritlesse Julips and Potions so that hereby the Archeus becomes weak and feeble the blood must necessarily move slowly and for want of Active Spirits be retarded in its Current and in many places subsist like a standing Pool clottering and causing great obstructions Whosoever therefore that intends to keep the blood sine Remora fluent in its Channels free from Curdling let him studie to the utmost to exhibit those Specificks that may mortifie and annihilate the inspissative Torpedinous poyson and advance the impulsive Spirits by those things that symbolize with and directly match them Observation XII Those variety of several coloured juices coagulated and colliquated apparent in this body were not as the Dogmatists affirm so many distinct Humours as Choller Phlegm c. Analagous to the Elements fallen off from their native Temperament as they would have it but they all arose from the Chile and Blood disguised and masked in divers forms according as the Protean Ferments altered the Texture and position of their parts and so marked them with this or that colour Believe it there is no Real existence of those Humours as Choller Phlegm Melancholly that the Galenists frequently mention in most of their Writings but there is one only primigenious rivulet i. e. Blood that irrigates all parts of this Microcosm which as it meets with different Ferments so it is subject to divers alterations and manifold colours Observation XIII The usual effect of most poysons commonly known to us is to coagulate the blood as I have found evident dissecting divers Bodies destroyed by things deletery which I observed made a stigmatick impression in the Stomack and so condensed the Vital red Balsom in the Vessels that Clodders of four or five Inches in length might be extracted Observation XIV Whensoever there is any great concretion of the blood in the Pest no kindly beneficial sweat is to be expected till such time the constringent venome be overcome the grosse matter attenuated rarified and an apersion made of the pores of the skin And this was manifest in this Youth who could by no means be brought into a breathing sweat durable with allevation the juices of his body being as it were frozen made torpid and indisposed to stir from a Narcotick poyson Observation XV. I finde such an indissoluble league connexion and coherence between the Vital Spirit and Sanguis pure blood in all perfect Animals insomuch that if they be separated from each other they both lose their essence and proper denomination for this most highly defaecated liquor doth maintain the spirit and the spirit doth move agitate and purifie this liquor that it may be fit to be changed into it self I look upon the Chyme or Cruor as upon the sweet juice of Grapes which hath little sensible spirit in it at first till it comes to be fermented depurated and segregated from its lees and foul faeces and then it explicates its activity in an admirable manner Likewise this crude juice rubefied is by long circulation and fermentation of the fourth and fifth digestions so cleansed and rid of all dross and filth that it attains an Homogeneous nature easily convertible into a Gas Vitale capable to receive the bright shining beams of the Soul as highly rectified spirit of wine doth the lucid flame If the blood harbour any thing extraneous acrimonious austere acide malignant venemous matter c. it forthwith titubates and deviates from its integrity and accomplishment Then the Spirit its individual Companion falls into discontent peevishnesse frowardnesse fury and rage and an Ilias of Diseases follow and all is brought into confusion as likewise if the spirits be consumed disturbed suffocated extinguished by reason of perturbations of the mind pernicious fumes and odours great dolours or the occurse of any thing very violent altogether disagreeing with them the blood missing that Archeus that should hold the reins of right Government and carry it about in a direct road where it may receive a just alteration by natural ferments doth become degenerate relapsed colliquated or coagulated as was visible in this Cadaver Observation XVI Sith it is so as it is intuitively conspicuous that the Pestilential poyson doth principally strike at and deprave the Stomack and fistulary Vessels by colliquating the lacteous juice contained in that and by coagulating the blood in these what intollerable non-sensical practice is it to prescribe any thing either Dieterical or Pharmaceutick that is so far from hindring that it furthers these sad effects Observation XVII The extraordinary warmth that was in this body at twelve hours end from the time it expired doth sufficiently testifie what a Phlogôsis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and combustion was about the viscera arising from a fermentation and impetuous collision of exardent Atomes which the fretting and furious Archeus had agitated being exstimulated and at length enraged that it had entertained into its very penetralls such a mortal Enemy and now the Fewell being consumed the spirits exanclated and fire extinct there remains an Empyreuma a relique of heat in the parts defunct as a sufficient testimony of that notable ebullition and fermentation which was precedent in the living Observation XVIII I am commonly Censured by the Galenists presumptuous in venturing to open this Contagious Body for no other Reason as I can conceive but that I escaped so great a danger contrary to their expectation I confess I was a little careless in that I did not before fortifie my self as I might have done being extream eager in the pursuit of knowledge for the publick good I am perswaded had I strengthned the Archeus of my hand with some appropriate Balsamick Spirit and filled up the Pores with an oleaginous odorous matter the Pestilential poyson could never have had so free an ingress and so easily have put to flight the vital Spirit making an inroad into all parts That the intoxicating Atoms did first invade my hand imbrued with that foul Gore I may without