skilful Physitians have both experienc'd and left describ'd as Galen Dioscorides Paulus Aegineta Aetius Oribasius c. who have very much nobilitated it it heats binds drys kills broad Worms helps against Toad poyson preserves moist flesh and drys up humors drives away Putrifaction roborates the inward parts outwardly it binds purges Ulcers causes Wrincles like Alum with whom it hath relation But besides these excellent qualities Vitriol hath also its bad ones for it is ill for the Stomach acrimonious corrosive and vomitous and therefore ignorant Quacksalvers and Women give it sometimes in Wine and sometimes in Rose-water in uncertain weight against Quotidian and Quartane Agues and many other Diseases and indeed the Fever is often resolv'd by vehement Vomiting but this Medicine being unskilfully Administred proves most often more formidable than the Disease Alum is as it were the Brine of the Earth whereof Dioscorides makes three sorts the Round the Liquid and the Jagged or Scissile the last is often call'd Plumeous for they are so like in form that they can scarse be distinguish'd yet they differ both in nature and qualities for the Scissile is manifestly binding and may be burnt but the other is Acrimonious and suffers not by fire Mathiolus says he saw and tasted a Liquid Alum of which he asserts that he never found any thing more Astrictive Now when Alum is simply mention'd we mean Roch-Alum which is a saltness of a Mineral Earth of a Leadish nature consisting of an acid spirit and a caustick Earthy salt and all Alum is of Crass parts binds much whence 't is call'd Stypterion in Greek because it is Styptical it heats cleanses amends putrid Ulcers dryes humid ones absumes superfluous flesh takes away itching cures the Scab and very useful in many Medicaments made for the Cure of Ulcers Bitumen which the Greeks call Asphaltes is as it were the fatness of the Earth swiming above the Waters which being cast upon the shoar thickens and becomes hard tenacious and inflamable As long as it swims on the water 't is soft but when 't is off it becomes thicker and harder and resembles dry Pitch yet easily melted at the fire Many Lakes are bituminous but especially one in India thence call'd Asphalites and the dead Sea because of its vastness and because its Water remains almost immoveable not stormy but heavy salt thick and stinking wherein neither Plants nor Animals breed neither doth it nourish such as are put into it or admit them into its bowels All Bitumen is not solid and hard but some is perpetually fluid and liquid call'd Naptha which is the streining of Babylonian Bitumen white of colour and most capacious of Fire for Fire and this are so near a kin that it will presently leap into it when near it There is also black Bitumen For its Virtues all Bitumen discusses mollifies glutinates defends from inflammation by olfaction suffumigation or imposition mends the strangling of the Womb. Naptha extenuates incides digests penetrates absumes frigid and thick humors in all parts of the Body and cures the Resolution of the Norues Palsies and diseases in the Veins and Arteries from cold cause Nitre of the same nature with the Salts Gypsum is a kind of Talk of the nature of Lime whose hot fiery caustic quality every one knows Ratsbane or Arsenic is between a Salt and a Sulphur 't is of such an acrimonious corroding hot quality that it will burn to a crust dissolving destroying and preying upon the Principles of Life malignant and an Enemy to all Natural parts and to the Radidical moisture and innate heat and therefore was very ill advis'd of Nich. Alexanarinus to prescribe it for an Ingredient in the great Athanasia says the great man of skill in the Materia Medica Johannes Renodeus for by permixtion with other Medicaments it doth not depose its malignity The Learned Schroder says 't is one of the highest Poysons for besides its acrimony it is an Enemy to our Natural Balsam of Life so that it brings strange symptoms not only tataken inwardly but apply'd outwardly as Convulsions numness of Hands and Feet cold Sweats Palpitations Faintings Vomitings Corrosions and Torments Thirst c. Cadmia Metallic 't is the Stone out of which Brass is drawn and is call'd Brass-Ore which Artificers use in making Yellow Brass which the Shopmen call Aurichalcum or Orichalcum and 't is probable this is the Stone which Albertus Magnus calls Didachos or the Devils-stone Cadmia disiccates gently absterges and helps humid and putrid Ulcers and draws them to scars Schroder says 't is Caustic and that it ulcerates the Hands and Feet of the Miners and taken inwardly kills all Creatures Antimony or Stibium or the seventh Metall which some say is Mercury others Ambar but neither of these are more than in a potency to be Metalls a grand Alchymistical Quacksalving Idol the sole Empyrical Chymical Cathartic whereby they boast to cure all Diseases but it most devilshly disturbs mens Ventricles by moving upwards and downwards others it miserably torments by vigorous Purging some it kills and restores very few to perfect health One Cornelius Gemma a Physitian of Lovain relates how a Paracelsian English Quacksalver being himself and his Wife sick of a Fever took himself and gave to his Wife that which they call prepared Antimony whereupon she fell quickly distracted and changed her Life yet valid with death and he complaining of Dreams and continual Watchings seven days after his Dejection began to Rave from that he became Epileptical from his Epilepsie he fell into a Lethargy being therewithal somewhat Apoplectical when he had been three days in that sopor he fell again to his raving and was so agitated with fury that not long after he expir'd and pass'd from his conjugal Bed to his conjugal Tomb and howsoever the Chymists cry up their Preparations of Antimony yet as able Physitians as any in the World forbear to exhibit them because they have much better Medicaments wherewith they may more securely cure any Disease And I could give a large account of the dismal Accidents that I have known happen by the administring of Antimony and my ever honoured Master Dr. Patin Regins Professor in Physick in the Famous University of Paris wrote a Book which he call'd the Martyrology of Antimony Chrysocolle which the Shopmen following the Barbarous Mauritanian Idiome call it Borax is found in the Golden Silver and sometimes Brazen Mines in Armenia Macedonia and Cyprus it heats checks supersluous flesh and is mordacious it produces Ulcers to sanity but taken at the Mouth 't is perillous says Renodeus Ochre is a kind of Yellow Earth much commended in Affrica not lapideous but friable clayey and sinooth it binds corrodes discusses Tumors and represses Excrescences Gold is the greatest Cordial in the Pocket most certainly for omne cordiacum debet esse Bumidum Calidum aurum autem est frigidum sicum i.e. every Cordial ought to be moist and hot but Gold
when they are mixt by such a kind of confusion the Waters of the Quarry are not all one neither are they truly mixt for one may separate one from another sometimes lastly they are mixt not because of the substance of the Quarry is mixt with Water but only vapors elevated from the matter are permixt And since it happens as you may understand that mixtion is perform'd by these three manner of ways 't is no wonder if Water mixing it self in several Veins shall attract and contract to it self the faculty of one more than another As for example if Water that shall be perfectly mixt in one Quarry with another confusedly only and with another with the vapors only and not with the substance it shall retein much more of the nature of that wherewith it is perfectly mixt than the other CHAP. III. Of the Waters of Bath and their Causes COncerning which there are likewise divers opinions Now these Waters being of so hot a Nature that throw but a Fowl therein and it shall immediately deplume it put Fish and Eggs therein and it will presently concoct them that these Waters are so hot of their own nature I cannot believe for all Water is always and of its own Nature cold in quality and if it become hot by accident take but away the heating cause thereof and it shall return to its prestine cold temper of its own accord without any thing of an altering nature being adhibited For there are Rivers in hot Countries that are not very hot from the heat of the Sun So that I conclude these Waters to be hot in the Caverns of the Earth from an outward cause which that it may be made more plainly manifest we shall briefly inspect into the causes of Baths Concerning their efficient Causes their are likewise various opinions omitting the whimsical frothy conceits of the Chymists let us see what the more sound and solid sort of Learned Philosophers say to the business some ascribe this virtue to the Rays of the Sun with Thermophilus who held that the Sun penetrating the pores of the Earth for certainly the Earth is porous and Spungy was in its bowels there fortified and made more active in heat so that like Fire it heats Water and what ever it meets with and even burns what it meets with combustible but if this were so these Baths would be so hot in Summer only not in Winter or at least it would follow that these Springs would be less hot in Winter than in Summer contrary to all experience for every Idiot can tell you the Springs c. are hotter in Winter than Summer the cause whereof of the Learned Philosophers ascribe to that they call Antiperistasis that is in plain English the Earth is hotter within in Winter when the Sun 's absent than in Summer and so they 'll tell you that their Sellars are hot in Winter and cold in Summer Secondly I cannot conceive how the Sun should penetrate into such deep Caverns of the Earth as by force of its heat to make the Waters therein to become so hot where we see it cannot effect the same on Lakes in any hot Region Then 3ly We know that there are Baths found in the most cold Countrys as Islind c-Some with Mileus will have a Wind or a Spirit vehemently toss'd and mov'd up and down and so penn'd up grows hot and so coming to fall upon the Waters overheats them Democritus says they receive their heat from Ashes and Lime others think these Waters grow hot by reason of vehement motion and beating against the Rocks and not a few there are which say that the matter through which they pass heats them which they say is the reason that some smell so strongly of Sulphur because they flow from Sulphury Veins Others o' th other side will have the cause to be an extream heat within the Earth in those places which overflow with hot Waters and Learned Dr. Jordan our Countryman if I mistake not thinks they derive their heat from the sermentation of Metals in their Generation to which is required an actual heat with a certain humidity and some affirm that Thunder heats the Waters as may be seen from Manlius Suni autem cunctis permixti partibus ignes Qui gravidas habitant fabricantes fulmina nubes Hac penetrant Terras Aethnamque imitantur Olympo Et calidas reddunt ipsis in fontibus undas Lastly the Chymists will have the Waters to wax hot from a mutual combat and conflict of divers Salts or Mineral bodies after the same manner as we see in the conjunction of Spirit of Vitriol or Salt of Tartar as from the two fires the Glass becomes so hot Vt multo accensis fervore exuberat undis Clausus ubi exusto liquor indignatur abeno Now among so many disagreeing opinions when there can be but one i th' right on 't Aristotle the great searcher into the Secrets of Nature in my opinion hit the Nail o' th head who following Empedoeles the Disciple of Pythagoras when he saw these Therm or Baths so call'd from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Calidus to be so hot thought they could become so no other way than from a most fervent cause because all Waters of their own Nature are cold and could think the efficient cause to be no other then Fire included in the inmost parts of the Earth and there as it were primogeneally residing of which the Epicurean Poet and Philosopher Principio tâ—llus habet in Corpora prima Unde mare immensum vo ventes flumina fontes Assidur revomunt habet ignes unde oriaâ—tur Nam multis suâ—â—ensa locis ardent sola Terrae Now that there is Fire under the Earth besides the hot fiery water Springs the Lime Ashes c. which are vomited and dug out of the Earth may confirme and persuade us as being the genuine effects of fire to say nothing of Smoak and Soot breaking out of the Earth and in some places fire it self therefore Subterranean fire which Kirkerus calls pyrophylacia i. e. a Prison for Fire is the most certain cause of the heat of the Waters For while those Springs of Waters upon the Mountains are carryed by the Veins and Sinewy bendings of Metalls in manner of Dragons and Chaldrons in the Baths of the Antients writhed and twisted with circles of Brass like a Meander and from thence artract the Virtues and Vices as I may so say of Metalls wherewith the Water is tinctur'd they wax hot from the natural fire Subterraneous to those windings even just as Water in a Pot is heat by Fire and Bartholine says expresly that Fire doth not heat the Water after the manner above related from Aristotle and Empedocles but that the Pipes or Veins of the Earth contein Fire it self within them Now the VVater becomes more or less hot here and there First as the matter is found more or less apt for heat Secondly as that Fire is nigher or farther off the
Bread against obstructions Bread made of Rye nourishes less and is not so easily concocted but mixt with Wheat 't is better and affords a moderate nourishment Barley bread nourishes least of all yet it drys and cleanses and is the same with Oats by all which you may easily conjecture at the nature of Miscelane The old Proverb is An Egg of an hour bread of a day and Wine of a year The Crumb affords the best juice and is of easier concoction than the Curst which is dryer and Schola Salerni says Ne c medes crustam coleram quia gignit adustam then cut away the burnt Crust yet the Crust is not so much to be disapprov'd as some suppose for its a very convenient Food for those of a strong Stomach Hither are to be referr'd all kind of sweet-Breads which in general are but bad Food except Biscockt for none of them are without their fault among which are also Puddings Pasties Pan-cakes Cheese-cakes Custards and many such like Quelquechose hony'd sugar'd milky'd egg'd all bak'd Meats are hurtful to the Stomach and Liver seeing they most manifestly heat obstruct and offend the inward parts The next are Fruits of which this may be affirm'd in general that they moisten and cool much nourish little yet some more some less All Fruits almost are endued with some bad qualities and beget winds and serous thin humours and are very hurtful to distempers proceeding from obstruction and putrid Fevers of Fruits that will not keep long and are soon rotten the moister are to be chosen and eaten in the first course such are Prunes Cherries Grapes but the more solid and such as bind more and will not be rotten so soon are to be eaten at the second course among which are Quinces Pears Apples Nuts c. It is a most certain rule that all Fruits that may be boyl'd bak'd or roasted beget bad juice if eaten crude As for Melons Corcumbers Pompions they may in some measure conduce to hot Stomachs and Choleric persons for they refresh and moisten much but they beget thick cold juice and of hard concoction Historians make mention of persons of great renown that dyed by eating Melons and Pears Quinces Medlars Services c. ought not to be eaten by healthful people but after meals and then but in small quantity to strengthen the Stomach Filbirds may be allow'd as being of a temperate nature Chesnuts beget thick Blood Wind and not easily concocted No Pulses are much to be commended for Beans green are windy disturb the senses cause Dreams and are of a a thick juice hard of concoction and not much nourishing Primrose says they beget serous blood c. but dry'd they refrigrate dry and deterge also apply'd in Pultises Pease are of the same nature Rice and French-Barly are the most excellent of all Pulses because they nourish most and breed sewest Excrements both moderately strengthen the Stomach and are not of bad concoction Ciches or Vitches nourish more than Pease and discharge the reins by their Diuretic faculty and therefore are thought to be profitable to those that are obnoxious to the Stone in the Kidnies But it is best to use them sparingly nor without the Physician 's advice for by the undiscreet using of them neither few nor light symptoms may ensue as also from the untimely use of any other Diuretics Herbs come next to be handled In general all Herbs nourish little and are rather endued with altering qualities for they heat cool dry and moisten what way soever us'd Galen extolls Letuce above all herbs as endued with nourishing juice but very cooling and causing sleepiness Next in coolness are Sorrel Cichory Porcelan c. which may be profitably us'd dayly Among hot Herbs are Sage Thyme Savory Penyroal Majoram Rosemary Lastly Roots are by all esteem'd windy Food some nourish more than others Now the Food we receive from Animals may be reduced to Flesh and Eggs in general and Flesh to Fish Birds or four footed Beasts Of Fish those that live about the Rocks c. are most commended Sea-fish are better than River-Fish standing Pools worst All Fresh-fish beget Phlegm are easily corrupted dry'd and salt are of hard digestion and burn the blood The best are Trouts Pike Sole Roach Carp Turbot then Mackrel Perch Skait Eeles for Tench Crab fish Lobsters are of difficult coction so last in goodness Salmon is to be eaten with moderation Fish boil'd less good fry'd better roasted best because dryest In general the Male better then the Female young but not the very least better then old notwithstanding the old Proverb Young Flesh and old Fish As for Birds c. young better then old those that feed upon Mountains and high grounds are of easier digestion than others Tame have tenderer and moist Flesh wild harder and dryer those that are castrated are of a more pleasant taste than others Birds nourish less though sooner concocted than four footed Beasts The best are Patriges and Mountain Birds Cardan a a Physitian so highly extolls Patriges if you 'll believe him that of themselves he says they are able to cure the Pox which he found by experience upon his own body having as he ingeniously confesses of himself being infected therewith no less than seven times next Woodcocks Blackbirds Doves Pheasants then Chickens Pullets and Capons For Four-footed Animals Fauns Lambs Pig Weather Veal are best for taste and nourishment Porks-flesh nourishes very much but requires a stronger Stomach Galen prefers it before all Beef is grosser and so begets more Melancholic juice then Mutton Now there are several sorts of ways of Cooking this Flesh roasting boyling frying baking c. for dry bodies boil'd is best for moist others Broaths are of easie nourishment being soon distributed To this belongs Sauces and such things as are used in preserving of Food As first Hony hot and sharp Sugar comes nighest to it not so hot more pleasant and familiar to the Stomach Salt is hot and dry and so are all Spices Mustard-seed is most hot and dry Oyl is temperate Vinegar's temper is not decided as Vinegar 't is cold as made of Corrupt Wine it retains somewhat of heat but 't is more cold than hot it drys provoks an Appetite and strengthens the Stomach Hens Phesants Patriges Turkys-Eggs are the best Duck and Goose the worst besides Eggs we have Milk Butter Cheese Blood from four-footed Beasts Milk is of a diverse temper according to the Animal 't is milk'd from It consists of a threefold substance waterish whence Whey thick whence Cheese fatty and oily whence Butter Cows Milk hath most Butter so it nourishes most and cools less Sheeps more Cheese so worse Asses most Whey so fittest to cool and moisten Goats of a middle temper Butter heats somewhat nourishes little losens and and softens Cheese of thick bad juice so stopping an Enemy to those subject to the Stone i th' Kidneys so the Proverb is very true Caseus ille bonus quem dat avara manus All Blood is of hard coction and nourishes little Beef-blood the worst Thus far concerning Meat next follows Drink was nothing but Water in the beginning of the World if it be colour'd or smell or taste not good lightest the best for weak Stomachs it may be boil'd and because few drink water alone Barley may be boyl'd therein and so made Beer and Ale stronger or smaller some add Wheat Oats and Beans certainly 't is the most healthful drink if people would accustome themselves to it for so they would free themselves from a a world of Diseases got by immoderate drinking Wine or strong Beer c. as Tremblings Palsie Lethargy Apoplexy Verligo Pains i th Head Eyes Gout Stone Dropsie Rheumatisms Piles c. for it strengthens the Stomach causes an Appetite the Aegyptian and Israelitish Priests and Kings drank nothing but Water Aristotle and Plato order Nurses Children Students to drink Water Demosthenes left Wine when he came to the Bar and Pulpit Water preserves and quickens the sight Alexander Aphrodiseus says in his Problems it makes all the Senses more lively cools the Liver opens the passages clenses the Reins and Bladder Fountain and River Water are the best Sleeping and Waking ought to be moderated with Prudence Sleep concocts Meat and Humours corrects distempers of the Mind moistens Labor for the Flesh and Joynts Sleep for the Entralls Night's the best three hours from Supper Day sleep hurts unless none by Night or weary for it makes a moist Brain and breeds sour Belchings c. exceed not eight hours lye first on the right side then the left nor on the Back or Face Watching's also to be moderate for immoderate produces contrary effects Motion comprehends all exercise whereof are several sorts Tennis c. for the whole Body riding for the Intestines walking for the Thighs and Reading and Singing for the Lungs c. it strengthens distributes Meat Morning and Evening exercise till the Body be florid and begin to sweat the same moderation in Rest As for things to be retein'd and voided they help health if those be evacuated that ought contra things to be voided if they are retein'd hurt as voiding of Urine Ejections Spittle Hemorhair Courses Seed c. if suppress'd oppress and putrifie So if things be voided that ought to be retein'd or voided in too great quantity As for the Passions of the Mind they must not be violent so of what before as Meat sleep c. all must be moderate and thus much for dyet which if minded there would not be any need of taking such uncertain remedies as Mineral Waters which have certainly been the utter ruin of many thousands As for the many symptoms following the irregular and unadvised drinking the Waters as suppression of Urine Dropsies c. too long here to name they are to be remedied by the Learned Physitian FINIS