Vermiculars make to Carolina c. And all sorts of Wild-Fowl to the Sea Fauconers use the Dung of Sparrows to kill VVorms in their Hawks and Pulvis Buso to kill 'em in their Feathers So VVorms on Plants are destroyed by the Fumes of Sulphur Garlick Galbanum Goats Claws c. Whoever will give themselves the trouble of opening a mad Dog will find him full of VVorms which is the occasion of his madness and are bred by eating corrupted meat especially in the Dog-Days These VVorms take away their Appetites Worms the cause of Madness in Doggs and makes them fear the water They wander about hang down the Tail bark hoarsly foam at the mouth and look angerly They are cured by giving them Horse-Aloes and Common-Salt mixed with Water give it in a Drenching-Horn and in half an hour you will see the Vermin come up and the Dog be well Thus man finds out Remedies to destroy them in Birds and on Plants and shall he forget himself This is a narrow and a fruitless Principle Umbraided by Neglect and Folly Our Livâ—s divided into Seven Ages Rhodeginus divides our Lives into seven Ages alluding to the seven Planets we may fitly compare our Infancy with the Moon in which we seem only to live and grow as Plants and abounds with Humours The second Age to Mercury wherein we are under Tuition Taught and Instructed The third to Venus the time of Pleasure Amorous Love-sick-Toys Vanity c. The fourth to the Sun the Summer-time of our Lives Strong Beautiful and flourishing The Fifth to Mars in which we seek Honour Victory and have Ambitious Ends designing to accomplish somewhat Praise-worthy or act what may redown'd to our Glory The Sixth to Jupiter where we judge of our selves and others of former Actions and take an account of Times arrive to the perfection of our Judgments Understanding Reason c. The Seventh and Last to Saturn the Winter of our Days wherein our Spirits Lives and Souls are obfuscated overcast and clouded all fraught with a multitude of Cares Sorrows Fears and Anxieties a Burthen to our selves a Trouble to others over-spread with innumerable Aches Pains Infirmities and Weakness fit for no Society nor Imployment but only to keep our Heirs from inheriting our Possessions which by how much the greater they are by so much the more is our End and Dissolution hoped and wished for even by those which drew Life and Being from us which is Vanity in the abstract and a great Evil if not the greatest and this the End of all our Labours under the Sun and in all these Ages we are or may be Mascerated with Worms As to the first six we have Examples daily therefore I shall only speak of the last Valescus de Taranta attests he often had seen Old People have Worms And Gabucinus mentions an ancient Man The last Age Macerated with Worms who evacuated a Monstrous Black Worm Brasavorius reports of a Patient of his a Man of above Fourscore Years of Age which voided above Five Hundred Worms And Doctor Ramesey had a Patient within Two Months of Fourscore a Woman that voided such a company of Worms by a Medicine he gave her that they were innumerable and adjudged to be some thousands of divers sorts and magnitude especiaâ—ly Teretes and Ascarides And I my self have had several Patients of above Threescore that have voided not only the Common Worms but Vermiculars of strange and various Shapes Various Causes of Worms SUpernatural causes Supernatural causes are from God and his Angels The Devil and his Imps Magicians Conjurers Witches and Wizards Universal Natural Causes Vniversal Natural Causes are from Heaven Stars and Planets which some deny who think the Stars were made only to adorn the Heavens and Fools to gaze on Parents a cause Air a cause Meat a cause Drink a cause Plethora a cause which is a redundancy of fulness of Blood and other Humors in the Body Too much sleep a cause Preturbation a cause Over-watching a cause Too much rest a cause Imagination a cause Sorrow a cause Anger a cause Fear a cause Cachochymia a cause which is an Excess in either Quality or Quantity of Natural or Preternatural Excrementitious Humours A bad Nurse a cause Natural and Preternatural Flegm a cause Cholar a cause Melancholly a cause Serum a cause which is a waterish thin Humour proceeding from the other Humours Sublata Causa Tollitur effectus I have met with some Opposition as to Supernatural Causes but whether there be or be not I shall not dispute it here however Christians ought to believe it from the Testimony of St. Luke Acts the 12. and the 23. And immediately the Angel of the Lord smote him because he gave not God the Glory and he was eaten of Worms and gave up the Ghost So Job complains That his Flesh was cloathed with Worms Job 7.5 And Cornelius Gemma gives us an Example of a Wench who was as if she had been possessed of the Devil and at some times would not be held by three Men such were her strong Convulsive Passions who Evacuated by Vomit Twenty Four Pounds of Stuff of all Colours twice a day for Fourteen days together and afterwards great Balls of Hair pieces of Wood Pidgeons Dung Parchment Coals c. and after all this two pound of pure Blood and then again Coals and Stones strange fits of Laughing Weeping and Extasies and at length voided a live Worm by Stool like unto an Eel of a Foot and a half long the which he says he not only saw but felt and this I suppose sprung from a Supernatural Cause which sometimes destroys Life and all as appears by that most remarkable Story in Verstegan and of the Pied Piper that carried away an Hundred and Sixty Children from the Town of Hamel in Saxony on the 22d of July Anno Dom. 1370. a Wonderful Permission of God to the Rage of the Devil Nicholaus Monardus speaks of a Worm that a Lady Evacuated above a Foot long with a double forked Tail Fallopius speaks of a Worm all over hairy black having two Heads It weighed Nine Ounces Dr. Edward May our Country-man hath written a Book of a very strange Worm whitish about a Span long and the thickness of a man's Finger having towards the Tail two Branches divided into divers Fibers or Strings of a fleshy Colour the Head bloody and in Shape like unto a Serpent or Snakes It was taken from the Heart of one John Pennant in St. Giles's The Four Figures of which is to be seen in the following Page Anguilla Pedalis Bifurcatus Helminthocardia Dodroncalis A Patient of mine 1687 who lived in Shoreditch a Woman above Sixty who had a continual Trembling about her Heart so that she could not rest Day nor Night and withal was strangely tempted to cut her Husband's Throat without any Reason for she protested she lov'd him intirely having been married many years during which Time he had always been very
VERMICULARS DESTROYED WITH AN Historical Account OF WORMS Collected from the best Authors As well Ancient as Modern AND EXPEâ—IMENTS â—â—OVED By that Admirable Invention of the Microscope WITH Directions for the taking those most Famous Medicines Entituled Pulvis Benedictus c. ALSO Diagnostick Signs of WORMS and Signs of Health in Children with the various Causes of Vermiculars By R. C. Chymist Living at the Golden Ball in Devonshire-Street near the Square without Bishopsgate 1690. London Printed by J. Wilkins for the Author TO THE READER I Doubt not but this small Treatise may be Acceptable to most not being built on Blind and Erronious Fallaces its whole matter generally tending to the Good of all Mankind as it hath been the Care of so many Worthy and Profound Authors to Record Yet I do presume it may be ill resented by some to whose apprehensions it may be Misterious and it is more trouble to Convince one unbelieving Ignoramous than a hundred Wise Men For Ignorance is not only Obstinate but proud of its Imperfection and under that Vmbrage grovels on the Earth like Froward Children who when they fall will neither rise themselves nor let others help them Therefore we shall let them remain Prisoners in their own state of Folly and desire you to Read when time will permit some spare Moments that you may see what strange and direful Enemies these Depopulating Virmiculars are not only to Human Bodies but all Sublunary things This is the Rock I would have you shun and the way to Destroy them or their Corrupt Gross Viscid Matter if not Generated is to do it before they are able to engage us and commence Distempers in us For as Health is the Fruition and Treasure of Life so Sickness is the Dreadful Herauld of Death And Diseases are like a Fire which the more it is kindled is the harder to be quenched and when they are above the reach of Cure Medicines are of no more Vse to us than Wings to a Bird that is caught by the Feet Therefore Extinguish these Fatal Principles of Diseases in time and stand not still a dull Spectator while Nature is worsted on unequal Terms Yours R. Clark Vermiculars DESTROYED WITH AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF WORMS I Shall begin this small Treatise in which I am Obliged to be as Brief as I can Nameing my Author William Ramesey Physitian in Ordinary to His Majesty Charles the Second and likewise his Author as he has done I shall mention It would be superfluous to spend any time on the Common WORMS by reason they are so well known tho' they are as Pernicious and Dangerous as the rest Their Names are Lati Ascarides Teretes Cucurbitini c. Rondeletius Writes of a Woman that Expelled a Worm Two Cubits in length like to the Worm called Scolopendra having no Eyes or other Part distinct the which he says by reason of its Rarity he dried and kept a long time Zacutus Lucitanius Tells us of a Patient of his who voided a Black Dead Worm of a pretty length and thickness with the Body all over Hairy a small Head and a forked Tail Benivenius Tells us of a Worm one Vomited with a Red Head and covered with Hair like a Caterpiller having Four Feet and a Tail like a Half-Moon Marcellus Donatus Mentions one that Vomited a Red Worm of the length of a Man's Hand having two Crooked Horns and a Hundred Feet it is called Centum Pedes Forestus Hath a Patient affected with a Black Worm in the shape of a Weezle his Cranium being opened and the Worm taken away which was on the Dura Mater he Recovered Reverius Writes of one that Evacuated many Black Worms of the bigness and length of a common or ordinary Needle horned and friable so that one might crumble them to Powder between ones Fingers Valesius de Taranta Says he saw some Worms that came from a Young Man in the form of Pine-seeds only bigger Also the same afore-quoted Forestus tells us of one from the Testimony of Henricus a Bray who Vomited a Worm like unto a Palmer Worm Widrus Writes of a Fellow that Voided a Worm Eight Foot long with a kind of a Horned Mouth not unlike the Bill of a Duck. Jabucinus Speaks of one that Expelled a Black Worm Five Foot long Hairy and of the thickness of a Reed Mortuas Records one molested with the Cholick to ject a green Four Footed Worm like to a Lizard Gesner tells us of one that Voided by Stool a Worm like to a Beetle Black long Feet and Horns Johannes Hebenstreit Tells of a white Worm with a sharp and Horny Nose found in a Person Forestus Speaks of a Wench who Vomited two Beetle-like Worms as long as Mans Finger with two Horns each of them on their Heads and tending to Reddish Colour Scolopendra Eruca Scaraseus Centumpedes Lacertus Qainque Pedalis Cornu rostrum Rostrum Anatis Octopedalis Cut by J. Gardiner But in this kind Examples are Infinite and the Brevity we design compells us to leave the Worthy Ramesey at present on whom hereafter I shall more enlarge and proceed to another Author who tells us that Worms are and may be generated of some Bigness and of several Shapes not only in the Bowels but every other part of the Body which all Authors of Note will not deny and that they frequently appear in Agues Fevers and all manner of Diseases by reason Humours are more Vitiated and a more Poisonous Putredinous Disposition or Corruption M.N. Med. Londinensis is introduced into Mens Bodies than was wont to be in former time He tells us in the Year 1662 a new sort of a Quartan Ague reigned about London and other parts which had in it all the Tokens of Malignity and from most that he himself had in Cure he brought away abundance of Worms and then they presently mended The like course he took with that continual Fever which raged in the Country 1661 and procured plentiful excresions of Worms out of the Bodies of Children to Persons of Seventy Years of Age and that Year he found Worms that made their own way into the World Worms that eat through the Bowels and Sides of People through the Bowels and Sides of the persons that bred them and this without Damage nothing but a little fresh Butter being used to the Orifice to make all whole again Further he tells us let the Disease be what it will he applied such Medicines as would carry off the Wormatick Matter if there should be no Worms to kill This he found tho' the Matter do not sometimes breed the Animal yet as long as the Wormatick Humour or Matter remains in being within the Body so long the Body Languisheth and sometimes will have all the Symptoms that attend Worms actually existent and no Cure of the main Disease with which 't is complicated will go forward till that Verminious Humour or Matter be Extinguished or Removed Hollerius Writes of a Man he Dissected
and found a multitude of Worms in his Liver which were the cause of his unknown Disease But we have Examples of Worms not only in the Principal parts of Mans Body as the Heart Liver Brain Lungs Reins Spleen Bladder Stomach c. But in these Channels of the Blood the Veins and Arteries but few do imagin that we carry about with us an Off-spring of Animals begotten out of our own Blood and Bowels The aforesaid Author saith he hath with his * An Instrument so made and fitted with Glasses at each end as the smallest thing will be presented by it in so considerable a bigness that the Frame and Composure of its parts may be discerned MICROSCOPE examined the Blood of Men Sick of Fevers which has satisfied him over and over of the Business for viewing the Blood an hour or two after opening of Veins I have saith he found it full of Worms that it made me almost Astonished so that we may with Job I said to Corruption thou art my Father and to the Worm thou art my Mother and my Sister Kircherus a Famous Man Living at Rome Writ a most Learned Piece in the Year 1658. The Subject of which was That there are a sort of invisible Worms or Vermiculars which were discovered in the last Plague at Naples and at Rome by the help of a Microscope And he saith these Worms are so fine that they insinuate themselves not only into Cloths Ropes and Linnen but into other Bodies less Porous as Cork Wood Bones yea into those which are least Porous and most Compact as Mettals Money c. This he in another place tells us They had daily experience in the Great Plague Time where no Money was Receiv'd in payment but was first well soaked and washed in Vinegar if it came from an Infected place Cardan saith The great Plague that fell out in his time at Millain which Unpeopled that City not only the Air being filled with them but the very Dust of the Earth Animated into such kind of Virmiculars Georgius Agricola Writes That in his time a great Plague came by Eating of Fruit so that the Eaters Died in few Days after which Fruit swarmed with multitudes of Indiscernable Worms which were no more than the Animated Corpuscles or Particles flowing from Contagious Carcases and fastning upon Trees and Plants being carried through the Air But these Indiscernable Vâ—â—niculars had been still hid from our Eyes had it not been for that Rare Invention of the Microscope We see that the Earth out of I know not what Putredinous Matter in its own Bowels doth produce not only Insects of all sorts but also various Monsters of Venemous Creatures as Serpents Toads Dragons in Dens and Caves of Mountains which have their Original from Moisture and a various mixture of Virulent Drags and Slime and the like are produced out of Ponds Lakes and Marshes by the Heat of the Ambient Air working upon a Conflux of the Terrestial Parts Yea Water it Self kept in a close Vessel and exposed to the Sun is quickly animated into Worms as is seen by daily Experience both in Voyages at Sea and within the Walls of our own private Houses At Beverly in Yorkshire on the 28th of August 1660. there was seen in the Maketplace and other places innumerable company of young Frogs and Toads the people not knowing from whence they came but are supposed to come out of the Air in the night by reason the tops of their Houses were covered with them Prodigies pag. 41. Moreover Water Elevated by Vapour Air Hail Snow are full of Worms Pliny saith so of Snow in his Book de Divinis Nat. Charact. And Cornelius Gemma of Hail In Lib. de Arte Metallica As much is said of Air by Georgious Agricola and the sudden Generation of Worms Frogs and Insects which have come down with Rain upon the Earth doth confirm it There is also scarce a Stick or Fruit or any other mixt Body which doth not produce some Animal which disposeth that to Destruction which Begat it according to that of Lecretius Obnoxia Cuncta putrori Corpora putrores Insecta Animata sequuntur And that the Reader may more fully behold the admirable Power of Nature what hath hitherto been said may be manifested by Irrefragable Experiments as followeth Experiment I. TAke a piece of Flesh and expose it by Night to the moisture of the Moon till early the next morning then view it diligently with a Microscope and you shall find that all the Putrefaction contracted by the Moon is degenerated into innumerable Vermiculars differing in bigness but when you remove the Microscâ—pe you cannot discern any by the Eye alone unless perhaps some few be among them that are grown to a sensible magnitude You may try the same in Cheese Milk Vinegar and the like Bodies abounding with Putrefaction yet think not 't is to be done by any slight Microscope but one made by a Skilful Hand Experience II. IF you take a Serpent cut into small pieces and putting it into Rain-water expose it for some Days to the Sun then Bury it in the Earth for the space of a Day and a Night and afterward taking out the Parts grown flaccid with Putrefaction and examine them with a Microscope you will see all that 's putrified swarming with little springing Serpents which Experiment may be performed in all kind of Serpents and sometimes in dead Putrified Serpents you will find some of them discernable by the Eye alone The Putrifaction of Serpents will not produce Worms as other dead flesh doth unless they be kill'd by Lightning that purges 'em of their poyson and their corrupt flesh will be animated into Worms of strange and various shapes Experience III. MAtthiolus Euchsius and many other Herbalists declare That Sage unwasht is very hurtful to such as Eat it But I have discovered the Cause examining more curiously the Constitution of this Plant by the help of a Microscope at length I observed in those Leaves which were more rough than the rest that their whole Superficies was covered with somewhat like a Spider's Web within which appeared Animals exceeding small and which were perpetually at work therein and certain round things as it were Eggs were spread upon the Superficies which as it is doubtless a certain Breed or Spawn of that sort of petit Animals so by their Virulent Humour they may do a Man a deal of mischief but wipe a Leaf with your Finger or wash it and they will Disappear From whence I collect the true Cause of the Pernicious Quality of Sage that is not washed Experiment IV. IF with the Microscope you examine the Powder of any Rotten Wood you will find a prodigious number of Vermiculars some armed with Horns some set out as it were with Wings and others not unlike those Worms that have many Feet their Eyes also you may discern like black Points and that they have a long Snout so that it appears