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
A SHORT TREATISE OF Metal Mineral WATERS VIZ. Those of the Spaw Bathe Epsom North-hall Barnet Tunbridge and the New-Wells at Islington WHEREIN Is described their bad as well as good Qualities with the danger of Peoples too frequent and unadvisedly Drinking them Mirabilis in aquis Dominus By E.P. M.D. LONDON Printed by T. B. for Randolph Taylor near Stationers-hall 1684. To the Reader Reader I Am not ignorant that the use of Metal and Mineral Waters are often prescribed by Physitians against many Diseases as Palsies Tremblings Ulcers of the Stomach Reins Bladder and Womb Tenesmus deprav'd Months Abortion c. and though I know Sacred Writ says Mirabilis est in aquis Dominus because of wonderful and almost divine virtues given them by the Almighty Physitian for the cure of many rebellious and contumacious Diseases and that as Vitruvius says ther 's seen no more miracles of nature than in Waters yet I would first advise all diseased Persons that they would not be too hasty and run hand over head as they say to drink those Waters because it may be some of their neighbours c. told them they found benefit by them without consulting the Physitian whether they may be proper for them forgetting the old saying One man's Meat may be another's Poyson Next I would have the young Physitian chiefly be prudent and cautious in prescribing them and not as too often to send their Patients after they have put them to great cost and wearied them with multitudes of Medicines to the Wells as their last refuge without considering the nature of the Waters or the Sick and not to send the intemperate and full of foul humours or that have hot entrals or that abound with stinking sharp malignant rebellious dregs and who are full of obstructions the notorious Parent of most Diseases which are scarcely ever to be remov'd For thâ—se Waters are all of hot and dry qualities some more then others as proceeding from hot and poisonous Minerals as you will see in this Book so that 't is impossible but there must remain an Empyreuma or collection of filthy matter which in an intemperate and dispos'd body will beget a new kind of Disease and augment the hot disposition of the Stomach Liver and other Entrals ordain'd for nourishment if there were any and this from Hipp. de aere aquis locis text 13. Aristot lib. 2 Meteor c. 3. Galen l. 1. c. 6. de simple facult They may work miracles in some Diseases but rara non sunt artis and that will not warrant a dogmatical Physitian instituted in the sound safe and Orthod x doctrine of Hipp. and Gal. promiscuously and immethodically to prescribe them almost to all People and Diseases as your Diobolory I had almost said Diabolary Empirics and wretches in Town do their Family Pills their Friendly and Popular Pills Then as for Ulcers of the Stomach I cannot but think them improper being too hot as proceeding from Nitre Sulphur Vitriol the last of which is altogether of a contrary nature to Man as being of a poysonous quality as for Gold Iron c. the Learned Fallopius who understood the nature of Waters certainly as well as any man believes they impart not any of their quality to the Water The same may be said of Ulcers of the Reins and Blader which for the most part will admit of no cure by reason of continual afflux of sharp watrish humours whereby their detersion and desiccation is hindred so for Vlcers in the Womb and preventing Abortion these Waters are not of so drying force to work such effects So that I cannot in reason see how these Waters should be so proper for so many Diseases for which they are extoll'd for they are all famous for their potential as they call it and hidden heat in an eminent degree whereby they destroy the native oeconomy and temper of the Entrals and imprint in them an extraneous heat and so cause Dropsies as Hipp. noted in a peculiar Example of his and a 1000 other dire diseases which prove incurable and hasten death Certain it is some Physitians for private filthy lucre promote the Waters and even discover new ones And though many out of a good intent in Books extol them yet let none precipitate themselves into danger of another and perhaps worse disease but advise with the Learned Physitian TO His ever Honoured Friend The LADY VERE BEAVMONT OF Grace-dieu in Com. Leic. Madam PRay be pleas'd to accept of this small Present but not as any the least requital I beseech you for the almost innumerable favours you have been pleas'd from time to time to conferr upon me since I fear it can scarcely be call'd an Acknowlegment In short Madam this short Treatise is intended for public benefit in general but if it may in the least measure be serviceable or conducible towards the Preserving of your Ladiships Health in particular I have attain'd my Aim and in an happy hour may then subscribe my self Madam Your ever oblig'd Servant E. Prat. OF THE NATURE OF Medicinal Waters CHAP. I. Of the Matter Origine of Fountains in General AND here I shall be brief intending not a speculative Philosophical but a Medico-practical Discourse for information and instructiof the unlearn'd and not for Learned Philosophers and Physitians Now 't is clearly my Opinion with the Divine Plato Aristotle's Master and before him Thales Milesius as also Philo lib. de mundi opificio the great Seneca l. 3. c. 1. quest natural and others that the Original of Fountains is from the Sea from whence through Sinuosities Veins and Meanders of the Earth water is carried to certain places where it breaks forth and continually flows it may very probably be conjectur'd they had this from the greatest of Philosophers Salomon who in Eccles 1.7 says all Rivers run into the Sea and it overflows not unto the place from whence they came thither they flow again and indeed scaree can there be assign'd any other reason why the Sea doth not redound by such a dayly concourse and afflux of Rivers unless because the Rivers do again flow out of the Sea and return and pay only so much to the Sea as they borrowed therefrom Although the Evaporation and Extraction of watry Clouds by the Attractive force of the Sun is no small help and other material helping causes are Rains and Snows which augment though they do not generate the Rivers for these help being withdrawn heat of the Sun approaching they become Rarefied and the neighbour parts of the dry'd Earth drink them off Whence Kings 17.7 the River Careth is said to wax dry by reason of the Sun 's too great heat But we have one Cardanus impiously and Atheistically disputing against Salomon subtil c. 2. de Elementis whom we shall endeavour to satisfactorily answer and enervate though God Almighty's Power and Wisdom might be oppos'd as answer enough and Sacred Scripture ought to be of more Authority than all
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