well as the preparation of Medicines which knowledge doth help an Artist first in choice of Medicines and secondly in the administration of the same which is more then the word Chy mistry doth include Yea whatever it is that makes to the Art of healing diseases is properly Medicinal yea though it be miraculous yet it is the gist of healing or medicine or infernal and superstitious it is a Satanical imposture in medicine both which I exclude from the Art of Medicine the one as being above Art the other as besides Art But that I refer to this Art which by a natural couse doth perform cures whether by Talismans or by Sympathetical remedies or by proper Medicaments either specifical or universal whether simply used as Nature by the Art of the Physician and that either Chymistry doth also comprehend the most absolute and perfect Medicaments besides which nothing can be defired for any disease or defect either inward or outward except those accidents which necessarily require the work of the hand as Fractures and Dislocations and pulling out of any thing violently thrust into the body of what kinde soever it be So then we need not any Medicaments which Chymistry doth not supply yet the Art requiring the administration as well as the preparetion of the noblest Medicaments it followes that Chymistry is too narrow a Genus to comprehend the whole of Medicine which Art doth being equally referred to theory and Practick And yet Chymistry is larger then to betotaliy comprehended by the Art of Medicine for by it are prepared Diapasmes which are in a sort medicinal and sundry curiosities some not at all referring to medicine as the making of Jemmes malleable glasse c. others are referred to Medicine and alse transcend it as the Elixir of the wise the white respecting only riches the red both riches and health Yea and this supreme Medicine Both transcend the bare Art of reftoring defects of nature in as much as it doth lengthen life wonderfully although I know few do believe it So then the Art of Medicine contains these branches first the knowledge of disenses and secondly the way of their cure And this also contains two parts first the choice and preparation of Mediqines and secondly their administration their administration includes a true knowledge of their virtue and so a proporitionable and convenient application of them in reference to the cause of the disease and the state of the Patient And this is universally to be noted that the more languid the medicines themselves are the greater sagacity is required in the Theorical part and care joyned with dexterity in the practick I know that according to the received Doctrine of the Schools I sholuld now unfold many very unprositable questions but intending the reality of things and not respecting the empty bubbles of Aerical notions I shall not meddle with them I mean questions in reference to the desinition and division and subdivision of this Art To proceed then to what I intend I said that Medicine is the Art of knowing curing and restoring all diseases and defects to which mankinde is subject to in reference to the body as Theosophy doth the same in reference to the soul so that next to it this Art hath the first place I express knowing curing and restoring not without cause as i shall by and by explain Knowing I say because without the knowledge of diseases a man may be a Mountebank but not a Physician which knowledge of diseases is as it were his line and plumment by which he works By this he judges the facility or improbability of the cure for though no disease in its kinde yet many particular diseases are incurable as in my Preface I touched and explained nor shall I here repeat There also I did clearly discover what knowledge was absolute and what accidental to a Physician the one constituting the other adorning him the one to be required the other to be desired in him I shall also passe that as already spoken fully to Curing is as much as to say taking care of and imploying diligence about them nor any diligence is not enough or any care promiscuously for the nurse and cook c. docarefully attend the sick party but by cure or care which is all one being but the English of the Latine word Cura of the Physician is that which is intended to the recovery of the Patient and that with as much speed and sasety as may be I add restorng as the grand mark of a real and true son of Art it is his diploma by which he appears to be one created of God and not by the Schools for their creatures they adorn with titles God graceth his with real abilities His knowledge is not such as he sucks from the Schools but such as is applicable to action the other being but empty shadowes of which in its place His cure and care is not consisting only in reiterated Visits seeling of Pulses and tossing of urines Stirring of Close-stooles and appointing Purges Vomits Bleeding Fontinels Blisters Scarisications Leeches and such enseebling Martyrdoms nor prescribing Syrups distilled Waters of green Herbs Lozenges Electuaries and such fooleries and what is more sordid he doth not oversee the Kitchin to make this Gelly or that Broth or this Glyster or the like but like a valiant Achilles or Hercules he assayles the Disease with powerful and prevailing Medicines and for the o precise provided alwaies meat be not taken immoderately of any sort and stomack which is of easiest concoction but of this by the way we shall insist larger on it in its place He doth not cowardly sum up a Catalogue of incurable diseases so that as the ignorant Academians of old had their Gracum est nec potest legi so the School Doctors have a very large roll of maladies over which they only put this inscription Incurabiliasunt and so leave them with a sad recommendation to God But as the valiant Hercules sought against Giants and Monsters and ovencame them so a true Son of Art makes it appear that all diseases are in their kinde curable And now may Reverend Doctors who perhaps some of you have read Galen at least curforily and some have read Hippocrates but never understood him some have turned over Fernelius Sennertus Avicen and others both ancient and modern writers to you I speak The Art that you think your selves masters of so that you would perswade your selves to be the very natural Sons of Asculapius what is your Art let us weight it in the ballance let us consider it and compare it with this Art which we commend and admire and I dobut not but as a shadow before the Sun so your appearing Art before true Art will pass away Can you cure the Gout some perhaps haps of you will finde impudence enough to affirm it to whom I shall only object Fiat experimentuam The people deny it according to the Adagy Neseit nodosam medicus curare
Dimidium facti qui bene coepit habet He who hath well begun hath half done And remembring that in Theory there were but two parts namely An sit quomodo sit That a thing may be done and how Also that the first-could not be irrefragably proved without some knowledge at least in the latter I collected upon this confidence out of Physick and Logical Authors what Arguments I could touching the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of this subject whereof I conceived that I fully understood the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For alas I thought that the Logical heads of invention especially according to Ramus would not sail to unfold to me this whole mysterie Hereupon concluding what I had proved that the thing was fecible I wrote a Congest of methodical Arguments which might unfold how and here I found my self in a wilde labyrinth for I was soon by these studies brought to see the rottennesse both of Logick and Philosophy and found that he who sought truth of things there might soon lose himself This put me upon desire of a more secure path for now I apprehended before years and titles had engaged me that besides what I knew in Tongues my skill in Logick and Philosophy was not worth contemning yea nothing was in mine eyes more vile I therefore rejected Aristotle and all his fictions against whose fallacious shew I wrote with a pen dipt in salt and vinegar yet without gall a Treatise called Organum novum Philosophiae but before I could pitch on what way to turn for knowledge I desired too too immoderately I wandred through many pensive hours and waking nights till at length I got som Chymical Authors Those then I perused and noted with much diligence not so much out of desire to rifle their Hesperian Garden as to suck out of their principles some solid truth for truth I knew was uniform Wherefore as many experiments as I could try I tryed and took nothing upon any mans trust so as to build any thing on it or to draw any conclusion from it I invented many sorts of Furnaces procured what Glasses were possible with all manner of Simples Mineral and Metalline especially which I most esteemed in these I spent my time for several years and I may say without boasting that if ever any in the world were an insatigable prosecutor of experiments I was one In the mean time the Lord was pleased so far to be propitious unto my labours studies and many watchings that he let me see so much of truth as to make it lovely to me for which cause next to the glory of God I shall prosecute the same during my life Nor was this an imaginary content only but real for there is so great variety of objects in Nature which are exceedingly delightful to be understood that the discovery of any of them which is usually the crown of serious searches is more content then finding of sought treasure can be to him who in hopes of it digs the earth And although the wise man by an unerring Spirit hath laid all these things under vanity so that in much knowledge there is much vexation of spirit yet withall the Scripture teacheth us that the works of God are wonderful sought out by all that have delight in them yea and if a mans heart be not exceedingly out of frame a man connot behold the excellencies of the Creature without a contemplation of the super-transcendent glory power and wisdom of the Creator of which all things visible are but Emblems Yet do I not deny but that the spirit may be carried forth with too much eagerness after things of this nature which I have often suspected to be mine own fault but this is the fault of us that so immoderately affect outside as to negnect the inward glory and so much admire the apparent glory of things visible as not enough to adore him who dwelleth in light inaccessible of whose beauty these are but sparks There is then on unspeakable benefit may arise to a painful enquirer after the mysteries of Nature in reference to the spiritualizing of the affections since as civero said of Virtue that if it were to be seen with eyes corporal it would enamoâ—â— the beholders it may most prioperly be applyed to this case For who is he who when he beholds Gods wonderful wisdom power goodness c. which all are most obvious in the study of Nature which is one of the Books in which the Almighty is discovered that will not cry out with Job I have heard of thee by the ear but now mine eye soeth thee and with David O Lord how wonderful are thy works the fool conceiveth them not nor the unwise understandeth them c. But considering that God hath endowed us with a Body in which our Soul which is the Divine Image is caged as it were by means of which we have our place here among natural things And forasmuch as our life is laid under vanity of which our diseases to which our body is subject which are to us the Heralds of death is no small pirt Also since man being by the Creators ordaining made Lord of the other Creatures and these are made to serve him insomuch that there is force concrete which hath not its immediate use applicable to man either for this necessity or conveniency And therefore all things are given into his hand that of them he may take for meat and drink what nature craveth for raiment what necessity and modesty and decency call for and likewise for the repairing the defects of decayed nature what is needfull therein God like a tender Father having provided for man in every respect and on every occasion I think it a great sottishness in them who cannot see both the nobleness and usefulness that the contemplation of Gods works carrieth with it insomuch that he who shall neglect it doth neglect in mine opinion a great part of the task for which he came into the world and is not to be pityed if he fall short of the comfort content or benefit that he might reap in the knowledge of the same Now that all creatures have in them a spiritual Celestial virtue I suppose there is none moderately versed in Philosophy that will deny and we shall in its place sufficiently discover which in concerete Bodies is more hidden most of all in such which are of the most exquisite composition This Celestial Spirit is that which is the life excellency and perfection of all things in which it is and though it have received in all specificated subjects a determination or bounding of its virtue yet the Spirit it self is free to operate upon other subjects and its operations are received permodum recipientis Now here is the grand fault or defect of those whose office it is more peculiarly to enquire into these things that they supinely neglect the search of the hiddent spirit which is in all things by so much the more straightly sealed by how
Therefore justly saith the wise man that in much knowledge is much vanity and vexation of spirit but this only as a digression To return therefore we conclude that to a true Physician is required to know if a disease be probably curable and if so then how as for instance the plague-tokens appearing are rightly judged mortal and so may any such state be reputed in which nature will admit of no remedy nor death accept of any truce The careful observer of these things will by experience learn to distinguish between dangerous and desperate cases and so may order himself accordingly but in impossible cases he shall not meddle CHAP. IV. ANd here me thinks I see a Galenist beginning to frame a reply who after a few course complements doth thus out of his wonted gravity seek to defend his own faction Do not we quoth he the like in effect for we by our Art distinguish between easie dangerous and desperate diseases which we therefore undertake or leave accordingly For if there be only a light distemper as foulness of the stomack or bad humours clogging or obstructing the liver or the like we then by an usual purge or vomit and by bloudletting and glysters remove the same but if the distemper be more violent then by our Method we help that for that is our mystery which the prating Chymists not knowing cannot therefore do that by their medicines which we can by our method which is the master-piece of our Art for we are like to skilful workmen amid a number of tools we know our work and so can as cause presents and as Symptomes do move call in for this or that medicine and as occasion requires we can use external artificial helps when Nature is not in fit case to be provoked by a violent process This is the good old way and it is the safe way But these furnace-mongers would perswade the world that by medicines prepared by their Art diseases may be cut down as it were with a sithe which for all their boasting will not be These with several other things are pretended by them to conceal their ignorance in so blinde progresses But as it is an easie thing to lie hid in the dark the mantle of the night hiding that which the Sun discovers it will not be amiss to proceed to the true course of curing diseases and by it our adversaries will be easily quelled Besilius and Suchten both noble and worthy Artists advise as many as have given their name to Art to be doing and not to contend in bare words for it is as impossible to convince the Galenists with words without works as it was for Christ his Apostles to have convinced the Jewes by preaching without miracles therefore I shall first give you the Character of a true Physician and secondly shew you what his work is A true Physician is he whom God hath qualified with a longing desire to know nature in her operations her integrity and defects and how they may be amended For the attainment of which he doth ask seek and knock with diligence patience and constancy till it be given and opened unto him his heart is not set upon gain but out of charity to the distressed he doth persist in this pursuit of knowledge and the merciful God hears him and gives him what he seeks for then having received his talent he doth not bury it in a napkin but doth improve it untill with it he gain two and with them five and with them ten talents He knowes that diseases are all in their kinde curable without exception death only being out of the power of any man or means the definitive sentence being past irrevocable He laments the sad Catalogues of poor mortals the distresse members of Christ Jesus who flying from the Lion of sickness meet with a Bear in stead of a true Physician who in stead of bread gives them a stone and in stead of fish a serpent and yet these are the fathers of the sick so pretended to be but like old Saturn they devour and make a prey of their children He also that is a true Physician doth not seek fame and honour so much as the good of those he undertakes nor doth he startle at the sad catalogue of incurable diseases which the School Doctors have most shamefully compiled which he by his Medieines is able to overcome as the vlaiant champion is reported to have conquered the dovouring Monster His work is not to spend his time in turning over of leaves but he makes use of Authors so as not to conclude any thing upon bare reading without trial In a word he so behaves himself as if his great contest proposed were whether to be more assiduous in discovering nature or sedulous in conquering diseases of which the latter is the main end he aims at in the former Now I shall briefly discover the objections made by Galenists against this way of medicine and shall so fully answer them that there shall be no scruple left First of all they accuse Chymical Medicines as virulent too hot and therefore unsit to be given as oft in ftead of curing encreasing the disease they are say they a little too strong for our constirution being for the most part mineral and metalline or elese they are faline which are very sharp and corrosive or of a fiery sulphurous nature which therefore in stead of cooling and refreshing do inflame the body inwardly therefore say the such medicines are dangerous and desperate which if they were not they would as they make their patients believe use them themselves In such discourses you shall have them run at random and their aim in all is to make the sick believe that their medicameable to nature the other forcible violent and desperate which no man but a mad man would take This is to speak the truth the only main objection which Galenists usually produce against Chymical medicines and this they varnish over with many specious colours to make the patient believe that to meddle with a Chymical medicament is no other then to cast out the Devil by Delzebub or according to the old proveth to cure a desperate disease by a desperate medicine Therefore I shall briefly yet fully answer this cavil and so answer it that it may appear to the eye of any judicious man to be but a meer Morino which the Galenists have invented to scare the rude and ignorant with as nurses use to affright children with tales of Robin Good-fellow Raw head and bloudy bones and the like And first as to the point of irulency which is a very great Bugbear and enough to deterthe most confident Patient if once you can perswade him the remedies he is to take to be of an exquisite virulency for so a very smal error in the dose will hazard the life in stead of conquering the distemper Poyson I grant is a dangerous nay a desperate thing to deal with nor is it good to
sublimation of Arsenick though it become more corrosive yet is it not more venomous but indeed lesse for though it kill with a lesse dose yet not with that drought and swelling as it doth crude which frequent sublimation will make more evident But as I said such operations are empirical but not truly Chymical which I shal therefore to avoid all misunderstanding define Chymistry is the Art of preparing Simples Animal Vegetal and Mineral so as their crasis or virtue being sequestred from its superfluities and its virulency overcome its crudities digested it may be an apt medicine to perform what God and nature hath granted to it and this in reference to the healing of the infirmities of man or beast or metals I adde this clause of metals because I know tha it is much opposed by many beleeved by few but understood most rarely so that I may say of this that those only are heirs of this science Quos meliore luto confinxit Jupiter c. The prosecution of this definition will clearly illustrate the three forementioned Rules and dissolve all the arguments and cavils of our envious adversaries I shall therefore conclude this Proeme or Introduction herewith intending the full discovery of our cause in our following discourse which shall be done so plainly and clearly thâ—â— I hope all cause of reproach shall for time to come be cut off from the envious who like Momus what they cannot imitate they will not fail to calumniate from whose obloquie we shall clear this Art and make it appear to be of all humane Arts the most noble and desirable and to mankinde most profitable Natures Explication AND Helmont's Vindication CHAP. I. That all Diseases are in their kinde curable WEE have in our Preface touched in general the difference between a true Son of Art and a School Doctor which so long as we infinited in generals could not so well be pondered nor the difference weighed for In particularibus demonstratur generalis Enuntiati veritas Now we come to the thing in particular and by it let the cause be judge as by the other it was stated Our work at present is to explain Nature by which we shall easily discover which are the true witnesses of Nature and which false the one is a true Artist the other a Putationer For every Artist is to be judged by his work which the way of judging all profession for whatever is meerly notional I account but a vain Chymera unworthy for a serious man to busie his time in learning lest he embrace a cloud in stead of Juno And this is the misery of our School and Academies that the one teach barely words the other bare notions which indeed are nothing and in application prove but empty shadowes for he that seeks to apply them to practise beyond vain disputations can proceed no farther But of this in my Organum Philosophiae I have largely ventilated to which I refer the Reader It is a noble saying of Cicero Virtutis omnis laus in actione consistit Away with all those foolish though specious curiosities by which a man is never the nearer any useful practical verity The pratical end of Theosophy is living to God of Geometry Archirecture Gunnery c. of Arithmetick summing up of sums c. of Philosophy Agriculture and all Mechanicks for the use of Mankinde as to the conveniency of life and Medicine which is the last and noblest of all earthly Arts the Physitian being as I may say a second parent to a sick man giving him under God his life sometimes and sometimes easing him of such griefs which though not mortal or not speedily yet make the life uncomfortable The nobleness of this Art may hene appear for that all other things inasmuch as they only serve conveniency yet this Art is of necessity Though Agriculture be a noble Art so priezed by the Ancients that the inventors of each part of it were celebrated with divine honors yet without any Agriculture the Indians live as long as contented and as healthy as any that abound with the variety of those rarities which that Art produceth and multiplieth So Policy Grammar Rhetorick c. they do adorn not constiture mankinde they keep them in a civil decorum but not in their being for where this is wanting they live and take a great deal of pleasure from what nature without Art affords not grieved for the want of what they know not Nay rather they delight in their Barbarousness and prefer it to the affluence of all things and order which civilized people enjoy I shall not need to insist in comparing all kinds of Arts and Sciences with this of Medicine which any man may do at his leisure since it is plain that skin for skin oft times a man will give for his life No Nation no People no Countrey without diseases and casualties this being part of the curse and as man at last is to return to earth whence he was taken so he never wants the Harbingers of death sometime one sometimes another sicknesse or casualty warning him of his mortality So that the most savage nations are enforced to use this Art and where-ever it is more lamely taught and learned the more is their misfortune for no nation or people in which many do not often want the most absolute helps of Nature for want of which they oft have recourse to the Devil to heal them of more difficult diseases which makes Wizards and Sorcerers in great price among the barbarous people and so much the more by how much the Art of Medicine is less known How great honour did the ancient Grecians and Phoenicians to Aesculapius and his sons so that they after did account them as gods and all on the account of their dexterous science and skill in this Art But lest I should seem to insist too long on things not to the purpose I shall come to the matter And first to speak of Medicine what it is in general and then to descend a little more particularly into the enquiry of it Medicine is an Art by which all the defects and diseases to which mans nature is subject are so known as to be cured and restored It is I say an Art of knowing curing and restoring all those defects which are accidental to man Not that I do exclude other Animals but because man is the proper subject of this Art I do name him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or for dignity sake It includes a branch of the Art of Chymistry which being of a larger extent I do not yet define it by it as its genus because that Medicine is also employed about Simples many of which are used without preparation and many are prepared with preparations not properly Chymical yet the noblest of all Medicines flow from this fountain I therefore define it by the genus of Art and that properly for Art contains both Theory and Practick and the knowledge of diseases is required to their cure as
Esula Euphorbium Ialapium Bryony Asarum Aaron Hellebore and such like as Cambogia c. were not absolute Poysons O but they are tempered by the Art of the skilful Doctor Good words cost no money I wish it prove so But I pray Mr. Doctor if it be so what means the bleating of the sheep I mean what is the reason your Medicements retain their vomiting quality with convulsions of the stomack which have Hellebore mixed and their purging quality with gripings and such symptomes that have Scammony mixed thus you use to correct poysons thus you intend to cure diseases Minervain crassissimam But as a Jugler when his feats are discovered so you by this means become ridiculous you know the serious check the Frog in Aesop received who as you do would pretend to be a Doctor Our tibi ipsi labra livida non curas Coughs Colds Murres Hoarsenesses Head-aches Tooth-aches and the like nay oft-times the simple Itch and Scab doth reproach you at home and outdare you abroad and what is your excuse they are trivial cases By which it appears that if other diseases should become as common as these they would all be too mean for the Doctors reverence and good reason because they are above his abilities Though you name Mountebanks with contempt yet you differ from them obiefly herein They pretend skill in notorious diseases obiefly there where they are least or not at all known You in a place where you are most known are most desirous to deal in hidden unknown maladies How often shall a man finde the Doctors worship himself tormented and at his wits end with the Tooth-ach or Head-ach muffled up for a Hoarsness often coughing at every breath to whom if you object the common Proverb Physician heal thy self he will thank you heartily as much as if he did but he knowes he cannot do it but it must wear away he will take perhaps some old wives Medicine and what is the cause If another come to him for the same grief he is straight at his rules of Art the Cough saith he is caused by a Catharr and therefore first you must purge and then make an isfue and use Conserves of Fox-lungs and such like remedies why doth he not use these tricks himself this is the reason he knows it is a folly for these remedies are invalid yet be it as it will he that hath money shall have his counsel which he will not take himself because he wants some body to pay him for it and other good he expects none but the Patients confidence he hopes will help out the insufficiency of the Medicament which therefore he will confidently prescribe and count this his Counsel worth a Fee to another which to himself would not be worth taking Well be it so that according to the Proverb Aquila non capit muscas the Doctor is above these petty imployments which are too vulgar which might be the better beleeved if he were free from them himself yet I then desire to be enformed what they say to the forementioned Gout is not that a disease worthy their care and cure Yes without doubt for it is a disease that often followes great men and Heroes whom it so affects that he should not be unrewarded and that highly that could perform that here the Doctor hath proved his skill and method ad nauseam and at last he concludes it to be incurable Perhaps upon some disorder of the body by sudden heat and cold there may be caused a running and very sharp pain which as I said before is accidental and therefore transient the Doctor is advised and consulted with he adviseth fomentations unguents plaisters scar-cloths and scarifications then he purgeth the body once or again as the fansie takes him perhaps he will cause blisters to be drawn and after them cause issues to be made then he prescribes a Dietory and perhaps causeth him to sweat the pain goeth away sometimes he useth bathing of the part in hot Bathes either wet or dry then the Doctor strokes his beard and perswades himself he hath cured the running Gout Nesaevi magne sacerdos Oft times a good old woman sweating a party so taken soundly with Carduus Camomile-flowers batching the place affected with Brany Wine warm hath performed the like Amplaspolia This O this is the Doctors Method this is the Art they so magnifie in respect of which a Chymical Physician in contempt is by them termed an emperick and a Mountebank and what not We have seen their mystery in common maladies which are too vulgar for them a gallant excuse and in moe difficult cases in which being convinced by daily experience and opportunity of being more fully convinece still presenting it self hath extorted a confession of their impotency herein yet palliated with a shameless falshood that such discases are incurable which censure they give on a multitude of other diseases as the Phthisick Consumption Strangury Palsie Epilepsie and many others which it would be tedious to relate and hame But a true Physician acknowledges none of those shameful distinctions of trivial and considerable diseases nor that false distinction of curable and incurable but by his Art with Gods blessing he is able to cure and restore to their integrity all distempers of what kind soever which I shall briefly yet fully clear up and demonstrate This task may seem to some very difficult especially to a Pisse-Prophet who I suppose are very desirous to hear it demonstrated I doubt not but many of the Goosquill Tribe hope the contrary having this confidence that what ever is beyond their capacity is beyond possibility whom therefore I shall principally assail in this demonstration If any of you desire to know how I prove all disdases to be curable who am so consident to affirm it I shall aske you how you prove any diseases to be incurable which you so confidently affirm to be so I know that what ever you will answer though by much circumlocution it will all tend to this because you never could certainly cure such diseses there fore you so judge them In very truth Gentlemen if you from negative experience are so bold to collect a positive Maxim and confidently pronounce that incurable which you cannot cure I hope you will give the like liberty to a Son of Art to affirm those diseases to be curable which he hath oft and certainly restored Worth derision was that of an Ideot who being asked how many even and seven was he counted it on his fingers and could tell the number being asked how many four times seven was his finger Arithmetick failing he could not tell but being asked how many seven times seven was he said No man could tell he thought some men might possibly count up 4 times 7 but 7 times 7 God only knew So you some diseases you think you can cure others though you cannot yet some more experienced in your Art can but the knotted Gout Stone Strangury Epilepsie
he takes himself excused for he proceeded according to the Rules of Art if he recover as God in mercy doth recover many though far less then otherwise through the Doctors help then he reckons this for a cure and prides himself herein whose folly we shall discover fully to the Impartial Reader 'T is a shameful excuse that Doctors usually make when many die under their hands that they proceed according to the Rules of Art if this Art be worse then the Art of a Tinker or a Cobler For let any of these be called to do any job of work that is in their Trade they will tell you straight if or no it be to be done and undertaking will perform it only the Doctor if called to a sick patient will in lieu of a large Fee tell you what the disease is as least what comes into his minde at the time which he thinks will satisfie an ignorant patient and what is this The sick man needs a Physician not a witness of his misery Well aske him concerning the cure he will tell you that he can promise nothing for the blessing is only in Gods hand but he will do his endevour A religious Answer and as he will garnish it to the vulgar specious but it is is but a visard to hide a grievous imposture For as our life so all our actions are in the hand of God 't is he that buildeth the house else in vain is the work of the workman the husband-mans breaking up his ground fowing his seed and managing his ground even this saith the Prophet is of the Lord He teacheth him and helpeth him else he could do nothing So in God we live move and have our being and when we speak of ordinary natural things to be so cautious in speaking as not to promise any thing without mentioning God is not discommendable bur rhw contrary yet as it may be use or rather misused this may seem not only ridiculous but in a manner an affected taking Gods name in vain as for instance if a man being desired to make a garment should promise not absolutely but with proviso if God permit and give life it is Christian-like but if he desire Gods blessing as to the effect the causes being granted that is ridiculous as if he should say I cannot promise to make you a garment but I wil use all the skill I have and my endevours but it is in Gods hand whether it shall become a garment or no. So of a servant should be bidden to kindle a fire should say he could not promise to do that but he would do his endevour but Gods blessing must give the success how ridiculous were this but much more if for fuel he should take stones and for fire something of a different nature and excuse himself as having done what was on his part but Gods blessing not concurring the effect did not succeed according to desire Not unlike is it in this case a Doctor is called to a Patient taken with a Feaver and first orders him to be let bloud then purged either upward or downward or both waies the disease yet encreasing he gives his cooling Julips pectoral Electualries Conserves and Syrups withall he prescribes Clysters or Suppositers Lotions for the mouth and such fooleries if notwithstanding the disease continue and grow more violent he then expects the crisis of Nature only he will perhaps apply pigeons or the like to the feet or vesicate the external members for revulsion sake and yet if the Patient die he holds himself excused as having followed the rules of Art and done what was to be done only the success as he said being in Gods hand he therefore could not help it if God did not see good to make the medicines applyed effectual for the mans recovery But as it is a sad thing that the grace of God pretended should be used as a pander unto wantonness so it is no less hateful that the providence of God should be misapplied as a cover-slut of idleness ignorance and unconscionableness for who knowes not that our life is so in Gods hand as it is ordinarily preserved ro lost by the use or want of things proper thereto even hunger if self would be certainly mortal if not appeased by meat appropriated thereto by the appointment of God And if stones were used for food no man would doubt to impute death in that case to the want of food as the immediate cause subordinate to the providence of God so is it in this case And in truth God can but rarely doth work miracles a man rarely is sarved to death amidst variety of victuals nor pined for thirst where drink is plenty much lest where he both may and doth eat and drink at pleasure So then as to the starving of a man is required want of meat drink or either of them so to the perishing of a man under a Feaver is required the defect of a true medicine or want fo timely application It is not every ridiculous slop that is a Medicine nor any promiscuous care of the sick that is the true Art of cure that is a Medicine indeed and the Art of cure indeed which hath a power to perform what the Physician promiseth or the Patient expecteth Sothen the Art and Medicines which are required for cure and not for pretence are to be related unto actual recovery as a sufficient cause to the effect which is certainly effectual 'T is as naturall and certain for a right Medicine to cure a disease as it is for fire to inflame combustible things for the Sun to give light for water to quench fire and the contrary would be supernatural yea I am bold to affirm that it would be as strange for a true Medicine rightly applyed to miss the cure of a natural disease as for the flame not to consume a conbustible object So that for Doctors to pretend that they use the means and that according to the reles of Art but Gods blessing not concurring the effect did not answer expectation is as much as if they should say that God to render their labour and care frustrate doth work miracles daily in denying the natural effect to an adequate cause And if so they may justly fear themselves to be highly out of Gods favour if he will cross and pervert the ordinary course of nature and that daily and commonly to frustrate their endevours or else they must confess the truth as it is namely that their method and medicines are not to be esteemed as an adequate cause to the effect of cure of diseases and then what is their Art but a shalmeful imposture and cheat of the world I Would gladly any of the Galenical Tribe would salve this Argument by resolving the world to what diseases their Art Method and Medicaments are adequated causes in respect of cure and reference to recovery if to any then in such diseases they may as confidently warrant the effect as a
he hath not strength left to help the Physicians Medicines nature having been so exhausted that for want of strength it faints under its load nor hath it strength sufficient left to co-work with the Medicine and sometimes the defect of the highest Arcana which every true son of Art cannot command doth make many hereditary diseases and some chronical which are raised to a more then usual height to be out of his Medicaments reach which otherwise would be cured by a powerful Arcanum And here is the goodness of the most High that no man can truly boast himself to be a real son of Art but he hath at command Medicines to cure the most common and truculent diseases as for instance Feavers Pleurisies Flixes of all sort Agues of all sort small Pox and Measles which are indeed but a branch of Feavers Calentures also which belong to the same head the Jaundies Head-aches Tooth-aches with all running pains Hypochondrical Colicks affections of the Mother and obstructions of all sorts causing indigestion Palpitations Syncopes Convulsions Vertigoes c. which a true son of art can confidently undertake and cure and though some are past recovery of life as is before said yet even to such his Medicaments will be effectual for ease and comfort and abating of raging Symptomes which is an effect not to be despised where more cannot be attained That therefore may well and truly be account a Febrisuge which ordinarily speedily and powerfully cures Feavers of all sorts at first or second dose oft times but never exceeds four daies in continual Feavers if administred in the beginning and Agues oft at one fit never misseth in three or four at most perfectly to cure and although some Feavers which have been neglected too long ere remedy be sought do miscarry yet of such not one of five of those that are taken in time not one in a hundred which doth not disprove the virtue or efficary of the medicine I know what will be said in calumny against me though not in answer to me namely that I am an Emperick and by an Emperick they usually would have understood one who practiseth by fortuirous receipts without the knowledge of the cause of the disease or nature of what he administers and therefore shoots his shafts at randome This hath been an old reproach of Paracelsus Helmont Quercetan and all Chymical Physicians and therefore I shall not wonder if it be cast upon me But as a worthy friend of mine when a great Doctor of the Galenical Tribe very passionately reproached me to him as an Emperick and Mountebank asked him the difference between such a one and a dub'd Doctor The Galenist answered the one shot at random the other wrought according to Art and Method to which my friend replyed that to his knowledge I cured not only speedily but certainly and constantly those diseases namely Agues which the other Doctors alwaies failed in curing now if this were the difference between an Emperick and a Colleague of the Colledge that the first at randome as he objected never or very seldom missed but such as himself by Art never or very seldom hit the cure he had rather have an Empirical certain constant and safe cure then an artificial missing of the same It is known to the most vulgar and ignorant that not only Chronical diseases are out of the Doctors reach but all acute diseases also which nature doth not of his own accord cure which may appear by the effect How many Feavers do they cure certainly none if we judge that for a cure which is indeed so to be judged where the Crisis is prevented by the efficacy of the Medicine but how many in a year outlive the Crisis many daies through the strength of Nature and yet die meerly through the Doctors taking part against nature by phlebotomy purging c. who is hited by the patient to oppose the disease against which their Medicines are as effectuall as the Priests holy-water is against the Devil or the ringing of Bels and mumbling a Pater-noster on their heads to both of whom I may say that of the Satyrist Ah pecus insipidum unllo non scommate dignum Siccine vos decuit fieriludtbria vulgi I have oft seriously wondred how it should come to pass that these silly Juglers should so long shuffle out since there is scarce one in the whole Nation that ever made use of them who in health hath not a flout ready in his bag to throw in a Galenists dish and yet in sickness they deifie in a manner those very men whom in health they scorned and I cannot but ascribe it to the justice and wisdom of God who is pouring forth his plagues all the world over I mean among Christians by which the third part of the world shall perish and I think in my conscience that few less perish by the Doctors crast 'T is a sad consideration that Christians only swarm with these Caterpillars the Heathens not knowing nor owning nor following their method witness the Turks Moores c. And then began it to grow to this head of esteem when the apostacy of Christians provoked God to the pouring forth of his plagues of which the most truculent of all is the Doctors Art The sword and all diseases put together destroy not so many as they namely such as by Natures strength would recover but are destroyed by the Doctors Art Without these the Romans flourished 500 years nor found any want of them Now Italy and Rome swarmes with them and never did diseases raign there as now and of all places where are the yearly burials comparable to those places where Doctors are most numerous How do they swarm in London and yet not a year in which many thousands dye not of curable deseases 'T is sad it should be so and yet who sees it not Let a disease be but epidemical the Doctor cals it a new disease although no other then an epidemical Feaver and here he is the by-word of every water-bearer In Agues especially Autumnal and popular who more ridiculous and yet the people though they see and know this nevertheless submit to them and adore them in necessity to the cheating them of their money and the loss of their lives By all which it is most most evident that their Medicines are but ridiculous so named a medendo as Lucus a lucendo quod minimè medeantur which may scarcely pass as metaphors to true Medicines nor can any good be predicated of them without an Irony If we should take a particular survey of all their Medicines we shall finde them all partly ridiculous and partly desperate universally answering to their denomination as the rude painters draughts of old did the things they represented under which if it were not written this is a Dog this is a Cow this is a Stag this a Man this a Cock c. no man by the draught could tell what the picture represented so if those were
I yearly cure more Feavers Agues and Pleurisies then any one in the Galenical way have in nigh twice the time but my cures are too contemptible for the rich Counsel and Medicine in almost two thirds of my cures scarce exceeding sometimes not amounting to a Crown not one in forty rising to above an Angel For many hundreds know and can testifie for me that besides my own cures many both in City and Countrey practise by my medicines to the cure and relief of some thousands yearly mine own practise in some years reaching to nigh two hundred Agues as I can make appear with many more Feavers Pleurisies Fluxes and vomitings of all which scarce five in a year not perfectly cured and those only such who hearing of the sudden effect of my medicines send for some of them and without observing the difference of season of the year expect the same speed in cure with others and not finding the cure perfect although notably abated are discouraged and leave off whose error herein is not to be charged upon the Medicine Nor is it any thing to me of moment or ought it to be to any judicious man that Galenists rashly and impudently rail and crie out against Chymicall Medicaments and yet the most desperate of all in that Art preparable they have ravished into their Apothecaries Shops and have accepted and do own them as sworn servants to their method Which charge if they deny Turbith Minerale Mercuirius dulcis vitae praecipitate severall wayes Crocus metallorum Antimonium Diaphoreticum Stibium c. shall be summoned in to give testimony to their very faces which are medicines unfit for an honest man to use all save Antimonium Diaphoreticum which is a trifle being so oft burnt with Salt Peter till it become an insipid Calx of very little vertue in comparison to wit of that eminent virtue and noble excellency which we boast of in Antimony Therefore courteous Reader do not think that we in commending the noble true Chymicall Medicines do mean these rascall virulent horribel Medicaments but leave them to the Galenicall Tribe ut similes labris lactucas that with them they may fill up the measure of their iniquity and do here attest the supreme Judge of Heaven and Earth that we both abhorre the use of them and dehort all that are wise to beware of them as dangerous poysons For we intend here absolute ingenuity to speak of Professors and of Medicines as they are and not to plead for this spurious venemous Brat because it may seem to be a Chymicall Bastard but we disown it wholly as an off-spring of Renegado and fugitive Apostate Chymists Mimicks adn Apes to true Philosophie but not her legitimate Sonnes the disgrace of Art and therefore fit to be marked with a black note of infamy O foolish Doctors who hath bewitched you that you will not see nor abide the truth O silly and blind followers of these perverse blind guides how long will you be deceived attend I pray you for your own good to him who is ready to teach you better Strange Certainly a deep sleep from God hath besotted the understanding of our wise men since our Princes of Zoan in this one thing are fools though in other things acute enough whom so many lost lives as yet cannot make wise sufficiently to distinguish between reality of truth and an Imposture Wo is me that I am and must be in this thing a Sonne of Contention and must contend with almost all the earth sure it is not for my inward case and contentment but it is even as a fire to my bowels although since it is truth that is to be defended to betray which in a cause of so high concernment as the lives of thousands were so high an ingratitude to God who hath discovered the mysteries of nature to me blessed be his name that I might justly fear not only the deprivement of this Talent but the other doom of the unprofitable Servant the dread of whose exemplary punishment doth compell me thus to bring my Talent in to the Bank and expose what God hath discovered to me to the view and censure of a captious generation of whom I expect reproach disdain and contumelie full measure and heaped yet is there a certain number of the sonnes of Wisdom from whom I shall receive both thanks and encouragement For whose information and instruction fake we shall in a brief discourse so elucidate the nature of true medicine as to make it appear to any one whom passion or folly or self-conceitednesse hath not blinded to be a most safe speedy and certain way of curing diseases which three things are required in all Medicines promised to be in the Galenicall and Pseudochemicall but to be found only in the true Pyrotechnicall secrets So then by this our art of medicine which we commend we know and promise the cure of all diseases accidentall to the body of man speedily safely and certainly and do affirm our Medicines to have an adaequate virtue in them to this end which we shall make good and permit in the mean time our adversaries in opposition to snarle till they crack their spleen And for the Readers information I must give him an account that my purpose is here to give things as in a small Mappe and to represent them as it were in a Land-skip very candidly though concisely very lively though as at a little distance First then let no man expect from me linear receipts for that would be foolish in me to perform and therefore fond in them to expect for I shall not write of trifles but of commanding Arcanaes which require to be discovered in the language of the Magi lest fools and Mechanists bring these so noble secrets into common Shops to be adulterated as all their Chymical fopperies are Which pitiful hotch-potch had its roiginall from rare secrets of Art although through ignorance and misapprehension of dult lazy heads and searchers they are under the same names with those renowned secrets of Theophrastus Paracelsus become rascally venemous dangerous slops as they are adulterately and knavishly prepared for sale and according to the allowed Receipts of vulgar Tyrocinists and Pharmacopaa's they are at the best either dangerous as having only a mock in stead of a due and true preparation as the vomitive Salivative and purgative preparations of Mercury and Antimonie or trivial as the commonly venall spirits of Salts the Alcalies waters and Oyls of Concretes vegetall to which may be added the newfound silly dotages of some particular Sophisters as the Ignis vita of one the universall Medicine of another idle Sciolist the one the product of Soot the other of Mens bones rotted whose rash ventosities and aery promises we reject as apostate Renegado cheats in Art under the visard or mask of Chymistry as Allen the notable Theef is reported to have rob'd in a Coach with his Complices under the disguise of a Bishop with his Attendants Of this
is threatned by giving poyson into the body is not to be adventured in hopes of a casual good But moreover I shall give the studious Reader to understand that in many vegetable Simples under the mask of virulency great and noble virtues are hidden which are kept by the poysonous appearance from rash hands as the apples of the Hesperides were feigned to be kept by a watchful Dragon or as the passage to the Tree of life was guarded by a flaming sword in the hand of Cherubims Thus in Hellebore under the churlish vomitive poyson caused with convulsion both of stomach and nerves is hidden a most noble remedy against Hypocondriack melancholy the Gout Epilepsie Convulsions and quartian or third day Ague which so baffles Physicians that it is grown to a proverb Quartanam nescit medicus propellere febrim So in Colocynthida under the laxative venome is hidden an excellent febrifuge so in Asarum roots a gentle remedy for slow lingring Feavers and so I could instance in Opium and many other Simples But he that thinks that the vomitive laxative or deleterial qualities in these simples are the effective causes of the good done by them is mistaken but they are only as a clog to a mastiffe or as a sheath to a sharp sword by which their excellency is not only held back but also notably perverted by this dangerous companion insomuch that nature abhorring the malignant virulency doth not admit oft times of the remedy although something in strong constitutions where the poyson cannot make that impression which in weaker bodies it would the vertue of the concrete through the cloud of its venome doth yeeld some irradiation of its specifick benignity to the extinguishing a disease which through Gods mercy sometimes fals out but little to the Doctors credit who gives the bad with the good being penally blinded with ignorance only by means of pride and sloth What is said of purges or laxatives may in their kinde be said of Vomits which quatenus talia intend only a violence to nature which sensible of their hostility rages and cals for help as I may say from its neighbours that is the Latex and the alimentary humour of the part affected which are oft time prodigally spent sometimes by vomit sometimes by siege sometimes both waies to wash away that odious character impressed maugre which diligence of the Archeus the impression sometimes perseveres till death which is effectively caused by this Medicine falsly so called being truly the reall poyson while the poor butchered Patient thinking to have a disease only purged away loseth his life either by an obstinate vomiting or an unconquerable loosness Thus the other day I heard of one in Fleetstreet a lusty man who for some distemper took a purge which when it was thought it had done working had left such a venemous tincture in the bowels as was not washed away with fewer then about three hundred stools in about three daies time and so he had like to paid for the Doctors folly with the price of his life besides his money Yet this must be a brave Art and he that cannot do thus in conscience must ipso facto be termed an Emperick and Mountebank To conclude this venomous vomiting and laxative subject we yeeld that vomits and purges as such may by accident remove a distemper inasmuch as they inrage the Archeus by their venome which growing mad by reason of so odious a guest rages to and fro without order or reason falling out with what ever comes in the way and as in case of a fire in the City the Pipes are broke up so here the next alimentary moisture is made use of to blot out this tinsture of venom the stomack turned up down the bowels torn and griped for moisture and in this general hurly burly perhaps something that before was offensive is cast out and thus is the devil cast out as it were by Beelzebub or as if a man should rid his breath of the smell of Onions by eating garlick this is the mystery of the Galenists which is little better then the mystery of iniquity A Patient is troubled perhaps with an Ague and the Doctor in the first place some I am sure do orders bloud-letting that is by striking a terror into the Archeus through loss of the bloud which threatens and strikes at the root of life indeavouring to cause it to leave its rage which sometimes it doth on the score of terrefaction but if this prevail not then is either a vomitive or laxative poyson given inwardly under the imposed name of a medicine and by this the Archeus is brought as we may say adrestim and enforforced to play one game for life and all hoping that in this commotion that is made the Archeus with the poyson may cast out what before inraged it and by being put into a greater danger may forget or neglect what before provoked it to fury as a man in imminent danger of his life will forget or neglect the loss of his goods which otherwife would trouble him sufficietly I appeal to all ingenious men if this be not a notable performance and yet it is the whole of the Doctors craft besides which he hath nothing but Juleps and Lozenges and such trinkets of which every Confectioner and curious huswife is better stored then he Whose method waves still from one extreme to another their potions and doses which they call Physick being so cursedly loathsom as if they were made to poyson Cerberus insomuch that the sight of many purging potions is enough to make most men and women vomit to sweeten which their method stores them with cordial fopperies of which may truly be said that of the Poet Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici Syrups of Clove gelly-flowers with all sorts of Conserves and Preserves Marmalads Quiddenies and the like are of this list which with Diascordium Methridate Alchermes and Theriacle distilled waters and the like serve if to nothing else yet to multiply the Doctors Fees and to enlarge the Apothecaries Bils and that is enough for them who care for nothing else Well then if this be not the way of curing diseases what is may a studious and ingenious Reader ask of me I have hinted it before and shall more fully insist upon it I say adaequate remedies are to be studied for the cure of diseases and by study they are to be found such I mean which will be to the extinguishing a disease as water will quench fire And this I shall be bold to adde that all the tricks that are used by the Galenists as they say according to their Method viz. Bleeding Vesications Scarifications Fontinels Cauteriés Diaetical prescriptions c. are but silly poor shifts analogical to Adams fig-leaves to hide his nakedness childish fopperies to deceive their abused Patients and to make themselves appear diligent curendo while they want adaequate remedies that might be morbum medendo therefore my brethren as many of you
this Subject having in a peculiar Treatise entituled de mysteriis Alcalium spoken largely of the same to which as which I intend speedily to make publike I shall remit the studious Reader for full satisfaction However I shall in this place discover so much though very briefly as may serve for direction to him that is industrious by what he shall find here to unlock many secrets of Nature and those very noble as to the Philosophy of them and usefull as to the application of them unto mankind Know then that Alcalyes are the the fixt Salts of combustible Concretes fixed by the activity of the fire which were before burning volatile and meerly fixed in this act of conflagration In these Salts the seminal vertue is totally extinct which is the proper operation of the fire on whatsoever it can master and overcome so that they have only a Saline Diuretick and abstersive vertue which withall from the fire borrowes a fiery corrosive quality in which respect it contains a little hostility and reluctancy toward the stomack Truth I know many Chymists according to the sentence of Quercetan do hold that the seminal principles are kept and preserved uncorrupt in the fire but I rather Jean to the contrary judgement of Helmont which experience hath often and satisfactorily convinced me of I grant that Alcalies do differ one from the other per genera species since the operation of each Agent is received by the Patient per modum recipient is and so the uniform Act of burning in stones produceth one sort of Calx or Alcaly in Oyster-shells another in Trees another in Herbs c. another and yet this distinction doth not lie in the formal seminal Balsamick qualities of the Concrete but in another quality or other qualities which are determined by the specificated forms although themselves in this act of determination expire and leave the Salt as to the first Alcalizate intention of kinne to all other Salts than are made effectively by Vulcan yet distinguished from all others according to the capability of reception of the Agents activity in the Patient whose specificated form gave the Alcaly a certain distinction in determination although to its own extinguishment All then that remains in the Alcali of the former Concrete is but a very sleight modicum of the magnum oportet and so Alcalies do differ each from other although all of them in their primary intention are of one and the same nature and qualities Hence it is that the Alcaly of Tartar hath deserved and gotten the name of Respub Alcalium since whatever vertue is to be found in any Alcaly may be found in and demonstrated from the Alcali of Tartar For the fire having no seminal power it makes what proceeds from it effectively though not efficiently for the Salt to speak Philosophically doth in this act of Vulcan's fury lay hold on its neighbouring Sulphur and both being before volatile they of their own accord melt together into a Salt and so fix themselves into an Alcalizate Body Hence it is that Alcalies are easily volatized since their generation proceeds not from seminal beginnings but is a spontaneous Larva which part of the Salt and Sulphur of the Concrete assume the better to withstand Vulcans fury as Mercury by bare circulation in the fire will spontaneously assume the larva of a red and somewhat fixed Precipitate This is the processe of this Anomalous Generation yet is the product very noble if especially this fixed body by art brought back again to a volatile substance Which is to be done very successefully by mean of vegetable essentiall Sulphurs that is distilled Oyls to which Alcalies have a very neer nay an intimate affinity which may appear first by the unctuous Apperinesse of Alcalies Secondly by their ready mixture with any expressed Oyl between both which is made a Sope being a neuter from both Thirdly by the greedy mixture of them with Sulphurs minerall which are known to be unctuous and of neer kin to Oyls Alcalies being thus volatized become noble medicines and of excellent use both in their own nature and to the making of other preparations of which I shall touch briefly and so draw toward a conclusion Concerning this operation Helmont hat given more light the any that went before him yet hath he written darkly enough although wondrous Philosophically which as many as understand him with me will don esse I must seriously professe that for night seven years I made about two thousand experiments to this intent but was always unsuccessefull till pondering the words of that old Philosopher concerning this Subject I found my errors and the truth likewise And I do suppose that scarce the hundredth Artist will attain this secret unlesse it be from him only who is the giver of every good and perfect gift to whom alone be all glory and everlasting benediction For it is a rare thing to have any of these secrets communicated in form of receipts or if communicated yet so that much be left out in the direction which without pains study and sedulity will never be attained so I did and so all have done who have been masters of secretes and so I advice each desirous student in this Art to do And for the help of such I shall be as candid as the Lawes of this art wil permit and allow Now forasmuch as I have undertaken the vindication of noble Helmont and the explication of Nature according to those principles which eperience in the fire had taught him I shall from my own experience also further illustate what was obscurely laid down by him in reference to the preparation of noble medicaments And as the fire taught Helmont to understand Paracelsus so it hath also taught me to understand them both and by it must every one that would understand Nature truely and not notionally have his Philosophy regenerated Concerning Alcalies the noble Helmont saith that being volatized they equall the vertue of the most noble Arcana's inasmuch as being indued with an abstersive and resolutive vertue they passe even to the fourth digestion and resolve all preternaturall excrements and coagulations in all the Vessels That they take away all filthy residence which is in any of the veins and that they do resolve all though never so obstinate obstructions and so cut off the materiall cause of all apostemations and ulcers both within and without That their spirit is so penetrative and efficacious that whithersoever it will not reach nothing else will And in a word that as Sope cleanseth linnen so they cleanse the whole body and cut off and cleanse away the material cause of all diseases Their spirit is of an admirable dissolving quality insomuch that it will dissolve any simple Concrete Body and dissolving will be coagulated upon it and borrow from the dissolved Body a specificated vertue which having entrance into the Body will actually cure deplorable and chronick diseases as well as all Feavers This is the
Pox it is so commonly known to every Midwife and Nurse that a lask is therein lethal that upon the appearing thereof they do give over the party for lost unless by restrictives the loosness may be stopt and unless that be performed if the party affected be full of those variolae which the Pox sends forth certain death follows The same in pestilential Feavers is evident where phlebotomy purgatives are very dangerous nay desperate by wch it may be strongly concluded that if in the Plague the Smal pox and Pestilential Feavers phlebotomy a loose belly and cooling drinks are of very bad consequence so to wit as to cause death in many to indanger life in all that then the same things can not in reason be of good effect in any Feaver which brings me by the hand to the discovery of my method and Medicines for the cure of this disease the better to compare it with the way commonly practised by which both of them the better may be judged of and censured For Feavers are of sundry sorts either continual or intermittent The continual are various of which the saddest is the Plague next the Smal-pox next the pestilential Feaver next the malignant which is scarlet purple c. to which may be reckoned the Pleurisie which is a real sort of Feaver more violent by reason of an Apostemated matter threatned in the side of which it hath its denomination this accompanied with a cough and spitting of bloud with a tormenting pain is thought incurable without Phlebotomy and so the vulgar are perswaded by Doctors and Chirurgeons though very falsly Intermittent Feavers are of several sorts either Ephemerial or Tertian or Quartan of which the two last sorts are either single or duplicate and lastly there is the Erratick intermittent Feaver called by Paracelsus Febris extranea of all which are so many appearances that it would require a large Treatise to describe all the kinds of this disease But as for the cure or rather the way and means of restoring this kinde of disease therein the Galenical Tribe and I differ very much we only agree in the names and symptomes of the same concerning which let it not be objected that I leave out the names of Feavers Hemitritean c. since it is not my design in this place to make a curious Anatomy of that disease in its kindes according to its various Symptomes performed both learnedly and acurately by many Galenists as Fernelius and others who being professed Methodists were yet honourers of Chymical Medicaments as their writings do testifie which were a work of a peculiar Tractate to perform And to say truth the disease is sufficiently known being so common and so truculent that not only a Doctor but each ordinary Nurse can tell when a man or woman is Feaverish although to know certainly the kinde of each Feaver is a task sometimes too hard for a professed Doctor and yet that may be known and the disease as far from cure as before therefore well said he who sang thus Non opus est morbi testibus at medice To the certain safe and speedy cure of which malady I shall now come and that not perhaps without great expectation which I shall do my endevour to answer to the ingenuous readers satisfaction In order to which task I shall premise some positions by way of Aphorism very true and certain however contrary to the commonly practised way of the Schools 1. That the heat which appears in some nay most Feavers is not originally from the nature of the Feaver This appears first in intermittent Feavers commonly known by the name of Agues among us in which the cold fit in each access is oft the most afflictive part of the distemper and torments with a violent thirst yet without any sensible heat But nextly all malignant Feavers some more some less begin with a sensible internal cold and a quivering or shaking withall after which followes burning Thirdly Castrensian or Camp Feavers a kinde of Feaver but lately known among mankind from the beginning of them to the end of their Tragedy are without either thirst or heat and yet as truculent as any malignant Feaver whatever Adde to this that all Feavers when they draw towards a conclusion abate of their heat although the disease be more violent then as drawing nearer to death To which agrees that the Feavers of old persons and such who are of very weak decayed bodies manifest far less heat and burning then far milder Feavers do in strong vigorous bodies and lusty constitutions and that leads me to the second conclusion or Aphorism 2. That the more sensible the party affected is of heat and burning the more strength he may bejudged to have and the better probability of his recovery For it is the Archeus of the life whence this rage proceeds being provoked by some accidental matter whence the first offence doth arise or from some Ideal character instamped upon the seat of life or some near adjoyning sympathizing part either by mean of a virulent endemical fume or exhalation or of some passion of the minde which by its tyrannical impression doth disturb the seat of life that is its own original habitation the soul and life being originally seated in one and the same part whence is caused this or that disease according as the passive part doth receive the injury For it is not necessary that a Feaver should finde alway an occasional matter ready prepared since it is evident that grief fear c. have power to give originall being to this disease and so an eminent cold especially after being throughly warm which without controversie only inrage the Archeus by instamping an unusual Character on its place of habitation and so consequently follow febrile excrements which had not being before The vital Archeus is that Vulcan in man which doth stir up and feed that heat of life which from the first hour of life till death goes never our which in health is orderly and regular but being provoked rageth according to the known rule Idem agens laesus edit actiones laesas qui sanus edit actiones sanas Proportionable therefore to the provision for life is the virtue and strength of the Archeus whose rage in burning in Feavers is nothing else but a gathering together its forces to expell its adversary that is to blot out that character which either cold or virulent fumes or passions of the minde have instamped on its place of habitation and so proportionable to the strength of nature is the burning in such cases and this leads me to my third conclusion 3. That bloud-letting and purgations and cooling drinks are unreasonable waies to be used by him that pretends to cure Feavers For Nature only is the immediate helper both of Feavers and all diseases which assail the life primarily and in their first intention now if the provision for life be the subject cause of heat in Feavers what ever is intended primarily
against heat must impugn the subject principle of life and this is the master-piece of the Galenists method namely to take part against nature to whose help alone they are called by the sick Patient That the life is in the bloud is most certain and by how much of it is taken away by so much is the vitall Balsam wasted and therefore very unwisely taken away if the disease may be cured without and that leads me to the fourth Conclusion 4. That all Feavers Agues and Pluresies may be cured without Phlebotomy In the Plague Small Pox and pestilential Feavers the question by our Antagonists will be yeelded every year affording sad presidents of Galenists dotages in this kinde as I instanced before in that great Doctor Sir Theodore Mayherne and could instance in above forty that my self have known and observed and that very lately but in the Pleuresie it will be a great controversie because without bloud-letting that disease is commonly reputed deadly without hope or help although that opinion be altogether groundless and false Truth the Pleuresie is a most dangerous Feaver with a Spasmus or Convulsion of the side especially the left among the ribs a little below the heart this accompanied with the Cough doth make a forcible dilaceration in that place and that causeth extravenate bloud and that threatning apostemation indangers the suffocation of the party affected without a speedy remedy forasmuch as extravenate bloud in such a heat will not be long uncorrupted but that the proper speedy and adequate remedy of this grief is bloud-letting that I deny That by bleeding in the beginning this disease findes mitigation by mean of the revulsion or diversion made thereby I grant and yet this notwithstanding phlebotomy is a dangerous often desperate sometimes alwaies a prejudicial prescription be the prescriber who he will which hath its absolute inseparable inconveniencies annexed to it and following it on which score it is not a remedy for an honest man to apply or prescribe That an eminent fright will take away not only Agues but other more deeply rooted and Chronick diseases is a thing very well known to many and would be believed by more yet the practise of that way of cure hitherto hath not and I presume never will prevail in the world At that sad fire by Gunpowder in Tower-street I heard of many cured of rigorous maladies by being put in a sudden fright to run for their lives and many on the fright sickned and there first took the beginnings of those diseases which after proved mortall to them and many mothers miscarried and many women fell into uterine and those terrible passions the like in other frights may be instanced as in taking of Cities and Towns unexpected alarms c. in which cases many have risen from their sick beds and come from their sick chambers and fought stoutly for their lives and lost their disease they knew not how others contracted diseases of which they never before were sensible and of which afterwards they have never been rid For to say truth a disease is most of all the fury of the indignation of the Archeus which finding a preterusual character impressed on its place of habitation straight rages and acts in its fury beyond all rule and measure this is the disease whereas that fury being pacified the product Nature can finde waies to evacuate with ease and the character impressed being but transient would abide but a short time as the smell of garlick in the breath of him that eats it only the Archeus growing mad as conceiving its habitation unfit to be indured with that odious Idea sets all on fire producing a real misery from it self effectively on apprehension of a conceived injury so verifying the Proverb Nemo laeditur nisià seipso Now the life dwelling in the bloud and the balsam of life being contained therein the taking of this away doth threaten ruine to the life and so consequently to the Archeus which is but its immediate servant by which fear it is oft taken from its fury to the abatement of Symptomes speedily after which sometimes the Archeus repents of its former fury and madness and so by accident this evil of the losing bloud produceth health sometimes when the danger threatned by loss of bloud is over the Archeus returns to its former fury and afflicts though not altogether with its former rigor the principle of life being wasted yet so as to delude afterward the vain Art of the Doctor and for its Epilogue ends in a Tabes according to Galen who laies down for a maxim Pleuretici nisi restaurentur intra quadragenarian fiunt Tebifici But admit the cure were certain by bleeding as it is not yet is it not to be practised by an ingenuous man since at the best it cures only by accident and that by fear of greater danger drawing or rather forcing the Archeus out of its rage and fury by which means the threed of life is cut shorter by wasting its subject in which it is kept and by which it is maintainied especially if it may be certainly speedily and safely cured and the bloud preserved which is a thing promised by Paracelsus Helmont c. and performable by medicines that are preparable by the Art of Pyrotechny of which I shall by and by give an account to the studiour and judicious Reader I shall have don in this place with Phlebotomy because elsewhere I shall have occasion to ventilate it only this I shall say that it is an inhumane barbarous butchery because so much bloud as is taken away so much is cut off from the threed of life and so the Doctor becomes Journeyman to Atropos cutting short the life of many by the rules of his Art or at least impairing their strength which art so magnified is at the best but a dotage because that where ever it is used with shew of gooth successe and colour of necessity there I know the cure may be performed without loss of one drop of bloud and so I come to examine purgatives concerning which I shall propound a fifth Conclusion 5. That no purge quatenus purging is an intentional remedy against a Feaver or Pleuresie nor Vomiting as a vomit For Purges properly so called or rather improperly are absolute venomes confounded by the Art sometimes with a little knavery together of the Apothecary and so prescribed ignorantly by the Doctor and taken unsuccessefully by the Patient These in the Plague Small Pox and malignant Feavers after the appearing of Symptomes with rigor are like fiends that must be conjured down till another seasons that is till the matter be digested or rather in other words till nature hath foiled the distemper then comes the Doctor to play both the fool and knave with his rules of Art and prescribes his lenitives gentle purges for fear lest the party should seem to recover without his help before this white purges are too desperate he diviseth a Clyster which