above Art the other as besides Art But that I refer to this Art which by a natural course doth perform cures whether by Talismans or by Sympathetical remedies or by proper Medicaments either specifical or universal whether simply used as Nature prepares them or else prepared by the Art of the Physician and that either Chymically or vulgarly And yet Chymistry doth also comprehend the most absolute and perfect Medicaments besides which nothing can be desired 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 preparation 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 be totally 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 also transcend it as the Elixir of the wise the white respecting only riches the red both riches and health Yea and this supreme Medicine doth transcend the bare Art of restoring 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 diseases and secondly the way of their cure And this also contains two parts first the choice and preparation of Medicines and secondly their administration Their administration includes a true knowledge of their virtue and so a proportionable and convenienâ— application of them in reference to the cause of the disease and the state of the Patient And this is universally to bâ— 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 should now unfold many very unprofitable questions but intending the reality of things and not respecting the empty bubbles of Aerial notions I shall not meddle with them I mean questions in reference to the definition 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 oâ— diseases a man may be a Mountebank but not a Physician which knowledge of diseases is as it were his line and plummet by which he works By this he judges the facility or improbability of the cure for though no disease in its kinde yeâ— 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 iâ— not enough or any care promiscuously for the nurse and cook c. do carefully attend the sick party but by cure or care which is all one being but the English of the Laâ—ine word Cura of the Physician is that which is intended to the recovery of the Patient and that with as much speed and safety as may be I add restoring 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 feeling of Pulses and tossing of urines Stirring of Close-stooles and appointing Purges Vomits Bleeding Fonsinels Blisters Scarifications Leeches and such enfeebling 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 Diet he is not so precise provided alwaies meat be not taken immoderately of any sort and that diet he approves for a sick 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 Graecum est nec potesâ— legi so the School Doctors have a very large roll of maladies over which they only put this inscription Incurabilia sunt and so leave them with a sad recommendation to God But as the valiant Hercules fought against Giants and Monsters and overcame them so a true Son of Art makes it appear that all diseases are in their kinde curable And now my Reverend Doctors who perhaps some of you have read Galen at least cursorily 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 Aesculapius what is your Art let us weigh it in the ballance let us consider it and compare it with this Art which we commend and admire and I doubt 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 of you will finde impudence enough to affirm it to whom I shall only object Fiat experimentum The people deny it according to the Adagy Nescit nodosam medicus curare podagram How then You can cure you will say the running Gout speak softly I pray lest some of your patients hear you and object this And why then did you not cure me 'T will be aâ— serious check But I suppose you much mistake the name and nature of the running Gout the Gout properly and truly is an Arthritical pain affecting the joynts immediately and some
their sufficiency not their profession It is not then the materials used but the preparation of the materials so as to be able to effect what the Physician promiseth and the Patient expects surely safely and speedily that distinguisheth a true Son of Art from pretending bunglers of which some are more crafty and cautious others more ignorant and rashly venturous yet both more distinct from true Artists then from one another If Nature had made true Medicines ready prepared to hand for every disease that it were no more then to pluck them as an Apple from the tree then indeed a distinction might be made of professors of the Art of Medicine according to the materials wrought upon But contrariwise it is sadly evident that very few Simples are endowed with a medicinal virtue without virulency and those also have their excellency obstructed with the gross feculency which growes together with the spiritual â—incture and as a shell doth hiddenly contain the same so that without some previous preparations few things are worthy the name of Medicaments Now what preparation is usual for vegetal Simples only decoction or infusion or conserving with Sugar or Honey whereby the good is not so separated from the bad but that several crudities remain but of this Helmont hath at large treated I shall not repeat It would be a tedious Wild-goose chase to trace their medicines and refute them for that will be but to agere actum and I intend here an Apology not a charge a defensive not an offensive conflect I shall come therefore to state our Case for till that be done it is a vain thing to contend in words First of all we differ from the Goosquil Tribe in the Theoretical discovery of Diseases and secondly in our Practical cure of them Now as to the Theory of Diseases and the Philosophical contemplation of Simples it is not essential to a Physician for a man may know the remedies with which to cure all diseases and yet erre very much in the discovery of Causes for the remedy being to the disease as water to fire which will undoubtedly quench it as a man may know certainly by water to quench fire and yet erre in the Philosophical appre-prehension of the same so may a man by a proper remedy rightly and in due proportion applyed certainly cure the disease and be able to distinguish the same generally though he be not able to finde our and apprehend the manner of its original with its occasional causes progress and variations Nor let this seem a Paradox for it may easily be evinced against the most snarling gainsayer for consider the forementioned example of quenching fire by water and it may be made unquestionable What rustick that doth not know that water is for the quenching of fire and will give a very near guess how much water will quench so much fire and yet how many of our School Philosophers can assign the true cause of that effect it is not water as water for milk whey wine-vinegar c. will do the same nor yet as cold for hot water and other hot liquors will perform it as well as cold nor yet as moist for oyl and oleaginous moistures being thrown on fire in one measure encreaseth it and in another measure will quench it as a week of a candle or lamp may be drowned with too much tallow or oyle So that in very deed the Philosophical speculation doth follow practical knowledge and experience denominates that science which else would be but bare opinion But of this I speak sufficiently in my large Treatise called Organu Philosophiae novum and shall not in this place repeat what there is sufficiently proved and confirmed Therefore the effects of diseases so far as they are obvious to every observer can instruct any who make it their work to be conversant therein that are of capacity so as to be able to judge and distinguish one disease from another and by the Symptomes to discover if or no it do proceed in the ordinary course of the same malady or if by complication it doth alter and how this is as much as is absolutely requisite for a Physician in the knowledge of diseases for this knowledge doth essentially conduce to the cure but to be able to unfold the quiddity of it its efficient and continent causes the material and occasionate with other curiosities which a Philosopher doth contemplate upon and in which the intellect is occupied this adornes but doth not constitute a Physician So then the absolute things requisite in one who would conscionably undertake the lives of the sick are first to know how to unlock those medicines which the Almighty hath created and to prepare them and after how and when and to whom to apply them and how to order and dispose the Patient so as that he may reap that good from them which by careful administration of them is expected Mistake me not I do not deny nay I confidently affirm that he who is endowed with wisdom from above to be so curious and so diligent in his search as to attain the noble medicines which the Lord hath created for mans relief and unspeakable comfort he if he prove but so observant in the administration as he was acute in the preparation cannot but so far be inlightned from Natures light in these observations as to apprehend the causes of the diseases and their whole quiddity or being which may by arguments à posteriori be collected from their effects as likewise he may be able to demonstrate à posteriori the cause and manner of cures wrought by medicines a work most worthily performed by noble Helmont which contemplation will wonderfully delight a true Son of this Art but yet as I said before this doth follow and adorn not precede and constitute a Physician And this I shall adde that the soul which is a I may say ipse in homine homo when once an effect is apparent and so known as to become a mechanism doth no farther any more reap content from it unless it be in reference to some deduction it gathers from it to the finding out of some new hidden truth nor doth the soul ever feed on it more as upon its object originally directly and in an absolute consideration no more then in the knowing how to make a fire or that the fire will burn boyl dry c. 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
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 Minervam 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 Cur 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 chiefly herein They pretend skill in notorious diseases chiefly 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 issue 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 sear-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 Ne saevi magne sacerdos Oft times a good old woman sweating a party so taken soundly with Carduus Camomile-flowers bathing the place affected with Brandy Wine warm hath performed the like Ampla spolia 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 more difficult cases in which being convinced by daily experience and opportunity of being more fully convinced still presenting it self hath extorted a confession of their impotency herein yet palliated with a shameless falshood that such diseases 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 name 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 diseases to be curable who am so confident 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 diseases therefore 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 seven 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 c. God only can cure This is your sentence somethings often succeed in our hands and some though rarely yet sometimes therefore they are curable others never succeed therefore they are incurable This Logick would make almost all Mechanicks to be impossible if what ever you cannot do must straight be unfecible Can any of you or all your Colledge together make the Tyrian
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 lean to the contrary judgement of Helmont which experience hath often and satisfactority 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 recipientis 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 that 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 magnumoportet 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 be 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 slipperinesse 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 hath given more light then any that went before him yet hath he written darkly enough although wondrous Philosophically which as many as understand him with me will confesse I must seriously professe that for nigh seven years I made about two thousand experiments to this intent but was alwayes 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 secrets 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 illustrate 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 summe of his Doctrine concerning Alcalies which is very true and in which I can be a faithfull witnesse with him that he hath born true testimony unto Nature Of which operation be gives some hints in two or thee places one where speaking of the Oyl of Cinamon how it may be made into Salt he saith that if that Oyl be mixed with its own Alcali without