very many little Holes belonging to each Swelling through which sayes he it is very probable that the Worms us'd to go down into the stomack and return back again Not only in almost all sorts of Animals but in Metals and Stones as I have before intimated Insects may be generated Muffet observes That Millers who pick their grinding stones to make them ruffer when they are grown too smooth with grinding do often find Worms in the stones And he tells us that Platerus himself told him that he found a live Toad in the Center of a huge stone which he divided asunder with a Saw and he sayes the same thing happened in the Quarry of one Mr. W. Cave in Liecestershire Neque sane video sayes that learned Author cur magis in animalibus lapides quam in lapidibus animalia nasci queant atque ut nobis metallicos spiritus sacile tribuo ita illis animales concedere salvâ virtutis â—ge non timeo Habent enim illi invisibiles tacitos meatus nervos venas sinus quibus alienum humorem aliena semina peregrinos spiritus vel attrahunt vel saltem vi illatos admittunt And indeed no wonder since animarum plena sunt omnia since the whole Creation is full of life and soul if in all bodies whatsoever which undergo either a quick or slow fermentation Worms Insects r Animals be continually produced But in humane bodies whose Juices and Blood are subject to disorderly and morbifick fermentations upon dissolution of the Crasis and Temperature of those Liquors a generation of Infects must of necessity frequently ensue For although whilst a man is in health and a due temperament of the vital animal and natural Constitutions is maintain'd by the power of the Spirits all heterogeneous Seeds are either kept under and supprest or else as offensive guests presently exterminated out of the Body when once by Diseases the Spirits are abated and the right tone and temper of the parts and mixture of the Juices is debauched those extraneous Ferments which were before kept in subjection rebell and being as it were at their own dispose and uncontrolled effect those generations which are most sutable to the nature of their Seminalities From this cause it proceeds That oftentimes putrid and malignant Fevers are accompanied with Worms which are more commonly the Effects than Causes of â—ose Distempers and are not produced by any intermixture of a Pocky and Scorbutick Ferment but from the Salts or Seminalities of those Infects which in the disorder and confusion of the Body in Fevers are set at liberty For those subtil and active parts of matter getting loose during the intestine motion or hurly burly of the Particles of the Blood and Liquors from other Concretions to which they were united immediately seize upon some or other of the more gross parts then form Organs for motion and presently become Animals From this Reason it is That Children at the time of breeding their Teeth which puts them into a feverish Distemper are most commonly troubled with Worms as Hippocrates observes in his Aphorisms who speaking of the time of Childrens breeding Teeth and the Diseases which they are then subject to sayes thus Ipsis vero grandiusculis tonsillarum inflammationes Tileman in Hippoc. Aph. vertebrae in occipitio introrsum luxationes asthmata calculi lumbrici rotundi ascarides c. And indeed not only in the Body of man but in almost all other Bodies in the World upon Fermentations new Productions and Generations of Animals do usually happen The learned Doctor Ent in his Apology for the Circulation observes That small Flies are produced by that acid spirit of Moscatel Wine which from them has its denomination which evaporate in the first Ebullition And the same Author affirms That if a man put a small quantity of Vitriol into Wine or Water he shall presently produce a great number of Worms And to this purpose he gives an excellent account of the generation of Insects Insecta omnia sayes he licet non semper mutuantur ab aliis Dr. Ent. Apol. pro Circ p. 247. idque vel a plantis arescentibus ut culices vel e Succis fermentatis ut muscae espiritu vini vel e rore ut erucae alia aliter unus tamen horum generationis modus est Spiritus nempe acidus subtilis volatilis qui a leni calore vivificatur pro subjecti natura quae in sale ejus fixo potissimum nidulatur varia quoque animantia producit Hic Spiritus concentratur sive unum in locum colligitur in iis quae corde praedita sunt In Erucis autem vermibus aliisque Spiritus ille per universum corpus diffunditur tota cor sunt Here we see this learned Philosopher and Physitian does not ascribe the generation of Worms to the Pocky and Scorbutick Ferments but to Salts from the difference of which it often comes to pass that not only common Worms but Insects of different species and even Serpents have been produced in almost every part of humane Bodies and though one would imagine that the Bladder of Gall by the bitterness of the Juice which it contains which is very forcible to destroy Worms and the Spleen by the sharpness of its Liquor should be exempted from being liable to produce those Creatures yet even in these parts great numbers of Worms have been found Muffet tells us of a Disease which at one time was very frequent in Germany and Hungary which the Polonians called Stowny Roback and the Germans Hauptwurm it seized them with a violent Hemicrania insomuch that they fell into a madness or phrensie and when they were dead upon Dissection of the Brain they found a Worm in it The Physitians cured this Disease with Garlick in Spirit of Wine which certainly cured all who took it inwardly but the rest inevitably perished The same Author tells us of a Student in Cambridge who vented a Worm by Urine which had a great many Feet and that Pennius observ'd a great many Insects in the Hypostasis of the Urine of a person labouring of an Apostem of the Kidneys He tells us likewise that at Francfort he saw Worms like Ascarides come out of a Womans womb Anno Domini 1663. I was called to a Family in which one after another six or seven persons fell sick of a malignant Fever it was of a dull sluggish motion and continued upon them whom it seized a Month or Five weeks before they recovered One remarkable Accident which accompanied it was a continual Cough by which the persons affected did continually both day and night bring up an incredible quantity of ill-coloured and very bad scented phlegm of which the Nurse-keeper bringing me one day a Porringer full shew'd me in it a twist as it were of Horse-hairs each at least half as long as my finger we observed every one of them to be animated and endued with a brisk and lively motion It will
congealing power Farthermore every days Experience informs us what changes and alterations are made upon our Bodies as to Epidemical diseases by the hot cold moist or dry Constitutions of the Seasons and Years And I cannot but wonder that the Chymists should exclude the four first Qualities from having any causality in diseases when in their own operations they observe a notable disparity between the effects of a dry and moist heat and they employ heat as the common instrument of almost all their operations But whil'st I assert the Essiciency of the first qualities in the causing of diseases in the humane Body I would not be understood to mean by the word Quality a Being or Entity distinct from matter or Body But that I apprehend by hot cold moist and dry the parts of matter or Atoms so figured and moved as to produce those Effects which we call heating cooling moistning and drying For Example We use to have an apprehension or notion of heat from the relation it has to the sense or as it is the efficient cause of that acute passion or sensation which we feel in our skin or any other organ of touch whil'st we are burnt or heated But this being too particular an effect of heat only as it works upon an Animal we ought therefore to consider it from its more general and comprehensive effects upon which this which is more special does depend which is to enter into the Pores of a Body to penetrate through the parts of it and to force or rend them asunder from one another and so to dissolve the union and continuity of the Body This cannot be understood to be done by a bare naked quality but by certain Atoms which are endued with such a motion figure and fize as are fit to penetrate discuss dissolve and perform all those effects which we usually attribute to heat On the other side since we find cold the most opposite thing in the World to heat if it be the property of heat to dissolve discuss and tear asunder it is then the property of cold to congeal fasten and close together and those Atoms which by their shape and figures are fit and proper for those effects may with very good Reason be called Atoms of cold and Bodies made up of such Particles cold Bodies Thus the Air which is the common Receptacle of heat and cold upon the blowing of North-winds is usually filled with such Atoms as bind and congeal the Earth and Water and in the body of man both by mingling with the blood and closing the pores or breathing holes of his body oftentimes produce considerable disorders As for humidity or moistness it seems to be nothing else but a kind of fluidness and Liquors are commonly said to be moist inasmuch as when they are poured upon hard and compact bodies some small parts of them are left behind either sticking in the little Cavities of the Surface and then the body is said to be wet or else have insinuated themselves into the most inward pores and recesses of the hard body which then we commonly say is moistned And on the contrary driness is nothing else but a kind of firmness inasmuch as a dry body is upon that score the more firm for being void of all moisture And now I cannot see why these four first Qualities as they are term'd should be excluded from having a share in the number of the causes of Diseases since they are notably active especially the three first modifications of matter and not only apt to excite various motions and cause as well new Combinations as dissolutions of bodies in the great World but also powerfully to alter the Microcosm and produce fundry different Symptoms in relation to the motions and harmony of the humane Engin. In the next place though it be utterly untrue that there are in the Vessels four distinct humors but whatsoever is contained in the Arteries and Veins is either the stale deflagrated blood or the alimentary juice fresh come into the Vessels or else the Serum or Whey returned by the Lymphaticks or else some Particles of Nitre and other bodies received in by the Lungs and Mouths of the veins from the Ambient And though the blood differ in several persons only as to the abundance or defect of natural heat yet are men not improperly said to be of a melancholick cholerick or some other temperament inasmuch as by how much the more vigorous or remiss the natural heat is in their bowels and entrals by so much the more weakly or powerfully concoctions are perform'd and consequently the blood apt to be overcharged either with stale and adust or else crude and phlegmatick Excrements In which respect the person either way disposed is not improperly said to be of a phlegmatick or cholerick temper and if the adust or raw Excrements be not rightly and duly separated out of the mass by the effervenscy of the blood I see no reason why I may not say that a man abounds with a melancholick cholerick or phlegmatick humor and if so the Notions about Pharmacy aiming at an evacuation or else alteration of these humors are not framed amiss nor whatever M. N. argues to the contrary without very good reason For I suppose it alters not much the case as to practice whether a man suppose that there is too great a redundancy of one of the humors in the blood or whether which is the right Notion he apprehend the blood depraved either with phlegmatick and raw juyces or the bilious Excrement consisting of Salt and Sulphur or the melancholick in which the Caput mortuum or earthy part is most predominant For either of these Notions will direct us when the blood is unable to fine its self to assist it with those alteratives which time and experience has recommended to us as proper in those cases and those Purgers which have been long observed more particularly to make a separation either of the pituitous cholerick or melancholick parts of the blood For though it be irrational to think that Purgers do with a certain knowledge or choice lay hold of one humor rather than another yet is that distinction of Purgers into Chologoga Phlegmagoga Melanagoga and Hydragoga of very good use and founded upon observation and experience inasmuch as these several Purgers by causing very different Fermentations and variously agitating the Particles of the Blood may with very good reason cause different separations and so one Purger to evacuate that sort of Excrement Barm or Lee which another cannot And in this matter I do not find that the Improvements which have been made in the Theory of Physick have much altered the Practice for the indication for Purging was not founded upon the Notion of the four Humors but upon long observation that when Distempers discovered themselves by such and such signs the body was to be emptied and by frequent tryals one Purger as especially Hellebor in Melancholy was found more essectual than
Hysterical Fits and some even after so large Haemorrhages that there has been more Reason to believe they had not Blood enough left to maintain the Circulation than to suspect the Lungs and Heart could be oppressed with it Riverius has an Observation of a Maid River Ob cent 1. ob 94. who having her menstruous Flux in so violent a manner that in the space of two hours she voided four or five Pints of Blood fell into so terrible a Fit of the Mother that she lay without speech as one dead and yet had her eyes open and shewed with her hand that she was strangled These and other Reasons seem to argue That the Animal Constitution I use Dr. Glysson's word is primarily affected in this Disease Glisson de Râ—chid p. 19. and the heart and lungs only secondarily and by consent and that the disorders of the vital parts as well as the rest of Hysterical Symptons are meerly convulsive motions Consonant to this Dr. Willis in his most admirable Treatise of the Brain Nerves gives an excellent account how the Lungs come to be affected in Hysterical and Hypochondriacal Paroxysms in these words Si quando nervos pneumonicos à causa morbifica affectiones Spasmodicae afflixerint ita ut motibus inordinatis convulsi arterias venas quas amplectuntur perperam constringant aut huc illuc contrahant propterea Sanguis aut pulmonibus nimis exulans eos flaccescere ac in se concidere facit adeo ut aerem copiose attrahentes ipsum haud facile reddant vel quod crebrius usu venit Sanguis intra pulmones detentus ibidemque stagnans eos infercit ac diu rigidos tenet ut aerem inspirare nequeant Vtriusque generis Symptomata in affectibus Hystericis quibusdam Hypochondriacis passim contingunt Quinimo interdum ipsa Bronchia pari nervorum Spasmo convelluntur ac in motu suo praepediuntur quo minus debito modo aerem inspirent exspirentque prout in paroxysmis Asthmaticis cernitur cujusmodi affectus saepenumero a nervorum vitio sine insita quavis pulmonum dyserasia producuntur Willis Nervorum Descrip c. 24. In the same Chapter he acquaints us how the affections and motions of the Heart are produced by the influence of the Animal Spirits through the intercostal and eighth pare of Nerves and that the tremblings and disorderly vibrations of the Heart which evidently differ from its pulsifick motions are caused from the violent Succussions and Convulsions of the Pericardium To evince the necessity of the influx of the Animal Spirits to maintain the motion of the Heart he tells us That he had often made this Experiment in Dogs when they were alive Having opened the Skin about the Neck he tyed both the Trunks of the Par Vagum with very strict Ligatures upon which the Dog seem'd to be stun'd lost wholly his voyce and fell into Convulsions about the Hypochondria with a great trembling at his heart But these presently ceasing he lay as if he were just a dying without any life or vigor in his countenance scarce being able to move any part and refusing all meat that was offered him Notwithstanding he dyed not in several dayes till he was quite starv'd though the Nerves were both cut asunder The Heart receiving by the recurrent and intercostal Nerves a sufficient though weak supply of Spirits to maintain a faint motion and a Circulation enough to keep the Dog alive Having hitherto prov'd That the Animal Constitution is primarily affected in the Hysterical Passion it will follow that theremay be assigned as many causes of this Distemper as we can imagine able either notably to vellicate the Extremities of the Nervs affect them so strongly as to draw into consent the whole System or else to put the Animal Spirits in the Brain into so great a confusion and disorder as to disturb their constant and regular irradiation and influx into the bowels and other parts of the body Or whatever causes are apt to render the nervous Juyce which is the Vehicle of the Spirits sharp and pungent and apt to irritate and provoke the Fibers in its passage The Ancients reckon the Seed retained in the genital parts in too great a quantity as one of the principal causes of these affections and that we may the better understand how that is able to put the Animal Spirits and Nerves into disorderly motions it will not be impertinent to consider the nature of it The Seed or Geniture seems to consist of Salt Sulphur and a great quantity of Spirit for these active principles are only able to perform that wonderful work of Generation in that secret shop of Nature the Womb. It may be proved by sundry Experiments That a nitro-sulphureous spirit is the Author of all Generations as well in Vegetables as Animals The Account which that eminently learned person D. Ent gives of the production of things in his Apology for the Circulation against Parisanus is very much to this purpose Eat Apol. Terra Aqua sayes he materies sunt rerum naturalium in quibus seu uteris diversa rerum gignendarum semina sive spiritus delitescunt quorum virtutes in salibus potissimum nidulantur Per calorem solis humores tenues variis salibus impraegnati ascendunt aeremque nostratem constituunt denuoque in elementa unde evecta erant relabuntur Quinetiam interdum majore copia roris forma decidunt cujus opera Terra Aqua spontaneos suos foetus producunt Indicium hujus rei est quod si aqua calida terram perfuderis namque eo modo sal omnis educitur nihil postea in ea nascitur neque vermiculi neque lapilli nec gramen imo nec semina quidem ei commissa licet soli haec terra exponatur aqua stillatitia irroretur nihil inquam inde progignitur donec per aliquod temporis spatium sub dio posita novo rore sive sale vivifico impraegnetur Hic ros super arborum frondes incidens varia insectorum genera producit Hic in mediano plantarum cortice potissimum stabulatur per quem plantae vivunt unde debito tempore frondes flores fructus producuntur ac propterea illo ipso in pertinacibus viscerum obstructionibus reserandis utimur In quo si Brosseus recte computum iniit vigecuplo plus hujus salis quam in ulla alia arboris parte reperitur Imo sunt qui affirmant ab ipsis plantarum salibus terrae commissis easdem denuo plantas repullulare Hinc constat idem etiam animalibus contingere hominumque semen de natura salis participare quod probatur his rationibus 1. Semen diutius retentum copia adauctum titillationem excitat id autem sali contingere in prurigine videre est 2. Semen in humido liquescit quod sali proprium est 3. Acidum olet 4. Hinc fit ut nimio coitu capilli qui tali sale abundant defluant Ossa eo
accurately examined and their uses admirably assign'd The blood the nutricious and nervous juyces have been by Dr. Willis as to their Principles Motions Stagnations Coagulations Dissolutions Exaltations Praecipitations and all Alterations which are incident to Liquors diligently considered and from thence more plainly and mechanically than from the Seminalities and fretting and fuming of the Archaeus according to the Chymists or indeed the indisposition or distemperature of the solid parts according to the Galenists have the causes of Diseases been deduced and excellently explained It is not I think to be question'd that a man is as Mechanically made as a Watch or any other Automaton and that his motions the regularity of which we call Health are perform'd by Springs Wheels and Engines not much differing except as to the curiousness of their Work from those pieces of Clock-work which are to be seen at every Puppet-play He who has heard of Drebels Organ which was set a going by the Sun-beams or Memnon's-Statue or but seen the subtil Workemanship of one Mark an Englishman who as the learned Muffet reports made for a Flea a chain of Gold of a fingers length Muffet Insect Theat c. 28. with a lock and key to it which was so finely and exquisitely wrought that the smal animal with much ease drew it after him and yet with the lock key and chain did not exceed the weight of a grain He I say who considers these works of Art and compares with them the subtil contrivances of Nature will certainly rest better satisfied in the Mechanical account of the operations and diseases of an Animal than in the Ens Pagoicum Sen. de Con. Dissen Chym. cum Galen Cagastricum Illiastrum Archaeus Reâ—lleum Chironeum Evestrum Yleck Trarames Turban Leffas Srannar Perenda Zendâ— and a thousand such conjuring unintelligible words of the Chymists and will plainly see that Anatomy is of no less use in the Curation of diseases than is the understanding of the springs and Wheels of a Watch to the man who undertakes to mend it and probably this speculation will make a considering man think it as possible with a preparation of Antimony or Mercury or any Universal Medicine to mend a Clock when it is at fault as with it to cure all the diseases belonging to the Body of Man That the body ought to be Mechanically considered not onely as to its actions but also in relation to its Diseases is I think the Opinion of every sound Philosopher Des Cartes in his Treatise of the Passions gives an account of what it is wherein a dead Man differs from a living Let us consider Des Cart de paâ—sion pâ—rt 1 Art c. 6. saith he that Death never happens through default of the Soul but onely through the corruption of one or other of the principal parts of our Body And let us judge that the Body of a living man doth differ from that of one dead only as much as a Clock or any other Automaton when it is in good order and has within it the Corporal Principle of its motions for whose use it was framed and all other things which are requisite to its action from the same clock or Engine when it is broken and the principle of its motions ceases to act The truth of this is abundantly evident to every mans Senses The shape and fabrick of the Heart and Valves the water-works of the Kidneys the admirable workman-ship of the Brain and Nerves and the Artificial Structure of all other parts do evidently demonstrate the Mechanism of mans Body and the usefulness and necessity of Knowledge in Anatomy both for the preserving of it in its due frame and likewise for the setting it in good order when it is out of it Fits of the Mother Epilepsies Apoplexies Madness and sundry other diseases of the Brain and Nervous Parts have usually by ignorant People been asctibed to Witch-craft and possession of the Devil And yet the causes of these astonishing distempers may without much difficulty be understood from an Anatomical consideration of the Brain and Nerves The whole structure of which has been examin'd with so much industry and sagacity by the incomparable Dr. Willis in his excellent book De Cerebro in which the wonderful Make of the Brain the turnings and windings of the Vessels and Receptacles the commerce by the Nerves with remote parts the Chymical production of the Animal Spirits and many more rarities of Nature are so clearly deliver'd that now a skilful Anatomist may without vanity undertake to give a rational Account of those very strange Distempers and Affections of mans Body which have formerly not only amazed the Vulgar but caus'd the Roman Senate to break up their Assemblies and adjourn their Consultations Wherefore the Author of Medela should in my opinion have been more wary in discovering his gross Ignorance in this so material a Point which is the Foundation and Corner-stone of Physick and without which nothing solid can be established And as for the Reason why his Touchy-head imagines Anatomy to be of little use in Physick Because forsooth when the Body is out of order by diseases the blood and humors have other Vagaries than in their usual Channels I do freely confess I do as little understand his Vagaries as I believe he does the true Motion of the blood and other juyces As for Chymistrie and his new Medicines and Secrets wrought out of the fire to which M. N. so much pretends though I am a very great friend to that Art and acknowledg that Physick is indebted to it for many neat and effectual Remedies yet I cannot be of that opinion that by it all Philosophy Anatomy and Method are to be justled out of the Schools and the Dispersatories out of the Shops For doubtless the advantages whicâ— came from Chymistry to Medicine were very slender and inconsiderable till it fell into the hands of Rational Learned Men who by adapting it to the Atomical Philosophy have made excellent use of the Analysing oâ— Bodies in giving an account of the Appearances of Nature and by using Chymical Remedies with good Method have found a more speedy and pleasant way oâ—curing Diseases than probably was knowâ— to the Antients But it does not in the leasâ— follow from hence that presently all the Medicines of the Shops are to be flunâ— away which having been known and tried by long experience the Mother of all Knowledg upon which the Materia Medica is wholly grounded are not so lightly to be set-by For that judicious Author Sennert de con dissen Chymic cum Gal Cap. 18. Sennertus tells us in his sober Treatise De Consens dissens Chym. cum Gal. that Chymists do often too curiously waste both their time and their mony in preparing those Medicines which Nature has rightly prepared to our hands as if Conserves of Roses and many other as also Condites and Powders and Compounds made of these were not used in Diseases
has been familiarly taken notice of and discoursed by the Physitians which has not been long the name has from them been deriv'd down to the Nurse-keepers and Searchers and is grown so common in their mouths that Diseases which either they understand not or have a mind to conceal are now often given in under the name of the Scurvy The Rickets is I think very rightly supposed by the Learned Doctor Glisson to be a Disease wholly new and to have had for one of its chief its procatactick Causes the Peace Security and Plenty which the Nobility and Gentry of this Nation had long enjoyed immediately before the first breaking forth of it Glisson de Rachid p◠241. From whence they had addicted themselves to a more soft delicate and debauched way of living and by that means contracted a constitution of body more effeminate flabby and unfirm than their Ancestors who by continual Toils Wars Dangers and other Manly Exercises not only preserved their own strength of body and generosity of mind but also deriv'd it entire to their Children But I do not find that it is observed by any able Physitian That the face and appearance of it is in the least altered from that in which it discovered its self at its first eruption neither is it entered into any stricter complication with the Pox and Scurvy than formerly Glisson de Rachid c. 20. These being Diseases as Doctor Glisson himself tells us very little a-kin and only by accident sometimes meeting in the same body For the increase of the Consumption in the Bills of Mortality Mr. Grant himself gives so sufficient a Reason that we need go no farther to enquire the cause of it nor to ascribe it to the alteration in the nature of that Disease since he affirms That almost all who dye of the French Disease are put into the Bills of Mortality under the name of Consumption For upon enquiry he sayes he found That all mentioned to dye of the French Pox were returned by the Clerk of St. Giles 's and St. Martins in the Fields dead of the Consumption from whence he concludes Grant Bills Mortal c. 3. That only hated persons and such whose very Noses were eaten off were reported by the Searchers to have dyed of this Malady The Stopping of the Stomack I can imagine to be nothing else but the Disease which Physitians call Asthma or Dyspnaea because I find not the least mention of this very frequent Malady in the Weekly Bills and that I observe there is nothing more usual with the Vulgar in their complaints to Physitians than to assign those Distempers to their stomacks which properly belong to their Lungs The Rising of the Lights is I think truly enough believed by M. N. to be that frequent Symptom which is vulgarly called Suffocatio uterina or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And I am not of Opinion that that Suffocation is only the proper affect of Women and that solely it is caused from the disturbance of the Womb For I have seen some men very much troubled with a rising up in their Throats and especially in Hypocondriacal Distempers no less apprehensive of being choaked than Hysterical Wo It is worth the taking notice of in this place that the Author of Medela who everywhere else inveighs so bitterly against the Aristotelean and Galenick Philosophy when he pretends to give some account of the reasons and causes of these Symptoms for want of truer apprehensions of his own shelters himself under the very weakest and most exploded part of that Philosophy And flies to the pitiful and jejune notions of Vapors raised in the Lower-belly especially about the Spleen in the stomack and about the Midrif and in the Cavity of the Omentum which must needs whilst they continue there hinder the free motion of the Midrif And a little farther that there may be no scruple left of his Ignorance in Anatomy he acquaints us with the playing of the Scorbutick malignant Vapors through the Veins and Arteries to the Lungs and by communication thence to the heart Which Opinion is so contrary to the Doctrine of Circulation that there is scarce a Butcher who is not able better to inform him and he may learn at every Shambles for 't is not fit he should prophane a Theatre that not one drop of blood enters the Lungs before it has passed the right Ventricle of the heart And now by reason this is a Subject very well worthy of a more accurate Disquisition and the Account which M. N. has pretended to give seems very lame and unsatisfactory I will beg leave to digress and offer some apprehensions which I have concerning the Hysterical Passion and other Distempers which seem to come very near it and agree in many of the Symptoms and Accidents A Digression concerning the Hysterical Passion THough the Disease called Hysterica Passio be by almost all Authors treated of as only peculiar to Women and proceeding only from the distemperature of the Womb yet as I have before observed it may upon grounds drawn from Reason and Experience be very truly affirmed That Men also are liable to most of the Symptoms of it and that even in Women they are often caused when the Womb is not in the least concern'd in the guilt And the reason why this Sex is more frequently than that other afflicted with this Malady may very well be ascribed to their more delicate constitution and soft texture of their nervous parts whereby they become more liable to convulsive motions and upon the vellicating and twitching of any one part endued with exquisite sense to have Convulsions communicated to the whole nervous System from whence the whole frame of the Body is put into disorder as we see Clocks and Watches whose Springs and Wheels are contriv'd with too subtil and nice workmanship are oftner in fault than those of more plain work For the better understanding of the Nature of this Disease and of the Causes from whence all the Symptoms do flow it will not be improper to give those Descriptions of it which are delivered by Authors and of the Accidents which in some particular persons have occurr'd to my own observation The Paroxysms or Fits of this Disease in some move regularly and return at certain set-times in others are uncertain and wandring Some persons they invade in an instant in others they give notice and warning by certain signs which forerun the Fit and are a Prologue to the Tragedy As a dulness of Spirits Laziness Faintness Paleness of Face Sadness of Countenance The Parties press their Belly with their hands and perceive something to rise up to their apprehensions as big as a Cannon-Bullet their Legs fail them and tremble they find something rise up to their Throat ready to choke them Then they grow drowsie lose their understanding some laugh others weep some do both Besides they find a gnawing pain at the mouth of their Stomack a loathing of Meat
impraegnata in lue Venerea afficiantur The Sum of what this learned person asserts is That nitro-sulphureous Spirits or Salts are as it were the Soul of the World and the Authors and Causes of all Productions and Generations These Seeds Spirits or vivifick Salts are certainly much more exactly elaborated and exalted in Animals than Vegetables and in those which are more perfect than in the less for that there are Instruments and Organs purposely ordained and contrived by Nature which are to give a perfection to the Seminalities of Men and other Creatures which are endued with a regular shape proportionable to the nobleness and exactness of the Fabrick which they are to design and build when they are employed for the continuance of the kind in the act of Generation Willis Dâ—script Nerv Therefore as Dr. Willis does very well demonstrate The Arteries do after the same manner instill into the Testicles a genital juyce for the making of Seed as they do into the Brain an animal Liquor for the production of Spirits which in the Veins and Arteries contrived for that cause with infinite turnings and windings is made more subtil and volatil and the Parts are in their passages exactly mixed the more gross and terrestrial are separated and at length the refined and exalted Liquor is sent into the inward substance and body of the Stones where being farther elaborated and mingled with the volatil Salt the innate ferment of those parts it becomes Seed It is farther to be considered That when the Ferment implanted in the genital parts comes to be sufficiently ripened and by a long digestion has arrived to its perfection Men and Women attain to that state and maturity which we call in Latin Pubertas At that time the genital parts grow hot and being filled with seminal Spirits discharge themselves continually of some part of them by the veins into the mass of blood from whence the nervous Juyce and Spirits become tinctured and impregnated with the seminal Ferments so that about that time the blood grows high and luxuriant and in Women being hardly contained within its own limits is emptied every Month by a periodical turgescency There is at this time a great alteration wrought in the manners and behaviour and the ranck acid scents vented by the Emunctories of the Nerves do declare That the Juyce which passes in them is inspired with the geniture Now if for want of seasonable Evacuation by Coition this genital spirit does not only too much abound in the blood but also in its frequent Returns by the Arteries to the Testicles is overdigested and too highly elaborated which is called by Physitians contracting a malignant quality it renders the spirits upon all slight occasions especially in Women whose Nerves and Brains are weak liable to sudden and impetuous Fermentations so that upon the Orgasms of these unruly Seminalities and a forcible disunion of the saline part from the sulphureous those Explosions and Convulsions are caused in the Abdomen and other parts This Notion I acknowledg to Dr. Willis which are so violent for the most part and impetuous that they cannot well be imagined to be produced by any other cause than such as must at least equal the force of Gunpowder And we find how apt these spirits are to take fire in the blood and nervous juyce by the causes which in Women liable to the Fits induce a Paroxysm For passions of the mind violent exercise sweet smells or any slight cause whereby the blood and spirits are chafed presently brings on a Fit that the abounding of the seminal spirits in the body may be one cause of the Fits of the Mother and certainly it is the most violent is confirm'd by the observation of Riolan who affirms That upon the Dissection of Hysterical Virgins he has found their Testicles bigger than his Fist filled with seminal matter But certainly as the Seed is one cause of this Disease so is it oftentimes produced from other causes and oftentimes when the genital parts are not in fault Nay it is often obvious to be observed That a defect in the uterine Ferment as in Cachectical Green-sickness Maids has occasioned them to be much afflicted with Hysterical Passions For the blood in such Women for want of the seminal tincture which ought at a due time to enliven and inspire it remains crude slimy and does not as it ought cleanse its self by its menstrual Purgations by which means many Impurities are cast upon the Brain with which the nervous juyce becomes to be much vitiated and to prove an improper Vehicle for the spirits and by exciting preternatural Fermentations in the nervous parts to cause Hysterical Paroxysms which happen for the most part periodically and at set-times when the body expects its lunary benefits for at such times the nervous juice as well as the Blood being saturated with Feculencies indeavours by fermentation to depurate it self by which the Animal Spirits are put into disorder and the nerves drawn into convulsive motions These two The Seed and Menstruous blood retained are the onely causes of Hysterical fits which are assigned by almost all Authours except Riverius who adds that other humours likewise retained in the womb and genital parts have likewise their shares in producing those Symptoms which he concludes from observing That many Old-Women who are neither troubled with Seed or menstruous blood are oft-ten very obnoxious to these distempers To which he adds a Notion of his own which he sayes is of very great moment and seems very agreeable to this Hypothesis That Hysterical Passions are not onely excited by vapours raised from the forementioned substances But the very humours which find no vent by the passages of the womb which is a kind of Sink to the body through a suppression of the Menses Riv. pr. l. 15 c. 6. or the Whites are sent back to the upper parts and infect them with an ill quality which they have contracted by too long a stay in the vessels of the womb by a contagion from the Seed and menstruous blood To these Causes which are delivered by Writers may all such be added as Authours of this Distemper which are apt by vellicating the extremities of the nervs to cause Convulsions Such are sharp juices in the womb spleen and other bowels schirrous tumours not onely in the womb but in the stomach mesentery breast and other parts The same accidents will wounds in the nerves produce and in Women subject to Fits even gentle Vomits which work by causing a convulsive motion in the stomach will put them into Hysterical Paroxysms as I observed lately in a Lady my patient to whom being above fifty years of age upon very urgent indications I gave onely Ê’iii's of infusion of Crocus metallorum and because I knew her to be Hystericall and had formerly observed in others Paroxysmes induced by Vomits before she tooke it I ordered an Hysterical plaister to her Navel The Vomit
not seem strange to any man that these rare Productions of sundry species of Worms should happen in mens Bodies if we consider That in our Meats Drinks and Air the Salts or Seminalities of sundry Insects may be conveyed into and mingled with our Blood which are kept under by the dominion of the Spirits and never are permitted to exercise their own natural Operations till in Diseases and Disorders of the Body they come to be set at liberty Now the causes and reasons of the generation of Insects as well in humane as other Bodies being as ancient as the Creation it self in which the Seeds of Worms as well as Vegetables received their power of multiplying there appears no reason why Worms should in these times be more frequently appearing in Fevers and other Diseases than in former or that any alteration should by vermination be brought into the nature of Diseases Now as to the Experiments of Kircher though I will not question the faith of that Author in delivering them yet I do not doubt but in former Ages by the help of a good Microscope the same Observations might have been made And though I will allow that in times of Pestilence by the indisposition of the Air and the rambling of pernicious steams flowing from infected Bodies more plentiful swarms and numerous productions of insects in the Air and other Bodies may insue than in other more healthful seasons yet I must beg leave of Kircher to apprehend some difficulties in assenting to his Hypothesis since the manner of infection from the plague may be more easily made out from the figure and motion of Atoms than by those swarms of living creatures perpetually vented from the infected Body which if they poison the sound Body by turning its Blood and Juices into the like pernicious Vermin I see no reason why they should not fill the whole Air with their fatal progeny and impregnating the Winds with their Venemous Colonies permit no man to be safe though removed at a considerable distance from the places which are infected Whereas it is found true by constant Experience except by some common cause which has corrupted the whole aire the plague be produced The pestilence insects not at a far distance but only within a narrow Sphere It is very possible that not only the Blood of men in Feavers but also that of healthy persons may sometimes be observ'd to be full of Mites or Worms as well as Milk and Vinegar and yet no malignant Distemper much lesse the plague be produc'd by them For we find that these Liquors though almost constituted of innumerable little Animals are not in the least adverse to the nature of man and on the contrary the best and sharpest Vinegar which most abounds with Worms to be an excellent Antidote and preservative against the plague Neither will M. N. I must tell him be er'e the nearer as to the curation of Diseases from this Notion of Kirâ—her For even those Remedies which will destroy great Worms in the Stomach and Bowels are perhaps apt to produce little Mites in the Blood as in the Experiments quoted out of Dr. Ent the Spirit of Moscatel produces Flies and Vitriol which is an admirable resister of all putrifaction in Water or Wine produces Worms As to the Cure of malignant Feavers though I know well that in them Worms are often produced in the Bowels and other parts from the putrifaction of the Aliment and corruption of the Ferments of the parts yet they are not seldome free from those accidents and when they happen Nature and Physicians have so ordered the matter that generally most Medicines which are Alexipharmical are likewise proper against the Worms Riverius River Obs 91. in his Observations recommends it as a thing worthy of especial notice That Bezoar is of admirable virtue against VVorms and in another place highly commends Scordium The virtues of Treacle Mithridate Diascordium Harts-horn Coral Pearls Trochisks of Vipers the acid juices of Minerals and Vegetables the Compound waters of the Shops as Aqua Scordii Composita Theriacal frigida Saxon and many other Remedies used both by the Galenists and Chymists are sufficiently known to be of admirable Virtue and Use in both cases So that the very same Remedies which are of force against the malignity of the Disease are also very prevalent in destroying VVorms As to the Plague as I have before intimated the account which the Learned Gassendus gives of it seems to me abundantly more satisfactory than what Kircher pretends to by his animated Effluxes Videtur inprimis sayes that Learned Author halitus pestilens idem posse proportione praestare in aere quod Coagulum in lacte Gassend c. de Calore Subterraneo Ut enim dum Corpuscula coaguli per lactis Substantiam diffusa excurrunt ita situm partium illius commutant ut ex fluido fixum consistensque reddant eo modo quo si confusam fluxamque congeriem tessularum exquisite aequalium perflans Ventus sic emoveret ut facies faciebus exquisite coadunaret Sic Corpuscula halitus pestilentis insinuata in aerem intelligi possunt ea ratione invertere commutareque ejus situm ut ex salubri insaluber evadat qui prius egregie naturae animalis accommodabatur incommodus illi summopere fiat Neque mirum sit si qui prius animalis Corpus fovebat continebatque in suo statu illius partes deinceps conturbet immutare coactet Deinde videri quoque poteâ— halitus idem sive in aere sive in animalis corpore quod flamma ignisve praestare Ut enim dum flamma aeri admota in quem Naphtha halitum pinguem corpusculis-ve igneis turgentem circumfuderit ipsum sui similem facit creatve in eo flammam quatenus corpuscula ignis subeuntia in halitum quae sunt in eo sui similia hoc est ignea Corpuscula ex ipsa halitus textura quam discutiunt extricant iisque similes suos motus reddunt Sic dum halitus pestilens aeri Corporive animalis admonetur intelligi potest subeuntia â—ejus corpuscula ita emovere illa quae in ipsis sui similia reperiunt ut ea in texturam novam segregent motus suis similes exitiales utpote induant Nempe ut nemo diceret esse in illo aere circum Naphtham fuso neque etiam in ligno corpuscula ulla calorifica quatenus propter conditionem ejus naturae ad quam spectant indicium caloris nullum exhibent sic nemo etiam diceret esse in aere viso puro animalive habito sano venenata ulla pestiserave corpuscula quae esse tamen omnino valeant utcunque ob eam Contexturam quam attinent se minime prodant Possemus id uberius ex Gangrenae effectu aliisque multis declarare And indeed the Hypothesis which explains the way of the working of the pestilent Infection upon the Air and Blood of sound persons by the comparison of the Runnet's coagulating and fixing
far greater quantity of fixed Salt than the Bodies And we see that in Dropsies Chachexies Obstructions and the like Diseases which will not yield to vulgar Medicins the learnedst practitioners betake themselves to Medicins of Tartar Steel and Vitriol as a certain Refuge in the greatest Extremities and it cannot be imagin'd how these Medicins should perform such certain and admirable effects but that by fermenting the Blood with their Saline Particles they supply the defect of the natural ferment For as long as this is vigorous and the passages are open from the Spleen into the masse of Blood the Splenick leven by continually maintaining an intestine motion of the small Particles of the Blood preserves that Liquor in its due mixture and consistence so that the grosser and finer Particles being exactly mingled one with another and the Spirits free and at liberty the Blood is rendered fit to circulate through the most streight and narrow passages and not apt to curdle and stagnate in the Vessels And by this means Crudities are concocted Obstructions opened tough and slimy humors attenuated and the Blood defecated of all its Excrements and Impurities by the vents and emunctories of the Body By this means not only the Juyces which run in the Veins and Arteries are rich pure and spirituous but likewise from these a soft subtil and well rectified Spirit and Liquor is communicated to the Brain and distributed into the Nerves for the use of the Animal Function and exercise of Sense and Motion in all the Instruments and Organs designed by Nature for those uses Furthermore it is very probable that the Splenick Ferment does by the Arteries out of the masse of Blood supply the stomach and Bowels which serve for the concoction of Aliment with a Menstruum not unlike those Liquors with which the Chymists dissolve Mettals and other Bodies for the dissolution of meat and reducing it to Chyle For we cannot with Reason assign that work to Heat since the most intense fire cannot by roasting baking boiling or any other way of applying of that Element reduce bread flesh and other meats in many dayes into a substance so fluid and thin as the Stomach can in a very few hours Now as the Spleen whilest it dispenses a sincere and rightly elaborated ferment is a Bowel of great use and importance for the preservation of the blood and Spirits in their due temper and motion so does it often cause very considerable disorders and extravagancies in the Oeconomy of the Body when it degenerates from its natural constitution and infects the Humors and Spirits with an impure and ill digested Leven For that the Blood may duly and orderly ferment and circulate it is most requisite that the intestine motion of the little Particles which constitute it be neither too furious and tumultuous nor too heavy and sluggish And for this reason is it as I suppose that the fixed Salt is separated from the Blood in the Spleen and again returned and mingled with the Masse by the Veins For indeed fixed Salt consisting of parts which are indued with some kind of Acrimony and yet being not too severely acid seem to be Bodies most proper to maintain a leisurely and orderly Ebullition But if the ferment once grow too sharp and acid and acquire parts apt to provoke irritate and prick the sensible parts of the Body and the fixed Salts become to be fluid it presently fects the whole stream of the Blood puts it into violent and disorderly motions vellicates the nervous parts fixes the Spirits puts all the humors into a hurly burly and makes them apt to congeal and stagnate For when this Ferment is rightly made it consists of Salt with the addition of a moderate quantity of earth by the mutual Conjunction of which fixed Salt is produced but if by any means there be a seperation made of the Saline part from the earthy then are the Salts said to be in the state of fluidity because they run together into a Liquor as Spirit of Salt Spirit of Vitriol and the like Thus when the Ferment of the Spleen becomes fluid it acquires the fierce sharpness of Vinegar or Spirit of Vitriol This is the fault of it in Hypocondriacal Persons For in men who labour of those Distempers all the fixed Salts of the Blood which circulate through the Spleen are there made fluid till at length they come to prevail over the other principles of the Blood and turn the whole stock of it into a Liquor as sharp as Vinegar or Spirit of Vitriol by which means all the Spirits are depressed and kept under The sowre Belches and Vomits of Hypocondriacal Persons which oftentimes are no lesse sharp than Spirit of Vitriol are a very sufficient argument of the sharpness of their Juices which prick and tear their stomachs bowels and nervous parts with continual pains and torments and sometimes with their Corroding acidity flea their Tongues Throats and Lips And the violent and irregular motions and boylings of the blood do very evidendently convince that the Constitution of that Liquor in Hypochondriacal Persons is become sharp and eager For we find it most true from sundry expriments that such tumultuous Ebullitions are caused from the mixture of fluid Salts with fixed and in Liquors which are void of fluid Salts we meet with no such fermentations or where they are but in small quantity mingled the fermentation is lesse and more leisurely and nothing so tumultuous In quick-Lime and Juices which abound with acid Salt as soon as the fluid and fixed meet with one another presently a noise heat and boyling do ensue Thus we see Salt of Wormwood Scurvy-grass or the like Coral Pearl Oyster-shells and other testacious bodies when Spirit of Vitriol Sulphur juyce of Lemons Berberies Oranges or any acid liquor is poured upon them presently fall a boyling and hissing Many more Instances of this kind may be given but because they are obvious to every man who is in the least versed in Chymical operations I will pass them by and farther endeavor to prove from the way of cure of Hypochondriacal Distempers by the Medicins most approved and famed by the best and most learned Authors That the cause of those affections consists in a sharp and eager Distemper of the Blood and Juyces The Remedies which in this case are most commended are such as consist of Steel Tartar Vitriol fixed Salts and all testacious bodies as likewise diuretical Remedies which abounding with fixed Salts do very much precipitate the blood For we find by Experience That these Medicins do sweeten all sharp Liquors and abate their Pungency for the Acrimony of Salts is not blunted by Sulphurious but Saline bodies by reason that fixed Salts by an intimate and close union to the fluid do obtund their points and edges as a thick piece of Steel exactly fitted to the blade of a Knife will abate the cutting or dividing power of the edge Thus the corroding sharpness of Spirit
the Guts which mingling with the Bile serves there to ferment the Aliment The faeces in such persons are most commonly very black by reason of the vitriolick acidity which mingled with the Salts of the meat produces that colour as we see Ink is made by the mixture of the Salts of Galls and Vitriol Their Urine is generally very highly coloured like a strong Lie for that much of the Salt being not sufficiently volatilised and breath'd out through the Pores is sent down in the Serum through the urinary Passages When the Urine comes away thin and white it is for the most part the certain forerunner of a Fit for that either the saline parts are carried up to the head and flung upon the Nerves or because the fixed and fluid Salts meeting together encounter and ferment with one another and coagulating together are not dissolved in the Whey of the Blood and so that runs through the Kidneys clear and without any tincture from the Salts As to the Vital Faculty they find often about their breast a great oppression straitness and difficulty of breathing and sometimes fall into Asthmatical Paroxysms Moreover they complain of a trembling and palpitation of the heart of a great weight and oppression at it so that they every minute apprehend they are a dying All which Symptoms proceed partly from the sharpness of the nervous juyce which grates and vellicates the Nerves and is apt to stagnate in them and partly from the Blood which is not well and regularly fired in the heart In relation to the Animal Faculty there are very few Symptoms in this Disease which do not owe their original either to the brain or the nervous parts or else to the nervous juyce From hence proceed acute and wandring pains about the Mediastin and Shoulders and sometimes such as imitate the colick and nephritick Passions From hence are often Apoplexies Epilepsies Palsies Giddiness Watchings unquiet Sleeps and many other Symptoms which are caused from the disorder of the Animal Faculty Now the head and nervous parts are two several ways affected from the distemper of the Spleen 1. From the Blood made sowre andcager by the Spleen a Liquor is distributed to the brain and nervous parts infected with the same harsh and ungrateful quality which perpetually grates and provokes those tender and sensible parts 2. The second way by which the brain is affected from the Spleen is when the extremities of the Nerves which are distributed throughout that part are pricked twitched and vellicated by sharp juyces which are lodged in that Bowel from whence Convulsions are communicated to the brain and nervous System by which means the Spirits are put into disorder and confusion in their very fountain and original and being tumultuously darted into the branches of the Nerves do sometimes in one part sometimes in another cause violent and convulsive motions There is a story in Tulpius of a man whose Spleen was fill'd with so sharp and pungent a Liquor that if the part were only pressed by the hand his Brain and whole nervous System were presently drawn into consent Lien in eo sayes that Author a turgido atrae bilis fermento jam tumidus diffudit illico ex se vapores cerebro tam inimicos ut juvenis protinus concideret in gravissimos morbi comitialis insultus Nam pressa vel solo digito regione lienis contrahebantur illico omnes nervi sequebatur confestim miserabilis totius corporis concussio It is now high time to return to M. N. and to tell him That he very unreasonably vents his Gall upon the Physitians for treating of bilious or cholerick Complexions and Diseases For though according to Helmont and Sylvius Bile may be very useful in some parts of the body yet in respect of others it may be an Excrement and though it may serve for a useful Ferment in the Guts yet too great a quantity of it in the Blood may cause a Disease and indicate an Evacuation Consonant to this is what Dr. Willis sayes in his Book De Feb. Willis de Feb. c. 1. Quando pars Sulphurea evehiâ—â—r ac in cruore nimis luxuriat ejus Crasin a dehito statu pervertit ut exinde Sanguis vel deprâ—â—â—atus seu biliosior factus Succum alibilâ—m non rite coquat vel in tatum accensus aestus atque ardores quales in 〈◊〉 continua oriuntar concepiat And this 〈◊〉 Person in the same Treatise tells us That the reason why Vomits do often cure internâ—rtent Fevers â—oillis â—â— Feb. c. 3 is because they pump up thâ— Choler out of the Bladder and Vessels of Gall and by emplying of them make room for the bilious Humor or the Particles of adust Salt and Sulphur which are too plentifully mingled with the Blood to be separated into those Receptacles And now as to Chymistry to which the Author of Medela so much pretends I must with some Compassion take notice That he has burnt his Fingers as unhappâ—ly in the Furnaces as he before cut them with the Dissecting Knives For after all his bragging of his Secrets of being one of the Adepti and his Sagacity in penetrating Helmont he has poor man most unluckily confessed himself to be grosly ignorant of the very Principles of Chymistry in affirming That the Sulphur is lighter Med. p. 272. and more Aethereal than the Spirit If the Gentleman would have vouchsafed to have consulted Dr. Willis whom he quotes every where when he mistakes him for his advantage would have learnt from him That Spiritus sunt substantia maxime subtilis Willis de Feb. c. 2. aetherea divinioris aurae particula and that Sulphur est principium consistentiae paulo crassioris quam Spiritus post ipsum maxime activum Cum enim soluta mixti compage Spiritus primo erumpunt particulae Sulphureae statim subsequi nituntur Here Dr. Willis tells him That the Spirit is the most light and subtil Substance that the Sulphur is a grosser Principle and I dare challenge him to produce any good Chymical Author who ever affirmed Sulphur to be lighter and more Aethereal than Spirit and if he do I will assure him That I will disbelieve what now by this instance I am confirm'd in and received from a very good hand To wit That after he had published his Medela Medicinae he was discovered by some Physitians into whose Company to see a Course in Chymistry he had slightly crept not to understand so much of that Art as amounted to the making of flower of brimstone A very fit person to undertake the demolishing the old and the laying of new Fundamentals in the profession of Physick CHAP. VIII I Have in the foregoing Chapters prov'd that many of the Methods Medicines and Terms of the Ancients are to be retained and that many of their Notions about Pharmacy will as well suit with the Modern as they did with Ancient suppositions The businesse of this Chapter is to shew that
Verses which were made in imitation of the mysterious and aenigmatical expressions of the Chymists Ignis in igne fuit sed non fuit ignis in igne Lux sine luce fuit non sine luce fuit All that any sober man can conceive of the Archaeus or Spirit is That it is the most fine volatil and aethereal part of the blood contained in the Arteries Veins and Nerves and I grant that the Dyscrasie of the blood their Vehicle is the cause of many Diseases But this is a very different thing from the words of M. N. and I suppose too from his Notion of the Archaeus which is either unintelligible by any rational man or else must be the very same which the Ancients had of the Vital Animal or Natural Spirits and therefore upon either account is very vainly offered as a new particular of great moment and weight for the meliorating the Practice of Physick As to his Quotations out of Fernelius and Heurnius those Authors speak no more than what is said by Hippocrates and Galen and all their Followers That the Spirits the impetum facientia are the immediate instruments of the Soul that by them all motions sensations and operations in human bodies are perform'd Wherefore the learned Sennertus though he allow Paracelsus and his Disciples to impose new words upon new things justly blames them For introducing new improper insignificant and barbarous terms upon notions and things anciently receiv'd Sennert de Con. Dissen Chym. cum Gal. c. 5. and rejecting such as by long use and custom had been rendered proper familiar and intelligible And he asks Paracâ—lsus What necessity there was to bring into use the word Archaeus since that upon diligent examination that signifies nothing more than the Faculty and natural Virtue or the natural Spirit the Servant of the natural Faculty do in the Schools of the Philosophers and Physitians And he adds That neither Paracelsus or Severinus are such great persons that we must presently for their fancy or humor reject those familiar terms which have alwayes been us'd by the learned World and in their stead without reason admit of the Paracelsian Gibberish And certainly if we consider the nature of the Spirits aright we shall find that nothing more than what is signified by them can be meant if that term signifie at all by the Archaeus of the Chymists For the vital Spirit is nothing else but the more fine more sublim'd and subtilifed part of tho Blood by which the Fermentation and internal motion of the Particles of that Liquor is maintain'd and that in its circular motion preserv'd from Coagulations and Stagnations and when the body remains in the state of health a separation is continually made of all immiscible and heterogeneous bodies which are either taken in with the Aliment or else come into the blood from the Ambient The animal Spirit is nothing else but the same vital more volatilised and refin'd in the brain and from thence distributed together with the nervous juyce through the Nerves to perform the offices of Sense and Motion The natural I take to be some of the animal Spirits which take up their residence in the extream Fibers of the parts and there remain and are continually refreshed and recruited by an influence from the brain and these the Schools call the innate Spirit Faculty or Virtue of a part Either one of these or all must be meant by the Archaeus of the Chymists or else that term be altogether insignificant Vox praeterea nihil And whether it be considered as an idle word or a new term to express an old Notion it cannot but be absurd to offer it as a particular considerable in order to the Practice of Physick in the place of the old Fundamentals which he pretends to have demolished CHAP. IX IN his Ninth Chapter M. N. proceeds to an examination of divers old Doctrines which more immediately relate to the Practice of Physick and first he cashiers the Doctrine about Critical days which he calls as childish a conceit as ever was owned by any Long-beards called the Children of Men. But I shall plainly prove That this Doctrine is not so easily to be blown away being of so absolute necessity to the true management of Fevers that except a diligent heed be had to the Critical motions of those Diseases the best and most proper Remedies prove as dangerous to the sick as a drawn Sword in the hands of a blind man who lays about him at random and knows not upon whom or where the edge will light For though the Ancients possibly might be ignorant of the true causes of the Critical motions of Diseases that did no more hinder them from making true observations upon them than the disagreement of Philosophers concerning the reasons of the Fluxes and Refluxes of the Sea does cause Mariners to be ignorant of what Tides will carry them into and out of several Harbors And though it must be confessed that in these Northern Countries wherein we live Fevers are neither so constantly nor so orderly terminated by Critical Evacuations as punctually to agree with the descriptions of Hippocrates and Galen by reason that in this colder Climate which is perpetually liable to alterations from the Air the Blood when it is fired into a Fever does not burn with so equal and constant a flame and therefore cannot observe so exactly the times and periods of its burning and consuming the sulphureous or combustible part And for that the Blood of most Persons being tainted with the Scurvy cannot so easily concoct and at once separate the adust Recrements but that they are often instead of being Critically evacuated translated upon the brain and nervous parts Yet is not the Credit of those grave Authors by every impertinent Man to be called into question concerning the truth of the observations which they made upon the motions and burning of Fevers in the Countries wherein they liv'd and practis'd Physick since they have been always reputed by the most Learned of unsuspected Faith and integrity in delivering matters of fact which fell under their own notice And indeed if we consider the true causes of critical Evacuations we cannot question but that in continual putri'd Feavers in those parts of the World in which neither the coldnesse of the Air nor the Scorbutick distemper made the difference Nature was as precise in observing her periods as she uses to be with us in Quotidians Tertians and Quartans For indeed a Crisis in a continual Feaver is the very same with a Paroxysm in an Intermittent as Doctor Willis very well observes Willis de Feb. c. 9. for sayes he as in an Intermittent when the mass of blood is overcharged with the Particles of the deprav'd Alimentary juice which can by no means be subdued and assimilated that falls aworking and by its fermentation depurates its self and sends out by the pores of the skin the heterogenious matter so in a
a little a swift and a slow a frequent and a rare a hard and a soft are by M. N. acknowledged to be established upon very good grounds So whosoever is frequent in handling the wrists of sick and dying men will find that there is very good reason to admit the other differences especially such as arise in respect of equality and inequality in respect of order and in respect of Rythm or proportion for the reasons of these as well as the simple motions are not hard to be understood from the true consideration of the motion of the heart and blood and are to be met with accomodated to that Hypothesis in the Writings of the learned Dr. Highmore from whose account it is very clear That the Pulsus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deficientes intermittentes High Corp. Human. Disquis l. 1. p. 2. c. 8. intercurrentes caprizantes dicroti undosi vermiculares formicantes tremuli serrati are not as M. N. calls them Quirks and Quillets and hard words but really different motions of the Heart and Blood and he tells us that In morituris semper aut unus aut singuli reperiuntur If any one be pleas'd with Extravagancies and Whimsies concerning the Pulse he may find enough of them in Paracelsus who gives this wild account of the Pulse Pulsus Paracels l. de Pestilent Tract 1. est mensura temperaturae in corpore secundum preprietatem Sex locorum quae Planetae occupant duo in pedibus attribuuntur Saturno Jovi duo in collo veneri Marti duo in temporibus Lunae Mercurio Pulsus Solis est in sinistro latere sub corde Hinc sequitur si Pulsus celerius movetur quam fieri debebat pati septem membra principalia Cor cerebrum hepar fel renes unde Pulsus irritetur sive ad iram concitetur Si vero aliquod principale membrum a morbo vincatur Pulsus debiliter movetur quod aer sive Spiritus vitae eo loci obstructus est And he has farther in another place Tom. 2. p. 743. Pulsum manere usque ad mortem imo aliquando quadrantem horae post mortem Concerning this opinion of Paracelsus the impartial Sennertus delivers his What I pray says he can be more absurd and argue a greater ignorance of humane body Sennert de Con. Dissen Chym. cum Gal. c. 18. than for Paracelsus to write That the Gall the Reins the Liver have peculiar Pulses and to ascriâ—e to the Pulse the passion of Anger For if we examine the Original of the Arteries and the use and intent of the Pulse we shall find that every alteration in that immediately comes from the Heart As to the Directions which are to be drawn from consideration of the Pulse in Diseases they are of so much importance to a Physitian in a Fever as the Card and Needle to a Pilot in a storm no hand of a Watch or Clock does more exactly signifie the motions of their inward Springs and Wheels than the Pulse does the alterations made in the great Engine of Life the Heart Framb Can. Consult Med. p. 25. The Pulse is says Frambesarius Fidelis nuntius cordis ex quo certissima vitae ac mortis petuntur indicia Pulsus magnus vehemens est virium index in quibus sanitatis restituendae spes ponitur Sed Pulsus parvus languidus facultatis vitalis imbecillitatem indicat unde mortis metus Inaequalitas Pulsus semper damnatur si perseveret intermissio juvenibus periculosissima repentinam quippe ill is mortem minatur nisi ex artertarum obstructione oppressione fâ—at minus pueris minime senibus The Pulse says Dr. Willis whom M. N. confesses to be no Defender of the unjustifiable Doctrines of the Ancients is consulted like a Weather-glass appointed by Nature to measure the degrees of the Heat which in a Fever is caus'd by the Bloods being set on fire if that be intense and causes a great Ebullition in the Blood the Artery as long as the Spirits continue vigorous beats vehemently and swiftly but when they begin to be spent the strength of the Pulse abates which is supplied by the swiftness and the Pulse becomes small and swift If the Fever be more mild Willis de Feb. c. 10. and the Heat less tumultuous the Pulse does less recede from its natural temper and during the whole course of the Disease a moderation in that does signifie a Truce between Nature and the Distemper Nor does the Pulse only give intelligence of the forces of the Fever as of an Enemy but it acquaints us with the strength of Nature and its ability to make resistance As long as there is a good Pulse all is safe and there is all reason to hope well but an ill condition of this is a very ill Omen and puts the sick person past hopes so that without a frequent and diligent examination of the Pulse the Physitian will neither be able truly to pass his Prognostick nor safely to administer Physick Nay the Pulse is of so great importance in Fevers that if it on a sudden alter for the worse though all other Symptoms promise well it is a dismal forerunner of death and upon the other hand if that continue good though all other Symptoms threaten ill we have reason to hope for a Recovery He goes on and shews that without taking advice of the Pulse neither Purgers nor Vomits nor Sweatters Cardiacks or Narcoticks can be administred without very great hazzard I know very well that what M. N. objects is true that the Passions the presence of the Physitian and many other accidents will make a confiderable alteration in the Pulse but to inferr from hence that no more credit is to be given to them by a Physitian Mâ— Med. p. 33. than by a Wise man to a Gypsie who crosses his hand to tell his Forune is as absurd as to conclude from the variation of the Needle that it is of no use in Navigation or to affirm that Watches are not useful to measure Time because accidental causes as moist weather walking or riding with them in the Pocket or the like may in some sort retard or accelerate their motions The Methodists have been so careful that in their Institutions when they treat of the Pulse they acquaint us with what accidents may make an alteration in them Therefore Sennertus and other writers of Institutions advise that the Physitian do not as soon as he comes to the Patient presently feel his pulse but stay till the motions which the presence of the Physitian has rais'd in his affections be over and that then when he is sedate and quiet and free from passion he examin the pulse and then neither not presently when he has been stirred but after the disturbance which was caus'd in his Body by moving of him be over then that the Hand of the Patient be free from all voluntary motion that the Fingers be not too
pag. 40 All the Symptoms of that Disease easily deriv'd from thence pag. 40 41 Men fall into the Scurvy after Fevers by reason of the wasting of the volatil Salt of the blood in them pag. 41 The Vrin of healthy and young men abounds much more with volatil Salt than that of aged and sickly persons pag. 41 The Air in the Northern Countries abounds with fixed Salt and disposes the blood to the Scurvy pag. 41 42 Respiration necessary to life for the drawing in of Nitre to keep afâ—ot the Fermentation of the Heart pag. 42 There is a great difference in Nitres pag. 43 The Specificks for the Scurvy perform their effects by their volatil Salts ib. Why it is increased in the Bills of Mortality pag. 44 The Rickets a new Disease ib. The Reason of its first breaking forth in England pag. 45 Not altered since pag. 45 Not akin to the Pox and Scurvy ib. The Reason of the increase of the Consumption in the Bills of Mortality pag. 45 46 The stopping of the Stomack the same with the Asthma ib. The Rising of the Lights the same with the Suffocatio uterina ib. Men as well as Women subject to the Disease call'd the Hysterical Passion pag. 48 Why Women are more frequently troubled with Fits than Men. pag. 49 The Hysterical Passion described pag. 49 50 The Causes of this Disease and its Symptoms according to the Ancients pag. 51 They are rejected pag. 51 52 The Causes assigned by Dr. Highmore pag. 52 53 Reasons why they are insufficient pag. 53 54 55 56 The animal Constitution is primarily affected in this Disease ib. The motion of the Heart is caused by the animal Spirits pag. 57 An Experiment to prove it pag. 57 58 The Hysterical Symptoms are Convulsive motions pag. 58 The Nature of the Seed pag. 59 A nitrosulphureous Spirit the Author of all Generations pag. 59 60 61 How the Seed is made in Men and other Creatures out of the Blood pag. 61 62 How the Seed may cause the Hysterical Passion pag. 62 63 64 How a defect in the uterine Ferment may cause Hysterical Fits pag. 64 65 A suppression of the Menses often causes them ib. Ill Humors flung upon the Brain and nervous parts will cause them ib. Some other causes of them pag. 66 The Cause of the Rising of the Mother pag. 67 68 CHAP. III. THe Pox and Scurvy cannot alter all Diseases from their ancient state and condition pag. 70 The Pox and Scurvy not infectious at a distance pag. 71 Blood-letting in Agnes and Fevers in the Northern Countries is justified pag. 72 Dr. Harvy 's Opinion of it pag. 72 73 In the Rheumatism Blood must be taken away ten or twelve days together pag. 74 A mad Woman cur'd by being let blood seventy times in one Week ib. The Liver is not the shop where blood is made pag. 75 The use of it is to separate Choler and how that is perform'd pag. 75 76 77 How the Chyle is turn'd into blood pag. 77 78 The Heart the chief shop where the Chyle is turn'd into blood pag. 79 80 The innate Spirits Salts or Ferments of the Heart are the makers of blood pag. 80 The Fermentation of the blood in the Heart compar'd to the Ebullition which is caus'd when Spirit of Nitre is poured upon Butter of Antimony pag. 81 Of Colour pag. 81 82 How Colours are produced ib. New Colours are produced by mingling things which ferment with one another ib. Two wayes of producing a red Colour in Bodies by the action of Heat upon them or by the addition of Salts pag. 83 84 Phlebotomy is very necessary in many Sâ—orbutick Affects pag. 84 85 How purging Medicins perform their effects pag. 85 86 The Pox and Scurvy are not communicable at a distance and without Corporal Contact pag. 87 Whatever infects or poysons by immediate Contact must not necessarily work the same effect at a distance ib. Instances to prove this Assertion pag. 87 88 A Plague in Moravia which only infected those persons who were Cupped and Scarrified pag. 88 A strange Poyson us'd by the Huntsmen in Spain made of the juyce of White Hellebore pag. 89 90 An account of the Original and spreading of the Pox out of Guicciardin pag. 91 92 93 That the Pox infects not at a distance is argued from the Cure of it pag. 94 That the Scurvy infects not at a distance is argued from the Nature and Formality of it pag. 95 96 CHAP. IV. THe Pox and Scurvy are not complicated with all Diseases pag. 98 69 The Pestilence is not from a Complication with the French Ferment more frequent and violent now than in former Ages pag. 99 100 Instances of many depopulating Plagues in former Ages pag. 100 101 CHAP. V. WOrms are not more frequently appearing in Fevers and all manner of Diseases in these days than former pag. 105 As strange Cases of Worms observed by the Ancient as Modern Writers pag. 106 Worms generated in Children in the Womb observed by Hippocrates ib. In the Seed by Plutarch ib. In the Lungs and treated of as one cause of a Cough by Alsaravius pag. 106 107 The Drancucula of the Grecians and Vena Civili◠〈◊〉 Medena of the Arabians what kind â—â—â—â—sease pag. 107 108 Animals generated under the Skin observ'd by Aristotle ib. The Lady Penruddock kill'd by that Disease pag. 109 Worms ingendred in Metals Stones Fire and Snow the Bladder of Gall Vinegar pag. 111 Worms bred in all sorts of Animals not subject to the Pox and Scurvy pag. 112 Worms bred in Mill-stones pag. 113 A live Toad found in the Center of a huge stone ib. The Cause of the Production of Insects in Mans body pag. 114 Why they often accompany putrid Fevers pag. 114 115 Why Children are usually troubled with them at the time of their breeding Teeth ib. Insects produc'd by their seminal Salts pag. 116 A Disease in Germany and Hungary which the Polonians called Stony Robac and the Germans Hauptwurn pag. 117 The Seminalities of Insects may be conveyed into our Blood in our meat drink and air pag. 118 The manner of infection from the Plague is better made out by the figure and motion of Atoms than by Kirchers animated Effluxes pag. 119 120 Kirchers notion not conduciâ—â—e to the practise of Physick pag. 120 An account of the Plague given by Gassendus pag. 122 123 The comparison of Runnets coagulatiâ—â— Milk servâ—â— very well to explain how the Pestiâ—â—â—â— infects tâ— Blood and Air pag. 12â— The spots in the Plague are quar'd flakes of Blood pag. 124 CHAP. VI. MAny Maxims in Physick will remain truth the Worlds end They are grounded upon Experience and were in use long before the notions of Causes were invented pag. 127 Doctor Willis his opinion as to this point pag. 127 128 What Medicins are to be accounted Secrets pag. 129 Medicins the products of Chance not Invention pag. 130 131 132 CHAP. VII VVOrds imposed by the first Inventers of the Art
of Physick and established by the use and consent of both Galenists and Chymists are to be retained pag. 134 The first qualities are causes of Diseases pag. 135 Proved by sundry Arguments pag. 136 The meaning of the word Quality ibid. The nature of Heat pag. 137 Of Cold. pag. 137 138 Of Humidity and Driness pag. 138 Though there be not in the Vessels four distinct humors men are not improperly said to be of a Phlegmatick Cholerick Melancholick or Sanguine temperament pag. 139 It alters not the matter as to practise whether a Physitian suppose one of the humors or the rawness or overstaleness of the Blood to be in fault pag. 140 Purgers are properly divided into Chologoga Phlegmagoga Melanagoga and Hydragoga pag. 1â—1 Hepaticks must be used in Diseases caused from imperfect Sanguification though the Liver do not make Blood pag. 141 142 The Spleen is the Receptacle of Melancholy according to the opinions of Bartholinus and Doctor Highmore pag. 143 144 A Digression concerning the use of the Spleen and Hypocondriacal Distempers pag. 145 A Description of the Spleen pag. 146 147 It prepares a Ferment for the Blood pag. 149 Two sorts of Ferments pag. 149 150 How the Ferment is made in the Spleen pag. 152 Fixed Salts ferment the Blood pag. 153 How Medicins of Tartar Steel and Vitriol perform their effects pag. 153 How the Ferment of the Spleen comes to be deprav'd pag. 156 157. What is the fault of the Spleen in Hypocondriacal persons pag. 161 162 163 The causes of the Symptoms in Hypocondriacal persons pag. 163 164 165 The Head and nervous parts how affected from the Spleen pag. 166 It is proper to say there are bilious or cholerick complexions and Diseases pag. 167 168 M. N's ignorance in Chymistry pag. 168 Sulphur is not lighter and more aetherial than Spirit pag. 169 CHAP. VIII THe particulars offer'd by M. N. in the room of them which he pretends to have demolished are not conducible to the practice of Physick pag. 171 The growing of Diseases from Seeds according to Paracelsus and Severinus a ridiculous fancy pag. 172 173 The number of Concoctions assigned by the Ancients sufficient pag. 174 Helmonts notion of a Disease unintelligible pag. 176 What the Archaeus of the Chymists means pag. 177 New words are not to be imposed upon old notions and things pag. 178 How the Vital Animal and Natural Spirits differ pag. 179 The Archaeus either an idle word or a new term to express an old notion pag. 180 CHAP. IX THe use of the Doctrine about critical dayes pag. 181 The ignorance of their true causes did not hinder the Ancients from making true Observations upon them ibid. Feavers in the Countries where Hippocrates and Galen liv'd observ'd regularly the critical motions which are by them describ'd pag. 183 A Crisis in a continual Feaver is the same with a Paroxism in an Intermittent ibid. The cause of critical motions according to Doctor Willis ibid. Sweat the best way of Crisis pag. 184 The cause of a Crisis by an Haemorrhage pag. 184 When a Crisis is to be expected pag. 185 186 The Dootrine of Pulses is justified pag. 188 189 The respective differences in the motion of the Arteries may be observ'd as well as the absolute pag. 189 The reasons of the different motions of the Pulse assigned by Doctor Highmore pag. 189 Paracelsus his whimsies concerning the Pulse pag. 190 The use of the Doctrine of the Pulse in Feavers pag. 191 192 Direction must be taken from the Pulse for the giving of all sorts of Physick in Feavers pag. 193 What accidents may cause an alteration in the Pulse pag. 194