readily thrust out of the little spaces of the Menstruum and descend to the bottom We will in this place more sparingly insist upon instances of this nature because the more full handling of them belongs to the Chymical Work Precipitation is not only observed in the separation of a more thick matter from a serous latex and in the settling of the disturbed parts towards the bottom but somtimes the Particles shut up within the pores and passages of the Liquor are so small and subtil that being Precipitated they are not discerned by the sight neither do they quickly descend to the bottom but from their situation and position being variously changed the colour and consistency of the Liquor are diversly altered I was wont in times past to sport with the solutions of Vegetables and Minerals which being made by themselves were clear like Spring water and appeared bright being commixed shewed now a Black colour now a Milky Red Green Blue or some other kind The solution of Saturn or Lead being made with distilled Vinegar appears bright like common water if you add to this Oil of Tartar like clear water the mixture straight grows White like Milk If Antimony calcined with Nitre be boiled in Spring water the straining seems clear and almost without smell which yet being dashed by any Acid thing presently acquires a deep yellow colour with a most wicked stink Common water being imbued by an infusion of Mercury Sublimate is presently tinged with yellowness by Oyl of Tartar dropped into it Quicksilver and Sal Armoniack being beaten together and Sublimated in a Matrace by the heat of Sand go into a white powder this being soluted by melting shows like to clear Spring water which yet being smeared upon Brass or Copper appears like Silver and being lightly rubbed on brasen Vessels renders them as if they were perfectly silvered A solution of Calcined Tin being put to melted Salt of Tartar becomes bluish A clear infusion of Galls being mixt with a solution of Vitriol makes Ink if you add to this Spirit of Vitriol or Stygian water the black Liquor is by and by made clear like Spring water and this Oil of Tartar reduces again to Ink. And what is more wonderful if you write on Paper with the clear infusion of Vitriol and frame any Letters what you so write presently vanishes nor is there any marks of the Characters left but if you smear over the Paper with an infusion of Galls presently the Letters may be read as if wrote with Ink which yet with a Pen run over dipt in Spirit of Vitriol you may put quite out at once wetting and then again render them with wetting them with another Liquor of Tartar The Sky-colour Tincture of Violets being dashed with Oil of Vitriol becomes of a Purple colour to which if you add some drops of the Spirit of Harts Horn that Purple colour is changed into Green Brasil Wood being infused in common water leaves a very pleasant Tincture like to Claret Wine if you pour to this a little distilled Vinegar the Liquor appears clear like White Wine a few drops of Oil of Tartar reduces it to a deep Purple colour then if the Spirit of Vitriol be poured in it becomes of a pale yellow like to Sack if you add the Salt of Lead being soluted by deliquation the mixture grows presently Milky by this means you may imitate that famous Water-drinker who having swallowed down a great deal of Spring water was wont to vomit forth into Glasses placed before him diversly coloured Liquors resembling the ideas of divers kinds of Wines for Glasses being medicated with the aforesaid Tinctures so lightly that they may not be perceived by the standers by will not only cause the water poured into them to imitate every Wine but will exhibit the very Proteus himself of the Poets changed into waters and from thence putting on all colours and infinite forms If a Reason of these kind of appearances be asked it ought to be fought in the minute Particles contained within the pores of every Liquor which as to their site and position being diversly altered by another Liquor infused transmit variously the Rays of Light many ways break or reflect them and so make divers appearances of colours For when the Rays of Light pass through almost in right Lines they make a clear colour like Spring water but it in their passage they be a little broken the Liquor grows yellowish but being more refracted they cause a red colour if they are bowed back so as to be drained or that they cannot shew themselves a dark or black colour arises but if they are again reflected to the outmost Superficies of the Liquor they create the image of Whiteness after this manner we might variously Philosophise about other colours and their appearances the diversity of which and sudden alterations in Liquids depend chiefly on Precipitation because as the Particles conteined in the Liquor are driven somtimes more near by another infusion that they clasp themselves together somtimes are ordered into other series of positions the diverse representation of colours is made For Liquor being impregnated with little Bodies or Atoms or this Nature most minutely broken seems as an Army of Soldiers placed in their Ranks who now draw into close Order now open their Files and Ranks now turn to the left now to the right hand as is diversly shown in the exercising of Tacticks or the Art Military When two clear Liquors being mixed together shall make Ink it is because the Particles conteined in either approach near one another and as it were placed in their close Orders hinder the passage of the beams of light when afterwards this Ink is made clear by another Liquor poured in it is because the new Bodies of the thing put in disperse abroad the former close joyned Particles and drive them as it were into their open Orders CHAP. XII Of the motion of Fermentation as it is to be observed in the Coagulation and the Congelation of Bodies COagulation and Congelation of Natural Bodies no less than their Solution depend only on these our Principles The improportionate mixture of these and the exaltation and powerfulness of some above others are the cause of either Spirit and Sulphur being loosned from the bond do not only pull assunder the proper Subjects but they set upon whatever is next them and where they are mighty in number and strength they affect nothing more than divorces and separations from the rest of the Principles and suffer no delay but on the contrary Salts love to be united to the rest and to be made into hard and solid substances and being destitute of the Company of the rest presently to enter into new Friendships and desire only not to be joyned to any opposite If at any time they are more impetuously moved either by their own disposition or being soluted they destroy the substance of others this thing seems to be done for this end
to wit whether by Accension or by Fermentation or by any other way we shall first in general inquire by what means and for what causes any liquid things are wont to grow hot then we shall consider to which of these the growing hot of the blood ought to be attributed Concerning these we say that there are only three ways or so many kinds of causes by which Liquors conceive a heat viz. first by fire or heat being put to them as when water is made to seeth or boil over the fire or that it grows hot by the heat of the Sun a Bath or Stove or by the dissolution of quick Lime instances of all which are commonly known For the same reason Bath-waters seem to boil For that we may instance in our own Baths to wit they are impregnated neither with Sulphur nor fixed Salt as I have plainly experimented by distilling and evaporating them and by pouring into them precipitating Liquors yea by dissolving them with Sulphur and many other ways They most resemble Lime-water and they as we believe grow hot from a like cause to wit by imbibing the fiery little bodies somewhere hid within the Earth Of these unless it had been superfluous we had here given a fuller description which may perhaps be done at some other time Secondly when saline Corrosives which are of a diverse kind being mingled with themselves or with sulphureous things work mutually one on another with a great strife and agitation of Particles and oftentimes excite heat yea sometimes fume and flame as when the Spirit and Butter of Antimony are poured to or mixed with stygian Water wherein lixivial Salts are melted or with Oyl of Turpentine or other distilled things besides when corrosive Liquors eat metallick Bodies they often grow hot Thirdly and the only way besides as I suppose whereby a liquid thing is made hot is when any humour being very much imbued with Sulphur or Spirit conceives a burning by putting a flame to it and so grows hot by burning forth This is ordinarily seen in oily or very spirituous Liquors being inkindled and inflamed There remain indeed some other ways of Calefaction to wit Fermentation Putrefaction and Attrition whereby more thick Bodies or Solids often conceive a fervour but they produce not such an effect in Liquids whilst the mealy Mass or Dough is fermented the active Particles being stirred up into motion unfold themselves on every side and lift up the bulk or substance of the subject in the mean time for as much as the sulphureous Particles being agitated with them take hold one of another and begin to be combined a certain heat though more remiss is excited in like manner from Putrefaction Dung or wet Hay get an heat to wit for as much as the sulphureous Particles within included are very thickly heaped up together then being combined together they break out in troops yet no Liquors either thin or thick whether they ferment or putrifie do for that reason at any time grow hot For Wines whilst in fermenting they break in pieces the sides of the Tun or overflow the top of the Vessel with a great noise and ebullition do not actually grow hot yea not so much as grow warm The blood being let out of the Body and placed in convenient Glasses either to ferment or putrifie doth not get any actual heat yet in truth we grant the Blood in living Creatures to be fermented and by fermenting to be putrified yea and some other offices of the animal oeconomy to perform the same moreover we have formerly shewed from its Fermentation being hindred or too much increased or otherwise depraâ—ed divers kinds of diseases to be produced yet we deny the heat of the blood to be excited by Fermentation Because neither the blood of more frigid Animals nor Wines nor any other Liquors though agitated with the highest Fermentation are for that reason actually hot And indeed the reason seems evident enough to wit because the sulphureous Particles being raised up in the more thick subjects though they lay hold on one another mutually and being more thickly heaped together raise up heat yet in Liquids the same kind of Particles however stirred up or agitated are immediately disjoyned by the watry coming between and are hindred from their mutual embrace and combination so that they cannot of themselves produce an actual heat For the same reason hard Bodies being rubbed one against another or violently knocked or bruised do not only produce heat but oftentimes fire whenas yet Liquids however shaken and agitated do not grow warm Therefore as there are only three ways whereby actual heat may be begotten in all Liquors we shall inquire to which of these the heat of the Blood may be ascribed First Some say it is the first way from the opinion both of the Ancients and of some of the Moderns the Blood is said to grow hot by reason of some hot thing put to it to wit whilst those affirm an innate heat and these a little flame to be placed in the Heart and to heat the blood passing through it but either of these opinions easily fails from which it is clear that the Heart is a mere Muscle her doth contain in it self any tinder or matter for a flame or heat I know not how implanted fit for their continuance For though it be confessed that on the continual motion of this Bowel which is only animal the Circulation of the Blood doth depend yet the Heart borrows heat altogether from the blood and not the blood from the Heart Secondly As to what respects the second way of making hot a liquid thing to wit whereby a great heat is excited by the mixing of saline Corrosives together or also oily or by corroding a metallick Body I think there is none that will seriously assert that the blood grows hot from such a cause for that its liquor in its natural state is always homogene and although it be stuffed with plenty of Salt it is however with that which is volatile gentle and benign only But there is not to be found either in the Heart or in any other place a saline or any otherwise heterogene Mine whereby the bloody liquor by working or corroding may get or conceive an heat to wit it behoves either such a Mine or the Body to be corroded to be perpetually renewed because the ebullition and heat raised up by the strife of Salts ceases as soon as the Salts are combined or the Body corroded If at any time the saline Particles of the humours in our Body depart from their right temper and become enormous and unbridled for that reason the blood as to heat and motion enters into some irregularities yet it seems impossible that it should originally and perpetually become hot by the congression and strife or corrosion of the Salts Thirdly As to the third way whereby Liquids are made hot though it may seem an uncouth saying That the blood is so inkindled
not much vitiated goes into parts like Milk but if it be exceedingly depraved when it settles it shews a far different disposition and as to its single Contents is allotted into various appearances for the Cream growing together on the top is seen to be somtimes white somtimes green now yellow or of livid or lead colour also it becomes not tender but very viscous or clammy that like a Membrane it can scarce be pulled in pieces When the blood long growing hot with a Feaverish distemper is let forth from the cut Vein in its Superficies instead of a Scarlet Cream there grows together often a white skin or of some other colour the reason of which is because the blood is throughly rosted by too great Ebullition and its more pure portion as it were by a certain elixation is boiled forth from a red and tender substance to a white and tough but if in the mean time the bloody mass be not sufficiently purged from the adust recrements of Salt and Sulphur the colour of this little skin becomes yellow or livid and therefore the water swimming over it is often tinged by the same means Further the Purple Crassament or thick substance is also various viz. somtimes it is of a blackish colour when the blood is scorched too much by a long effervesency When the Fibres are vitiated as in the Liver they grow not together but the Liquor like Beasting Milk remains somwhat thick and yet fluid which indeed argues a great corruption of the blood as uses to happen in a putrid Feaver a very great Cachexy somtimes the watery Latex is wanting as in Hectical people and in too great a Diaphoresis Somtimes it superabounds as in Dropical people neither will the whole go into a white Coagulum by heat In some Cachectical people the blood being made more watery appears like watered flesh I knew one indued with a vicious habit of body that was wont to have blood of a whitish colour and like to Milk when it was let forth and afterwards when he grew better by Chalybiat Medicines his blood was moderately red but concerning the setling of the blood and its appearances there is enough But as blood being emitted from the Vessels by its coagulation and departure of the parts one from another imitates the various substances of congealed Milk so somtimes being shut within the Veins and Arteries like same fused by a Coagulum enters altogether into the like mutation from Morbific causes by reason of which change being hindred in its Circulation or somwhere congealed and fixed according to its portions it produces many distempers for it seems that from hence the Pleurisie the Squinancy the Inflammation of the Lungs the Dysentery take their Original and to this Cause the Pestilent diseases ow chiefly their deadliness as shall be said hereafter in its place It is sufficient that we have hitherto drawn a parallel of the blood from which comparison with Wine and Milk may be gathered what sort of Particles and Substances it comprehends in it self viz. Spirituous and very agil or nimble such as generous or rich Wine has for the heat and motion and besides soft and tender such as are in Milk for the nourishment of the Body Yea also this Analogy of it with Wine and Milk is yet further confirmed by the use of them in our diet out of which the blood is generated forasmuch as Milk is the best and most simple Aliment and with it Infants and Children who have need of a plentiful provision of blood are nourished chiefly But Wine copiously begets vital Spirits before all other things and being weak and fallen excellently restores them wherefore it is wont to be esteemed instead of Nectar for old men or those of ripe years The Nature and Analysis of the blood flowing within the Vessels being opened after this manner the Nutritious Juice deserves yet our consideration being supplyed from the blood and separated out of the mass of blood for the nourishment of the solid parts and cleaving to them whereby it may be the better assimilated like Dew For the Nerves Tendons and the rest of the solid parts of the whole Body are washed with a certain alible juice The Vital Spirits having obtained the Nervous Bodies for a Vehicle of this blow them forth at length and expeditiously execute the actions of Sense also that humor coming upon the solid parts and assimulated with them inlarges their bulk and growth This is not a place to inquire after the Origine Birth and manner of the dispensation of this It shall suffice only that we have noted that it is supplyed from the mass of blood and as it is rendered highly probable by the most Learned Doctor Glisson and Doctor Wharton after it hath past through the Nervous part by a certain Circulation what remains being now made as it were poor and lifeless is sent back by the Lymphatic Vessels to the blood Whilst this Juice being little cocted or purged from dregs is sent from the depraved blood to the Nervous parts t is wont variously to irritate them into Cramps and Convulsive Motions also no few Symptoms in Feavers arise by reason of the depravation and irregular Motion of this Juice as shall be more largely laid open in another place CHAP. II. Of the Motion and Heats of the Blood SO much for the Anatomy of the Blood as to its primary Elements and Constitutive parts into which it is sensibly wont to be resolved also as to its Affections which appear clearly by the comparing it with Wine and Milk it remains for us next to enquire concerning the motion of the Blood both Natural viz. by the help of what Ferment and by what swelling up of parts it is Circulated in a perpetual motion through the Vessels and preternatural viz. for what Causes and what fury of parts when it boils up above measure in the Vessels and conceives Feaverish Effervescences These being rightly unfolded and premised we will enter upon the Doctrine of Feavers Concerning the Natural Motion of the Blood we shall not here enquire of its Circulation viz by what Structure of the Heart and Vessels it is wheeled about after a constant manner as it were in a water Engine but of its Fermentation viz. by what mixtion of parts and mutual action of them together among themselves like Wine fermenting in the Ton it continually boils up And this kind of motion as it were truly an intestine war of the blood depends both on the Heterogeneity of the parts of the blood it self and on the various Ferments which are breathed into the mass of the blood from the Bowels As to the first those things which have altogether like Particles do not ferment wherefore neither distilled waters Chymical Oils Spirits of Wine or other simple Liquors are moved as hath been already observed but I have said that Blood according to the Nature things quickly irritable doth consist of a proportionate mixture of the Elements
presence of the evident cause for either little Bodies of extraneous heat being confused with the Blood like water boiling over the fire make it to boil up or this Feaver is induced by motion or by reason of transpiration being stopped even as Wines made hot by motion or when too closely stopped in the Ton are put into a Fervor but what way soever an inflamation is first excited presently the Spirits become enraged and being moved hither and thither compel the Blood to boil up and to be inlarged into a greater space with a spumous rarefaction wherefore the Vessels are distended and the membranous parts hauled hence follow pain chiefly in the Head and Loins a spontaneous weariness and as it were an inflation of the whole Body If that with the Spirit of the Blood a certain Sulphureous part be also in some measure inkindled a sharp heat is diffused through the whole the Pulse is vehement and quick the Urine red also thirst watchings and many other symptoms infest the reasons of which are added hereafter Concerning the Solution or Crisis of the Ephemeran Feaver and of the not putrid Synochus three things are chiefly requisite viz. a removing of the evident cause secondly a separation and a scattering of the depraved or excrementitious matter from the mass of Blood Thirdly a quieting of the parts of the Blood and a restitution of them to their natural and equal motion and site According as these succeed now more suddenly now more slowly and difficully this Disease is finished in a shorter or longer time 1. The evident cause which for the most part is extrinsick is easily removed and the sick are wont presently to avoid the presence or assiduity of that thing and do perceive a sense of any thing that is hurtful none taking a Feaver from Wine will still indulge the drinking of it as soon as any one grows more than usually hot in a Bath or the heat of the Sun 't is a trouble to them to stay longer 2. As to the Excrementitious matter which ought to be scattered and separated from the Blood this is either brought from without as when the Blood is infected by surfeit drinking of Wine sitting in the Sun or from a too hot Bath with Effluvia or little dry and Fermentative Bodies or this matter is begotten within as when its Liquor is stuffed with recrements or adust Particles from the deflagration of the Blood Either of these matters ought to be separated from the Blood to be dispersed and either by sweat or insensible breathing forth to be thrust out of doors before the Feaver be appeased wherefore when as the pores are bound up and transpiration hindred the Ephemeran Feaver is longer protracted and somtimes passes from a simple Synochus into a putrid 3. The evident cause being removed and this degenerate matter dispersed there is required for the remission a quieting and reducing into order the parts of the Blood for diverse Particles of the Blood being after this manner confused and by reason of the Feaverish heat carried up and down they do not presently get again the former order of situation and position but it is needful that they be by degrees extricated and by little and little restored to a just mixture Although this Disease after the removing of the evident cause for the most part ceases of its own accord within a while yet some Medicinal Remedies may be administred with good success especially when there is danger lest the Ephemeran Feaver should pass into a putrid The chief intentions should be to suppress the fervor of the Blood and to procure a more free transpiration to the which conduce first a breathing of a Vein a slender diet or rather abstinency cooling drinks and a bringing away the filth of the Belly by Clysters Sleep and Rest greatly help above all the rest which if wanting should be procured in time by Opiats and Anodynes Verily altho the Histories and Observations of those distempered with an Ephemeran Feaver contain in themselves nothing very rare yet I shall subjoin an example or two in this place whereby the delineation or type of this Disease may be illustrated A certain young Gentleman about twenty years of Age endued with a strong habit of Body by the immoderate drinking of strong Wine fell into a Feaverish distemper with thirst heat and with a great burning of his Precordia being let Blood he drank a great quantity of fair water and upon it presently a plentiful sweat following he grew shortly well In this case the more thin portion of the Blood being heated by the Spirits of the Wine fell into a rage caused the whole mass of Blood to be shaken and its frame to be loosned more than t was wont and for that reason that hapned to be more dissolved by the Ferment of the Heart and to be as it were inkindled by the active Particles loosned from the mixture until the Vessels being emptied by Phlebotomy the raging Blood was cooled and by the drinking of the water its fervor was attempered then the hot Effluvia being involved together with the adust matter with a copious Serum and sent away by Sweat the Blood at length recovered its due temper Moreover an ingenious young man of a sedentary life and also very much addicted to the Study of Learning when he had for somtime exercised himself beyond his strength in the hot Sunshine he began to complain of the pain of his head a want of Appetite a heat of his Precordia and of a Feaverish distemper all over to whom for that he was wholly averse to Physick I ordered an abstinence from all things whatsoever unless from Small-Beer and Grewel on the second day and so more on the third the symptoms remitted by little and little on the fourth he went home freed from the Feaver without any Medicine CHAP. IX Of a Putrid Feaver SO much for a Continual Feaver which is raised from the most simple heating of the Blood or its lowest degree of inordinate heat that which depends on a greater degree of heat follows viz. when the Oily or Sulphureous part of the Blood being too much heated swells up above measure and as it were forced into a flame and therefore from the similitude by which humid things putrifying conceive an heat this kind of Ebullition of the Blood because it induces an immoderate heat is called a putrid Feaver which name ought to be retained without injury because that in this Feaver the Synthesis of the Blood as is wont to happen in putrifying Liquors is very much unlocked When the Spirits only grow inraged as in an Ephemera the frame of the Blood is somwhat set open and loosened that it is more dissolved by the Ferment of the Heart than is wont and more Particles than naturally use to do leap forth and diffuse a more intense heat but yet the mixture of the Liquor as to its chief parts is conserved But when the Sulphureous matter taking
c. arise somtimes from the Blood being in a rage and so stirring up inordinate motions in the Brain and somtimes also from the nervous Juice being depraved and therefore made improportionate to the regiment of the Animal Spirits But most often these kind of symptoms are frequent in Feavers by reason of the translation of the Feaverish matter from the bosom of the Blood into these parts For the Blood being full of the adust recrements remaining after the deflagration endeavors like the flowring of new Wine to subdue and exclude them from its Company by every manner of way which a Flux being arisen when it cannot expel by Sweat Urine or bleeding it oftentimes transfers to the substance of the Brain and there fixes them and from hence chiefly the aforsaid distempers when they are fixed and firmly rooted draw their original when as the lighter and that are easily moved often proceed from the afore-recited causes 9. Convulsive motions happen in Feavers for divers causes somtimes because of the matter being heaped together in the first passages which there haules the membranous parts with its notable pravity and then by the consent of the nervous stock the Convulsion is presently Communicated to the beginning of the Nerves in the Brain and by that means draws aside now these and now those parts by which means Worms abounding in the Viscera sharp humors being stirred and strong Medicines induce Convulsions or secondly when the Feaver is a partaker of some malignity so in the small Pox Measels or the Plague frequently Convulsions happen to wit because the Blood is altered from its benign and natural temper into a destroying and venomous by which the Nerves and their beginnings are pierced and forced into Convulsions Also oftentimes without the suspition of malignity in a putrid Feaver Convulsive motions are induced by reason of the translation of the Feaverish matter to the Brain as was but now intimated so I have often observed when the Disease is not presently cured with the Crisis the sick ly by it with a tedious sickness and are made obnoxious to tremblings and Convulsive motions Thirdly and lastly for the most part in every Feaver which terminates in Death Convulsive motions are the sad forerunners of it which I think to happen not only from the malignity of the matter with which the nervous stock is pulled and pierced but because the Spirits very much exhausted and debilitated do not sufficiently blow up and distend the Bodies of the Nerves wherefore being released from their wonted extension and tonick motion they are however by a more weak indeavor of the Spirits agitated into a disordered motion 10. A syncope or swooning is wont to be raised up several ways in Feavers but chiefly for these three causes to wit either from the mouth of the Ventricle being distempered which part as it is interwoven with a manifold texture of Nerves is very sensible and because from the same branch of the sixth pare little shoots of Nerves are equally derived to the heart and to the Ventricle of the Orifice of the Ventricle so implanted with Nerves be distempered with any great trouble it is also Communicated to the heart and either the motion is stopped in it or at least an inordinate one is excited whereby the equal Flux of the Spirits and the Blood is interrupted for a time I knew one in an acute Feaver taken with a frequent swooning which distemper wholly ceased after he had cast forth by Vomit a long and smooth Worm Secondly a syncope also is somtimes induced because the invenomed matter is circulated with the Blood which suddenly fixes and extinguishes the vital Spirits and congeals the Blood it self that it is apt to stagnate in the heart as usually happens in the Pest small Pox c. of which we shall speak particularly hereafter Thirdly a syncope is wont to happen by reason of the more rare texture of the Spirits which as they are very tender and subtil are easily unbent by any immoderate motion or pain so I have known some who being quiet in bed have found themselves well enough but being removed from one place to another presently have swooned away 11. The pain of the Heart happens in Feavers when the Ventricle and especially its Orifices by reason of the manifold insertions of Nerves being very sensible are beset with a sharp and bitterish humor or else with an acid and corrosive for hence a pain and trouble arises from the acrimony of the humor after the same manner as when the sphincter of the fundament is afflicted in Cholloric dejections with pain and molestation 12. By reason of the same cause Vomiting and nauseousness are wont to be excited to wit by the Ventricles being beset and irritated to a Convulsion from an extraneous matter and not akin to it self Such an excrementitious matter may be gathered together in the Ventricle by three ways for either the aliments partly by reason of a want of an acid ferment by which they should be rightly Cooked and partly by reason of the burning heat of the Ventricle are roasted into such a Corruption or Secondly this kind of matter is laid up in the Ventricle from the Arteries terminating in its Cavity as uses to happen in the small Pox the Plague and malignant Feavers or Thirdly meer Choler being pressed forth from the Choleduct Vessels into the empty intestine by reason of an inverse motion and as it were Convulsive of that intestine it is poured into the Ventricle want of Appetite also happens by reason of the Ventricles abounding with vitious Juices and because the acid ferment is wholly perverted by the scorching heat These kind of distempers of the Ventricle and Viscera somtimes arise from an excrementitious matter to wit alimentous degenerated in the concoction heaped together a long while before the Feaver in the first passages which not seldom becomes the occasional cause of the Feaver it self but somtimes nauseousness want of Appetite Vomiting pain of the Heart c. are the immediate products of the Feaver for when the day before the sickness those distempered have been well enough in their Stomack as soon as the immoderate heat of the Blood was induced whilst it boiled up above measure both the Effluvia and the recrements being wonted to be evaporated outwardly also the bilous humor flowing out of the Choleduct Vessels are poured into the Ventricle by which its Crasis is overthrown also the Reliques of the Chyle and other contents in the Viscera are egregiously depraved from whence the aforesaid Distempers draw their Original 14. No less frequent a symptom in Feavers is a Diarrhea or Flux of the Belly which somtime happens about the begining of the Disease and arises for the most part either from the Bile flowing forth of the Coleduct Vessels into the Duodenum or from the recrements of the Blood and Nervous Juice poured forth from the Arteries and the passage of the Pancreas into the intestines All the
Blood are first possessed with the impoysoned infection either drawn in with the Air or attracted through the pores its ferment is presently dissipated through the whole mass of the Blood the infested portions immediately begin to be loosned from their equal mixture to go into parts and to be coagulated and the same being delated into the bosom of the Heart are wont there to stagnate and so to induce a Syncopy Swoonings and often sudden Death also being carried outwardly fixed about the skin to cause Buboes inflamed risings and other marks of Poyson in the mean time the sick appear well in mind nor are they troubled with Delirium nor Convulsive motions If that from a more strong cause the hurt is inflicted to both parts at once the course of the Disease is performed with a more horrid provision of symptoms and especially with a Syncopy and Phrensie at once infesting As to what appertains to its rise when the Plague first arises in any Region or Country there is attributed a twofold cause of it viz. Primary or Metaphysical also Secondary or Natural subordinate to that The very Heathens did acknowledg this Disease wherever it raged sent first of all from God for the castigation of the wickednesses of men and therefore for its extirpation they equally made use of Prayers and Sacrifices as of Medicines As to what belongs to the Natutal cause there are divers opinions Some will that the Pestilence newly arisen be derived from the Heavens and influences of the Stars only on the contrary others have affirmed it only to arise from the internal putrefaction of the humors of our Body but these endeavour to deduce the cause of this sickness too far off and these more near than it ought We will walk in the middle way and what Reason persuades and what very many Authors assert we will place the chief and first seminary or seed plot of this Poyson in the Air because it seems consonant to Reason that from the same Fountain from which the common food of life is had the beginnings of death no less diffusive are to be sought There is the same necessity for our breathing in the Air as of Fishes living in the Water wherefore as to waters infected by Poyson the murrain of Fishes dying in heaps is ascribed so men dying of an Epidemical slaughter without any manifest cause nothing could kill besides the infection of the commonly inspired Air. For the Air which we necessarily draw in for the continuance of Life consists of an heap of vapors and fumes which are perpetually breathed forth from the Earth in which the exhalations of Salt and Sulphur being mingled with the atomical vaporous little Bodies constitute here as it were a thick cloud the motions of these are swift and unquiet they are of a manifold figure and very much diverse wherefore some continually meet against others and according to their various configurations they cohere with these and are mutually combined one with another and from those they are driven and fly away from hence the reasons of the Sympathy and Antipathy of every thing depend From the diverse agitations of these kind of Atoms near the superficies of the Earth this or that tract of the Air enters into diverse alterations by which Bodies chiefly the living are variously affected because the intestine motion of the Particles of every Animal depends very much upon the motion and temper of the Particles of the Air forasmuch as these perpetually exagitate those raise up those lying asleep repair the loss of those flying away shake the vital flame with their Nitrosity and supply it with a Nitrous-Sulphureous Food eventilates it being inkindled by continual turns of access and recess and carry away the Soot and Fumes So long as an apt contemperation happens in either for motion and configuration living Creatures injoy perfect health and life but if the little Bodies swiming in the Air be of that sort of figure and power that are plainly adverse to the Spirits implanted in living Creatures they loose the mixtures of these from the rest from whose Elements they are collected and pervert their motions hence the dispositions of things are destroyed life profligated and the same being scarce extinct the Bodies undergoe putrefaction hence the tops of Trees or of Corn being struck with a blast suddenly grow dry or wither hence among Cattel the murrain often rages which kills at once whole Flocks by reason of this kind of cause the Seeds of the Pestilence first put themselves forth and attempt the slaughter of human kind for as invenomed Bodies in the bowels of the Earth or concreted on its superficies produce the Arsenical or Aconital mixtures so these being even resolved into vapour and heaped together in the Air create most pernitious Airs from which Malignant and Pestilential Diseases arise the infection which after this manner Contaminates the Air the most ingenious Diemerbrochius a searcher of this Disease contends that is only sent as the wrath of angry Apollo immediately from the angry right hand of God but this were to multiply without any pretext of necessity I will not say beings but miracles and in every Plague to assert a Creation of new substance when in the mean time the virulent product of Minerals and Vegitable which dayly appear and of as quite adverse Nature to us as the Plague clearly testifie that there lives hid in the Bowels of the Earth plenty of invenomed matter sufficiently fitted for this business For the little Bodys which being roled about with earthy matter do constitute the Poysonous mixtures in the bosom of the Earth the same being resolved into vapours will be no less hurtful afterwards and impress a pestiferous blast to the Air which they wander through wherefore by the leave of so Learned a man I should say that it seems not improbable that the things which first of all affix the seed plot of the Pestilence to any tract of Air be the Poysonous Effluvia of fierce Salts and Sulphurs and by the Divine Will instigating breathing forth from the bowels of the Earth which somtimes being a long time before shut up are leisurely exhaled out of Dens and Caverns somtimes by reason of the motion of the Earth or Earthquake or a gaping of the Earth they break forth in heaps also of the same kind are those which ordinarily are breathed forth from the filth of Souldiers in their nasty Camps or from unburied Carcases or from places beset with standing and stinking Mud but the little Bodies after this manner exhaled obtain their wonderful height properties and abilities by a long putrefaction that therefore they are incongruous and heterogeneous to all others whatsoever and so being received into the Air ferment it as it were a mass of Liquor and pervert it from a wholsom and benign into a most pernicious and wicked Nature Some Bodies more easily others not so readily receive the malignant tincture of the Pestilent Air. Those who by
used all that Night this Youth seemed to be in a little better condition so that in the morning he continued a long time from sleep but began to role about his Eyes hither and thither and to set himself up a little yet without speaking or knowledg of those that were about him before noon his Eyes being shut again he wholly lost the use of every Animal faculty he lay for three days as it were Apoplectick with an high and vehement Pulse with a palpitation of the Heart and a difficult and painful breathing his Pulse at length growing lesser by degrees he dyed the thirteenth day of the Feaver On the fifteenth of February his Sister somwhat lesser than he was began to complain of a pain and torments in her Belly a trembling in her hands and a painful tension or stretching out of the Muscles of her Neck with a Feaverish intemperance and thirst on the last day of February she growing plainly into a Feaver could not keep out of her Bed moreover she was troubled with a wandring heat now in her Face now about her lower parts also she became heavy and somnolent and awaking from sleep could not presently come to her self On the first of March she was lightly Purged and with ease with an expression of Rhubarb her Urine was thick and red elso petechial red spots as in the rest were conspicuous we gave her after that for four days at several times to wit after the interval of every six hours space ten drops of the spirit of Harts-Horn in a Spoonful of Cordial Julep the aforesaid symptoms afterwards leisurly remitted and this sick child tho slowly recovered health without a manifest through Crisis About the same time her little Brother younger than any of these fell sick almost after the like manner who yet a loosness arising Naturally of it self for many days voyding Choleric and greenish stuff was easily cured Also in the same Family many other Domestics and some strangers coming to help them the evil being propagated by Contagion fell sick of the same Disease who notwithstanding at length became well tho with difficulty and slowly without any regular Crisis being made That this Feaver was malignant plainly appears by the Contagion Mortality and appearances of spots and many other signs tho that infecting Contagion whereby it spread from one to another shewed it self slow and of lesser Efficacy because between the sicknesses of each of them many days and oftentimes weeks hapned to be that the infection of this tho acute Disease and the dissemination on others was scarcely finished in four months space in the same House The Feaver about the first beginning seemed gentle and mild not very terrible as to burning but the matter being heaped together from the deflagration of the Blood became presently untameable hard to be exterminated also enemical to the Brain and Nervous stock wherefore in each of them the beginning of the Disease was to be known rather by the torpor and somnolency than the fervor and heat also the Crisis tho by several ways attempted viz. by Sweat Flux Bleeding did not happily succeed but for most part the Blood growing turgid with the critical motion endeavoured to transfer the Feaverish matter upon the dwellings of the Animal Spirits yet it self notwithstanding became not putrified by this means but that about the standing of the Disease both humors to wit the Blood and Nervous Juice being vitiated by an impure mixture together and grievously touched caused the event of the Disease to be either deadly or extream dangerous CHAP. XV. Of the Measles and Small-Pox IN the next place we refer the Small-pox and Measles to the rank of pestilential and malignant Feavers which indeed are mixt Distempers consisting at once according and contrary to our Nature As to their Original they have their seminary born with us but as to the effect they produce preternatural symptoms and as the Plague it self poysonous so that they constitute ar it were a certain peculiar kind of Feavers proper indeed to men but after another manner than Porphyrius has assigned for it happens for every man only and once to be distempered with the Small-pox or Measles if perchance any one lives free their whole life or another more often fall into these Distempers they are rare and unusual events of Nature which lessen not common observation yea t is fully confirmed to wit that all and only men are obnoxious to the Small-pox and Measlles and are wont to be rid of them at one sickness Concerning the Small-pox we will treat of them apart from the Measles what the cause of them is then what signs and symptoms they have and lastly what things belong to the Crisis and Cure Concerning the Causes we ought to consider in the first place what is the secret leading Cause to wit which renders only and all mankind and that once obnoxious to this Disease Secondly we will inquire concerning the evident Causes viz. by what and how many ways this latent and occult disposition is wont to be now sooner now later deduced into Act. Thirdly it shall be declared what is the conjunct cause to wit by what motion and alteration of the Blood the figure of this Disease is produced 1 As to the first this disposition or Natural predisposition which inclines human kind to this Disease seems to be a certain evil or impurity of the Blood conceived in the Womb among the first Rudiments of Generation almost all Authors would have this ascribed to the Menstruous Blood which Opinion seems not altogether improbable because in a womans Womb otherways than in most other living Creatures there is generated a certain Ferment which being communicated to the mass of Blood affords to it vigour and spirit and then at set periods procures a swelling up and an excretion of the superfluous Blood but at the time of Conception when the Menstrua wholly cease very much of this ferment is bestowed on the Faetus or Child and its Particles being Haeterogeneous to all the rest as a certain extraneous thing are confused with the mass of Blood and humors with which being involved and separated one from another lurk or ly hid a long while yet afterwards at some time being moved or stirred up by some evident cause they ferment with the Blood and induce to it an ebullition and then a Coagulation from whence very many symptoms of this Disease arise These fermentative seeds somtimes are few and gentle and so involved with other little Bodies as they do not easily appear and are brought into act somtimes they are more and stranger so that on the least occasion they are ripened into this Disease hence indeed some are taken sooner with the Small-Pox in their tender years others more slowly and not till full or more ripe age also some easily receive the contagion but others converse often with the sick without danger The sooner that any one hath this Disease the more secure they are
the root of this extrinsick one lyes hid within the Body For this very cause it is that from the Mains of Horses and the Skins of Cats or other hot Animals being shaken little sparks as it were of fire leap out and often flames only conspicuous in the dark arise Besides we here take notice in a burning Feaver caused by immoderate drinking of Wine or strong Waters that the blood as the flame of it is very much increased doth grow excessively hot and such are wont to emit dry breaths and sharp Effluvia's of heat not like those that proceed from fermenting or boiling Liquor but only inflamed That which some in Feavers have imagined to have seen or observed even burning fires and flame in the eyes argues indeed that the flame of the blood is very strong and also that it penetrates the inclosure of the Brain I knew a certain ingenious Man of a very hot brain who affirmed that after a very plentiful drinking of Wine he was able in the darkest night to read clearly from hence also may be collected how the accension of the blood like that of burning Liquors is to be increased or made stronger viz. by an agitation of the parts and a more plentiful affusion of sulphureous food But that in the hot blood of living Creatures the Properties Affections and many other accidents of Fire or Flame are found without the manifest form or species of it what if we should say the cause to be for that the vital flame of the blood is subjugated or made subordinate to another form viz. to the corporeal Soul Wherefore although it retains the chief qualities and affections of common flame yet it loses the species of flame or fire for in every natural mixture the superiour form exercises a Right and Dominion over all included Particles whatsoever however fierce and untameable they may be in themselves and stripping them of their species ordains and disposes them to peculiar actions in that proper Concrete when the form of fire excels that bright burning that it might propagate largely its ends destroys and consumes all inflammable objects But if the form of the corporeal Soul be induced upon the fire kindled within the blood it burns forth without fulgor or shining or destruction of the subject and is invisible and as it were subjugated flame is ordained for the sustaining of life and its offices but truly the Divine Providence from the very Creation of the World hath seemed to have predestinated Forms to natural Bodies to wit that they might remain as so many Figures or Types according to which every portion of matter framing the Concrete whether animate or inanimate might be modificated so that the Mass according to the virtues of the hidden Seeds being disposed after this or that manner happens to have the form of a Stone a Plant or Brute or of any other kind then the acts and affections appropriate to such a Species follow the form it self When therefore Life or Soul is destinated to these kind of Functions of the more perfect Animals for the performing of which the blood after the manner of burning Liquors ought to be perpetually hot and as it were inkindled what should hinder but that the act of Life or of that corporeal Soul consisting in the motion and agglomeration or heaping together of most subtil and agil Particles may be called a certain Burning or perpetual Fire of the bloody Mass Wherein although the accidents and chief qualities of common fire are implanted yet the form of fire is obscured as being subjugated to a more noble form viz. of the corporeal Soul not much unlike water which being congealed into Ice or Snow lays aside the species of water for a time and may be applied to other uses far distant from fluidity But truly though we affirm that the corporeal Soul doth stick in the Blood yet we do not that it is adequated or limited to it because whilst the more thick portion of it as the Roots of some Tree fixed in the Earth are sowed in the bloody Mass the more noble part of the same Soul as the higher branches are expanded in the Brain and nervous System or as we before hinted when the vital or flamy part of the Soul is contained in the blood the animal or lucid portion of it is contained in the Head and its Appendix by which just limit the Sphere of either may be defined neither may the vital flame impetuously break through the animal Region the substance of the Brain being more cold and also shining or bright is opposed to it as it were an icy or glassie Bar whose interiour frame or substance the small and slender as it were rivers of the blood for the sake of cherishing heat can enter but truly spirituous Particles plentifully flow from its juyce or liquor every where heaped up near the confines of the Brain and there disposed as it were to be stilled forth which being immersed in the Brain and more exalted affords matter out of which the animal Spirits are procreated to be derived through the Nerves into the various Regions of the Body The second Medical and Physical DISCOURSE Of Musculary Motion AS there are two chief or primary Faculties of the Corporeal Soul to wit the Sensitive and Motive we have assigned certain exteriour Powers of either of them which are chiefly acted in the Nervous stock and others interiour the Exercises of which lye within the Brain to wit such as the Imagination Memory Appetite c. What we have publickly discoursed of some time since both concerning internal and external Senses may perhaps hereafter be brought to light and made publick in the mean time because I am opposed concerning both the natural and convulsive Motion I think it fit at present to publish what I had meditated touching the Motive power and what Hypothesis I had conceived of so hard and highly intricate a thing The motive Faculty of the bodily Soul is wont to be exercised with another kind of Action than the sensitive viz. with a diverse aspect and tendency of animal Spirits For that every Sense is a certain passion wherein the Soul or some portion of it being outwardly struck is forced to nod or shake and a wavering of the Spirits being inwardly made to look back towards the Head but on the contrary every Motion is a certain Action wherein the Soul seems to exert it self whole or part of it self and by a declination or fluctuation of Spirits being made to bring forth a Systasis and to extend something as it were its member Further whilst the Soul so exerts it self or some part of it self that the works then designed might be performed an heap of animal Spirits being every where disposed in the motive parts sometimes one sometimes more are raised up by the Soul which by that means being expanded with a certain force and as it were exploded they blow up the containing bodies and so the same being
to be carried towards the middle as it were by the Spirits entred here and there at once Further which I mentioned before each fibre being tyed about the middle being as it were as yet free and compacted with the others was contracted or drawn together but a Ligature being put to both ends it remained flaggy constantly above or beyond the bound place But that I might no longer doubt concerning this I applied two Ligatures at equal distances from the middle and the ends about the same bundle of fleshy fibres which being done a contraction and swelling up arising presently from either fleshy extreme to the places bound went no farther the middle part between in the mean time being unmoved remained flaccid whence it may be well concluded that in every musculary contraction the animal Spirits or elastick Particles do leap out from the tendinous fibres into the fleshy and vicissively in the relaxation recede or run back from these into those However this being proved and granted there yet remain very many difficulties concerning Musculary Motion for first it may be asked how the animal Spirits which enter silently or without any incitation or Tumor the tendinous fibres do so blow up the fleshy fibres that they are able to force them altogether into shorter spaces For the producing this effect plenty of Spirits leaping from the tendinous fibres do not seem alone sufficient but besides we may suppose some other kind of Particles implanted in the fleshy fibres meeting with the others flowing from the Tendons do forthwith strive whence a mutual rarefaction and turgescency or swelling up of them or an inflation or sudden blowing up of the containing bodies together with an abbreviation or shortning of them doth arise not much unlike as when the Corpuscles or little bodies of fire entring into a piece of leather or any thing and forcing variously here and there it s implanted Particles whereby they are presently insnared make it so to be stuffed and wrinkled in like manner also the animal Spirits although they pass through the Tendons where they are solitary or by themselves without moving them as the Effluvia's of heat in Metals or more dry bodies yet being dilated in the flesh for that there joyning with elastick Particles of another kind they are expanded or stretched out they cause the sudden inflations and corrugations of the containing fibres But we have elsewhere shewn that such Particles divers and wholly heterogene to the nature of the Spirits may be copiously and easily carried to the Muscles For indeed it is plain by ocular demonstration that the blood doth every where wash and water outwardly all the fleshy fibres which besides it is thought not only to nourish but also to be busied about the offices of the animal Function and what can be less suspected than that it doth instil into their Pipes a certain subtil liquor whose Particles being agitated and also rarified by the Spirits flowing therein stuff up the fibres as we but now hinted and compel them intumified by reason of the assault on either side made into shorter spaces But that the fleshy belly of the Muscle whilst it is contracted doth swell up is not at all to be doubted because this is evidently beheld by the sight and touch in the diffection of living Creatures to wit all the fleshy fibres being wrinkled together are made more tumid and sharper and so shorten the Muscle and make it also thicker and broader For the more certain belief of this when I had bound some of the fleshy fibres separated from the knitting of the rest and had left others near them loose there appeared a notable difference between those flaccid or not swelled and these intumified or swelled up in every contraction of the Muscle But if it be demanded of what nature to wit whether spirituous saline as may be believed or of any other disposition the animal Spirits derived from the Brain into the Muscles may be and then whether the other Latex immediately carried to them from the blood is sulphureous or nitrous Concerning these because it appears not to the sense we shall pronounce nothing rashly or positively But even as in other natural things the active Particles of a various kind which being unlike among themselves are found apt mutually to grow hot or to be struck off from one another or otherwise to be rarified or expanded and as the intestine motions of Bodies and especially the elastick such as are the contractions of the Muscles can only proceed from the congressions of such like certainly it may be lawful to presume that these do wholly depend upon such a cause Therefore as to the Musculary Motion in general we shall conclude after this manner with a sufficiently probable conjecture viz. that the animal Spirits being brought from the Head by the passage of the Nerves to every Muscle and as it is very likely received from the membranaceous fibrils are carried by their passage into the tendinous fibres and there they are plentifully laid up as in fit Store-houses which Spirits as they are naturally nimble and elastick where ever they may and are permitted expanding themselves leap into the fleshy fibers then the force being finished presently sinking down they slide back into the Tendons and so vicissively But whilst the same animal Spirits at the instinct given for the performing of motion do leap out of the tendinous fibers into the fleshy they meet there with active Particles of another nature supplied from the blood and presently they grow mutually hot so that by the strife and agitation of both the fleshy fibres for that they are lax and porous are stuffed up and driven into wrinklings from all which being at once wrinkled or shrivell'd up the contraction of the whole Muscle proceeds the contraction being finished the sincere or clear Spirits which reside or are asswaged go back for the most part into the tendinous fibres the other Particles being left within the flesh the loss or wasting of these the blood supplies as the Nerves do those By what instinct the musculary contraction begins and ends shall be inquired into presently That the animal Spirits flowing from the tendinous Fibres may enter equally all the fleshy there are two Tendons in every simple Muscle which are so constituted according to opposite Angles that the Spirits running to them from a twofold starting place or bound might presently fill the whole belly of the Muscle and that motion being finished might immediately swiftly retire If the contraction ought to be performed indifferently towards the middle of the flesh the Tendons for the most part are equal but if the motion inclines more towards one region of the flesh one Tendon to wit which may supply a greater company of Spirits exceeds the other in magnitude If the Muscle whereby it may be the stronger is big and endued with an ample bulk or substance it is divided as it were into many Lobes or Bellies and
may sometimes draw together and constrain the blood-carrying Vessels sometimes open and inlarge them that as occasion serves the Feculencies of the blood may be sometimes more plentifully sometimes more sparingly laid aside out of the Arteries into the Spleen also that more or less of the Ferment preserved in the Spleen may be poured out on the blood according to the requirings of the Passions or of the natural Instinct No Hypochondriack but doth abundantly perceive that some Splenetick nerves do perform motions for those great perturbations which are wont to be excited in the left side as when sometimes Inflations sometimes constrictions of the inward parts and sometimes various concussions are perceived with a wandring pain running here and there they are only Spasms or Convulsions or wrinklings together with which the nerves of the Spleen are ordinarily affected Nor do its nerves taken with a Convulsion stir up tumults only in the neighbourhood of the Spleen but oftentimes further into the Heart it self yea into the whole Body the effects of their inordinations are carried I have known an Hypochondriack who presently upon the Spleen being disturbed seemed to have his Praecordia being drawn downwards to be cruelly prest and bound together so that being very sad and dejected in his mind also complaining of an exceeding great straitness and constriction of his Breast he thought himself almost dead The cause of which kind of distemper was without doubt that when many Fibres going out of the Splenetick infolding are united with other Fibres sent from the farthest end of the wandring pair it easily happens that the former being distempered with the Convulsion do draw together and pull downwards their yoke-fellows and by consequence the Trunk it self of the wandring pair from which the nerves are sent into the Praecordia certainly by the Sympraxis or joynt action of either kind of the aforesaid nerves viz. whereof these respect the Spleen those the Praecordia it is effected that the Trembling Oppression and other grievous Distempers of the Heart as also of the Spleen so ordinarily happen Further forasmuch as the Fermentation of the blood depends on the Spleen according to the influence of this that performs its Circulation sometimes pleasantly sometimes disturbedly Whilst the Spleen is at quiet and free from any perturbation the blood also is quietly moved in Hypochondriacal persons but if the same be moved and exercised as it is wont to be in any passion or violent motion of the Body or by a Medicine presently its nerves being distempered with a Convulsion shake it more with reiterated contractions so that the fermentative Feculencies being shaken out of its bosom flow back more plentifully into the blood which cause its Latex presently to be troubled and as it were muddy and sharpen it with so great acrimony and mordacity that it burns and pricks the Brain and Heart like needles from whence in Splenetick people besides that the Reason is obscured the affections of the Mind especially Sadness Hatred and Anger are very much increased Concerning the Splenetick Nerves by another conjecture we are yet brought to believe that they besides the exercise of the motive Faculty do both instil into the Spleen it s own humor which promotes the fermentative virtue of that Inward and also because the nerves as was shewn already convey the Spirits and sometimes the humors by either way viz. forward and backward the same implanted in the Spleen do often imbibe from it an acetous or Vinegar-like humor and as it were Vitriolick from whose acrimony and notable twitching they are forced into Convulsions But forasmuch as the nervous Infolding respecting the Spleen communicates more nearly with the Ventricle Mesentery Liver and Kidneys and more remotely with the Praecordia and other parts placed at a distance from hence the cause is plain wherefore not only these several Viscera and parts by reason of the fault of the Spleen are folded together but also on the contrary why the Spleen being indisposed by any Disease or trouble raised up in any of those parts is wont to be disturbed so it is not altogether for nothing that the Symptoms every where infesting the cause of them being unknown are ascribed ordinarily to the Spleen because it fixes not only its own inordinations in other parts but also suffers for their peculiar faults which notwithstanding is wrongfully ascribed to Vapours transmitted from this or that part when the formal reason of every Distemper of this kind for the most part consists in the communication made through the Nerves The lower Infolding of the left side seems to be made for the Kidney placed near into which chiefly the bundle of its Fibres is carried Fig. 11. ♃ γ. γ. Certainly that these nerves following the emulgent Vessels do embrace the same and bind them about with a various and frequent complication that is so made for that end that by reason of the Artery being so strained and frequently shaken by the drawings of the nerves the Serum may the more easily be precipitated from the blood wherefore it is observed in very great difficulty or danger when the mind and all the nerves are strained for fear that a frequent and more plentiful making of water and that often painful is wont to be provoked The Renal Infolding receives besides the Nerve common to it with the upper infolding another new and peculiar one from the intercostal nerve or rather that coming between from the spinal Marrow Fig. 11. β. Hence it is that the Loyns have a great consent with the Reins and suffer so ordinarily for their Distempers with a grievous and largely diffusive pain Forasmuch as this infolding communicates with the greatest of the Mesentery the Colick distemper and the Nephritick are much akin and it is often difficult to distinguish their fits one from the other The Mesenterick branch in the right side as well as the left being forked contains two infoldings the upper of these which we call the Hepatick sends forth from it self many little bundles of nervous Fibres the greatest of which being carried towards the Liver cloaths the Hepatick Artery as it were with a Net made of Fibres Fig. 11. ♂ o. The most Learned Glisson observes That the Hepatick Artery is bestowed on the Trunks of the Vessels to wit of the common Chest of the bilary Pore and of the Vena Porta for the watering of which and for the actuating them with heat and nourishing Juyce it carries the arterious Blood to which notwithstanding for the recarrying an associate Vein is wholly wanting wherefore that ought to carry the blood not with a full and free influx but by little and little and always in a constant measure to those membranaceous parts for otherwise there had been danger lest from the bloody Latex plentifully rushing forward for that it could not be still remanded presently through the Veins an Inflammation should be excited or lest from its torrent being transfused beyond its banks the courses
so laid up about the caverns of the Nostrils may be emptied it ought to be carried away or wiped out from thence by a vehement blowing of the Air or breath Wherefore it is observed That whilst the inward parts of the Nostrils being very sensible begin to be wrinkled together from some sharp thing pulling or pricking them and by that means to draw out the watry humor presently by reason of the passage from thence by the branches of the fifth pair into the intercostal Trunk and from thence by the passage of the nerves which are extended from its Cervical infolding into the nerve of the Diaphragma the consent of the same Action or Convulsion is produced even into the cross bound or Midriff so that by the same Act as it were with which the Nostrils are wrinkled the Diaphragma also with the Diastole being stronger and longer draw out is depressed that the Breast being dilated as much as may be the Air may be the more copiously inspired Then as soon as the Spasm or Convulsion of the Membranes drawn together within the Nostrils and fore-part of the Head begins to remit presently the Midriff leaping back with a force causes the inspired Air to be violently exploded or driven out which strongly wipes away and carries forth with it the humor pressed out within the caverns of the Nostrils We yet ought to inquire concerning the Nerve of the Diaphragma what is the reason that it always proceeds from the Brachial nerves and why it doth not rather arise immediately from the spinal Marrow Truly from hence it seems to follow that the motion of the Arms in some sort respects the action of the Diaphragma or on the contrary that this depends on that Indeed between these two a certain respect or habitude happens which easily appears by this Argument The Arms or fore Legs in all Creatures are made for labour and hard exercise because by the force of these men fight and perform the most hard and laborious things and Brutes run and ascend the most steep places with great pains But it is very well known that by too much labour and over-vehement motion of body the act of Respiration is very much increased so that the breath almost fails and is oftentimes in danger to be lost The reason of this is because by great exercise the blood is too much forced into the bosom of the Heart which lest it should suffocate it that it might be emptied into the Lungs very frequent and difficult Respiration is instituted Therefore from hence may be inferred That the exercises of the Body ought to be regulated according to the state of the Praecordia or that the motion of the Arms should observe the action of the Diaphragma viz. lest they being stirred by a violent motion cause the blood to be driven more into the bosoms of the Heart than the Diaphragma instituting a most frequent Respiration can draw from thence into the Lungs That this Rule may be perpetually observed of all living Creatures it is so provided that the nerve of the Diaphragma chiefly conducing to Respiration should be tyed as it were a bridle to the Brachial nerves which are the principal in the motion of the Body and so might timely warn these if unmindful of their duty and as soon as breath fails should command them to desist from further moving the Body Wherefore we observe when at any time labouring Cattle are urged beyond their strength in labour or motion oftentimes either some deadly hurt of the heart follows or else some uncurable disease of the Diaphragma for by such immoderate labour either the Beast languishing quickly dyes when it is commonly said that his heart is broke or else the tone of the Diaphragma being wholly broken Respiration ever after becomes painful and difficult which is wont to happen ordinarily to Horses who are driven into too rapid a course with a full Belly CHAP. XXIX Of the Reason of the difference that happens between the Nerves of the wandring and Intercostal Pair in Man and brute Beasts also of the other Pairs of the Nerves arising both within the Skull and from the Spinal Marrow also something of the Blood-carrying Vessels which belong to the Spinal Marrow THus far we have described all the Nerves stretching out to the Praecordia and Viscera also to most of the other parts which are the Organs of the involuntary Function according to the manner by which they are wrought in man and we have shewn their Offices and Uses and the Reasons of the most noted appearances in all Before we proceed to the other Conjugations of the Nerves it behoves us to shew with what difference the aforesaid Nerves are found in brute Beasts and for what end such a difference is ordained It was already intimated That the Trunk of the wandring pair in four-footed Beasts doth send forth to the Heart and its Appendix more nervous Vessels than in Man The reason of which is obvious because the Cardiack nerves in Brutes proceed almost only from this pair and scarce at all from the intercostal wherefore when they are only of one origination therefore more are required all which not-notwithstanding are much fewer than the same are in Man from a double stock viz. being carried from both the Nerves forasmuch as Beasts want prudence and are not much obnoxious to various and divers Passions therefore there was no need that the Spirits should be derived from the Head into the Praecordia by a double passage viz. that one should be required for the exercise of the vital Function and the other for the reciprocating impressions of the Affections but that it may suffice that all those destinated to every one of their offices may be carried still in the same path In most Brutes the intercostal Nerve goes alone from the Ganglioform infolding of it almost without any branching to its infolding of the Thorax in which passage however it is not always after the same manner in all for in some it is carried single and apart from the Trunk of the wandring pair nor doth it communicate with it in its whole journey unless a little higher by a shoot sent down from the Ganglioform infolding but in many the intercostal Nerve passes presently from its Ganglioform infolding into the neighbouring infolding of the wandring pair Fig. 10. C. where when both the nerves seem to close together from thence both being involved under the same common inclosure as it were one Trunk they are carried together till it comes over against the first Rib and there an infolding being made the intercostal nerve departing from the wandring pair is carried into the infolding of the Thorax and the other nerve also is stretched between this and that infolding which nerves when one is carried under the other above the Artery of the Chanel-bone making as it were an handle straiten its Trunk Fig. 10. g. Although the intercostal Nerve is carried from the Throat to the top of the
notion and very many examples and instances both concerning natural and artificiall things from the Analogie of whose motions in an animated body both regularly and irregularly performed most apt reasons are to be taken For besides the mixtures of Nitre with Sulphur with Tartar and with Antimony all which are fired with a thundring noise also Aurum fulminans or fulminant Gold and a Composition of salt of Tartar with Nitre and Sulphur without any actual fire being only thoroughly heated are exploded with a vehement Crash also to this may be referred many Liquors which being mixed together or poured upon some certain bodies cause or stir up violent motions and plainly Explosive The spirit of Nitre and the liquor of congeled Antimony being powred on one another or either of them thrown upon the filings of Iron cause a great Ebullition with heat and black smoke It is commonly known what heat or effervescency and force plainly explosive arise from fixed Salts melted together and from acetous or sharp salt of every kind mixed with one another Nor is the effect of Explosion less seen when a Liquor imbrued with a volatil Salt as the spirit of Harts-horn or of blood is put to a saline either fixed or acetous Stagma or sulphurious Nitre to wit the particles being vehemently stricken one against another leap up with a force and on every side are carried forth a great way which without doubt if they were restrained within the space of any body as the fibres of a Muscle they would suddenly intumifie it and so would constitute an Instrument of Local motion Concerning this thing we have more fully discoursed already in our Neurologie or Tract of the Nerves and perchance we may yet publish the explication of this more fully and more accuratly some other time In the mean time that this opinion may not be thought altogether new and that I have exposed it as a childe of my own brain that had no other Patron I will here shew you the assertion of the Famous Gassendus which as it openly favours this our Hypothesis and in some sort gave an occasion of it so perhaps it will give to it some Authority Therefore this Rational man weighing in his minde how much that force or strength might be with which not only the Arm or Thigh but the whole animal Machine is moved govern'd lifted up and carryed up and down He adds Who can easily comprehend that small thing whatsoever it is within the body of an Elephant whether we conceive it to be a soul or spirit or any other beginning of motion that it should be able to agitate such a bulk and to cause it to perform a swift and regular dance and so much the more for that when as that small thing within that body no longer flourishes there is need of so much outward strength to remove it never so little from its place but indeed the same fiery nature of the soul serves chiefly to this which although it be a very little flame it is able to perform within the body by its own mobility the same thing in proportion that a little flame of Gun-powder does in a Cannon whilst that it not only drives forth the Bullet with so much force but also drives back the whole machine with so great strength But indeed he says as to the spirits which like explosed Gun-powder cause the agitation it is doubtfull whether it be they which come from the brain or those in the little tendons as it were of kin to them or springing from them that are thought to do it But although either of them concur yet they seem to be more presently destinated to this office which are those of the same kin or off-spring in the Tendons There needs no more it is declared that the motive function depends on the Elastick Copula of the animal spirits and its decision or abating But from this being supposed which indeed we may suppose with very great probability it easily follows that the Convulsive motions proceed from the like cause For whosoever shall consider the sudden puffings up the violent and strong Contractions in the members and affected parts yea sometimes the most impetuous concussions and violent throws of the whole body can conceive no less than that very many heaps of the animal spirits are exploded or thrust out even as lightning breaking forth from a Cloud Further from hence it may be Argued by a reciprocal Argument that because the Spasmodick motions are explosive that therefore the regular are also produced by the explosion of Spirits But after what manner and by what means and from what causes the animal spirits being exploded or thrust forth produce Spasmodick affections shall be our present business a little more largely and plainly to demonstrate however difficult and abstruse the matter seems to be We will not here stand to recite many opinions of others The Conjunct Cause of Spasms concerning the Nature and causes of a Spasm or Convulsion that which was most common and long famous among the Ancients that this distemper was only produced from repletion or inanition or from fullness or emptiness however Not repletion or fulness or inanition or Emptiness besides the authority of Hipocrates for the establishing of this an example is brought of a Skin or the strings of Lutes which are wont to be contracted being either filled with a moist or empted by too dry an aire easily falls of it self because it seems to suppose that which is credible to none by Experience the fragility of a Nerve to wit that the Nerves themselves after what manner soever abreviated and contracted are able with a certain force to draw to them the Muscles If that it shall be said that repletion or inanition ought to be understood in respect of the solid parts which are wont to be drawn together it may be observed to the contrary when as the Muscels and Nervous stock are very much watered with a watery humour as in an Anasarca or are plainly destitue of the same as in the Consumption or Mirasmus yet no Convulsive motions are for that reason excited among the moderns very many have determined irritation of the Nervous parts to be the cause of Convulsion taking their Conjecture from thence as I suppose for that by ocular inspection it appears from the Vellication it self and by the only touch of the Nerves that spasms are induced And indeed we have clearly observ'd in the dissection of a living whelp that the knife being put upon the naked ends of the spinal Nerves presently both themselves and the Bodies of the Muscles in which they were inserted were hauled neither is it unusual that spasms are excited almost in every man by the punctures of the Nerves and Tendons I remember by reason of an Ulcer in the Arms of a certain man that the Tendons of the Muscles were laid open which when touch'd by the Surgions Instrument caused in the Patient a certain
rigor through his whole body and forthwith a Concussion arising made him to quake for a good space But in truth albeit we grant the irritations of the Nervous parts not seldom to serve the turn of the evident Cause and further that sometimes this solitary Cause produces more light and transient spasms nevertheless that the more grievious paroxisms of this Disease and their frequent repetitions by turns may be duly unfolded it behoves us to investigate or search out other and deeper Causes to wit the Conjunct and procatartick Cause Forasmuch as spasms never happen but in a living Body where the Nervous parts are blown up and grow turgid with the animal Spirit we may readily Conjecture that those animal Spirits themselves are as in regular motion so also in the Convulsive the next Instrument of Action to wit so long as they are imbued with a fit and moderate explosive Copula and are moved to that striking forth only by the Command of the Appetite or instinct of Nature they bring forth motions altogether regular but if the same Spirits get to themselves an heterogeneous Copula and too much Elastick or if they are snatched into their Actions more impetuously and vehemently than they should be they even like unbridled Horses pricked forward with Spurs leap forth inordinately or throw off or explode violently their Copula although genuine and natural and so they carry away the containing parts as it were a Chariot tied to them together with themselves with a fierce and perverse motion There is a double Cause and two kinds of Spasms Irritation When therefore as aforesaid the Convulsive motions are chiefly stired up for two Causes hence as many Species of them are ordained For first it happens that a Convulsion is induced without a procatartick Cause or heterogeneous Copula first acquired only from a solitary evident Cause For so a vehement passion impressed on the brain a dissolution of the parts hapning somewhere in the Nervous stock a spasmodick passion is suddenly brought upon some whose brain and Nerves are of a more weak Constitution for that the animal spirits do trouble the containing parts the improportionate Object flying from them and by striking vehemently their Copula though very agreeing it blows them up and so they pull others annexed to them Spasms being after this manner excited because the natural Copula of the spirits in them is stricken more vehemently they are after a manner explosive which notwithstanding quickly leave off and very often pass away with moving of the viscera or Members only with a trembling and some horror into a fainting of the spirits But Secondly Convulsions whose paroxisms are more grevious and stay longer or are oftener repeated seem altogether to depend on a procatartick Cause or a previous disposition and to arise from some other Conjunct Cause besides Irritation And therefore in this Case we suppose A preternatural explosive Copula that the heterogeneous and greatly explosive particles do increase with the spirits acting in this or that region of the Body then from this wicked Combination and restless Collision of this kinde of matter and the Spirits frequent and vehement explosions being brought forth the spasmodick Paroxisms are induced But besides the Elastick Copula which every where happens to the Spirits from the arterous Blood and from whose orderly explosion the motive force is performed according to the Beck of the Appetite or instinct of Nature in all the Nervous parts as we have elsewhere declared also sometimes other kinde of little bodys of a fierce nature or rather like Gun-powder or Nitre come to the Spirits and intimately adhere to them when frequent and suddain divorces of this matter from the Embraces of the Spirits happen from the mutual striking together of the particles the conteining Bodys are variously blown up and so are thrown into Convulsive motions In truth as often as the Spasmodick Affection becoms habitual that the Convulsive Paroxisms arise not rarely on their own accord and without any evident cause but still on every light occasion the procatartick Cause of such a disease consists in the evill disposition of such a sort of animal Spirits For neither is the Serous filth or other less sharp humours although deposited in the very ventricles of the Brain or about the origine of the nerves sufficient to stir up such a sickness For that I have seen in the heads of dead people oftentimes the middle part of the brain and the very beginings of the Nerves wholly covered with a limpid water who whilst they were alive had neither the Epilepsie nor Convulsive Motions But to the producing or these motions very active Bodys are required such as are Saline and Sulphereous which being combined with the Spirits and then on a sudden breaking from them they imitate the combinations and violent explosions of particular mineralls For indeed if in regular and ordinary motion as we have intimated the Muscles cannot get a motive force and elastick strength unless a certain explosion of the animal Spirits be supposed certainly much more lawfully may we assert that epileptick fits and other admirable Convulsions which still happen to be excited complications of the same Spirits with other very firce particles and vehement elisions or strikings of these one against another are required But as to this kind of Sposmodic Copula because it differs from the natural and ordinary which we have elsewhere shewn to be in regular motion and to be supplyed from the blood it behooves us to inquire from whence it comes and by what means and in what places it is wont to get to the Spirits As to the first it is to be observed that Spasmodick explosions do every way happen not only in the muscles to which only they are limited which effect the regular motion but also in the membranes to wit the ventricle mesenterie and other parts almost without blood besides that the explosions themselves in the Convulsive Affection though they are excited contrary to the will of the Appetite and the manner of Nature are far more vehement and do longer continue than in the regular motion out of which it seems to be manifest that the Explosive Spasmodick Copula doth come from some other place than the Effectrice of Regular motion And indeed it is probable that that flows not as this from the arterous blood running every where among the musculous fibres but descends from the Braine with the Liquore watring the Nerves The explosive Spasmodic Copula not immediatly from the Blood but from the Brain and so is heaped up about their beginnings middle processes enfoldings and Extremities as it were the mine of the Convulsive disease Indeed nothing appears more evident than that the Spasmodick Disease doth most often arise by reason of the evill first fixed in the Brain and from thence is transmitted into various parts of the Nervous System for it happens from hence that a vehement Passion as of
exterminated by the putting forth the Red-gum or red spreadings thorow the skin Wherefore a water now thin and Serous now thick and sticking and either participating of praeternatural Salts and sulphures is layd up within these or those recesses and Cavities of the Brain Cerebel and oblong pith the recrements of which when they begirt the beginings or ends of this or that nerve and sometimes many together affix on the Spirits inhabiting them heterogeneous particles and apt for Spasmodic or Convulsive explosions For as soon as the nerves have deeply imbibed such particles the spirits being burthened with their Copula endeavour either of their own accord or being incited by evident Causes to thrust and shake it off and so they enter into Spasmodic or Convulsive explosions The evident Causes which bring on Convulsive motions in children praedisposed are of two Kindes viz. In the first place whatsoever stir up unwonted effervescencies of the blood whether they be excesses of heat or cold a too plentifull nourishment or hotter then should be the changes of the air and weather and chiefly the periodical times of the Moon for by reason of these and other the like occasions the Blood growing more hot than by right it should be affixes sooner to the Spirits an heterogeneous Copula even to a fullness and causes it presently to be struck off and exploded by them throughly disturbed 2ly An Irritation in almost every part of the nervous System does not seldome bring into Act a Spasmodic or Convulsive Disposition wherefore not only an excess of tangible qualities outwardly inflicted but the milk Coagulated in the stomack choler or other sharp humours or also wormes knawing the Intestines are wont to excite Spasms or Convulsions Besides these kinde of evident Causes as they are stronger sometimes induce Spasmodick Distempers of themselves and without a praevious Disposition even so worms and perchance sharp humours cause Convulsive motions to some children at least to the more tender That it might more certainly and to the sense appear what kinde of morbific matter might be in Convulsive motions I have opened the dead bodies of many which this disease had opprest I have allways in vain sought the cause within the Visecra and first passages of Concoction In the heads of many a serous water being heaped up within the Cavity under the Cerebel and distending the Membrane which cloaths the oblong pith or marrow did overflow the beginings of the nerves in some no footsteps of this Disease appeared so that what sticking to the Spirits did irritate them into explosions was of so imperceivable a bulk and its originall so altogether hid that it could not be found out by the most perspicatious scrutiny of the sight Sometime past in this City many chilbren of a certain woman dyed of this Disease at length the fourth as the others dyed within the month we dissected the Head and here no serous Colluvies or water did overflow the ventricles but only the substance of the Brain and its appendix was moister then ordinary and looser what was most worthy of observation was that in the Cavity which lyes under the Cerebel upon the trunk of the oblong pith we found a remarkable heap of clotter'd and as it were concreted blood but in truth it is uncertain whether this matter deposited there from the begining had primarily caused the convulsions or rather whether this blood being extravasated and expressed by the contraction of the parts planted round about was not the effect and product of the Convulsions and not the cause of them for also in Apoplectical people this kinde of Phaenomenon ordinarily happens which yet we shall afterwards shew to be rather the effect than the cause of the disease Indeed the heterogeneous Particles which flow to the blood from the womb are wont to be sent away through efflorencies or Cutaneous Pustles in the whole Body in many children in others being poured on the head are the material cause of the Convulsive Distemper may be inferr'd besides the reasons before recited from the remedies chiefly helping For that in little children obnoxious to this haereditarie Disease the Convulsive fits are best prevented if that an issue be made Presently after they are born in the nape of the neck and blood drawn with a Leech from the jugular Veins for the corruptions of the nervous juce are brought away by that and the impure buddings of the blood are diverted from the head by this by these ways of Administrations when before two or three children of the same Parent have dyed of Convulsions soon after they were born all the rest have been freed from the same evill 2ly Thus much concerning the Convulsive motions of Children which are wont to infest them by reason of an Infection contracted from the womb â—f that at this bout they should escape the Disease it self or at least its deadly strokes nevertheless about rhe time of breeding teeth they would be found at last to be obnoxious to the same danger for when the Teeth especially the greater are about to cut oftentimes a feavour is excited to which not seldom Convulsions are Joyned and though at this Time children are grown stronger and may better bear the fits of the disease then when new born yet the convulsive Distemper now stirred up by no other grievous occasion becomes very dangerous and sometimes deadly But forasmuch as childern who fall into feavours about the time of breeding of Teeth are not all tormented with Convulsions it therefore follows that some disposition to this disease either innate or acquired doth precede and that the pain caused from the breeding the Teeth is to be esteemed only the means of a more strong evident Cause to wit Children who being indued either with a Cacochymia or juce causing ill digestion or with a more weak constitution of the brain and nervous stock have their animal Spirits too much adulterated or dissipable are sometimes disposed for the coming of Convulsive distempers wherefore when so acute pain together with a feavor afflicts that latent disposition is brought into Act. If it be here ask'd for what reason a feavour and then Convulsive motions following thereupon come to those Praedisposed in teething it may be answer'd that either effect may be attributed to the pain as the immediate Cause We experimentally know by our selves what the torment is that follows an irritation about the roots of the Teeth in truth so great and so cruell that a more cruell can scarce be for that one or two notable shoots of the 5th pare of nerves reaches to the roots of each Tooth which when it ss hauled by the sharp particles of the Blood or other humours there layd up causes a most sharp sense of trouble or pain by its Corrugation But this kinde of Vellication or hauling of this Nerve happens thus to children breeding teeth because that the membranes and fibres are every way distended by the Teeth now increasing into a greater bulk and
to degenerate into a Cancer they had applyed fomentations and Cataplasms of hemlock and mandraks and other stupifying and repercussing things this gentlewoman began to suffer certain Convulsive affections infesting her very often At first as often as the pain in her breast did most cruelly torment her she felt in that place prickings also convulsions and contractions running about here and there then presently her Ventricle and hypochondria and often the whole Abdomen were wont to be inflated and very much distended with an endeavour of belching and Vomiting by and by the same distemper being leasurely translated to the superior parts excited Insensibility to which shortly after Convulsive motions succeeded in the whole Body so strongly that the Sick party could scarce be held by three or four strong men These kinde of fits at first were wandring and only occasionally excited to wit they would come as often as the pain of her brest was strained by some evident cause Afterwards these Convulsions did more often infest her and at last they became habitual and periodical twice in a day to wit they were wont to come again constantly at so many set hours after eating And when after this manner the sick Gentlewoman had been miserably afflicted for six months at length she began to be molested with a vertiginous Distemper of her head exercising her almost continually for which evill when a fomentation of aromatick and cephalick herbs had been a good while administred to her head she became better as to the giddiness but then she was perpetually infested with a quite new and admirable Symptom viz. an empty cough without spitting night and day unless when she was overwhelmed with sleep After this worthy Virgin had tryed without much benifit diverse medicines and remedies prescribed by several Physitians she was at last helped by making use of the most temperate Bath at the Bath then being presently married after she had conceived and was brought to bed she by degrees grew well If the reasons of the whole disease and its Accidents be inquired into The reason of this without doubt the convulsive distemper was first of all excited from the tumour or pained place of the breast the cause of which was partly the most sharp sense of pain being impressed from its fibres and nervous parts but partly by the heterogeneous Copula being affixed on the spirits inhabiting those fibres and nerves for truly it may be suspected that the most sharp humour impacted in the Tumor which perhaps had in some sort flowed thither by the passages of the Nerves being repercussed by the use of Topicks had entred the fibres and nervous filaments or little strings disposed thorow the whole border or neighbourhood and so the heterogeneous and explosive Copula had clove to the spirits for the shaking off of which as often as by pain they were excited they entred into convulsive explosions and together with them other spirits flowing within the neighbouring Nerves by consent of the forms as it often happens were exploded after the same manner Then the convulsive distemper when it first had begun in the extremities of the Nerves being continued thorow their passages even to the head was wont to cause the insensibleness and from thence leaping back upon the whole nervous system the convulsive motions of the Limbs and all the members The fits about the beginning of the sicknesse being excited after this manner by reason of pain from the distemper'd part were carried secondarily to the brain and its appendix But afterwards when the spirits inhabiting those places being often explosed by sympathy had so loosned and weakned the pores of the containing parts that there lay open a passage within the same for all heterogenious particles to enter with the nervous juce the convulsive procatarxis or more remote cause also increased in the head and the spirits inhabiting the Encephalon being infected with an heterogenious Copula they themselves begun the convulsive fit or at least afforded the first instinct to its assalt which did return for the most part at such set hours after eating because the morbific matter was carried in together with the nervous juce almost in an equal dimension In truth in such cases where the convulsion being generall doth possess almost all the parts of the whole nervous system successively we may suspect that the animal spirits had contracted an heterogenious and explosive Copula in the whole nervous stock which when it is arisen at the set time to a fullness incites the spirits themselves at the appointed time in like manner to explosions and the same explosion being begun somewhere is propagated in order to all after the manner of a fiery enkindling As to that empty cough which succeeding the fomentation of the head exercised this sick person allmost incessantly for many months it seems that this Symptom should depend altogether from the nervous origine being distemper'd and not at all on the stuffing of the Lungs for she did not avoid any thing with the cough and if at any time that force of coughing was violently restrained presently she was troubled with the sense of choaking in her Throat So that as it is very likely the morbific matter laid up near the nervous origine being rarified and stirred by the fomentation entred more deeply the heads of the nerves appointed for the Lungs and stirred up in their fibres and filaments perpetuall convulsions after the like manner as when the nervous juce which waters the fibres and tendons of the Muscles being made sharp and degenerate induces to those parts continual leapings and contractions hence when a Convulsion or spasm was stop'd in some branches of the distemper'd Nerves so as she could not cough presently the Convulsive motion running into other branches of the same neighbour Nerve stirred up that choaking in the Throat I will here propose another example of a Convulsion arising from the extremities of the Nerves being affected Observation 2 A noble Matron of fifty years of Age after her courses had left her for about half a year began to complain first in a pricking pain of her left pap then afterwards that distemper leaving her she was ill about her ventricle for there arose an hard and as it were a schirrous Tumour with a sad pain upon this came an inflation of the stomach with difficulty of respiration a nauseousness and frequent Vomiting Then the disease encreasing with a more sharp pain running about here and there she fell into Convulsive distempers of the ventricle to wit in that place she was allmost continually troubled with Convulsions variously running about just as if her ventricle had been torn to pieces Besides a constant perturbation of minde with thirst and watchings and a freqnent deliquium of spirits as if she had been just dying exercising this sick Lady All which symptoms she plainly perceiv'd to arise from that Tumour in her ventricle They saw that all vomitory cathartical antiscorbuticall and hysterical
are almost without Spirits or at least are contented with a few For the birth and growth of Vegetables they are required in a more moderate quantity In the Constitution of a living Creature where there is greater Use of Spirits for Sense and Motion a far more plentiful quantity is found In the works of Art and chiefly in those which ascend to perfection by Digestion and Fermentation there are found to be a sufficiently great proportion of Spirits but in all subjects whatsoever whilst the immersed Spirits are mingled with the other Principles their condition or state comes under a threefold consideration for they are either depressed and scattered and so involved with more thick Particles that they are very little seen or shew forth their powers as in things undigested crude and unripe may be perceived in which the Spirits can hardly extricate themselves into motion and from which they can hardly be drawn by Distillation Or secondly the Spirits flying forth from the thick substance of the rest are full of vigor shake and rightly dispose the more gross Particles subtilize the thick digest the crude and bring things to the steme or height of maturity and perfection or lastly Spirits having obtained the height of things do luxuriate and make excursions out of the Body hence those that remain are by degrees lessened of their plenty and strength until being less in power than the Particles of the Salts and Sulphur they are put under their yoak and by little and little are destroyed and driven away out of the Subject on this threefold state depends the beginnings or rudiments the maturity and exaltation and the defect and end of things It is observed when the Spiritous Latex is drawn forth of any Liquor by Distillation that the vapor or steam is not elevated into dew that is comes together in little drops or dew every where poured forth as it is wont to do in watery things but it is divided into streaks and many little rivulets and renders the Alembic mark'd in every part with straight lines only not meridional leading from the Centre of the top to the brim of the Circumference The cause of which seems to be this to wit since that the spirituous substance is very subtil it is not easily Collected into Liquor neither is it fixed every where about the sides of the Vessel in its ascent as watery Liquors but always stretches 〈◊〉 and unless when it comes to the top it self of the liâ—… head doth in no wise 〈◊〉 but there the spirituous breath being restrained as it were in a punct and being brought backward it begins to gather into dew wherefore from that top as it were the Fountain the Spirits flowing forth on every side by streams descend in streaks towards the mouth or brim of the Alembic And when those lines wholly disappear it is a sign that the spirituous substance is quite still'd forth and that the watery breath only ascends 2 Sulphur is a Principle of a little thicker consistency than Spirit after that the most active for when the Spirits first break forth from the loosned subâ—â—â—nce of the mixture presently the Sulphureous Particles endeavour to â—…low The Temperament of every thing as to Heat Consistency and amiable frame or contexture depends chiefly on Sulphur from hence also for the most part arise variety of Colours and Odors the fairness and deformity of the Body also the divâ—â—sâ—â—y of tastes In the Bosom of this the Spirits immediately in which as in a Copula they are united by the more hard embraces of the rest The substance of Sulphur though less subtil is yet of more firceness and unruliness than the Spirits are for this unless it be restrained by the embrace of the others as it were in bonds and its Particles be detained one from another by the interjection or coming between of the rest not only leaves the subject but destroys it self with too impetuous an eruption Indeed the little bodies of this being gently moved do cause digestion and maturation sweetness and many perfective qualities in things being a little more strongly moved they induce heat and an excess of qualities inordinations and chiefly a stinking favour but being more impetuously moved or stirred up they bring in the dissolution of Bodies yea a flame and Burning The substance of Sulphur is never seen sincere yea it consists not of it self from others but vanishes away into Air its Particles being concreted and chained together with Salt and Earth are fixed as it were immoveable as is seen in Metals and some Stones or being Diluted with Spirit and Water and temper'd together with the rest exist in motion by which means as was before said of Spirit they are in a threefold state within the substance of the mixture for either first of all its little bodies being involved with Salt and Earth or too much drenched with a watery humidity are obscured so that they exercise but little of virtue from whence the humid and cold temper of things exists their qualities are Obtuse Dull and of small virtue or force and the Bodies less apt to be inflamed as is discerned in unripe Fruit raw Juices and green Wood. Or secondly The Particles of Sulphur begin to shine forth with Spirit to be more thickly heaped or rolled together and to appear eminent above the rest of the Principles And so by its motion they evaporate the superfluous moisture digest Crudities and induce a warm temper in things active qualities a lively force and maturation or ripeness which kind of exaltation of Sulphur may be observed in Wine and Liquors long Fermented in ripe Fruits in the Youth and florid Constitution of living Creatures Or thirdly The Sulphureous Particles being gathered into vigor grow too hot loose the bonds of mixture and desire to fly away and from their diverse manner of departure and separation the dissolution of Bodies variously happens For either they evaporate with Water and Spirit by degrees and without tumult and leave their subjects lean and dry which when the Sulphur is wholy gon fall into Ashes Or secondly in Bodis which abound with Sulphur when the mixture is loosned and the Spirits begin to fly away the remaining Particles of Sulphur are wont to be very much moved and to grow exceeding hot and being shut up in a thick substance are gathered together more nearly as in Dung and Hay growing hot and conceive heat and somtimes Burning breaking forth after this manner by heaps and impetuously they breath out a stinking smell and bring on a rottenness to the subject There is a third manner of eruption whereby the Sulphureous Particles go forth of Bodies when they withdraw themselves as it were with violence and being gathered together break forth into fire and flame whereby indeed becoming unbridled and untamed they break all bars or lets and wholly destroy the substance or frame of the Subject By this means by their own and proper effervescency they procure a Burning as
into these Elements by Distillation the same mixture in number and wholy known by the same accidents is restored to them being mingled together again for example if you Distil Vitriol in a Reverberating Furnace you shall have a Phlegm almost insipid or a Watery part then a Liquor very sour or a Salt having gotten a Flux and in the bottom a Red Earth and finely Purpled this being rightly performed if the two Distilled Liquors be poured to the dead head you shall have the same Vitriol as you had before and again revived in the same Colour tast yea and almost in weight In like manner you may proceed with the same success with Nitre Sea-Salt Salt of Tartar and perhaps with Alum and other Minerals So that those Concretes which consist of fixed and stable Elements may like a Mechanick Engine be pulled into pieces and presently without hurting the Machine be restored or made whole But there is enough spoken concerning the Principles of Natural Bodies These being thus premised we will proceed to the thing proposed in the beginning to wit the Doctrine of Fermentation CHAP. III. What Fermentation is Its Division as to the Subjects and first of Minerals FErmentation is an intestine motion of Particles or the principles of every Body either tending to the perfection of the same Body or because of its change into another For the Elementary Particles being stirred up into motion either of their own accord or Nature or occasionally do wonderful more themselves and are moved do lay hold of and obvolve one another the subtil and more active unfold themselves on every side and endeavour to fly away which notwithstanding being intangled by others more thick are deteined in their flying away Again the more thick themselves are very much brought under by the endeavour and Expansion of the more Subtil and are attenuated until each of them being brought to their height and exaltations they either frame the due perfection in the subject or compleat the alterations and mutations designed by Nature Fermentation is an action or motion meerly Natural and what doth perform it are only Particles Naturally implanted in the Concrete yet as to the subjects in which they are found it is wont to be variously distinguished And either things of Nature are said to Ferment in a threefold Family of Minerals Vegetables and Animals or the Works of Art to wit when Actives are applied to Passives by an outward Agent Though the Term and consideration of Fermentation are chiefly due to Artificial things and things made by Hand yet it will not be from the purpose to speak first somthing of Natural Things that a Comparison being made of either the Truth of our Hypothesis and the certainty of the Principles may be confirmed But this only lightly and by the way in this place I shall pass over because their more full handling belongs to Physiology or the Discourse of Natural or Physical Things In the first place as to Minerals altho in the Bowels of the Earth the Fermentation is less conspicuous than in the Superficies yet it easily appears that the Elementary Particles or the Fermentative Principles are included in the depth of the Earth as in a certain pregnant Womb which there constitute Concretes and things gathered together by strict Embraces the Productions of Minerals but being loosned and moved in the Bosom of the Earth or exhaled upwards cause the appearances of Meteors First The Generation of the more hard Minerals induces rather Congelation than Fermentation because indeed these Principles growing together in every Subject are so fixed and as it were bound together in Bonds that they are not able any ways to move themselves or to depart one from another This kind of Fixation chiefly depends on the plenty and greater proportion of Salt and Earth somtimes with an addition of Sulphur than there is of Spirit or Water To wit Salt and Earth being most smally broken and resolved even into a Vapour lay hold of one another and stiffen into a hard matter and at last not to be loosned almost after the same manner as making of Glass and the burning of Bricks and Earthen Ware are performed For Glass consists of Salt and Earth which when being broken into most small bits by a very intense Fire they suffer a Flux they mutually lay hold of one another and so strictly and intimately come together that they are never to be parted Glass is more fragil or easie to be broken than Earthen Pots or Minerals because it has a greater plenty of Salt than of Earth which is more plentiful in Earthen Ware and in Minerals To some of which also happens a modicum of Sulphur and for that reason they are more tenacious and ductil as is to be observed in Metals when in the mean time stones and what contain little of Sulphur are fragil and apt by every stroke to fly to pieces In Vitrification there is need of a violent Fire for the fusion of the Salt and the Earth whose Particles as is commonly said are the Pestles of the Chymists but within the Bowels of the Earth there is not required such a fusion by Fire for the Concretion of Minerals because Salt and Sulphur exist being naturally resolved into most simple Particles which when they lay hold on the Earth easily stiffen into Metal or into a stony hardness There are some Fountains found out which for that they flow with a Primitive Salt and resolved into small Particles what ever Bodies are immersed therein they cause them presently to become stony We have read also of Men changed into Stones yea a whole City to have been stiffned into a stony substance by the Air or by some Vapour brought forth of the Earth The Faith of which thing is left to the Authors Meteors are made out of the same Principles by which Minerals are made and conceived almost in the same Womb but loosned from Concretion wandring here and there and diversly fluctuating or which being included in Subterraneous Vaults and there moved produce divers Springings up of Fountains or ebullitions of hot Vapours or exhaling from the Dens of the Earth and being mixed with Airy little Bodies they cause within the Region of the Atmo-Sphear as it were a diverse fashioned Landskip of Clouds Winds and the appearances of other things in the Superficies of the Earth or on high in either there are highly active Principles chiefly Salt and Sulphur Spirits are either deficient in Meteors even as in Minerals or are found only in a very small quantity or proportion to wit they are almost wholly excluded from these by reason of the strict frame of the Subject which doth not easily yield space and passage for their motion also they abstain from those viz. Meteors by reason of the lax and wholly loose structure of Matter from whence they who are mighty in swiftness easily break forth and desire to fly away Within the Bosome of the Earth the Saline Particles being
Bodies are that are most fit for Fermentation and which are less convenient for it Secondly What things are requisite about Fermentation to wit what are wont to promote or also to hinder its motion in every Subject Thirdly How manifold the motion of Fermentation is and the end of it also what are the effects and alterations which follow it As to the first That all Bodies when tending to perfection may truely Ferment they are required In the first place That there be some parts loose and disjoyned otherwise the Fermentative Particles will not be stretched forth or move from place to place Wherefore in the more hard compacted things or in viscous things or too much boyled or evaporated to a spissitude or dryness Fermentation does not succeed What are Liquid as Wine Beer the Juices of Fruits and Herbs easily and quickly swell up next to these what are soft tho they are of a thicker Consistency as Bread and most Eatable things and Medicinal Compositions Secondly It is required that there be an Heterogeneity of parts or a confusion of all the Principles together to wit that some Particles do oppose others and stir them into motion For the more simple Bodies in which one or at most two Elements only are strong with a very small proportion of the rest are unapt to Ferment because like Particles or Symbolical Elements lie benumed and quiet But between the unlike there arises presently a strife for domination and some provoke others into motion Thirdly There is a third condition that there be neither too much Crudity nor Maturity of parts in the body Fermenting In the former the active and subtil Particles are not easily extricated from the more thick nor are brought into motion as it appears in Juices which are pressed forth from unripe Fruit also in Beer which is made of Barly or Mault not come forth or germinated In the latter the Particles being made too volatile are not contained in the bond of the mixture but presently evaporate and dispose their Subjects to Putrefaction Wherefore Juice expressed from Summer Fruits or others too ripe will not easily pass into Wine but it will quickly corrupt And for this reason extravasated blood milk and urine do not Ferment but quickly putrifie As to the second thing proposed there are many ways by which Fermentation is either promoted or hindred The first and chiefest is the adding of a certain Ferment to the body Fermenting the Particles of which when being first placed in vigor and motion may raise up the others idle and sluggish in the to-be-fermented Mass and may drive them into motion But there is a two-fold Ferment either absolute which is the same kind of Body in which the active Particles being altogether placed in their vigor are notably in motion and so whilst they are committed to the Subject in Fermenting snatch with them into motion other Particles there of the every kind before sluggish by this means Barm or Yest beaten Eggs and such like stir up a Fermentation almost in every thing Or the Ferment is respective to wit which consists of Particles very much of one kind which meeting other of another kind in the Mass to be Fermented grow hot with them and so produce in the mixture a turgency or rising up of all the parts together After this manner Saline Particles having gotten a Flux grow very hot with other Salines either fixed or alchalisate as appears when acetous Liquors are poured on Corrals Harts Horn shells of Fishes also when the Spirit of Vitriol and the Salt of Tartar are put together a great ebullition is excited There are some accidents and external circumstances which variously conduce either to the provoking or hindring the motion of Fermentation of which sort are chiefly the condition of the Ambient Air the placing or laying up of the body Fermenting and the means of conserving it The Southern Air in which hot and humid Particles every where abound which also entring easily any Bodies obtain the force and place of a Ferment impresses a notable motion of Fermentation in very many things Wherefore in drinkable Liquors it doth not only raise up at first the force of effervescency or growing hot but also for a long while after induces new swellings up in them being Fermented On the contrary the Cold and Northern Air binds up and very much fastens Bodies and in very many things hinders the fusions and flowings of the Elements and oftentimes either hinders Fermentation from being stirred up or restrains it being begun Also the hot Summer Air because it too much moves the active Principles drives away the Spirits and subtile parts exalts the Saline and Sulphureous into a Flux and so perverts their equal motion and either the Sulphur or Salt being too much carried forth it easily brings to Bodies a rancidness or putrefaction or a mouldiness which nothing favours the business of Fermentation It is a vulgar opinion that some select times of the year to wit those in which the Vegetables of every Kind flower cause anew the motion of Fermentation in the Juices and other things prepared of them after they had Fermented a long time before so that Beer when the Barly and Wines in the time that the Vine flowers conceive risings up or new Fermentations they say also that Bread and Flour when the Wheat is in Flower is want to become sooner musty and moldy also that spots or stains of the Juices of Fruits as the Mulberry Blackberry Rasberry and such like being in Cloaths are wont to be gotten forth again at that time when those Fruits are Ripe Concerning these things I ingenuously confess that I have not made tryal of them by my own proper observation so as to dare to affirm it for truth in every part I will therefore lightly pass them over for it would both grieve and shame me lest I should relate false things to Philosophize concerning doubtful things Concerning the laying up of the Fermenting Body these things are chiefly to be observed When things first being to Ferment that they are not to be shut up in too close Vessels neither while the Liquors are hot are they to be put into Bottles or Casks For the Particles at first boyling up and as it were rarified desire a very large space wherefore the Fermentation of Wine or Beer is begun in open large Vessels but when they grow less hot those kind of Liquors lest the Particles being set and moved into motion too much should fly away from the Subject they are kept best either in a cold Cellar or close Vessels In the preparation of Vinegar we observe the contrary to wit it is wont to be placed in a hot place near the Chimney or Oven or exposed to the Suns beams to the end that the vinous Spirit being depressed the Saline part might be exalted into a Flux and so might give a sharpness to the Liquor There is another observation that Liquors do Ferment better in
shall be an Argument that I may Err yea if you please that I have Erred however if I should have rightly traced forth any marks in this at least new search of Truth and shall have incited others who are far better able by this occasion to the full finishing of it it will not repent me altogether of this tho rash beginning OF FEAVERS CHAP. I. The Anatomy of the Blood and its Resolution into five Principles A comparing it with Wine and Milk THE Doctrine of Fermentation being explicated it remains that we handle the chief Instance or Example of it to wit Feavers For it seems that a Feaver is only a Fermentation or immoderate Heat brought into the blood and humors It s name is derived from Februo or Purgament which also is derived from Ferveo to be Hot which word indeed is commodiously put to every Feaver for that the blood in this Disease grows hot and besides by its fervor as working must it is Purged from its filthinesses But that this Fermentation or Feaverish effervescency may be rightly explicated these three things are to be considered First What the Fermenting Liquor is whether only blood or any humors besides Secondly In what Principles in the mixture and in what proportion of them this Liquor consists Thirdly and lastly By what motion and turgescency of those parts or Particles of which the blood is made the Feaverish effervescency is stirred up These being thus premised the Doctrin of Feavers shall be delivered not from the Opinions of others but acccording to the comparisons of Reasons picked tho from ours yet from diligent and frequent observation and confirmed by certain Experiments all which however I willingly submit to the judgment of the more skilful It plainly appears even to the sense that the Blood doth hugely boil up and rage in a Feaver for every one tho rude and unskilful being in a Feaver complains of the blood being distempered and of the same growing hot in the Vessels and as it were put into a fury Also besides the blood raging in the Veins and Arteries it may be lawfully suspected that that juice with which the Brain and Nervous parts are watered is wont oftentimes to be in fault for when this Liquor is seen to be carried back from the blood into the Nervous stock by a constant motion and certain Circulation and from thence through the Lymphatick Vessels into the Bosom of the blood it is probable if by reason of a taint contracted from the blood that humor be depraved in its disposition or is perverted from its equal motion that from thence the Rigor and Pain Convulsion Delirium Phrensie and many more symptoms of the Nervous kind usual in Feavers do arise After the Blood and Nervous Liquor two other humors for that being apt to grow hot fall into our consideration viz. The Chyme or nourishing Juice continually coming to the Mass of Blood and the serous Latex perpetually departing from the same which tho they be the first and last Liquors separated from the Blood and distinct from it yet being confused with it they ought to be esteemed as its associate parts or complements For the nourishable Juice being fresh brought is accounted the crude part of the blood and to be assimilated and the Serum its stale part and to be carried away And after this manner so long as either are Circulated with the blood it self in the Vessels they participate of the heats of the first begotten blood and oftentimes occasionally begin them or increase them being begun but by what means these things come to be done is declared hereafter in their proper places As to the rest of humors which are only the recrements of the Nutritious juice or the blood when they are included either in their proper Receptacles or constrained in the narrow spaces in the Viscera neither wash the several parts of the Body with a continual lustration as the blood or Nervous Liquor or the other humors but now recited are to be exempted from this rank somtimes perhaps they may be the occasional cause that the blood doth conceive an undue Effervescency or that it persists in it longer but it is only the blood with the Nervous Liquor the alible juice and Serum associates which boiling up above measure with its heat and stirred up with a rage through the Vessels diffuses the preternatural heat and induces the formal reason of the Feaver but how this comes to be done is not to be known plainly but by a more near beholding the Nature of Blood and as it were an Anatomy made of its Liquor There are in the Blood as in all Fermentative Liquors Heterogeneous Particles which as they are of a diverse Figure and Energy remain a long while in the mixture by their mutual opposing one another and subaction the motion of Fermentation is continually conserved as is perceived in Wine Beer and other Liquors then if the mixtion of the Liquor be somwhat unlocked by the adding of Ferments the Native Particles being freed from their bonds do yet more swell up and induce Fermentation with a more rapid motion and heat which is seen in a familiar Experiment of the Chymists viz. when fluid Salts are mixed with Saline Liquors of another kind from thence a great heat and ebullition are stirred up Wherefore we ought to inquire concerning the Blood of what Particles it consists that it should be fit to Ferment as Wine Beer and other Liquors of its own Nature then by the help of what kind of Ferments both its Natural and Feaverish heats are performed with warmth and a more quick motion The Mass of the Blood by the opinion of the Antients was thought to consist of four humors to wit Blood Phlegm Choler and Melancholy and it was affirmed that according to the eminency of this or that humor diverse temperaments are formed and that by reason of their fervors or exorbitances almost all Diseases do arise This Opinion tho it flourished from the time of Galen in the Schools of Physicians yet in our Age in which the Circular motion of the Blood and other affections of it were made known before not understood it began to be a little suspected nor to be so generally made use of for the solving the Phaenomenas of Diseases because these sort of humors do not constitute the blood but what are so called except the Blood are only the recrements of the blood which ought continually to be separated from it For in truth the Blood is an only humor not one thing about the Viscera and another in the habit of the Body nor is it moved at one time by Phlegm and another time with Choler or Melancholy as is commonly asserted but the Liquor growing hot in the Vessels is only Blood and wheresoever it is carried through all the parts of the Body it is still the same and like it self But because by reason of the abundance of the implanted heat in some and because of the
First in the making or crudity which has relation to the Chyme new made in the Viscera and freshly poured to the blood the Particles of which like to unripe Fruit are crude and undigested Secondly In the perfect state or maturation which belongs to the blood being sufficiently wrought and made Volatile according to all its Particles after it is inspired by Ferments and its inkindling in the heart exalted Thirdly in its defection which respects the blood after it hath burned forth and its Spirituous parts are very much flown away and the rest growing old and poor have need to be removed and so they are either the Reliques of Salt which are with the Serum strained forth continually by the Urine or they are Particles of Salt and Sulphur boyled and baked together which are strained forth by the virtue of the Liver into the choleduct Vessels or lastly they are dregs and earthy recrements of the blood it self which are carried into the Spleen and there as it were a Caput Mortuum exalted by a new digestion go into a Ferment at length to be transmitted to the blood Whilst after this manner the generation of the blood and its due maturation are truly dispatched it is pleasingly circulated within the Vessels neither wanting in motion or heat nor inordinately troubled with them But if either the supplement of the nourishing Juice be not made agreeable with the rest of the blood nor assimilated with it but that either by reason of the defect of Concoction it is washed into a very crude humor or because of its excess it is rosted into a burnt matter or if the blood growing old does not lay aside what it casts off and give way to a new Nutritious humor I say by reason of these kind of Vices concerning Sanguification or the making of blood the blood is variously perverted from its due temper and equal motion and now becomes Watery and Cold now Sharp or Salt now Acid Austere or by some other way degenerate and somtimes obnoxious to stagnations and somimes also to immoderate heats We may observe these kind of degrees of crudity coction and defection in the blood both of the sound and of the sick in healthful persons after a more plentiful repast Surfeit or hard drinking when too much of Serum or of Juice is poured to the blood its whole mass being too much diluted with a crude humor becomes more watery and less spirituous wherefore men are rendered sluggish and unfit for motion or exercise In sick persons the Phlegmatic Constitution of the Body induces such a crudity of the bloody mass as is discerned in the White Dropsie the Dropsie Pica or longing Disease and the Chlorosis or Green-sickness Also the state of this kind of crudity comes in an intermitting Feaver and in truth is the cause of the Feaverish accession viz. by reason of the dyscrasie of the blood the nourishing Juice being heaped up is not assimilated to it but for the most part goes into a crude or otherwise degenerate matter with which when the mass of the blood is filled to a plenitude swelling up it brings on the fit The state of Maturation Concoction being finished happens in healthful persons some hours after Eating especially in the morning to wit when the supplement of the Chyme is spiritualised and as it were enkindled in the whole by reiterated Circulations for then men are made more nimble and lively and more ready for studies or any business The state of Defection is in the blood of sound men after fasting long hard labor and want of Food for then the Vital Spirit being very much evaporated the mass of the blood begins to become as it were lifeless wherefore they presently languish and are made weak Moreover the blood by a too long Coction is burned and grows bilous from whence those accustomed to want Food or fasting for the most part become sad and melancholic Some Diseases habitually induce such a disposition of the blood such are the Scurvy the Yellow Jaundies the Cachexia or evil state of the Body when the nourishing Juice turns to ill humours long Feavers and most Chronical Diseases in which the whole mass of blood passes from from a Spirituous into either a sowr sharp or austere Nature So much for the comparing of Blood with rich Wine what follows being a similitude of it with Milk consists in the diversity of the parts and their setling apart which is chiefly seen in its being let forth from the Veins and grown cold in the dish For when the heat and vital Spirit which conserve all things in the mixture are flown away the remaining parts depart from one another of themselves and a separation of the thin from the thick and of the Serum from the Fibrous blood is made This sort of separation of the parts succeeds almost after the same manner as in the coagulation of Milk There are in Milk Buttery Cheesie parts and Whey The like is in Blood so long as it doth not much recede from its Natural temper for it is good when being let forth of the Veins it grows cold in the Porringer its parts do settle after the same manner to wit the more pure portion and Sulphureous like Cream comes together on the Superficies which in healthful people looks brightly red and this answers to the flowring or head of the Milk under this lies a Purple thick substance which cosists of little Thrids and Fibres joined together and as it were concreted into a clotty substance or parenchyma such as the Liver For the heat being consumed and the bond of the mixture losened the Fibrous parts lay hold on one another and by their weight settle into a more thick Coagulum which answers to the Cheesie part of the Milk In the mean time the Serous or Wheyey parts being thrust forth from the rest get their own Nature and constitute a clear Liquor like water which as it is thinner ascends to the top and swims upon the rest Further as the Whey of Milk is wont to be further coagulated and doth yet contain in it self some parts both Buttery and Cheesie so this Liquor swiming on the blood if it be exposed either to the fire grows thick like the White of an Egg a little rosted or if an Acid Liquor be poured to it will be precipitated into a white Coagulum This being seen some have thought this watery Latex to be the nourishing juice which imparts nourishment to the whole Body from the mass of the blood in the time of its Circulation and that the rest of the blood is only the Vehicle of Heat and Spirits and serves for no other use But to me it seems more likely that in this watery Liquor is contained the nourishing juice which is imployed on the Nerves and the commonly termed Spermatic parts for nourishment is supplyed to the Musculous stock from the Fibrous blood of the Parenchyma or the Liver Lights and Milt After this manner blood being
or to a swelling up and when they being more thickly heaped together begin to enter into a Flux they first of all strike down the Vital Spirits with their sharpness and somwhat overthrow their heat wherefore the Blood becomes colder and is more slowly circulated yea and by reason of the defect of heat the sense of cold is perceived in the whole Body and a pulse very rare exists Moreover when the nervous and solid parts are watered with this sort of acetous Juice for their last nourishment by the Flux of this which happens together with the turgescency of the Blood these sensible parts are pulled and irritated into Tremblings and Convulsions And this without doubt is the true and genuine cause of the cold and shaking which are excited in a fit of the intermitting Feauer to wit the Flux and swelling up of the nourishing Juice degenerated into a Nitrous matter with which the Spirits and Heat being suffused are blunted and the Nervous Bodies being provoked are moved into tremblings But afterwards when these Nitrous Particles being thrust forth from some part into the Superficies of the Body the Blood is somwhat freed from their weight and oppression the Vital Spirits recollect themselves and begin to shine forth but from thence a most intense heat succeeds because both the mass of Blood by reason of the growing hot with the Feaverish matter being loosened and also its mixture being laxed the Sulphureour Particles are more plentifully inkindled in the Heart and because the pores of the skin being possessed by the same matter thrust forth towards the circumference of the Body the vaporous Effluvia are restrained within which do more shake and make hot the Blood that heat persists still in the Blood until that Fermentative matter being wholly burnt out and together with the adust recrements remaining after the burning being fully brought under and subtilised and involved with the Serum insensibly evaporates by sweat or transpiration Thirdly These things being premised it will not be hard to shew the reasons and causes of the intermission as also of the set periods viz. the intermission follows because all the Morbific matter is dispersed in one fit and so till new be substituted there is a necessity that a remission follow But new matter begins to be begot of which the last fit failed to wit the mass of Blood being but now emptied receives the nourishing Juice and perverts it as before by reason of its defect of due making of Blood and of Concoction into a Fermentative matter but its little plenty stirs up little or no trouble or Fermentation but when the Blood is filled to a swelling up it presently ferments and is in Flux even as when new Beer or new Wine shut up a long while in a Vessel at length at a certain time boils up and leapes forth at the mouth of the Vessel But that the Fits or Accessions do for the most part come again at set intervals of times and that so certainly that a Clock is not more exact the reason is because the nourishable Juice is for the most part supplyed from the Viscera to the Blood flowing in the Vessels in an equal measure and manner for tho we do not dayly take exactly so much meat and drink in weight and dimension yet because we for the most part eat at set hours for the satisfying the Appetite from the things eaten and the mass of the Chyme heaped up in the Bowels an equal portion of the nutritious Juice is conveyed to the Blood through the Milky Vessels wherefore if at such hours so much of the nutritious humor is poured into the Blood which increasing to a fulness and swelling up it brings on the fit that day certainly this being finished in the space of the same time sufficient matter is laid up for the following fit But if errors in feeding be committed and that the sick indulging their Appetite eat more plentifully or inordinately the approach of the fit anticipates the wonted hour by reason of the Bloods being filled sooner with the Feaverish matter if that the sick are abstemious and more sparingly take their Food the intermission is drawn out longer If it be yet asked wherefore the periods of intermitting Feavers be not of one kind and of the same distance but that some repeat or come again dayly others on the third or fourth day The cause is the diverse constitution of the Blood to wit whereby it is perverted from its due temper now into a sourish now into an acid or sharp or into an austere or harsh disposition By reason of the diverse evil constitution of this the alible Juice being fresh carried departs more or less from maturation and is perverted into matter apt sooner or later to ferment When the Blood has acquired a sour hot and bilous disposition I suppose that some part of the nourishing Juice is ripened into perfect humor and is assimilated with the Blood and so goes into Food to be carried to the solid parts and is affixed to them but the other part of it from the Blood being too much cocted and depraved is changed into a Feaverish matter and supposing that half of the nutritious Juice is after this manner perverted in double the time in which it is said to have a full Concoction in our Body that is after eight and forty hours this kind of Fermentative matter rises to a plenitude and turgescency and then induces the fit of a Tertian Feaver If that by reason of the austere and pontic nature of the degenerated Blood in which a fixed Salt with an Earthy Faeces is exalted too much and therefore apt to ferment more slowly only a third part of the nutritious Juice is corrupted then in three times the space of the aforesaid time the fit is induced that is after seventy two hours in which the period of a Quartan is wont to be concluded But if by reason of a greater infection of the Blood almost the whole supplement of the nutritious Juice is perverted into a Feaverish matter then in the space of that time in which the plenary coction ought to be absolved in the Vessels and habit of the Body that is after twenty four hours this matter arises up to the motion of turgescency and brings on the Quotidian fit And hence it comes to pass that in a Quartan Feaver strength and courage do not presently fail whilst in a Tertian the sick are wont to become more weak but in a Quotidian Feaver they are sooner brought into languishing and greatest weakness to wit in each as more or less of the nutritious Juice goes into the Food of the Disease so much also is drawn away from the strength and firmness of the Body But more fully of these when we treat of the several kinds of Intermitting Feavers and the Causes of them Against the equal Circuits of these Feavers it is argued that for the most part the fits do anticipate the set time of the
another not exactly twenty four hours but either sixteen or thirty hours in a Quotidian and in a Tertian not forty eight but forty or fifty six more or less or thereabouts it comes to pass that every other fits happen before and the others after Noon To which also may be added that the different manner of eating which the sick use very often produces great inequalities of figures that somtimes the fit is redoubled twice in a day as I have often observed in Cachectical men or full of ill humors and living disorderly but it doth not seldom happen that Intermitting Feavers repeat fits which do neither observe the same distance nor bear altogether the figure of the same mode I have many times observed in a Quartan Feaver that besides the set comings or Accessions returning on the fourth day about the same hour some wandring and uncertain fits did infest the sick that somtimes on the day preceeding the wonted fit somtimes on that following it another fit tho lighter was excited anew with shivering Heat and Sweat exactly like the figure of an Intermitting Feaver and nevertheless the primary Accession returned at its accustomed time This for the most part is wont to happen either from diet evilly instituted chiefly from surfeit and drinking of Wine or else from Medicines wrongfully administred The reason of which unless I am deceived consists in this The mass of Blood being wont to be filled to a swelling up with the Fermentative matter at a set time often by reason of some errors in eating and drinking heaps up more matter than can be easily dissipated in one fit and when it unequally Cooks the same Fermentative matter it often happens that it first shakes off its superfluous or more thin part as it were by a certain skirmish in a more light fit but dispels the more thick after the primary Accession as yet remaining in the Blood by a Feaverish Fermentation arising anew And when the fits in an Intermitting Feaver redouble after this manner either become more remiss for that the same matter in either is only divided and eventilated by two accessions Besides when this Fermentative matter or Nutritious Juice depraved in its circulation is continued partly in the Arteries and Veins with the Blood and partly in the Nervous stock and solid parts it may happen that both humors do not ferment at once but a great part of one may be dispersed in one fit and then a great part of the other in another fit CHAP. IV. Of the kinds of Intermitting Feavers and first of a Tertian WE shall easily accommodate to our Hypothesis delivered in the former Chapter concerning the nature and beginning of Intermitting Feavers all the Phaenomena which belong to it and the reasons of them But as those which are of this sort do not observe the same space of Intermission or of return and their figures as to the appearances of their signs and symptoms do not altogether happen after the same manner therefore according to the diversities of these and especially from the distance of the fits the various species and differences of Intermitting Feavers are assigned The chiefest division of them is into Tertian Quotidian and Quartan We shall here remark the chief things worthy of note concerning each of them It is called a Tertian Feaver not which is accomplished at the distance of three days but inclusively from the day in which one Fit begins from thence the other returns on the third In the mean time if the Fits be sometimes longer viz. protracted almost to twenty four hours and the Remissions anticipated also by their accessions or comings of the Fits the space is oftentimes less by a night and a day This Disease is commonly distinguished into exquisite and spurious The exquisite or exact Tertian Feaver is which begins with a vehement shaking to which succeeds a sharp and biting heat which goes off in sweat and its Fit is finished in twelve hours and that the perfect intermission follows In the spurious or bastard Tertian the cold and heat are more remiss but the Fit is often extended beyond twelve hours yea often to eighteen or twenty These differ as to the various disposition of the Blood which is in the former more torrid and sharp therefore perverts the alible Juice from Crudity towards an adustion wherefore a more vehement Effervescency is stirred up but as the matter more equally burns forth it is sooner finished In the latter besides the adustion the Blood abounds with too much serous humidity wherefore the nourishing Juice degenerates into a Crude matter and therefore less apt to be overcome and to burn forth wherefore its Fit is gentler and more unequal but is not finished but in a longer space The Essence therefore of a Tertian Feaver consists in this That the Blood like Beer brew'd with too high dry'd Mault being too sharp and torrid does not rightly subdue and ripen the alible Juice which is taken in from crude things eaten but very much perverts it into a nitrous-sulphurous matter with which when the mass of Blood is filled to a swelling up like new Beer stop'd up in Bottles it conceives an heat From the flux of this nitrous matter which blunts the heat and vital spirits and pulls the nervous parts first the cold with shaking is excited then the vital spirit geting strength again this matter growing hot in the Blood begins to be subdued and inkindled in the heart from whose deflagration an intense heat is diffused thorough the whole body then its reliques being separated and involved with serum are sent away by sweat This torrid Constitution of the Blood consists in this That 't is impregnated more than it ought with particles of Sulphur and Salt wherefore the Procatartick causes which dispose to this Disease are an hot and bilous temperament a youthful age hot dyet as an immoderate use of Wine and spiced Meats but especially in the Spring and autumnal feafons of the year when the Blood as all vegetables is apt to flower and to ferment of its own accord By reason of these occasions the liquor of the Blood is want to be thorowly roasted and to be changed into a cholerick temper and when it departs from its natural Disposition so much that it perverts the nutritious Juice into a matter plainly Fermentative the beginning of this Feaver is induced which sometimes happens from this intemperance being leasurely increased and brought to the height but more frequently an evident cause raises up this disposition into act and we ascribe the origine of this Disease to some notable Accident Wherefore lying on the Ground or taking cold after sweating or transpiration being any ways hindred also a Surfit or a perturbation of the Stomach from any thing inordinately eaten and lastly What things soever stir up an immoderate heat in the Blood bring the lurking disposition of this Disease into act for that from every such occasion the nutritious Juice being heaped in the
Blood and somewhat depraved conceives a Flux and departing from the rest of the Blood ferments with a nitrous sharpness then being inkindled and shaken by the Spirit and vital heat it induces the Fit with a very strong burning A Tertian Feaver is wont to be more frequent in the Spring at which time the Blood is livelier and richer and therefore more fitted for this kind of Feaverish distemper If this Feaver being taken be ended within a moderate time t is commonly said to be a Medicine rather than a Disease which is partly true because by this means the impurities of the Blood burn out the obstructions of the Viscera are discharged and in truth the whole body is ventilated so that 't is wholly freed from every Excrementitious matter and the seminary of growing Diseases But if this Disease be long protracted it becomes the cause of many Sicknesses and of a long want of Health For from hence the mass of the Blood is very much deprived of the vital Spirit and like Wine too much fermented in a manner grows lifeless wherefore the Jaundice Scurvy or Cachexia follow this Feaver being long er'e it be cured For by its frequent Fits the vital Spirit very much evaporates and because it is but little restored by things eaten the Blood therefore becomes weaker and almost without life In the mean time the particles of Salt and Sulphur are carried forth more and exalted from whence the Blood is made sharp and salt and so more unfit for Circulation and Transpiration Moreover This Disease being long protracted oftentimes changes its Figure and from a Tertian Feaver becomes either a Quotidian or sometimes a Quartan then sometimes from either it returns into a Tertian The reason of this is the disposition of the Blood being variously changed which at first being sharp and bilous had perverted the nutritious Juice by that means that it arise to a fulness of swelling up on the third day afterwards by the frequent Deflagration becoming less sharp or in truth more waterish it grows far weaker as to its Constitution so that it doth very little or not at all assimulate the nourishable humor and ripen it and by that means the increase of the Fermentative matter is made sooner and the Fits return daily or else the Blood from a sharp and bilous intemperance the constitution of the Heaven or the year bringing on this alteration is changed into an austere or saltish and therefore more slowly perverts the nourishing Juice and the increase of the Feaverish matter gathering together more slowly it doth not conceive the Fits till on the fourth day but if either by the means of Physick or Dyet the temper of the Blood is reduced from either Dyscrasie towards a bilous the periods also are altered and they resume the figure of a Tertian Certain symptoms are wont to come upon a Tertian Feaver which are commonly esteemed for the Crises of this Disease and in truth sometimes these appearing the Distemper either clearly ceases or begins to abate of its wonted fierceness But these kind of signs are chiefly these three viz. The Erysipelas or an Eruption of pimples in the Lips the yellow Jaundice and an Inflamation or swelling suddenly excited in this or that part of the body very often there happens after three or four Fits to the Sick little ulcers with a crusty scab to break forth about the Lips and altho there be no coming away of any matter in all the body beside yet from hence they presage that the Feaver is about to depart which sometimes the event proves true But indeed sometimes I have observed that the hoped for effect has not succeeded but that the Feaver pertinaciously and for a long while hath afflicted them when their Lips have been broken out But as to what respects this Symptom it seems to arise for that the Blood having got a more free Diaphoresis it not only thrusts forth adoors the more thin and smokie recrements but also the more thick and when the same in other parts more easily exhale thorow the more open Pores they stick in their passage about the Lips by reason of the skin being more strictly bound together and because the vaporous matter abounds in particles of adust Salt and Sulphur being fixed in the skin it there hinders Circulation and therefore induces Pustles and little Ulcers perhaps the more hot breath which is breathed forth from the mouth and nostrils may contribute something to this Distemper forasmuch as it scorches and burns the Blood and Juices flowing thither wherefore it may be said That this eruption of Pustles denotes only a more full Diaphoresis in the whole by which the more thick as well as the thin recrements of the adust Blood evaporate forth of doors For I have known in some from a Tertian Feaver little welks like the small Pox to break out in their whole body that if by this more plentiful Ventilation as it were a purging the Blood be so freed that it recovers its pristine disposition the Feaver is cured But if as sometimes it happens some recrements tho more thick break forth yet others stay within and still cherish the Feaverish disposition those little Ulcers argue only a greater taint of the Blood and pertinacy of the Disease therefore it may be observed when that scabs break out in the lips if the Feaver does not presently abate that it will be more grievous and tedious for the future Sometimes the yellow Jaundice comes upon a Tertian Feaver and cures it which Hippocrates has also taken notice of the reason of which is because when the Blood has got a sharp or bilous disposition that therefore it had perverted the alible Juice and from thence had heaped together excrementitious matter it is oftentimes freed by that Dyscrasie when by a sudden Secretion the recrements of adust Salt and Sulphur are more plentiful purged forth This the Choleduct vessels being irritated by Physick or of their own accord and so pouring out plentifully the Bile from the Blood do often perform because Vomiting Purging and especially a Diarrhea or Lask very much conduce to the cure of this Disease yea sometimes the Blood it self putting forth of its own accord thrusts forth the bilous recrements as its off-scourings and in the circulating puts them forth in the skin and so inducing the yellow Jaundice cures this Feaver When an Inflamation as sometimes t is wont comes upon this Distemper the Ague is commonly said to fall down into the part distempered with the Tumor But that by such a breaking forth this Disease is cured 't is no wonder because the Blood by this means continually lays aside out of his bosom the provision of the degenerate nutritious Juice and transfers it to the distempered part and therefore the degenerate and fermentative matter in the mass of Blood does not easily arise to a fulness of swelling up wherefore the Belly being perpetually loose hath by degrees helped some for that the
for some time and its mass is aggravated with the Recrements or burnt Particles which increase the fermentation The state or standing of the Disease is when after the Blood has sufficiently burned forth and its burning now remits the long vexed Blood like a noble wrestler when his adversary is a little yielding recollecting all his strength endeavours a bringing under and a separation of that adust matter with which it is filled to a plenitude and also a Crisis or separation being once or oftner attempted an expulsion of it forth of doors The Declination succeeds after the Crisis or secretion in which the Blood grows less hot with a languishing fire and either the vital Spirit being as yet strong overcomes what is left of that adust and extraneous matter and by degrees puts it forth until it is restored to its former vigour or whilst the same Spirit is too much depressed the liquor of the Blood is still stuffed with adust recrements and therefore becomes troubled and depauperated that it neither assimilates the nourishing Juice nor is made fit for an accension in the heart for the sustaining the lamp of Life 1. When therefore any one is taken with a putrid Feaver the first assault is for the most part accompanied with a shivering or horror for when the Blood begins to grow hot there is a flux made and a swelling up of the crude Juice freshly gathered together in the Vessels even as in the fit of an intermitting Feaver heat and somtimes sweat follow upon the shivering by which the matter of that crude Juice is inkindled and dispersed afterwards a certain remission of the heat follows but yet from the fire still glowing in the Blood a lassitude and perturbation with thirst and waking continually infest A pain arises in the Head or Loins partly from the ebullition of the Blood and partly from the motion of the nervous Juice being hindred also a nauseousness or a vomiting offends the Stomach because the Bile flowing out of the Choleduct Vessels is poured into it and a Convulsion from Vapors and from the sharp Juice brought thorow the Arteries is excited in the Stomach In the mean time altho the heat be more increased and inequal it is not yet strong because the Blood as yet abounding with crude Juices is only inkindled by parts and therefore burns out a little and then ceases and at last returns like a flame that is made by wet and moist straw In this condition for some days the Disease remains the Urine is more red than usual by reason of the Salt and Sulphur being more dissolved and infected with the serum It still retains its Hypostasis or substance because the Coction and assimilation are not altogether depraved it appears greater than ordinary in its sediment which is yet easily separated and falls to the bottom of its own accord At this time they may let Blood and administer Physick by Vomit or Purge so it be done without any great perturbation of the Blood it often happens from these kinds of evacuations timely performed that a greater increase of the Disease is prevented and the Feaver as it were killed in the shell The limits of this stadium or space are variously determined according to the temper of the sick and other accidents of the Disease somtimes the first rudiments of this Feaver are laid in a day or two somtimes the beginning of the Disease is extended to more if in a corpulent Body full of Spirit Juice and hot Blood or it happen in a youthful Age and very hot season if the disposition to a Feaver be potent and the evident cause coming thereupon be strong the Feaverish heat being once begun quickly invades all the Blood and on the second or third day having rooted it self the Disease arises to its increase but if the Feaverish indisposition be begun in a less hot Body a Phlegmatic temper or a melancholy and in old age or a cold season the entrance is longer and scarce exceeds the limits of this first stadium or space before the sixth or seventh day 2. The increase of this Disease is computed from what time the burning of the Feaver hath possest the whole mass of Blood that is the Sulphur or the oily part of the Blood having been long heated and growing fervent in parts at length like Hay laid up wet breaks forth after a long heating all at once into a flame the Blood at this time cruelly boils up and very much inkindled in the Heart by its deflagration diffuses as it were a fiery heat thorow the whole Body and especially in the precordia hence the sick complain of intolerable thirst besides a pain of the head pertinacious wakings and oftentimes a delirium Phrensie and Convulsive motions infest all food whatsoever is loathsom either it is cast up again by Vomit or if retained being baked by too much heat it goes into a Feaverish matter besides there happens a bitterness of the mouth an ingrateful savor a scurfiness of the Tongue a vehement and quick Pulse an Urine highly red and for the most part troubled full of Contents without Hypostasis or laudable sediment when the Blood is at this time almost wholly inkindled by its deflagration it begets great plenty of adust matter as it were ashes remaining after a Fire with which the serum being very much stuffed renders the Urine thick and big with Contents Also the Blood being filled with a load of this to a rising up is irritated into Critical motions by which this Feaverish matter if it may be done being brought under and separated is shut out of doors and indeed this state of the Feaver induces that in which a Judgment is discerned between Nature and the Disease the strife being as it were brought to an aequilibrium and therefore the evacuation which follows from thence is called the Crisis The state therefore or height of a putrid Feaver is that time of the Disease in which Nature endeavors a Crisis or an expulsion of the adust matter remaining after the deflagration of the Blood To this is required in the first place that the Blood hath now for the most part burned forth because in the midst of its burning Nature is not at leisure for a Crisis nor is it ever prosperously endeavored nor in truth procured by Art with good Success Secondly that the spirit of the Blood doth first by some means subdue this adust matter or Caput mortuum separate it from the profitable and render a period to the expulsion for otherways tho a copious evacuation happens Nature will never be free from her burthen Thirdly that this matter be gathered together in such a quantity that by its turgency it may irritate Nature to a Critical expulsion If these rightly concur a perfect Crisis of the Disease for the most part succeeds in which even as in the Fits of intermitting Feavers a Flux being arisen whatsoever extraneous and heterogeneous thing is contained in the bosom
Disease he may predict its event suspected and much to be feared But yet he ought not to trust to a naked Prognostication to hinder all things else but that as yet what is in the Medical Art should be consulted for Health tho desperate Remedies may be administred to the symptoms most infesting the Spirits of the Blood almost extinct may be restored by Cordials When we despond of Health life should be prolonged as long as it may and at least a fair exit procured According to the various types but now described of a Putrid Feaver I might readily add very many Histories of sick people and particular observations made about their Cure for these kind of examples are usually met with in our dayly practice so that they are sufficient to fill a great Volumn out of these however with the good leave of the honest Reader I will briefly propose some few respecting the several kinds of the aforesaid Feaver by which their Doctrine and Method of healing them above delivered may be illustrated A Noble Matron about fifty years of Age of a slender habit of Body little stature indued with a ruddy Complection when on the fifteenth day of June by reason of the Summers heat she had put on more thin Garments than she was wont felt herself ill in the Evening from thence she was distempered with a nauseousness and oppression of her Stomach she felt wandring pains troubling her now in her shoulders now in her back very thirsty yet without any immoderate heat on the second and third day almost after the same manner on the fourth day after a Vomit Viz. of the infusion of Crocus Metallorum one Ounce given she cast forth yellow bile four times and had three Stools and seemed to be eased the night following she slept somthing better but on the next day the Feaver being throughly inkindled she complained of thirst a burning of the Praecordia and of a pain now in her side now in her back presently blood was taken to eight Ounces her Urine was of a very deep red thick and troubled without any Hypostasis or setling of the Contents her Pulse unequal and often intermitting the following night without sleep on the sixth day of the Disease early in the Morning a small Sweat broke forth from whence the heat somthing abated which in the Evening again grew stronger on the seventh day a very acute heat with thirst burning an inordinate and intermitting Pulse as also with a mighty restlessness and tossing of the whole Body troubled her on the eighth the symptoms were somwhat more remiss also in the Urine some marks of an Hypostasis she took that day posset-drink with Meadow-sweet boiled in it and sweated plentifully and was cured of her Feaver All the time of her sickness for Food they gave only smal Beer Posset drink Barly broth or Grewel also frequently Clysters Drink and a cooling Julep they gave her at her pleasure This Noble Lady through transpiration being hindred fell into a Putrid Synochus the Effluvia wont to be evaporated through the skin being retained within together with the Choler flowing out of the Choleric Vessels and fixed to the Viscera did overthrow the dispositions of their parts and especially gave trouble to the Stomach and raised up pains and Convulsions in the parts filled with Muscles and Membranes the Pulse was unequal and intermitting not because of the malignity of the Disease as in the Plague but by reason a certain proper disposition of the Heart by which indeed its ferment being not well constituted the Blood growing fervent is not presently equally inkindled and wholly leaps forth but a part of the Blood in flowing in a small then a greater and after some turns the graatest proportion stoping for a moment of time in the Bosoms of the Heart produces the unequal and intermitting Pulse I have known in many others clearly the like distemper of the Pulse to wit so long as they were free from intemperance the Pulse was altogether equal and orderly but if they were more strongly heated than usually by any sudden passion of the mind or too great agitation of the Body presently they were affected with an unequal Pulse and between the vibrations or strikings intermitting perhaps 4 7 10 or 20. and as often as they fell into a Feaver the Pulse shewed it self after this irregular manner When this habitual irregularity concerning the Pulse was not yet made known to me by frequent experience I was wont to suspect still a malignity in the Disease and to foretel a fatal event which hapned otherwise On the fifth day in this sick person the Feaver although slowly inkindled came to an augmentation and from thence past through the rest of the stations with a swift motion on the sixth a light emptying of the adust matter arising to a fulness a sweat being risen and so a certain remission of the Feaverish heat followed on the seventh day this adust matter arising to its height of increase made the standing of the Disease to which at length on the eighth day a plentiful sweat with all things requisite to a good Crisis followed and perfectly Cured the Feaver because as it ought to be those three things went before this critical evacuation viz. first a full and sufficient deflagration of the Blood as appeared by the very strong heat and plainly fiery continued for three days before also secondly a congestion of the adust matter to a plenitude as was collected by the high disquiet and tossing about the preceeding and then a certain Pepasmus or Concoction of the same matter and a begun secretion in the Blood which a ceasing of the symptoms and signs of Concoction in the Urine shewed wherefore the Copious sweat coming upon so laudable a sign so long as there was no suspition of malignity portended nothing but good About the beginning of the year 1656 a Gentleman endued with an active habit of Body without any manifest cause unless that being much addicted to study he used no exercise after it became ill at first he complained of a nauseousness and want of Appetite with a great Headach on the second day he was affected now with a shivering now with heat several times reciprocating besides with thirst and burning of the Praecordia with a scurfieness of the Tongue and an ingrateful savour On that day he took ten drams of an Emetick Liquor by which he Vomited seven times and cast up a great quantity of yellow bile and had four Stools the night following he was unquiet and almost wholly without sleep and in which the sick person grew more Feaverish with an increased heat on the third day when the aforesaid symptoms were grown worse he was let Blood to ten Ounces his Urine was red thick and with a copious sediment his Pulse quick and vehement at night he sweat a little with a short sleep but disturbed on the following morning he seemed to be a little eased yet in the evening
pass through most swiftly as the Rays of light through a Diaphanous medium the whole mass of one another 2. As often as the Blood contracts hurt from some Poysonous thing the Poyson is fixed within either slow and of lesser activity which does not presently betray it self nor break forth into cruel symptoms till of a long time after it is ripened by a silent fermentation and hath first infected the whole mass of Blood as may be observed in some Poysons which are said to kill at a distance and not till after some months or years Or the Poysons inspired into the Blood are imbued with a much more acute sting that from their Contagion the Infection contracted presently breaks forth into cruel symptoms and thereupon follows now a Feaverish effervency with Vomiting Thirst and burning of the Precordia now a swelling up of the whole Body a discoloration of the skin oftentimes a breaking forth of whelks and buboes and frequently also a sudden loss of all strength so that sudden death without tumult and almost insensibly steals upon one where by the way it is to be noted If the Spirits of the Blood provoked by the enemy are able to encounter him and to strive for the victory this Feaverish ebullition of the Blood is stirred up from the conflict but if the Particles of the Poyson being far stronger suddenly profligate the Spirits of the Blood and extinguish life presently the Bloody mass is corrupted neither can it be circulated in the Vessels nor rightly inkindled in the heart If it be yet demanded what mutations the Blood infected with Poyson undergoes either in its substance or consistency that for that reason it is rendered unfit for the sustaining of Life I answer after this manner some Poysons fuse the Blood and too much precipitate its serosity such are Medicines which by a strong killing Purging or by a Profluvium of Urine or a discoloration or swelling up of the whole Body or with an eruption of Pustules cause a very great secretion of the serous Latex in the mean time a great ebullition of the mass of Blood is induced whereby the Vital Spirits are greatly destroyed the Particles of Salt and Sulphur too much exalted by the Concoction and are often so roasted that a Yellow or Black Jaundies is caused There are Poysons of another kind far more dangerous which congeal the Blood and by destroying its mixture corrupt it viz. the first induce a congelation to the Bloody mass and then a Putrefaction for when the Spirits of the Blood being overthrown by the contagion of the Poyson are dissipated the equal mixture of the Liquor is loosned wherefore the more thick Particles mutually infold one another and like Milk when Rennet is put to it or growing sowr of it self are coagulated apart hence the Blood curdles in the Vessels that it is less readily circulated in them coagulated portions of this being inwardly diluted into the bosom of the Heart are apt to stagnate there and so to bring forth frequent syncopes and swounings being carried outwardly and in the circulating fixed in the skin somtimes being more plentifully heaped together they induce a suffusion of blackness through the whole somtimes being more sparingly dispersed they cause only spots or Purple marks like black and blew stroaks and other appearances of malignity But the coagulation of the Blood quickly disposes it to putrefaction or corruption as is seen in extravasated Blood which is wont to grow soon black and putrid For the Spirit being exhaled the Particles of Sulphur and Salt remaining in the Blood begin to go apart one from another and to break the bond of the mixture from whence follows Putrefaction These things being thus premised of Poyson in general the reason of the method requires that we enter upon the handling of Feavers which draw their Original altogether from a malignant and invenomed infection and as under this title the Pest or Plague easily obtains the chief place I will begin with its consideration and afterwards I will speak of malignant Feavers Small-pox and Measels in order But yet before I shall propose its definition I will briefly inquire of the pestiferous Poyson what its disposition and Nature may be also from whence it may be born and lastly by what means it is propagated into others by contagion For the expressing the Nature of the Plague Authors are wont to choose some invenomed Bodies and from their names to frame an Elogy of this most wicked Disease wherefore in the definition of the pest are commonly recounted the Nepelline Aconital and Arsenical Poyson the Lethiferous force of which however as it consists in a very thick matter and does not exert or put forth itself but by a Corporal contact doth not truly imitate the essence of the Pestilential Disease for this is founded in a Spiritual and Vaporous infection by which its Effluvia being every way diffused so potently unfold themselves that out of the best seminary or seed plot they quickly propagate a fruitful Crop of death and destruction By reason of its notable activity this infection may deserve to be called as it were a certain quintessence of Poyson the very agil and subtil Particles of this do penetrate all Bodies and inspire them with its ferment for either being dispersed through the Air or hid in a certain tender or cherishing nest tho they strike against the human Body but lightly and as it were through a Casement they easily subdue it for both the Animal Spirits and those of the blood they quickly infect and by that means shortly pour forth the Venomous taint into all the members When a Pestilential Breath or Vapour hath invaded any one and that Poyson hath first laid hold on the Animal Spirits or those of the Blood or both of them at once as hath been already said of Poysons the taint is quickly derived from the subtil and more thin substance of these into a more thick matter because it quickly ferments the whole mass of Blood or of the Nervous Juice and the excrementitious humors every where abounding and from thence is deduced into the solid parts and fixes the evil in them If this Disease first possesses the Animal Spirits presently the hurt is communicated to the Brain and the Nervous stock and especially to the Ventricle forthwith it impoysons the humour growing in these loosens its mixture perverts the regular motion and renderr it wholly incongruous and infestous to the more tender substance of the containing parts by and by from thence Cramps and Convulsive motions cruel Vomitings pains of the Heart also Phrensies deliriums or pertinacious watchings are stirred up about the first assault of the Disease when in the mean time the infection not being yet dispersed through the Blood the sick are not Feaverish nor are troubled with inordinate Pulse or Syncope or appearances of marks which symptoms however arise afterwards as soon as the Blood is infected If when the Spirits of the
Liquor easily contracts the taint of this from whence it being made improportionate to the Brain and Regiment of the Animal Spirits stirs up great irregularities in them wherefore upon these sort of Feavers come not only spots and whelks but most often a Delirium Phrensie Sleepiness Tremblings of the Limbs Cramps and Convulsive motions I have often observed that in some certain years Malignant Feavers have increased which have shown their virulency without the appearances of marks chiefly about the Nervous stock because in some presently after the beginning has followed a sleepiness with a mighty heaviness of the Head in others strong Watchings a perturbation of mind with Trembling and Convulsive motions but in most either none or only an uncertain Crisis and instead of it a translation of the Feaverish matter to the Brain besides it is observed that these Feavers creep upon others by contagion and that very many are killed by them that therefore they do deserve to be called Malignant But these kind of Feavers are somtimes first begun from a venomous infection and the Blood being touched with the Particles of the venom conceives of it self an Effervescency and is inkindled as when from a contagion or malignant Air being inspired any one hath fallen into a Malignant Feaver without any evident cause or predisposition But somtimes the Feaverish Distemper is induced from a proper cause and then the seeds of the Malignity either lying hid within in the Body exert themselves in the Effervent Blood or they come from another place by the contaminated Air as it were the Food of the flame before inkindled for it appears by frequent observation in the time in which an Epidemical Feaver spreads that others being any way arisen turn into it Malignant Feavers as also Pestilential for the most part are popular and invade many at once but somtimes they are private and not ordinary so that perhaps only one or two are taken in the whole Region in such a case it is to be suspected that they come not from a malignant Air or Epidemical cause but from a morbous provision of the Body for I have often observed that when in the Spring or Autumn a Feaver sufficiently common hath spread in some City or Town of which very many have dyed perhaps some one on whom an evil predisposition and a more strong evident cause hath brought the Feaver hath lain by it with more horrid symptoms and great notes of malignity in which case that malignity is not to be called common to the Feaver but not ordinary and accidental only Altho the greatest reason of the difference by which these kind of Feavers are distinguished from one another and from other Feavers consists in their deadliness and contagion yet somtimes they are noted with a certein peculiar symptom from which they take for that time both the note of malignity and the appellation of the name hence in some years an Epidemical Feaver reigns which induces to most of the sick a Squinancy another time an inflamation of the Lungs a Pleurisie Dysentery or some other distemper and that oftentimes most dangerous and contagious so the seeds of Diseases not only derived from the Parents by traduction excite their fruits as it were by a certain designation in the same part or member but also those received from an Infection commonly spreading produce in all a distemper of the same mode and figure which yet I think to happen not because the seeds of the venomous Infection respect either this or that Region of the Body with a certain peculiar Virtue but these so affect the mass of Blood by a like manner in all that there is a necessity for the sake of washing away this stain that a Crisis be attempted after the same manner in all For when without malignity the Blood by reason of Coagulation or perhaps other causes is apt to be extravasated the usual places in which portions of the same being extravasated are wont to be fixed are the Throat Pleura Lungs and Intestines wherefore 't is no wonder when from a malignant cause the congelation of the Blood and for that reason an extravasation is induced if the Disease is nested in the accustomed cherishing place of Nature Concerning the causes of these kind of Feavers there is not much business they are for the most part deduced in respect of the malignity from the vicious Constitution of the Air in respect of the Feaverish heat from the morbous provision of the Body either of these are easily made clear by what hath been already said concerning a Putrid Feaver and the causes of the Pestilence If the malignity be stronger than the Feaver and hath induced it the impression of it is to be imputed to the inspired Air or to a Contagion received from others if the Feaver be first its inkindling is ascribed to transpiration being hindred to a Surfeit or to some other of the evident causes above enumerated As to the signs besides contagion and destruction these shew the malignity of the Feaver a sudden loss of strength a weak and unequal pulse and evil affection of the Brain and nervous parts being suddenly induced cruel Vomitings blackness of the Tongue a suffusion of darkness through the whole Body but chiefly the appearances of Spots Buboes and of other marks For the cure of Feavers both Pestilential and Malignant there is greater need of Judgment and Circumspection than in any others whatsoever For when there are two primary Indications to wit the Malignity and the Feaverish intemperance and when one can scarcely provide for the one without detriment to the other it is not easily to be discerned which should first be helped or soonest regarded In respect of the Feaver purging opening a Vein and cooling things do chiefly help but whilst these are performed the Malignity for the most part is increased and being neglected spreads abroad more largely its Poyson against the Malignity Poyson-resisting Cordials and Diaphoreticks are required but these extreamly heighten the Feaver they more shake the Blood and Spirits before inkindled as it were with the blast of Bellows and force all as it were into a flame wherefore here is great need of skill that these things be rightly ordered in themselves and where there is most of danger appearing thence the Curative Intentions are to be more immediatly designed but so as whilst one is consulted about the other be not neglected But in these cases besides the private Judgment of every Physician experience may supply the chief means of healing for when as these Feavers first spread every one almost tryes several Remedies and by the success of them collated together it may be easily reckoned what kind of method is to be relyed on till at last by a frequent tryal or the footsteps of those passing before there is made as it were a high and broad Road for the curing of these sorts of distempers bounded both with various observations and warnings Besides these sort
wherefore children most often escape old men or such as are of years are more in danger viz. in children or young people transpiration is more easie also the habit of the Body more firm and healthful But altho the venomous seeds of this Disease for the most part are wont to be dispersed or blown away at once and with one sickness yet it somtimes happens that a part of the ininfection being still left the sick have fallen into this Disease twice or thrice 2. The evident cause which stirs up these fermentative seeds and most often brings them into act may be said to be threefold viz. The contagion received from some place the disposition of the Air and the immoderate perturbation of the Blood and Humors It is most manifest by daily experience that this Disease doth come upon others and spread abroad by contagion viz. from the infected Body continually flow Effluvia which being received by other Bodies presently like poyson they ferment with the Blood and suscitate or awaken the lurking or sleeping seeds of the same Disease Homogeneous with themselves and dispose them into the figure or Idea of this Disease neither is the infection only communicated by contact but at a distance They who live within the same house or neighbouring to the sick easily receive the infection also it is cherished in Cloaths and dissipated afar off and transferred to more remote places They who are of kin one to another soonest infect each other also they who are fearful and extreamly dread this Disease more readily fall into it For by fear the Particles of the infection are conveyed inwardly from the superficies of the Body At what time the contagion spreads and that the Small-pox are Epidemical all other Diseases almost degenerate into this Secondly a certain peculiar disposition of the Air notably induces the Small-pox hence most often it becomes Popular and rages ordinarily through whole Regions Cities and Villages hence also it more often exists in the Spring and Autumn because at that time especially diverse manners of little Bodies and by that means tumultuating flow about in the Air which we draw in with the vital Air and so various effervescencies of the Blood and Humors and Ideas of Diseases are raised up Neither doth this Disease become only more frequent and Epidemical for these Causes but also it gets a manifold Nature that somtimes the Small-pox are deadly and as it were pestiferous and somtimes they are more mild and benign to wit as they have contracted more or less of malignity from the Air hence also somtimes black and livid Whelks or Pustils appear and have much of the Nature of the Plague Thirdly somtimes tho the tinder of contagion be absent and that no malignant constitution of the Air had gone before yet by reason of the Blood and Humors being immoderately disturbed the Small-pox do arise so I have known some to have fallen into this Disease from a surfeit or immoderate exercise when none besides in the whole Country about hath been sick of it to wit the seeds of this evil lying hid without any previous infection being stirred up by a too great fervor of the Blood and being associated gathering together easily defile and infect the whole mass of the Blood with their ferment 3 So much for the secret leading and evident causes but as to the conjunct cause viz. which is the formal reason of this Disease or the manner of its being made the business seems a little more intricate It is commonly wont to be compared to Must growing hot or Beer when it Purges in the Vat For if you put to these Liquors any thing of ferment as their Particles are Heterogeneous and of wonderful activity presently they diffuse themselves through the whole substance of the Liquor they exagitate the more thick and impure Bodies against which they are dashed beat them asunder and role about them until a flowring being made they drive the same from the intimate embrace or company of the Liquor to the outmost superficies After the like manner the Heterogeneous seeds of this Disease are thought to ferment the Blood and then by a certain eruption of Whelks or Pustles like the flowring purifies it But indeed if we should more strictly consider the business there will appear here a great difference because the infection of the Small-pox is as it were a ferment but corruptive and compels the Blood to grow hot not towards perfection but depravation for when the Particles of this venomous infection strike against the receiving subject they presently raise up little Bodies like to themselves and born with us with which being associated they pass through the whole mass of the Blood and make it to grow highly turgid and to boil up and after some time growing fervent to go into parts and to be coagulated viz. the dispersed seeds of the Poyson dissolve the mixture of the Blood presently profligate the more pure Spirits then they joyn its more thick Particles to themselves and by their adhesion render them as it were congealed The portions being so coagulated together with the infolded seeds of the poyson being left by the rest of the Blood in its circuit between the extremities of the Vessels are affixed to the skin by which means if Nature being strong enough doth cast forth the whole poyson with the congealed Blood the remaining mass of the Blood altho made poorer remains however in a condition to continue life and health but if the Blood being too excessively congealed cannot be purified after this manner or if portions of the Blood growing together with the poyson do not fully break forth or at last do stagnate within they wholly corrupt the Liquor of the Blood or else being affixed to the Viscera and especially to the Heart they destroy their constitution and strength Portions of the congealed Blood with the poyson begin to break forth about the fourth day now sooner now later because coagulation is not presently induced but after some time in which the venom unfolds it self and ferments the Blood with its effervency First light portions of the infected Blood and those but few in number like to Flea-bites are fixed in the skin quickly after more appear and those first broke forth by the accession of new matter and by the continual appulsion of the congealed Blood increase and are elevated into a tumor then these whelks at first red being by degrees increased at length grow white viz. the Blood being thrust forth of the Vessels with the poyson by reason of the heat and stagnation is changed into matter about the seventh day after the eruption the white tumors grow crusty into a dry scab for the more thin part of the matter being evaporated the rest grows hard which then having eaten and broke off the Cuticula or outward thin skin falls away from the flesh or next skin When the infection of the Small-pox is at once impressed on the Blood and
CHAP. XVI Of Feavers of Child-bearing Women VUlgar Experience abundantly testifies that the Feavers of Women lying in are very dangerous beyond the disposition of other common Feavers also that the same differ very much as to their essence from both a simple and putrid Synochus plainly appears from their signs and symptoms rightly weigh'd wherefore I believe it not to be from the matter to handle after malignant Feavers the acute Diseases of Women lying in being exceeding neer of kin to those for their mortality or perniciousness Yet before I shall enter upon the unfolding these Diseases it behoves us to consider their subjects viz. the Bodies of Women in Child-bed after what manner they are predisposed and by what provision they are made obnoxious to these kind of sicknesses Concerning this the first thing that offers itself is that the Flux of the menstruous Blood is wholly convenient to be suffered by human kind and at this time for Women concerning whose nature and original we shall not inquire in this place but it shall suffice to note that in them the particles of the Blood to be periodically thrust forth are very Permentative which if reteined in the Body beyond the wonted manner of Nature are very often the cause of many Diseases unless only when a Woman conceives with Child For all the time of her being big Bellied the monthly Flowers are stopped without any incommodiousness and in the mean time milk or the alible juice is disposed in great plenty about the parts of the Womb for the nourishment of the Child but after the Birth this daily suppression of the monthly Flowers is recompensed by a copious flowing forth of the Lochia or what comes away after the Birth and the milk within three days having wholly left the Womb springs forth plentifully into the Breasts at which time Women lying in are wont to be troubled with a small Feaver If that the milk be driven away from the Breasts it restagnates again towards the Womb and is thrust forth together with the Lochia under the form of a whitish humour In the mean time the Womb after the Birth becomes subject to various distempers for oftentimes its tone is hurt the unity is dissolved and many other accidents are induced which render Women lying in subject to danger wherefore that their acute Diseases may be rightly unfolded it is convenient for to consider chiefly these three things viz. first the nourishment of the Child or the Generation of Milk both in the Womb and in the Dugs and the metastasis or translation of it from one to another Secondly the purging of the Mothers Blood or the profluvium of the Lochia after a long suppression of the Menstrua Thirdly the condition of the Womb after the Birth and its influence on other parts of the Body And these being premised we will speak of the Feavers of Women lying in viz. both the milkie and the putrid called and that deservedly malignant by reason of its deadliness First the Milk and nourishing humour being heaped up in the parts of the Womb for the nourishment of the Child are of a like nature tho somewhat different in consistency Milk is indeed more thick because it ought to be received in at the mouth and to be kept in the Ventricle and afterwards it more thin portion to be conveyed to the mass of Blood The other alible Juice is more thin and like the water of distilled Milk because 't is immediately poured into the Blood of the Embryo thorow the umbilick Vessels without any previous digestion Either Juice is supposed to come from the Chyle fresh made in the mothers stomach what is reposed or laid up in the Breast is more thick and white by reason of the more thin or open strainer and coction in the greater Glandulas on the contrary it happens in the Womb ootherwise where the Glandulas are smaller and the Straining more close But there is a great disagreement among Authors concerning the passages by which this humor is carried both in the Breasts and into the Cake of the Womb. Some contend that Milk only is begotten of the Blood more plentifully cocted in the Glandulas which yet by reason of the immense dispense of Milk which consists not with the Blood this seems not probable Others affirm that the Chyle or Milkie humor is immediately conveyed from the Viscera of Concoction thorow occult passages without any alteration into either receptacles But in the mean time while these passages lie open it seems indeed to me more likely that from the meat taken into the Mothers Stomach a portion of the Chyle thence made is presently supped up into the Veins which having obtained the vehicle of the Blood before it be assimilated by it is said up in the Glandulas destinated here and there for the receiving of it being carried by the Arteries and lastly separated from the mass of Blood for as it appears that drink being plentifully taken presently passes thorow the whole mass of Blood and is rendered by Urine like water and as old Ulcers by means of the Blood coming between prey upon the nutritious humor from the whole Body and pour it forth under the shape of a putrified matter Why may not the alible Juice in like manner being strained by the Collander of the Glandulas before it has indued the colour of Blood go into a Milkie humour This indeed seems more probable because whilst the Milk is carried from the Womb into the Breasts and on the contrary passing thorow the mass of Blood it is wont to stir up a perturbation thorow the whole with a feaverish intemperance besides in the first days after the Birth when the Glandulas do less rightly perform the office of secretion Beasts who have not the Lochia give a bloody Milk which is drawn forth of their Udders that is mixt with Blood by reason of the plenty of it flowing forth together Secondly As to what belongs to the Menstrua being suppressed in the time of being with Child and the Lochia plentifully coming away after being Delivered we say that after the Conception of the Child the Menstrua ought to be suppressed by Divine Designation for that the flowing of them often causes abortion then because the Vessels are filled by a continual stilling forth of the alible juice into the parts of the Womb the mass of the Blood doth not arise into swellings up to be allayed by the menstruous Flux For the same reason Women for the most part have not their courses so long as they give suck Perhaps in some indued with a more hot Blood the monthly courses flow both whilst they are Big-bellied and in the time of their giving suck but that more rarely and is wont not to happen without trouble yet in the mean time the Menstrua being suppressed during the time of being with Child because much less of the nutritious humor is expended at that time for Milk they much more deprave the Blood
things and that are indued with a styptic or binding vertue are equally to be avoided for these fix the Blood and bind it too much and hinder its very requisite Purgation both by the Lochia and by transpiration thorow the skin But rather though the Feaver be urgent give them decoctions powders and confections of things moderately hot of which sort are as is already said decoctions or Distilled Waters of the Flowers of Marigoids the Leaves of Pennyroyal Mugwort the roots of Scorzonera also Bezoartic Powders Spirits of Harts-horn fixed salts of Herbs c. If the Lochia should be stopt that their Flux may be again provoked must be indeavoured every way To the moving of this conduce frictions and ligatures about the Thighs and Legs sometimes Cupping-Glasses or Blisters about the Thighs or Hips also in the soles of the Feet also sometimes the opening a Vein in the Ankle is convenient in the mean time a fomentation of the hysterical decoction is to be applied about the Pubis or the Caul of a Weather or Sheep taken out warm may be layed to the bottom of the Belly and experience manifests that sometimes injections into the Womb are profitable If the Belly yields not it may be gently brought down with a violet suppository so called or an emollient Clyster of more strong provocations you must take heed because in Women Lying in even as in a Malignant Feaver from a copious dejection with loss of Spirits Life is quickly lost If with the suppression of the Lochia there be a notable perturbation of the Blood with vomiting thirst and wakings I have often known Laudanum mixt with Saffron given with happy success Instead of a cooling Julep this kind of mixture is convenient viz. take of water of Pennyroyal and Balm each three ounces of hysterical water two ounces of the Syrrop of Mugwort three ounces and an half of the tincture of Saffron two drams of Castor ty'd in a rag and hung in the glass one scruple mingle these and let them drink of this three or four spoonfuls oftentimes in a day 2. If notwithstanding the use of these Remedies the Feaver grows still worse and by degrees is increased with worser symptoms that besides the disorders of the Blood the Brain and nervous parts begin to be touched Medicines tho many of every kind may be tryed do little yea in this case the indications are almost the same with those made use of in the Plague it self forasmuch as the Lochia being for a good while suppressed they cannot easily be reduced or scarcely at all in the great confusion of the Blood and humors therefore it is convenient quickly to move a sweating to wit that the corruptions impressed on the Blood and nervous juice and restagnating from the Womb may be carried forth some how by sweat and insensible transpiration Therefore here Powders and Confections of Bezoar Spirit of Hartshorn or of Soot tinctures of Corals or Pearls help I have sometimes seen by the help of those kind of Medicines in a desperate case when the Pulse and other symptoms have appeared a little better some small hopes to shew themselves yet Cure rarely to follow but when the use of these Cordials were left off the sick with a weak Pulse and a Loosness presently arising have been precipitated to Death 3. When yet the business of the sick proves still worse when the Feaver being increased the Pulse is weak and unequal and frequent horrors and convulsive motions in the whole body with a delirium and stupefaction infest them then the Physitian having first made a Prognostication of Death may insist upon a few Remedies and those only Cordials and must wholly abstain from blood-letting scarification blistering or the use of Cupping-glasses for such administrations beget only an odium and blame that by so doing we are esteemed by some Women as wicked and cruel The Symptomatic Feavers of Women in Child-bed THE Acute Diseases of Women in Child-bed shew themselves not only according to the Figure of the aforesaid Feaver but sometimes they are beset with some signal symptoms to wit the Squinancy Pleurifie inflamation of the Lungs Dysentery Small-Pox or of some other kind and at that time they get the appellations of those Distempers It will not be here seasonable to repeat at large what belongs to the essences and natures of each but I shall briefly shew what these sicknesses being complicated with the distempers of Women Lying in contain peculiarly as to the Causes or Cures All these symptoms we suppose to proceed from a certain Coagulation of the Blood and from thence its extravasation But whilst the Blood is extravasated or put forth of the Vessels in one part its efflux however natural and critical is hindred in another wherefore it is dangerous lest whilst the Blood begins to be coagulated either in a particular or accustomed nest of Coagulation or universally in its whole mass the flowing of the Lochia be stopped which in truth for the most part happens and therefore these Distempers for the most part are deadly to Women in Child-bed yet the cause of their Death for the most part happens with some difference viz. in the Small Pox the flowing of the Lochia draws inwardly the malignity begun to be carried forth outwardly and forthwith compels the mass of Blood and the heart it self to be impoysoned with its evil and therefore in the Small Pox these purgings of the Womb are convenient to be stopped But in the Pleurisie Squinancy and the rest when the provocative of the Disease being fixed here or there in a particular place draws to it self the impurities of the Blood which ought to be separated or sifted forth by the Lochia and derives it streight from the Womb for that reason it increases the impurity of the Blood The Lochia being stopped in the Small Pox by the more universal manner or way of excretion may be shut forth of doors with the venemous Particles of the Disease which thing indeed does not succeed in the rest by reason of the minute and more sparing manner of excretion Of these the Squinancy Pleurisie and Inflamation of the Lungs by reason both of the great similitude of the Cause and analogy of the Cure may be considered together when any Woman Lying in is distempered with any of these it is to be supposed that besides the Infection gathered together in the time of being Big-bellied there happens a certain sourish disposition of the Blood by the means of which whilst that it self grows feaverishly hot certain Particles of it being fused with the sourness enter into congelation in this or that part like Milk growing sour and then to be coagulated The Blood being there frozen or congealed and hindred in its circuit stops the passage of the rest but the Blood being obstructed in its motion buts against the impediment and so being heaped up about it and driven forth of the Vessels grows into a tumour from thence presently whatsoever is
head moreover a leaping up of the tendons in her wrists also she had sudden concussions of her wholy Body yet still her loosness held to her were administred by the prescripts of several Physicians Cordials and other Remedies and kinds of Administrations carefully but nothing profited her Pulse being more weak and her strength leisurely wasting she died on the ninth day after she was delivered This Feaver very much depended upon the vitious provision of the Body as the procatartic cause for I have often observed that it fares ill with Women Lying in who when Big bellied devoured fruit and any unwholsom trash and living without motion or exercise indulged themselves with ease and rest the Blood by reason of the previous Cachexie conceived a burning without any evident cause as it were of its own accord But growing hot laying inwardly still its recrements and impurities caused the Diarrhea neither yet was its mass made more pure by its almost continual excretion yea rather being still more depraved in its mixtion or crasis the Blood at length wholly departed from its proper disposition and became unable to be fermented in the heart whereby heat and breath might be every where dispersed The loosness excited by the motion of Nature was untowardly stopped especially by the use of astringent things for this I have often observed never to be done without paying for it because the Flux of the Belly has cured some that have been ill but in this Lady and in many others as has abundantly appeared to our experience altho it did not take away the Feaver yet it freed her from the more grievous distempers of the Brain and nervous stock from whence this sick person was wholly free from a Delirium nor was struck with Convulsive motions till reduced almost to extremity The Mother of a Family and a Gentlewoman about 36 years of Age or upwards being with Child of her seventeenth Child was troubled and very anxious lest she should die of that Child-bearing But God favouring she was delivered well enough of a Son and for three days after she was very cheerful on the fourth day when she had eaten more than she should do of a Chicken a little before night she fell into a feaverish Distemper with vomiting and a stopping of the Lochia all night she lay restless and without sleep the next morning she had four stools and seemed somewhat eased about Noon about which time I came to her she complained again of heat and thirst as also a palpitation of the heart and of the ascent of some substance in her throat her Pulse was quick and small her Urine red the Lochia scarce appeared I ordered her Juleps Cordials and things to purge the Womb besides a fomentation for the bottom of her Belly also her Legs and Feet to be rubbed often with warm Wollen Cloaths at going to sleep I gave her of Laudanum one grain with Saffron Pouder half a scruple in a spoonful of Treacle-water She slept well and the Lochia came down plentifully and by that means with a slender dyet and continuing to provoke moderately the Flux of the Womb for a few days she became very well The immoderate eating of flesh as an evident and almost only sufficient cause without any great provision or vitious predisposition induced the Feaver The Lochia restagnating into the Blood increased its intemperance and presently brought troubles upon the nervous kind but in the mean time the Blood altho growing hot did not undergo any great corruption but when the recrements heaped up by the Surfeit were sent forth by the loosness and the Blood the Lochia being restored began to be purged forth again after its wonted manner this Feaver wanting a further malignant ferment quickly vanished A noble Lady young and fair was brought to Bed of a second Child and for six days as to the Lochia and other accidents she was well and wholly free from the suspicion of any intemperature she ate flesh daily and rising from her Bed was brisk and chearful in her Chamber on the seventh day without any manifest cause a shivering came upon her with a Feaver and a lessning of the Lochia but not suppressed to the tenth day after her Delivery she was only moderately feaverish whilst the purgings of the Womb yet flowed she remained free from any grievous symptom but then although she was greatly feaverish she was more cheerful than ordinary and seemed more confident of her health at Night she slept little or nothing the morning following at which time I first visited her she clearly raved the Lochia were stopped also her whole Body was shaken with horror the tendons in her wrists were pulled together so that I could hardly distinguish her Pulse which in the mean time was weak unequal and very quick I said she would die quickly unless God should miraculously restore her by his Divine Power however six grains of Oriental Bezoar being given her in a spoonful of Cordial Julep brought upon her a plentiful sweat with a better Pulse then other Cordials being given wiâ—â— due intervals gave some little hopes tho I doubted they would not continue aâ—tâ—r four hours from the time that I came the sick Lady had of her own accord a great Stool and presently her strength wholly failed her and within half an hour she died When there hapned nothing of ill to this Lady as to her Delivery or Womb so pernicious a Feaver and so suddenly Mortal could not happen without a great and malignant procatarsis of the Blood and humors whether a more full Dyet or taking Cold or any other evident cause gave a beginning to this is uncertain because the Women and Nurses helping her knew of no manifest occasion of her sickness The Feaver being inkindled the infection of the Blood could not be wholly carried away by the purging of the Womb tho long continued tho for that reason the more cruel symptoms came not presently upon her yet the evil still lurked within and the Disease being very acute shewing it self with a swift motion on the fourth day when Nature should have indeavoured a Crisis the matter of the Feaver being moved but not overcome as it were in a moment overturned at once the Brain and nervous parts whence Death was to be expected and suddenly followed A Woman well known who had scarce passed the twentieth Year of her Age of a florid countenance and slender Body after her being brought to Bed when the Lochia flowed immoderately made use of some astringent Remedies by the counsel of those about her by which means they were wholly stopped but a Flux of her Belly succeeded which when it had increased for three days the Women gave her other things for the stopping her Loosness nor were they frustrated in the success in the mean time in the place of the former evil they had brought a most dangerous Feaver and distempers as it were hysterical for the unhappy Gentlewoman Lying in was troubled
born not from the Contagion communicated by the Air and immediately fixing its evil on men but rather from a certain feaverish predisposition or nature impressed somewhile before on our Bodies because of the intemperance of the Year which at length having gotten maturity on the least occasion is brought into Act and so breaks not forth into this Feaver so much as it sifts it forth For when about the Calends of July the Air was immoderately hot with a most intense heat for many days is easily altered our Blood towards an hot and bilous intemperance by which as 〈◊〉 â—ine growing more hot than it should do the sweet part and the spirituous was much consumed in the mean time the Saline and Sulphureous was too much carried forth that by that means the Liquor easily contracted a rancor or sourness We have in another place shewn that this kind of disposition of the Blood whereby indeed it turns from a sweet and spirituous temper into a bilous or choleric is most apt for intermitting Feavers Hence the alible juice which is continually carried into the mass of Blood is not rightly concocted nor assimilated into Blood but perverted as it were into an extraneous and fermentative matter which arising to a fulness in the bosom of the Blood it self and growing turgid according to its increase at set periods as we have already shewn induces the fits of the intermitting Feaver when therefore from the great burning heat of this Summer the Blood almost of all men becoming more hot than usual was very much scorched it is no wonder if from thence it should contract a great aptitude for intermitting Feavers But why not whilst the fervor of the Heaven was yet urgent but a little after this Disease spread it self the reason is because this indisposition is not impressed on our Blood at once or at one time but by little and little and not but of a long time and therefore Diseases like Fruits are chiefly ripened in Autumn after the foregoing heat of the Summer This aptitude or feaverish disposition all do not contract alike those whose Blood is of a more hot Nature and abounds more in Sulphur and for that cause is sooner scorched also such who labour or stay long in the heat of the Sun and open Air by reason of their Blood being more remarkably torrified more easily fell into this Disease wherefore at first it chiefly raged among Husbandmen in the Country of these who had acquired an aptitude to this Feaver from the Blood being before scorched some perhaps fell into this of their own accord the feaverish disposition being leisurely carried forth to a maturity others by reason of a light occasion or evident cause which was wont otherways to stir up the feaverish burning as from taking Cold Surfeit drinking of Wine and the like and others fell sick from the Contagion received of others for as the effluvia constantly came away from the sick when they pierced Bodies predisposed to the like distemper they easily excited the hid powers into Act. As to the third Proposition to wit that the conjunct cause of this Disease and its formal Reason may be known we must put you in mind of those things which we have elsewhere delivered concerning the nature of intermitting Feavers for we suppose the retorrid and bilous constitution of the Blood as the basis of this Disease by reason of which the alible juice being supplied daily as it were in a certain measure is not rightly concocted but by the assation or scorching becomes or goes into a fermentative matter not miscible with the Blood When the Blood is filled to a fullness with this matter which happens at set intervals of times because the alible juice is supplied as it were by a set measure it of its own accord conceives a swelling up and the growing hot or effervescency being excited for the carrying away of this matter causes the feaverish fit which so long indures till this feaverish matter being inkindled and as it were burnt in the heart is wholly dissipated with sweat From these things premised it is made plain that in this distemper we now discourse of there are some things happen by a peculiar way from the common kind of intermitting Feavers and therefore it was noted and that not undeservedly with the appellation of a New Feaver which are First That about the beginning of the Disease fits did a long while afflict the sick without cold or shaking but with a most intense heat thirst and cruel vomiting by which the sweat hardly and for the most part partial and often interrupted succeeded whereby the fit was not finished but of a long time The reason of which may be only laid upon the very choleric disposition of the Blood and being above measure scorched For this proceeding from the domineering Sulphur wholly inhibits the wonted sourness of the Blood which follows its turgency or swelling up and is wont to stir up the cold or shivering and by reason of this kind of temper of the Blood too much roasting and as it were burning the alible juice the Blood growing turgid together with that juice and being stirred up into motion is inkindled more than it is wont in the heart and by its deflagration induces a most intense and troublesome heat with thirst to the sick Cholerick vomitings happen not only at the beginning but in the middle of the fit by reason of the abundance of choler with which the Choleduct Vessels being too much filled infuse the intestines which then a Convulsion being stirred up is easily emptied into the Ventricle sweat hardly succeeds because the bile abounds more than the serum wherefore the feaverish matter being burnt it is not easily sifted forth by sweat but being either mingled with the Blood causes the long effervency or being carried towards the intestines produces Vomiting or a Flux Secondly This Feaver differs from the vulgar intermitting Feaver because after the fit was ended there was no full intermission even to a remission but the sick still remained languishing and thirsty and as to appetite sleep and other accidents very ill which indeed hapned because by the intense heat of the fit more of the Blood and feaverish matter is inkindled than that its recrements remaining after its deflagration are able presently to be dissipated especially because the sweat by reason of the dryness of the matter very hardly succeeds nor is the feaverish matter enough diluted with the serous Latex to be sifted forth wherefore the Blood by its Contagion in the time of the fit not being perfectly freed grows hot still neither the fit being ended doth it get any full truce from the Disease In the mean time whilst the Blood is urged after this manner with almost a continual effervency it differs from a Synochus because in this the Sulphureous part of the Blood being too much carried forth and as it were inflamed causes the Feaver by its deflagration but the continual
or straitned in its motion and the effluvias being constrained inwardly could not be sufficiently eventilated or cooled In every year tho temperate it is usual in the Spring and Autumn for some Epidemical Diseases to reign because at this time the Blood being as it were restored flowers anew and therefore intermitting Feavers and sometimes the Small Pox ordinarily spread in this season wherefore 't is no wonder after a great unequal constitution of the year and not natural when in this Spring the Blood boyling up more lively within the Vessels by reason of transpiration being hindred could not be freely circulated and sufficiently eventilated if for that cause great disorders follow and from this most common cause a distemper greatly Epidemical should be excited As to the symptoms joyned with this Disease a feaverish intemperature and whatsoever belongs to this the heat of the Praecordia thirst a spontaneous weariness pain in the Head Loyns and Limbs were induced from the Blood growing hot and not sufficiently eventilated hence in many a part of the thinner Blood being heated and the rest of the Liquor being only driven into confusion a simple Synochus or of more days was induced and this for the most part ceased within a few days But in some endued with a vitious disposition of Blood or evil habit of Body this kind of Feaver arising by reason of the same cause quickly passed into a very dangerous Putrid Feaver and often Mortal The Cough accompanying this Feaver with a Catarrh draws its Origine from a serous humor heaped up together in the Blood by reason of transpiration being hindred for a long time and then an effervescency being risen dropping forth more from the little Arteries gaping within for when the Pores are constrained the superfluous serosities in the Blood being wont to evaporate outwardly are poured forth on the Lungs by a proper castration or cleansing of the Blood wherefore by taking cold as they commonly term it that is from transpiration outwardly being hindred the Cough for the most part is stirred up And for a foregoing cause to this Distemper the flowing forth of the serum into the mass of Blood hath for the most part the chief place for from the long cold hindring the scorching of the Blood or the provision of the bile and prohibiting the breathing forth of the watry humor there was a necessity that very much of the serous humor should be heaped up in the Blood wherefore when the Blood flowring in the Spring conceived an heat the flowing forth of the serum and a pouring of it on the interior parts was wont to cause first the Cough as the proper symptom of this Disease and those whose Blood was more diluted by the mixtion of the serum and who were greatly obnoxious to the Cough and a Rheumatic Distemper were cured with less trouble of the feaverish Distemper the Prognostick of this Disease concerning private persons is for the most part easie that one may deliver the event from the first assault for if this sickness be excited in a strong Body and healthful before and that the feaverish Distemper be moderate and without any grievous and horrid symptom the business is free from danger and the Distemper is to be accounted but of light moment as that commonly is of catching cold neither needs a Physician be consulted nor Remedies unless trivial and ordinary be administred But if this Distemper happens in a weak and sickly Body with an evil provision or that the Feaver being carried into a Putrid Feaver or the Cough growing grievous induces difficult breathing and as it were a tabid or Consumptive disposition the event of the Disease is much to be suspected and often terminates in Death The common Prognostic that was taken from hence concerning the future state of the year conteins nothing to be feared or ominates any great ill by reason of the unequal intemperance of the year the great heats and then excessive cold we might fear Diseases to arise from the Dyscrasie of the Blood yet from the present condition we need neither suspect any noted depravation of the Air or Infection with poysonous breaths that from thence may be had any judgment of the Plague or Malignant Disease to be at hand As to what belongs to the Cure when this Disease is more lightly inflicted its Cure for the most part is left to Nature for this Feaver when it is only a simple Synochus is wont to be cured within a few days by sweat wherefore by a copious sweating for the most part about the third or fourth day the heat and thirst the weariness and heavy pains are allayed then the Cough being somewhat longer protracted by little and little afterwards remits and at length the sick leisurely grow well if this Disease hath rooted it self more deeply there is need of fit Remedies and an exact method of curing the Feaver growing worse is to be healed according to the Rules to be observed in a Putrid Feaver but nevertheless with this difference that because transpiration being hindred and the suffusion of the serous humor on the Lungs are chiefly in fault therefore Diaphoretic Remedies and those called pectoral are of more frequent use for these restrain the flowing forth of the serum from the Vessels within or by opening the Pores convey it forth of doors or precipitating it from the bosom of the Blood send it forth be the urinary passages therefore the method of Medicine for this Disease being brought into the worser state respects both the feaverish intemperance for the sake of curing which you are to be directed according to the intentions shewn in the Putrid Feaver and also the Rheumatic Distemper which however let it be secondary and not every expectorating Remedy or those used against a Cough are to be admitted but of that kind only which do not increase the Feaver the forms of these and the means of curing are to be sought from the precepts delivered generally for the Cure of the Putrid Feaver and of the Cough the helps which now by frequent experience are commonly said to bring Cure chiefly in this Disease are sweating or the provoking of sweat and letting of Blood for the Vessels being emptied by this or that means both the immoderate heat of the Blood and the abundance of the serum are restrained A Description of an Epidemical Feaver arising about the beginning of Autumn 1658. taken the 13th of September THE vernal Feaver but now described did not last longer than six weeks that it plainly was seen that it was only a more light flowring of the Blood which swelling up in the Spring and at the same time streightned in space for want of ventilation most impetuously boyled up like new Wine close shut up in Bottles and then ceased of it self Yet from thence as neither the year so neither our Blood did recover its due temperature and so another tinder or nest for a new Feaver was quickly gathered together
and more impregnate with Salt and Sulphur and therefore like Lie it sustains some weights which otherwise would sink to the bottom Sometimes the Hypostasis is wholly wanting in sound people after long fasting immoderate labours or copious sweating the matter being wholly consumed into nutriment or evaporated by sweat in Feavours by reason of the very depraved condition of the Blood also in the Pica Cachexie and other Distempers of that kind by reason of the great Crudity Concerning the consistency of the Urine in sound people there is not much worthy consideration to be met with It is wont to be of that sort as midling Beer is being purified by a long Fermentation or Lye a little boyled viz. the watry liquor of the Urine ought to include in its Pores and passages a great many Particles of Salt and Sulphur most smally broken and dissolved and besides a little of earth divided very exceeding small and dispersed thorow the whole body of the Piss if the consistence be thinner than it ought as it is in clear or limpid Urines and watry it is a sign of indigestion and crudity that the Aliments are not fully overcome and Concocted but if the Urine be thicker and closer than it ought it is a sign that the body of the liquor is filled with preternatural Contents But of these elsewhere when we shall speak of the Urines of the Sick Thus far of Urine forasmuch as it is an Excrement and sign of Concoction in a sound body truly performed in the Viscera and in the Vessels the quantity or bulk of which is to be determined by the potulent matter the colour Citron from the dissolved Salt and Sulphur and boyled in the Serum the Hypostasis or Contents depend upon the Filaments elaboured in the Blood for the nourishment of the solid parts the consistency on the Salt and Sulphur together with the Particles of Earth filling the Pores and passages of the serous liquor It next remains that we treat of the Urines of sick people in which also the Quantity Colour Contents Consistence and some accidents besides offer themselves to consideration CHAP. IV. Of the Quantity and Colour in Urines of sick People IN a Morbous provision of Bodies or Sickly estate the quantity of the Urine does not exactly quadrate with the proportion of the liquid things taken for sometimes it wants of its due measure and sometimes exceeds it When the Urine is much less than the drinkable things taken the reason is because the watry Latex either stays somewhere in the Body or is diverted by some other way of Excretion than by Urine if it remains within First it is either heaped up about the Viscera and their Cavities and so is stay'd now in the Ventricle more than it ought to do and induces by the distention of it troubles with spitting but more often it is laid up in the hollowness of the Abdomen and sometimes of the Thorax and head and there is wont to cause Hydropic Diseases Or Secondly the Serum stagnates in the Vessels and so increases the bulk of the Blood and Nervous Liquor and notably perverts its motion whence Catarrhs Rheumatick distempers and often Palsies and Convulsions are caused Or thirdly this watry humour is fixed in the habit of the body and so creates a swelling up of the whole body or of some parts Or fourthly and lastly it is obstructed in the urinary passages by the Stone or thick matter as it were a dam opposing it and causes in those parts pains and Convulsions and a fulness of the Serum in the whole body When the serous water is other ways bestowed the Patients are for the most part prone to frequent and troublesom Sweats or almost to a continual Loosness The distempers therefore which the small quantity of the Urine is wont to indicate are sometimes the swelling up of some of the Viscera and a heaping up of water in them sometimes Catarrhal distempers sometimes evil dispositions of the nervous stock sometimes an Anasarca and watry Tumors and sometimes the stony disposition of the Reins and Bladder And sometimes also the diminution of the Vrine is the effect and sign of some other preternatural evacution viz. an immoderate excretion of Sweat Lask or some other thing To describe here exactly all the subsistences of the serous Latex either in the body or the causes of it other ways excreted and the manner of doing it were to transfer hither almost the whole matter of Pathology for many and divers are the occasions and circumstances whereupon this Serum is heaped up in this or that part and subsisting in the body diminishes the quantity of the Urine but for the most part the principal and most frequent cause of this consists not so much in the fault of the Liver Spleen or Reins as of the blood it self to wit a copious and free making of Urine as also its stay in the body and only made in little quantity depend chiefly on the temper of the blood and either on its kindling or fermentation in the heart for if the blood be strong in rightly exalted principles viz. Spirit Sulphur and Salt it grows very hot in the Vessels and so the frame of the liquor being loose enough it is duly kindled by the ferment of the heart and almost spiritualizes the whole passes through all parts with heat and a rapid motion without stopping and whatsoever is superfluous and volatile evaporates out of doors and whilst the blood is ratified and boiling with heat passes through the Reins what is serous is easily separated either by the strainer of the Reins only or which is most likely by a coagulation and is as it were precipitated from the remaining mass of the blood The same thing almost happens after this manner to the blood as we may observe in Milk viz. whilst it is warmed and grows hot it most easily goes into parts and its Serum is most easily separated by the least drop of Runnet or Coagulum put into it but if you pour much more strong and sour ferment into it when it is cold a precipitation will hardly follow so if the blood becomes through an evil constitution or ill manner of living more cool and watry that being less endued with active Elements it grows but dully hot and is but little kindled in the heart it is circulated very slowly and difficultly in the Vessels passing through the Pores and passages of the Viscera it cleaves a little to them and leaves something behind it whence are begotten every where Obstructions and Tumors also the blood by this means becoming viscous and cool and so unfit for precipitation or percolation lays aside less readily its excrements in the Reins but leaves them every where in the body because it hardly and not without the residence of a certain humor is circulated Wherefore in this state those things that move the blood very much as exercise and a more quick motion or also such as may
rest which as to colour and consistency are pale and thin in healthful persons may be drawn For from the Salt and Sulphur more or less dissolved and boiled in the Serum the appearances of a pale and straw-coloured Urine and of other colours under a Citron colour are excited and by the like means which was said of the watry they may be unfolded There remains another certain kind of Urine more pale than the Citron colour not thin but thick and cloudy and of a whitish colour it appears by common observation that children do often make such water when they are troubled with the Worms The reason of which seems because the matter whereof the worms are made is a certain viscous Phlegm heaped up in the Viscera by reason of the indigestion of the Chyle and a defect of making or generating Spirits which matter at first transmits no tincture to the Urine because of its fixity the same afterwards putrifying is exalted and is in some manner volatilized and then partly by heat and spirit is formed into worms and partly being confused with the passing Chyle and carried into the vessels when 't is made unfit for nourishment it is separated with the Serum from the blood and being mixed with the Urine gives it that white colour Sometimes also in Feavers especially of children the Urine is whitish the reason of which is because the supplement of the nutritious juyce being poured from the Chyle to the mass of blood is not rightly assimilated but degenerates into an excrementitious humor A portion of which being incocted in the Serum imparts to it the thick consistence and milky colour otherwise than in the Feavers of those of riper years where when the heat is stronger the same degenerate juyce impresses on the Serum a red colour Also the Urine is whitish in the flowing of the Whites the Gonorrhoea Ulcers of the Reins and Bladder and of the urinary passages by reason of the confusion or mingling of the filthy matter or the corrupted seed however it be that the colour of the urine be white it is produced from its contents which at last putting down its settlement to the bottom the liquor for the most part becomes of a palish and yellowish colour even as it may be perceived by the making of the Milk of Sulphur where the milky substance sinking down to the bottom the over swimming liquor is of a Citron colour Urines whose colour is deeper than Citron owe their appearance not only to the Salt and Sulphur dissolved more than usual but in some sort to the more thick contents in the liquor The more plentiful dissolution of the Salt and the Sulphur is chiefly performed in the vessels in the mass it self of the blood and from thence the Tincture is impressed on the serous Juyce But this happens to be done for the most part after a double manner viz. either by reason of the feaverish fervour for as much as the blood boiling in the vessels and being more kindled in the Heart is very much loosned in its mixture and so copiously fixes on the Serum the particles of Salt and Sulphur wasted as it were by the boiling Or without a Feaver when these kind of sulphureous and saline little bodies wont to be sent forth at other sinks are restrained and so being by degrees heaped up in the blood are poured into the Serum Of this also there are two chief causes or means for either the excrements of the blood which chiefly participate of adust Sulphur and that ought to be sent away by Choler-carrying vessels are retained and so they impress being suffused on the serous humor a tincture of yellowness or else the Effluvia's which are chiefly of a saline nature and ought to be evaporated by insensible transpiration are restrained and from those the urine is filled with a lixivial tincture The urines of the former kind are proper to people that have the Jaundice but those of this latter are familiar to the Scurvy for in the Scurvy the saline particles of the blood depart from volatilization and get a Flux wherefore by reason of their fixity they will not evaporate and so being more fully heaped together in the blood they more and more pervert its Crasis and very much impregnate the serous humor with a saltness The contents which heighten the colour of the urine are of a twofold kind to wit either adust recrements remaining after the deflagration of the blood or particles of the nutritious juyce degenerated into an extraneous matter Concerning which we shall speak hereafter in their proper place It now remains that we describe particularly the several Colours of Urine more intense or deep than Citron colour 1. The first is a flame-coloured urine which shines with a brightness like the Spirit of Nitre and this is very often seen in an intermitting Tertian Feaver this colour arises from a portion of the thinner yellow Bile mixed with the Serum whilst it is in motion for that in this Feaver there is a sharp and hot intemperature of the blood which burns and scorches all the humors and so plentifully begets Choler But although this for the most part is separated from the mass of blood by the bilary vessels and passages yet when it abounds in the vessels a part of it or which is the same thing some burnt and adust particles of the blood and humors being boiled in the serous water impart to it an high or deep yellowness This urine is thin and shining for that there is in this disease almost a continual breathing forth that thrusts out the recrements of the nutritious Juyce and all the thicker parts of the Serum towards the circumference of the body 2. The Saffron-coloured urine and which dyes Linen with the same colour undoubtedly is a sign of the Jaundice it is tinged after this manner by the yellow Bile or Choler or by the Salt and Sulphur burnt and plentifully mixt with the Serum for the yellow Bile is necessarily begot from the yoked heat and motion of the blood but for this the Gall bag is designed by Nature for the separating it from the mass of the blood its passages being rooted in the Liver But if such a separation be any ways hindred that humor flowing back in the blood and copiously heaped together infects the skin with its yellowness the blood and especially the serous Latex The Saffron-coloured urine differs from the flame-coloured because in this only a certain portion of the more thin Bile is poured into the urine but in that the more thick part and much more plenty besides in the yellow Bile the Sulphur with the Salt being joyned and long circulated is fully dissolved by it that it becomes like paint imparting to every subject a Saffron-coloured tincture as when common Sulphur and Oyl of Tartar are mixed together But what things cause a redness in urines without the restagnation of this Bile happen after the same manner as in the Lye of
they had a urine highly red with a plentiful red sediment In the mean time it did not appear either by the Pulse languishing of the Spirits or Head-aches that the blood grew excessively hot or that they had a Feaver Wherefore I suppose that this kind of distemper doth chiefly consist in the nervous stock and depends on the exorbitances of the saline Principle rather than the sulphureous 4. Also in the confirmed Phthisis or Consumption especially if an Hectick Feaver be joyned with it there is a red Urine the reason of which is if at any time an Ulcer is excited in the Lungs the putrid filth from thence being mingled with the blood sliding by causes in it almost a continual effervescency whereby the sulphureous and saline particles being more plentifully dissolved and boiled in the Serum affect its liquor with redness besides by reason of the blood being defiled after this manner the nourishing Juyce degenerates almost wholly into putrefaction by whose recrements the urine being filled grows more red and is very much stuffed with contents The sign or note of this is that the sick for the most part grow hot after eating and that they are troubled with an heat through their whole body followed with a nightly sweat besides their urines yield a thick and copious sediment to wit when the nourishing Juyce being mixed with the blood is not assimilated it stirs up in it a fervour and being degenerate into an extraneous matter exhales partly by sweat through the Pores of the skin and partly being transmitted to the urine very much heightens its colour and consistency Thus far of a red Urine whose several species but now related have more degrees of intention and remission accordingly as the causes altering the colour and consistence in them are either weaker or stronger 4. As to what belongs to a green and black Urine I confess I have never seen those kind of deep colours exactly like those of Leeks and Ink in any urine but I imagine I may have seen the appearance of a greenish colour from a more deep yellow and of a blackish urine from the same with a cloudy and somewhat a dark mixture and from thence called by Authors a green and black Urine But those urines coloured after that manner are esteemed either signs of the Jaundice or of being distempered with some virulency of the blood if they continue so constantly for some time or such urines as occasion offers are variously changed and are now of this or that and presently of another colour So I have known Hypochondriacks wont to make such urines as it were critically for some time and then afterwards to render them like sound men As to the first when the Jaundice is very great upon them that the adust portions of Sulphur and Salt remain a long time in the mass of blood they acquire by a long incoction a fulness of the yellow colour at first green and afterwards black and impart the same to the Serum For if the yellow Bile being taken out of the bag of the Gall and put into a Cucurbit be exposed to the gentle heat of a Bath the same in a short time will grow green and afterwards appear like the blackest Ink wherefore in the black Jaundice which is only the yellow carried forth into a worse state by its long stay or continuance there is nothing more usual than to make black urines Besides these kind of urines sometimes appear in a malignant Feaver and in the Plague also often from drinking of poyson and in this case it is for the most part a sign of death because it argues the blood greatly corrupted and the spirits profligated and the bond of the mixture loosned as it were the deadly or mortified distemper even as where some part of our body being distempered with an Ulcer is afterward taken with a Gangrene or mortification forthwith the flowing corrupt matter which was at first white waterish or yellow becomes black Wherefore in the forementioned distempers when the urine grows black the Serum and the blood being wholly vitiated the skin also is dyed outwardly with such a colour As to what belongs to urines periodically tinctured with a greenish colour and especially with black which happen often to Hypochondriacks it is most likely that such arise from the melancholick Feculencies laid up in the Spleen and from thence by reason of its congestion too much flowing forth sometimes and confused with the blood for such a matter being often poured into the Ventricle in some men stirs up black Vomitings also in others the same being supp'd up from the blood passing through may impart suffusions of the same colours to the serous Juyce So much for the Colours of Urines of which the more pale arise from too much Crudity almost all the high-coloured either from the Salt and Sulphur plentifully dissolved and sometimes from the adust recrements throughly boiled in the Serum or from the more thick contents of the urine whether they be the Calx and remaining part of the aliment degenerated in the concoction or the wasting or melting of the pining body or some part of it evilly distempered what hath been said may be better understood if the means whereby these kind of dissolved things or contents are able variously to change the colour of the urine be unfolded The causes of the diversity of appearances of colours and their variously changing as also of the cloudiness and clearness in Urines as in all other Liquors depend only on the various incidency and emersion of the beams of light as is hinted in another place in the Tract of Fermentation For if the substance of the liquor be rare and thin with open Pores and passages that the beams of light may easily pass through it is shining and clear like fountain-water but if the Pores of the liquor be filled with contents or little bodies swimming in it so that the luminous beams are broken in their passage but so that at length they may shew themselves according to those various manners of refraction and emission there will appear a Citron a Saffron or red colour in a yet clear liquor If that in the little spaces of the Pores yet more obstructed the light cannot pass through there is a darkness induced but then if the immersed beams be a little or nothing reflected the liquor will appear of a brown or dark colour but if they are beaten back according to the diverse manner of reflection a white ashy or some other kind of appearance is induced From this being supposed according as the liquor of the urine sometimes almost wholly deprived of Salt and Sulphur and other things dissolved easily admits of light sometimes either very much stuffed or else moderately with these kind of contents either distorts the beams falling on them in their passage or wholly imbibes them or lastly beats them back it were easie to explicate all the Phenomena or appearances of colours and their
couched together with folds or little circles disposed in a certain distinct series and apt method and proportionate within themselves as hath been said whence it may be argued that the Spirits arising from hence and flowing outwardly are imployed or bestowed on some certain works determinate to one thing But further it is observed that in all Animals although they differ in form and kind yet the figure of the Cerebel is always very like or wholly the same The Brain and oblong Marrow are figured in many after a divers manner for as we have shewed before there is some difference of these parts found in man and four-footed beasts but between either of these and Fowls and Fishes there is a notable difference as to these parts Notwithstanding in all these the Cerebel furnished wholly with the same lappets or little circles alike infolded one in another is marked with the same form and proportion which certainly is a sign that the animal Spirits in this work-house are begotten and dispensed as it were by a certain dimension for certain necessary offices which are performed in all after the same manner and which cannot be any other than the motions and actions of the Viscera and Praecordia As to the other Faculties of which sort are Imagination Memory Appetite yea local motions and sense are exercised after one manner in those living Creatures and after another manner in others wherefore their brains are formed after a divers manner But the motions of the Heart and Respiration in all endued with an hot blood are performed after a like manner that is with a perpetual vicissititude of Systoles and Diastoles Besides another office is to be assigned to the Cerebel and different from what is convenient or agreeable to the Brain because where the folds and turnings are wanting in the Brain they are constantly found in the Cerebel Besides these reasons drawn from Anatomy the Pathology of the humane Body affords many others which confirm the aforesaid office of the Cerebel For it oftentimes happens that cruel and horrid Symptoms infest the Praecordia and the region of the middle or lowest Belly whilst in the mean time the morbifick cause lyes in the Cerebel or nigh its confines I have known sometimes men labouring only in appearance with a Dyscrasie of the hinder part of the Head who complained of frequent Swooning and repeated meltings of the Spirits or Deliquiums as if they were just dying in whom notwithstanding nothing more could be detected of the morbifick cause or its seat but that the Patient perceived a great heaviness and pain in the hinder part of the Head and that upon any sudden motion or bending back of the Head they were ready to dye In truth the Symptoms which are wont to be raised up in the distemper called the Incubus or Night-mare viz. loss of speech and a mighty weight or load that seems to lye upon the breast proceed altogether from the morbifick matter fixed in the confines of the Cerebel and obstructing the passages of the Spirits destinated for the Praecordia But indeed this Hypothesis of the office of the Cerebel shall be more illustrated and confirmed from the uses of its several parts being rightly designed or drawn forth As to the parts and accidents of the Cerebel 1. we take notice that the infoldings of the Vessels every where cloath the Cerebel no less than the Brain also that the ridges and furrows of its folds intimately hide or cover it which certainly is a sign that the animal Spirits are begotten in this other work-house of them from the watering blood and instilled into its substance which thing also more clearly appears because the Arteries and Veins are not only variously complicated in the superficies of the Cerebel but both of them in like manner as in the Brain send forth frequent shoots into its more inward substance wherefore whilst the most subtil and spirituous part of the blood being carried through long windings about and as it were serpentine chanels of the Vessels and so sublimed into Spirits is received within the bloody part is carried away by the shoots of the Veins sent also deeply down Further even as the more watry portion of the blood destinated for the Brain runs into the Choroeidal infolding whereby it may there lay aside its unprofitable Phlegm into the Glandula's so for the sake of separating the Phlegm an heap of Glandula's with the foldings of the Vessels as it were a Receptacle fitted for this business is placed in the hinder region of the Cerebel 2. From the blood after this manner cleared from Phlegm and made subtil by a long circulation a very pure and spirituous liquor is instilled into the cortical substance of the Cerebel which is presently exalted by the Ferment there placed into animal Spirits For indeed we have affirmed that the Spirits are procreated only in the cortical part of the Cerebel as in that of the Brain wherefore because this kind of Cortex is wanting to the oblong and spinal Marrow we think these parts do serve only for the exercise of the animal Spirits and not for their production 3. The Spirits every where produced within the cortical or exterior compass of the Cerebel in which they are presently prepared for the work of the animal Function are derived from all the folds into the medullar tract and thence into two ample middle Marrows where they keep full as it were the fountain or spring and there like the bubling up of waters are circulated within with a perpetual turning and from thence they continually stream forth into the parts of the nervous System proper to themselves 4. As to the ways of Emanation it is observed that the two middle Marrows of the Cerebel pass as it were into two pedestals or little feet by which they are fastned to the trunk of the oblong Marrow and for that in either little foot of it three distinct medullar Processes are found all these or at least two of them are as it were so many paths whereby the animal Spirits stream forth from their fountain and flow back again 5. The first of these Processes ascends into the Cerebel from the orbicular Prominences the use of this we have already declared to wit that there may be a certain passage between these Prominences and the Cerebel in which whilst the animal Spirits as in a by-path move this way and that way to and fro they may transmit both the force of the Passions from the Brain by the interposition of the Cerebel to the Praecordia and convey also the natural Instincts delivered to the Cerebel from the Praecordia and Viscera towards the Brain But the second Process descending straight from the Cerebel embraces the medullar Trunk and so going round about it constitutes the annular or ringy Protuberance out of which the fifth sixth and seventh pair of Nerves take their originals so indeed that this Protuberance seems to be the Ware-house or Store-house of
involuntary Functions Therefore in the first place we observe of the fifth and sixth conjugation of Nerves that as this arises out of the Basis of the greater Ring and that from its sides both in man and in four-footed beasts the fifth pair being carried more forward distributes its branches into the Glandula's of the Eyes into the Nostrils into the Palate Teeth yea and into most parts of the Face and Mouth but the sixth pair is wholly bestowed on some Muscles of the Eyes Further out of the trunk of the fifth pair two shoots and another out of the Nerve of the sixth pair bending back behind meet together and what is wonderful and not before taken notice of by Anatomists the intercostal Nerves destinated to the Praecordia and Viscera do make a Trunk so that the Nerves of the fifth and sixth pair stretch out a double Ramification to wit one more above about the parts of the Mouth and Face and the other lower through the Viscera of the middle and lowest Belly But it will appear clearly to any one considering this thing more carefully that the chief branches of either partition are imployed about the involuntary offices of Motion and Sense of which sort those are chiefly that either cause the passions or perform the natural Instincts 1. Concerning the intercostal Nerve which as was said being radicated in the Nerves of the fifth and sixth pair depends as to its origine wholly on the Cerebel it is not here to be doubted but that it looking towards the Praecordia and Viscera in a man and towards these latter only in most four-footed beasts is bestowed on the Functions only vital and merely natural and so confers little or nothing to spontaneous actions Further forasmuch as this Nerve reaching forth into the Praecordia and Viscera of the whole Abdomen is continued by its superior ramification also into the Eyes as also into the parts of the Mouth and Face certainly from hence a true and genuine reason may be given wherefore in every passion the Eyes Face and Mouth do so correspond with the affections of the Praecordia often unknown to us or against our minds that oftentimes we are compelled to betray the most intimate sense of the Heart by the countenance and aspect Yea hence a reason may be brought why in sneesing yawning laughing and crying the Muscles of the Face conspire so in motion with the Praecordia Besides when in man different from any other living Creatures besides as we shall shew afterwards many shoots are sent from the intercostal Nerve to the Nerve of the Diaphragma this certainly is the cause why risibility is the proper affection of man But the Trunk of the fifth pair being carried more forward and distributing its branchings through the parts of the whole Face causes the same not only to be pathetically moved and figured according to the affections of the Praecordia but also produces some acts both of motion and sensation of another kind which for the most part are involuntary and so seem to depend wholly upon the Cerebel immediately For example this Nerve imparts shoots to either mandible requisite for the business of chewing but it is very well known that the taking in of the food at the mouth is the first and oldest business of every Animal which indeed is taught by natural Instinct before any knowledge of the Brain But as to the Senses the branches of this pair conduce something to the smelling but for the most part for the knowing and chusing of savors Hence it comes to pass that as odors refresh the Brain by the smelling Nerves so also they affect the Cerebel by the branch of this pair and are wont by that means to recreate the Viscera and Praecordia But sapors or tastes for that they are almost the peculiar Province of this carry whatsoever they have of pleasantness or trouble first to the Spirits inhabiting the Cerebel and then by their consent to the Praecordia and Viscera Hence it is that a Pectoral not only allays hunger but the very first tasting of Wine raises up those that are fainting or swooning away Moreover forasmuch as from this Nerve certain branches serve for the taste and others for the smell there is contracted so strict an affinity between either of these Sensories that nothing pleases the taste unless it be approved of by the smell and the loss of one of these senses oftentimes causes the privation or the diminution of the other 2. Concerning the Nerve of the sixth conjugation we observe that as one shoot is bent back for a root of the intercostal Nerve the remaining Trunk of it being carried forward towards the ball of the Eye is distributed to two of its Muscles viz. to the seventh proper to beasts and to the drawing Muscle Hence may be inferred that this Nerve besides the influence of it bestowed on the vital and natural Function serves also for the producing some pathetick motions of the Eye to wit such as are wont to obey the affections of the Praecordia and Viscera so that the whole provision of the animal Spirit which it receives from the Cerebel it bestows only on involuntary acts 3. The seventh pair or the hearing Nerves seem also to depend upon the Cerebel forasmuch as they take their originals out of the annular Protuberance but the use of them is a little otherwise in man than in four-footed beasts For in him the annular Protuberance is one and that very big from whose lower margin the auditory Nerves proceed but in Brutes the Protuberance is twofold viz. one greater sent down from the Cerebel in which the beginnings of the fifth and sixth pair of Nerves consist then near this there is another lesser and as it were secondary from which the auditory Nerves proceed This lesser and lower Ring doth not so manifestly depend on the Cerebel as the former but there is stretched out from either height of it a white medullar line upon the oblong Marrow in the bottom of the fourth Ventricle so as this seems to receive either the Spirits from the oblong Marrow or at least to carry into the same the sensible Species for what use it is so constituted shall be inquired into afterwards for concerning these Nerves of the seventh pair forasmuch as some offices of them very much illustrate the government or oeconomy of the Cerebel we shall discourse here a little more largely Therefore in man who hath got a great and undivided annular Protuberance the auditory Nerves coming out of its margin or brim shew its stock received of the Cerebel by which means we may see the tasks of those Nerves quadrate with the assigned government of this We have shewn before the Processes which in a manner may be called distinct Nerves of the seventh pair to be twofold on either side one the softer of these serves only for the sense but the other harder seems to perform some motions This latter Nerve being carried
through as yet the nervous System and very many Creeks or Bosoms Meanders and highly intricate Recesses or private places in it remain to be viewed therefore although we know it is difficult to proceed with full Sail we have resolved to undertake the task of the Doctrine of the Nerves and the rather because without the perfect knowledge of the Nerves the Doctrine of the Brain and its Appendix would be left wholly lame and imperfect for neither what hath already been delivered concerning them can be sufficiently understood or illustrated nor which I chiefly desire and is the end of the former Disquisitions without those things before known can the Pathology of the Brain and nervous stock be rightly instituted And indeed there are many things which might easily deter any one from such an undertaking to wit the hardness of the work and full of hazard which promises at first sight more difficulty and thorny labour than pleasure or profit Then some will object that this Province is already so perfectly cultivated and adorned by former Anatomists that by a repetition of the same I may seem to have medled with a thing done to my hand But I may readily answer to these first That the Anatomy of the Nerves yields more pleasant and profitable Speculations than the Theory of any parts besides in the animated Body for from hence the true and genuine Reasons are drawn of very many Actions and Passions that are wont to happen in our Body which otherwise seem most difficult and unexplicable and no less from this Fountain the hidden Causes of Diseases and their Symptoms which commonly are ascribed to the Incantations of Witches may be found out and clearly laid open But as to our Observations about the Nerves from our following Discourse it will plainly appear that I have not trod the paths or footsteps of others nor repeated what hath been before told Therefore that according to our determination we may enter upon the explanation of the nervous System we shall comprehend under this name all parts upon which gifted with the animal Spirit Motion and Sense necessarily and immediately depend to wit for the performing either one only or both together in the whole Body But these kind of parts in respect of the Head and marrowy Appendix are like a branching stock or imps growing out of the trunk of a Tree for supposing that the cortical substances of the Brain and Cerebel are in the place of roots and that the substances every where medullar are taken for the stock or pith the nervous germination or budding forth expanded into divarications of Nerves and Fibres will appear like so many little branches twigs and leaves Or if the Head containing in it self the chief part and power of the sensitive Soul be taken for the body of some Luminary as of the Sun or a Star the nervous System shall be that radiant or beamy concretion compassing it about Because the animal Spirits flowing from the Brain and Cerebel with the medullar Appendix of either as it were from a double Luminary irradiate the nervous System and so constitute its several parts the Organs of Motion or Sense or of both together as hath been said The parts of the nervous System as a radiant or beamy texture are either primary viz. the bodies themselves of the Nerves into which the animal Spirits immediately flow from the Head and its medullar Appendix or secondarily which are Fibres planted or interwoven in the Membranes musculous Flesh Tendons and some of the Parenchyma which also contain in themselves animal Spirits but they receive them not but mediately and secondarily derived from the Head through the bodies of the Nerves We have already shewed that the animal Spirits are procreated only in the Brain and Cerebel from which they continually springing forth inspire and fill full the medullar Trunk like the Chest of a musical Organ which receives the wind to be blown into all the Pipes but those Spirits being carried from thence into the Nerves as into so many Pipes hanging to the same blow them up and actuate them with a full influence then what flow over or abound from the Nerves enter the Fibres dispersed every where in the Membranes Muscles and other parts and so impart to those bodies in which the nervous Fibres are interwoven a motive and sensitive or feeling force And these Spirits of every part are called Implanted forasmuch as they flow not within the Nerves as the former with a perpetual flood but being something more stable and constant stay longer in the subject bodies and only as occasion serves viz. according to the impressions inwardly received from the Nerves or impressed outwardly by the objects are ordained into divers stretchings or carryings out for the effecting of motion or sense either of this or that manner or kind Indeed the animal Spirits flowing within the Nerves with a living Spring like Rivers from a perpetual Fountain do not stagnate or stand still but sliding forth with a continual course are ever supplied and kept full with a new influence from the Fountain In the mean time the Spirits in the rest of the nervous kind especially those abounding in the Membranes and musculous stock are like Ponds and Lakes of Waters lately diffused from the chanels of Rivers whose waters standing still are not much moved of their own accord but being agitated by things cast into them or by the blasts of winds conceive divers sorts of fluctuations But because there is no light difference between the motions and consistency of the Spirits and of Waters perhaps it will better illustrate the matter if the Spirits of either kind to wit the inflowing and implanted are compared to the beaming forth of divers rays of light And so when light is let into a dark chamber and presently inlightens the whole we may conceive the particles of the light so swiftly diffused to be of a twofold kind to wit some are bodies sent from the light it self which diffuse themselves every way into an Orb and other luminous particles are as it were Etherial little bodies existing before in the pores of the Air which being agitated by the former and as it were inkindled cause as it were a flamy though most thin contexture stretched out in the whole clearness After the like manner the animal Spirits flowing from the medullar substance into the Nerves are as it were rays diffused from the light it self and the other Spirits every where abounding in the Fibres are as so many lucid particles included and implanted in the Air which are actuated by the former and being stirred up by them into motion perform the acts both of the sensitive and locomotive Faculty That it may the better appear by what means the animal Spirits do irradiate and swiftly pass through the parts of the nervous System both primary and secondary so that light is scarcely carried swifter through a diaphanous Medium than the communication of the Spirits is
altered every minute of an hour almost according to the manifold necessity of the Pulse But indeed the Lungs themselves are they and not the Diaphragma or the Muscles of the Thorax which the blood boiling out of the Heart passes through and continually affects according to its temper and the tenour of the Pulse wherefore from hence it may be concluded That the Lungs themselves do conceive the first instincts of their motions and by the help of the aforesaid Nerves do in some measure exercise themselves and endeavour the Systole and Diastole and design them according to the sense of its proper necessity but when in these Fibres requisite for local motion are wanting therefore the Diaphragma and the Muscles of the Thorax help continually the endeavours of the Lungs and by the cooperation of these compleat breathing is effected And so when Nerves of a twofold kind to wit some from the Spine being inserted into the Muscles of the Diaphragma and the Thorax and others from the wandring pair distributed into the Lungs actuate the Organs of Respiration for that reason it comes to pass that the act it self of Respiration of it self unforced and involuntary may be at our pleasure somewhat restrained interrupted and diversly altered The Sympraxis or joynt action of the Nerves of either kind in the work of Respiration shall be shewed hereafter when we shall speak particularly of the Nerve of the Diaphragma It yet appears more plain that the Lungs are oftentimes the chief in the act of Respiration because they being irritated from strange and improportionate objects presently conceive irregular and violent motions as when a vehement Cough is stirred up for the exclusion of any troublesom thing to which motion the Diaphragma and the Muscles of the Thorax presently obey In like manner in difficult and sighing breathing or any other ways unequal its first instinct for the most part is begun by the Lungs yet sometimes when the exterior Organs of Respiration are excited into irregular motions the Lungs also are compelled to follow their irregularities so when the Diaphragma after a manner begins laughter the Lungs perform the same with a following cackling sound so all the Organs of Respiration intimately conspire and agree among themselves that although one of them do a thing inordinately rather than there shall be a Schism the rest do imitate or follow its irregularity But that the Nerves following the Arteries and Veins through the whole frame of the Lungs do variously bind about and cloath their Trunks with a thick series of shoots the reason seems to be both that the Coats of the Vessels being gifted with a constant influx of animal Spirits might imitate the motion of the Heart and by that means by a continual pulsation of the Arteries and the constriction of the Veins they might easily carry the blood in this its more short lustration through the Lungs and the rather that the pneumonick Vessels being bound about with such Reins of Nerves might moderate the course of the blood according to the forces and instincts of the Passions For whenas the exterior circulation of the blood depends upon this interior as the blood is commanded to pass sooner or slower through the Lungs or to stay there and be hindred the excursion and return of it also from or towards the Heart is wholly performed In Joy or Anger because the Lungs rapidly transfer the blood out of one bosom of the Heart to the other therefore it s swifter and more plentiful flowing out into the outward parts follows In like manner in Fear and Sadness for that the Lungs its Vessels being strained together deliver the blood to the Heart by the Veins and do not then presently carry it back by the Arteries the outmost region of the Body is destitute of its due influx Notwithstanding these kind of pathetick snatches of the blood are in some measure performed because its Vessels are bound about in other places in like manner with the Nerves If at any time Spasmodick Affections should afflict the pneumonick Nerves from a morbific cause so that being twitcht with inordinate motions they should pull or draw together here and there the Arteries and Veins which they embrace for that cause the blood either too much flowing out of the Lungs makes them to flag and to fall together into themselves so that drawing to them copiously the Air they do not easily render it back again or which frequently happens the blood being detained within the Lungs and there stagnating stuffs them up and holds them a long while stiff that they cannot inspire or drawn in the Air. The Symptoms of either kind ordinarily happen in the Hysterick distempers and in some Hypochondriacal Yea sometimes the Bronchia themselves are pulled together by the like Convulsion of the Nerves and are hindred in their motion so that they cannot take in and send forth the Air after its due manner as may be seen in Asthmatical Fits The distempers of which sort are oftentimes produced by the fault of the Nerves without any implanted Dyscrasie or evil disposition of the Lungs I have sometimes observed some Cases of sick people in which when at one time the morbifick matter besieging the Brain had induced Lethargick or Vertiginous Symptoms a little after the same matter occupying or possessing the origines or middle processes of the nerves belonging to the Lungs has suddenly excited a most horrid Asthma without any previous Cough or Catarrh But that out of the same tract of the wandring pair many shoots are distributed into the Lungs and also many others into the Coats of the Oesophagus from hence a reason may be given why a troublesom Cough oftentimes causes Vomiting and a subversion of the Ventricle why also on the other side a perturbation of the Ventricle so frequently induces a troublesom endeavour of Coughing I have known in Hypochondriacks that aliments of ill digestion taken into the Stomach have presently excited a vain and very pertinacious Cough in the mean time that the Lungs were free from any consumptive disposition The cause of either distemper seems to be that when the nerves disseminated in either part are taken with a Convulsion oftentimes those which are of the other part are drawn into a consent of the same distemper Perhaps from hence it happens that sometimes an Asthma is induced by reason of the evil of the Ventricle and that that distemper as Riverius observes is often wont to be cured by an emetick Medicine After so many branches and shoots have been sent from both sides the wandring pair at length its Trunk is divided below the Lungs into two branches viz. the exterior and interior either of which inclining towards the pair of branches on the other side are united to them and after a mutual communication they constitute the two Stomachical branches viz. the superior and the inferior Fig. 9. t. u. w. x. It is worth observing with what wonderful artifice either Trunk of the
the explosive Convulsive motions of the containing Bodys For although we conclude that the middle of the brain The disease affects secondarily very many parts of the Nervous System is always the primary seat of the Epilepsie and that from the beginning the morbific matter is layd up wholly in that Region yet the distemper growing grievous this being more plentifully spread thorow the head enlarges its bounds so that it being strowed here and there and far and neer stretched out Spasmodic particles are cast into the rest of the Brain and also into the nervous appendix like gunpowder or explosive seed whereby it comes to passe that at the first approach of that disorder of Spirits Convulsions follow sometimes in these sometimes in those parts and not rarely thorow the whole Body CHAPTER III. The Differences of the Epilepsie and the reasons of some of the Symptoms are unfolded Also its Curatory Method is represented THus far of the essence and the Causes in generall of the Epilepsie it shall be now our next task to explicate the differences of this Disease also the reasons of some of the accidents and Symptoms belonging to it to which we will lastly add Observations and Histories of sick people with the method of Curing The most notable difference of the Epilepsie is wont to be taken from the Subject to wit that the brain or part of it labouring with this disease is either primarily and Idiopathetically or properly affected or secondarily and not but by consent with other parts concerning the former kinde we have hitherto discoursed as to the other to wit in which the falling down seems to arise from some place without the head and then lays hold of it secondarily and as it were by a blast sent from elsewhere It is to be observ'd that this kinde of distemper as Galen hath noted proceeds either from the external or internal parts The Reason of the Epilepsie which is said to be excited by consent we meet with many examples of Epilepticks in whom the fit being just coming upon them a spasm is felt with a numness in the hand or toe or other particular member which presently from thence as it were with a pricking of tingling creeps towards the head which when it hath attained immediately the sick party falls flat on the Earth and is hurried into Insensibility and disorder of spirits and other proper demonstrations of the Symptom of the falling sickness neither is it a less usuall proaemium of this disease that there first arises as it were a conflict in the stomach spleen womb Intestines genitalls or other inwards or that some kinde of perturbation is raised in some of them then from that place the ascent of as it were a cold air is perceived to which distemper follows the accession of the falling evill with its most horrid provision of symptoms hence it was commonly believed that the cause of the Epilepsie lay hid in the part seen to be so primarily affected and propagated its evil to the brain of its self innocent The Conjunct Cause of the Epilepsie consists only in the brain But in very deed as to this we must say that in every Epilepsie not only the procatartick or remoter Cause but also the conjunct remains wholly in the Brain to wit that the spirits inhabiting it being disposed to explosions and there being explosed bring on or Cause every falling Evill As to those praeliminary Symptoms in some Epileptical people they sometimes have the place of an Evident Cause and sometimes only of a signe For when the evill disposition of any inward as the stomach spleen or womb happens with the disposition of the Epilepsie as often as any perturbation is begun in that distempered Inward it easily happens by reason of a transmission of the ferment from thence or a continuation of the spasm to the head an Epileptical fit is excited in the Brain prae-disposed to act But these kind of symtoms of the falling evil which being suscitated from without seem to propagate the distemper to the Brain do often arise from the consent of the Brain it self and are only signs of the approach of the Epileptical Fit or of the spirits beginning to be exploded in the brain For when the animal spirits planted in the middle parts of the Brain and Cerebel and also those in the oblong pith or marrow neer the beginnings of the Nerves are so filled with an heterogeneous Copula that for the Casting of it off they are ready to bring on the assault of the Disease before they are all exploded heap by heap some spirits lying more outward in some private Nerves because they are destitute of the wonted influx of their superiors fall into certain inordinations and so begin spasms which spasms as it is often the manner in this kinde of distemper begin at the extremities or ends of the Nerves inserted to this or that member or Inward from whence by degrees they creep forward to their beginnings whether being come forth with the spirits thorow the whole Encephalon before disposed to explosions being moved by that spasms and so being snatch'd away with a fiery enkindling are suddenly exploded or thurst out so they seem to stir up the Epileptick Fit beginning at first from themselves as it were secondarily and by instinct brought from some other place After this manner sometimes the Histerical passions when beginning in the bottom of the belly they are Communicated to the Brain are thought to arise from those Viscera and to be stirred up by their fault when in the mean time the morbific cause subsists chiefly about the beginnings of the Nerves as we have elsewhere signified and shall again show hereafter when we come to treat particularly of the Spasmodick distempers There yet remain other differences of the Falling sickness to wit that it is either haereditary or acquired again either kind is variously distinguish'd Other differences of the Epilepsie by reason of the Age or time in which it first comes upon one to wit when the first coming of it happens before or about the puberty or being of ripe age or after it further as to the Efficacy of the disease into strong and weak for as much as the Paroxysms or fits are with or without the disorder of spirits and falling as to its inordinate manner whose assalts are wandring and uncertain moreover it is wont to be distinguished according to the peculiar symptoms in these or those sick people by reason of some disposition or manifold Idiosyncrasy or propriety of the Temperament But from what has been said before of very many of the Symptoms which are to be met with in this Disease the causes do easily appear so that there will be no need here to consider all of them but of some of them which seem more intricate it will not be from the matter to discourse in this place We will therefore first of all inquire why those sick of this Disease
those kinde of medicine between whiles in the spring and autumn and other fit times 2ly As to specific Remedies which indeed only though not allways are able to reach the Epilepsie and to subdue it of which sort are the male Paeonie Missletow Rew Castor the Claws of an Elk preparations of a dead mans Skull Amber Corrall with many others Forasmuch as these are taken without any sensible evacuation or also perturbation following in the viscera or humours it is a wonder by what formal reason or virtue of acting they are wont at any time to help in this disease In what the Virtue of the specificks consists in the Epilepsie Concerning this matter intricate and obscure enough if there may be place for Conjecture when as we have already asserted the procatartick Cause of the Epilepsie to consist in the heterogeneous Copula joyning or cleaving to the spirits inhabiting the Brain and inciting them to praeternatural explosions it follows that those things which take away or resist such a cause must be of that nature that by strengthening the brain and binding up its pores may exclude that Copula and so fix and as it were binde the spirits flowing within the middle or marrow of the Brain from leaving their Copula that they shall not be any more apt or prone to irregular explosions Perhaps after the same manner as when gunpowder or aurum fulminans being pounded with sulphure or sprinkled with spirit of Vitriol loses its thundering virtue And indeed these kind of properties to wit one or both of them may be suspected yea in a manner detected in most anti-epileptick Remedies For truly Paeony Missletow Rue the Lilly of the vally with many others abound in a certain manifest astriction that 't is likely their Particles being taken inwardly and so dilated to the brain by the Vehicle of the blood and nervous Juice do so binde and shut up its too loose and open pores that afterwards they do not ly open for the Passage of the morbifick matter Besides for that these vapourous Concerts breath forth as it were an armodiack scent or scattering therefore they are sayd to purifie the animal spirits to fix them and to strengthen them having put off their heterogeneous Copula This virtue purifying the spirits proceeding from an armoniac salt is more apparent in Remedies which are taken from the famuly of Mineralls and Animalls such are the preparations of the humane Skull of blood amber and coral as the other more binding rather exists in the parts and preparations of Vegitables It will not be needfull here for the curing of the Epilepsie to propose a compleat method of healing with exact forms of prescriptions because there are extant every where among Authors general precepts and most choyce Remedies and the Prudent Physitian will easily accomodate both the Indications and that plentifull provision of medicinal stuff to the particular Cases of the sick But because we have exhibited a quite new Theorie of this Disease here also ought to be rendred a Curatory method fited for it which we shall describe by and by more fully after we have shewn you some cases or Histories of people sick of the Epilepsie A fair maid sprung from parents indifferently healthfull being her self very Observation 1 well till about her coming to ripe age about that time she began to complain of her head being ill And first of all she felt neer the fore part or her head by fits a Vertigo or giddinesse whereby all things seemed to run round and also whilst this Symptom continued she was wont to talke idlely and to forget whatever she had but just done These kinde of fits at first pass'd away within a quarter of an hower and came again only once or twice in a month in the interval of which she was well enough Afterwards the assalts being made more grievous by degrees they also return'd more often and within half a year her brain being dayly more weakened this giddinesse or turning round was plainly chang'd into the Epilepsie that the sick being struck down to the ground at every fit was affected with Insensibility and horrid convulsions and also with foam at the mouth The Domesticks observ'd that she allways fell on the same side so that siting neer the fire if she sate in the right Corner she would be flung in the midst of the fire but if in the left Corner she fell against the wall of the Chimny once when being left alone in the house she fell upon the burning Coals and so miserably burnt her face and forepart of her head that the skull being made bare of the skin and flesh a deep and large escar was burnt into it and afterwards the outer shell of it fell off a hands bredth In the mean time the sick maid so long as the ulcers contracted by the burning ran with filthy matter she was free from the fits but afterwards they being healed up the falling evill returned This Disease began first to shew it self about the time of puberty for this maid presently after the begining of it had her Courses and afterwards they constantly observed their set times though her distemper grew dayly worse Various kinds of medicines being administred to this sick Creature availed nothing because it was the custome and practise of her and her friends quickly to change both the Physitian and method of Physick if an happy event did not presently follow and to betake themselves very much to every Empirick and outlandish Mountebanks That in this Case the Vertigenous Distemper with a short delirium was the forerunner of the Epilepsie it plainly argues the original of this Disease being planted in the middle of the brain to depend upon a certain inordination of the Spirits to wit those dwelling there at the begining begun to admit an heterogeneous Copula which being more plentifully heaped up being moved either of its own accord or occasionally while it was shaken off induced by reason of the spirits being disturbed and not yet very explosive those former distempers Afterwards from the same cause by degrees growing worse the perturbations of the Spirits did raise up their manifest explosions and chang'd the vertigo and Delirium into the Epilepsie But that this maid began to be sick about the time of ripe age it hence evidently follows as the natural ferment so sometimes the praeternatural explicates it self first at that time wherefore as it happens that the menstruous purgations doe then first break forth so the seeds of the falling sicknesse whether innate or acquired then budded forth a little and by degrees were ripened into fruit when the praeternatural Ferment first appears ofttimes the natural following blots it out hence the Epilepsie of young ones often ends about the time of puberty or ripe age but if that Firment or taint of the disease comes after the menstruous flux or together with it and ceases not presently it remains for the most part afterwards during Life
afore-prescribed Remedies Or the aforesaid Ingredients excepting the Liquoris and Raysons may be boyled in vi pints of Hydromel or water and hony or meath to the Consumption of the third part The dose â„¥ iiii to vi If that the aforesaid Method consisting in the use of Catharticks and Specificks being for some time tryed and altogether in vain you must come to Remedies of another kinde Great Remedies and chiefly to those called Great or Notable In this rank are placed Diaphoreticks Salivation Bathes and Spaws Alphonsus Ferrius affirms that he had cured many Epileptical people with a decoction of simple Guaicum being prescribed twice in a day and taken to vi or viii ounces and its second decoction drunk as in the cure of the Pox instead of ordinary drink If to such a decoction the roots of Paeony and other specificks should be added perhaps it would be more efficatious It seems probable that a Salivation strongly excited from Mercurie and afterwards a sudoriferous or Sweating-Diet following might certainly cure this Disease What Baths or Spaw-waters are able to do I have not observ'd either by my own or others experience Perhaps I have made tryall that our Artificial Spaws sometimes have been available in Curing the Epilepsie to wit both those impregnated with Iron and also with Antimony and taken in a great quantity for many days CHAPTER IV. Of other kinds of Convulsions and first of the Convulsive Motions of Children AFter the Epilepsie as it were the principal Spasm in the chief place excited to wit within the middle part of the brain the other Kindes of Convulsions come to be treated of in order The differences of those are best taken from a twofold kinde of cause and the various manners and accidents of either We have already shown that all Spasmodic distempers do flow either from the meer irritation of the spirits or from their explosion by reason of the cleaving of an Elastick Copula to them or jointly from both together wherefore the manifold Ideas of Spasms may be distinguished and distributed into certain Classes as it happens for this or that cause or either together to remain in the various places of the Encephalon or the nervous Appendix For indeed the Spasmodic matter or the explosive Copula of the Spirits finding a passage chiefly and most often thorow the Brain and sometimes in some measure thorow the extremities of the nerves subsists either about the origine of the nerves or their middle processes or their outmost ends or abounds in their whole passages as shall be by and by more particularly declared Further an irritation stiring up Convulsions by it self or with a previous remote cause although it be made every where in the nervous stock yet it chiefly and more frequently produces such an effect about the beginings middle processes and foldings or ends of the Nerves But the same Kinde of Cause and effects are after one manner in Infants and children and another in youths and those of riper age Since therefore we have determined particularly to consider all the kindes of Convulsions we will first discourse of the Convulsive motions of Infants and Children Infants and children happen so ordinarily and frequently to be tormented with Spasmodick Distempers that this is reconed the chief and almost the only Kinde of Convulsions for the Symptoms of this kinde in other more ripe people are wont to be called by other known Names and referred to the Epilepsie hysterick hypochondriac Collie passions or also to the Scurvie but in children they are called as it were by way of Excellency Convulsions As to this we must observe that children are found to be greatly obnoxious to Convulsions chiefly about two seasons to wit within the first month after they are born or about their breeding of Teeth Although it often happens that the assaults of this Disease may come also at other times and from certain other Causes In the first place therefore it very often happens that children newly born or at least er'e they are two months old are afflicted at every turn with Spasms excited in divers parts for that inversions of the eyes distortions of the cheeks and Lipps or tremblings yea Contractions of the Tendons and frequent jerkings or leapings forth of the members and sudden shakings of the whole Body infest them and that the same effect likewise sometimes afflicts the praecordia appears plain enough because whilst the Spasms busie the Limbs and outward members also the face becomes now pale now of a livid or dead Colour from the blood stagnating in the heart and the Lungs being at that time contracted As therefore Spasms are wont to infest three Regions of the Body in children to wit the parts of the head and face the outward members and Limbs and the Praecordia and viscera we observe now these regions now those now two or all together to be possessed by the morbific Cause to wit as it is fixed either about the beginings or ends of the nerves and when the former of these happens as the superior part of the oblong pith the middle or the lowest part of the spinal marrow is touch'd one or more parts together are assaulted by the morbifick Cause As to the other Causes of this Distemper to wit the procataric and evident those of the former Kinde do chiefly consist in two things first that all the parts of the Head in infants are very weak and abound with a viscous humidity to wit the Brain less firm and the tone of the nerves very loose so that they are not able to bear the more light force of every matter but the Spirits inhabiting them are easily incited into irregular motions or Spasms by the proper liquour wherewith those parts are watered if it flows never so little immoderately or at least more plentifully than for the measure of so little strength But in the second place because it appears by observation that children not only nor all who are of a more tender Constitution are found to be prone to this Disease therefore this ought to be rather accounted for a reason of the more remote morbid Cause that the Blood and nervous Juce are originally vicious in some Infants by reason of evills contracted from the womb For that the sanguineous mass wanting eventilation for many months past becomes impure in children newly born wherefore broad and Red puttings forth like the small pocks shew themselves through the whole skin in most children soon after they are born to which sort of wealks or efflorescences if they are hindred or repressed oftentimes dangerous exulcerations about the parts of the mouth follow Hence we may deservedly suspect such impurities of the blood sometimes to be poured forth into the brain and nervous stock considering their debility and for that reason Spasmodic Distempers to arise to wit whilst the blood being vitious from the womb endeavours to purifie it self it transfers its faeculencies into the head which were wont to be
white sagar â„¥ ii make a Julap The dose 4. or 6. spoonfulls twice in a day after a dose of a solid medicine Take of millipedes or chesslogs cleansed i pint of Cloves cut â„¥ ss put to them i quart of white-wine let them be distill'd in a glass-Cucurbit The dose â„¥ i. to â„¥ iss twice in a day For poor people medicines easie to be prepared may be prescribed after this manner Take of the Conserves of the Leaves of Rue made with an equal part of sugar â„¥ vi take of it the quantity of a nutmeg twice in a day drinking after it of the decoction of the Seeds and Roots of Burdock in whey or posset-drink made of white-wine Or there may be prepared a Conserve of the leaves of the Tree of Life with an equall part of Sugar dose Ê’ss to Ê’ i. twice in a day Take of millipeds prepared Ê’ iii. of ameos seedsÊ’ i. make a powder divide it into 10. parts take a dose twice in a day or 12 Sows or woodlice brused and white-wine put to them let the juce be wrung out make a draught let it be taken twice a day In the mean time while these Medicines are taken Inwardly it is sometimes convenient to raise blisters with Vesicatories in the nape of the neck and behinde the ears for so the serous and sharp humours are very much brought away from the head besides sneezing powders and such as purge Rhume from the head often give signal help The taking away of Blood from the Sedal veins or the foot ought sometimes to be itterated yea and the Distemper urging Plaisters or Cataplasms are profitably applyed to the soles of the feet It is also beneficial to apply drawing medicines about the calves and thighs CHAPTER VI. Of Convulsive Motions whose cause subsists about the extremities of the Nerves or within the nervous foldings SOmetimes Convulsive distempers do arise without any fault in the Head by the irritation and explosion of the spirits remaining about the extremities of the nerves which plainly appears because when medicines haul sharply the Ventricles or Intestines or worms gnaw them there do not only follow Convulsions in those parts but besides convulsive motions do sometimes torment or are retorted on the members and outward Limbs for indeed as we have shown elsewhere when the sense of a very grievous Trouble torments any part and from that is communicated to the chief Sensorie presently from thence an involuntary and irregular motion is wont to be reflected on the spirits in that place irritated and that not only by the same nerves to which the sense of the pain was carried but sometimes also the Convulsion is reciprocated by others either neighbouring or altogether extraneous So the Stone being fixed in the Ureters and irritating very much its nervous fibres excites Convulsive motions not only in the distemperd Vessell but almost in all the Viscera of the Abdomen So that the urine being suppressed Torments diffused here and there and very often horrid Vomitings follow Wherefore 't is not at all to be doubted but that both diseases and some Convulsive Symptoms are very often induced by reason of an outward hurt brought to the Tops of the Nerves terminating within the membranes muscles or Viscera yea in the hysterical hypochondriacal and certain other passions if at any time Convulsive motions are excited in the hurt head by the fault of the womb spleen or other Inward verily they arise by this only means to wit by the Trouble of the rest of the parts being translated this way through the Nerves but in no wise by the Vapours to the brain and are propagated all about into various Regions of the Body Convulsions begin from the ends of the Nerves both by reason of irritation But it should here be noted that although the evident Solitary cause forasmuch as it is strong and vehement may sometimes induce Convulsions of it self and without a praevious disposition because indeed the Animal Spirits being irritated beyond measure begin greater and more than ordinary explosions as in overgreat purging and Vomiting and the fits of the Collick and Stone is ordinarily wont to happen yet in many other Convulsive Distempers whose fits are often and habituall besides the irritation made about the extremities of the nerves which serves for the most part for the evident cause also a certain more remote cause is present to whose efficacy the assault of the disease is chiefly beholden to wit when Convulsive motions are wont to be excited and at every turn repeated by the fault of the Spleen womb or other private part it may be suspected that the animal Spirits of the Fibres in the distemperd part and those disposed in its neighbouring parts had first contracted an heterogeneous explosive Copula And by reason of an Explosive Copula by which being filled to a running over they were provoked by a light occasion to Convulsive explosions Then those being first begun about the extremities of the nerves creep upwards by the passage of the same nerves and are often caryed to the same nervous origine and sometimes beyond to the middle of the brain from whence lastly being reflected on the nervous stock they also secondarily cause the Convulsions of the members and Limbs But after the Brain and a Superior portion of the nervous System are wont to suffer and be affected often by the Convulsions below excited the spirits inhabiting those parts also begin to be themselves adulterated at length and to admit an heterogeneous and explosive Copula and so to acquire in part a procatartick cause hence at length a Convulsive procatarxis or more remote cause becomes Common to either end of the Trunk of the same nerves and the animal spirits of one nerve or more being evilly disposed both at the head and tail conceive explosions from either part and deliver them presently to the other as shall be more largely declared below when we treat particularly of hysterical and other passions in the meantime we will add some histories and observations of Convulsions arising from the farther ends or extremities of the Nerves Observation 1 A fine maid about the 16th year of her age falling from her horse and lighting upon a Stone grievously hurt her left breast from whence a Tumor arose with pain which Symptoms notwithstanding by the use of medicines at the beginning seem'd to be mitigated and to be indifferently well for a long time after Three years after she having taken cold and having observed but a bad course of dyet all things began to be exasperated the hurt part swelling into a bigger bulk troubled her with an accute and almost continual pain that the sick Virgin for the cruel torment could take no rest for many days and nights neither could she suffer the glandula's of her Breast being then made more tumid to be either touch'd or handled yea nor any noyse or shaking to be made in the Chamber When to this Tumour about
so that indeed they being drawn one from another and here and there inordinately moved induce convulsive distempers which are accompanied now with the contractures now with the languishing and resolutions or loosning of the containing parts But why the painfull Convulsions which are raised by the bite of the Tarantula In what the reason of the Musicks allaying the symptoms consists being presently allayed by musick are wont to turn into dancing does not so plainly appear That some affirm this little animal for that by the testimony of Aristotle it should be most wise to be delighted with musick and for that reason its venom being impress'd on man by fermenting the humours to induce the like love of musick I say this conjecture will not satisfie a minde desirous of Truth because that supposes a musick-loving nature in the spider and the same to be communicated to man by a matastasis or as it were a certain metempsychosis or transmigration of soul both which are taken upon trust and little satisfactory but it may be rather said that the venome inflicted on the nervous liquor by the bite of the Tarantula is too gentle to be able to extinguish wholly the Animal spirits or to dissipate them very much asunder and to compell them into more cruell explosions but only to put them to flight and to incite those flying here and there into lighter and somewhat painfull Convulsions and that the Musick with its flattering sweetnesse doth congregate together and mutually associate with ease the spirits so dissipated wherefore when as the same spirits by reason of the Infection sticking to them are apt to involuntary and Convulsive motions the melody disposes them delighted together and directs them to such Convulsions that entring the bodies of the nerves by a certain Course and Order they are carried as it were in certain prescribed limits and compasses until at length the particles of the venome being quite evaporated and the fury and rage of the spirits being worn out they wholly shake off that madnesse For truly musick doth easily carry men sound and sober whether they will or no or thinking of another thing into actions answerable to the sound of the harmony that presently the standers by at the first striking up of the Fiddle begin to move their hands and feet and can scarce nay are not able to contain themselves from dancing Let none therefore wonder that in men bitten by the Tarantula when the animal spirits being moved as it were with goads they are compelled to leap forth and wander about hither and thither willingly if they are excited to dancing and composed measures at the stroke of an harp so that as in these distempers the spirit of the musick as it were inchanting the outragious spirits and in some measure governing and changing their convulsive motions serves instead of an Antidote for that the animal spirits being very much and for a long while exercised after this manner wholly shake off the Elastic Copula contracted by the poyson or otherwise and they being very much wearied at length rest from that madness or its incitation A description of the dance of St. Vitus That which is called the Dance of Saint Vitus is an evill akin to this concerning which George Horstius relates that he had spoken with some women who for some years visiting the shrine of St. Vitus which is in the borders of Vlme did there exercise themselves even night and day with dancing and discomposure of minde till they fell down like people intranc'd by which means they seemed to be restored to themselves that they felt little or nothing for a whole year till about the time of May following when by the inquietude of their members they fay'd they were so far tormented that they were forced to go for their health sake yearly to the aforesaid place about the feast of St. Vitus Horst Epis Med. sect 7. de admirandis Convulsionibus The reason of it Indeed it is a usuall thing as I have observed both for men and women to be sometimes tormented with this inquietude of their members and as it were with a fury or madness that they have been forc'd to walk till they were tyred as also to dance leap and run about here and there that by this means they might shun the grievous trouble and sometimes faintings away which were about to invade them The reason of which seems to be that the animal spirits forasmuch as they being incited by an heterogenious Copula in the whole nervous kinde become fierce and altogether unbridled which so to exercise and tire out there is need both that they themselves may be tamed and that the explosive Copula may be shaken off Vniversall Convulsions from Witchcraft That Convulsive distempers are sometimes excited by witch-craft is both commonly believed and usually affirmed by many Authors worthy of credit and indeed as we do grant that very oftentimes most admirable passions are produced in the humane body by the delusions of the Devill forasmuch as he to cause wonders by which he might rule by the subtletie of working insinuates to the sensitive soul or the constitution of the animal spirits heterogeneous Atoms or little Bodies and so adds now spurs or pricking forward and now casts chains on its functions and now carries them to mischief also by some means he enters himself into the humane body and as it were another more mighty soul is stretched thorow it actuates all the parts and members inspires them with an unwonted force and governs them at his pleasure and incites to the perpetrating of most cruel Which are commonly but falsly so thought and supernatural wickednesses yet all kinde of Convulsions which besides the common manner of this disease appear prodigious ought not presently to be attributed to the inchantments of Witches nor is the Devill presently or allways to be brought upon the stage For indeed as often as a childe or relation of some man of the richer sort is by chance taken with most cruell and unusuall Convulsions for the most part it falls out that by and by the next old woman is accused of witchcraft she is made guilty and very hardly or not at all the wretch escapes the flames or an halter when in the mean time the disease proceeding from causes meerly natural may be easily Cured by no other Exorcism The reason of them than Remedies usually prescribed against convulsive diseases In truth the animal spirits being indued with a more cruell explosive Copula and being strucken by it all of a heap together obtain so much strength and vigour beyond their proper and wonted power as the flame of gunpowder has above the burning of the common flame so that those who obnoxious to this disease out of the sit may be govern'd lifted up and moved at pleasure with the light help of one man when the same is upon them make nothing of the utmost endeavours and force of at
feavour a phrensie or madness should come remedies appropriate to those distempers are made use of 2dly But if either with or without this sort of displeasure In the Cough brought to the head the Lungs also have taken the evill of this disease so that the sick not yet free from the feavour seem to fall into a waisting or Consumption with a troublesome cough with abundance of thick and often discoloured spittle Medicines commonly prescribed for such kinde of Distempers are convenient enough wherefore pectoral Decoctions Electuaries syrrops distill'd waters of milk and snails and other remedies of the like nature ought diligently to be made use of the forms of which may be found in the before-described Cases Thus far we have described the continual feavour for the most part convulsive and arising no less from the fault of the nervous juice then of the blood I will here further propose an example of a disease having the likeness of an intermitting feavour but radicated chiefly in the nervous juice the nature of which kinde of distemper for that it is very rare and truly pertinent to our convulsive Pathologie will appear from the following history A noted Woman very young A very rare Observation and indued with a more weak constitution of brain and nervous stock and for that cause very obnoxious to convulsive distempers after she had conceived with child about the fourth month of her being big from cold being taken she was grievously afflicted with Astmatical fits and besides with a frequent sinking down of her spirits but by the use of remedies indued with a volatile salt she grew well within a fortnights space but after that about 14. days an unwonted and truly admirable distemper fell upon this Gentlewoman One morning awaking after an unquiet sleep that night she felt a light shivering in all her body as if she had had the fit of an Ague frequent yaunings and reatchings with an endeavour to vomit followed thereupon then her urine which was but now of a citron colour and of a laudable substance became pale and waterish and was rendred at every turn to wit almost every minute of an hour moreover about her loins and hypochondria and in other places pains with light Convulsions running about here and there were excited which kinde of symptoms plainly convulsive with her frequent making of a lympid urine continued in the Morning allmost to Evening in which space of time a great quantity of water at least three times more then the liquor she had taken was rendred in the mean time neither was the heat great nor did thirst trouble her nor was her pulse encreased In the evening the aforesaid distempers ceased and her urine became citron colour and moderate and besides all night she enjoy'd a moderate sleep then the morning following about the same hour the fit returned accompanied altogether with the like symtoms and so dayly acted the same Tragedy The reason of it Visiting this Gentlewoman after she had been sick in this manner for 12. days I framed the Aetiologie of the aforesaid case to wit that this disease chiefly radical in the nervous stock did depend upon the effervescency and flux of the humour watering the nervous parts For it might be suspected that this water being diffused from the blood made degenerate by reason of the suppression of her Terms upon the brain and nervous stock became more sharp and serous than it ought to be and for that cause incongruous to the containing parts wherefore being gathered together to a plenitude by the nights sleep it did stir them up or provoke them for the expulsion of it every where into wrinklings and contractions hence shiverings yaunings streachings and wandring pains were excited in the whole body Furthermore from the sollid parts after this manner contracted and shaken not only the nervous Liquor but also the nutricious every where laid up in the sollid parts but not truly assimilated were shaken off and then either Latex being exterminated from its receptacles and received by the veins or Lymphaducts or water-carrying vessells was render'd to the Mass of blood from whose bosome before it had acquired a lixiviall tincture from it being at last cast forth by the reins constituted a clear and Copious urine But that this distemper observed such exact periods the reason is because the nervous water being supplyed with an equall dimension did arise to a fulness of running over dayly at the set time Therefore also the urine appeared concocted and yellow before and after the fit because then its matter consisted only from the serum of the blood Afterwards during the convulsive fit the limpid humour being shaken off from the solid and nervous parts and passing quickly thorow the blood adulterated the colour and the quantity of the urine I prescribed to this big-bellied woman Phlebotomie and besides a powder composed out of Corall pearls ivory and other Cardiacks to be taken thrice in a day in a proper Liquor morning and evening she took of the tincture of Antimony 12. drops whose singular effect in the too great flux of urine I have many times experienced By the use of these all the symptoms ceased in a short time CHAPTER IX Of Vniversal Convulsions which are wont to be excited because of the Scorbutic disposition of the Nervous juice Vniversal Convulsions by reason of the Scorbutic disposition of the nervous juice THus much concerning universal Convulsions diffused thorow the whole nervous kinde which come upon feavours and especially concerning the Convulsions which are wont to be excited in the commonly called malignant hectick Feaevour There yet remains which was proposed in the third place for us to shew by what means and from what causes universal Convulsions are induced without poyson or feavourish infection by reason of the scorbutick or otherwise vitious dyscrasie or evill disposition of the nervots juice For indeed the Liquor watering both the nerves and the nervous parts sometimes disceding from its naturall disposition is so much stuff'd with heterogeneous and explosive particles that the animal spirits admitting an incongruous Copula every where growing to themselves are irritated into continuall as it were cracklings or convulsive explosions These kinde of Affections of the spirits Two kindes of these viz. Separate and Connex or joyned together are either divided or separated between which no Communication or dependency intercedes viz. When many parts of the body are troubled at once with so many Convulsions proper to themselves which do not come successively one from another but are terminated in the same muscle or member where they begin After which manner I have known some sick people who have had their muscles and tendons all at once in their whole body perpetually to leap forth with so many distinct Convulsions Or Secondly the Convulsive Distempers which are excited in the whole nervous kinde together are continued or connex which succeed one another with a certain perpetual vicissitude continued
then when the evident causes daily fixing the infection more on the bloud and humours did happen upon this remote hereditary cause for there were many chances and unfortunate accidents which continually brought sadness and melancholly upon this Gentleman indeed therefore the nervous Liquor being imbued above measure with a fixed and Scorbutic salt became highly sharp and irritative like aqua fortis or the Stagma's of Vitriol and so continually incited the Spirits and the bodys containing them into Corrugations and contractions just as the aforesaid Liquors when poured upon worms do the same thing Why this Distemper grew worse by the use of the Baths But that this disease leasurly at first increasing was quickly brought into a much worse condition by the use of the hot Bathes the reason easily appears It is known by experience that the hot Bathes do very much exalt and quickly bring to the hight the Sulphureous-saline particles in the humane body and otherwise morbid which abound in the Bowells and humours viz. do render them more fierce by agitating them throughly and force them from their first passages into the blood and from thence into the Brain and nervous stock yea and joyn together those that were before seperate and idle and incite them into a certain fermentation wherefore those who are hereditarily obnoxious to the Gout or Stone and have not as yet suffer'd any fits of those distempers very often feel the fruit of either disease in themselves to grow ripe soon by the use of the Bathes When therefore in this sick person both the blood and Liquor watering the Brain and nerves were imbued both with narcotick or stupifying and convulsive particles and also when they did degenerate from their sweet and balsamy Disposition that towards a saltish and this into a sour Ciaemul of a Stagma of Vitriol the use of the hot minerall waters was so far from bringing help that on the contrary these evills for that very cause presently grew all very much worse and the Disease proceeding from the humors being so depraved as to their temper and mixture could never be cured by any medicines no easier than vinegar may be reduced into wine When this Gentlemans body being at last dead of the Phthisis or Consumption was opened by me we could finde but very few foot-steps of these kinde of most grievous Symptoms Hence as it appear'd the Palsie and Convulsion did not depend so much on a thick and copious matter heaped together somewhere in mines as of an evill affection of the animal Spirits who are subtle and Invisible I will lay forth what was worthy taking notice of in the anatomy of this person Things worthy to be noted in the body being dissected The Abdomen being opened the Caule as is wont to be in most who dye of a Consumption and other Chronical Diseases was putrified and almost consumed In the mean time the Ventricle Intestines Pancreas and Mesentery were well enough to wit the membranes were firm well coulour'd and free from any ulcer or hard swelling There grew to the greater Intestines certain excrescencies like to the ears of a mouse for that there were very many of these kinde of things out of either side of the Colon and right intestine they shewed like twins at certain distances like the branches of Trees The like I formerly found in a Consumptive person The Reason of this seems to be that the nourishment in Consumptive people though it be deficient about the more solid and outward parts yet sometimes within neer the fountains of the nourishing juice performs more than it ought and for that cause superfluous and unnaturall additions grow forth The milt or Spleen which always is thought ill of and of most Physitians condemned for being the Principal cause of the Scurvy and of all other distempers appear altogether blameless and free from any fault For as in most sound people we observed it was of a darkish Colour soft and of an equal superficies free from any obstruction or swelling indued with vessells and fibres distinct and firm enough out of its substance flowed black biood when it was cut The Liver which indeed might be wondred at was indifferently well neither was it from so long and grievous a sickness become harder then usuall or scirrhous or planted with little whelks but it was somewhat big and of a darkish colour The Kidnys though free from any ulcer or gravell were not however free from fault for in the middle of the right Kidney was seen a great cavity distinct from the Tunell and much greater then it full of clear water the like I have very often found in hydropical people But indeed this perhaps arose from the serum deposited in that kidny that could not easily be strained thorow its passages and pores for that the serum subsisting therein had in the beginning made for it self a little den which afterwards by degres was inlarged and when for this Reason the secretion of the serum and its passing forth by the ureter were something hindred its Latex restagnating into the blood brought in the grievous trouble to the head which indeed was the rather to be suspected because also the left Kidny being mightily extenuated and consumed contained many Cisterns and Cavities full of clear water The Lungs growing on every side to the Sternum or part of the breast where the ribs meet sides and Diaphragma seem'd without any distinction of Lobes of one substance only of putrid spongy flesh staâ—fed throughout with a frothy or ichorous matter without doubt the sick man had not contracted this evill so long before to wit when he was not able to perform any exercise of the Body nor stay in bed that it might breathe out any thing more freely the faeculencies and recrements of the blood which were wont to evaporate thorow the skin being layd up in the Lungs were the cause that they grew together among themselves and with other parts and did vitiate their tone and conformation wholly so that a Consumption being at last arisen was the effect and product and not the cause of the rest of the distempers wherewith he had bin a long while miserably afflicted In either ventricle of the heart blood was concreted into a solid whitish substance and bak'd like flesh which being formed neer the Cavities and processes of the vessells of the Heart resembled the figure of a Serpent with a manifold divided tail than which indeed nothing is more usual in many dead People after long sickness The reason of which is that the Blood being without life from long sickness and from thence circulated slowly about the Praecordia begins to stand or stagnate in the heart and depending vessells and by that means is congealed leasurely into this kinde of fleshy Concrete When the Skull was opened we sought among its contents the chief Cause of the Disease The first thing that occurr'd was the bulk of the brain was less than it should be
shops or dispensatory are to be prescribed but magistralls as cause arises according to the appearances of the admirable Symptoms A gentle vomit Purge blood-letting ought in the first place to be ordained and to be repeated as often as shall seem fit As to specisick medicines also and appropriate in these cases when the chief Indication shall be to mend the temper of the Nervous juice you may try many and by their effect judge of their virtues Therefore it may be lawfull to try what the Remedies indued with a volatile or armoniac salt may effect For this end the spirits and salts of Harts-horn Blood soot and the flowers and spirits of Sal-armoniac are taken These helping nothing you must come to Chalybiats or Steel medicines the tinctures and solutions of Corall and Antimony are given which kinde of medicines are exhibited in such a dose and form and so often that some alteration may be made by them on the whole blood or nervous juce Further If successe shall fail in such like you must then proceed to Alexipharmaca which help against poysons and the malignancy impressed on the humours to wit to institute from these decoctions and distilled waters of vegitables powders Conserves and other preparations and to compound variously some with others and to administer them diversly It is likely that those kinde of medicines which are wont to be helpfull to such as are bitten by a viper or a mad Dog or that have taken woulfs-bane or poyson may be usefull also in the aforesaid Convulsions It may be lawfull here according to the example of Gregory Horstius in his tract of the malignant Convulsive disease and also of wonderfull Convulsions to prescribe magisterial Remedies in the form of a purging Electuary and also of a powder and Convulsive Antidote and to compound them variously partly of simple Alexipharmacks or poyson resisters and partly of Antiepilepticks or things good against the falling Evil. CHAPTER X. Of the Passions Commonly called Hystericall THE hysterical passion is of so ill fame among the Diseases belonging to women that like one half damn'd it bears the faults of many other Distempers For when at any time a sicknbss happens in a womans body of an unusual manner or more occult original so that its Cause lyes hid and the Curatory Indication is altogether uncertain presently we accuse the evill influence of the womb which for the most part is innocent and in every unusual Symptom we declare it to be something hysterical and so to this Scope which oftentimes is only the subterfuge of Ignorance the medical Intentions and use of Remedies are directed A description of the hysterical passion The Passions which are wont to be referred to this cense or order are found to be various and manifold which rarely happen in diverse women or which come wholly after the same manner The most Common and which commonly are said to constitute the formal Reason of the hysterical distemper are these viz. A motion in the bottom of the belly and an ascention of the same as it were a certain round thing then a belching or a striving to vomit a distention and murmur of the hypoehondria with a breaking forth of blasts of winde an unequall breathing and very much hindred a choaking in the throat a vertigo an inversion or rolling about of the eyes oftentimes laughing or weeping absurd talking sometimes want of speech and motionless with an obscure or no pulse and deadish aspect sometimes Convulsive motions in the face and Limbs and sometimes in the whole body are excited But universal Convulsions rarely happen and not unless this disease be in the very worst state Because for the most part the Tragedy of the Fit is acted without Contraction of the members only in the inferior belly Thorax and head to wit in some of them or successively in all women of every age and Condition are obnoxious to these kinde of Distempers to wit Rich and poor Virgins wives and widdows I have observed those Symptoms in maids before ripe age also in old women after their flowers have left them yea sometimes the same kinde of Passions infest men as plainly appeared by the example already shewed As to the causes of those symptoms most ancient The causes of the Symptoms inquired into and indeed Modern Physitians refer them to the ascent of the womb and vapours elevated from it The former opinion although it plead antiquity seems the less probable for that the body of the womb is of so small bulk in virgins and widdows and is so strictly tyed by the neighbouring parts round about that it cannot of it self be moved or asccnd from its place nor could its motion be felt if there were any as to that vulgar opinion or Reason taken from the vapours we have often rejected it as wholly vain and light for just reasons elsewhere But we judge the passions but now described do neither always nor at all proceed from the ascent or the vapours of the womb and that indeed other very famous Physitians have already determined For in times past Charles Piso and of late the most learned Highmore have vindicated the womb from all fault and the passions which are commonly call'd hystericall are thought by this latter to arise from the blood most impetuously rushing on the Lungs and by the other from a serous colluives heaped together neer the origin of the Nerves How probable this latter opinion doth seem shall appear from what follows But as to the opinion deliver'd by Doctor Highmore concerning this thing tho it be far from our Custom to contradict any ones opinion and that it is almost unlawfull for me to diffent from this famous man yet because our Pathologie standing on a contrary basis viz. the cause of the hystericall distemper being imputed more immediately to the nervous stock than to the blood will seem to be only asserted unless we shew the Reasons which combat against that hypothesis and forours therefore taking leave here we will try more exactly either opinion put as it were in a ballance In the fit therefore commonly called hysterical this famous man supposes Doctor Highmores Opinion Examined the blood for that it is thin flatulent and with a certain effervescency to rush too much in heaps into the pneumonick vessells and the vessells of the heart and in them to broyl up impetuously and so to stuff up the lungs and very much to aggravate them that neither they can exercise their motion nor that the blood can be drained from the bosom of the heart Hence from the blood stagnating in the Praeoordia a great oppression difficult breathing and often none with a melting of the vital Spirits were wont to be inferred then the diaphragma that it might give place to the Lungs more and more distended and that breathing at least might be some way made is carried downward with a mighty and long continued Diastole and so by pressing down the Intestines it
wonted tasks of Influence and so provoke them ready to be exploded in such disorders yea and as a flame put to them do somewhat inkindle them but on the contrary stinking things repress the spirits drive them back from excursions and exorbitances and compell them into order yea like sulphur mixt with aurum fulminans take away from them their explosive force What we have hitherto said of the passions called from the womb hysterical will yet more clearly appear if for the Confirmation of our Hypothesis we shall add arguments taken from anatomical observations I will therefore lay before you a notable Case by which the former reason and Causes of the convulsive distempers may be very much illustrated A very noble Lady of a most curious shape Observations and highly indued with a virtuous disposition of minde and manners of late lived near to this place who being for many years obnoxious to convulsive distempers for that she had originally or hereditarily contracted this sickly disposition and had experienc'd the fruits of this morbid seed almost every lustre of her age but chiefly as often as she was with child for she very frequently miscarried was wont to be tormented above measure with convulsive passions as it were hysterical because presently after the restraint of her monthly flowers the heterogeneous particles being translated to the brain and nervous stock caused fits of this most cruell distemper After she had newly conceived in the first months according to her old custom she was presently molested with convulsive distempers about the nineth week of her big belly from taking cold she fell into a dangerous feavour in which very acute pains tormenting her in her loyns and bottom of her belly for many days seem'd to threaten an abortion but these pains as the event shew'd rather to be termed Colical proceeded from a sharp humour falling down into those parts from the brain by the pipes of the nerves for towards the declining of the feavour this matter being somewhere else translated a great loosness or Diarrhaea pains of the feet and as it were an ulcerous disposition succeeded As soon as this Lady became well from her feavour and those pains the convulsive distempers returned for every morning wakeing from sleep she was wont to suffer Convulsions and cruel contractions about the parts of her face and mouth as also in her armes and thighs which symptoms without doubt did arise from a serous heap or gathering laid up in the head about the beginnings of the nerves and by them imbibed together with the nervous juice more deeply in sleep and when afterwards the same matter was carried by the pipe of the interior nerves into the foldings of the Mesentery and loyns most cruel pains of those parts and also fits as it were hysterical did most grievously infect her But these convulsive motions of her face and members after a little time ceased but yet she still remained weak and without strength with a pale countenance an infirm and trembling gate and desirous only of congruous food and hot Liquors about the end of the third month at which time she was wont continually to miscarry her menstrua broke forth which coming away for two or three days together with little pieces of broken membranes she expected to miscarry But that flux ceasing pains as it were of one in labour in her abdomen and loyns as before arose and for the space of a week tormented her day and night at length having used a bath of Emollient herbs and afterwards put to bed to sweat she brought forth the burthen of her womb the conception so coming away with mighty pain was about the bigness and like the figure of a Turkie egg the exterior coat of it was torn and broken the interior remaining whole contained about half a pint of clear water and nothing else besides there appeared no shape of a childe or any rudiments that it would ever be one Afterwards for 4. or 5. days her flowers flowed forth with some pieces of broken membrances in the mean time pains with their wonted fierceness tormented her and when the space of a week being elapsed they left not off of themselves remedies at length were sought to allay them To this end first Liniments Fomentations Baths and Clysters were often administred also medicines purging the filth of the womb on which the cause of all the evill was cast were taken inwardly Short intermissions of her tortures followed upon the use of the former but then the distemper returned with great trouble yea the disease much increasing in three weeks time got many other horrid symptoms for besides the pains in her belly and loyns which became more cruel every day also she was shortly after tormented in her back neck shoulders as also in her arms and thighs with most cruell pain and that more bitterly as soon as she was warm in her bed besides she was afflicted with a frequent giddiness vomiting and nauseousness and often in a day with most grievous convulsive fits viz. First a bulk was seen to ascend in the bottom of her belly and presently it lifted up her whole belly forceably by and by respiration being restrained an Insensibility with a dead countenance succeeded after that she had thus lain as one dead for three or four minuts of an hour she was wont suddenly to leap up that she could hardly be held down or kept by those standing by then follow'd cruell contractions and distortions in all the parts of the mouth and face as also in all the members of the body These symptoms were indeed judg'd to be hysterical because this noble Lady so lately had miscarried But weighing every one of these I was at last of this opinion that the cause of either fit viz. Both the dolorifick and the convulsive did depend wholly on the evill affection of the brain and nervous stock and that without any fault of the womb for that a sharp humour being heaped up within the head did from thence descend thorow the passages of the Nerves into parts at a great distance which lodging upon the membranes and fibres and fermenting with the humour flowing in from the bloody mass did irritate them very much and so stir'd up most cruel pains Then afterwards when the heterogeneous and explosive particles being admitted with what humour within the head and entring into the nervous passages did cleave to the spirits therefore the convulsive disposition then breaking forth into grievous fits was induced as shall be by and by more largely laid open Instituting Curatory Intentions according to this kinde of Aetiology I order'd to have blood taken from this sick Lady at what time she most grievously laboured out of the Saphena vein and within two days to be given her a gentle Cathartick and that to be reiterated once or twice in a week Also on other days Morning and Evening I gave her spirits of Harts-horn and at other hours twice or thrice in
their inclination and falling down in the brain and perhaps also within the breast may be sometimes prevented then to Corroberate those parts that they may not easily admit the superfluities of the boyling Serum For these ends vomits and more gentle purges for the most part are usefull and in some measure ought to be repeated Vesecatories are often profitable yea if the Disease be contumacious Issues are to be made in the nape of the neck or the arm or about the Armpits Drink and liquid aliments are to be taken in a lesser quantity than usual and in stead of them a Bochet is to be used of Sarsa China Sanders Shavings of Ivory and harts-horn with diuretic and anticonvulsive Ingredients In this Case some remedies as it were special are greatly commended of which sort are pixed musk given in powder or boyled in milk and so given dayly in a frequent dose a decoction or Syrrop of Castor and Saffron decoctions of the root of Paony Misletow of the Oak also of hyssop help many the waters of black-cherries of Saxifrage and of Snailes distilled with Whey and appropriate ingredients are often taken with success The cure of the Convulsive Asthma 2. By what method and with what Remedies I have cured the periodical Asthma in some young ones hath been already shown But in most distemper'd with this Disease the most famous Riverius hath observed a vomit is chiefly helpfull although he hath not rightly shown the reason which indeed seems to consist in this to wit that this medicine greatly shaking and irritation the Emunctories planted about the first Passages strongly presses out from them and carries forth of dores the recrements of the blood and nervous juice apt to be troublesome and to restagnate on the brain and Nervous stock Zacutus the Lusitanian highly extolls and not without reason a cautery to be made sometimes in the hinder part of the head sometimes in the nape of the neck or about the Armpits A preparation of milipedes viz. in form of a dry powder or a distilled Liquor seldom wants success For by such like Remedies the superfluities of the Serum are deduced from the head and nervous stock and carried away thorow the urinary passages For the same reason a gentle purge evacuating the ill juice is often us'd for this end the decoction of an old Cock with altering medicins and gently purging being stowed in its belly is praysed by many Besides the remedies hitherto cited some others are said to be appropriate and as it were Specifical to the Asthma of which sort are the balsom of Sulphur turpintin'd also Spirits of Harts-horn or of Sut impregnaeed with the same Syrop of Tobacco of Ammoniack our diasulphur Lohoch of Garlick pills of the roots of Enula Campane made up with the milk of Sulphur with the flowers of Benzoin with liquid pitch or liquid amber with many others which would be too tedious here to enumerate And now the cheif Species and manners of Convulsions together with the Causes of the Symptoms and the means of curing being sufficiently explicated it is time to put an end to this our Pathologie of the Brain and nervous stock and to our Discourse of Convulsive Diseases FINIS Since nothing could so well express the meaning and intention of the Author as the very Latin and Greek words used in these Tracts we have continued them expresly and though in many places I have given their meaning by Synonymas yet for the benefit of the meer English Readers we have here composed a Table Alphabetically of all the hard Greek and Latin words used in the whole Volume as also of all Terms of Art and many other words derived from the Latin and Greek though usual among Scholars yet not frequently known to the vulgar and therefore we have fully explained them and rendred them intelligible to the meanest Capacity in the following Table A TABLE of all the hard words derived from the Greek and Latin of all Terms of Art and other words not vulgarly received with the explanation of them A ABdomen The lower part of the Belly from the Navel downwards Ablution A washing away Accension An Inkindling Accession A coming to or approach Acme The height or top of a thing Acid Sharp Acidity Sharpness Acidulae Medicinal waters running forth from Veins of Iron Copper and such like called Spaws from that famous place for Mineral-waters the Spaw in Germany Acrimony Sharpness or sourness rather Actionobolism An Irradiation of Beams or shooting forth of the spirits like beams of the Sun Aconite A venomous poisonous Herb put for Libbards bane Acute Sharp or excessive painful or that is quick and dangerous Aculeated Made sharp and prickly like a Needles point Adhaesion A sticking to Adjuted Helped Adventitious Coming by accident or by the by Adust Burnt or parch'd Adustion A burning or parching Aequilibrium An equal or even poise when the Balance stands bending neither to the one side or the other Aequinox When the Sun is in the Equinoctial Line and divides the Day and Night into an equal length which is about the 12. of March and about the 12. of September Aetherial Heavenly or belonging to the Air or Skie Aetiologie The rendring of the Cause or Reason of a thing Affection Taken for the natural Condition and often signifies sickness or disease Affected Distempered or diseased Sometimes natural disturbance Affusion A pouring forth of any thing Agaric A Drug that purges Phlegm Aggestion A heaping together of any thing Agitated A violent shaking or jogging together Alembic An Arabic word for a Still used by Chymists Alexipharmaca Medicines against Poisons and Venom Alexiterion The same being an Antidote against poison Alchalisat A salt made of the herb Kali Also taken and applyed to salts made of Herbs and shells of Fishes Alible Nourishable or that nourishes Aliment Food Allision A striking or knocking together Aloes A juice made out of a bitter herb used in purging Medicines also a sweet wood Amalgama A Chymical term for the setling and mixture of several Minerals or Metals or other things whereby a separation and extraction may be made Ambages A compassing or going about Ambient That invirons or compasses one about as the Air. Amulets Pomanders or Bracelets made against Witchcraft and Infection and Poison Analogy Proportion agreement or likeness Analysis The laying open or unfolding of the matter Anatomy A dissecting the Body to see the several parts Anasarca The watry Dropsy swelling up the whole flesh Analesia A stupifying disease that takes away the sense from all parts of the Head Angle A Mathematical Term being the nook or space at the cutting of two lines and is of several sorts A Corner or nook Anhelous Short-winded or that puffeth for want of breath that breatheth difficultly Annularie Ringy or like Rings Annular Ringy or like Rings Anodynes Medicines procuring ease from pains by sleep or other means Anomal Irregular out of order Antasthmaticks Things good against the Cough or
or the Guts Intrinsical Inward Inverse A turning inside out or outside in upside down quite contrary Inverted Turned wrong-side out or upside down quite changed from its natural scituation Involuntary Not with the will unwilling Irradiation A beaming forth or lasting forth beams like the Sun Sometimes applyed to the spirits beaming themselves forth or running forth from their Centre like beams Irrigation A watering wetting or moistning Irritate To provoke anger or stir up Irritated Provoked anger'd or stirred up Ischuria The disease of the Bladder the stoppage of the Water when it cannot come forth but by drops and with pain Ischuretical One so troubled with that distemper Jugular Belonging to the Throat the Throat-vein and Artery Julap A cooling Cordial or a mixed Potion to cool and refresh the heated spirits used in Feavers L Lactiform Like milk or in the form of milk Languor Feebleness failing or decay of strength fainting or weakness of spirits Larynx The top of the Asper Artery or the head thereof which reacheth up to the Mouth or Jaw which with the bone Hyoides joyned thereto serves for breathing and forming of the voyce or the air into articulate sounds Lassitude Weariness and irksomness Lateral Belonging to the side Latex Liquor or Juyce of any sort in the Body Laudanum A Medicine used by Physitians to cause rest given in difficult Cases Lienary Belonging to the Spleen Leipothymy A swouning or fainting away of the spirits Lethiferous Deadly that causeth death Leucophlegmacy The kind of Dropsy that riseth of white phlegm throughout all the Body and makes the flesh spongy Ligature A band or string bound hard about the Arm Leg or any other part of the Body Limature The pouder or dust that cometh of fileing the fileings of steel or other metals Limpid Clear pure and bright like Water Linctus A Medicine that is to be lick'd with the Tongue Liniments Ointments Lixivial Belonging to Lie made of Ashes Lobes Lappets or such as the Liver is distinguished into Lochia All that comes away from a Woman after she is brought to bed Locomotive That moves from place to place Lucophlegmacy See Leucophlegmacy Lumbary Belonging to the Loins Luxuriat To grow rank or abound Lymphic Vessels that carry or contain the waterish humors of the Body Lymphatic Vessels that carry or contain the waterish humors of the Body Lympheducts Water-Carriers or Conveyors the same sort of Vessels which carry forth the waterish humors M Magma The blended dross and faeces of several Metals as also of Chymical Extractions Mammillary Processes in the Temples Bones hanging down like broken brows of Banks representing the fashion of Teats and Cows Vdders Mansorius A Muscle which springing up circularly from the Throat-bone of the upper Jaw moveth the nether Jaw Massoterie A Muscle which springing up circularly from the Throat-bone of the upper Jaw moveth the nether Jaw Mandible The Jaw wherein the Teeth are set Mastic A certain medicinal Gum. Masticator The Pipe or Conduit that conveys the pituitous matter out of the Head into the Mouth Matrace A Vessel used for Chymical Distillations Maturation A ripening Maxillary Belonging to the Jaws Maxillar Belonging to the Jaws Mechoacan A purging Drug brought from the Indies Meconium The juice of the Leaves and heads of Poppy Medastinum Or Mediastinum the thin membrane that divides the middle belly or the Breast from the Throat to the Midriff into two bosoms or hollows one on the right side the other on the left Medullar Marrowy or belonging to the marrow or pith or the white substance of the Brain Membranes The little thin skins joyning the bones and sinews together in several parts of the body the upper thin skins of any part Meninges The thin skins that enwrap the Brain both of the pia mater dura mater one called the hard the other the soft Meninx Menstruum A preparation made by Chymists to dissolve metals also to extract tinctures and the virtues of medicinal druggs woods flowers herbs c. Mesentery A certain thick fat skin or the double skin that fastens the bowels to the back and each to other Meseraic Veins arise or are rather inclosed in Mesentery being branches of the great vein by which the Guts are nourished and the juice of the meat concocted is conveyed to the Liver to be made blood Mercurie Quick-silver and its preparations of it Metaphysical Supernatural things of sublime speculation beyond nature Metastasis Is translation or when a disease removes out of one place into another Metathesis Is transposing the puting of one thing for another Miasm Infection or taint Microscope A Perspective-glass to behold minute and very small bodies a Magnifying glass Millepedes The hundred-feeted Creature and Heslog-sows or Hog-lice Mirabolans A certain medicinal fruit brought out of the Indies Modification A measuring or bringing into measure Morbid Sick corrupt filthy or naughty That causeth the Sickness or disease Morbifick Sick corrupt filthy or naughty That causeth the Sickness or disease Mucilage Thick boiling up of a thing to a gelly or thick consistency Munited Defended or fortified Muscles Parts of the body that serve for motion softer and more fleshy than the sinews Musculous Full of Muscles or belonging to the Muscles Myologie The doctrine of the Muscles N. Narcotick Stupifactive or that makes the part sensless Nates Two prominences in the brain so called because in the form of Buttocks Natiform In the form of a Buttock Neoterics People or men of late times Nepenthe A drink to drive away melancholy Nephritis A pain in the reins of the back also the Stone or Gravel in the Reins Nephritic One troubled with the pain in the Reins Nerves Are the sinews which convey the spirits that serve for life and motion through the whole body Neurologie The doctrine of the Nerves Nitre That as is usually called Saltpetre A salt taken out of the earth Nitrosulphureous Nitre mix'd with Sulphur or of a nitrous and sulphureous nature or quality O. Oblique Cross traverse a slope not strait or right Oblong Longish or somewhat long Oeconomie A certain order of doing any thing an houshold rule regiment or governance Oesophagus The mouth of the stomack Olibanum An outlandish Gum. Opiologie The doctrine of Opium Opium Made up of the juice of wild poppie used to stupifie and bring into a sensless sleep Opiats Medicines made of Opium for some part of its ingredients to cause sleep and ease for pains Optic Belonging to the sight as the Nerves that bring the virtue of seeing to the eyes Opopanax The juice made of a certain herb Ophthalmic A medicine to cure the diseases of the eyes Orgasm Rage or fury Orifice The hole of a wound or the mouth of any thing Origine Beginning rise or birth of a thing Orbicular Of a round form or shape Orthopnoea Is such a straitness of breath that one cannot breath or fetch breath without stretching out of the neck or holding it upright Os Pubis Is the bone at the bottom
of the belly just above the privie member Os Sacrum Or the sacred bone is the great bone upon which the end of the ridge or back-bone resteth Oviparous Egg-bearing Creatures or that lays Eggs. P. Panacea All-heal or a plaister or medicine to heal all things Pancreas Called in an Hog the Sweet-bread It is a remarkable kirnel placed below the Ventricle and serves for a division of the Vena porta as also to defend the Ventricle from touching the back Papillary Belonging to the Teats or like paps or teats of a dug Papillae Little paps or little pieces of flesh in the body so called of the shape of paps Paracentisis Is an incision made to draw forth the water from those swelled with the Dropsie vulgarly called a Tapping Paracelsus A famous Dutch Emperick Paradox A thing contrary to the common opinion Paralytick That is troubled with the Palsie Parallel Equal alike like a line drawn to write by another Parenchyma The substance of the Liver Spleen and Lights supposed to be made up of congealed thick blood therefore so called Parotida The two chief Arteries and Veins on the right and left side the throat going up towards the ears Parotides The two chief Arteries and Veins on the right and left side the throat going up towards the ears Parotid To them belonging Particles Little parts or portions of any thing Paroxisms Fits or the returns of fits as of an Ague or Feavour Pathetic To passion belonging Nerves so called by Dr. Willis Pathologie The doctrine of the passions also as Aetiologie Pathognomic That moveth the affections or that properly belongs to the thing Pathognotic That moveth the affections or that properly belongs to the thing Pepasmus A kind of a concoction of the humors in the disease Percolation A straining thorow Pericardium The thin skin or membrane covering the whole heart like a case Peritonaeum The inner skin or rim of the belly joyned to the Caul wherewith all the Intrails are covered called by the Anatomists Siphach Peripneumonia An Inflammation or Impostum of the Lungs with a shortness of breath Peristaltick Motion a certain motion compassing about as in certain Convulsions Perspiration Breathing thorow as sweat through the pores of the body Perturbations Disturbings vexing troubles disturbances Pervious That many be passed through or that has a passage or way through it Peruvian Belonging to the Country of Perue as Peruvian Balsom thence brought Pharmacy The Medicines of the Apothecaries or the art of making them up Pharmaceuticks The part of Physick that cureth with Medicines Phaenomena Appearances of things Philonium A Confection made of many ingredients compounded together Philtre A potion to cause Love or poysonous Medicines that operate magically or not naturally Phlebotomie Letting blood or opening of a Vein Phlegmon An Inflammation of the blood with a red swelling Phlegosis The like Inflammation fiery red Phthisis The Consumption of the Lungs with a wasting away Phthisic Belonging to that disease or that has it Physiologie The reasoning of the Nature of a thing or the searching it out Pia Mater The thinner inward soft skin that inwrappeth the pith and marrow of the brain and is every were joyned to it called the thinner and soft Meuinx Pica The longing disease of Women with Child Pineal Kirnel in the brain in form of a Pine-apple called also Conarium Pituitous Snotty thick phlegmatick matter Plastic Formative or that worketh and formeth Plenitude Fulness or store Plethora A fulness or plenty of humors in the body good or bad Pleura A skin or membrane which clotheth the ribs on the inside which being inflamed by the blood causeth the Disease called the Pleurisie Pneumatic Windy or belonging to wind or breath Pneumonic One sick of the disease of the Lungs Polypus A filthy disease in the nose breeding stinking and ulcerous flesh within the nostrils Pontic Belonging to the Sea or to the Country of Pontus Porta Vena Is a Vein that hath many small roots fastened to the Liver from whence arising grow into one trunk or stock which going forth from between two eminent lobes of the Liver passes into the Gall Ventricle Spleen Mesentery and Caul and other parts of the body Pores Are the little small holes or breathing places in the skin of the body through which heat and moisture insensibly breath continually Porous Full of such like holes or pores Praxis Practice or action Praecipitation A casting down used by the Chy for a certain way of distillation when the matter is thrown back into the Receiver Praeternatural Besides or more than natural not natural or besides nature Praeceding Going before Praevious That went before Praecordia The parts about the heart as the Diaphragma or midriff separating the heart from the other bowels Praemised Sent before or before made known Praepollency Of very great force strength excellency or virtue Priapismus Is a disease in the Yard that causeth it always to be stretch'd forth and extended without any thing provoking it Primigenious The first original not having its beginning or birth of another Procatartic Remoet not next cause of a disease Processes The parts of a bone or other parts that exceed the natural height or posture and are yet dependences of the bone and parts and proceed or go out from it as also some Nerves going forth of other Nerves being still parts of the main stock Profusions A pouring forth or running or spreading abroad Profluvium A flowing of humors a gushing forth in abundance a flood Profligated Driven away or overthrown discomfited Prognosis The praescience or fore-knowledge or Prognostication of the event of the disease Promptuary A Store-house or place where any thing is laid up Prominences Bunchings forth those parts that notably shew themselves above the rest as a hill in a plain Prophasis The appearing or shewing of a thing Prophylactic That part of Physick that preventeth and preserveth from diseases Prostatae Kernels in the Groyn or about the privie-members Protension A stretching forth at length Protraction A drawing forth at length also a prolonging Protuberance A bunching forth above the rest Protrusion A thrusting forward Psoa A great muscle beginning at the 11th rib and going through the bowels to the privie-members Psora The scabbado or scabbiness with pustles Ptyalismus Salivation or a great flux of spitting Ptisan Decocted Barly with other ingredients Puretology The doctrine or a discourse of Feavors Pungitive Pricking like needles Purulent Full of matter or filthy corruption as a Bile or Impostum Pubis That part of the privy parts where the hair grows Pulsific That strikes as the Pulse or beating of the Arterie or that causes such striking or pulse Pylorus Is the lower mouth of the stomach or ventricle whereby the meat being digested is transmitted into the Stomach-gut or Maw-gut Pyramidical Of the shape or form of a Pyramide broad at bottom and sharp at the top Pyretology The doctrine of Feavers or of fire Q. Quotidian Daily or every day an Ague
is only a double Tertian and doth arise from a dispersed matter having gotten a twofold Nest to which I cannot assent and I suppose its begining is to be attributed to a peculiar Dyscrasie of the Blood In this the symptoms of cold and heat are more remiss but its fit is longer continued and oftentimes it is wont to last eighteen or twenty hours This Feaver for the most part follows a Tertian for when the Vital Spirit is very much flown away by the frequent deflagration of the Blood and the Feaverish disposition still remaining the Blood is made weaker it doth not concoct the nourishing Juice or ripen it but perverts almost the whole into a Fermentative matter wherefore it comes sooner to its increase and is gathered together to a plenitude of swelling up within double the time than at first But because the congested matter participates equally of crudity and adustion therefore the heat of the burning is lesser and more unequal and like green wood laid on the fire slowly burns for which reason the fit endures longer Somtimes it happens that a Quotidian Feaver doth arise without a Tertian going before viz. when a Feaverish disposition falls upon a Cacochymic Body or full of evil humors and stuffed with depraved Juices for then the Blood being poor in Spirits perverts in a greater measure the nutritious Juice and in a shorter time gathers to a fulness of swelling up But that which begins an every days Ague oftentimes changes its figure and becomes a Tertian just as a Tertian often goes into a Quotidian because between these Feavers and their causes there is a great vicinity and the constitution of the Blood being a little changed it makes a transition from one to another A Quotidian Intermitting Feaver is not so easily cured as a Tertian For whether it comes at first simple or follows upon another Intermitting Feaver it is still excited from a stronger cause and argues a greater dyscrasie of the Blood which will not presently give way to Remedies But also if this Feaver be of long continuance or comes upon another Chronical Disease it has most often adjoyned to it besides the taint of the Blood the infirmities of the inwards to wit the Blood being spoiled easily affixeth its impurities by degrees heaped up on the Viscera whilst it passes through their Meanders from hence it is that in a Quotidian Feaver the weight of the Ventricle an extension of the Hypochondria Obstructions or Tumors now of the Liver now of the Spleen or Mesentery are joyned together but these kind of distempers are not the cause of the Feaver as is commonly believed but only its product Wherefore in this Feaver besides the simple method of Cure which is shown in the Tertian many other intentions or coindications come under consideration to wit that the Ventricle be cleansed from its load of humors the stuffings of the Inwards freed Infirmities corroborated and that together with these the Dyscrasie of the Blood may be mended and the Accessions of the Feaver may be restrained must by all means be endeavoured from whence by reason of these kind of various intentions we come to the Cure by a longer way In this case Vomits if strength will bear them are of benefit before all other Medicines also Purges whereby the assiduous supply of Excrementitious matter may be drawn forth are often to be repeated Besides these digestive Remedies openers of Obstructions such as restore the Ferment of the Viscera and Blood and correct their evil dispositions are frequently to be administred Wherefore the fixed Salts of Herbs and their Extracts Acid Spirits of Minerals and somtimes preparations of Steel do very much help concerning these main things the task will be hard when by reason of the manifold evil many things are to be done together yet by reason of the assiduity of the Feaverish fit there is leisure for the sick to use few only In Distempers so complicated tho the reason of the method requires the impediments to be first removed and then to Cure the Disease yet I have known this kind of Feaver beset with many other distempers in a Body full of humors often Cured without method and by an Empirical way viz. after a light provision of the whole Ague-resisting Remedies being outwardly applyed have at first stopped the Feaverish fit that then there was time for the Curing the other distempers and more happy occasions of healing were granted I lately visited a Noble Lady who being long indued with a Cachectical habit of Body a month after her lying in being weak and languishing was taken with a quotidian Intermitting Feaver after six or seven fits of it her strength was so much cast down that she could scarce rise out of or sit up in her Bed nor able to take never so little Food tho very slender but upon it most grievous molestations were raised up in her stomach besides the Region of her Ventricle and left Hypochondrium was wholly beset with a hard shining tumor and cruelly painful by reason of her strength being mightily cast down there was no place left for Evacuation but the use of Clysters also her Stomach being very weak loathed all other Remedies unless very grateful and only in a very small quantity In this difficult case circumscribed between narrow limits of Curing I counselled these few things to wit that twice in a day she should take this mixture viz. The magisterial water of Earth-worms two Ounces of Elixer Proprietatis twelve drops Moreover I ordered to be applyed to her Ventricle a Fomentation of the Leaves of Sea-Wormwood Centaury Southernwood with the Roots of Gentian boiled in White-Wine in an open Vessel also that after the Fomentation a Cake of Tosted-Bread and dipped in the same Liquor should be worn upon her Stomach besides Ague-resisting Medicines were ordered for her wrists and with these Remedies only she mist her Ague fit on the third day and remained free from it afterwards then by the use of Chalybeat Remedies she became perfectly well within a short time CHAP. VI. Of a Quartan Feaver IN a Quartan Feaver the period is longer than in the rest to wit which is extended to the fourth day inclusively also its continuance uses to be longer and its cure harder because this Disease is protracted for many months yea oftentimes for years and seldom or scarce at all is cured by Medicines The Fit for the most part begins with cold and shaking to which a very troublesome heat succeeds but more remiss than in a Tertian Sweat for the most part concludes the Fit At the first coming of the Disease the Fits are more grievous and very infestous and keep the sick in their Beds yea they make them lose their strength and vigour of Body But afterwards the trouble is more easily born so that the Fits are suffer'd out of Bed and somtimes in a Journy or being about any business If it continue long it induces the Scurvy or Hypochondriac
distemper and involves men in an unhealthful condition The causes which dispose to this Disease are first the constitution of the Soil and Air because this Distemper is proper to the fall of the Leaf or Autumn that you rarely find this Feaver to begin but about that time also in some places especially about the Sea-coasts this uses to be general or common to the Region and to come upon those living there or Strangers coming thither from elsewhere A declining age which is past its acme or height also a melancholick Temper and which by reason of an ill manner of living is obnoxious to the Hypochondriac Distemper cause this besides long Feavers of another kind and Chronical Diseases often pass into a Quartan Feaver According to these positions and rightly weighed it may be said that a Quartan Feaver even as the other intermitting Feavers depends upon a vitious disposition of the Blood to wit because the nutritious Juice being by degrees delated into the Vessels is perverted into a Fermentative matter and the effervescency of this heaped up even to a fulness of swelling over constitutes the Fit of the Quartan Feaver But as in this Feaver there are some things which are peculiar from the rest we will inquire what kind of Dyscrasie of the Blood it is in this Disease distinct from the others and by what means it excites the very remarkable Symptoms The opinion which is commonly had concerning this thing is very far from truth almost by the consent of all the Essence and beginning of a Quartan Feaver is ascribed to a melancholick humour heaped up somwhere in the first passages and there periodically Putrifying Instead of this we affirm that in this Disease the Liquor of the Blood doth pass from a sweet spirituous and balsamick into an acid and somwhat austere Nature like Wine growing sowre to wit there is too great a want of Spirits and the Terrestrial or Tartareous part of the Blood which consists chiefly of Salt and Earth is too much exalted and being carried forth into a Flux induces the sourness of the mass of Blood Even as Beer being disturbed by Thunder and infected with a troubled lee or dregs grows sour The Blood after this manner degenerated from its native disposition doth not rightly dress the alible Juice and assimilate it to it self but perverts it into an extraneous matter with which when it is satisfied to a fulness in the vessels and the nervous parts are watered by the Juice from thence arising a Flux of this matter and as it were a spontaneous effervency follows by which indeed the Feaverish Fit is induced with shivering and heat as is wont to be in a Tertian In a Quartan Feaver the periods have longer intervals because when the Dyscrasie of the Blood is become sourish and therefore less violent and hot it perverts the alible Juice without strife or tumult wherefore it assimilates some of it and the depravation of the rest does not so far recede from its natural state as in a Tertian and from hence its congestion to a plenitude is made longer and almost in another half of that time in which a Tertian rises up to a Turgescency And therefore those taken with this Feaver are indifferently well and are strong which is a sign that the nutritious Juice is less depraved also the Fits are made without cruel burning because the nutritious humor is perverted into a fermentative matter without great adustion But why this Disease is so hard to be cured and so pertinaciously infests the sick the cause is the melancholic constitution of the Blood which is not easily to be taken away and yields almost to no Remedies The cholerick disposition of the Blood is mended by the frequent Deflagration and ceases often of its own accord even as too rich Wines are depressed by their own growing hot and are wont to be reduced into their due state but this melancholick Dyscrasie of the Blood in which with a want and defect of Spirits Salt and Earth are too much exalted as when Wines grow sour is most hard to be restored and is almost of the same labour and difficulty as to put again life and a vinous Spirit into Vinegar For that the Blood depraved after this manner may be restored it will be needful that its whole mass should be volatilised and as it were made Spiritual anew wherefore in this case evacuations profit not a jot yea by more depauperating the Blood oftentimes the strength is cast down beyond help but they had need to exalt and make volatile what is fixed and to promote a Transpiration or Spiritualisation in the whole mass of Blood From hence it is that in this Disease the change of the Air and Region most often brings help before all other Remedies For the Spring following oftentimes takes away those Quartan Feavers that had arisen the Autumn before which without doubt happens because the changed condition of the Air is wont to alter for the better the evil disposition of the Blood also for the same reason the change of the place most often cures this Distemper inexpugnable to all Physick If it be demanded wherefore this Disease chiefly begins in the Autumn and rarely in the Spring or Summer time I say the Autumnal time doth most fitly produce this kind of Feaverish disposition of the Blood for when very much of the Spirit and Sulphur hath flown away by the Summers heat and that what is left begins to be bound up by the cold the Liquor of the Blood as Wine growing sour by too much heat easily degenerates into a saltish and acidulous or sharp Nature This also the Sea air by infecting the Blood and Spirits with saline Vapours falling on them easily procures yea also the affinity of this Disease with the Scurvy and Hypochondriac distemper plainly shews the evil disposition of the Blood to be in fault whereby it becomes salt and earthy with the want of Spirit Concerning Quartan Feavers the last year was so abundantly fruitful of observations that many might collect by ocular Inspection whatever belong to this Disease for when the most hot Summer was past about the end of it an Epidemical Feaver of which in another place you shall have a description followed then the Autumn coming on when that Disease had ceased a Quartan Feaver began very much to rage that in very many places the fourth part of the people was taken with it neither did it only infest old men splenitick and melancholick men but of every age and temper also Infants Children and young men ordinarily which was clearly a sign that this Distemper had drawn its rise not from a melancholick humour heaped up by the default of the Spleen but from the Dyscrasie of the Blood brought in through the intemperance of the year for the mass of the Blood after too great heats even as Wines after immoderate effervescencies was made fit to grow somwhat sour or to get an austere disposition and
growing hot and which constitutes a distinct kind of continual Feaver is excited from a certain malignant and invenomed Ferment by which when the mass of the Blood is imbued and the Spirits and the Sulphureous part together conceive an heat and their burning is not sooner appeased than that either that malignant matter be consumed and cast forth of doors or else a certain coagulation and as it were putrefaction of the Blood from its corruptive venom is induced by which both circulation is hindered and the Vital Spirit extinguished This malignity is wont to arise either from a certain contagion received from without or from some infection begotten within us according to these ways the malignant Feaver Small-pox Measels and also the Plague draw their beginnings and by their contagion far and near set upon many There are therefore three degrees or manners of growing hot by which the kinds of continual Feavers are determined From the subtil portion of the Blood made hot or the Ebullition of the Spirits the Ephemera arises as also the Synochus of one or more days by the Sulphureous or Oily part of the Blood being too hot and inkindled the putrid Feaver is stirred up then thirdly upon an invenomed taint infecting the Blood and congealing its Liquor malignant Feavers depend In every one of these by the depravation or rather corruption of the Alible Juice fresh carried into the Blood the various fits inequalities and critical motions arise But before I enter upon the several kinds of a continued Feaver it is requisite for me to consider how the growing hot of the Blood in a continual Feaver differs from that other which constitutes Intermitting Feavers I say therefore that the growing hot of the Blood in an Intermitting Feaver depends only upon the commixtion of a certain Fermentative matter and not rightly miscible with the Blood and on its growing up to a fulness of boiling over Because of this heat with the Blood in the Vessels and of the deflagration in the Heart the fit is induced because of its growing cool the intermission follows that in the coming between of the fits neither the Spirits nor Sulphur become outragious but the bond of the mixture being kept whole the Liquor is circulated in the Vessels equally and without trouble on the contrary in a continual Feaver the disorders of the Spirits and of Sulphur of either or both together by their proper Ebullition also without the mixture of any other stir up the Ebullition of the Blood wherefore there are required for an intermission besides the difflation or cooling of the Excrementitious matter a deflagration of the inkindled Blood and a reduction of it to its due Temper The Constitution of the Blood in a continual Feaver is of the same sort as of Wines when they grow hot upon too rich a Lee to wit are mighty in Spirit and grow turgid with exalted Sulphur and therefore they conceive a Fervor and greatly boil up of their own accord without the mixture of any other thing In an Intermitting Feaver the Blood is moved after that manner as Wines when they conceive an heat because of somthing poured to them that is not miscible with them Moreover in this Feaver the disposition of the Blood is of that sort as of Wines when in their decay and declination they become ropy unsavory or acid to wit in which the Spirit is depressed that in the mean time either Salt or Sulphur or both together appear above the rest and infect the whole Liquor with their disorder An Intermitting Feaver for the most part is free from danger because the constitutive parts of the Blood altho they should somwhat change their disposition however keep the bond of mixture and whilst they are in power are circulated equally in the Vessels yea they pervert the nutritious Juice into a matter not altogether besides Nature but rather infesting with its fulness and turgescency In a continual Feaver besides the intemperance the mixture of the Blood and constitution of the Liquor are somwhat loosned and its corruption easily follows wherefore this Disease often ends in death further the nourishing Juice is depraved into a matter wholly vitious and altogether infestous to Nature CHAP. VIII Of the Ephemera or Feaver for a Day I Have said the least degree of heat which induces a continual Feaver is placed in the subtil and Spirituous part of the Blood being too much agitated and heated for this like the Spirit of Wine boils up on every light occasion and conceives a fervor by a too great motion of the Body or perturbation of mind by the ambient heat as of the Sun or vapours by hot things taken inwardly as the drinking of Wine and the eating of peppered meats and being irritated by such like For the Spirits of the Blood easily take fire and being impetuously moved are not presently appeased but they move throughly other Particles of the Blood variously confound and snatch them into a rapid and disorderly motion also from this motion of the Spirits the Sulphur or Oily part of the Blood is more boiled forth somwhat more dissolved and somthing more fully inkindled in the Heart by which means an intense heat is raised up in the whole Body But forasmuch as Sulphur is inkindled and inflamed only by small parts and not in the whole that fervor of the Spirits is quickly appeased and ceases wherefore the Feaver which is excited by this means for the most part is terminated within twenty four hours and therefore is called an Ephemera or a Feaver of a day If that by reason of a greater heat of the Spirituous Blood it is prolonged further it rarely exceeds three days and is called an Ephemera of more days or a Synochus not putrid but if it should happen to be lengthned beyond this time this Feaver easily passes into a putrid viz. from the dayly Ebullition of the Spirituous Blood the more thick Particles of the Sulphur at length begin to take fire and involve the whole mass of Blood in its Effervescency even as the Spirit of Turpentine being shut up in a Cucurbit and being put into a Sand Furnace if it be forced with a moderate heat boils up gently as the Blood in a Feaver of a day but if the heat be made more strong the Liquor grows impetuously hot till it breaks forth into a flame to which the inflamation of the Blood in a putrid Feaver may be very aptly compared The Days Feaver and Synochus simple rarely begin without an evident cause Besides what hath been but now said immoderate Labour Watchings a sudden passion of the mind a constriction of the pores a Surfeit also a Bubo or inflamed Sore a Wound the coming down of the Milk in Child-bearing Women are wont to induce them The procatartic Causes which dispose to this are an hot temper of Body an active habit a sedentary life and difuse of exercise The chief beginnings of this Disease depend upon the
Lungs in every distemper or affection as of Grief Joy Fear and the like also in the fits of Diseases the Heart is disposed after a various manner and hence it comes to pass that the blood flowing in fluctuates and is inkindled with a diverse rage of which there will be a more opportune place of discoursing when we shall treat of the Passions Whilst we consider that the burning of the Blood and for that reason the vital or flamy part of the Corporeal Soul doth not appear lively or vigorous in all nor ever after the same manner or measure yet it exists according to the various constitutions of the blood to wit as it is more or less sulphureous spirituous saltish or watry yea and according to the divers constitutions and conformations both of the food with which this flame is nourished as also of the little spiracles or breathing holes by which it is eventilated and further of the Heart it self whereby it is agitated and driven about here and there the accension of blood varies also in every one by means of several other accidents to wit as its flame is sometimes great clear and expanded sometimes small contracted or cloudy sometimes equal and in order sometimes unequal and often interrupted yea and it becomes subject to many other mutations also because the Soul it self having gotten a various nature or disposition it conceives divers affections and manners whereof we shall speak hereafter for as much as it is not a little thing that the disposition of the whole Soul depends upon the temperament of the bloody mass and the degree and manner of its accension or inkindling It clearly appears from what hath been said that Fire and Life do dye or are extinguished alike many ways to wit there is an end of either if the access of nitrous food or the departure of Effluvia's be hindred or if the oily or sulphureous aliment requisite to either be consumed too much withdrawn or perverted from its inflammable disposition of each whereof it is so clearly apparent that there needs no farther explication Thus far we have shewn that the Life of the Blood or that part of the Soul growing therein is a certain kind of Flame let us now see by what means it is disposed to burning and how near it comes to the similitude of a burning Candle or Lamp A common Lamp whether designed to give heat or light for the most part is wont to be made after this manner to wit the Oyl flowing perpetually to the wick gives continual food to the flame wherefore as there is but one fire-place or hearth only of light and heat the action of either is limited only to one place and so as often as there is need of more places at once or divers parts of the same space or body to be illuminated or made warm we place here and there divers lighted Candles or Lamps But if an Instrument made with great artifice such as is truly an animated Body with one liquor only contained in it should be made hot throughout the whole and to be kept always warm it ought not only to be lightly inkindled in the wick but in the whole superficies and derived by fit Tubes or Pipes to all the parts of the Machine then the burning liquor ought to enjoy proportionably to all its parts an access of nitrous Air and to lay aside Effluvia's and other recrements and ought also to have a supply of that constant expence these kind of offices are not to be performed any where up and down but only in some set places therefore the burning liquor ought to be carried about through the whole with a perpetual turn that all its portions might enjoy successively all those priviledges and at once heat the whole capacity of the containing Machine to wit both the inward and outward recesses Indeed such a Bannian or Bathing Engine artificially made might aptly represent the real Divine handy-work of the Circulation of Blood and what burns in it the Life-lamp But it may be objected that the Blood seems not to be inflammable of its own nature further since there is no flame of this heat or effervency to be beheld with the eyes it may well be doubted whether there be such a thing or no. I say first That the Chymical Analysis of the blood shews very many particles of Sulphur and of Spirit yea a plentiful stock of inflammable Oyl which are however mixed with other more thick Elements in a just proportion to bridle their too great inkindling to wit that this liquor might flame out by little and little and only through fewer parts for the constituting of a benign and gentle Lamp of life wherefore the blood being let out of a Vein upon a burning fire doth in some measure burn though it is not like the Spirits of Wine or Oyl of Turpentine turning all into a flame besides the whole mass of blood as the Oyl of a Lamp ought not to be fired yea its burning is instituted for that end that whilst all the Particles of the Mixture being freed some sulphureous and spirituous are consumed by burning others more subtil being sent in Troops might serve for the necessary uses of the animal Regiment and also others more thick or crass and nourishing as it were boiled or roasted might be dispensed for the cherishing all parts besides that all the dead or worn out and excrementitious may be sent away by fit or convenient sinks and others constantly substituted in their places by nourishment But in the interim that the vital Flame which destinated to so many offices we suppose to be inkindled in the Blood otherwise than the common flame which is plainly conspicuous appears not at all a probable reason thereof may be given as it is most thin and burns in the Heart and its depending Vessels as it were shut up in Receptacles it doth not clearly flame out but perhaps remains in the form of smoke or a vapour or breath yea although the blood should openly flame out yet it might be so done that its shining being most thin may not be perceived by our sight as in the clear light of the day we cannot behold a glowing red hot Iron nor shining sparks nor false fires nor rotten wood nor many other things shining by night why then may not the vital fire even thinner than they quite escape our sight Although sometimes hot living Creatures use to send forth a certain fire or flame only conspicuous by night For we have known in some endued with a hot and vaporous blood when they have put off their inner garments at night going to bed near a fire or Candle a very thin and shining flame to have shewn it self which hath possessed the whole inferiour region of the Body The reason of which affection seems wholly the same as when the evaporating fume of a Torch just put out is again inflamed by a light inkindling and manifestly argues that another flame