Blood in the Veslels passeth the Reins without all alteration But the cause of this thin consistence in the Urine as we speak of the Blood may be a twofold Crudity First That in the Stomach where the Aliments being frustrate of their due Digestion cannot supply the Serum with its ordinary Salts And the second is that in the Reins whose Tubult being thereby obstructed admit only the thin and Watery excluding the gross and terreous particles The Citrine or natural Colour of the Urine as it depends in a natural state which I think none will deny from the saline and sulphureous Particle of the Chyle in the different Digestions extracted and more intimatly therewith commixed So from the greater or lesser quantity of these Minima admixed in a praeternatural state their Colour is sometimes highned sometimes darkned However I never intend to exclude other Causes such as congrumate Blood the use of Rhubarb c. And this shall suffice for the Changes of the Urine upon which I have insisted the longer because they are wholly neglected in the Vindicatory Schedule suppose of all others they give us the greatest Light both as to the Prognosticks and Cures of Fevers Neither was this Omission of the Doctors altogether without reason for not only the Signs of Crudity and Coction which ever have and still will be observed by Learned Physicians in Fevers and by which the New Method is intirely destroyed from them and them only are to be had but also few or none of the Moderns from whom the Doctor might expect help have write any thing tollerably of them Having briefly handled some few of these Symptoms with which a Fever is ordinarly attended I come next to enquire after the antecedent Causes which may and ordinarly do produce this Exagitation or Commotion in which I have been labouring to prove the continent Cause of Fevers to consist And these I think for the most part never intending to exclude all others will be found the following Four viz. Obstruction too violent Motion Natural Evacuation suppressed and especially Cruaâ—ties transferred into the Mass of Blood By Obstructions I would have nothing else understood as the Coagulation of that limpid and serous Humour which being secerned in the Subcutaneous or Miliar Glands is excerned through the Pores of the the whole Habit and that in no small plenty under the Name of Insensible Transpiration Which Excrement being condensed and coagulate by the cold ambient Air or any other Cause does interrupt not only the further Transpiration But also disturbs the whole Circulation in the capillary Vessels or rather muscular Fibers By which means the Motion of the subsequent Blood being intercepted the Fibres of the Muscles as well as these of the Vessels are irritate and thereby urged into frequent and irregular not unlike to Convulsions Contractions by which both the circular and intestine Motions of the Blood are notably intended and that which we call a Fever produced It being enough here for brevities sake to suppose from Pathologie that the Motion of Fluids is augmented either by the Movent Mobile or Canals And this account seems to me and I hope will also to others far more reasonable than with the Learned Author of the V. S. P. 106. seq to attribute Sense and Reason to gross and stupid Matter Concerning Obstructions more may perhaps be found hereafter when I come to consider our Author 's New and Mechanical Hypothesis For of all other Causes I look upon them as the most seldom It is easie to gather from what is immediatly said that these Anastomoses or Inosculations of the Arteries and Veins which with the Ancients some of the Learned Moderns do admire as very convenient if not absolutly necessary for the Explication of the animal Functions are not by me admitted I desire to move a Debate to no Man therefore shall suffer them to abound in their own Sense who embrace them providing they will only allow me to give some Reasons why I reject them Without which I never have neither I think ever shall adopted or repudiat any Opinion because it was defended by this or impugned by the other Man And to let alone Secretion and Nutrition which to me these Inosculations being granted seem altogether unexplicable There be two Experiments to be found in some place of the Learned Bohn his Cire Anat. I not having the Book by me cannot design the Page but sure I am of them having oftner as once seen them tryed which do clearly evince the Bloods Extravasation As First Inject with a Syphon tepid water into an Arterie v. g. of the Arm of any subject whatsomever a knot being cast upon its fellow Vein The Water will never run out at the wounded Vein it being lanced betwixt the Ligature and the Arterie till the whole Arm and Hand be exceedingly distended i. e. The Pores of the Muscles be all replenished Secondly Injection being made of melted Wax into an Arterie as also of the same but of another colour into its neighbour Vein They will be found to have penetrate to the extremities of both the capillary Vessels but especially in the Arteries the Valves hindring much in the Veins but we shall never discern any intermediate Canal communicating with both The grand yea only Objection formed against this Opinion is That this Extravasation being admitted a continual Hemorhagie must of necessity follow and that the Blood would rather diffuse it self through the Flesh as enter the small capillary Veins This Objection indeed appears to be plausible and to create some difficulty But yet there is nothing in it what serious and after reflection will not easily remove which were no hard matter to shew if my design and leasure did not hinder me now I shall at this time only desire the Objectors to consider and say whether or not there be any difficulty in the Extravasation of the Blood which is not in each of the following Three Observations I offer to their consideration The First of which is That ordinary way of separating Waters from Oyls commonly called Filtratio per Elychnium where the Water or Oyl any of them in which the Cotton is dipped will by means of the Wool be carried from one Glass to another without the loss of so much as a drop And why pray may not the Blood be carried the very same way by the fleshy Fibers from one Vessel to another especially since the Tonick Motion of the Parts and influx of the Artereal Blood do help much Whereas the Experiment with the Oyl hath no other Assistant than the gravity of the Air. Secondly That Experiment first tried by Burnerus de Paner and afterwards succeeding to others as also to my self does in my weak Judgement not a litle confirm what I am saying And it is this Blow with a Tub into the Weazand of a Goose whose Intestine being tyed nothing can descend the Flatus will enter the open Extremities of the Mesaraick Veins and
are either Heterogeneous Bodies mixed with the Blood which by stimulating the Ventricles of the Heart the interiour Coats of the Vessels and muscular Fibers of the Parts cause frequent Contraction and consequently swiftness of Motion or inciding and volatile Medicaments which partly attenuating and inciding the Mass of Blood partly amplifying and inlarging the Pores and Passages produce the same effect with the former When I speak here of intending the circular Motion I mean only that of the Arteries for both Reason and Experience teach us that the acceleration of the returning Motion by the Veins would rather prove a hinderance as a help to this as well as to all other Secretions First It is clear from Reason for if the Blood were as readily taken up by the Capillary Veins as its is brought in by the Arteries it must necessarly return again to the Heart from whence it came Whereas admittance being denied by the Veins it seeks another way or passage which is that of Secretion Neither does Experience deny its assent to this perpetual Truth For if you will tye the social Vein of any Artery by which Blood is carried to the secerning Organ v. g. the Vena emulgens you shall quickly observe the Secretion to be far more copious than when the regressive Motion was allowed So that I may reasonably affirm The slowness of the refluent Motion of the Blood by the Veins to be none of the least among the efficient Causes of Secretion And this much for the First Secondly I come to give some Reasons why in the Cure of Continual Fevers Physicians of all Ages have adopted and practised this Method of Sweating As also why we at this day especially while D. Brown offers a Surer and Better do imitate them in that which to speak in his Language is pernicious and destructive to Mankind Indeed if without Reasons and these weighty ones too we should do that which according to the V. S can be nothing but horrid Murder and devilish Malice In stead of being Cherished Honoured and Entertained as in all Ages and among all civilized People Physicians have been we ought to be taken and Hanged for Villains and publick Murderers But if I can prove our Method to be right which I 'le endeavour now and his to be wrong which is to be done hereafter when discoursing of Purging Then let him judge upon whom the Punishment ought to be inflicted It were easy to accumulate Arguments in Favours of Diaphoreticks but I shall satisfy my self and I hope my Reader to with the following three Let us then First According to the seventh Axiome consider the motion of Nature I mean the course it takes when left to its self as in many mean and Indigent People it ordinarly is And this is continually to seek its own Relief by Sweating so that not one Fever of a hundred and that of all sorts is Cured another way Is there any Country Clown so foolish but in a Fever he 'll cry for a Sweat and if either by Art or Nature he can procure it he will promise himself speedy Relief and certain safety Now this being granted the Dr. himself not darring deny it should not the Physicitians who have taken to themselves that modest Denomination of Natur 's Servants and whose duty it is to assist her when doing right and to Correct her when doing wrong as by all she is looked upon to do when endeavouring to ease her self by Seige in a Fever except perhaps once in a hundred times when it comes critically should not they I say imitate her in Curing Fevers by Diaphoreticks the ordinary yea I I may say the only way by which she removes that Distemper yea certainly they should and that according to good Old Hippocrats excellent Aphorisme Whethersoever Nature enclineth to go thither lead her and it conduceth Besides this it becomes us Secondly to consider the Seat of the Morbifick matter in Fevers which none will deny to be in the Arteries veins Likeways the conformation of these Vessels deserves our attention Their Roots being in the Heart while their Branches tend to all parts of the Body that I may shun all occasions of Objections I know that properly speaking the Origine of the Veins is in the parts and they terminate with one Root in the Heart Now let us consider by what way that which is contained in these Vessels may be best and easiliest expelled Surely any Man of sense and Reason will freely confess by their Extremities or ends of Anastomoses or Inosculations I have said what I thought necessary before which acknowledged we can not but also grant that whatsomever part of the Body manyest of these Extremitieâ— run to or where most of the Arteries end in there will be the readiesâ— and most natural way providing iâ— be as patent as others to discharge whatsomever is contained therein But most of these Extremities do terminate by far in the habit and that this way is as patent as any other insensible Transpiration which by the Doctors own concession exceeds all other Evacuations of the Body no less as three times does clearly evince Therefore from these premises I may lawfully conclude the habit to be the readiest and best way to expell whatsomever is contained Heterogeneous in the Blood It was not unadvisedly that I said where most Arteries end there will be the readiest way to expell the Morbifick matter For whosoever is not altogether ignorant of Anatomy will easily allow that whatever once enters the Veins can never be eliminate till such time as it again run through the Arteries At their small end it cannot be seing what once enters there can by no means return First because of their valves Secondly Because of the tonick motion of the parts And Thirdly because of the continual Influx of the Arterial Blood And as it cannot happen at their small ends arising from the parts so far less can it be at the great end which terminats in the Heart Nothing entring its Ventricles in the Diastole but what is again thrust out into the Pulmonal and great Artery in the Systole from all which it is clear that neither Secretion nor Excretion can be of the Venal Blood Yet here I 'll present the Doctor with a stronger argument for Purging in Fevers as his whole Book hath done to his Readers And it is this being I assert what no Physician if he be not destitute of Anatomy and Physiology the want of which bring inexpressible Damage to Physick will deny that wherever Arteries end and depositate what is in them contained there must needs happen the Expulsion of the Morbisick matter But the Arteries some of them at least end in the intestines Ergo there in these intestinal Glands must happen the secretion of the Morbifick matter All which I grant and acknowledge yea farther confirms by avowing the faces Ani to be not only Excrements of the first but also of the third and second Digestion
First To oppose Reason to Reason still consulting Anatomy and Physiology And neither insisting on Experience which is nothing to the purpose while I can oppose a Thousand to One nor yet using Railery and Cavills which are by me all along declined they being most averse to my Humor and I often have observed that in stead of uniting Mens Opinions they rather separat and disjoin their Minds and Affections Secondly I wish it may be in the Latine Tongue in which the Controversy cannot only be better managed it being very hard to express Terms of Art in the English Language but also our Debates will be thereby concealed from the Vulgar who seing us blame one another may be apt to conclude us both in the wrong And Thirdly I hope he will do it shortly left when he is pleased to appear I may perhaps be removed Finally Let not the frequent use of the Word Nature offend the Learned Reader I have read Boyle on that Subject and means nothing thereby save the different Figure Structure Texture c. of the Parts by which they are enabled to act as Second Causes A brief Defence of the Old and Succesful Method of Curing Continual Fevers c. ALthough it be a Work of no small pains and require the knowledge of no few things rightly to act the part of a Physician Yet not a few there be aiming more at their own profit than their Neighbours safety who as they find it most Easie so they think it most Safe to acquire in some few Years I had almost said Months some general Compend and universal Method of Curing which they ignorantly and dangerously apply to all Distempers Not unlike to that Medicaster spoken of by the Learned Wedelius in the Preface to his Pharmacy who shufling all the Physical Receipts he had heired from his Father in a Bag desired the Patient to try his own Fortune And if the Cure chance at any time to be as successful as his was when called to a Countess lying sick of a Squinancy who trying her Luck did obtain a Clyster which causing her laugh did break the Imposthum immediatly they set up for Masters and are not satisfied to use the same Remedy in all other Distempers though never so different themselves unless it be also imployed approven by others It 's far from my Design to apply this to the person against whom I am now engaged at whom I have neither any Prejudice nor of whom I know any Evil save the Writing of the Vindicatory Schedule My Intention being only to endeavour the Vindication not only of these excellent Physicians who have gone before us but also of such who at this Day do either at Home or Abroad practise their Method and that Blessed be God with both Credit to themselves and Advantage to their Patients from theÌ„ calumnious Imputation of either Ignorance as if they knew not the right or wicked Maliciousness and horrid Murder that knowing the Right would yet do the wrong From one of which providing it be true what the Author of the V. S. most falsly alledges they cannot be absolved Among all these Miseries and Diseases unto which Man by his Fall was made liable a Fever perhaps is the most frequent A Fever it is which in all Countries and in all Seasons without respect to either Sex or Age does daily Invade Afflict yea and Kill many Persons Neither can it other ways be seing our Life seems no depend upon the circular and intestine Motion of our Blood Which Motion can hardly be troubled without the production of one sort of Fever or other So of necessity a Fever must be of all Distempers the most frequent as well as most dangerous I am not ignorant my self far less I 'm sure any of these in whose Defence I write how many and great Debates there be among Authors concerning the Definition as well as Division of Fevers However I shall concern my self in none of them here where I only resolve to give a short and for what appears to me the most probable Account of the Disease in so far as it may serve for clearing its Method of Curing For as I am very far from presumiug being abundantly conscious of my own Weakness to usurp the part of a Teacher So I â—ould never much value that vain and ostentive way of some who force all they can find Rare and Learned in Authors though never so remote from and alien unto the subject they treat of into their own Books and thereby make them as Ridiculous as the Picture described by Horace in the first Book of his Art Poet. which is a thing not unfrequent in the V. S. where all that concerns Fevers and their Cure might remain suppose the largest half of the Book had got the desert of the whole which is either the Fire or the S And how happily this Plagiary hath succeeded with the Doctor we shall perhaps afterwards have occasion to show in an instance of Anatomy Physiology and Chymistry To me then it seems not improbable that the Formalitie Essence or if you please a Term of Art the continent Cause of a Fever consists in a Commotion or Exagitation of the Intestine as well as Circular Motion of the Blood Whereby the Oéconomie of the Body is disturbed with divers and sometimes right grievous Symptoms Which Commotion for the most part may arise from some Heterogeneous Body conveyed into it That the Blood is the Subject of Fevers I suppose will be called in question by none seing not only the Changes and sometimes Advantages which do accrue to the Patient by its Evacuations are very observable but also the Crudity and Coction of the morbisick Matter in the Urine is discernable In a word the Jaundice which sometimes solves the Disease the Alterations of the Pulse c. are sufficient to perswade the morosest of Antagonists I look upon it as needless either to trouble the Reader or my self here with that more curious as useful Question Which of the Blood 's two parts is most frequently affected It being in my Opinion not unreasonable to acknowledge in the same a more liquorous and crass Substance which is moved besides another more Spiritual or Aetherecal which moves All the Arguments alledged in favours of the Aetherecal Portion such as the power of Opiats in Curing Fevers and these continual as well as intermittent the Effects of the Fancy and Apprehension in the same Case the unchangableness of the Urin and Pulse in malign Fevers and the like By any judicious and skilled Physician will be as soon Answered as they can be Proposed Yea it seems to me highly probable that sometimes the one sometimes the other but most frequently both may be the Theatre of this unlucky Tragedy It was not unadvisedly that I preferred the word Exagitation or Commotion to that of Fermentation For by this means I not only evite all these Debates and Altercations which I have observed betwixt
Malign And such are great Anxieties Inquietude sudden Prostration of the Strength Spots cold Sweats Tumors about the Glands called Parotides c. In enquiring after the Cause of these Malign Fevers I can find nothing save obscurity in the different Opinions of Authors While some with Willis fancy to themselves a great Coagulation of the Blood Again others who follow Sylvius strive as much for a lixivious and urinous Acrimony of the same De la Font pleads hard for an Arsenical and Corrosive Poyson inspired with the Air. For me in such ambiguity I willingly profess my Ignorance But still enclines to look upon their Cause as always Epidemick coming either from the Air Meat or Drink And whenever it effects seazeth especially upon the Head we ordinarly observing Symptoms of the Brain to insult whilst Pulse and Urine suffer small or no change And hence I suppose is the Proverb Good Pulse good Urine and the Patient Dies Acute Fevers are such as terminate against the 9 14 20 or 21. day But continuing no longer as the 7 they are called Peracute Yea sometimes they Kill in the Third and Fourth Day and so get the Name and that deservedly of Peracutissimae While these who extend themselves to the 40 day are termed Acutae ex Decidentiâ And all that exceed this Term whether Fevers or other Distempers have obtained the general Denomination of Lent or Chronick Diseases It is certainly beyond all question that this Diversity ariseth from the weakness or strongness of the morbifick Matter which in Lent Diseases at the beginning brings litle or no alteration to the Humane Body but through process of time partly by defatigating the Body partly by rendring more of the Blood like unto it self proves exitial to the Patient Which is too frequently seen in a Hectick it being of all Lent Fevers the most formidable Lastly Fevers were divided into Primary and Secundary or Symptomatick The first are such as have their Cause within themselves and own their Being to no other Disease as do the others called Secundary or Symptomatick Which be sometimes excited by pain as in the Gout Gravel c. sometimes they accompany Wounds Inflammations Ulcers and many other Maladies By all which the Motion of the Blood as well Circular as Intestine may be augmented and that which we call a Fever produced In the Page 185 of the V. S. the Doctor 's Exactness and great Skill in Physick is very conspicous For there he asserts Fevers and Tumors I suppose he means Inflammations Tumors being of a large extent to be perpetual Companions So that according to his Pathology the one cannot exist without the other Whereas all the World knows yea dayly finds it that Fevers can exist without his Tumors yea not one of ten Thousand without all Hyperbole hath them True it is indeed that Inflammations are ordinarly yet not always followed by Fevers and they are among the number of these I called Secondary or Symptomatick Many Things appertaining to Fevers and their Theory as Symptoms Prognosticks c. do as yet remain But I being far from presuming to give a particular Account or Description of that Disease knowing it to be a Load too heavy for my young and tender Shoulders finds my self nowayes obliged to mention them here My purpose being only to give a general and for what appears to me the easiest and best Description of the Malady into whose Method of Curing I resolve to inquire Neither will I labour it being more my desire to do well my self than to discover that others have done ill in refuting the Opinions of others as the Doctor doth though with Arguments I confess sometimes against but as often for them Yet I must pass some Reflections upon the Doctor 's New and Mechanical Hypothesis left my passing it by should offend its Author And to speak ingenuously his description of the Disease is as obscure as his Method of Curing is dangerous Have then the Scheme of the New and Mechanical Hypothesis in the Author 's own words P. 104. Seing then for the five Pages which go before contain only the Fundation though very unproportionable to the Noble Building afterwards erected in little more as one the returns of Repararation to the parts and functions ought to be made both in time and quantity in proportion to the waste by the efflux of the arterial Blood from the Heart as the Vehicle and thorow the Arteries as the Conduites of these Recruites When this is done Vegetly Integrally without any stop or delay then redounds Felicity Ease and Integrity of the Functions and Life But when that Efflux is retarded or stopt either by reason of the Blood it self or some stopage in the Extremities and small Channels of the Vessels or by reason of immoderate and unusual waste beyond the proportion of the ordinary supply as falls out in immoderate Exercise and Motion And so I say when by reason of any of these Causes the Heart cannot convey and lay in the desired Supplement in due proportion and timously by Stroaks repeated at the usual Intervals then it does by precipitating the Stroaks and straitning the Intervals of the Pulsations endeavour what in it lyes to overcome the slowness of the Motion of the Blood and to come so near as it can to the due and proportionable distribution of Nutriment in respect of the waste But if notwithstanding of these sedulous Endeavours of the Heart by redoubling of the Pulsations that slowness of the Blood shall by a gradual encrease of the thickness and of Obstructions in the Capillary Vessels prove yet so obstinate as still to be augmented then this leads straight to the Porch and Gate of Death Death being nothing else but a total and permanent Cessation and defect of this distribution Behold the Description of a Disease and it never once named Is this Doctor because it is so clear that who runs may read it surely then my Capacity is very shallow For had not the Title of that 7. Sect. promised a New and Mechanical Hypothesis I should from this Description never have inferred it and had not the very next Paragraph proposed an Objection I should further have looked back for it Yea I believe it would puzle your self were it not for these Marks to find it For my part I see nothing here described save Death and that perhaps not undeservedly for by means of the New Method Death and Fevers are become Synonima and so the one with you may safely go for the other But Thanks be to God it is otherways with us who walk in the Good Old and Experienced Path where it becomes but sometimes a passage unto it But why pray a New Hypothefis it being as old as since Bontekoe write de Febribus It is indeed very hard to know that Author's proper Opinion he being more taken up in refuting others as in explaining himself And what he hath said is so harsh and obscure that he can scarcely
does not go from the Vena Cava to the Vena Pulmonalis as is generally affirmed but rather terminates in the left Auricle it self and Canalem Arteriosum Now I hope the Doctor will never say that Sanguification is the work of the Lungs when the Blood is made for Nine Months in the Foetus and they never once concurr After the Doctor hath considered and soundly answered this Objection if I can raise no other against it I shall adopt his New Hypothesis But till such time I expect he 'll not be offended if I shall assert Sanguification to be a Function partly Organical and partly Similar i. e. in the Liver Reins Pancreas c. Such Particles as could not turn into Blood are deposed and so its Organical Also by the continual Motion thereof the sulphureous and nobler Particles of the Chyle are assimilate to the Blood for which it is called Similar Yet I am so ingenuous as to grant to the Doctor that Sanguification hath more help from the Lungs the Blood descending always more florid and brisk by the Vena Pulmonalis as it did ascend by the Artery as from any other part whatsomever Nevertheless they concurr only as an Instrument with many others albeit they may perhaps be the principal As for that Argument so much insisted on by the Learned Glisson it creates me no great difficulty For albeit I cannot but grant ocular Inspection having demonstrat it to me that the Blood appears in the Embryo before any Organ and so consequently cannot be made by that which is posterior to it self Yet I still think there is great difference betwixt Sanguification in the Foctus and in an Adult Person For in the former it is not simple Chyle that is converted into Blood but that which already circulating in the Mothers Body hath demitted its Bile in her Liver its Urine in her Reins c. by which it is disposed to turn into Blood So that if it had not experienced already the organical part from the Mother the similar action in the Foetus should hardly have produced the effect For which I hope none will deny as the same Subject may be differently affected by diverse Agents so the same Agent will produce divers effects upon various Subjects As expert seems the Doctor to be in Chymistry as either Anatomy or Physiology In all his Book there occurs nothing that savours of that Noble Art save one passage from Helmont and Tackenius which without any prejudice to either Author or Book might have been omitted it being beyond all debate now that alcalizate or fixed salts are not formerly preexistent in any Body being only produced by the acting of the Fire so cannot as the Doctor would have it be dissolved and extracted by the Aire before they exist He ought rather to have said That the Saline there being a great difference amongst Salts and Sulphureous Atoms which by joining together do constitute fixed they not being Natural but Factitious or alcalizat Salts while the Herbs are a drying exhale and fly away After having dwelt so long upon the Theory of Fevers it 's time to proceed to their Method of Curing Which indeed is the principal Thing it being no great Matter how wild a Mans Opinions be in Speculations providing he do not apply them to practice No Man must expect here a Description of all the various Indications which may and ordinarly do require Attention in a dogmatick and methodical Cure My design being only as I often said to propose the Good Old Rational and Successful Method and to vindicate it from D. Brown's Objections who hath not himself albeit the Author of a New One noticed the half of what deserves consideration in a Rational Cure Which nevertheless I 'le readily grant in some Epidemick Constitutions or Seasons and in certain Subjects especially where the Critical Motions of Nature happen per secissum which is not once in a hundred times to prove unsuccessful This only I would say that it is the most frequent and therefore deserves the Name of the best Method And where nothing happens about the Patient that is singular it ought always to be practised Before I go further it will not be impertinent to lay down some general Axioms which being founded upon sound Reason and frequent Experience have extorted Assent from and Credit with Physicians of all Ages Nevertheless they are not understood or rather not much regarded by our Learned Author I. Cures are threefold 1. Cura Curatoria which respect the Continent Cause as in Fevers and all acute Diseases 2. Praeservatoria which especially regards the Antecedent Cause ex gr in a person troubled with Gout Gravel c. after the removal of the Paroxism we Purge Bleed c. to prevent the Accession of another And 3. Cura Paltativa v. g. in a Patient troubled with incontinency of Urine which cannot be Cured the Sphincter of the Bladder being lacerate we apply such an Apparatus as Van Heer in his Observations provides for such a Strait II. Indications ordinarly sometimes they be moe but they are only particular are Three 1. Indicatio Curatoria which levels at the Disease and its Continent Cause 2. Conservatoria preserving the Strength that being by all means to be cherished And 3. Mitigatoria for it is principally occupied against the urgent Symptoms Such as Thirst Pains Watching c. which being sometimes more troublesome as the Distemper it self do require Attention even with the neglect of the primary Disease Some indeed there be who have denied this any room among Indications alledging that the one being removed the other will necessarly cease Symptoms following only the Disease as a shadow does the Body But to this moment I never heard of any who refused an Indication to the Continent Cause and Disease it self as Dr. Brown in the 71 Page of the V. S. hath precariously done Where leaving the Essence of the Disease he prosecutes the Antecedent cause Can any Person that knows or hath a respect for Physick and Physicians read or hear this without offence And this really is the Fountain from which many of his Errors do flow But consider Doctor and I intreat you as you love your Neighbours Safety and your own Quiet do Continual Fevers are not Intermittent in which the Antecedent Cause continues in the first ways and from thence is gradually and successively carried in to the Blood so that whoever can take away the Fomes may expect in all reason to prevent the accession of a new Paroxism though never hinder the present Whereas in Continual Fevers the whole Antecedent Cause is Semel Simul carried into the Blood and excites the Fever Which we must especially regard and not the Antecedent Cause which now is not it being turned into the Continent Further when the Doctor is called to a Patient is it to Cure the present Fever or to prevent a future If it be to prevent a future then he does well to look to
Ages Constitutions and Sexes is a practice which neither Reason perswades to nor Experience allows of We all acknowledge and not without Cause that our Life and Strength consists in our Blood It 's also confessed that Nature and Strength do Cure Diseases The Physician only assisting where Nature is weak and directing when she 's wrong Why then do we evacuate that Blood which we expect should Cure the Disease and relieve the Patient Ay but say some with the Doctor The ill Blood comes away and leaves the good behind I answer this is a Reason so ridiculous in its self and so repuguant to the Laws of the Circulation that hardly any save Gardners Old-wives c. to whom that Noble Invention is a Mystery will ever pretend it For whatever comes to the Vein good or evil is also evacuate Yea the Evil is so intermixed with the Good that till it self have made a separation no Art can disjoin them For Example suppose a sick Man having in his Body Twelve Pounds of Blood Eight of which are Good and Four Evil Now being all circulate through the Heart at least twise every quarter of an Hour is there any Man so absurd as to affirm that only the Evil and only at that time will come to the Vein which is wounded while the Good being strangely sagacious and desirous to stay in the sick persons Body to restore him his Health will go to the other and remoter places Is there I say any Man so absurd as to maintain this prodigious Fancy Nay I think it is far more credible that of the whole Twelve one Pound being evacuate two parts will be Good and one Evil just as it was in the Body And all the Advantage which the Patient by Bleeding does reap is only this That before he had Twelve Pounds of Blood Eight whereof were Good and Four Evil but now he hath only Eleven in all whereof Seven Pound with Four Ounces are Good and Three Pound with Eight Ounces are Evil. However the Doctor for his timous assistance to this decaying Opinion deserves to be listed with if not to get the precedence among the forenamed Medicasters For says he P. 151 As in a River we observe the heterogeneous Body still to tend towards the Brink so in the Veins the feculent and ill Blood runs to their sides and runs first out while the finer returns to the Heart A notable Invention indeed to preserve this feculent and exploded Figment What way pray can the fine Blood return not by the Arteries that being absolutely impossible for grant their Motion should invert which yet no Man of common Sense will imagine the three Semilunar Valves do still hinder Neither by the Vein for your Band put betwixt the Orifice and the Heart stops the passage So that of necessity whatever enters the Vein good as well as bad runs out at the Wound For do we not see that the Ligature being removed and passage being granted neither good nor bad appears a sure Evidence that it being present both of them evacuates When Doctor Brown finds the third way he hath gained the point If the Doctor had only given this as an Answer to some of the impertinent Questions of a Patient I could have forgiven him and applauded his Wit but seriously to propose it in a printed Book is absolutly inexcusable The Chirurgical Fountain does further supply us with Vesicator Platsters from which in Fevers whatsomever we obtain no small Advantage But especially in Malign and where the Head is affected yea in all Cephalick Distempers their use by reiterated Experience is approven But there being no debate about them and their use I proceed to Pharmacie which assists us with moe Weapons to strugle against this destructive Enemy The First whereof shall be Vomiters which providing they be timously and warily administrate do oftentimesnip the Evil in the very Bud and by stricking at the Root do with one blow dislodge this unkind Guest From what hath been said I suppose that for the most part the Antecedent Cause of a Fever comes from the Ventricle If then in the beginning of the Malady before the Antecedent Cause be all transferred to the Mass of the Blood and there become the Continent we use this Remedy we do thereby purge the Stomach withdraw the Matter and either extinguish or at least so notably asswage the Fury of the Fever that after it is hardly ever able to make great disturbance Nevertheless they are not to be given indiscriminatly but with great wariness as all other Remedies whatsomever Albeit the D. in his whole Book hardly ever mentions one Caution And First We are to consider where the Matter does lodge For if the Antecedent Cause should be any Evacuation supprest great Motion and the like There could be nothing more ridiculous than to advise Vomiting but if it be in the Stomach which is easily known by the Hypocondria Swelling frequent Rifting Nauseating c. they can hardly be neglected but with the Patients eminent danger Providing his Constitution Age shape of Body and other Distempers v. g. Hemorhagy adjoined do not disswade it All which being carefully observed they are most innocent as well as powerful Remedies in the beginning of Fevers It is likeways to be noticed that if the Circumstances require Bleeding it ought to preceed Vomiting lest by the shaking of the Body some small Vessel burst Next I come to Diaphoreticks which I may truly call the universal Cure of Fevers Nature pointing with its Finger to their use while in the universal Declination of Continual and in the parricular Declination of Intermittent Fevers Sweat breaks forth in a very great plenty This nevertheless is the Method which our Author rejects wherefore I shall take the more pains to confirm it Which I 'le endeavour to do by the following Three First By declaring how they work Secondly By giving some Reasons why we use them And Thirdly By answering the seeming Objections instanced by D. Brown against them About the First I need not be very prolix for if we consider what Conditions are requisite to insensible Transpiration and Sweating in a state natural Betwixt which there is no greater difference as that in the former the Matter is excerned in a lesser quantity and so absorbed by the Cloaths or ambient Air under the name of Vapour whereas in the latter or Sweat it chances in a greater abundance and so cannot be sweept up but rather constitutes Drops called Sweat I say whoever will be at the pains to consider the Conditions requisite for this insensible Transpiration and Sweating while they are natural Which are Fluxibility in the Liquor a due Amplitude in the Pores and a Briskness in the circular Motion will easily understand how Diaphoreticks work when given according to Art Whatever can either attenuat the Blood in its Consistence quicken it in its Motion or dilate and amplify the Miliar Glands and Pores will certainly procure Sweat And such