not seem strange to any man that these rare Productions of sundry species of Worms should happen in mens Bodies if we consider That in our Meats Drinks and Air the Salts or Seminalities of sundry Insects may be conveyed into and mingled with our Blood which are kept under by the dominion of the Spirits and never are permitted to exercise their own natural Operations till in Diseases and Disorders of the Body they come to be set at liberty Now the causes and reasons of the generation of Insects as well in humane as other Bodies being as ancient as the Creation it self in which the Seeds of Worms as well as Vegetables received their power of multiplying there appears no reason why Worms should in these times be more frequently appearing in Fevers and other Diseases than in former or that any alteration should by vermination be brought into the nature of Diseases Now as to the Experiments of Kircher though I will not question the faith of that Author in delivering them yet I do not doubt but in former Ages by the help of a good Microscope the same Observations might have been made And though I will allow that in times of Pestilence by the indisposition of the Air and the rambling of pernicious steams flowing from infected Bodies more plentiful swarms and numerous productions of insects in the Air and other Bodies may insue than in other more healthful seasons yet I must beg leave of Kircher to apprehend some difficulties in assenting to his Hypothesis since the manner of infection from the plague may be more easily made out from the figure and motion of Atoms than by those swarms of living creatures perpetually vented from the infected Body which if they poison the sound Body by turning its Blood and Juices into the like pernicious Vermin I see no reason why they should not fill the whole Air with their fatal progeny and impregnating the Winds with their Venemous Colonies permit no man to be safe though removed at a considerable distance from the places which are infected Whereas it is found true by constant Experience except by some common cause which has corrupted the whole aire the plague be produced The pestilence insects not at a far distance but only within a narrow Sphere It is very possible that not only the Blood of men in Feavers but also that of healthy persons may sometimes be observ'd to be full of Mites or Worms as well as Milk and Vinegar and yet no malignant Distemper much lesse the plague be produc'd by them For we find that these Liquors though almost constituted of innumerable little Animals are not in the least adverse to the nature of man and on the contrary the best and sharpest Vinegar which most abounds with Worms to be an excellent Antidote and preservative against the plague Neither will M. N. I must tell him be er'e the nearer as to the curation of Diseases from this Notion of Kirâ—her For even those Remedies which will destroy great Worms in the Stomach and Bowels are perhaps apt to produce little Mites in the Blood as in the Experiments quoted out of Dr. Ent the Spirit of Moscatel produces Flies and Vitriol which is an admirable resister of all putrifaction in Water or Wine produces Worms As to the Cure of malignant Feavers though I know well that in them Worms are often produced in the Bowels and other parts from the putrifaction of the Aliment and corruption of the Ferments of the parts yet they are not seldome free from those accidents and when they happen Nature and Physicians have so ordered the matter that generally most Medicines which are Alexipharmical are likewise proper against the Worms Riverius River Obs 91. in his Observations recommends it as a thing worthy of especial notice That Bezoar is of admirable virtue against VVorms and in another place highly commends Scordium The virtues of Treacle Mithridate Diascordium Harts-horn Coral Pearls Trochisks of Vipers the acid juices of Minerals and Vegetables the Compound waters of the Shops as Aqua Scordii Composita Theriacal frigida Saxon and many other Remedies used both by the Galenists and Chymists are sufficiently known to be of admirable Virtue and Use in both cases So that the very same Remedies which are of force against the malignity of the Disease are also very prevalent in destroying VVorms As to the Plague as I have before intimated the account which the Learned Gassendus gives of it seems to me abundantly more satisfactory than what Kircher pretends to by his animated Effluxes Videtur inprimis sayes that Learned Author halitus pestilens idem posse proportione praestare in aere quod Coagulum in lacte Gassend c. de Calore Subterraneo Ut enim dum Corpuscula coaguli per lactis Substantiam diffusa excurrunt ita situm partium illius commutant ut ex fluido fixum consistensque reddant eo modo quo si confusam fluxamque congeriem tessularum exquisite aequalium perflans Ventus sic emoveret ut facies faciebus exquisite coadunaret Sic Corpuscula halitus pestilentis insinuata in aerem intelligi possunt ea ratione invertere commutareque ejus situm ut ex salubri insaluber evadat qui prius egregie naturae animalis accommodabatur incommodus illi summopere fiat Neque mirum sit si qui prius animalis Corpus fovebat continebatque in suo statu illius partes deinceps conturbet immutare coactet Deinde videri quoque poteâ— halitus idem sive in aere sive in animalis corpore quod flamma ignisve praestare Ut enim dum flamma aeri admota in quem Naphtha halitum pinguem corpusculis-ve igneis turgentem circumfuderit ipsum sui similem facit creatve in eo flammam quatenus corpuscula ignis subeuntia in halitum quae sunt in eo sui similia hoc est ignea Corpuscula ex ipsa halitus textura quam discutiunt extricant iisque similes suos motus reddunt Sic dum halitus pestilens aeri Corporive animalis admonetur intelligi potest subeuntia â—ejus corpuscula ita emovere illa quae in ipsis sui similia reperiunt ut ea in texturam novam segregent motus suis similes exitiales utpote induant Nempe ut nemo diceret esse in illo aere circum Naphtham fuso neque etiam in ligno corpuscula ulla calorifica quatenus propter conditionem ejus naturae ad quam spectant indicium caloris nullum exhibent sic nemo etiam diceret esse in aere viso puro animalive habito sano venenata ulla pestiserave corpuscula quae esse tamen omnino valeant utcunque ob eam Contexturam quam attinent se minime prodant Possemus id uberius ex Gangrenae effectu aliisque multis declarare And indeed the Hypothesis which explains the way of the working of the pestilent Infection upon the Air and Blood of sound persons by the comparison of the Runnet's coagulating and fixing
has been familiarly taken notice of and discoursed by the Physitians which has not been long the name has from them been deriv'd down to the Nurse-keepers and Searchers and is grown so common in their mouths that Diseases which either they understand not or have a mind to conceal are now often given in under the name of the Scurvy The Rickets is I think very rightly supposed by the Learned Doctor Glisson to be a Disease wholly new and to have had for one of its chief its procatactick Causes the Peace Security and Plenty which the Nobility and Gentry of this Nation had long enjoyed immediately before the first breaking forth of it Glisson de Rachid p◠241. From whence they had addicted themselves to a more soft delicate and debauched way of living and by that means contracted a constitution of body more effeminate flabby and unfirm than their Ancestors who by continual Toils Wars Dangers and other Manly Exercises not only preserved their own strength of body and generosity of mind but also deriv'd it entire to their Children But I do not find that it is observed by any able Physitian That the face and appearance of it is in the least altered from that in which it discovered its self at its first eruption neither is it entered into any stricter complication with the Pox and Scurvy than formerly Glisson de Rachid c. 20. These being Diseases as Doctor Glisson himself tells us very little a-kin and only by accident sometimes meeting in the same body For the increase of the Consumption in the Bills of Mortality Mr. Grant himself gives so sufficient a Reason that we need go no farther to enquire the cause of it nor to ascribe it to the alteration in the nature of that Disease since he affirms That almost all who dye of the French Disease are put into the Bills of Mortality under the name of Consumption For upon enquiry he sayes he found That all mentioned to dye of the French Pox were returned by the Clerk of St. Giles 's and St. Martins in the Fields dead of the Consumption from whence he concludes Grant Bills Mortal c. 3. That only hated persons and such whose very Noses were eaten off were reported by the Searchers to have dyed of this Malady The Stopping of the Stomack I can imagine to be nothing else but the Disease which Physitians call Asthma or Dyspnaea because I find not the least mention of this very frequent Malady in the Weekly Bills and that I observe there is nothing more usual with the Vulgar in their complaints to Physitians than to assign those Distempers to their stomacks which properly belong to their Lungs The Rising of the Lights is I think truly enough believed by M. N. to be that frequent Symptom which is vulgarly called Suffocatio uterina or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And I am not of Opinion that that Suffocation is only the proper affect of Women and that solely it is caused from the disturbance of the Womb For I have seen some men very much troubled with a rising up in their Throats and especially in Hypocondriacal Distempers no less apprehensive of being choaked than Hysterical Wo It is worth the taking notice of in this place that the Author of Medela who everywhere else inveighs so bitterly against the Aristotelean and Galenick Philosophy when he pretends to give some account of the reasons and causes of these Symptoms for want of truer apprehensions of his own shelters himself under the very weakest and most exploded part of that Philosophy And flies to the pitiful and jejune notions of Vapors raised in the Lower-belly especially about the Spleen in the stomack and about the Midrif and in the Cavity of the Omentum which must needs whilst they continue there hinder the free motion of the Midrif And a little farther that there may be no scruple left of his Ignorance in Anatomy he acquaints us with the playing of the Scorbutick malignant Vapors through the Veins and Arteries to the Lungs and by communication thence to the heart Which Opinion is so contrary to the Doctrine of Circulation that there is scarce a Butcher who is not able better to inform him and he may learn at every Shambles for 't is not fit he should prophane a Theatre that not one drop of blood enters the Lungs before it has passed the right Ventricle of the heart And now by reason this is a Subject very well worthy of a more accurate Disquisition and the Account which M. N. has pretended to give seems very lame and unsatisfactory I will beg leave to digress and offer some apprehensions which I have concerning the Hysterical Passion and other Distempers which seem to come very near it and agree in many of the Symptoms and Accidents A Digression concerning the Hysterical Passion THough the Disease called Hysterica Passio be by almost all Authors treated of as only peculiar to Women and proceeding only from the distemperature of the Womb yet as I have before observed it may upon grounds drawn from Reason and Experience be very truly affirmed That Men also are liable to most of the Symptoms of it and that even in Women they are often caused when the Womb is not in the least concern'd in the guilt And the reason why this Sex is more frequently than that other afflicted with this Malady may very well be ascribed to their more delicate constitution and soft texture of their nervous parts whereby they become more liable to convulsive motions and upon the vellicating and twitching of any one part endued with exquisite sense to have Convulsions communicated to the whole nervous System from whence the whole frame of the Body is put into disorder as we see Clocks and Watches whose Springs and Wheels are contriv'd with too subtil and nice workmanship are oftner in fault than those of more plain work For the better understanding of the Nature of this Disease and of the Causes from whence all the Symptoms do flow it will not be improper to give those Descriptions of it which are delivered by Authors and of the Accidents which in some particular persons have occurr'd to my own observation The Paroxysms or Fits of this Disease in some move regularly and return at certain set-times in others are uncertain and wandring Some persons they invade in an instant in others they give notice and warning by certain signs which forerun the Fit and are a Prologue to the Tragedy As a dulness of Spirits Laziness Faintness Paleness of Face Sadness of Countenance The Parties press their Belly with their hands and perceive something to rise up to their apprehensions as big as a Cannon-Bullet their Legs fail them and tremble they find something rise up to their Throat ready to choke them Then they grow drowsie lose their understanding some laugh others weep some do both Besides they find a gnawing pain at the mouth of their Stomack a loathing of Meat
Hysterical Fits and some even after so large Haemorrhages that there has been more Reason to believe they had not Blood enough left to maintain the Circulation than to suspect the Lungs and Heart could be oppressed with it Riverius has an Observation of a Maid River Ob cent 1. ob 94. who having her menstruous Flux in so violent a manner that in the space of two hours she voided four or five Pints of Blood fell into so terrible a Fit of the Mother that she lay without speech as one dead and yet had her eyes open and shewed with her hand that she was strangled These and other Reasons seem to argue That the Animal Constitution I use Dr. Glysson's word is primarily affected in this Disease Glisson de Râ—chid p. 19. and the heart and lungs only secondarily and by consent and that the disorders of the vital parts as well as the rest of Hysterical Symptons are meerly convulsive motions Consonant to this Dr. Willis in his most admirable Treatise of the Brain Nerves gives an excellent account how the Lungs come to be affected in Hysterical and Hypochondriacal Paroxysms in these words Si quando nervos pneumonicos à causa morbifica affectiones Spasmodicae afflixerint ita ut motibus inordinatis convulsi arterias venas quas amplectuntur perperam constringant aut huc illuc contrahant propterea Sanguis aut pulmonibus nimis exulans eos flaccescere ac in se concidere facit adeo ut aerem copiose attrahentes ipsum haud facile reddant vel quod crebrius usu venit Sanguis intra pulmones detentus ibidemque stagnans eos infercit ac diu rigidos tenet ut aerem inspirare nequeant Vtriusque generis Symptomata in affectibus Hystericis quibusdam Hypochondriacis passim contingunt Quinimo interdum ipsa Bronchia pari nervorum Spasmo convelluntur ac in motu suo praepediuntur quo minus debito modo aerem inspirent exspirentque prout in paroxysmis Asthmaticis cernitur cujusmodi affectus saepenumero a nervorum vitio sine insita quavis pulmonum dyserasia producuntur Willis Nervorum Descrip c. 24. In the same Chapter he acquaints us how the affections and motions of the Heart are produced by the influence of the Animal Spirits through the intercostal and eighth pare of Nerves and that the tremblings and disorderly vibrations of the Heart which evidently differ from its pulsifick motions are caused from the violent Succussions and Convulsions of the Pericardium To evince the necessity of the influx of the Animal Spirits to maintain the motion of the Heart he tells us That he had often made this Experiment in Dogs when they were alive Having opened the Skin about the Neck he tyed both the Trunks of the Par Vagum with very strict Ligatures upon which the Dog seem'd to be stun'd lost wholly his voyce and fell into Convulsions about the Hypochondria with a great trembling at his heart But these presently ceasing he lay as if he were just a dying without any life or vigor in his countenance scarce being able to move any part and refusing all meat that was offered him Notwithstanding he dyed not in several dayes till he was quite starv'd though the Nerves were both cut asunder The Heart receiving by the recurrent and intercostal Nerves a sufficient though weak supply of Spirits to maintain a faint motion and a Circulation enough to keep the Dog alive Having hitherto prov'd That the Animal Constitution is primarily affected in the Hysterical Passion it will follow that theremay be assigned as many causes of this Distemper as we can imagine able either notably to vellicate the Extremities of the Nervs affect them so strongly as to draw into consent the whole System or else to put the Animal Spirits in the Brain into so great a confusion and disorder as to disturb their constant and regular irradiation and influx into the bowels and other parts of the body Or whatever causes are apt to render the nervous Juyce which is the Vehicle of the Spirits sharp and pungent and apt to irritate and provoke the Fibers in its passage The Ancients reckon the Seed retained in the genital parts in too great a quantity as one of the principal causes of these affections and that we may the better understand how that is able to put the Animal Spirits and Nerves into disorderly motions it will not be impertinent to consider the nature of it The Seed or Geniture seems to consist of Salt Sulphur and a great quantity of Spirit for these active principles are only able to perform that wonderful work of Generation in that secret shop of Nature the Womb. It may be proved by sundry Experiments That a nitro-sulphureous spirit is the Author of all Generations as well in Vegetables as Animals The Account which that eminently learned person D. Ent gives of the production of things in his Apology for the Circulation against Parisanus is very much to this purpose Eat Apol. Terra Aqua sayes he materies sunt rerum naturalium in quibus seu uteris diversa rerum gignendarum semina sive spiritus delitescunt quorum virtutes in salibus potissimum nidulantur Per calorem solis humores tenues variis salibus impraegnati ascendunt aeremque nostratem constituunt denuoque in elementa unde evecta erant relabuntur Quinetiam interdum majore copia roris forma decidunt cujus opera Terra Aqua spontaneos suos foetus producunt Indicium hujus rei est quod si aqua calida terram perfuderis namque eo modo sal omnis educitur nihil postea in ea nascitur neque vermiculi neque lapilli nec gramen imo nec semina quidem ei commissa licet soli haec terra exponatur aqua stillatitia irroretur nihil inquam inde progignitur donec per aliquod temporis spatium sub dio posita novo rore sive sale vivifico impraegnetur Hic ros super arborum frondes incidens varia insectorum genera producit Hic in mediano plantarum cortice potissimum stabulatur per quem plantae vivunt unde debito tempore frondes flores fructus producuntur ac propterea illo ipso in pertinacibus viscerum obstructionibus reserandis utimur In quo si Brosseus recte computum iniit vigecuplo plus hujus salis quam in ulla alia arboris parte reperitur Imo sunt qui affirmant ab ipsis plantarum salibus terrae commissis easdem denuo plantas repullulare Hinc constat idem etiam animalibus contingere hominumque semen de natura salis participare quod probatur his rationibus 1. Semen diutius retentum copia adauctum titillationem excitat id autem sali contingere in prurigine videre est 2. Semen in humido liquescit quod sali proprium est 3. Acidum olet 4. Hinc fit ut nimio coitu capilli qui tali sale abundant defluant Ossa eo
impraegnata in lue Venerea afficiantur The Sum of what this learned person asserts is That nitro-sulphureous Spirits or Salts are as it were the Soul of the World and the Authors and Causes of all Productions and Generations These Seeds Spirits or vivifick Salts are certainly much more exactly elaborated and exalted in Animals than Vegetables and in those which are more perfect than in the less for that there are Instruments and Organs purposely ordained and contrived by Nature which are to give a perfection to the Seminalities of Men and other Creatures which are endued with a regular shape proportionable to the nobleness and exactness of the Fabrick which they are to design and build when they are employed for the continuance of the kind in the act of Generation Willis Dâ—script Nerv Therefore as Dr. Willis does very well demonstrate The Arteries do after the same manner instill into the Testicles a genital juyce for the making of Seed as they do into the Brain an animal Liquor for the production of Spirits which in the Veins and Arteries contrived for that cause with infinite turnings and windings is made more subtil and volatil and the Parts are in their passages exactly mixed the more gross and terrestrial are separated and at length the refined and exalted Liquor is sent into the inward substance and body of the Stones where being farther elaborated and mingled with the volatil Salt the innate ferment of those parts it becomes Seed It is farther to be considered That when the Ferment implanted in the genital parts comes to be sufficiently ripened and by a long digestion has arrived to its perfection Men and Women attain to that state and maturity which we call in Latin Pubertas At that time the genital parts grow hot and being filled with seminal Spirits discharge themselves continually of some part of them by the veins into the mass of blood from whence the nervous Juyce and Spirits become tinctured and impregnated with the seminal Ferments so that about that time the blood grows high and luxuriant and in Women being hardly contained within its own limits is emptied every Month by a periodical turgescency There is at this time a great alteration wrought in the manners and behaviour and the ranck acid scents vented by the Emunctories of the Nerves do declare That the Juyce which passes in them is inspired with the geniture Now if for want of seasonable Evacuation by Coition this genital spirit does not only too much abound in the blood but also in its frequent Returns by the Arteries to the Testicles is overdigested and too highly elaborated which is called by Physitians contracting a malignant quality it renders the spirits upon all slight occasions especially in Women whose Nerves and Brains are weak liable to sudden and impetuous Fermentations so that upon the Orgasms of these unruly Seminalities and a forcible disunion of the saline part from the sulphureous those Explosions and Convulsions are caused in the Abdomen and other parts This Notion I acknowledg to Dr. Willis which are so violent for the most part and impetuous that they cannot well be imagined to be produced by any other cause than such as must at least equal the force of Gunpowder And we find how apt these spirits are to take fire in the blood and nervous juyce by the causes which in Women liable to the Fits induce a Paroxysm For passions of the mind violent exercise sweet smells or any slight cause whereby the blood and spirits are chafed presently brings on a Fit that the abounding of the seminal spirits in the body may be one cause of the Fits of the Mother and certainly it is the most violent is confirm'd by the observation of Riolan who affirms That upon the Dissection of Hysterical Virgins he has found their Testicles bigger than his Fist filled with seminal matter But certainly as the Seed is one cause of this Disease so is it oftentimes produced from other causes and oftentimes when the genital parts are not in fault Nay it is often obvious to be observed That a defect in the uterine Ferment as in Cachectical Green-sickness Maids has occasioned them to be much afflicted with Hysterical Passions For the blood in such Women for want of the seminal tincture which ought at a due time to enliven and inspire it remains crude slimy and does not as it ought cleanse its self by its menstrual Purgations by which means many Impurities are cast upon the Brain with which the nervous juyce becomes to be much vitiated and to prove an improper Vehicle for the spirits and by exciting preternatural Fermentations in the nervous parts to cause Hysterical Paroxysms which happen for the most part periodically and at set-times when the body expects its lunary benefits for at such times the nervous juice as well as the Blood being saturated with Feculencies indeavours by fermentation to depurate it self by which the Animal Spirits are put into disorder and the nerves drawn into convulsive motions These two The Seed and Menstruous blood retained are the onely causes of Hysterical fits which are assigned by almost all Authours except Riverius who adds that other humours likewise retained in the womb and genital parts have likewise their shares in producing those Symptoms which he concludes from observing That many Old-Women who are neither troubled with Seed or menstruous blood are oft-ten very obnoxious to these distempers To which he adds a Notion of his own which he sayes is of very great moment and seems very agreeable to this Hypothesis That Hysterical Passions are not onely excited by vapours raised from the forementioned substances But the very humours which find no vent by the passages of the womb which is a kind of Sink to the body through a suppression of the Menses Riv. pr. l. 15 c. 6. or the Whites are sent back to the upper parts and infect them with an ill quality which they have contracted by too long a stay in the vessels of the womb by a contagion from the Seed and menstruous blood To these Causes which are delivered by Writers may all such be added as Authours of this Distemper which are apt by vellicating the extremities of the nervs to cause Convulsions Such are sharp juices in the womb spleen and other bowels schirrous tumours not onely in the womb but in the stomach mesentery breast and other parts The same accidents will wounds in the nerves produce and in Women subject to Fits even gentle Vomits which work by causing a convulsive motion in the stomach will put them into Hysterical Paroxysms as I observed lately in a Lady my patient to whom being above fifty years of age upon very urgent indications I gave onely Ê’iii's of infusion of Crocus metallorum and because I knew her to be Hystericall and had formerly observed in others Paroxysmes induced by Vomits before she tooke it I ordered an Hysterical plaister to her Navel The Vomit
wrought very gently with her but as soon as the working was over after her last Vomit she fell into a Fit of the Muther It might be expected that I should now give an account of every particular Symptom which belongs to this disease but not designing to make an exact Treatise of it in this place I must recommend to the Reader the consideration of these causes which I have mentioned or any other which he can imagine powerful enough to make disorders in the animal Spirits and convulsions in the nervous parts and as for the particular consents correspondencies of one part with another how distempers begun in one part manifest themselves in another far remote I referr him to Dr. Willis his most learned Treatise of the Brain and Nerves and to the Schemes wich he will there meet with For without such an Anatomical consideration of those parts it is impossible to receive any tollerable satisfaction concerning the affections of them And I will onely in this place give him an account of the most notorious Symptom the rising of the Muther from which all the rest receive their denomination in Dr. Willis his own words Plerique abdominis plexns praesertim vero insimus affinis ejus mesenterii maximus in passionibus Hystericis vulgò dictis saepenumero afficiuntur Willis Nervor descrip c. 27. Porro illud Symptoma in Paroxismis ejusmodi valde frequens nempe quo velut globus ab imo ventre efferri ac circa umbilicum impetuose exilire percipitur ut perinde uteri ascensus perhibeatur Dico id nihil aliud esse quam immanes horum plexuum spasmos Saepe quidem in foeminis interdum etiam in viris novi cum affectio convulsiva in aderet primo molem in hypogastrio â—ssurgere visam dein circa medium abdomen intumescentiam ita immanem successisse ut viri fortis manibus ut ut validissime intentis haud comprimi aut inhiberi potuerit Proculdubio admirandi hujus affectus causa est quod intra paris intercostalis nervos Spiritus animales influi quoties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sive motus Convulsivos ineunt primo uti plerumque assolet circa nervi extremitates nempe in plexu abdominis infimo effervescere ac velet explodi inciptant quae illorum affectio cum sursum perreptans ad plexum Mâ—senterii maximum deferatur adeo ut Spiritus ejus incolae pari inordiatione corripiantur nihil mirum est ista medii abdominis intuumescentia ac velut materiae cujusdam nitrosulphureae explosio cietur In this and the place before quoted out of him we see that Dr. Willis whose sense M. N. that he may honour himself by quoting of him every where either ignorantly or willfully mistakes ascribes Hysterical hypochondoriacal and asthmatical risings and stoppings to Convulsions of the nerves and not to vitious and malignant vapours raised in the lower belly especially about the spleen in the stomach Mâ—d. Mâ—d. p 49. 50. and about the Midriffe and in the cavity of the Omentum Nor to the Playing of the Scorbutick malignant vapours up through the veines and arteries to the lungs and by communication to the heart which accompt may be well enough tollerated in Sennertus but is by no means to be indur'd in M. N. who pretends so much to the new discoveries in Physick and undertakes to demolish and overthrow all the old Writers And yet aggrees with them in their grossest mistakes And now having clearly proved that the Diseases of this present age are not so much changed and of another nature as to render the old way of Physick uselesse I will next proceed to examine whither the causes assigned by M. N. are sufficient to produce that great alteration both in Nature and art which he imagines to be made CHAP. III. THE Causes of the alteration of Diseases from their ancient state and condition the Author of Medela assigns to be the Pox and Scurvey which by carnal contact by ill cures by accidental contagion by haereditary propagation and by lactation he supposes so to have overspread the whole face of Mankind as that by them there is introduced an universal alteration and depravation of Nature from whence he would inferr that the rules Methods and Medicines which were used by the Ancients in the curing of their diseases are become altogether uselesse in ours As to carnal contact haereditary propagation and lactation I very readily grant that the Pox and scurvy may by those ways be communicated from the diseased persons to the sound But as to accidental Contagion as he calls it upon which point lies the main stress of his Arguments for the universality of those diseases by which they like the Plague infect at a distance and by steams emanations taint the whole stock of Mankind it is a meer whim of his own and so far from being a solid truth that it is point blank contrary to the daily experiecne of the world and the authority and observations of the most learned and faithful Writers and the very Nature and Essence of those diseases When M. N. comes to handle the point of the propagation of the Pox and Scurvy by ill cures it is pleasant to observe that he does not onely fling dirt upon the learned Physitians for letting blood and using the purgers of the Shops but that he may ingross all the sinners of the Town he likewise falls foul upon his own Fraternity the men of his own Rank and Ability in Physick the poor Quacks and Mountebanks who pretend to the Cure of the Venereal disease and to make room for his own very injuriously tears down their bills from the Posts On my word he will make no ill trade of it if he can perswade the whole Nation that they have the French-Pox and then that nobody but himself can cure it But passing by his immodest and uncleanly discourse as not designing to make my self acceptable to Stews and Brothel-houses I will fall upon the other more important and less offensive disquisition concerning Phlebotomy And as to that he tells us he could forsooth willingly write a Treatise and a learned one it would be touching the mischiefs done by bleeding in these Northern parts of the world in most Diseases as well as Agues and Fevours because of the mixture of the Scorbut and his main reason is because that if it be true since the liver is turn'd out of the Office of Sanguification Sanguis sanguificat blood makes blood of the chyle and doth it ad modum tincturae c. Now I will grant to him that the liver is very justly discharged of the office of sanguification as I will anon more largely prove and that in some sense the blood may be said to make blood and yet upon this score is it impossible for that great remedy of bloud letting established by the Experience and Authority of the whole learned worlp in the least to grow out of esteem First then
congealing power Farthermore every days Experience informs us what changes and alterations are made upon our Bodies as to Epidemical diseases by the hot cold moist or dry Constitutions of the Seasons and Years And I cannot but wonder that the Chymists should exclude the four first Qualities from having any causality in diseases when in their own operations they observe a notable disparity between the effects of a dry and moist heat and they employ heat as the common instrument of almost all their operations But whil'st I assert the Essiciency of the first qualities in the causing of diseases in the humane Body I would not be understood to mean by the word Quality a Being or Entity distinct from matter or Body But that I apprehend by hot cold moist and dry the parts of matter or Atoms so figured and moved as to produce those Effects which we call heating cooling moistning and drying For Example We use to have an apprehension or notion of heat from the relation it has to the sense or as it is the efficient cause of that acute passion or sensation which we feel in our skin or any other organ of touch whil'st we are burnt or heated But this being too particular an effect of heat only as it works upon an Animal we ought therefore to consider it from its more general and comprehensive effects upon which this which is more special does depend which is to enter into the Pores of a Body to penetrate through the parts of it and to force or rend them asunder from one another and so to dissolve the union and continuity of the Body This cannot be understood to be done by a bare naked quality but by certain Atoms which are endued with such a motion figure and fize as are fit to penetrate discuss dissolve and perform all those effects which we usually attribute to heat On the other side since we find cold the most opposite thing in the World to heat if it be the property of heat to dissolve discuss and tear asunder it is then the property of cold to congeal fasten and close together and those Atoms which by their shape and figures are fit and proper for those effects may with very good Reason be called Atoms of cold and Bodies made up of such Particles cold Bodies Thus the Air which is the common Receptacle of heat and cold upon the blowing of North-winds is usually filled with such Atoms as bind and congeal the Earth and Water and in the body of man both by mingling with the blood and closing the pores or breathing holes of his body oftentimes produce considerable disorders As for humidity or moistness it seems to be nothing else but a kind of fluidness and Liquors are commonly said to be moist inasmuch as when they are poured upon hard and compact bodies some small parts of them are left behind either sticking in the little Cavities of the Surface and then the body is said to be wet or else have insinuated themselves into the most inward pores and recesses of the hard body which then we commonly say is moistned And on the contrary driness is nothing else but a kind of firmness inasmuch as a dry body is upon that score the more firm for being void of all moisture And now I cannot see why these four first Qualities as they are term'd should be excluded from having a share in the number of the causes of Diseases since they are notably active especially the three first modifications of matter and not only apt to excite various motions and cause as well new Combinations as dissolutions of bodies in the great World but also powerfully to alter the Microcosm and produce fundry different Symptoms in relation to the motions and harmony of the humane Engin. In the next place though it be utterly untrue that there are in the Vessels four distinct humors but whatsoever is contained in the Arteries and Veins is either the stale deflagrated blood or the alimentary juice fresh come into the Vessels or else the Serum or Whey returned by the Lymphaticks or else some Particles of Nitre and other bodies received in by the Lungs and Mouths of the veins from the Ambient And though the blood differ in several persons only as to the abundance or defect of natural heat yet are men not improperly said to be of a melancholick cholerick or some other temperament inasmuch as by how much the more vigorous or remiss the natural heat is in their bowels and entrals by so much the more weakly or powerfully concoctions are perform'd and consequently the blood apt to be overcharged either with stale and adust or else crude and phlegmatick Excrements In which respect the person either way disposed is not improperly said to be of a phlegmatick or cholerick temper and if the adust or raw Excrements be not rightly and duly separated out of the mass by the effervenscy of the blood I see no reason why I may not say that a man abounds with a melancholick cholerick or phlegmatick humor and if so the Notions about Pharmacy aiming at an evacuation or else alteration of these humors are not framed amiss nor whatever M. N. argues to the contrary without very good reason For I suppose it alters not much the case as to practice whether a man suppose that there is too great a redundancy of one of the humors in the blood or whether which is the right Notion he apprehend the blood depraved either with phlegmatick and raw juyces or the bilious Excrement consisting of Salt and Sulphur or the melancholick in which the Caput mortuum or earthy part is most predominant For either of these Notions will direct us when the blood is unable to fine its self to assist it with those alteratives which time and experience has recommended to us as proper in those cases and those Purgers which have been long observed more particularly to make a separation either of the pituitous cholerick or melancholick parts of the blood For though it be irrational to think that Purgers do with a certain knowledge or choice lay hold of one humor rather than another yet is that distinction of Purgers into Chologoga Phlegmagoga Melanagoga and Hydragoga of very good use and founded upon observation and experience inasmuch as these several Purgers by causing very different Fermentations and variously agitating the Particles of the Blood may with very good reason cause different separations and so one Purger to evacuate that sort of Excrement Barm or Lee which another cannot And in this matter I do not find that the Improvements which have been made in the Theory of Physick have much altered the Practice for the indication for Purging was not founded upon the Notion of the four Humors but upon long observation that when Distempers discovered themselves by such and such signs the body was to be emptied and by frequent tryals one Purger as especially Hellebor in Melancholy was found more essectual than
Verses which were made in imitation of the mysterious and aenigmatical expressions of the Chymists Ignis in igne fuit sed non fuit ignis in igne Lux sine luce fuit non sine luce fuit All that any sober man can conceive of the Archaeus or Spirit is That it is the most fine volatil and aethereal part of the blood contained in the Arteries Veins and Nerves and I grant that the Dyscrasie of the blood their Vehicle is the cause of many Diseases But this is a very different thing from the words of M. N. and I suppose too from his Notion of the Archaeus which is either unintelligible by any rational man or else must be the very same which the Ancients had of the Vital Animal or Natural Spirits and therefore upon either account is very vainly offered as a new particular of great moment and weight for the meliorating the Practice of Physick As to his Quotations out of Fernelius and Heurnius those Authors speak no more than what is said by Hippocrates and Galen and all their Followers That the Spirits the impetum facientia are the immediate instruments of the Soul that by them all motions sensations and operations in human bodies are perform'd Wherefore the learned Sennertus though he allow Paracelsus and his Disciples to impose new words upon new things justly blames them For introducing new improper insignificant and barbarous terms upon notions and things anciently receiv'd Sennert de Con. Dissen Chym. cum Gal. c. 5. and rejecting such as by long use and custom had been rendered proper familiar and intelligible And he asks Paracâ—lsus What necessity there was to bring into use the word Archaeus since that upon diligent examination that signifies nothing more than the Faculty and natural Virtue or the natural Spirit the Servant of the natural Faculty do in the Schools of the Philosophers and Physitians And he adds That neither Paracelsus or Severinus are such great persons that we must presently for their fancy or humor reject those familiar terms which have alwayes been us'd by the learned World and in their stead without reason admit of the Paracelsian Gibberish And certainly if we consider the nature of the Spirits aright we shall find that nothing more than what is signified by them can be meant if that term signifie at all by the Archaeus of the Chymists For the vital Spirit is nothing else but the more fine more sublim'd and subtilifed part of tho Blood by which the Fermentation and internal motion of the Particles of that Liquor is maintain'd and that in its circular motion preserv'd from Coagulations and Stagnations and when the body remains in the state of health a separation is continually made of all immiscible and heterogeneous bodies which are either taken in with the Aliment or else come into the blood from the Ambient The animal Spirit is nothing else but the same vital more volatilised and refin'd in the brain and from thence distributed together with the nervous juyce through the Nerves to perform the offices of Sense and Motion The natural I take to be some of the animal Spirits which take up their residence in the extream Fibers of the parts and there remain and are continually refreshed and recruited by an influence from the brain and these the Schools call the innate Spirit Faculty or Virtue of a part Either one of these or all must be meant by the Archaeus of the Chymists or else that term be altogether insignificant Vox praeterea nihil And whether it be considered as an idle word or a new term to express an old Notion it cannot but be absurd to offer it as a particular considerable in order to the Practice of Physick in the place of the old Fundamentals which he pretends to have demolished CHAP. IX IN his Ninth Chapter M. N. proceeds to an examination of divers old Doctrines which more immediately relate to the Practice of Physick and first he cashiers the Doctrine about Critical days which he calls as childish a conceit as ever was owned by any Long-beards called the Children of Men. But I shall plainly prove That this Doctrine is not so easily to be blown away being of so absolute necessity to the true management of Fevers that except a diligent heed be had to the Critical motions of those Diseases the best and most proper Remedies prove as dangerous to the sick as a drawn Sword in the hands of a blind man who lays about him at random and knows not upon whom or where the edge will light For though the Ancients possibly might be ignorant of the true causes of the Critical motions of Diseases that did no more hinder them from making true observations upon them than the disagreement of Philosophers concerning the reasons of the Fluxes and Refluxes of the Sea does cause Mariners to be ignorant of what Tides will carry them into and out of several Harbors And though it must be confessed that in these Northern Countries wherein we live Fevers are neither so constantly nor so orderly terminated by Critical Evacuations as punctually to agree with the descriptions of Hippocrates and Galen by reason that in this colder Climate which is perpetually liable to alterations from the Air the Blood when it is fired into a Fever does not burn with so equal and constant a flame and therefore cannot observe so exactly the times and periods of its burning and consuming the sulphureous or combustible part And for that the Blood of most Persons being tainted with the Scurvy cannot so easily concoct and at once separate the adust Recrements but that they are often instead of being Critically evacuated translated upon the brain and nervous parts Yet is not the Credit of those grave Authors by every impertinent Man to be called into question concerning the truth of the observations which they made upon the motions and burning of Fevers in the Countries wherein they liv'd and practis'd Physick since they have been always reputed by the most Learned of unsuspected Faith and integrity in delivering matters of fact which fell under their own notice And indeed if we consider the true causes of critical Evacuations we cannot question but that in continual putri'd Feavers in those parts of the World in which neither the coldnesse of the Air nor the Scorbutick distemper made the difference Nature was as precise in observing her periods as she uses to be with us in Quotidians Tertians and Quartans For indeed a Crisis in a continual Feaver is the very same with a Paroxysm in an Intermittent as Doctor Willis very well observes Willis de Feb. c. 9. for sayes he as in an Intermittent when the mass of blood is overcharged with the Particles of the deprav'd Alimentary juice which can by no means be subdued and assimilated that falls aworking and by its fermentation depurates its self and sends out by the pores of the skin the heterogenious matter so in a
of Physick and established by the use and consent of both Galenists and Chymists are to be retained pag. 134 The first qualities are causes of Diseases pag. 135 Proved by sundry Arguments pag. 136 The meaning of the word Quality ibid. The nature of Heat pag. 137 Of Cold. pag. 137 138 Of Humidity and Driness pag. 138 Though there be not in the Vessels four distinct humors men are not improperly said to be of a Phlegmatick Cholerick Melancholick or Sanguine temperament pag. 139 It alters not the matter as to practise whether a Physitian suppose one of the humors or the rawness or overstaleness of the Blood to be in fault pag. 140 Purgers are properly divided into Chologoga Phlegmagoga Melanagoga and Hydragoga pag. 1â—1 Hepaticks must be used in Diseases caused from imperfect Sanguification though the Liver do not make Blood pag. 141 142 The Spleen is the Receptacle of Melancholy according to the opinions of Bartholinus and Doctor Highmore pag. 143 144 A Digression concerning the use of the Spleen and Hypocondriacal Distempers pag. 145 A Description of the Spleen pag. 146 147 It prepares a Ferment for the Blood pag. 149 Two sorts of Ferments pag. 149 150 How the Ferment is made in the Spleen pag. 152 Fixed Salts ferment the Blood pag. 153 How Medicins of Tartar Steel and Vitriol perform their effects pag. 153 How the Ferment of the Spleen comes to be deprav'd pag. 156 157. What is the fault of the Spleen in Hypocondriacal persons pag. 161 162 163 The causes of the Symptoms in Hypocondriacal persons pag. 163 164 165 The Head and nervous parts how affected from the Spleen pag. 166 It is proper to say there are bilious or cholerick complexions and Diseases pag. 167 168 M. N's ignorance in Chymistry pag. 168 Sulphur is not lighter and more aetherial than Spirit pag. 169 CHAP. VIII THe particulars offer'd by M. N. in the room of them which he pretends to have demolished are not conducible to the practice of Physick pag. 171 The growing of Diseases from Seeds according to Paracelsus and Severinus a ridiculous fancy pag. 172 173 The number of Concoctions assigned by the Ancients sufficient pag. 174 Helmonts notion of a Disease unintelligible pag. 176 What the Archaeus of the Chymists means pag. 177 New words are not to be imposed upon old notions and things pag. 178 How the Vital Animal and Natural Spirits differ pag. 179 The Archaeus either an idle word or a new term to express an old notion pag. 180 CHAP. IX THe use of the Doctrine about critical dayes pag. 181 The ignorance of their true causes did not hinder the Ancients from making true Observations upon them ibid. Feavers in the Countries where Hippocrates and Galen liv'd observ'd regularly the critical motions which are by them describ'd pag. 183 A Crisis in a continual Feaver is the same with a Paroxism in an Intermittent ibid. The cause of critical motions according to Doctor Willis ibid. Sweat the best way of Crisis pag. 184 The cause of a Crisis by an Haemorrhage pag. 184 When a Crisis is to be expected pag. 185 186 The Dootrine of Pulses is justified pag. 188 189 The respective differences in the motion of the Arteries may be observ'd as well as the absolute pag. 189 The reasons of the different motions of the Pulse assigned by Doctor Highmore pag. 189 Paracelsus his whimsies concerning the Pulse pag. 190 The use of the Doctrine of the Pulse in Feavers pag. 191 192 Direction must be taken from the Pulse for the giving of all sorts of Physick in Feavers pag. 193 What accidents may cause an alteration in the Pulse pag. 194