affect our sensories common Water whose Atomous parts we conceive to be globular and smooth passeth smoothly and cooleth The Spirits though as cold in themselves yet by reason of the subtle penetrating pungent and sharp Texture of their parts prick and stimulate our tender parts and sensories thereby causing heat inflamamation and intoxication Now as the Water consisted of too dull particles to joyn with or assist our vitals so the Spirits of themselves are too pungent and sharp to agree with our Juices as they are being but several parts of bodies made pure and consequently cannot have particles of Analogous Texture with all the pure parts united as the refinest part of our Juices are But if these bodies be first separated for purification sake and then in a due proportion according to the Analogy of the blood conjoyn'd which though it be no small Art to perform yet I 'le assure you very feasible to be attain'd by the industrious will no longer prick stimulate or enflame but on the contrary will joyn so amicably with the vitals as immediately to strengthen refresh and agitate them advancing natural heat and vigour and thereby enabling Nature to debellate all preternatural heat fermentation acidity and what not that is offensive in the body If you take any pure part of it it self in quantity it will offend for sulphureous Spirits will enflame and intoxicate saline stimulate acid corrode oleaginous nauseate and enflame whereas a pure body for so give me leave to call it hath none of these ill effects in it It 's so far from intoxicating that it retrieves the intoxicated person even in the very act of drinking from stimulating and much more corroding that it 's the speediest healer of wounds scalds burnings soreness of mouth throat or stomach that ever I saw from nauseating as to eradicate it I have always observ'd upon drinking Spirit of Wine or Brandy that it affects the mouth throat and stomach too with a burning heat whereas a pure body doth affect the mouth and upper part of the Gula only but is never found to give the least offensive heat to the stomack Away then with declaiming against hot things sith they may be so compos'd as to refresh quench thirst and cool And surely the vital Spirits by no other volatile means can be so truly speedily and inoffensively assisted as by such a pure incorruptible Balsamick and Analogous body I 'le not presume to say that this is the volatile Hermophradite of the Ancients though according to my best constructions or if you will conjectures of their aenigmous sayings and the effects I conceive it is They tell us that bodies purified and conjoyned produce an Hermophrodite which is wonderfully assistant to Nature They only say there is such a thing and what effect it hath but I cannot find the least footstep in them to lead me to believe that they ever knew the reason or cause of it 's so doing but if I have hit any thing near the mark we are beholding to the two forenamed excellent Authors for it Thus have I shot my bolt earnestly beseeching the most judicious and inquisitive Philosophers to consider it that so useful a Phaenomena may be improv'd to the utmost Correct my errors so you inform my judgment for I am as eager to be fully satisfied in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I am certain by a world of experience of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CHAP. VI. Whether there may be an Vniversal Medicine or no. I Know that it 's held negatively in the Schools and truly according to their Principles it seems impossible for allowing so many formal causes of diseases as they do it 's not to be suppos'd that one and the same thing should be an adequate removal of them all but according to my Hypothesis I conceive there may for if there be but one formal cause of diseases and that that cause in it self be homogeneal and an enemy to diseases and is forc'd into this disorder through affronts without or diseasie matter within and still whilst curable inclining to return to his regular wonted and due composure and government why may not the Spots and Idea's which deprave the same be though of different colours obliterated by one Medicine which is truly adapted to assist its homogeneity and natural addiction and thereby enable it to cast off its enemy of what Nature soever as a weapon that defends and maketh a man victorious though to be us'd in several manners and to several purposes as the Combatant's exigency shall require all tending to the main end of self-preservation and victory I would not be here understood that I mean by a Panacea a Medicine that infallibly cureth all diseases for to such I presume there was no sober man ever pretended to though our adversaries would so construe it and thereby impose on the ignorant and credulous but such a one that will cure all diseases curable We see sometimes diseases of the mildest denominations to be so circumstantiated as to admit of no remedy and on the other hand many of the most feral that are listed among the incurable to be conquer'd It sometimes though rarely falls out that the vital Spirits are so subjugated that Art cannot raise them again Now there are Medicines of universal tendency and of universal potency By universal tendency I understand a Medicine that adjuvates Nature to do in some cases for the best and as I formerly said so strengthen the vitals an particular cases as to supply the exigencies of the Patient though by contrary effects and is universally good though specifically potent as for instance the same Medicine that preventeth miscarriage even when the wisest Midwives think it impossible being given in equal Dose and same Vehicle when labour cometh expediteth it nay it impowers Nature to turn the Child in the Womb and bring it away even when hopes are almost past and without a hand saving half the pains making the after-pains as nothing suffering neither Fever or any other ill accident to happen invigorating the person and promoting all things for the best insomuch that I never saw the least danger in any Woman lying-in that us'd it and the like contrary effects it will produce in other feminine cases A Medicine that generally very gently purgeth yet of it self without purging safely cures venereous or cruentous dissenteries The like I may say in some cases or other of all others I prize ' em Such as these are so necessary that I wonder how men can practise untouch'd in conscience without them Were it to gain the World I would not give a Medicine but is so endowed But for those of universal potency I fear there are none now in being though I doubt not but that I have seen such a thing and that within this Twenty years and therefore I do the rather believe the Ancients assertions that it 's attainable And truly I have a Medicine of my own and have seen
A KEY TO HELMONT OR A SHORT INTRODUCTION To the better understanding of the THEORY and METHOD Of the most Profound Chymical Physicians LONDON Printed for John Starkey at the Mitre near Temple-Bar 1682. I Should not afford so short a discourse as this the solemnity of a Preface were it not chiefly design'd to apologize for its brevity For I doubt I shall be blam'd for endeavouring to wrap up or rather hint at so great and useful Truths in so few words without many Arguments or much circumlocution though I produce some here and there and enough as I conceive to convince the considerate and impartial I confess I have assiduously avoided running into long controversies and taken up only what lay in my way and was necessary for a very short elucidation of my Hypothesis And this I chose to do for two Reasons First That my Reader might in short see Helmont's and other the ablest and truest Adeptists chief foundation main aim and method of curing without leading him into the confusion which a Labyrinth of Arguments may do And Secondly Sith I intend this only as a preliminary discourse to an Epitomy of Helmont which I design if God send me life and health to prepare for the Press in some time I thought it not fit to anticipate or rob that noble Author but let him speak for himself sith he abounds with so many so excellent and so clear Arguments as will beyond controversie evince the truth of this Hypothesis and all its dependencies Neither would I have you think that I esteem Helmont to be the only man that was Master of the noblest Arcana's but that I have the like veneration for a great many other mens Medicines but I rather choose to call this a Key to him because he hath writ more fully of the Chymical Theory and method of curing than any other I know the discovery of which to the world is my chief design And though I here promise the Reader that I will render these parts of him which are fundamentally Theorical as plain short and as intelligible as possibly I can yet expect not that I will prostrate those Medicines of his which I understand to every vulgar capacity but shall faithfully report them in his own words sith I am very sensible that such prostration in setting the ignorant careless and covetous to work will speedily be the ruin of the noblest Arcana's And though 't is said that Helmont was good in pulling down and not in setting up I presume that what is said in this little discourse the ground and reason whereof I borrowed from him being well consider'd and duely prosecuted will convince the partial world that there was never so true so sound so commodious and so useful a structure built in Physick I shall only desire thee Reader impartially to consider it and operate accordingly and I am confident that thou wilt never want Medicines to satisfie thy self and all that will see of the truth of this Doctrine though perhaps thou maist not attain to Medicines of the highest Class now known That it may prosper for the good and relief of miserable mortals is and shall ever be my main end and endeavour whilst I remain WILLIAM BACON From my House in Winchester-street London CHAP. I. What are the true Principles of Natural Bodies THE gross Errors of the Schools concerning Principles and their useless Philosophy are so well known and exploded by this inquisitive and therefore sagacious Age that it 's needless to endeavour to confute them As for the other opinion of some Chymists who would have the quinta or tria prima to be the Principles of Bodies sith it hath had and perhaps yet hath very learned favourers of this Age I shall according to my intended brevity only offer this That if they are Principles they ought to be unalterable whereas these are easily alter'd and turn'd one into another So it is certain that such and such a manner of operation produceth such a product and such and such a manner produceth another guise and there are some bodies-that no Art yet known can extract these Principles erroniously so call'd from Whence I infer that they obtain'd such Textures from the fire and were not pre-existent in the concrete As for that opinion of Tachenius and some others concerning the principles of things which they would have to be Acid and Alcali though more intelligible and useful in the practice of Physick than either of the former yet are not really so being reducible in Water It 's strange that Christians who in matters of Faith wholly rely on the Scripture and firmly believe all the Historical parts of it that are either Ecclesiastical Political Successive or Professive should take very little or no notice of the hints to Natural History that are in in it especially since Moses doth professedly give us a short account of the beginnings of Natural Bodies which though short is abundantly more satisfactory to sense and consequently reason than any of the other Opinions We believe therefore with him and the profound Helmont that Water is the sole material Principle of Generation and that the Spirit of God that moved on the Waters or as the Latin hath it Spiritus Dei incubabat superficiei Aquae as a Bird on her Eggs for procreation sake is the formal cause Indeed Moses doth not say positively that that incubation of the Spirit on the Waters was the cause of Creation but we find the Creation follow in the next words and considering the brevity of that History the manner of expression in other places I presume it 's plainly imply'd that God by his infinite Power made these the immediate causes of the Creation Pray think not this too precarious sith sense it self doth prove the material Principle of it especially in Animals whose mucilaginous seeds do speedily dissolve into Water of themselves nay a Child imperfectly born will in a little time dissolve into Water and the hard seed of vegetables become like a Gelly at the time of their procreation whose Gelly-like substance by an easie digestion is turn'd into Water also and the great Philosophers tell us that by their Liquor Alcahest they could converr the hardest into liquid substances and experience telleth us that many vegetables may be solely nourish'd from Water not to mention the several experiments of this nature by many worthy modern Authors Think it not strange that from Water such hard Bodies should be produced sith it will not only cause Bodies to petrefie but is petrefied it self As to subterrane Bodies as Mettals Minerals c. we are told they are fed and augmented by a green and Viscous Water Now here I understand not by the Spirit moving on the Waters an absolute immaterial substance or the rational soul of man but the sensitive common to us and Beasts and only comparatively immaterial in respect of grosser substances I conceive it to be such an active brisk aetherial substance as was
and is able to rend pliable Water into infinitely different corpuscles and thereby to mould them into as different forms or textures as we see in the World and as it form'd us it goeth along with us and preserveth our textures and several kinds as long as possible But here I foresee that I shall meet with an Objection of some learned and inquisitive Philosophers whose Opinion is that the diversity of Natural Operations are the products of different Textures and those Textures to arise from the Position or Figures of the Constitutive Corpuscles I readily grant them both being well assured that the aptness or unaptness of Textures make things grateful or ungrateful hot or cold to us and so of all other qualities Yet pardon me if I cannot conceive that either vegetable or animal things that beget their like can possibly be produced by the fortuitous coincidence of Corpuscles without the help of a guiding spirit nay I suppose that dead bodies would I say not could not be generated without the assistance of such a spirit also which coagulateth or mouldeth such different Textures for though there be many excellent and luciferous productions of this nature Mechanically obtain'd which plainly shew that there are such things in nature yet I hope it will be granted that they would not be without the art and guidance of the humane soul and if so why should we think that the world hath not an Aura vitalis or guiding spirit in it Now as spirits the Governours of the Sensories that have a distinguishing faculty in them embracing good and rejecting offensive things to the utmost of their power are affected so it acts for good or evil otherwise how could it be that the same Medicine which is but a dead thing of humane facture at the same time given in the same quantity and vehicle should act contraries in several bodies nay in the same body at several times nay in the same body at the same time as in Womens cases it may happen the Spirits being assisted exalted and thereby enabled to do all things for the best and to supply Nature in her several indigencies for the better and longer preservation of the concrete I could produce you many other Instances but for brevity sake I pass them by presuming that this one is enough to convince the considerate if it be so de facto ofw which I shall have occasion to speak more hereafter Now what sort of Water this is it matters not to my design sith it is enough to support my Hypothesis if it be granted that all things are made of Spirit and Matter CHAP. II. A Consideration of the Actions of the vital Spirit as tend to our purpose IF the vital Spirit form'd us according to the Omnipotent decree I presume 't will be easily granted that the same Spirit preserves us in that form and is the sole active and sensitive part of the body for having taken its flight from us we are no longer capable of Disease or Cure I shall presume to give my sentiments how that Spirit doth universally act for us and against us and thereby hope to elucidate that saying of Helmont that the cause of life is the cause of death I must first premise that all creatures in the universe are sustained by nourishment which I call the conversion of some other parts of the Creation into a symbolizing nature to the creature nourished which is said to be altered by vertue of the ferments but what nature the Leven of these ferments are is rather guessed at than known It hath been endeavoured to be describ'd by manifest qualities as Heat Acidity Acid and Alkali but the coldness of Fishes and sweetness of healthy Ventricles being suddenly and without terror destroyed overthrow the two former And if Acid and Alcali be unequally mix'd it would be tasted also if equally I could never find out of the body that it had any power to digest corrode or putrifie but is e contrà agreat preserver of bodies from putrefaction Praeternatural Heat and Acidity are the usual concomitants of Diseases and we well know that a diseased person cannot digest well according to Hippocrates's Aphorism Corpora impura quò magis nutrias eò magis laedas a Rule as little taken notice of by many Physicians as unknown to Nurses who think they can never do the sick right longer than they are suggesting something to eat little thinking whatever gross substance they take that is the object of digestion is converted by a deprav'd ferment into filthy matter fit to feed the disease for 't is not so much what we eat or drink as how our Alterative faculty is The same Joynt of meet that nourishes the well loads the sick nay will be converted into Dogs-flesh Swines-flesh Fish-flesh and Birds-flesh in a word into the several species of all creatures that will eat of it And we see the poor that feed on the coursest of fare as vigorous and as strong as those that feed most opiparously But pardon me this digression I lament therefore that so many ingenious and industrious men have and do still spend so much precious time to find out the causes of vital ferments thinking it to be so material as to be discovered by their senses whereas it seems to me most rational that that which gave us our formation should also prepare our aliment and distribute to us fit Juices for our preservation and so to unform the aliment if I may so speak it to form something for the preservation of its own concrete out of it If so we shall never know it a priori being too subtile for our most assisted senses but must be contented to guess at it a posteriori by its effects and parts it inhabits in However I confess and acknowledg that these ingenious inquirers have found cut several curious and different parts in the Ventricles and other parts of things of different species undoubtedly filthly adapted to work with to alter food of such and such a Texture to such an end But I must beg their pardon that I cannot think them the causes of fermentation sith of themselves they are but dead things longer than they are animated by the vital Spirits but conceive them as Engines stupendiously fitted for the vital Spirits to operate withal We see that creatures of different specist delight in different foods which no doubt are such that best agree to the Textures of their bodies and are most fit to be digested by their peculiar ferments Now sith it 's undeniable that we being depriv'd of the sensitive soul we are uncapable of sickness and health and all sensation whatsoever and all ferments except the putrefactive one cease though when present and active the smallest prick of a pin or any other the least injury given to the remotest parts offend all the whole body by startling the vital Spirits whose resentments of injuries and disturbance thereby cause them to form morbifick Ideas either through
to mind some very good Cures done by the Learned Dr. Edmund Dickenson I then considering under what appellation he then was viz. a Chymical Dr. I hoped from that Art some good might be found and then casting about I met with the assistance of Dr. George Starkey and after him Dr. George Thomson by whose assistance and Gods blessing on my endeavours I am what I am being not fond of practice or the lucre of this World but resolv'd if please God I might see this true and efficacious Art in a prosperous way to retire to my former solitude Fear me not Gentlemen but have a charitable opinion of me and credit my protestations until you find cause to the contrary Unfetter your Reasons I beseech you cast behind you all preoccupations and prejudices and lay aside those poysonous Principles that you suck'd in your youth which you will find the hardest task as well as I for Quo semel imbuta c. Suffer not your noble souls to be any longer enslaved to Authority or customs of others Resolve to trust your own senses to inform your Reasons and do not superstitiously adhere to the Ipse dixit of another When you are thus prepar'd come see and gratefully admire the wonderful Vertues God hath placed in his Creatures if duly managed Then shall you see continued Fevers generally cured in Five or Six days or within an Intermittent one in Two or Three Fits Agues in Two Three or Four at the most and that by rational and radical means without the Peruvian-bark or danger of reciduation leaving the Patient healthy and vegete You shall likewise see by Gods blessing Pleurisies Quinances cur'd citius tutius jucundius without Phlebotomy than with and without danger of Chronick diseases to ensue the Small Pox generally without danger or any considerable sickness within Six hours after the first administration preserving the beauty in a great measure and also all pestilential Fevers that I have seen I never saw the Plague I confess but I doubt not the efficacy of my Febrifage in that case Deo juvante You shall also see Cholick and Iliack passions taken off in an hour or Two and perfectly eradicated in Three or Four Weeks You shall see a Specifick so advanc'd as to cure all sorts of Kings Evil that I have yet seen though I have seen the Joynt Evil. And as for the Scurvey that hath insensibly crept upon us through undue digestion and in time grown obstinate nay hath begot a daughter or daughters as Asthma Vertigo Dropsies c. you shall see so subdued in a Months time at most if the parts are found as that neither you nor the Patient will doubt of a recovery nay many of those that are accounted consumptive restored But as these diseases have a long time of growth so they require a long time to be destroy'd for in a radicated Scurvey the ferments through the whole body are deprav'd so that they must have time for a gradual restoring which being restored to their former vigor and purity will soon alter the whole Mass of blood nay it 's done together insomuch that persons that have scarce any thing that deserve the name of sanguis in them will in time have as pure blood as any person whatsoever Of which I have some instances at hand I thank God I never saw any one yet if the parts were sound though languishing under an hereditary Scurvey but have been mightily relieved if not cured The Jaundice cured in Two or Three days You shall also find Womens Labours to be no longer dreadful as I have said before Pray Sirs have so much vertue as not to condemn the things you know not What would it advantage me to assert these things if I had not found them by long and large experience to be so sith I know you wont believe me unless you are convinc'd by matter of fact To that therefore I invite you wherein should I fall short of what I here assert understood in a modest sense I were the veryest fool in Nature And to give you greater encouragement to enquire into the truth of it I hereby faithfully promise you that whosoever will give himself the trouble to be satisfied of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then will peruse proper Authors until I am convinc'd that he is fully satisfied in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and become a faithful Proselyte to truth and like to make a conscientious and industrious promoter of it I will take him by the hand and lead him into that path at the end whereof his desires shall be crowned And if the elder sort of learned and judicious men think it too late or beneath them to learn come you of the younger Class and heartily welcom For 't is from you Worthy and Learned men that I expect the beautifying and augmentation of this Art It 's by your Assistance that I hope to see the present known Medicines advanc'd and the admirable Arcana's of the Ancients retriev'd In a word the Art of Medicine so meliorated as nothing but irreparable Old Age and Death it self may be insuperable Which to see is the humble and hearty prayer and endeavour of Your humble Honourer and sincere Servant WILLIAM BACON
its own passions or other external accident or deprav'd matter So we say with Helmont that though there may be millions of irritative material causes or external accidents yet the sole formal cause is the vital Spirit which either being enrag'd transported or suppressed frame diseases accordingly Patients are alter'd according to the energy and design of the Agents Now in all bodies the vital Spirit must be the Agent as the Excellent Sir Francis Bacon saith in his Natural History lib. 1. Exper. 98. being the only active part of the body the rest being but a dead lump when that is gone or become unactive absolutely insensible and consequently uncapable of Disease or Cure When this Agent acts vigorously placidly and without disturbance he doth all things for the best but if disturb'd it stirreth up such a hurry and disorder in him that he mouldeth pretern ural Forms or Textures and thence we affirm that the cause of life and health when in order is the cause of sickness and death when in disorder Now the vital Spirit is the occasion of diseases of it self as it admits of ill Impresses or Ideas by the senses from without as we see the same Spirit that is now pleasant and sedate will on a sudden degenerate into passions of different nay contrary effects according to the nature of the irritative cause from without or the diseased matter disturbing the free exercise and government of the vital Spirits within variously according to the quantity quality and texture of such morbifick matter But it cannot be said that they are first or last in point of time they being as Agent and Patient and therefore corival and co-existent though in respect of the irritative cause we compute them one before another For the vitals can be no sooner from their duty but matter will in some measure degenerate for want of its due preserver and there can be no offensive matter in the body but must in some degree affect the vitals though many times it be so little that we cannot discern it Hence cometh the insensible creeping on of Chronick Diseases CHAP. III. Where and how the Vitals do perform their chief Operation I Conceive the chief and regular Operation of the Vitals is extended for the preservation of the concrete which is by assimulating things out of other bodies to the nature of the body it inhabits Now this great work is done principally in the stomach where meat is converted into aliment and excrement and as Hippocrates saith A good crasis in this first digestion is seldom or by accident perverted in the second but never amended This is the place in which the Juices of our bodies take the main impress and are either made good or evil Pardon me Reader if for the better understanding the thing I bring thee this homely comparison I look on the vital Spirit to be the Cook and the Stomach the Cook-room or Kitchen wherein our Juices are prepared and according to the crasis of them to impress our nourishment with a good or evil texture Now if either the Cook be sluggish froward or forgetful or the Kitchen or its Vessels be foul we can never expect well dressed Victuals and indeed a bad Cook maketh a bad Kitchen and a foul Kitchen injures the best Cook Here I cannot but take notice of the vain humors of some men who cry out the blood is foul purge the blood purge the blood and never endeavour to rectifie the fountain from whence it cometh which maketh their endeavours so ineffectual The wise people of Marah threw salt into the fountain not into the Rivulets Is' t possible that a foul and disturb'd fountain can afford clear Rivulets Or is it possible that the draining of the Rivulets should purge the fountain If not away with the common use of Phlebotomy Issues Cuppings and Scarifications unless it be at a pinch to gain a little time until so potent a Medicine as may rectifie the disorder of the vitals can be obtain'd I say away with those deluding means which too often God knows by minoration doth so palliate for it cannot meliorate for the reason abovesaid that it causeth abundance to rely on them until they become incurable and sometimes relieveth them of an acute disease and leaveth them in a Cronick as too often we see in Quinancies and Pleurisies c. sometimes altering the disease from one shape to another making good Hippocrates his Opinion in one of his Epistles to King Demetrius viz. that one disease degenerated into another which I rather conceive to proceed from the defect of Art than Nature It 's also manifest that the common cure of mad people is effected by drawing away their Spirits and so making them sottish and foolish Now when the office of the stomach is well perform'd we need not doubt the other parts unless deprav'd through natural deformity or external accidents because there is no bad Chyle cometh to offend them but that being perverted the offensive Chyle that it sendeth out doth by degrees pervert all the other ferments and then we call it a high Scurvey until it hath begot daughter or daughters as Dropsie Astma Vertigo Cholick and Iliack passions c. and then the lurking Scurvey hath lost its name again and the daughters give their mother their own denominations I cannot conceive that any disease can befall a man without passion or undue digestion except it be by external accidents And truly I think a disease occasion'd by such accidents attain their height by disturbing the vitals and thereby causing a disorder'd and vitious ferment so that undue digestion though hardly perceptible at first I conceive to be the beginning of all internal diseases CHAP. IV. What is the Object of the digestive faculty THE Object of the digestive faculty I conceive to be all gummous viscous and solid bodies that are digestible or agreeing to such and such a species Not spirituous or incorruptible things which the ferment hath no power to alter These things if friendly and pure are as it were snatched away by the vitals Nay though impure yet the vital spirit doth so delight in the spirituous part of them that it immediately attracts them to himself as we see in swooning people Hence I conceive the reason to be as I have often observed that Brandy though very good in its kind will do a great deal more hurt and enflame more than duly rectified Spirit of Wine because the vitals greedily embracing the noble Spirit draws into its curious recesses upon the wings thereof foulness and lavid flegm wherewith the best Brandy aboundeth which afterwards doth grate and disturb the vitals Not that I commend the use of either for I think even the best Spirit of Wine very hurtful as it is of it self I mean to be taken inwardly if this be so what course then shall we take to restore a decayed ferment sith whatever is given that is the Object of digestion is putrified rather than digested