and nips them for coldness is biting according to Hipp. it is cold to such extremity that the expurgation of it is actually cold by the testimony of Galen by a near experiment in himself as in his 4. book of affected parts Gypseous flegme is the production of crasse flegme emulating Limc or a stone almost in hardnesse This rejects the name of humor being consolidated therefore improperly placed in the classe of humors It proceeds from heat pillaging all the humid parts so that there is nothing left but earthy parts which are indurated into a Tophaceous matter almost resembling lime this often perplexeth the joints causing the knotty Gout The Fourth Section of Physiology Of the Spirits and innate Heat The First CHAPTER Of the Nature of Spirits Thus much of the Humors the Treatise of Spirits succeeds which are generated out of them but chiefly out of Blood THE Spirits of our bodies being of substance so thin that they are imperceptible to the quickest glance of sense and by this means reason only can confirm us in the truth of their existence it will not be amisse therefore to inform that our bodies have such attendents before their nature and essence be proposed First Therefore the context in Hippocrates 6. Epid. sect 8. is very convincing where he reckons three things which constitute the composition of our body viz. things containing contained and causing motion by the containing he signifies the parts by the contained the humors by those that cause motion the spirits according to the explanation of Galen himself for such is the tenuity and nobility of the spirits that with wonderfull swiftnesse they can shoot themselves to any place and insinuate themselves into all the parts of the body Secondly Platonicks do thus demonstrate the necessity of spirits nature doth not usually joine two contraries or things of wide distance without the help of a medium but the soul and body differ in the whole latitude of their genus for the soul is incorporeal and immortal but the body corporeal frail and mortal therefore such a dissiliency in natures cannot be forced to unition but by some medium and common obligation leaning as it were to both natures such are the spirits which indeed are material but in tenuity ambitious of the nature of things immaterial Thirdly This appears by prolifical seed which is wholly spumous and inflated with spirits which disappearing leave nothing but a waterish and unfruitful liquor Fourthly We are nourished by the same things of which we are conflated but attraction of breath or aire is necessary to our conservation therefore we comprehend in us some such substance Lastly This is evident by those great and empty cavities which are found in the ventricles of the brain and arteries of men deceased which are observed in the living swelled to a palpitation which clearly convinceth that those vacuities could not be repleat with any other thing then such spirits But a Spirit is a substance thin clear and etherial proceeding from the exhalation of pure blood and the inspiration of aire necessary for the due performance of all duties the body is engaged to It is called a thin substance because with incredible subtility and clerity it penetrates and courses thorough the whole bulk of the body and steals into the narrowest pores of the least particles and intervals of the muscles it is called clear and bright not according to the vulgar opinion as Argenterius fansies but because it excels in splendor and perspicuity which is easily seen in the observation of the eye the ball of which is very clear and we may spin an argument for the probation of it out of this that when some vapours of the melancholick humor or of over-swelling in drunken men are predominant the mind is in a present perturbation by reason of the dulness of these fogs which suffocate the spirits And of this Avicenna's demonstration is beyond all exception because saith he our soul which transacts every thing by her servants the spirits loves light and no darkness and the spirits do their duty with much more alacrity in a serene then in a cloudy day hence it is plain that they are excited by similitude They are also called Aetherial because the matter of them is by long elaboration so defecated that it stands in competition with that higher Element which is next neighbour to the celestial bodies and is called the Element of fire or etherial But that the spirits start out of the permixtion of blood and aire shall appear in the explication of their differences The uses of them are declared in the end for the soul cannot in the least operate upon the body without the officiousness of the spirits because they have the honour to be immediately and principally subservient to her CHAP. II. Of the Differences of Spirits Spirits are two-fold Inbred and Adventitious Inbred is the relict of the first principles in every part IT is called inbred innate or implanted according to the Greek Connate but while our parts are composed out of the first principles of our generation viz. seed and blood that spiritous substance which is contained in the seed constitutes the inbred spirit But this reason convinceth that this spirit is communicated to every part because the adventitious cannot be brought forth without the midwifery of this every production being like to its Author And also the prolifical seed issuing from every part argues that a spiritous matter is derived from every part from the sound parts sound from morbous parts morbous which in the issue represent their dispositions Adventitious is that which flowes and is sent in from some other place for the nutrition and conservation of the Inbred The Inbred spirit continually laborious in the performance of the functions of the parts would easily be consumed unlesse it were preserved and refreshed by the continual influence of this stranger therefore nature hath contrived some parts which should be the forge of great plenty of spirits which by their allotted courses influx into all the parts of the body to defend the inbred spirit This spirit is three-fold Natural Vital and Animal The Natural is produced in the Liver out of the thinner part of Blood tempered with a little Aire whose influence is thorough the veins into the whole body for the due exercise of the natural faculties This Natural spirit hath caused much dissention among Authors because some upon the ground of pregnant reasons deny nature the assistance of any such spirit First Because Galen was not resolved of it book 12. method cap. 5. where he thus discourseth If any spirit be natural it is contained in the Liver as its fountain and in the veins as its instruments And his first book of parts affected last chap. the natural faculties are by him differenced from the animal by this distinction that the natural are implanted in the parts but the animal are sent in from some other principle as light from the Sun whence it
THE UNIVERSAL BODY OF PHYSICK In five Books COMPREHENDING THE SEVERAL TREATISES Of Nature of Diseases and their causes of Symptomes of the preservation of Health and of Cures Written in Latine by that famous and learned Doctor LAZ RIVERIUS Counsellour and Physician to the present King of France and Professor in the Vniversity of MONTPELIER Exactly translated into English by VVILLIAM CARR Practitioner in Physick Quid non Gallia parturit ingens LONDON Printed for Philip Briggs at the Dolphin in Pauls Church-yard MDCLVII TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE And truly noble Sir WILLIAM PASTON Knight and Baronet Right Worshipful LEst the honour of your Worships patronage should contract a blemish by undertaking for and fixing on so mean an object as my self I beseech your Worship think that most noble Physician Riverius himself humbly prostrate at your Worships feet and as a stranger to this Climate ambitious of your gracious protection To present to your Worships favourable acceptance any thing which I dared call mine own were highly presumptuous and injurious to so discerning an eye as yours being conscious to my self of these superficial besprinklings and that slender knowledge which is allowed me in Physick as unseemly it were to offer to your Worships view any one but this or one so nobly learned as this Princely Physician Riverius who I hope will not be the less acceptable to your Worship for that he hath learned to speak English If these the first fruits of my undeserving endeavours may be cherished with the warm raies of your Worships favour and defended against those stormes and winds with which puffing Censurers may attempt to blast them they may at length become more mature and afford a sweeter and more pleasing relish to your Worships palate I beseech your Worship pardon and accept this my humble boldness and though I should acknowledge my self very happy in your Worships perusal of these unpolished lines yet that your Worship may never have occasion to use any thing in this or any other such treatise contained is the real desire of SIR Your Worships ever humble servant WILLIAM CARR THE EPISTLE TO THE READER Reader I Presume thou wilt be courteous when that precious and invaluable jewel Health is offered unto thee and doth as it were desire thy acceptance Here she is richly attended and furnished with all those necessary conveniencies which are requisite for her preservation when she is in a good state so that if thou wilt make a careful disquisition into those things which are here presented thee thou mayest stand impregnable against the assaults and violence of diseases and be a stranger to sighes and groans the bed-fellows and campanions of sick persons or if thou art fallen into a valetudinary and sickly state here thou maist have materials to repair those ruines and batteries which are caused by the fury of vehement diseases here you are instructed how to break and quell the rebellion of those contumacious humors which treasonably conspire and make head against the body that harbours them which though they have found lurking holes in which they may lye to a less cautious eye undiscovered till they have gathered strength enough to assail and overthrow Health yet an accurate observer may by the rules herein proposed open their secrecy and prevent their malignity so that prehapes some may think us no less commendable then the American Travellers who by the periclitation and endangering of their health labour after new-found worlds while we by further discoveries and inquisitions into nature endeavour to preserve the old one I omit other things whereby this book is commendable and ought to be acceptable lest I should swell an Epistle beyond its natural proportion and here prevent that praise which will be due upon perusal of the matter it self This includes the whole that Riverius is the Author who because an eminent Physician is worthy of respect and honour because a stranger a fit object of the glory of this Nation entertainment and hospitality Nor need any one cavil that he is a Frenchman for we may embrace a French cure though we abhorre a French disease he that will peruse this Treatise may be his own Physician and patient and reserve his Angels to be tutelary to himself AN Index of all the Books and Chapters contained in this Treatise Introduction to the whole body of Medicines Page 1 THE FIRST BOOK Containing Physiology The Preface The first Section Of Elements OF the nature of Elements Chapter 1. Page 4 Of the number of Elements chap. 2. p. 4 Of the qualities of the Elements chap. 3. p. 5 Of the mixtion of Elements chap. 4. p. 8 The second Section of Physiology Of Temperaments OF the nature of Temperaments chap. 1. p. 10 Of the difference of Temperaments chap. 2. p. 10 Of a well mixt Temperament chap. 3. p. 12 Of the judging of Temperaments chap. 4. p. 13 Of the Tempers of the several ages chap. 5. p. 14 Of the Temperaments of the sexes chap. 6. p. 16 Of the Tempers of the seasons of the year chap. 7. p. 17 The third Section of Physiology Of Humors OF the nature of Humors chap. 1. p. 19 Of the differences of Humors chap. 2. p. 19 Of bloud properly so called chap. 3. p. 21 Of a limentary flegme chap. 4. p. 22 Of alimentary choler chap. 5. p. 23 Of alimentary melancholy chap. 6. p. 24 Of secundary humors chap. 7. p. 25 Of Excrementitious choler chap. 8. p. 26 Of Excrementitious melancholy chap. 9. p. 27 Of serum chap. 10. p. 29 Of Excrementitious flegme chap. 11. p. 30 The fourth Section of Physiology Of the spirits and innate heat Of the nature of spirits chap. 1. p. 32 Of the differences of spirits chap. 2. p. 33 Of innate heat chap. 3. p. 36 The fifth Section of Physiology Of the Parts OF the nature of the Parts chap. 1. p. 40 Of the differences of parts and first of similar parts chap. 2. p. 41 Of dissimilar and organical parts chap. 3. p. 42 The sixth Section of Physiology Of the faculties and functions OF the nature of faculties and functions chap. 1. p. 44 Of the differences of faculties and functions chap. 2. p. 45 Of the natural faculty and function and their species and first of nutrition chap. 3. p. 46 Of the Auctive faculty and of accretion chap. 4. p. 51 Of the generative faculty and of generation chap. 5. p. 53 Of the vital faculty chap. 6. p. 54 Of the animal faculty and fanction and first of the principal faculties chap. 7. p. 55 Of sleeping and waking chap. 8. p. 57 Of dreams chap. 9. p. 58 Of the less principal faculties chap. 10. p. 59 The seventh Section of Physiology Of the procreation of Man OF the seed of both sexes chap. 1. p. 60 Of Menstreous bloud chap. 2. p. 62 Of Conception chap. 3. p. 63 Of the delineation and perfection of every part chap. 4. p. 64 Of parturition of bringing forth chap. 5. p. 65 Of
form of a mixt body for example when seeds of divers plants are so mingled that there remains a possibility of separation this is called apposition but when water and wine or such other things are mixed so that the union cannot be parted and yet no new form produced this is called Confusion And both of these are improperly termed mixtion Four Conditions are requisite to produce mixtion 1 The Miscibles must be contrarily qualified that they may be fit for mutual action and passion If the things mixed did not mutually act one on the other they could not be reduced to a due temper whose spawne mixtion is and by that means they would not be moved from their former state 2 A just proportion of Miscibles is necessary as well for quantity as for quality For if one exceed in quantity or quality that will destroy the rest and appropriate them to its own nature hence will arise the generation of one and the corruption of the rest but no mixtion 3 While the Elements are mixed they must be minc'd into very smal particles that every iota of the mixt body may comprehend in it self the four Elements This unition is caused by nature which by making the Elements penetrable fits them for a mutual incursion that so the transmutation may be the easier 4 The forms of the Elements must remain in mixt bodyes This causeth a difference between generation and mixtion for in generation by the accession of a new form the precedent are corrupted but in mixtion the new form produced together with the constitutive form of the mixt bodies dwell peaceably under the same roofe The truth of which may hence be asserted because the form is author of all action but the skirmish of contrary qualities in mixt bodies of which their destruction is the consequence cannot be caused by their form for by this meanes it would be treacherous to it self and accessary to its own destruction which runs counter to true Philosophy This implies a necessity of its dependence upon the formes of the Elements and so that the Elements remain formally in mixt bodies This affords matter of objection That if a mixt body admits of plurality of forms it loses its unity of being for of many actuall beings cannot arise one being by it self as Aristotle in the 2. of his Metaph. but only accidentally aggregate but the form gives an actual being to every thing For the delumbation of this argument I Answer that this is true if we level the vertue of forms into an equality so that no one may Lord it over the rest but in mixt bodies there is a herauldry one form being nobler than another which is the form of the mixt body it self to the commands of which the forms of the Elements comming short of it in perfection pay the tribute of obedience and comparatively to it they are as the Matter though in relation to the Matter of the Elements they are true forms Which that we may the more easily understand we must know that the Elements are considered in a double relation either in relation which they bear to the Materia prima out of which they are conflated with their proper forms or to that body whose matter they are in the first consideration they are said to have an actual being in the latter a potential only For as in Logical predication the intermediate genus is in regard of its inferiors a genus of its superiors a species so in the essence of things there are some mediate acts which compared to the precedent matter may be called actual which in respect of a compleater composition are only potential Now though the forms of Elements in comparison to the form of a mixt body are as matter and only potential yet in respect of the matter of which the Elements are compounded they are alwayes actual and continually labouring to alter the matter that they may retreat into their former nature and be set at liberty but the form of the mixt body according to its authority quels and suppresses these active tumults for the better securing of its preservation till they summon in external causes as Auxiliaries to invade the honour and disloyally shake off the yoke of this noble form and so procure the destruction of the mixt body I might enlarge in the explanation of this knotty and intricate Theoreme but in which I have been brief because as Galen himself in the first book of the Elements affirms it is very little conducible to Medicine Here therefore I will put a period to the first section The Second Section of Physiology of Temperaments The First CHAPTER Of the Nature of Temperaments A Temperament is a proportion of the four Principal Qualities resulting from the mixtion of the Elements for the due performance of operations A Temperament retains to mixtion as the effect to its cause arising from that mutual contemperation of the first qualities which produceth that due proportion requisite to the execution of all actions but it is called proportion as being a relation which the qualities so tempered mutually bear to themselves not a quality differing from the four first as Avicenna fansyed whose opinion Fernelius copiously confutes It may be objected That if Temperament be a relation the actions shall have no dependence on it because relation hath no active vertue nor can one Temperament be properly termed contrary to another because relation admits of no contrary To this I Answer That the Temperament acts not by vertue of proportion which is a relation but of the foundation on which this relation is established for the first qualities are laid as the basis of this proportion and upon these the actions do essentially depend for the whole essence of the Temperament consists not in the relation of the proportion but necessarily imports such a relation as if we should say that Temperament were the first qualities reduced to a certain proportion CHAP. II. Of the Difference of Temperaments The Temperaments are Nine four simple Hot Cold Moist Dry four compound Hot and Moist Hot and Dry Cold and Moist Cold and Dry one moderate called Eucrasy BOdies so tempered that one quality exceeds the rest are said to be of a simple Temperament but when two qualities stand as it were in competition for supremacy over the rest they have a compounded Temperament but when all the qualities are fixed to a due Mediocrity they are then esteemed to be perfectly tempered Hence may arise an objection That the first eight differences of Temperaments are caused by some predominant Element or at least in our bodies by some predominant Humor hence some Temperaments are termed bilious some pituitous and so of the rest but every Element is fortified with two qualities by whose excess the consequence of theirs is necessary humors also haue two predominant qualities therefore there can be no simple Temperament but all are compound To this I oppose That in mixtion or alteration there may possibly be such
duly perform its action unless it first rightly conform and especially acquire a proper figure so for instance the head ought to be round the arm long and so forth Besides the parts for the discharge of their offices must have certain passages and cavities so the veins and arteries have their passages the ventricle useth the passage of the Esophagus but the cavity is all that space which contains the aliment Thirdly some parts for their more convenient operation ought to be smooth as the aspera arteria whose interior superficies is smooth and polite for the sweeter modulation of the voyce for it is not termed rough as being unequal and rugged according to the usual acception of that term but being made up of an unequal viz. cartilaginous and membranous substance But it is requisite some parts should be rough and rugged as the interior superficies of the ventricle that it may the better contain the aliment A certain and determinate magnitude also is proportioned to every member requisite to the exercise of its action So the Liver is bigger than the Heart the Brain than the Eye and so forth But one part of the same kind are sufficient for the exercise of certain actions for others many So for speech the tongue onely is requisite but to hold any thing many fingers are necessary Conjunction signifies two things viz. site and connexion So the liver is situated on the right hypocondrium but the milt in the left the intestines in the middle of the abdomen the wombe between the bladder and the intestinum rectum so the bones effect motion by their mutual connexion in the joynts on the contrary the lips and the eye-lids for the performance of their offices ought not to have any connexion but are open and separate But the organical parts are two the principal and the ignoble The principal are they which are without exception necessary for the conservation of the individual and are liberal in the distribution of faculty and spirit to the whole body And these are three the brain the heart and the liver There are in our bodies three faculties as we shall afterwards instance the animal vital and natural every of these keeps a peculiar court in peculiar members in which it is more glorious and majestical and from which in fellowship with the spirits which are also generated in it it flows into the whole body hence these parts are nobilitated with the title of Principal This is the ancient and customary tenent of School-Physicians which we propose for the sake of young Practitioners from which opinion in the Physical Schools it was a sin to dissent though it be inconsistent with the assertions of the Peripateticks who obtrude that the Soul with the train of all its faculties resides wholly in the whole and wholly in every part therefore there needs no influence of faculties they dwelling in every part and operating every where if they want not convenient instruments which caused Aristotle to say If the eye were placed in the foot the foot would see The ignoble are they which send forth no faculties nor spirits or which are the servants and vassals of the principall So the organs of the senses are framed for the sake of the brain onely so the lungs midriffe and arteries are designed to the temper and purgation of the heart so the ventricle intestines milt reins both bladders are made for the use of the liver To be short all the parts of the whole body are ignoble excepting the three principal parts mentioned Yet Galen in his Ars parva reckons the testicles among the principal parts because they are necessary for the conservation of the species We must therefore distinguish that in respect of the species they are principal parts not in relation to the individuum A COROLLARY THat which should here be discoursed of the substance temper figure situation action and use of every part is so accurately and perspicuously handled by the learned Laurentius in his Anatomical History that repetition will be superfluous Therefore thus much shall suffice to be spoken of the Parts The sixth Section of Physiology Of the Faculties and Functions The First CHAPTER Of the Nature of Faculties and Functions The Faculties and Functions depending upon the Soul as their first cause it will not be amiss to explain what the Soul is The Soul therefore is the substantial form of a living body by which we enjoy life sense nutrition understanding and local motion ARistotle defines it the perfection or act of an organical body potentially living which definition lies invelop'd in obscure terms and is a point of nice speculation We therefore suppose this our definition to be more clear and more convenient for our conduct in the course of Physick for man being constituted of matter and form as all other natural bodies and all his parts being the matter it is consequent that the soul should be the form For all actions having a dependency upon the form and the soul being the cause and principle of all the actions of a living body we must necessarily acknowledg that the soul is the form Hence in the absence of the soul action ceaseth By this means we arrive at the knowledg of her by her actions onely because immaterial substances are understood only by their effects But these various actions are exercised by the soul through the help of divers vertues and proprieties which are the immediate retainers to its Essence and immediately depend upon it and these proprieties are termed faculties of which we institute our following discourse A Faculty is a proper and inseparable accident of the soul which is instrumental to it in the execution of certain Functions in the body The faculties are accidents referred to the second species of quality Their subject is the soul in which they inhere not as common but as proper and inseparable accidents hence Fernelius weakly asserts them separable from the soul which he endeavours to verify by an instance of the auctive faculty which he affirms to be abolished when the vigor of Age declines Yet this faculty is not abolished but only lies idle for want of Instruments for the whole Aliment is wasted in nutrition because the body being well grown requires more nutriment and innate heat being debilitated cannot operate accretion of which nature also is unmindful while it hath filled the body to its due proportion yet this faculty is not extinct as neither the procreating faculty in a Child though it is quiet without wantonizing till Youth when it finds the seed elaborated to maturity fit for the exercise of its functions A Function is an Active motion or the effect of a Faculty in any part of the body As the faculties wait immediately upon the form or the soul so the functions upon the faculties as effects depend upon their causes But in this lies the distinction between the actions and faculties that they are appropriated to the soul the functions to
proceeds not from the copiousness of aliment viz. after nutrition performed will in this convincingly appear because experience shews that they grow and fill who use but little nutrition as is evident in boys and youths diseased who though they be very lean are yet continually growing because at such age the auctive faculty is most efficacious and so potent that it plunders the nutritive it self of aliment conveying it chiefly to the solid parts viz. the bones by the extension of which the whole body is extended therefore the aliment by virtue of the auctive faculty is carried to these parts and the carnous parts are defrauded of their due nutriment Hence those that are in growth appear lean On the contrary we find many fat and well stuffed and fed with high delicacies which yet arrive not to a due or decent procerity of body But though to the auctive and nutritive faculties the same object is proposed viz. nutriment yet they use this object in divers relations For the nutritive useth it as it tends simply to the conservation of the substance of the part But the auctive as it is directed to heighten the substance to a just magnitude and quantity For though the substance acquired by nutrition have quantity it being impossible for a material substance to be destitute of quantity yet nutrition regards not the substance as it hath quantity but as it is a substance but accretion is related to it not as a substance but as having quantity So for example as the blood is incarnated so far goes nutrition respecting only the substance of the flesh but as blood is changed into a greater proportion of flesh here enters accretion regarding not the substance of the flesh but only its quantity The end of accretion is not commensurated by life but accretion is most usually extended to twenty five or thirty Nature hath measured out a certain proportion to every living body therefore a living body is so long in a tendency to augmentation as it is in attaining to this determination of time But when it is augmented to a compleat magnitude in obedience to the command of Nature it stops there and makes no further progress Besides because accretion immediately depends upon the extension of the solid parts according to the three dimensions the sequel will be that a body doth so long increase as the parts thereof may in this manner be extended But now in the course of our life the solid parts are so hardened and dryed through the continual resolution of primigenious moisture occasioned by the action of native heat that they will no longer yeeld to extension But though the auctive faculty after the limitation aforesaid operates no more yet we must not assert it corrupted or idle as some fancyed it being not necessary that the faculties of the soul should be alwayes secondly actual and in operation for in our apprehension generation and local motion is not ever actual and therefore also there is no necessity of a continual growth but the faculties upon their arrival to their appointed end repose themselves So the auctive rests upon the assecution of its end viz. the due stature of magnitude After that it is obstructed in its operation having no fit subject viz. a body not disposed to an aptitude for extension The cause therefore sprouts into two branches one taken from the end the other from the subject A COROLLARY Here is obvious a Probleme worthy our knowledge Why all men are not advanced to an equality of magnitude but some are taller others of shorter stature I answer That the cause of this is threefold The first drawn from the various disposition of bodies for the more moist and hot they are the fitter they are for extension and grow more and in less time than cold and dry bodies whose parts submit not so easily to extension The second proceeds from nutrition for the more perfectly and copiously a body is nourished it is of a better and more speedy growth and the more imperfectly and sparingly it hath been supplyed with nutriment it groweth the less and the slower The third cause is the similitude of the Parents for tall Parents generate tall Sons short short ones because the seed transfers the idea and conditions of all the parts from the Parents upon the Children CHAP. V. Of the Generative faculty and of Generation The Generative faculty is that virtue of the Soul by which a man produceth a thing like to himself for the perpetual conservation of his species Hence Generation is a production of something like the producer GEneration according to the Philosophers is twofold Univocal and Equivocal That is termed Univocal when every thing generates something resembling it self such is the generation of all perfect animals Equivocal is when things of a various and dissenting nature are generated such is the generation of imperfect animals whose wombe is putrefaction Therefore univocal generation is principally applicable to perfect animals Hence Mules and Eunuchs are not fit for generation By this it appears that the name of Generation is not used in so large a sense by the Physicians as by Philosophers who call all introduction of form into matter Generation but here it is taken onely for the production of a like thing which is also called procreation To the Generative faculty two other are subservient the alterative and conformative The Alterative is that which alters and changes the subject matter of generation Seed is the subject matter of generation which is incompatible with the nature of various parts unless all its qualities as well first as second be variously changed for this cause the soul is endowed with a peculiar faculty which may execute this duty which is therefore called alterative or immutative The Conformative is that which graphically delineates and effigurates the whole body and all its parts The Conformative faculty entertains the seminal matter altered and prepared and out of it commensurates all the parts of the body and assignes to every of them a due magnitude figure site connexion and all other things commodiously which are requisite for the convenient exercitation of every peculiar action A COROLLARY All other relations to the Generative faculty are more largely disputed in the succeeding Section which treats of the Procreation of Man CHAP. VI. Of the Vital faculty The Vital faculty is that virtue of the Soul by which the vital spirits are generated in the heart and life is preserved in the whole body THE Spirits plainly demonstrate that there is in the Soul a peculiar faculty distinct from the rest which from the fountain of the heart copiously flow into the Arteries but every spirit is the instrument of some faculty But this faculty generates Vital spirits in the heart which spirits are the subjects of the influent heat which two communicate themselves to every part of the body the heat whereof with the implanted spirit they preserve But life necessarily depending upon implanted heat the
Second Book of MEDICINAL INSTITUTIONS CONTAINING PATHOLOGY Introductions to Pathology In Pathology is considered Mans body deviating from Nature and faln into a state of Disease NATURE is twofold according to the Philosophers universal and particular The laws of universal nature require generation corruption and various alteration to be strictly observed in bodies which are therefore obedient to the dictates of this universal nature but particular nature viz. humane hath enacted laws proper to the constitution of her own Republick differing from the laws of universal nature which if they be cancelled a man is then thought to decline from nature viz. particular nature So a certain harmony of first qualities constitute Mans body together with a due conformation and adunation of the parts in which when there happens any distraction a body becomes preternatural as shall be at large expounded in the following Treatise Observe that some in the front of whom marches Fernelius distinguish things preternatural from those which are contrary to nature so that that is preternatural which though it be illegal in its aberration from the rule of nature yet it offers no violence to it as pimples to the face and the colour contracted from the heat of the Sun But that is contrary to nature which violently opposeth it and manifestly mutilates its actions But these two are commonly confounded by Physicians and used for one and the same The state of mans body is threefold healthy unhealthy and neutral The Philosophers disavow this division and affirm that there intercedes no medium between disease and health But the Physicians term that unhealthy or morbous state when some actions of the body are manifestly out of tune healthy when they persist in a symmetry but neutral when they are neither manifestly vitiated nor altogether whole such a disposition is evidently apparent in those which are in a tendency to or in a recovery from a Disease for it was necessary to induce these three constitutions into the Art of Medicine for two causes chiefly The first is drawn from Medical operations and the manner of dyet to be instituted to every one for cure is necessary for the sick conservation for the healthy but to bodies neuters if they incline to disease preservation to the recovery from a disease refection or restauration The second cause is taken from the decretory dayes which are not to be computed from the beginning of every weakning of health but from that time in which the sick person hath suffered manifest and notable impediments in his actions so that he is necessitated to rest which could not be so distinguished unless a neutrality of state were distinguished from insalubrity Yet the difference between Philosophers and Physicians is not so wide that it abhors reconciliation which may be made if we say That the Philosophers Discourse of Disease and Health in a wider sense as also Galen sometimes takes them so that in this latitude they comprehend the state of neutrality The Physicians close nearer and use them more strictly as the use of Art requireth For the more copious explication of these three states I referre you to Galen in his Ars Parva We must now by course treat of the state of insalubrity by which means are three considerations 1 Disease 2 The Cause of the Disease 3 The Symptomes All that Treatise discourseth of that disposition of the body which is termed Disease For that we may attain a perfect knowledge of it the first proposition must be of its nature then we must make a search into all its differences next the causes which produce those Diseases are to be enquired into and lastly the effects produced by them will require our contemplation for the effects of Diseases the Physicians call Symptomes By this means all Pathology is commonly divided into three Sections in the first of which the nature of the Disease and its differences in the second the causes of Diseases in the third the symptomes of Diseases are by explication made obvious But because the consideration of the Crisis is not any where so appositely placed as in Pathology being defined by a mutation made in the Disease therefore we have resolved to adde to our Pathology a fourth Section comprehending the whole doctrine of the Crisis and Critical dayes and this we will advance to the second place So that the first shall handle the nature and differences of a Disease the second the changes contingent in Diseases of which the chief is the Crisis the third the causes of Diseases and the fourth the symptomes The first Section of PATHOLOGY Of the nature and differences of a Disease The First CHAPTER Of the nature of a Disease A Disease is a disposition of a body preternatural primarily and by it self injuring the actions GALEN in his first Book of the Method of Healing and in his Book of the Differences of Diseases in a well-contrived and clear method hath omitted nothing discoverable in the nature of a Disease whom in this place we propose for our pattern First then we deliberate of action it self which if it be hurt in mans body we say it is sick but if whole and unhurt we say it is in health I call that action hurt which manifestly and sensibly appeareth such for small harms and imperceptible by the sense are excluded from this place Moreover action being a motion and having no permanent essence onely so long in being as it is doing and performing therefore it implies a necessity of a constant and permanent cause But this cause is a corporeal instrument which exerciseth the action as the Eye seeth the Stomach concocteth But because one and the same instrument doth not alwayes exercise in the same manner its operations but sometimes unhurt and according to nature sometimes hurt and beside nature it will necessarily follow that the constitution and disposition thereof is various Hence if it be disposed according to nature the body will also be naturally disposed and exercise actions conformable to nature If therefore the body be in health when being naturally disposed it produceth perfect actions it will be diseased when it being disposed beside nature it exerts actions imperfect and so this detriment of actions will depend upon this preternatural disposition This definition therefore perfectly opens the intricacie of a Disease and is compleat bearing in his bulk a genus a subject a cause and an effect the genus is the disposition which being not circumscribed by the limits of any difference is predicated not onely of a Disease cause of Disease and symptomes thereof but of health also the subject is mans body the cause effecting the Disease is the discomposure of the symmetry of the parts or an excess overflowing the proper and natural constitution which by that terme Preternatural is demonstrated Lastly the immediate effect of a Disease is an ingredient also of the definition which is the detriment of actions which perpetually attending the Disease and being obvious to our senses
the quantity and manner are considerable In respect of the quantity of motion or duration one disease is called long another short So a day-expiring feaver is a short disease because it is quickly at an end as dropsie long because it persists a long time In respect also of the quantity of motion or duration one disease is called acute another chronical Acute disease is that in which magnitude and brevity are companions Therefore it moves nimbly with vehemence and danger The Chronical is commonly opposed to this though it be not totally contrary to it For Chronical and Long speak the same and it is so called only because it is of long continuance although it be usually great as the palsie dropsie and the like to which the short ones are truely and properly opposed Observe That some diseases are in respect of their proper essence Chronical in respect of their paroxisme Acute as the Epilepsie which is a disease very long and hath paroxismes very acute Acute disease is threefold the first peracute the second acute simply the third acute by dilapsion or decidence The Peracute is again divided into extremely peracute and simply peracute Extremely peracute is that which is so vehement and swift in motion that the third or fourth day it ends either in health or in death Simply peracute determines the seventh day But acute simply so called is either exactly or not exactly such Exactly such ends with the fourteenth day Not exactly such continueth to the twentieth or further Lastly acute by decidence reaches the fortieth day and after its arrival to that it is called a long and continuing disease And these are the differences hewn out from the quautity of motion those follow to be proposed which result from the manner of motion In respect then of the manner of motion some disease is called continual some intermissive Continual disease is which troubleth without cessation and in its whole duration is impatient of mitigation by any intervening pause But intermissive is that the fury of which in its career is usually allayed by perfect intermissions And so much of the Motion now follows the manner of Disease 3. In respect of the Manner a disease is called gentle or malignant A gentle disease is that which is very remiss and induceth no dangerous symptomes But that is malignant which comes accompanied with some malignant and venemous quality attended by dangerous symptomes Malignant is again threefold the first venemous the second pestilent the third contagious A venemous disease is that which is intimated with a quality that is a desperate antagonist to our life produced by assumption or application of poyson or from noysome humors internally generated Pestilent disease is that which is malignantly and deleteriously qualified and is impartial to all Lastly Contagious is that which riseth to an high accompt in multiplication and usually infects many others with the same kind of disease So far of the Manner of disease the Event thereof follows 4. In respect of the Event some disease is healthy some deadly some dangerous Healthy disease is that which threatens the life with no danger Deadly disease is that which brings along with it assured destruction Lastly Dangerous is that which hovers in a doubtful event sometimes tending to health sometimes to death And these are the differences proceeding from those proprieties which are concomitants to essence those now which are derived from the causes remain to be proposed But those causes are either material or efficients or helps without the advantage of which nothing could be produced To the Material we refer the subject to the Efficient the humors to those without the help of which nothing could be the place There are many other kinds of Causes which here we propose not because we have determined to spin the accidental differences of Diseases out of these alone as also neither to lay down all that may be pick'd out from them but only the most useful 1. In respect of the subject some disease is called Idiopathetick some Sympathetick The Idiopathetick is that which is primarily produced in the part by its cause and hath in it a place of duration So a Pleurisie Inflammation of the lungs and Phthisis and others are termed Idiopathetick Sympathetick is when the affect of one part idiopathetically diseased is communicated to another Yet the affection is so communicated to this compassionate part that upon the ablation of the former viz. the Idiopathetick the Sympathetick is also taken away otherwise if it should remain by it self it would become Idiopathetick and then Physicians term it Deuteropathetick or secondary But the primary is called Protopathetick because the affection owes its first production to that part But a Sympathetick disease is usually generated by five causes First because of vicinity Secondly because of the society of the genus Thirdly because of the community of office Fourthly by reason of situation Fifthly by reason of connexion Because of vicinity the hand sympathizeth with the arm the bone with the neighbouring flesh the ventricle with the liver the ribs with the lungs the lungs with the heart and so on the contrary By reason of the society of the genus the nervous parts sympathize with the nervous and the carnous with the carnous as being constituted under the same genus and partaking of the same nature By community of office the breasts with the wombe the bladder sympathizes with the reins because they are designed to the same employment in the body By reason of situation the head is easily compassionative with the inferiour parts as the ventricle liver wombe and the like as being in a direct eminency to them and so the vapors by them elevated are with ease conveyed to its reception So also the ventricle and lungs easily sympathize with the head as lying directly under it and so easily entertaining the defluxions of humors streaming from it By reason of connexion the nerves are compatible with the brain the arteries with the heart the veins with the liver and on the contrary as bordering upon them Again all sympathetical disease is caused two wayes viz. positively or privatively Positively when any thing is conducted from one part to another So the vapors steaming from the ventricle to the brain produce aches vertigoes and such like sympathetical affections which are termed positive Privatively when there is no influence where there ought to be one So in the apoplexy the sense and motion of the whole body decayes by the non-influence of the animal faculty and spirits from the brain caused by the obstructions of the ventricles thereof And so it is said to proceed from the privation of matter or faculty 2. In respect of the efficient causes or the humors operating diseases some are called legitimate some spurious The legitimate is which is graved with that impress of Nature which is proper to its species and the cause of whose usual production is whole and sincere The spurious is that which
Apparition is the interval from the first sight of the new Moon disappearing to that day and it is in space twenty six dayes and twelve hours nor can computation be made according to this Moneth because three weeks amount to onely nineteen dayes and twelve hours The Periodical Moneth or Moneth of Peragration is that time in which the Moon posts thorough the whole Zodiack and returns to the same point she left and this is extended to twenty seven dayes and eight hours and so three weeks will make up twenty dayes and twelve hours This also Galen would not admit to constitute the order of Critical dayes therefore he invented a new Moneth which he called Medicinal compounded of the Periodical and the Moneth of Illumination which two being united make fifty three dayes and twenty hours which account halfed makes twenty six dayes and twenty two hours and this half constitutes Galen's Medicinal Moneth three weeks of which make twenty dayes and foure houres But this Moneth of Galen's all both Physicians and Astrologers reject and contemne as fictitious portentous and deviating from truth whose reasons for brevity sake we omit because they are vulgarly known It will be satisfactory to inform you that the Decretory dayes are to be taken from the true motion of the Moon which constitutes the Moneth of Peragration and by which the forenamed aspects are constituted But that Moneth of Peragration as is before mentioned consists of twenty seven dayes and eight hours and if it be divided into foure weeks the first will be ended by six dayes and twenty hours the second by thirteen dayes and sixteen hours the third by twenty dayes and twelve hours Nor is that Periodical Moneth to be neglected for that reason which forced Galen's invention to forge the Medicinal Moneth but is rather the more to be accepted of because it affords us a reason why the twentieth and one and twentieth dayes are numbred among the Critical ones For though the twentieth more frequently judge yet the one and twentieth is not wholly to be rejected And for this cause Archigenes and Diocles whom we find by the testimony of Galen himself Book 1. of Decretory dayes chap. 2. very exact in the operations of Art numbred the one and twentieth among the Critical dayes But this is the reason why both of them are Critical dayes because both of them concur to compleat the third week whose last day borrowes twelve hours from the twentieth and as many from the one and twentieth But yet Crises more frequently happen on the twentieth because upon the determination of the acute disease Nature as weary of a longer trouble encounters the disease in the first dawning of the Critical day and endevours a crisis But this beginning of the Critical day is in the middle of the twentieth as the end thereof falls in the middle or twelfth hour of the one and twentieth It is also observable that the motion of the Moon is sometimes slower sometimes swifter and according to the swiftness of it the crisis happens sooner but according to its slow progress the crisis appears later and therefore a certain number of hours cannot be assigned in which the crisis may happen but in a wide conjecture the seventh the fourteenth and the twentieth dayes are to be noted As Hippocrates seemed to signifie in 6 Epid. where to the number of the dayes he hath added that preposition about viz. about the twentieth about the fortieth and so forth Besides the crisis doth not alwayes begin and end the same day but is sometimes extended to more dayes and perturbation begins on the twentieth but the crisis ends on the one and twentieth But the whole continuance of time in perturbation conflict and excretion is usually termed the time of the crisis Besides the principal cause which is the motion of the Moon we must acknowledge two other causes of the Critical dayes less principal viz. the motion and disposition of humors as also the nature of the sick party Although the virtue of the Moon be most available in constituting of Critical dayes yet by it self it is insufficient otherwise in all sick persons the same Crises would happen in the same number of dayes But the thing runs otherwise whereas some are subject to a Crisis on the seventh some on the fourteenth some on other dayes to some good to some bad There are therefore other causes to which this diversity is to be attributed For first the motion and disposition of humors is the cause that a Crisis sometimes falls out sooner sometimes later sometimes also on the intercident or indicative dayes for the humors upon concoction performed sooner or later and upon their acquisition of a favourable or malignant quality sooner or later excite nature As also if they are moved on this or that day from whence arise exacerbations of feavers in which most usually Crises happen as Hipp. in 1. Epid. Acute diseases saith he are judged on the day of their exacerbation Lastly The nature of the sick body which as before is said is the principall cause of the whole Crisis or Critical excretion and is also the less principal cause of the critical dayes for as it is strong or infirm it concocts sooner or slower the morbifick matter and the quickness or slowness of the Crisis depends upon slow or quick concoction so when the morbifick matter is not concocted on the seventh day the Crisis is deferred to the fourteenth or the twentieth For the Moon moves the humors every critical day and excites nature to excretion but this motion is frustrate for nature leaves excretion unattempted unless she finds matter prepared and disposed for evacuation except this sometimes happen by extreme irritation by reason of the malignity of the matter which nature somtimes though it be yet crude lays out the utmost of her strength to expell but this Crisis is unhappy because it transgresseth the ordinary laws of nature And this is enough to be said of the causes of Crises and critical dayes The Third Section of PATHOLOGY Of the Causes of Diseases The First CHAPTER Of the Nature of the Morbifick Cause That is the Cause of a Disease which any way conduceth to it THis definition or rather explication of the morbifick cause is most general which could not be any other to comprize all the causes considered in Medicine for all those things which conferre any thing whatsoever to the generation of the disease either by themselves or by accident mediately or immediately are called by their name of Causes as also all those things which are advantagious to the Disease either by conservation or augmentation or by any other means as shall hereafter appear in the differences All the causes of diseases are referred to the efficient The Philosopher rallies all the causes of things under four heads viz. the Formal Material Efficient and Final to the series of which all morbifick causes are to be referred Yet here we cannot trace the four genus's of
these causes for that first the formal cause is nothing else but the proper essence of every thing but we have at large explained the nature and essence of diseases before Next there is no material cause in diseases for disease being an accident needs no matter out of which it should be produced but in which it should exsist which is nothing else but the subject thereof or the parts of our body As for the final cause though the lesion of actions may be termed as it were such yet this is by accident as it follows the generation of the disease but diseases by themselves and properly have no final cause as neither all those things which are constituted in a kind of imperfection therefore the efficient cause remains onely considerable in this discourse which is here taken by the Philosopher not only for that from which the effect is first produced but in a wider signification as appears by our description for all that which is in any manner conducible to the generation of the disease CHAP. II. Of the Differences of Causes The cause of a disease is either by it selfe or by accident The cause by it self is when by its own proper and implanted strength without the intervening help of any thing else it produceth a Disease But the cause by accident is when any thing else is summoned as auxiliary to the production of a morbous disposition SO cold water sprinkled upon our body by it self and naturally causeth a chilness but by accident upon the densation of the skin and contraction of the vapors within it heats So Scammony being an extreme hot Medicine by it self over-heats the bowels but by its powerful expurgation of choler and hot humors by accident it refrigerates and cures a feaver And there are causes of diseases some principal some helping some without which nothing could be The principal cause is that which either gave the first motion to the effect or is able alone to excite it The helping cause is that which produceth not the effect alone but is auxiliary to the principal The cause without which nothing could be is that which neither causeth the affection it self nor performs any thing else but without it nothing can be transacted The Gout is exemplary in all these three causes for the cold constitution of the air and the copiousness of excrementitious humors is the principal cause of a defluxion into the joynts the auxiliary cause is the tenuity of the humors but the cause without which nothing could be is the infirmity of the joynts and laxity of the passages There is also one cause of a disease remote the other nigh The remote is that between which and the disease others intercede The near cause is that to which the disease owes its immediate production The proposed differences of causes are of frequent use in the Art of Medicine but the succeeding are most frequent and of great validity in the explication of all diseases therefore in them we shall act the curious Scrutinists The causes of diseases are some external some internal The external causes are those which either outwardly applyed or differing from the constitution of our body usually cause diseases The term of external seems not very convenient because sleep waking and the passions of the mind are comprehended under it which yet seems to be contained among internal things yet because it hath found much acceptance with Physicians therefore we also reject it not averring those causes to be external because many of them are outwardly applyed as the air meat drink c. But the rest as sleep waking and the passions of the mind are so manifest that they are granted without any dispute for external positions Celsus therefore calleth them evident by a very apposite term Others call them procatarctick precedent and primitive because from them the first original of diseases flows But of them some are necessary some are unnecessary The necessary are those which do necessarily affect us and inevitably light upon us Yet though they necessarily affect us they do not necessarily introduce diseases but they are neutrals fluttering in an indifferency between health and disease for by the orderly use of them health is preserved but by the abuse and immoderateness of them it is destroyed But they are six 1 Air 2 Meat and drink 3 Motion and rest 4 Excretions and Retentions 5 Sleeping and Waking 6 The Passions of the mind They are vulgarly called the six not-natural things because by themselves they are neither agreeable to nor disconsonant from the nature of mans body but are made hurtful or useful according to the mode of well or bad using them They are peculiarly handled in that part of Medicine which treateth of Dyet therefore we omit the discourse of them The unnecessary are they which happen fortuitly and not concurring to the ordinary use of life All fortuite things are comprehended under these as the strokes of swords or stones the bitings of wilde beasts c. The internal causes are those which lurk within our body imperceptible to sense and discoverable only by an artificial conjecture So the humors spirits excrements flatulency vapors particles of the parts themselves and whatsoever is contained in them or agnate to them are circled into the nature of internal morbifick causes But they are either antecedent or concomitant The antecedent cause is that which is before the concomitant and moveth it and by the mediation of it effects a disease So in continuall feavers the antecedent cause is the matter fitted for putrefaction the concomitant which actually putrefies So in swellings caused by humors the flowing humor is accounted the antecedent cause the flux the concomitant The Concomitant cause is that which immediately and by it self produceth the disease Examples of this are after proposed in the explication of the antecedent But it is observable that external causes are sometimes concomitant as the sword which immediately makes the wound and therefore all the causes are not seldome divided into procatarctick antecedent and concomitant omitting the consideration of internal and external The concomitant cause is again simply concomitant or containing Simply concomitant is that which if it be the disease is but if it be taken away the disease remains So supposing the action wounding the wound is supposed but taking away the action that remains Continent cause is that which being supposed a disease is supposed and being taken away that follows So supposing the stone or some other matter causing obstruction we must suppose obstruction which if we take away obstruction removes also So taking away a sixth finger making an excess in number the error depending on that is taken away Hence it appears that all diseases have not a containing cause but some onely but all the rest have necessarily a concomitant cause CHAP. III. Of the Causes of Similar Diseases Thus far of the Causes of Diseases in their genus it followes that we handle them in their species
we propose the succeeding Theorems The Essence Some diseases are naturally alwaies malignant as a Cancer Leprosie the Venereal disease a Carbuncle the Plague others alwaies gentle unless they light upon a pestilent constitution as a Tertian ephemeral simple synochical Feaver and the like The material causes Usual feeding on meats of a bad juyce or corrupt drinking of marish muddy or corrupt waters do frequently produce malignant diseases Medicines venomous and of a deleterious quality generate malignant diseases In bodies of bad juyce and ill affected malignant diseases are most commonly generated The efficient causes A pestilent and corrupt aire doth usually produce malignant diseases Coition with an impure harlot whose sole issue is a malignant disease Wounds inflicted with intoxicated swords or the bitings of venomous creatures do produce and shew venomous affections Bloud and flegme produce gentle diseases but choler black porraceous eruginous and sometimes yellow causeth malignant diseases Whatever sick person is not sustained by healthful causes whether proceeding from nature as spontaneous vacuations or from art by due administrations of remedies but is advantaged by these applications onely which are of a preservative virtue against poyson and injured by almost all the rest that person is molested with a malignant disease THE EFFECTS Animal actions A deliration and great perturbation of the mind watching disturbance without a vehement Feaver are signes of a malignant disease Vital actions A sudden debilitation of the pulses and the strength a Deliquium and syncope discover a malignant disease Natural actions Great thirst without a vehement Feaver or the appetite to meat and drink abolished signifies a malignant disease If by vomit the belly or urine exerements pale black eruginous or tainted with some alien quality remote from the natural be expelled this shews a malignant disease In a notable Feaver attended by ill-look't symptomes if the urine be like that of healthy persons it shews a malignant disease For by such urine it doth evidently appear that the disease scornes to own for a parent vulgar putridity but is generated by a more intense profound occult or malignant quality which appears not with the urine Small and frequent sweats flowing in the forehead and neck onely shew a malignant disease Qualities changed A place colour in the face or other parts in Feavers signifie the malignity of them A black colour in the tongue not accompanied with thirst demonstrates a malignant disease Proper Accidents Those who in Feavers are infested with Wheals divers Pimples Carbuncles Botches in their arm-pits and groins impostumated ebullitions behind the ears and such like are malignantly diseased Ulcers smooth all round are malignant Aph. 4. Sect. 6. A corollary Those diseases are accounted gentle in which the foresaid signes of malignity are not discoverable CHAP. X. Of the Signes of an acute and Chronical disease DIseases of short continuance and swift motion which also have magnitude accompanying brevity are called acute and vehement to which the Physicians commonly oppose Chronical though they stand not in diametral contrariety to them for Chronical or long diseases are so called onely for that they are of continuance though sometimes also they are great such as the palsy the Dropsie and the like to which those are truly and properly opposed which are termed short simply as an Ephemeral Feaver The signes therfore of acute diseases shall be drawn from the precedent heads according to the order of the following Table mark't with the Letter G. G. The signes shewing an acute or Chronical disease are taken either from The Essence or species of the disease The internal causes or humours producing the disease The Effects or symptomes which are either Actions Animal Vital Natural Excrements ejected by The Belly The Bladder Qualities changed But the series of this Table will more evidently appear by the following Theorems The Essence All the inflammations of the interiour parts burning and continual Feavers are in their proper nature alwaies acute So when we see any one troubled with the Phrensie Pleurisie or such like affection we say they are sick of an acute disease The Causes Whatever diseases are produced by blood yellow or black choler are usually acute and so the knowledge of the humour effecting the disease easily conducts us to such skil that we know whether it fall into the number of the acute ones THE EFFECTS Animal Actions A deliration abolition of sence and motion or any part afflicted with very vehement pain shew an acute disease Natural Actions A great thirst large fluxes of the belly or total suppression of the evacuations of the belly and urine signifie an acute disease Excrements The excrements of the belly very yellow porraceous eruginous pale or black discover an acute disease Red green or eruginous urines shew the like Qualities changed The countenance of the sick person engrained in red heat overspread in the whole body a bitter taste in and blackness discolouring the tongue signifie an acute disease A Corollary The signes of the differences of acute diseases are described chap. 4. Sect. 3. of prognostick signes But Chronical diseases are easily known by the absence of the mentioned signes and presence of the contrary so that repetition of them here will be useless CHAP. XI Of the signes of morbifick causes and first Of the signes of preternatural choler DIseases are most generally the spawn of various humours unconformable to nature but those humours do usually breed diseases which are predominant in the whole or in any part of the body and so if we do accurately know this factious humor we shall easily arrive to the cause of the disease We must therefore recall the signes of these domineering humors from the first Chapters of this Section and because the humors there fall under our consideration as they are constituted in their natural state we therefore proposed onely four first differences of humors but now some others offer themselves which are wholly preternatural these we shall in short propose neither will it be impertinent to enquire after some other causes of diseases produced by humors lest this Treatise should be any way defective To begin therefore with choler we termed that natural which was died with yellow or pale though it be often disobedient to nature and produceth many diseases yet it always presents the same signes if to that which is preternatural and somewhat putredinous we adde this onely viz. that it is moved every third day as manifestly appears in the paroxysmes of a Tertian Feaver But there are other species of choler which are perpetually preternatural and as often as they visit the body they usually produce diseases and they are vitelline porraceous erguinous glasteous and black The vitelline owes its production to the yellow with the midwifery of preternatural heat which by dissipating the thinner parts incrassates that so that in consistence and colour it dissembles the yolk of an egge This is not discovered by any other signes then the yellow except onely
same opinion in the place of deadly inserts dangerous Convulsion or an hiccough after much profusion of bloud is bad Aph. 3. Sect. 5. Convulsion followes an immoderate loss of bloud either when the veines and arteries are robbed of that due proportion of bloud which they should contain and being empty are contracted and being contracted contract the nerves or because the veines exhausted attract from the neighbouring parts demanding mutual courtesie and so being dried with long profusion of bloud seek aliment from the nerves which forceth the exsiccated and contracted nerves to a convulst retirement to the fountain head as it were to derive help from it or else because the veines and arteries being immoderately exhausted hurry away not onely the bloud but all the spirits from the extreme parts whence the nerves are suddenly refrigerated hence ariseth an extremporary not a long convulsion not proceeding from a preternatural cause but rather produced by the action of nature and endeavouring to hinder the detriment of this inanition therefore we said before that a convulsion upon a flux of bloud was not alwaies deadly though dangerous because no convulsions caused by inanition wants danger Convulsion or an hiccough upon a superpurgation is bad Aph. 4. Sect. 5. In superpurgation not onely the useless but the useful humors are evacuated therefore the convulsion which succeeds it is by inanition and therefore dangerous So Aph. 1. of the same Section Convulsion upon hellebore is deadly because of the immoderate purgation which succeeds the assumption of hellebore Convulsion and desipience after watching is bad Aph. 18. Sect. 7. Watching saith Galen in his comm is one of those things which do most evacuate and dry and so cause a convulsion by siccity and besides because by long watchings the bloud is made more bilious and by consequence more fit for the stimulation of the nervous parts Cold. Those feavers in which are daily colds have a daily solution Aph. 63. Sect. 4. It holds not onely true in quotidian but in tertian and quartan recourses that feavers are resolved by a precedent coldness and hence we collect that there is no danger in coldness of intermitting feavers and that it gives no cause of fear Coldness in continual feavers happening on a critical day with the precedent signes of concoction and a remarkable evacuation following is healthy Good evacuations following such colds are copious sweats vomits dejection of the belly or flux of bloud by which feavers are either wholly taken away or much remitted of which Hippocrates Aph. 58. Sect. 4. A solution of a burning feaver is caused by supervening coldness Which is thus to be understood viz. if it happen with the mentioned conditions So in Hipp. 3. Epid. Sect. 2. aegr 5. Cherion Demenetus his guest was taken after a drinking match with a great feaver on the third day with an acute feaver trembling of his head and most of all his lower lip a while after he was cold convulst was fond in all passed the night with trouble on the fourth he had some quiet slept a little talked On the fifth day he was troubled all exacerbated he was fond passed the night with molestation slept not On the sixth day in the same condition On the seventh day he was extreme cold taken with an acute Feaver sweated all over was judged this man all along had bilious dejections few and sincere from his belly thin urine well-coloured having a cloudy enaeorema About the eighth day his urine was better and more coloured having a white small sediment he was in his senses without a Feaver he intermitted But about the fourteenth day an acute Feaver surprised him and he sweated On the sixteenth he vomited bilious matter yellow somewhat copiously On the seventeenth he was extreme cold and seised by an acute Feaver he sweated was without a Feaver and was judged his urine after his relapse and Crisis was of a better colour having sediment neither was he fond in his recidivations on the eighteenth he was a little hot thirsted had thin urine cloudy enaeorema was somewhat disipient About the nineteenth he was without a Feaver was pained in his neck had sediment in his urine on the twentieth was perfectly judged In this sick person cold first happened on the third day to no purpose as well because that day is seldome decretory as for that there appeared not any signes of concoction neither followed there any excretion and so all the before proposed conditions of good cold were wanting but the cold happening on the seventh day was healthy because it appeared on a critical day with the precedent signes of concoction for his urine was indeed thin and of a good colour having a cloudy enaeorema with copious evacuation for he sweated all over therefore on the eighth day which followed the Crisis he was without a Feaver yet the disease was not wholly taken away but very much diminished for we said before that by such colds Feavers were either taken away or very much diminished and the morbifick cause being not wholly driven away by the mentioned sweats he relapsed which on the seventh day a cold again followed in company with the aforesaid conditions viz sweats and concocted urine therefore his Feavers left him again and he was on the twentieth day perfectly judged That is also observable in this history which is remarked by Hipp. in both colds which happened on the seventh and the seventeenth day that the Feaver was much inflamed for in both places he saith he was cold and taken with an acute Feaver whereas in all Critical cold the more the body is heated the better and more perfect judication followeth for this declares nature strong and to operate powerfully the exclusion of the morbifick matter Colds after which the body is not at all or very little heated are bad For they signifie nature to be in a languishing condition and unable to make head against the morbifick cause whence Hipp. in 1. Prorrhet refrigeration not resuming heat after coldness is bad For that as Galen in his comm writes denotes an extinction of heat Which Hipp. also observed in 3. Epid. Sect. 2. aegr 12. Where a woman on the seventh day was extreme cold was taken with an acute Feaver much thirst jactation about evening sweated all over cold her extreme parts were refrigerated she was no more hot and again at night was extreme cold on the seventh day she was not reinvested with heat on the fourteenth day she dyed If a coma succeed a coldness or trembling falling on a Critical day death is to be expected Coldness happening not on a Critical day or that which none or a bad evacuation followes is pernicious So in the woman mentioned coldness often appeared even on not Critical daies without any excretion or cold sweat which is a bad evacuation so again History the eleventh Section 1. book 1. Epid. The wife of Dromeada was extreme cold on the third day with an universal but a
those also which proâ—eed from either apart if it be the humor which caused the disease of the sick person So in bilious feavers critical effluxions of choler or pituitous of flegme cause a solution of the disease or at least promise very great hopes of health A spontaneous vomiting surprising one long troubled with a profluxion of the belly is the solution of the disease Aph. 15. Sect. 6. For the morbifick matter is revulsed into the contrary part and this revulsion signifies a refreshing of nature and resumption of strength For as a Physician labours the retreat of those things which flow into any part so nature when she begins to prevail causeth this recoile as when upon surdity she causeth bilious dejections so upon a flux of the belly she converts to vomiting For when the intestines are troubled with a fluxion it shews the power of nature if she can turn the stream of this ill affected influxion into another part If bloud is conveyed upward whatever it be it is bad Aph. 25. Sect. 4. Bloud ejected by vomit issues from the ventricle or liver and discovers apertion ruption or erosion of some vein in those parts such vomiting therefore is counted bad And this Hipp. in his Aph. mentions as also he speaks of bloud expelled by a cough which is raised from the breast or lungs Yet note that some times bloudy vomiting is good and healthy if it be critically performed though this happens very seldome yet Galen averres it 7. Meth. chap. 11.3 of cause of sympt chap. 2. and 5. of affected places chap. 7. and we have seen sometimes a pleurisie in a strong young man to have been perfectly and healthfully judged by vomiting bloud on the seventh day We also saw another who after a tedious sickness being as it were pained with difficulty of spiration upon a sudden emission of black bloud by copious vomits was freed This aphorisme therefore must be understood with this distinction viz. that the persevering and often repeated vomiting of bloud is bad but if it happen once and return again and if the solution of any disease follow it it is undoubtedly good Quantity Small and troublesome vomit in an acute feaver is bad For it is not convenient that any thing decretory should be sparingly expelled but such vacuations signifie either such a plenty of matter that nature cannot bear it but expelleth some of it symptomatically or the imbecillity of nature in vain endeavouring to remove superfluities Quality Vomits variously coloured composed of many humors are bad For they signifie that various humors are lodged in the body which cause nature the more trouble by how much more difficult it is to grapple with divers antagonists For if it be a very uneasie taske to encounter divers kinds of aliments how much more difficult and dangerous will it be to attempt to concoct and subdue various humors deviating from the prescripts of nature especially in acute diseases in which the time for skirmish is short which should be very long that we might conceive greater hopes of the victory of nature Porraceous eruginous pale black or stinking vomit is deadly For such vomit signifies that porraceous eruginous or black choler are predominant in the body But all these species of choler do usually produce malignant and deadly diseases but if a stink be joyned to them they signifie a notable corruption of humors which will soon poyson nature We find an example of eruginous vomit in Hipp. 3. Epid. Sect. aegr 4. where Philistes on the first day vomited bilious matter in quantity small yellow at first afterward much eruginous matter on the fifth day in the morning he dyed As also Sect. 3. of the same book aegr 4. where a phrenitical person on the first day vomited much eruginous thin matter on the fourth he dyed of black vomit we have an example in 1. Epid. aegr 〈◊〉 one who on the eighth day about evening vomited a little black bilious matter and on the eleventh dyed Yet it may be objected that this signe is dubious because the wife of Epicrates as we read 1. Epid. aegr 5. on the twentieth day vomited a little bilious black matter and was perfectly judged without a Feaver on the eighth We must answer that that disease was so dangerous and attended by such desperate symptomes that it was a wonder how the sick party should escape when it had held her eighty dayes But it sometimes happens that some even most deadly diseases are beyond all hope of the Physician brought to an happy conclusion which yet do not debilitate the judgements of art which imply a common though not alwaies a necessary consequence Besides this it is worth animadversion that such depraved humors are sometimes Critically expelled though this be a rare accident Lastly of stinking vomit with a train of other bad qualities we have an instance in 3 Epid. Sect. 2. aegr 12. Where a woman on the eighth and ninth day vomited a little bilious matter on the eleventh virulent and bilious on the twelfth and thirteenth much black stinking matter on the fourteenth she dyed Sincere and impermixt vomits are in acute Feavers bad 10. Prorrhet For sincere humor is not crude onely but also incoctile as excluding as well the act as the power of coction Hipp. termes every humor void of mixtion or all fervid and crude excrement not tempered with its serum impermixt Whose generation proceeds from the vitiosity of some part or from heat and febrile inflammation the aquous and serous part being exhausted therefore in an acute Feaver it shews that a great inflammation is fuelled within and most commonly by nature invincible In any disease if black choler be upward or downward evacuated it is deadly Aph. 22. Sect. 4. Such excretion is deadly as a signe and as a cause for no excretion in the cradle of a disease can be healthful and evacuation of any humor is bad before the signes of concoction For this demonstrates that the cause is very biting and troublesome or that the faculty is wholly languid when the oeconomy of nature is thus disturbed which concocts first then segregates and parts the useful from the useless lastly expels But when the peccant matter in this manner disturbing nature is very bad we must think the sick person is deadly affected But if in the progress of the disease black choler be expelled the evacuation of it may be sometimes good viz. if the signes of concoction appear with it They who are extenuated by acute or long diseases or wounds or by any other means if they evacuate black choler or as it were black bloud through their inferiors they die the day following Aph. 23. Sect. 4. Extenuation signifies great debility such dejection denotes a great disease which soon destroyes the sick person so very infirme When therefore such an evacuation happens to persons so extenuated it signifies that nature now quite enfeebled cannot any longer contain those humors but sets them at liberty and
rarifi'd the bloud increases the spirits revive and all things seem glad for the dissolution of Winters frost Neither is it absurd to say that many diseases are bred in Winter since the Spring naturally brings health not diseases and if it finde the body in good estate so preserves it But if there be an an abundance of humours collected in the Winter in the Spring they are melted and stirred and sometimes putrefie which causes various sorts of diseases And the Spring by accident not of its own proper nature is said to beget diseases You will object again that the Spring is hot and moist according to Hipp. but a hot and moist constitution is unwholesome and most liable to breed diseases that spring from putrefaction Therefore the Spring cannot be said to be most wholesome We answer that that is in the excesse of heat and 〈…〉 but where the heat exceeds the cold and the moisture exceeds the drinesse moderately that temper is most wholesome and most agreeing with humane nature which inclines to heat and moisture Besides life consists in hot and moist and must be preserved by things of that temper The summer is hot and dry it renders the body hot dry faint thirsty and weak it attenuates and burns the humours it increases choler which is the cause of the abundance of cholerick Feavers at that time Autumn is cold and dry fruitful of diseases because of the inequality of its tempers for in the morning 't is cold at noon very hot and lastly at evening 't is cold again The body is condensed at that time and the humours hindred from flowing being forc'd to the interiour parts by the coldnesse of the air whence arise many diseases very dangerous by reason of the black choler which abounds in the body in Autumn The Winter is cold and moist it strengthens the body and makes it more lively and full of natural heat and causes long sleeps through the tediousnesse of the nights it procreates flegm and makes the body liable to obstructions CHAP. XXVII Of motion and rest MOtion and exercise are a principal means for the preservation of health above all other things except temperance Here the common sentence of Hipp. may be fitly repeated l. 6. Epid. The way to preserve health is not to glut the stomack with meat and to be laborious in exercise Galen in many places chiefly commends exercise but in one place chiefly where he prefers it before temperance in diet in lib. de suc bon vit c. 2. Unlesse a man exercise sufficiently he cannot preserve himself from diseases by any temperance in diet unlesse he do recompense the want of exercise by requisite purgation or letting of bloud But if he use a through exercise though he sometimes exceed in diet yet he shall continue without diseases But Aristot Prob. 47. sect 1. questioning why it is good to diminish his diet and increase his labour Because saith he the superfluity of humours causeth diseases which shew themselves chiefly when either a man exceeds in diet or is wanting in exercise Motion and exercise excite the natural heat increase and stir up the spirits so that the body becomes more strong lesse liable to external injuries and fitter to undertake all actions Concoction is perfected better by the increase of heat and the stirring and exagitation of the spirits causeth a more plentifull transpiration the defect whereof is the cause of almost all diseases But there are many sorts of motion and exercise as walking running leaping riding gestation and infinite others of which some exercise the body more some lesse others the whole body others but some parts Galen commends the play with the little ball chiefly as that which exercises the whole body running and walking exercise the thighs particularly by handling arms and rowing the arms and superiour parts are exercised by singing hollowing and loud reading the voice and brest by riding the stomack The most used and most commodious kinde of exercise is moderate walking through green and pleasant places under a clear and serene skie But they that are soon weary of walking through infirmity or cannot walk free enough may more conveniently ride on horseback Moderate walking exercises almost the whole body causeth an appetite excites the natural heat strengthens the body and helps toward the evacuation of the excrements To make exercise profitable for the body two things are to be observed time and measure The fit time is before meat chiefly before dinner Exercise is more convenient before meat because the former meal being concocted the relicks of the excrements are evacuated by exercise and dissipated and so the body is the better disposed to concoct and receive new nourishment Whence Galen 1. de san tuen c. 2. bids him that hath not concocted rest altogether But exercise after dinner is worst of all for it carries the crude humours into the veins obstructs the liver oppresses the head and causes many diseases For this cause Scholars are often troubled with the Itch because they exercise after dinner which carries the meat out of the stomack before due concoction and fils it full of crude humours which vehement exercise carries to the skin where they turn to scabs The same happens to those that exercise when the body is in an ill temper and full of vicious humours which produces scabs and ulcers As teaches Hipp. 6. Epid. sect 5. If he labour unpurg'd scabs will break forth Exercise before dinner is better then before supper because in the morning the stomack is empty and the concoction better perfected by reason of the greater space of time between dinner and supper on the contrary the meat eaten at dinner is not so well digested Yet a gentle walking after meat is usefull as that which recals the heat and hastens not away the meat but causes it to descend to the bottom of the stomack where it is more quickly concocted and helps the distribution of the meat also when it is concocted The measure of exercise is appointed by Galen 2. de san tuen c. ult which may be referred to four heads 1. To continue exercise till the body swell 2. Till it appear fresh and lively 3. Till a wearinesse come upon it 4. Till a moderate sweat or hot vapour break forth any of which appearing then desist from exercise CHAP. XXVIII Of Sleep and Watchings SLeep is absolutely necessary for the preservation of health and if it be moderate it helps concoction refreshes and restores the strength lost in the time of watching moistens the inner parts of the body and is conducible to old men All the good which comes to men from sleep is to be ascribed to the retraction of the heat to the inner parts For the heat increased in the bowels generates copious spirits and restores them that were lost in the time of watching which helps the concoction in the liver and several other parts and forwards the expulsion of the excrements and because that
Coindicants do not a little conduce and especially the forming of the parts the situation and connexion So the Ventricle is purged by vomit and stool the hollow part of the Liver by dejection or loosnesse the convex part by provocation of urine chiefly To the guis we apply remedies through the fundament In the same manner Correpugnants are to be considered which prohibit the use of the remedy For example the inflamed orifice of the stomack might be externally refrigerated if the nearnesse of the Diaphragma did not hinder it and so also the outward calefaction of it when it is cool'd is hindered by the lappet of the Liver which lies upon it CHAP. VI. Of the first and most general principle of Curation ALL methods of curing are taken from this first and most general principle Contraries are cured by contraries Although there is no disputing of principles they being to be granted for true and unquestionable as Galen teaches of this principle of Curation that in Physick 't is as certain that contraries are cured by contraries as in Mathematicks that twice two are four and that this principle is not only bred in men by nature but also in beast Yet there are some objections which at first sight do seem to question the truth thereof 1. Tetanus is a cold disease yet is cured by cold water pain is eas'd by pain vomit by vomit loosnesse by loosnesse 2. All contraries are made more intense by the approach of contraries as if a man put his hand to the fire when it is num'd with cold it is more tormented also if a man put his burnt finger into cold water it torments him more then if he should hold it to the fire or dip it in Aqua vitae 3. Purging medicines are proper remedies against peccant humours yet they purge those humours by a familiarity not a contrariety which they have with those humours 4. Nature useth to cure both hot and cold diseases with which it can be at no contrariety 5. Diseases have no contrariety of number magnitude or figure by which they may be taken away To satisfie these Objections we must say that the word Contrariety hath a larger signification with the Physitians then with the Philosophers being not only with them considered as to the form but as to the effect and operation For what ever can remove a thing which is besides nature or induce a contrary effect whether it be by it self or by accident is named contrary So Rhubarb is contrary to choler as it purges it forth so Iron and fire is contrary to superfluous flesh because it takes it away which being thus premised it will be easie to answer these objections To the first we say that the Tetane is cured by the effusion of cold water by accident the heat being increased by Antiperistasis in the interior parts pain is taken away accidentally by pain while the new pain draws to it self the cause of the new pain vomit is cured by vomit loosnesse by loosnesse the cause being evacuated which occasioned them To the second we say That the contention of contraries is troublesome to nature if it be sudden and vehement but if it be moderate and convenient it is very agreeable so the hand benumm'd with cold being held to the fire is tormented because there is too sudden a contention of contraries but being put into luke-warm water or wrapp'd in warm linnen it come to it self so the finger being burnt and held to the fire or dipp'd in Aqua vitae is eas'd in respect of the cause for the hot things draw forth the fire fixed in the part which the water drave farther in To the third I answer That though purging remedies are of a familiar substance with the peccant humours yet they may effectively be said to be contrary because they purge them and draw them out of the body To the fourth I answer That nature is contrary to all diseases by reason that it concocts and expels the cause of them To the fifth we say That those things are effectively contrary to number magnitude and figure which do take away or alter them as iron fire ligatures and the like Those contraries as much as may be ought to be equal among themselves That equality is indicated from the nature of the disease and the morbifical cause which indicate a sudden removal thereof But the strength part affected and time of the disease and other circumstances are equally repugnant to them Therefore in the Theorem is added this particle as much as may be because the equality of contraries is not absolutely necessary to curation but only to the more commodious curation if the rest agree The equality of the remedy in respect of the disease is doubly considered either according to the degree copiousnesse or magnitude An equal remedy as to the degree is that which hath the same recesse from the mean as the disease Thus a cold remedy in the second degree is equal to a disease hot in the second An equal remedy according to the magnitude and copiousnesse is that which besides the degree of its quantity being exhibited once twice or more times may purge out the disease In this sense a moderate and vehement remedy may be said to obtain an equality against any disease when as being vehement once or twice taken being moderate oftner used it avails to remove the disease Moreover equality in degree is so either actually and really or else in respect only of the operation Thus in similar diseases there is granted a degree of contrariety existing in act as a hot remedy in the second degree us'd to a cold disease in the second degree But in diseases as to the form of the part magnitude or number the remedies are said to be equall according to the operation which they make appear in restoring the form magnitude or number of parts By that which we have above said may all the objections be easily resolved which wont to be brought against the contrariety of qualities of which the chief are these 1. Hipp. 6. Epid. saith contraries must be used by degrees and with intermission 2. Galen forbids efficacious and violent remedies at the beginning commanding us to begin with the weakest at first 3. The efficacy of cold is lesse then that of heat the efficacy of moisture lesse then that of drought and therefore are not to be opposed in an equal degree 4. To hot and cold diseases in the fourth degrees must not be exhibited remedies hot and cold in the fourth degree for they are poyson 5. If all diseases were cured by equal contraries the proportion of the agent should be equall in all things to that which suffers and so the same suddennesse of alteration and so all sick people would be cured in the same time 6. Reduction according to Galen ought to be made in sound bodies by equall contraries and in sick persons those which are most strong ought to be used because the
the hollow gristly pipes that spread themselves through the body of the lungs being branches of the wind-pipe Bronchorele swelling in the wind-pipe Bubo a sore in the groin C. CAcochymy the abounding of evil humors Calcined burned to ashes in a crucible Calidity heat Callosity a brawny hardness in the skin Carminative medicines that break the wind Cartilage gristle Carotides branches of the great artery going up to the head with the jugular veins Carnosity fleshiness Caries foulness rottenness or corruption of a bone Cataplasme a pultise Catarrhe a defluxion of the humors from the brain Catoche a waking drousiness and dulness of the sences Cavity hollowness Caustick medicines to burn the skin for issues Cephalick belonging to the head Chorion the outmost skin wrapping the child all over Chyle white juyce coming out of the meat digested in the stomach Cicatrize to bring to a scar or close up a wound Colature straining Collyrium an eyessalve Coma heavy and long sleep Condensation a thickening Congelation freezing together Consistence body stiffened with cold or substance Constipation stopping up Contiguity nearness Corneatunica a coat of the eye like horn Corrode biting fretting Crisis a breaking away of the disease by natures conquest of the cause Crassity grosness D. Decoction the liquor wherein things are boiled Defecated cleansed from dregs Deliration dotage raving talking idlely Deliquium a fainting or swouning Density thickness Deterse scoured cleansed Diabete a plentiful sending forth of urine which a violent thirst and consumption succeeds Diagridiate medicines that have scammony in them Diametrically directly opposite Diapedesis an issuing of bloud through the pores of the veins Diaphanous transparent clear Diaphoretick sweats caused by nature oppressed with a malignant humor and forcibly driving it out Diaphragma the midriffe Diastole the extending or swelling of an artery Diathesis disposition Discrete quantity uncontinued parted Dislocation displacing Disparity unevenness Diureticks medicines provoking urine Dyscracy evil temper or disposition Dysenteria qloudy flux Dyspnaea snortness of breath E. EMbrocation bathing bedewing moistening Emplastick sticking Emprosthotonus a Cramp in the forepart of the body Empyema a corrupt matter between the breast and lungs following a pleurisie Emulsion milkes made of cool seeds Eneorema that which hangs like a cloud in urine Enaergetically effectually Ephemeral daily returning Epiala a feaver produced by cold flegm Epicrasis a gentle evacuation of bad humors and receiving good instead Epilepsie a convulsion of the whole body by fits Epiploon the caul Epoulotick causing or inducing a scar Erosion fretting eating Eruginous rusty Erisipelas a swelling caused by choler Exacerbation the fit of a disease Excoriation fleaing the skin away Eucrasy a good well disposed temper F. FArinaceous mealy like meal Fissure cleaving dividing parting Friable apt to crumble short Frigidity coldness Fuliginous smoky misty Fungous spungy G. GIbbosity crookedness of the back Glasteous of the colour of woad Glutinous clammy like glue Gracility slenderness Gravative burdensome heavy Gravity heaviness Grumous ful of clodds or lumps Gypseous limy H. HAbit the whole bulk and substance of the body Hallucination error in judgement Haemorrhagia breaking forth of the bloud from any part of the body Haemorrhoides veins of the fundament to which leeches are applyed Hepatitides veins coming out of the liver Heterogeneous of another nature or kind Homogeneous of the same nature or kind Humidity moisture Hydromel hony and water Hypochondrium theforepart of the belly about the sides and short ribs above the navel Hypogastrium the lower part of the belly under the navel Hypostasis the settling of urine Hysterical troubled with fits of the mother I. IChor raw unconcocted bloud Idiopathy any ones particular and proper affection Idiosyncracy any ones proper and peculiar temper Igneous fiery burning Immobility staiedness fixedness not moveable Intestinum rectim the straight gut Intercostal between the ribs Invalidate to weaken Irrepent creeping in secretly L. LAevity smoothness Levity lightness Lienous troubled with the spleen Lienteria a flux when meat goes away unconcocted Lipothymia fainting or swouning Lipyria an hot feaver the outward parts being cold Lithontripticks medicines to break the stone Lubricity slipperiness Luxation loosening of one joynt from another M. MAgisterial medicines invented by a Physician for his patient contrary to common ones in shops Malacia immoderate lust of women with child Marasmus a consuming feaver Masticatory medicines to be chewed to bring away rheume Membranes skin or coat of the arteries or veins Meninx the filme enwrapping the brain Mesaraick veins little veins conveying the chyle from the stomach to the liver Mesenterium the skin which knits the guts together Morbifick matter causing the disease N. NArcotick stupifying medicines which dull the sense of feeling and cause deep sleep Nauseousness sick stomach inclining to vomit Nephritical troubled with pain in the reins Nephrocatarticks medicines to purge the reins Nidorous swelling of burnt fat or scorched meat O. OBesity fatness Obturation shutting stopping Oesophagus the mouth of the stomach Oleaginous oyly Ophthalmia an inflammation of the eyes Opisthotonus a convulsion when the body is drawn back Organ peculiar parts of the body Osseous bony full of bones Oxycratium vinegar and water mingled Oxydorticks medicines making the eyesight quick Oxyrohodine vinegar of roses Oxysaccharum syrup of vinegar and sugar P. PAraphrenitis a hot distemper communicated to the brain causing a disease like a phrensie Paregoricall mitigating asswaging Parenchyma the substance of the bowels Paroxysme a fit of any disease Pathognomonical properly signifying the species of the disease Pathology treatise of diseases Pepasmus the producing a thing to ripeness and concoction Pepsis concoction ripeness digestion Peripneumony an inflammation of the lungs Peritoneum the inner coat of the belly which covers the gut Pharmaceutick any medicines made by the Apothecary Phlegmon an inflammation or swelling caused by bloud Phthisis consumption corruption Physiology treatise of nature Pica lust of women with child Pituitous flegmy Plethora abounding and fulness of bloud Pleura a thin skin investing the inside of the ribs Podagrical gouty Polypus an excrescency of flesh hanging down to the lower part of the nose like the fish Polypus Porraceous green of the colour of leeks Primigenious primitive first produced Procatarctick first working primary occasions and causes Puerility childs age Pulsifick causing to beat Pungitive pricking Purulent ful of matter and corruption Pyrotick hot burning Q. Quadruple four-fold R. RArity thinness Refrigeration cooling Respiration breathing Retentive power whereby the parts hold fast nourishment drawing back of bloud or humor from the parts affected S. Salprunellae salt-peter purified with brimstone Salsuginous salt Salubrity healthiness Sarcotick producing flesh Scirrhus an hard swelling without pain Sediment settling of urine Semeiotick shewing the signes or Symptonmes of diseases Serum wheyish humor affording matter of urine Siccity driness Spagyricks Chymical Physicians Spasmus a cramp or convulsion Spermatick full of seed Spinalis medulla marrow of the backbone Spumous frothy Struma a swelling in the neck the kings evil or a bunch in the back Sudoriferous causing sweat Superficies the outside of any thing Suppuration a collection of matter in an impostume when it is ready to break Syderation blasting with heat Syllogizing reasoning by argument Symbolize to be like Symmetry just proportion Symptome an evil disposition of body which depends upon and accompanies a disease Synochical continual symptomatical feaver without fits caused by a foregoing disease Systole contraction falling or sinking of the artery T. TAblets medicines made up four square Tenesmus a continual desire of going to stool and voiding nothing butslime or bloudy matter Tensive stretching out Tetanus an extending cramp Therapeutick treatise of healing medicines Tophaceous sandy Transpiration passage of vapours through the pores Trochissated made up in form of a little bowle V. VAletudinary sickly Ventricle the stomach Vertebra the turning bones of the whole back Vertigo swimming in the head Vesicatory medicines applyed to the skin to cause blisters Vitelline like the yolk of an egge Vitreous like glass Ureters passages conveying the urine from the kidney to the bladder Vulnerary belonging to wounds FINIS
the more temperate part of the whole masse inclining to heat and moisture and painted with red THE more temperate part of the Chyle and indifferent in substance is converted into blood properly so called which is of affinity to the nature and temper of the Liver which being hot and moist communicates its temper to a substance like to it self and it not only tempers but dyes it red in so deep a grain that it outvies the colour of other humors partaking of the same masse so that the whole masse of humors is vested in red and in an absolute term embraces the name of blood Which that it might be plentiful these accessaries are requisite viz. temperate aliment and of a good juice the flower of Age spring time an hot and moist temper of the Liver Though blood proceeds from all aliment yet some are more others less copious in the production of it When therefore all these causes convene from this concurrence will result a Sanguin Temperament because blood is very predominant It is usefull for the nutrition of carnous parts as of the muscles and bowels which are nourished by blood properly so called The effect of it is to raise in men hilarity and mirth a propensity to sports and love and flourishes them with a lovely colour because they are well fraught with temperate heat which is the original of these merry frolicks As we may take notice that all creatures in the cradle of their Age are much addicted to hilarity because that is the furnace of natural heat But whatever blood confines it self to the veines is stockt with many fibres by the benefit of which it acquireth concretion and assimulation with the parts These Fibres a great number of which the blood harbours are manifestly evident when the blood is tempered with much water or stirred with the hand as may be specified in Swines blood all the fibres following this agitation that may be an hindrance to concretion for such is the vertue of these fibres that they presently rally to an unition with the blood which flowes out of the veins as is manifest in the proposed examples And by the help of these the blood being conveyed to divers parts for the better nutrition is condesed and solidated so that it may easily be assimilated to the parts otherwise if destitute of fibres it would remain liquid For it is out of the reach of credit that Aristotle's opinion should hold true that Harts Does and Camels want them but we must apprehend that they have but few which are sufficient to cause an indifferent concretion But these fibres are of colour wholly white representing a nervous substance from whence we may fetch an opinion that they derive themselves not from the Liver but from the ventricle which is wholly nervous and doth in some manner impart the nature of its substance to the Chyle But Blood is two-fold the one lodged in the Veins the other in the Arteries The venal is more crasse cold and ruddy and designed for the nourishment of parts of a solid substance Arterial is thinner hotter and inclining to yellow and officious in the nutrition of parts of a spiritous substance The blood in the veins is derived immediately from the Liver which it signifies by a tincture of the nature and temper thereof and so is colder then the arterial whose forge is the heart where it is elaborated to tenuity and acquires a yellowish colour by reason of aire confused with it in the left ventricle of the heart which washes away that rich dye therefore it is so much hotter then the heart according to the proportion of that heat which causeth an excesse in the temper of the heart in relation to that of the Liver A COROLLARY Some have impudence enough to deny that there is such a thing as blood properly so called but will needs argue the whole masse of humors to be constituted only of choler flegme and melancholy and that the mixtion of these three humors is termed blood of which assertion they indeavour to make demonstration by the example of milke which is immediately produced from blood for in it there are only three homogeneous substances to be found viz. butyrous serous and caseous which are correspondent to these three humors But this opinion is weaken'd by this that nothing but true blood can paint in red the masse of humors For choler is yellow flegme white and melancholy black Besides the carnous parts which in our body are many bearing Analogy in colour and temper to blood do peculiarly instance that this is the humor which they prey upon But to the example of milke I reply that it is not necessary that all things should have the same parts as those to whom they owe their generation for the seed generated by the blood hath only two parts viz. spirit and incrassation To this may be added that that example argues rather against the choler than the blood for butter is Analogous to blood as hot and moist as cheese to melancholy but the serum admits of no such comparison to flegme but rather to ichors which are evacuated by Urine and sweat and obtain the very name of serum But especially notice is to be taken of that axiome upon which we ground that the resolution of things is into the same masse from which they took their composition by this is understood only their ultimate resolution into the Elements For things by a kind of gratitude surrender themselves into the bosome of their first causes But the Elements are the first bodies ingredient to the composition of all mixt bodies which fall back again into them but owe no such duty to their second causes viz. the flesh and bones after the decease of the creature are resolved into the Elements but not into bread and other aliment which supplies nutrition to them or into seed and blood out of which they were framed in conception CHAP. IV. Of Alimentary Flegme Alimentary Flegme is the more unconcoct part of the blood Cold and Moist almost destitute of tast or sweetish THE more cold and moist part of the masse of blood is called flegme generated out of the cruder part of the Chyle hence Galen terms it crude and parboil'd blood who asserts also that in a famine of blood this being brought to maturation by a farther coction converts to blood and that in the very veins by a Sanguifying vertue sent to them as Auxiliary from the Liver Cold and moist aliments produce a great fertility of it so Age winter and a cold and moist temper of the Liver From the winter ariseth cause of doubt for that our bellies according to Hippocrates are hotter in winter by reason they are the randezvouz of the native heat which in this season concentring there must necessarily be commodious for concoction and so there will be no plenty of crude humors generated To this I oppose that flegme is abundantly generated in winter not in respect of the
heat is immediately suffocated as appears in Suspension But this native heat being weak in most parts of our body and so easily obnoxious to extinction Nature hath so provided that by the continual influence of heat it may be nourished and sustained Hence Physicians divide Heat into two parts viz. implanted and adventitious The adventitious flows in from the two fountains of heat viz. the Heart and Liver in company of the spirits and blood A COROLLARY LEarned Fernelius was so transported in admiration of the noble effects of this native heat that he was of opinion that it was to be struck out of the number of Elementary qualities as being of a higher extract and wholly divine and heavenly which lest he should seem an indeliberate babler he endevours to evince by the following reasons First All action depends upon a predominant quality but there are in Nature examples of many Plants as Poppy Hemlock Mandrakes and of Animals as the Salamander which is thought to be cold in the fourth degree yet they live and heat is the cause of life it is therefore necessary to constitute another heat differing from the Elementary which in them is very weak by the help of which they live and exercise their actions Secondly If Elementary heat caused life Brimstone Arsenick and such like things which are intensely hot would chiefly live but they live not because they are destitute of this celestial and vivifying heat so cadaverous reliques retain Elementary heat yet live not Thirdly If our heat were Elementary it would admit of no contrary Elementary heat as that of a Feaver which most of all dissolves it Fourthly Fernelius grounds this assertion upon the authority of Aristotle Book 2. of the Gener. of Anim. Chap. 3. where he affirms That native heat is not of an igneous but some more divine nature correspondent in proportion to the Element of the Stars But though this opinion is grounded upon the invention of a most ingenious and excellent Artist we cannot betray our reason to it by a quiet assent for the species of the qualities of our bodies are not without the command of necessity to be multiplyed our judgement therefore is that native heat is wholly of an Elementary nature as we shall prove by the following arguments First Celestial bodies have not the first qualities for then they would be corruptible for all corruption depends upon the qualities so the Philosophers prove the Heavens incorruptible because they have no qualities So they argue the Sun to have no heat in it but to produce it in these inferiour bodies energetically and virtually viz. by motion light and influence Secondly If native heat were celestial it would abhor a contrary according to the sense of Fernelius himself But Elementary cold hath a contrary for the extremity of cold sometimes causeth death by the extinction of native heat therefore it is not celestial Thirdly If it were celestial it would want no fuel to prey on and if it wanted it could not be proportioned to it in our body for Celestial cannot be nourished by Elementary To this is opposed That this heat though it be celestial is by a familiarity with elementary heats changed as it were into elementary or at least models it self into an elementary fashion which seems not satisfactory because celestials receive the impress of no passion from elementaries it is not possible their nature should be so inverted as to savour of the conditions of things elementary Fourthly Native heat derives its original from seed and seed from blood and spirits which are also the production of blood but the blood is elementary therefore by consequence native heat The Arguments of Fernelius though they represent some truth yet may be easily thus resolved by us To the first I answer That heat in a living body is twofold one as the body is mixt the other as it is living as mixt it hath the foure first qualities tempered and so only potential heat mixt bodies inanimate affecting not the touch with heat as living it hath actual heat by the help of which it exercises the functions of life and this heat though it be no ingredient of mixtion and though its operations are performed in a different manner from the operations of mixt heat yet it is not distinguished from it specifically but onely numerically as if Pepper be heated in the fire that acquired actual heat differs from the heat produced by mixtion yet both are elementary To the second I reply That Brimstone Arsenick and such like live not through the defect of a soul which is the true and principal Author of life whereof heat is but onely the instrument but the instrumental cause acts nothing of it self but at the command of the principal though that heat proceeding from mixtion as before is said concurs not to the operations of life but onely the living heat of which they are destitute So dead carcasses have neither soul nor that actual heat so bodies just expired retain that heat for some time yet live not wanting a soul So seed is largely fraught with that native heat though it live not through defect of a soul though our learned Neoterikes judge it to be animate which discourse shall be referred to its proper place To the third I answer That feaverish heat is contrary to the native as it is more intense for an intense degree of the same quality in comparison with a more remiss is accounted contrary because it effects its destruction by raising it to intensity Besides feaverish heat is contrary to native by reason of the passive quality attending it for feaverish heat is dry native moist Lastly we shall thus disoblige our selves from the duty we owe to Aristotle's authority that he referred to the effects not the nature of native heat But the effects of this heat are almost divine the honour of which is rather to be conferred upon the soul and its faculties though the heat of our fire being temper'd according to Art produceth admirable effects in Chymistry And so even in our Culinary fire as in Aegypt according to the report of Scaliger Eggs are wont to be excluded in some Furnaces so artificially built that the heat of the fire may be in them so temperate that it may be fit to effect generation The fifth Section of Physiology Of the Parts CHAP. I. Of the Nature of the Parts A Part is a body cohering to the whole Mass and participating of life and fit for its functions and offices THIS definition of a Part being the most ingenious invention of Fernelius was afterwards ratified by the consent of most learned men For he considers a Part as it is related to Medicine viz. as it is capable of health or disease and in his opinion all those deserve not the name of Parts which though they concur to constitute the body yet they cannot sympathize in a Disease Therefore the Humors and Spirits have no share in this definition because they
the whole masse therefore for the exercise of action there is not only required the presence of the soul with its retinue of faculties but also a disposition of the Organ fitted for action which being disorderly the actions are lamely or not at all exercised But it is observable that in the parts beside the action properly so called there are two other things considerable viz. their Work and Use The Work is the effect of action viz. when it hath a real and permanent object as for example the Chyle which proceeds from concoction in the ventricle is named the Work so the blood in the Liver But the use of a part is when it exerts no action from it self but is only auxiliary and commodious to the action of another part as the mesenterium which is only the pillar supporting the mesaraick veins the epiploon of the ventricle nourisheth heat and involves it as a vestment Therefore Use is distinguished from action because this is perpetually in motion which cannot in conceit be abstracted from it but Use is placed in the idleness of the part which sometimes remains after the decease as appears by the use of the skin which covers the whole body and by the skul useful to contain the brain CHAP. II Of the Differences of Faculties and Functions The Faculties and Functions are three-fold Natural Vital and Animal THE spirits were before divided into three differences every one of which is produced in its peculiar part and streams from it into the whole body where we mentioned three parts which are the shops of these parts it remains now that we constitute three faculties and enthronize them in those parts which by the disposition of instruments may in them chiefly exercise their actions whose actions ought not to exceed in number the faculties being their effects and because we attaine not the knowledg of the faculties but by the functions aforesaid they were divided into three because there appear three kind of actions distanced by a great latitude every of which is subdivided into its species as after shall appear But experience doth often inform us that those three functions and so the faculties are mutually distinguished For First it is evident enough by this that the Animal faculty is distinguished from the natural because many parts as the bones and cartilages are destitute of sense and motion yet they live and receive nutriment Besides It is plain by this that there intercedes a difference between the Vital and Animal because when we sleep or desist from all operation yet the heart with the Arteries is in continual agitation and is in no wise obedient to the command of the will Lastly The distinction of the vital from the natural is manifest in a part consumed by an Atrophy or the whole body in a Marasmus which for want of Aliment is pined yet it lives by the help of a faculty issuing from the heart which defends and preserves it Some may object That Galen in his bookes of the differences of symptomes constitutes only two faculties the Animal and Natural omitting the Vital I Answer That Galen there understands that terme Naturall at large for all that which is not voluntary and so comprehends the Vital faculty in the latitude of the Animal for he there engages himself to the strict law of division which is made when the members are opposite so that in this manner voluntary is opposed to involuntary seeing then the Animal functions are voluntary but the Vital and Natural involuntary and both performed only by the vertue of nature therefore he there expresseth both by the term of Natural though in many other places he distinguisheth them CHAP. III. Of the Natural Faculty and Function and their species and First of Nutrition The Natural faculty is that vertue of the soul by which through the assistance of native heat the body is nourished and increased and the same according to its species is generated And it is three-fold Nutritive Auctive and Generative Hence the Function is three-fold Nutrition Auction and Generation IN Animate bodies three things are very necessary the conservation of the Individuum its just proportion and the conservation of the species The substance of the Individuum by divers causes as well internal as external daily moulders away and something alwayes departs from it which unlesse a restauration were made by Aliment life would soon be extinct that therefore this body may be preserved to while away some time the first faculty called Nutritive is requisite But because Nature hath confined all things to a certain magnitude convenient for the exercise allotted them the second necessary will be the Auctive faculty by the help of which the animate body fils up every particle of that magnitude whence this virtue proposeth not for its end the conservation of the form in the matter but the operation of the living creature Lastly animate bodies being frail and subject to corruption lest their species should fail the Procreative faculty was necessary by which though the individuals yeild to corruption the species it self is preserved The Nutritive faculty is that vertue of the soul which by the help of innate heat converts the Aliment into the substance of the body to repaire its loss The Action of this faculty is called Nutrition which is the instauration of that substance of our bodies which is consumed The Native heat in our bodies is never idle as is before alleaged but acts continually upon the humidity which it wasts and dissolves therefore lest the creature should pine away and dye the losse must be made up this caused that opinion of Hippocrates that a man cannot subsist without Aliment seven dayes And so Nutrition is proper only to living creatures for though by Aristotle himself fire is said to be nourished and increased by combustible matter yet this is no true Nutrition but only improperly so called for there are three things requisite to true nutrition and accretion according to the mind of Aristotle First That a thing be nourished and increased by the access of external matter Secondly That the thing increased remain numerically the same Thirdly That this accesse of magnitude accrew not only to the whole but to every particle thereof But now in the nutrition of the fire it remains not in its numerical identity but by reason of the combustible matter is continually successive neither is every particle thereof compleat with the addition of magnitude and for this cause true and proper nutrition is not agreeable to fire but by Analogy only It may be objected That if the Aliment in Nutrition convert into the substance of the parts there is no intervening difference between nutrition and generation I answer That there is no real but only a rational distinction between them viz. according to the diversity between the whole and a part for nutrition is the generation of a part of the substance viz. of that small part of the flesh which is wasted but
are divine or diabolical 'T is here impertinent to treat of these belonging rather to Metaphysicians or Theologers to whom we concede the honour of this exposition The Natural proceed either from the impress left of images cut out and shaped in the day or from a certain temper of body Most dreams are hatch'd by the images of those actions in which we have been in the day frequent for the impression of them upon the animal spirits being fresh they stick the closer and are the more easie rub'd over by our busie nocturnall imagination They also many times are composed from the various disposition and temperament of bodies To men sanguine the appearance of red colours banquets musical harmony nuptial festivals basiations venery gardens and such like voluptuous fooleries are usually represented in sleep To bilious men yellow colours wranglings war homicide firing flying and the like To pituitious men white colours waters navigations swimming drowning fishes and such like To melancholicks black colours darkness dead bodies graves and diabolical apparitions Yet observe That the influence of the stars doth not seldome concurre with a disposition of the body to effect dreams and these chiefly afford matter of Exposition CHAP. X. Of the less principal Faculties The less principal Faculties are two the one causing sensation the other motion The Sensitive faculty is that virtue of the soul by which externall objects upon the intercession of a fit medium are received in their proper organs The action of this faculty is called sense or sensation FOURE things are requisite to effect Sensation First an orderly disposed instrument Secondly a proportionate object Thirdly a medium which multiplyeth the species from the sensible thing Fourthly a convenient distance between the object and the sense that it may be rightly perceived The species of it are five Seeing Hearing Smelling Tasting and Touching Seeing is a sense by the help of which a man with his eyes perceives a visible object through a transparent medium actually illuminated Hearing is a sense by which a man perceives with his ears an audible object through a sonorous medium that is a medium fitted for the conducting of sound Smelling is a sense by which a man perceives at his nostrils an object of smell by a fit medium Taste is a sense by which a man perceives with his tongue the object of Taste by a disposed medium Touch is a sense by which a man with any carnous and nervous part of his body perceives a tangible object by a prepared medium The motive faculty is that vertue of the soul by which a man in his owne strength performs local motion All these less principal faculties and functions are so exactly declared in Natural Philosophy that we think it needless to allow them room for exposition The seventh Section of Physiology Of the Procreation of MAN The First CHAPTER Of the Seed of both Sexes Two Sexes are requisite to the Procreation of Man viz. male and female by whose mutual congress the prolifical seed is effused by both from which being received in the cavity of the wombe the first Sciography of the offspring is delineated Mans seed is a humid and spiritous substance well wrought in the testicles from the aliment left of the third concoction containing potentially the form of man concurring not only virtually but materially to the production of the parts of the infant IT is an assertion commonly obtruded by many That seed is generated by blood alone operated in the Liver grounding upon this because they find the conducting Spermatick vessels tumified with blood as other veins and because that overmuch coition causeth an effluxion of blood But this matter being to bear the force and impresse of the whole body so that we commonly attribute the similitude of Children to their Parents to this we think the assertion more proper that it is derived from every part from the aliment glean'd from the third concoction which being not much changed by the parts there is no cause of admiration that it retains the idea of blood Yet it cannot be supposed that every little particle comprehensible rather by thought then sense should afford this matter but all the similar parts which are called the sensible Elements of our body but from the principal especially which can supply us with those vivifying spirits which represent the idea and character of the whole But to that objection that the blood issues by tedious venery I answer That the seminal nature not yet elaborated in the testicles resembles blood being made out of it somewhat changed in the parts and before obtaining elaboration in them In the seed there are two parts Spirit and Thickness The seed by the help of spirits is impostumate and frothy it swels because the spirits are much in motion and stirring it is frothy because by the same spirits as by aire it becomes tumid and by their motion is agitated But in this spiritous matter resides the formative faculty by which a man engenders according to his own similitude But the thickness is the humid and watery substance which is manifestly evident when the spirits have bid adue to the seed for then it looseth its spumosity and whiteness and that humid substance is the matter of all the solid parts and their first step to a being The efficient cause of generation is brooded in the spiritous part but the material in the incrassated part This affords cause of objection to the Philosophers that one and the same thing cannot be agent and patient therefore both causes cannot be placed in the seede To which I oppose That the assertion of this objection would hold good if the substance of the seed were wholly Homogeneous but it being composed of divers parts it will not be inconvenient that it should execute divers offices for as it is spiritous it acts upon and informs that more humid and crasse substance applyed to it for its matter and as it were its subject as experience points out to us in the seeds of Plants and in Eggs in which seeds of plants after they have derived heat from the earth or the eggs from the incubation of the Hen the prolifical spirit is raised which acting upon the matter of the same seeds or eggs endeavours and perfects the conformation of the parts In artificials the efficient or Artist enters not into the thing made or the work because his business lies in the external parts But Nature situate in the very marrow of every thing perfects both internal and external and penetrates the whole substance of its work dwelling upon it as in its proper mansion This clears the doubt and demonstrates that the efficient and the matter for generation of the embryo find both room in the seed But though the seed by it self perfects the generation of the infant yet it is not actually but onely potentially animate Some have been of opinion that the seed is actually animate and hath that form which afterwards must inform the
it greedily embraceth it as soon as it is conveyed out from the mans yard and entertains it in its proper receptacle And there these two seeds imbrace one another to an exquisite unition and permixtion and are straightly retained by the wombe it self so that the whole body of the wombe by constriction is corrugated and its internal orifice close shut up so that it will not admit the least title Then these seeds are cherished by the heat of the wombe refocillating their heat and spirit and that divine plastick virtue is made actual whence the fetus begins to receive delineation The signs of Conception are chiefly these First A slight trembling of the whole body soon after Coition For then the womb is contracted which contraction is the cause of this trembling Secondly The Retention of the Seed and Dryness of the womb If after Coition the seed fall not away it is a sign of conception Thirdly The exact shutting close of the bone of the womb Fourthly The subsistence of the months Fifthly The swelling pain and hardness of the breasts Sixthly The appetite of Venery enfeebled Seventhly Nauseating of Meat CHAP. IV. Of the Delineation and perfection of every Part. The first Rudiments of the Spermatick parts begin to appear the seventh day after conception THE formative vertue being excited by the heat of the womb invests the whole matter of the seed in two tunicles formed out of the seed it self and these tunicles are called Chorion and Amnios the uses of which Anatomists discover But the other matter of the seed is changed into the Spermatick parts whose first lineaments are figured to an appearence the seventh day For if the geniture cast out after the seventh day be thrown into the water there will appear in it three bubbles which are the Rudiments of the three principal parts and filaments almost infinite which are the strings of the other spermatick parts But all the Spermatick parts are in Males complete in thirty dayes in Females at forty Males being hotter and dryer are the sooner fashioned for the weaker heat of Females concocts more slowly and the greater the humidity is the longer time it requires to be condensed to a consistency of the solid parts But the Carnous parts in Males are perfect the third month in Female the fourth which do then begin to move After the conformation of all the spermatick parts they are bedewed with an influence from the menstruous blood which over-flowes all their intermediate parts from whence the formative virtue produceth all the carnous parts which are then finished when the fetus begins to move for this is a sign that the muscles causing motion are now perfect CHAP. V. Of the Parturition Parturition is the exclusion of the fetus after it is perfected and finished in the womb WHen the fetus hath arrived to its full conformation nutrition and accretion in the wombe not receiving sufficient aliment and being made vigorous by a greater heat such as for ventilation wants the inspiration of the air it begins to thrust for room and by kicking forceth its way through those membranes in which it lies invelop'd and distends the wombe which upon their irritation endeavours to rid it self of this troublesome burden this causeth a double motion one of the Childe labouring its liberty the other of the wombe endevouring to enfranchise it But the Parturition is natural when the infant runs headlong and turns this part first out of dores but the rest are preternatural But the times in which Parturition may happen are the seventh the ninth the tenth and the eleventh moneth We omit the eighth because the fetus doth perpetually in the seventh moneth bestir it self a little and if it be strong enough it breaks open dore and out it goes but if weaker it remains still prisoner but so weakened with that foyl that it wants the space of two moneths to repair its strength so broken If therefore it break forth the seventh moneth it is so spent by those new struglings that death is the necessary consequence thereof Astrologers ascribe the cause of this to the unhappy influence of Saturne whom the eighth moneth they invest in chief authority of which opinion and others relating to the divers seasons of Parturition advise with Laurentius Quest 19. Book 8. of his Anatomy CHAP. VI. Of the likeness of Children to their Parents Physicians divide similitude into three parts of the Species of the Sex of the Individuum Similitude of the species is when the thing generated is of the same species with the thing generating SO man generates a man a dog a dog and so forth Similitude of the sex is when the thing begotten is of the same sex with either parent So the male resembles the father in regard of the sex but the female the mother But that likeness of sex depends on the predominating of the Masculine or Feminine seed Hippocrates contends that the seed falling from the right parts either of male or female is the strongest and most apt for generation of males Hence if that masculine seed flowing from the right be predominant the issue will be male but if the feminine bred in the left be more plentiful the issue will be female The similitude of the individuum is when the issue represents in the frame of his body some other individuum of the same species So the Childe is stamp'd with the effigies sometimes of his Father sometimes of his Mother sometimes his Grandfather sometimes of some other person And this similitude depends not onely upon the formative vertue implanted on the seed but sometimes also on imagination The formative virtue fashioning all the parts of the body and effigiating them into a form which is implanted in the seed with which it was signed by all the parts of the parents it is necessarily consequent that as to its form it should bear a similitude to them to the Father upon the strength of the paternal to the Mother upon the predominancy of the maternal seed But because some faculty of the Grandfathers or Great-grandfathers lyeth occult in the seed of the parents stamp'd on their parts it happens sometimes that this image is rubbed over in their posterity which is the cause of their assimilation between them their Grand-fathers or other alliances Hence some are of opinion that this virtue lives to the fourth generation Lastly the strength of imagination is very prevalent in causing similitude For a woman if in the time of conception she settles her imagination on the effigies of some thing brings forth a spawn of the like resemblance So a certain woman having the picture of an Aethiope in her chamber brought forth an issue wholly black So many pregnant women when they earnestly long for something mark their issue with the effigies of it for such extravagancy of desire disturbs imagination and imprints on the spirits the shape of the thing so desired which spirits easily brand the tender infant with that mark The
discovers the secrecie of it deceiving otherwise the quickest glance of sense This definition being laid as a foundation the superstructed theorems will illustrate the nature of a Disease Disease is placed in the predicament of quality and the first species thereof The first species of quality is habit and disposition for though we called Disease by the name of disposition which is a flitting quality and easily deserting the subject according to Aristotle yet here we stretch it to adequate a little wider sense that it may comprehend habit also and so that whole first species of quality But some may object That Disease should be placed in divers predicaments for magnitude increased seems to be aptly referred to quantity the stone and maw-wormes to substance and so of the rest but all these Galen himself calleth Diseases To this I answer That all diseases are formally placed in the predicament of quality but may fundamentally be reduced to others as by those nearer causes which are contained under other predicaments of which sort are the stone maw-worms magnitude increased number exceeding or deficient and such like which are as it were the foundations of diseases a certain disposition is introduced constituting the true form of disease but the predicament only respects the form For those things which are placed under other predicaments as the stone maw-worms c. are by Galen and others for perspicuity sake called diseases as also for the insufficiency of names by which those dispositions may be signified and because it was satisfactory to the Physician intending curation to understand the nature of that thing which being taken away the whole preternatural disposition and detriment of the functions would be taken away also not that to the accuratness of Philosophical inspection they would appear true diseases but rather causes which often accompany us without any evident hurt of the functions and the stone maw-worms and the like cannot injure us before they be abetted some by disposition in our bodies as obstuctrion or divulsion It may again be objected That the fit place for disease is in the predicament of relation which is gathered out of Galens words in the beginning of his book of the difference of diseases where he saith That health is a kind of symmetry disease an ametry but symmetry and ametry speak nothing but relation which Aristotle also seems evidently to confirm 7. of his Physicks Chap. 3. where he teacheth that disease and health are relations To that I answer That though disease be termed ametry or immoderateness this proves it not to be a relation for as deformity is a kind of disproportion of the parts yet handsomness and deformity are true qualities So Disease is a disproportion of the heat cold moisture or dryness or of the parts yet it is no relation but a certain quality or disposition by means of which the whole body is disaffected Yet if a confession must be extorted that there is found in Diseases some relation that we may pay due obedience to the dictates of Aristotle we say that this is caused as those qualities viz. health and disease are mutually compared according to their access to or recess from mediocrity such a relation is found between extreme colours and between virtue and vice which no man will assert to be simple relations which may be accidental to subjects without any mutation of them Every disease hath a permanence in the part and permanence is of the essence of disease Disease is defined by a Diathesis or disposition which term signifies to us a certain position of its essence or parts or constancy in the body by which it is distinguished from a simple affection called a patible quality and is the third species of quality And this constancy is called permanency viz. a disposition so stamp'd upon the part that its essence is different and separate from the cause producing it an independent on it and those things which have a permanency are by Physicians termed things made or in fact but those which have no permanency esse in fieri But it may be objected That an ephemeral feaver and other slighter affects and some also more dangerous as the epilepsie and apoplexy have but a small duration of time in the body and so they may seem to have no permanency I answer Permanency looks to two relations either to time which signifies duration and so it is not of the essence of disease because the duration of many diseases is but short or it may be referred to the existence fix'd and stable which signifies a certain position of the essence and parts which all diseases have in the body though the time of some be soon determined Again it is objected Diseases are by consent in a possibility and owe their existence to the communication of simple humors or vapors which ceasing they also cease But these are by Galen numbred amongst true diseases therefore all diseases have not a permanence I answer That diseases by consent cannot last long but that it will follow that from their causes an idiopathy should be introduced in the part which though it be small hath alwayes something of the fact sufficient to constitute a true disease But if the sympathicall affect be yet so small that it hath no consistency in the part nor requires any peculiar cure but dies by the taking away of the primary disease then Galen himselfe excludes it from the true nature of a Disease It is again objected That diseases by the general suffrages of all Physicians have four times which are in a perpetual flux viz. beginning augmentation state and declination Diseases therefore being continually in motion can have no permanency I answer The ages and times of diseases respect their motion and various constitutions but not their generation and essence which persists fix'd and constant as the nature of man is preserved in the same state though in him variety of ages toules on variety of change so diseases now made and generated run on their time in which they are variously affected Lastly some argue thus To have permanency and to be in fact falls under the same understanding with Physicians as is before intimated But of all Feavers the Hectick onely is in fact for this condition affords it a distinction from the rest which are said to be onely in a tendency Therefore the other Feavers have no permanency I answer In all diseases there is something which makes them such from which they produce their generation but the morbifick cause viz. the putrid humor perpetually acteth in feavers and multiplyeth that morbous quality therefore they are said to be in a possibility till they arrive to an Hectick viz. when the cause rests from action by reason of an equal intemperateness introduced and then they are simply called in fact but the rest partly in fact partly in a possible tendency thereto The necessary consequence of every disease is action by it self and immediately hurt Diseases are not seldome
occult from the senses yet all of them are understood by symptomes which are their effects and most of all by labefacted action which immediately and by it self depends upon disease and so essentially that if we assert action hurt we necessarily imply a disease on which it hath dependence But it may be objected That action is often hurt immediately by the very morbifick causes for aliment too copiously burdensome to the ventricle is hurtful to concoction without the interposing of a disease Therefore all action hurt depends noton a disease I answer That the coction of the ventricle is not therefore hurt because it cannot concoct a great plenty of aliment for it being requisite that there should be a certain proportion between the Agent and Patient for the right exercise of action if the Aliment be too copious or of quality troublesome the action of the ventricle is not hurt though it cannot master it as it is not troubled though it cannot concoct Iron This defect therefore depends on the disproportion of the object It is again thus objected Some symptomes may primarily and by themselves hurt action as the quality changed in the eye viz. the yellow colour of the cornea tunica of men troubled with the Jaundies caused by the effusion of yellow choler into it which immediately produceth sight for they can discern no colour but their own but no disease can be impeached of such treason against the eye Therefore that colour which is the symptome doth immediately injure action I Answer in the eye peculiarly a preternatural colour may be termed a disease for the eye in its natural constitution ought to be without any colour that it may be the fitter for the reception of the species of external objects pure and inconfused and their various colours for that colour of the eye may be referred to diseases in number because the number of qualities which ought naturally to be in the eye is increased The same may be held of an extraneous taste in the tongue and sound in the eare which are impediments to the due perception of taste and sound hence it appears that in these peculiar instruments of sense peculiarly constituted we may admit a peculiar kind of disease Here ariseth lastly cause of objection That in Sympathetick affects the actions of the parts are hurt without the violence of any disease for if a disease were in the sympathizing parts we should endeavour remedy for the which is not done neither when the action of the nerves is hurt by the obstruction of the brain can we impute a disease to the nerves but only to the brain I oppose to this That Therapeutick Physicians number not the sympathetical affects with the diseases because we apply no remedies to them but if we consider more seriously we shall find they may be referred to some genus of disease viz. the influence of animal spirits into the nerves is block'd up by the obstruction of the brain by the defect of which motion and sense decay but this defect may be reckoned among diseases in the number of deficients and so we may hold of many others CHAP. II. Of the Kinds and Differences of Diseases Hitherto of the Nature of disease it followes now that we discourse of the Differences thereof GAlen confounds the genus species and differences of diseases in 2. of his method and useth them for one and the same for he is not precise in their strict and logical consideration though either of them may be truely predicated in a diverse respect viz. in relation to the disease it self which is the principal genus they must be called species or differences in relation to the subordinate species into which they are subdivided they are honoured with the Title of genus But the differences of diseases are some essential some accidental The Essential are taken from the very essence of the disease and are otherwise called specifical because out of them the genus and species are constituted But they are three viz. similar organical and common The whole essence of accidents depends upon subjects therefore their essential differences must be derived from the differences of their subjects but the subjects of diseases are the parts of our body which are properly called such viz. which cohere to the whole mass and partake of life in common for although by Hippocrates the parts be divided into the containing the contained and those that cause motion where by the containing he understands the living parts designed for the exercise of actions by the contained the humors by those causing motion the spirits there the name of part is tentered to the widest sense for nor humors nor spirits can be the subjects of diseases nor do they communicate of life but they are rather the causes of diseases when they are extravagant in quality or quantity Therefore seeing those living parts branch out into two differences viz. similar and organical diseases also shall be divided into similar and organical but because in both the forementioned parts there is required another common disposition besides their due temper and conformation that they may behave themselves according to the rule of nature viz. a natural continuity or union of these parts the corruption of which is the generation of another species of disease termed Common CHAP. III. Of the species of a similar disease Every similar disease is called Intemperancy THE similar Parts are composed of Elements onely and their actions are executed by the symmetry of the foure first qualities and the allaying them to a due fixation of temper For the similar Parts as similar are voyd of any action nutrition excepted by reason of which they retaine convenient aliment when it is attracted concoct it and thrust out superfluities all which are in them performed by the temper alone As long therefore as a due temper is preserved in the similar parts they regulate themselves according to nature But when they are intemperate they are in a morbous condition and so every disease affecting the similar parts will be intemperateness But intemperateness breaks out into other differences of which some are essential some accidental Again the Essential are some simple some compound the simple are foure 1 Hot 2 Cold 3 Moist 4 Dry. The Compound are the same in number 1 Hot and moist 2 Hot and dry 3 Cold and moist 4 Cold and dry These intemperatures are called morbous when they swell to such an excess that they do manifestly hurt the actions otherwise they confine themselves to the prescripts of health for instance though a man of a bilious temper be hotter and dryer than is convenient for the moderation of a fit temperament yet as long as in the exercise of his actions he is not irregular as to the prescript of his innate temperament he is not said intemperate to disease till transgressing the proper limitation of health he falls for example into a feaver or some other hot affect The accidental differences
of intemperateness are taken from the cause or from the subject Though we have omitted the Treatise of the accidental differences of diseases till we put an end to this Section yet because they do properly belong to intemperateness alone therefore it will not be inconvenient to bring them upon this stage In respect of the cause one intemperateness is called Material the other Immaterial The Material intemperateness is that which comes in the company of an internal cause viz. Humor Vapor or Wind as it happens in humoural Feavers inflammations of the parts and infinite others and that Galen is termed intemperateness with the affluxion of humors but the immaterial which is also called a naked intemperateness is that which is produced by an exterior cause with the concurring help of the interior This is not so frequent as the other and very seldome happens yet it may be found in a Marasmus a great refrigeration of the parts being contracted in cold water or by a very cold Northwind or in the Head-Ach contracted by violent heat and the like In respect of the subject one intemperateness is in the Habit another in the Habitude Intemperateness which is in Habit or which hath contracted habit and is thereby confirmed is also called Hectick which doth so firmly inhere that it is indeleble it is also said to be wholly consummate of this kind are the Hectick Feaver and the leprosy but that which is in habitude or disposition is onely inchoate and still in its primordiums or at least part produced part unproduced and easily deleble as vulgar Feavers and other diseases without difficulty curable In respect also of the subject one intemperateness is Equal the other Unequal Equal intemperateness is that which is equally diffused into all the parts of our body so an hectick Feaver is an equal intemperateness because all the parts are over-heated in the same degree But Unequal intemperateness is that which is not equally distributed to the parts of our body so we call putrid Feavers unequal diseases because in them the solid parts are not plainly heated as the humors which heat hath wholly penetrated so the feavers termed Epiala and Lypiria are called unequal intemperatures because in the Epiala heat and cold are together felt all the body over but in the Lypiria the exteriors are stiffe with cold the interiors parched with heat A COROLLARY Concerning Similar Diseases It is in the front objected that there is no possibility of a simple intemperateness because it would be either joyned with the matter or stand apart from the matter it is not with the matter because such intemperateness depends upon some humor but every humor is doubly qualified but the immaterial proceeds from external causes and they are the elements every of which hath two qualities or mixt bodies which have also two qualities by the predominant element I answer That upon a due contemperation of qualities the excess must be in one onely when there are two causes internal and external joyned which agree in one quality are contrary in another as when a disease is generated from blood and choler the drynesse of the choler is tempered by the moistness of the blood and there is no excesse but both joyning the forces of their heat effect an hot intemperatenesse the same is plain in external causes for if the air be temperate to an hot and moist temper and the aliments be cold and moist the coldnesse of them with the heat of the other will cause contemperation but the moistness of both will produce a moist intemperatenesse It is again objected that there is no such thing as a hot and moist intemperatenesse because heat and moisture are the principles of our life and so they cannot be in conjunction diseased Again that heat must be very intense that it arrive to morbosity but intense heat doth powerfully prey upon moisture and soon summons in its mate siccity and so a hot and moist intemperatenesse cannot together subsist so we may say of cold intemperatenesse which generating great crudities brings humidity plentifully into the body hence it seems inconsistent with siccity To these I answer That heat and moisture are convenient for the principles of our life yet if they do so far transgresse that the humors shaking off their allegiance to nature and not admitting ventilation do necessarily putrifie which ushers in preternatural heat and that meeting with plenty of moisture causeth a hot and moist intemperatenesse Besides excesse of heat consumes indeed humidity but not so nimbly and therefore that space of time is sufficient for the generation of most violent diseases as appears in bloody feavers in which at the beginning there is plenty of moisture but upon their permanence they call in the auxiliaries of a dry intemperature In the same manner a cold and dry intemperatenesse spends time before the acquisition of a moist by crudities And though the effluxions of the excrements be copious yet the solid parts retain their dry intemperatenesse as is seen in old men The proposed differences of diseases and those alone Antiquity with a general consent imbraced which have also found entertainment with almost all Neotericks excepting Fernelius and some siders with him For Fernelius hath brought to light two new kinds of diseases one related to the matter the other to the form or the whole substance For saith he three things being considered in the similar parts matter form and temperament the natural constitution of them being health so the immoderatenesse of every of them will be disease And hence result three differences of diseases viz. intemperatures by the excesse of the first qualities the immoderatenesse of the matter is when a part becomes softer or harder looser or closer thinner or more crasse rarer or denser and the vitiating of the form is when either by manifest diseases as by putrefaction or by occult as poysonous contagious and pestilent the whole symmetry of the body is disturbed Fernelius in his 1. Book of his Pathology chap. 7. hath onely proposed this his opinion yet hath strengthened it by a long disputation in his 2. of the hidden causes of things chap. 9. which because it is famous being born up by the authority of so learned a man and hath wrack'd the wits of many we will therefore enter the lists in a short dispute with him The reasons then by Fernelius alleaged to confirm his opinion may be comprehended in the following discourse First Diseases usually possesse those by which the actions are performed But there are three things in a similar part which execute the actions thereof viz. matter forme and temperament therefore this will be the place of Disease Secondly The same is confirmed by the various detriment of actions in one and the same part for the ventricle as a similar part is often infirm by which the concoction is weakened but this infirmity is sometimes caused by immoderate refrigerations as by over much drinking of water eating of
charge of the organical part though it injure the actions thereof because it is accidental as an house falls when the wood or stones are rotten or corrupted though they are not formally related to the house This answer may again be thus opposed That there is as much reason those second qualities hardness softness and the rest should be referred to the diseases of the organical parts as asperity and laevity which are also in the number of the second qualities and were by us reckoned amongst the diseases of conformation I answer That the reason holds not the same because hardness softness and the rest are not changed but upon the change of the temper it self but asperity and laevity which are affections of the superficies only do so depend upon the formative faculty that without any diversity of temper it produceth some smooth and equal some rough and unequal as appears in bones which are most dry and yet of a very even superficies and in the ventricle whose external superficies is even the internal rough and rugged and so of the rest CHAP. V. Of the Differences of the Common Disease or solution of the continuum The Differences of the common Disease or solution of the continuum are taken from the cause or the subject The causes from which the solution of the continuum happens are four to the first things thin and convenient for section are referred to the second things sharp and fit for Erosion to the third things heavy hard and dull to the fourth things fit for ruption and divulsion The solution of the continuum which is caused by cutting things is called Section UNder this are comprehended all solutions of the continuum produced by the incision of external causes either with point or edge in any part of the body The solution of the continuum proceeding from things sharp and eroding is termed Erosion Erosion is most usually produced in the parts of the body by internal causes as by sharp and biting juyces causing ulcers it is produced also sometimes by external application or things actually burning as by fire hot iron or potentially as caustick medicines and the like The solution of the continuum caused by things heavy hard and dull is called contusion This solution of the continuum is not usually manifest but hidden for in it the parts are dashed together and violently pressed which compression causeth an occult solution of the continuum The solution of the continuum proceeding from things breaking and divulsive is called ruption or divulsion This is often seen in torture in which the toes and the fingers are so distracted that they are quite separated from the other parts so by over-reaching the peritonaeum is usually burst which is the cause of a rupture Sometimes also by an over-repletion of blood the tunicles of the veins are divuls'd whence flows an immoderate flux of blood In respect of the subject or the parts of our body divers differences of the solution of the continuum are constituted and divers names are imposed on them For incision made in the flesh is called a wound but crosion an ulcer A transverse incision made in the bone is a fracture a direct a fissure but erosion is called putrefaction A transverse incision made in the veins arteries nerves and gristles retains the same name of incision and a direct of a fissure The species of peculiar solution is puncture chiefly attributed to the nerves but rupture to the membranes In all Chirurgical authors those differences of solution are contained under the term of Wounds Ulcers and Luxations CHAP. VI. Of the Accidental differences of diseases The Accidental differences of diseases are those which constitute not the genus and species of diseases but only clear the way to the understanding of some of their proprieties THE Accidental differences proposed by Authors are almost infinite of all which it would be too tedious to institute a Discourse and perhaps in our judgement of small use We shall therefore serve those to you here which are more requisite to the use of Art and more frequently occurre in the Treatise of Diseases But they are derived either from the essence of diseases or proprieties attending it or from the causes of them The essential differences of a disease flow from the very essence thereof as was before declared but the accidental differences spring from some proprieties associating with the essence of the disease as also from the causes and effects But we will here offer those onely which proceed from the essence and causes omitting the rest as in themselves common to vulgar capacities and of little use The proprieties which are companions of the essence of diseases are first Magnitude secondly Motion thirdly the manner fourthly the event 1. In respect of magnitude a disease is said to be great or little That disease is great which is very intense and is very prevalent in the perturbation of our body But that is termed little which deviates but a little from the natural constitution and induces but a small infirmity on us Galen affirms that a disease is called great for three reasons First in respect of the part if it affects a principal part or one necessary to the conservation of life Secondly in respect of the causes viz. if they be very violent and furious Thirdly in respect of the symptomes viz. if the body being stormed by this fierceness and violence be much oppressed 2. In respect of motion there are foure times of diseases considerable the beginning increase state and declination The beginning of a disease is when it is constant to the same distemper with which it was at first produced without any notable access of augmentation Increase is when the disease is sensibly seen to increase State is when the disease is beyond augmentation and reserves the same violence which was left at the highest pitch of augmentation Lastly declination is when the violence of a disease is evidently broken The division of the times of diseases is by Galen not drawn onely from the essence of the disease it self but also from the causes and symptomes viz. when from the beginning they increase to higher inflammations till they arrive to a state and in declination are mitigated and chiefly from the excrements which are at first a very crudity in increase present a kind of a rudiment of coction in their state give strong evidences of coction and in their declination shew absolute concoction and a change of excrements into better But the times of diseases are universal or particular The universal times are parts of the whole disease considered from the beginning to the end But the particular times are the parts of paroxismes apparent in intermissive diseases So the paroxismes of every disease have beginning augmentation and declination as the whole disease considered in its whole flux of time Observe that all diseases have not foure times but onely healthy ones for deadly alwayes kill before declination In motion
upon parturition depends upon the error of the birth therefore for the most part computation is to be made from the birth But it is seldome found that when the birth is natural a feaver should arise which at that time cannot proceed from any thing but a procatarctick and external cause In Head wounds and any other the computation of the Critical dayes must be made from the day of the wound not of the feaver The same reason holds in a wound as in preternatural birth for the feaver succeeding it is symptomatical but the wound is the primary disease from which the number of critical dayes must be deduced In relapses the computation of the critical dayes must be instituted from the beginning of the disease not the relapse Recidivation is caused by the reliques of the precedent disease which were not wholly evacuated and therefore is taken for the same disease the matter being the same in which indeed there happens a remission of the feaver between the root of it and the relapse but not a true intermission as appears by the symptoms observed by Hippocrates when he saith If any thing of that which is effused be left within it inclines to relapse thirst left within exsiccation of the mouth and insuavity by the same reason as all the rest are signes of the imperfect solution of a disease Therefore because he that is surprised with a relapse is not yet fully freed from those accidents the computation must be one for that the solution of the former affection was not total but partial only So Hipp. in Epid. perpetually numbers the days from the precedent disease never from the relapse as appears in the Histories of Hermocrates Anaxion Herophon Cleanactis Wife to Epicrates and others CHAP. VI. Of the causes of a Crisis and Critical dayes A Crisis is a kind of a compound comprehending Conturbation Evacuation and sudden mutation to health Conturbation is a plenty of critical symptomes arising from the agitation of morbisick matter But this agitation proceeds either from an external cause such as of the Heavens and the motions and influences of the stars or from an internal as from nature her self HOw the influences of the Stars effect critical motions shall be after explained But now nature in a critical conturbation agitates the morbifick humors because they being separated from the laudable and gentle matter provoke nature more which upon this irritation is excited to expulsion for though those humors be concocted yet they are not wholly reduced to gentleness and therefore by molesting nature with their acrimony and some malignant quality they cause her to ease her self of this trouble by excretionr The cause of Evacuation is the expulsive faculty which excited either by the copiousness or the quality of the matter critically expels all molestations The expulsive faculty is one of those which are termed natural subservient performing its duty by the help of native heat and spirits as also by the fibres implanted in every part But why Crisis or critical evacuation happens in the septenary and quaternary dayes rather then at other times depends upon the motion of the Moon as its principal cause The cause of a Crisis and the cause of critical dayes are to be distinguished as things differing in the whole latitude of the genus For the cause of a Crisis is the expulsive faculty thrusting out that which is troublesome But when we enquire after the causes of critical dayes we observe not what expels the vitious humors out of the body but why the expulsive faculty doth not use indifferently all but some solemne dayes on which it expels these troublesome things more frequently and easily but this depends upon the motion of the Moon effecting these motions by her various aspects The Moon is very predominant over these inferiour bodies especially over humid ones causing in them notable mutations chiefly in conjunctions appositions and quadratures in which Crises usually happen What changes the Moon causeth by her various aspects in this inferior world and how by this means the winds and tempests are changed how seed thrives how crabs and shel fish are sometimes full sometimes empty is well enough known to Mariners Husbandmen and ordinary Women But the chief subjects of this domineering Planet are humid bodies whence it is no cause of wonder that it should have so much authority over the humors of our bodies that it can move them on certain dayes and by that excite a Crisis This it most commonly does in its aspects by whose Arithmetick the critical dayes are numbred for the first aspect of the Moon is the Sextile or left hexangle happening on the fourth day The second quadrate or the left tetrangle on the seventh day The third called the left triangle on the eleventh The fourth called opposite or diametral on the fourteenth day The fifth the right triangle on the seventeenth day The sixth the tetrangle or right quadrate on the twentieth day The seventh the sextile or right hexangle on the foure and twentieth day The eighth in conjunction on the seven and twentieth day But these days are extended to some latitude as we shall hereafter inform it will suffice here to note that the Aspects of the Moon and the Critical days have the same computation which was proposed in the precedent Chap. The Motions of Critical dayes depend not on the Aspects which the Moon hath with the Sun but from those which she hath with the Signes of the Zodiack and that place in heaven in which it was in the beginning of the Disease If the Crises were moved by the appearances of the Moon with the Sun there would be no order observable in Critical dayes because all sick persons whatever day they began to be sick would on the same day be subject to a crisis for instance in the beginning of a full Moon when she opposeth the Sun or in new Moon when conjunction is caused or in the quaternions Therefore we must think that the crises depend not on such aspects but rather from the aspects of the Moon to that Signe and to that place of the Zodiack in which it was in the beginning of the disease and so on the seventh day of the disease the Moon is in a quadrate aspect to that place and on the fourteenth in an opposite and so of the rest The computation of Critical dayes is not to be instituted according to the Synodical Month which is also called the Moneth of Conjunction nor according to the Moneth of Apparition or Illumination nor according to the Medicinal Moneth but according to the Periodical Moneth or the Moneth of Peragration The Synodical Moneth is that time which intervenes between two conjunctions of the Sun and Moon consisting of twenty nine dayes and thirteen hours and so three weeks constitute not twenty but two and twenty dayes and three hours therefore according to this Moneth the computation of the Critical dayes cannot be made The Moneth of Illumination or
Five causes of a hot intemperature are alleaged 1 Motion 2 Putridity 3 The vicinity of an hot thing 4 Constipation 5 Meat and Drink over-hot as Galen ch 2. Book 2. of the Causes of Diseases First Motion heats the body by attenuating and violently hurrying the spirits MOtion doth not onely heat things animate but inanimate also as Aristotle 2 of Meteors ch 3. inanimate things by rarefaction because that disposition is previous to heat by which it effected the last preparation of the matter for production of heat potentially out of it But animals do more easily get heat by motion not only by reason of that attenuation but also because the spirits and heat which are actually in them are diffused thorough the whole body and thrust out to the superficies thereof Whence if motion be immoderate it produceth an hot intemperature To motion are also referred anger watching and all other things able to move the humors and spirts Secondly putridity heats the body by external heat which is alwayes introduced in its company Putridity is defined by Aristotle The corruption of native heat in every humid body by external heat But it is necessary that this heat should be very intense that it may corrupt the native heat whence in our bodies it will easily produce a hot distemper Thirdly The vicinity of hot things heats the body by a Physical and Mathematical contact So by fire or Summer sun the body is heated by a Physical contact by things hot applyed as plaisters baths c. and by a Mathematical contrary Fourthly constipation causeth a hot distemper by accident by reason of obstructed transpiration This is chiefly produced by swiming in alluminous water by the application of emplastick and obdurating medicines and other things increasing heat by antiperistasis while they hinder the dissipation thereof Fifthly hot aliments heat the body by producing in it hot humors As the use of onyons garleek spices and such like The causes of a cold distemper are six 1 Vicinity of cold bodies 2 The quality and quantity of things assumed 3 Constipation 4 Rarity 5 Over-much idleness 6 Immoderate motion As Galen ch 3. Book 2. of the Causes of Diseases First the body is refrigerated by external cold meeting with the concurrence of a fit disposition c. in the Patient So in Winter a body is often congealed by over-much cold So bathing in cold water cools the whole body Secondly the excess defect and incomplying quality of aliments can induce a cold distemper Excess of aliment chokes the native heat whence arises a cold distemper so an epile psie or apoplexy is the result of frequent drunkenness The defect of aliment causes the dissipation of heat in the parts as having not food sufficient for its conservation Whatsoever is assumed naturally too cold as lettice poppy mandrakes and the like do very much cool the body by themselves Thirdly much constipation chokes the heat whence proceeds a cold distemper Slight constipation causeth an hot distemper by hindring the dissipation of heat but much immoderate constipatiō causeth a contrary affection by suffocating heat Fourthly rarity dissipates and resolves heat whence by accident it induceth cold Fifthly idleness refrigerates the body for that the native heat languisheth for want of exercise Sixthly the native heat is dissipated by immoderate motion whence by accident it refrigerates Of a dry temperature the causes are two 1 Alteration 2 Resolution First those things dry by alteration which have strength enough to exiccate the body So drying aliments medicines a dry constitution of the air do dry the body Secondly those things dry the body by resolution which cause a greater dissipation of the humidity of our body than can be counterpoised by restauration So violent exercitation the embraces of over-heated air immoderate watches resolves the humidity of the body So humidity is dissipated by the hindrance of due reparation which is caused by care and anxiety hunger or food affording small nutriment such as is very excrementous and astringent because it hinders the distribution of nutritive humor thorough the members Humid intemperatures are ascribed to two causes 1 Alteration 2 Retention of humid things First those things introduce a moist intemperature by alteration which are very prevalent in moistning the body So the immoderate use of moist meats copious tipling of water a moist constitution of the air a bathing in warm water and such like the usual product of which is a moist distemper Secondly a moist distemper is said to be introduced by retention of things humid when some customary evacuation is suppressed Amongst the usual evacuations are numbred not those onely which are sensibly made but those also which are made insensibly viz. by insensible transpiration And these are the causes of simple distempers But the causes of compounded distempers may easily be gathered from those before named viz. by joyning all the causes which the two peccant qualities are able to produce But the immediate causes of compounded tempers are principally peccant humors and these distempers are like the peccant humor for choler causeth the hot and dry flegme the cold and moist and so of the rest But those humors become copious in the parts two wayes 1 By fluxion 2 By congestion Fluxion is caused two wayes viz. when either the humors are expelled by the mission of the parts or when they are attracted by the reception of them In fluxion which is caused by expulsion two conditions are requisite viz. first the strength of the part expelling secondly the imbecility of the part receiving So the liver by its strength expels preternatural humors to the groin or the skin parts naturally infirm producing in them swellings itch and other affections In fluxion caused by attraction two conditions principally concur viz. the heat or pain of the attractive part Attraction is proper to heat therefore the hot parts are prevalent in attraction but being sensible of pain they seek help therefore they attract the humors and spirits to their rescue which after by reason of their copiousness they cannot keep in good order which is the cause of divers affections Secondly by congestion the humors become copious in the parts in default of the nutrition of them So when in some part the aliment is not well assimilated or the expulsion of excrements generated in assimilation then superfluities abound in it by congestion CHAP. IV. Of the Causes of Organical diseases The natural shape of the parts is perverted either in the first generation or after it In the first generation when the formative virtue is unable to fashion all the parts aright which is caused upon three grounds 1 By reason of the imbecility of the formative virtue 2 By the defect in matter 3 By an hereditary disposition First the parts are ill-shaped by default of the formative virtue when a mans parents are of a very infirm nature Secondly by default of the matter viz. when it is peccant in quantity or quality
immediately on a disease The chief symptome is injured action immediately depending on a disease which is able to produce another in excretions and retentions and that to induce a change of qualities which yet depend upon the disease as their true cause some mediately some immediately as is before mentioned The symptomes may arrogate to themselves the honor of causes never of diseases So nutrition hurt is the cause of the consumption of the parts and leanness So excrements imprisoned in the body cause feavers obstructions humors and such like and so the symptomes become the causes of diseases but never presume to take the nature of a disease as being unable by themselves to injure the actions For though some diseases be called symptomatical because they are consequents of others as a feaver which follows a pleurisie or any other inflammation which is in it self a true disease yet in respect of the disease on which it depends it is called a symptome Yet certain it is that those diseases are improperly termed symptomes because they follow other diseases as symptomes but yet they are not the immoderate production of them but mediate by some true symptomes for as by humor or vapor which are the after-causes of diseases CHAP. II. Of the Differences of Symptomes There are three kinds of Symptomes action-hurt default in excrements and quality changed ACtion-hurt is the chief and principal symptome which immediately followes the disease and from which the rest are generated and depend Default in excretions follow the lesson of natural actions by which the aliments are ill affected corrupted or tainted with some evill quality or lastly are naturalized to a contrariety infestious to the body But by Excretions we here understand not onely true excrements but also all those which preternaturally issue out of the body as sand the excrements of the parts themselves c. But quality changed follows the before-mentioned symptomes and under it are contained all patible qualities perceptible by sense and inherent in the body it self or in any part thereof as colours smell taste and the like which in their proper place shall more at large be explained CHAP. III. Of the Differences of Action-hurt The differences of Action-hurt are taken either from the differences of laesions or from the divisions of the actions themselves The differences of laesions cause a triple difference of hurt-action 1 Action abolished 2 Dimished 3 Depraved 1 Action abolished is that which is impossible by any means to be restored AS sight in blindness and hearing in deafness are said to be be abolished because they cannot by any means be exercised Yet there is action called abolished as to the judgement of the sense as motion and sense in an apoplexy and in a suffocation of the wombe Action diminished is that which is infirm and scarce exercised and requires more time for perfection or never arrives to a just proportion thereof So the weak concoction of the ventricle or function of any other part imperfectly exercised is said to be diminished Depraved action is so called either when it is corrupted or not exercised as it ought to be Action is termed corrupt when it changes its object into another quality as when the ventricle changeth the aliment into nidorous juices as porraceous choler or matter wholly putrid It is not exercised as it ought to be in cold palpitation hiccough c. because in these affections the parts are unduely agitated or too violently provoked by a preternatural object From the differences of action Action hurt is threefold 1. Animal 2. Vital 3. Natural These branch out again into as many differences as in Physiology are proposed of animal vital and natural actions The animal actions are in Phisiology divided into Sensitive Motive and Principal The Sensitive actions are five Sight Hearing Tast Smel and Touch. All these as before is declared are subject to abolition deminution and depravation The Sight is abolished in blindness diminished in obtusion and dulness depraved in hallucination The Hearing is abolished in deafness diminished in slowness of hearing depraved in the tinckling of the ears and thus it is easie to conjecture of the symptomes of other Senses Motion is abolished in the palsy diminished in stupidity depraved in convulsions trembling cold c. So the principal actions ratiocination and memory are abolished in a carus and apoplexy diminished in fondness and lethargy depraved in phrensy and madness The Vital actions consist in the Pulses which also are frequently abolished diminished or depraved Lastly the natural actions concoction retention attraction and expulsion are accompanied with as many symptomes The Concoction of the ventricle is abolished in inconcoction diminished in slow concoction and depraved in bad concoction So we must judge of the other differences of actions all which suffer under as many differences of laesions of which many are not yet particularized by proper terms A COROLLARY Concerning the Differences of hurt Actions In the number of hurt actions is reckoned that which is termed a preternatural auction such as a canine appetency great thirst c. But it is dubious to what species it should be referred The vulgar answer is that it is contained under the notion of depraved action because it is amist and perversly exercised which is the condition of depraved action but it is objected that if this opinion hold that diminished action should also be placed under depraved since action increased and diminished stand in a direct contrariety and therefore ought to be placed under the same genus It is answered That in matter of diseases and symptomes it is not a Physicians business to consider the trifles of Logical contrarieties but only those diversities by which our bodies are preternaturally affected and so action increased standing in a wide distance from action diminished as well in respect of the cause as of the manner of operation when as we said it is amiste and perversly exercised it is in right reason contained under depraved action and distinguished in the whole genus from action diminished in a Medicinal consideration CHAP. IV. Of the Differences of Excrements Excrements may be peccant four wayes 1. In Substance 2. In Quantity 3. In Quality 4. In the manner of Excretion First they are peccant in Substance when they have a Substance quite different from that of vulgar Excrements AND they are said to be preternatural in the wide extension of their whole genus And they are twofold either wholly aliens or consisting of natural things The stone maw-worms c. are mere strangers to nature Excrements consist of natural things when the blood fat a part of the flesh or some such thing is driven out as an excrement which ought by all means to be retained Secondly Excrements are peccant in Quantity by reason of excesse or defect When either their effluxion is too copious as in a Diarrhaea Dysenteria Diabete plentifull sweat and profuse issuing of blood or when they are more sparingly than is convenient
or not at all evacuated as in a constipation of the belly suppression of Urine c. Thirdly the Excrements are peccant in Quality either in the First Second or Third In the First when they are too Hot too Cold too Moist or too Dry. In the Second when they are thin or thick or soft viscid or spumous In the Third when they have a strange colour Smel or Tast Fourthly they are peccant in the manner of excretion when they are not expelled in due time or not thorough the usual parts or when they are too soon or too slowly evacuated CHAP. V. Of the Differences of changed Quality The Qualities of the body changed are first second or third BUT they that may deserve the name of symptomes must depend on some disease The first Qualities are heat cold moisture and dryness The second are Hardness Softness Gravity Levity Rarity Density Laevity Asperity and the rest The third are Colours Smels Tasts Sounds A COROLLARY Concerning the changed Qualities Among the changed qualities we place Heat Cold Moisture and Dryness which were before referred to the similar diseases which knits a knot difficult of resolution which we thus untye by averring that slight distempers which are only in a way to perfection and have no permanence in the part cannot be reckoned among diseases but are rather termed symptomes and changed qualities which by the vicinity or sympathy of some parts a morbous distemper being raised are generated and preserved Next asperity and laevity are here with the changed qualities which were referred to organical diseases To this it is answered that asperity and laevity if they be very remarkable so that they manifestly injure the actions of those parts wherein they reside are true diseases but if they be so slight that they are not at all troublesome to the actions and yet are produced from a preternatural cause as an humid or dry distemper it is a convincing evidence that they are true symptomes CHAP. VI. Of the Causes of Symptomes in the genus Eâ—â—â— Symptome depends upon some disease as its proper cause THIS is chiefly demonstrated in hurt-action which is the immediate effect of a disease as appears by its definition Besides it is undoubtedly true that the changed qualities do proceed from the first qualities which constitute the temperament which when it conforms to nature cannot produce qualities changed according to nature which it is evident do perpetually flow from the distemper Lastly seeing there happens no default in the excrements unless the concoctive expulsive or retentive faculties be vitiated it is very certain that this proceeds perpetually from some disease But the causes of symptomes in their species and the history of all diseases are exactly proposed in particular Pathology chap. 7. We will here illustrate onely by some examples for the better knowledge CHAP. VII Of the Causes of Injured actions The animal actions are usually hurt by various differences of distempers organical diseases and solutions of the continuum SO by the cold and moist distemper of the brain in excesse the animall actions are abolished as appears in folly and forgetfulness and by a more remiss distemper they are diminished as in fatuity and stupidity as also they are depraved by an hot distemper sometimes simple sometimes in conjunction with siccity as in a phrensie and madness Those actions are also sometimes offended by organical diseases as by obstructions and various tumors and by solutions of the continuum as by notable wounds in the head The vital actions consisting in the palsies are abolished depraved or diminished by an hot and cold distemper principally by obstruction and solution of the continuum according to the various intension or remission of causes So in feavers the pulse is depraved abolished in a syncope and diminished in a lipothymy The private natural actions are hurt only by similar diseases but the official by organical also The private natural actions related to nutrition viz. the attractive retentive and expulsive are perfected by the temper onely therefore distemper onely can hurt them but the official want the various conformation of those parts by which they are exercised they therefore are hurt by organical diseases also So the action of the ventricle liver or any other instrument is sometimes perverted by an Erysipelas a Phlegmon and other preternatural tumors and hence the concoction is depraved or diminished So also official attraction is hurt when by a carnous swelling or any other tumor arising in the throat the way is block'd up against food or else the attraction of it to the ventricle is very difficult Retention likewise is hindred by the same causes as also by the copiousness of flatulency And lastly expulsion is hindred by the narrowness and obstruction of the passages or also when it is too much provoked and accelerated by dilatation or vellication of the part CHAP. VIII Of the Causes of Symptomes which are in Excrements The errors in Excrements depend perpetually upon diseases but most usually by the mediation of the detriments of actions In this manner Too great a quantity of excrement depends either upon the weak retentive or expulsive faculty of the part by which excretion is made provoked by some vicious quality or exceeding quantity of humor SO a Diarrhaea is caused by sharp and bilious humors as also by the overflowing of some humor A vacuation also of the excrements too plentiful is caused by defect in the part containing by reason of which it is disabled to contain This happens when the orifices of the vessels are open or eroded by an internal or external cause or onely debilitated as appears in excretion of blood caused by the anastomosis diabrosis or diapeidisis of the veins The quantity of excrements is diminished either when they are sparingly generated or when the retentive faculty is too strong the expulsive too weak or when the passages are narrow and obstructed The excrements are sparingly generated either by paucity crassity or dryness of aliments or by contrary vacuations which do usually hinder the customary ones or by too much resolution of the whole body The reason of other causes is obvious CHAP. IX Of the Causes of changed quality The Symptomes which consist in the first qualities are caused by the distemper of neighbouring or sympathizing parts as is said But those which are related to the second qualities depend upon the various vitiosity of humors or distemper of the parts SO hardness is produced by dryness tension and congelation softness by humidity and so forth Lastly as to the third qualities these are the causes Colour is changed in the part either by distemper or by some humor lodged under its superficies So by a hot distemper the parts are red by a cold one pale so Choler diffused thorough the body causeth the yellow colour of men jaundised Vitiated smels arise from the putridity of the humors or of the parts Strange tasts by the excrements touching upon the tongue Preternatural sounds by
sometimes from all which exercitation it self will easily discover Observe Secondly That most commonly we descry more and more infallible signs from the effects then from the two other heads Observe Thirdly That of the proposed signs as to indication some are of more some of lesse efficacy but yet by rallying up all we draw a conclusive demonstration of the thing which we enquire after Observe Fourthly That we must perfectly understand the nature causes and effects of all those things which are in our body or contingent to it that we may not erre in deducing signs from the proposed head And we must be so well furnished with the precepts of Physiology and Pathology that we may not here be destitute to shew them as often as occasion of use shall require Otherwise these Semeiotical instructions though they be laboured out to a prolixity wil all be but as waste paper The Second Section of the SEMEIOTICAL Parts Of the Diagnostick signs The First CHAPTER Of the signs of bilious Humor predominant in the whole body THE knowledge of the temperament and humor predominant in the whole body is necessary for the understanding the species of the affection and the productive cause thereof Therefore before we discourse of them we must first propose the signs of humor predominant in the body beginning with Choler But it is first observable that there are only two heads from which we take the signs of humors viz. the causes and effects for the essence in this case gives no light That therefore we may lance the skulls of these heads and see what they contain we must orderly run thorough their genus and species at least all those which may be usefull in directing us to the knowledg of humors which that they might not be burdensome to memory are digested into the following Tables To this referre the Table noted with the letter A. By the observation of this order we shall descry Choler predominant in the body by the indication of The Material Causes The Quality of Aliments Feeding on hot and dry meats drinking noble wine old or new which are easily convertible into Choler Quantity Order Defect of aliment as famine food very smal and sparing Sweet things eaten after a meale because by long coction they convert into Choler as experience instructs us that after some space of time they grow bitter by artificial coction Use of hot Medicaments as Spices c. which degenerate to Choler Medicaments Retentions Customary evacuation of choler thorough the belly by Urines Vomits or Sweats flowing either voluntarily or driven out by Medicines suppressed or intermitted The Efficient Causes Parts An hot and dry temper of the ventricle liver and heart Because these parts are able to disseminate an Affection thorough the whole body Descent Parents of a bilious temper Age. Youthfulness that space chiefly which intervenes between eighteen and thirty five Sex Virile sex for they are accounted more bilious as women more pituitous Region A Region hot and dry Time Summer season Aliment Meat and drink of a calefactory and exsiccating quality as onyons garlick all salt and peppered things which by overheating the liver cause a copious generation of choler Exercitation A laborious life toiled with much exercise Venery An over-vehement motion to venery which sets the whole body on fire Watching Too much watching by which the blood and spirits are inflamed Passions of the mind Anger cares and violent commotions of the mind They are helped by things cold and moist offended by things hot and dry and fasting The Effects Animal Actions Ingenuity A sharp and witty ready and quick of fancy Passions of the mind Teastiness rage boldness jactation desire of revenge Sleep and Watching Very little sleep and slight and much watching Dreams Dreams of fires flames contentions and tumults Senses Lively acute quick and expedite senses chiefly hearing to which siccity is very advantagious Swift and nimble but soon tyred motions Vital Actions A great frequent and hard pulse Natural Actions Appetency Want of appetite and nauseating of meat in summer especially Appetite to cold things A difficult toleration of hunger Thirst Much thirsting and frequent drinking Quick and speedy accretion and timely Age because the radical moisture is soon consumed A forward propensity to venery by reason of the acrimony of the seed Venery A speedy wearisomeness in venery because the spirits of bilious men are very dissipable by reason of their tenuity The Passions Bilious men have a propensity which disposeth them for diseases as burning feavers and tertians phrensy and pleurisy to bilious vomits Diarrhaea's Erysipela's blisters and pimples in the face c. Excrements By the mouth Vomiting of humor thin pale or yellow and bitter or a bitter tast in the tongue The ears Copious excrements of the ears and very yellow Belly Feculency very yellow Bladder Urine thin and yellow or also red and flammeous The Purgations of the womb somewhat yellow or orange colour The Habit of the body Skin first quality A skin to the touch hot and dry the heat of it sharp and biting especially in the hands Second A skin hard and rough The colour of the skin principally of the face and eyes pale and yellowish Haires Thinness of haire by reason of the rarity of pores which permits an effluxion of hairy matter Quantity Quality Yellow hair resembling choler and somewhat black by too much expulsion sometimes also curled by reason of the dryness which turns the hairround and bilious men become bald by reason of the siccity of the skin and consumption of the matter of haires Passion The hair soon growing and soon falling The Latitude of the vessels For dilatation is proper to heat and the veins in the eyes apparent Flesh A slender and lean habitude of body CHAP. II. Of the Signs of pituitous humor predominant in the body Flegm predominant in the body is discovered by The material Causes Quality of Aliments A customary feeding on meats cold and moist as fruits hearbs fish meats made of milk drinking of water c. for they are transmuted into flegme Quantity Too great a quantity of Aliment overwhelming the native heat and generating crudities Time Meats taken soon after sleep or before sleep before the concoction of the former Medicaments Too long use of cold and moist medicaments which as aliments degenerate into flegm Retentions The omission of a natural assuefaction to evacuate flegm by vomit or secesse or of an artificial custome by exercitation or use of both waters stewes or purging or diuretick Medicines by the intermission of which flegm is copiously generated The efficient Causes Parts A cold and moist temper of the ventricle liver heart and brain Descent Parentage of a pituitous temper Age. Old age which in defect of heat accumulates much flegme as also childish age by reason of gluttony and unwary institution of diet Sex Female sex Region A Country cold and moist abounding in pooles and marishes or drench'd with great rivers exposed
to the fury of North windes snowes and showers and those that lie to the North this is the cause that most Germans are pituitous Time Winter season Meat and drink Meat and drink of a refrigerating and irrigating quality as lettice purslane and summer fruit and drinking of water which by cooling the ventricle and liver cause them to produce plenty of flegm Quiet An idle and sedentary life Sleep Much and profound sleep especially after meat Passions A life void of care study or anxiety or one much troubled with them because they by dissipating the native heat refrigerate the body By the use of things hot and dry they are helped and by things moist and cold they are hurt The Effects Animal Actions Principal Imagination good enough and an easie apprehension of things but a speedy forgetfulness because on humid things impression is easily made and as easily obliterated A drowsy and dull mind a slow and heavy wit Remisse anger and easily appeased Sleep A great propensity to sleep Dreams Dreams of cold waters rains snowes drownings rivers pooles seas and white things Sense A dullness of the senses Motion A slowness but continuance of motion because the spirits being somewhat thick are not soon dissolved Vital Actions Pulse A smal slow and soft pulse Natural Actions Hunger A dejected appetency and this reason Hipp. gives that old men can easily tolerate hunger Thirst None or very little thirst Accretion Slow growth because the heat being weak requires much time to subdue the forces of moisture Venery Slowness to venery The moderate use of which is advantageous to them as reinforcing the heat which thereupon concocts the flegm and reduces the body to a better temper but by the too frequent use thereof the body is too much cooled The Passions They are better in health in clear weather in cold and rainy worse They are subject to cold diseases as catarrhes dropsies pituitous distempers lethargies palsies and the like The Excrements By mouth and nostrils The excretion of humor thick white and insipid conveyed thorough the nostrils and mouth The belly Mucous and whitish feculency Bladder White or pale Urine and that thin if there be obstructions otherwise muddy and thick with plentiful sediments Womb. The flowings of the womb in women white The Habit of the body Skin first A skin to the touch cold feet chiefly and hands very cold in winter Qualities second A soft and smooth skin Third The colour of the same white Hair Hair soft and smooth and from the beginning thin Second quality Yellow hair because flegm by longer coction is so coloured Third figure Direct hairs because the skin being void of dryness the passages in it are easie thorough which the excrements may freely passe Passions Hairs of slow growth but never disrobed by baldness Vessells The narrowness of the vessels and no veins appearing in the eyes Flesh A soft habit of body and fat yet not carnous CHAP. III. Of the signs of Blood predominant in the body The blood predominant in the body is evident by The Material Causes The use of meates of good juyce and easie concoction such as new bread very white and well baked soft boiled egges young flesh and of good nourishment especially that of Hens Partridges Pheasants Calfes Kids c. clear fountain-water generous wine healthfully tempered Retentions Suppressions of usuall vacuations as of issuing of blood in the younger of the Hemorroids in the more aged or the monthes in women The Efficient Causes Parts An hot and moist temper of the heart and liver Descent Sanguin parents Age. The Age from Childhood to Puberty Region A Country perflated by meridional and Southerly winds Time Spring Time Exercise Idleness or but little exercise which creates an appetite without any resolution of the body Venery Unfrequent use of Venery Sleep Sweet and moderate sleep Passions A Life free from care exhilarated with joy and mirth and affluences of delights The large emission and voluntary profusion of blood is commodious for such and the discarding of all such things as may any way diminish the copiousness thereof The Effects Animal Actions Imagination A happy imagination and comprehension of things because moisture readily receives an impression Ratiocination A dulness and stolidity of mind profuse laughter impudence incontinence in very sanguin complexions In others mirth and hilarity of the mind with easie and free discourse and a great inclination to love Memory A memory somewhat weak Sleep Profound sleep yet lesse than in persons pituitous Dreams Dreams of red things of mirth pleasantness marriages gardens musical notes Kings Princes and Nobles Motion Moderate motion but heavy and soon tyred Vital Actions Pulse A great Pulse slow and full Natural Actions Hunger A mediocrity of appetite unlesse the humors abound which breed satiety Thirst Mediocrity also of thirst Venery Inclination to venery but not so much as in persons bilious An easie toleration of venery by reason of the copiousness of seminal matter Passions An easie falling into continuall feavers flegmons and little inflammations c. Excrements Thorough divers parts Frequent and copious excretions of blood expelled thorough the nose womb and Hemorroides The Bladder Copious Urine of a laudable colour and consistence and sometimes replenished with a multitude of contained in it Belly Feculency ruddy and of an indifferent consistence The Habit of the body Qualities A skin hot and soft to the perception of the Touch. Second A florid and ruddy colour of the face Third hair An indifferent plenty of haire of a yellowish colour and a speedy generation of them Vessels Indifferent largness of the vessels A carnous and well compact habit of the body A COROLLARY A true Plethorick void of all Cacochymie is discovered most usually by the same signs if we add an extension of the vessels and voluntary lassitude CHAP. IV. Of the signs of Melancholy predominant in the body THE redundancy of Melancholick humor in the body is demonstrated by the following signs The Material Causes Aliments Use of too crass and hard aliment of a terrene substance such as brown and branny bread black and thick wine troubled and muddy water pulse old cheese beefe hares pork marish-fowle especially salted or hardened in the smoak great fishes hard and salt cabbages parsnipes c. Retentions The customary evacuation of Melancholy retained spontaneously or artificially by the Hemorroides the belly the crooked veins or the Itch c. The Efficient Causes Parts A cold and dry temper of the liver and heart with the infirmity or obstruction of the milt by reason of which it is disabled to attract Melancholick humor and conveniently to expell it Descent Melancholick Parentage Age. Consistency of age from the forty to sixty Region A County whose aire is of an unequal constitution Time Autumn season Watching Immoderate watching because it dryes the body and dissolves native heat Passions A Life agitated with studies cares anxieties and griefe Helpfull and hurtfull They are pleasured by things hot
and cold as also by temperate injured by things cold and dry as vineger Effects Animal Actions Imagination Fear and sadness which without any manifest cause possesseth men very Melancholick But they who are Melancholick by a light adustion of the blood are cunning wary prudent constant and ingenious Atrabilary persons in whom melancholy is adust are haters and betrayers Melancholick persons are difficulty provoked to anger and difficultly appeased A difficult apprehension of things Memory Memory firm by reason of Siccity Watching Much watching troubled and interrupted sleep Dreams Dreams of black and horrid things of carcases sepulchres devils c. Sense A dulness of the senses an unconstant sad and horrid aspect Motion A slow heavy and composed motion Vital actions Pulse A slow and hard pulse Natural actions Hunger Insatiable voracity by reason of the acidity of melancholy which excites an appetency even when it is dejected Thirst Small thirst by reason of abundance of spittle and wheyish humor being plentiful in melancholick men Expulsion Acid belchings excited by crudities abounding in melancholick men Accretion Slow accretion and quick age Venery They are not easily excited to venery and by the use thereof are very much injured yet those Melancholicks are more forward to it which are very flatulent neither is venery so hurtful to them because they send not forth so much seed being by flatulency excited to coition Passions A frequent invasion of Melancholick diseases such as the Quartane swelling of the Milt and hardness the Leprosie loathsome scabs corrupt blood and the hemorrhoids c. Excrements Frequent vomiting of Melancholick humor By mouth Customary spitting and copious ejection of water whence Melancholicks are termed Spitters Belly The belly for the most part dry and constipated and blackish dejections Hemorrhoids Excretion of black blood through the hemorrhoids Bladder Urine thin and white sometimes thick and pale The habit of the body Skin first second third A skin to the touch cold dry hard and rough A dark leaden or blackish colour of the face Hairs Many hard rough thick black slow of growth and soon hoary hairs Vessels Narrow veins Flesh A slender and lean habit Thus much of the Signes of humors predominant in the whole body A COROLLARY By tracing in this method after the footsteps of these Signes we shall find out the temper of every part by applying them in the same manner to those parts and by contemplating chiefly their actions and excrements A Table of the Signes of the part affected The Signes of the part affected are taken either from The Essence which with Physicians is either The Temper which consists in qualities The first which are Calidity Frigidity Humidity Siccity The second which are Hardness Softness Magnitude Increased Diminished Situation Figure Causes External Internal Effects which are Actions Animal The principal Imagination Ratiocination Memory Less principal Sense Common to which refer Sleeping Watching Private Seeing Hearing Smelling Tassing Touching under which pain which is Purgitive Tensive Gravative Pulsative Motion The vital known by pulse Natural which are Nutrition whose servants are Attraction Retention Concoction Expulsion Generation Excrements in which is considered The substance which is either Of the essence of the part Naturally contained in the p. Preternaturally contained First Heat Cold Moisture Dryness Second Tenuity Crassity Viscidity Spumosity Third Colour Taste The Quantity Manner of Excretion Order Quality changed in Colour Taste Sound CHAP. V. Of the signs of the Affected part HAving duly enquired into the natural we come now to search out the preternatural disposition of the body First then we will make a diligent inspection for the better discovery of the signs of the part affected Next the species of the affection possessing that part and lastly the causes on which it depends The signs of the part affected may be derived from three heads the Essence the Causes and the Effects a Catalogue of which is proposed in the Table marked with the letter B. Therefore according to that Series the affected part is discovered by The essence First quality By the Temper of the part for if we perceive it hot moist or dry in excesse we shall judge it to be preternaturally affected Second By hardness and softness if for instance in Hypochondriacks we perceive hardness and retinency we shall judge the parts subjected the liver or milt to be obstructed or inflamed so too much softness in any part is a sign that the part is affected with some tumid distemper Magnitude increased A preternatural swelling whether external perceptible to the sight or internal sensible to the touch such as the tumors of the ventricle liver milt bladder c. Diminished A great consumption and atrophy of the parts Situation The situation of the part which in this case is very considerable for if we know by anatomical inspection what place is proper to every part in our body we shall easily conjecture by the humor distemper or some other sensible affection possessing that place that that part is diseased Figure The figure mutually distinguisheth the parts situated in the same place so a tumor in the right Hypochondrium shaped like the Moon shews that the bunchey part of the liver is affected but being of a long figure and more external it evidenceth to us that the straight muscles of the abdomen are affected External Causes External Causes also discover something for instance if any one hath taken Cantharides and conjecture that his bladder is affected because they have a peculiar vertue to alter the bladder if any one be affected after converse in the Sun we judge that his head akes because the sun doth usually affect that part rather than any of the rest if the affection be produced by the immoderate use of venery we say the spiritous substance and nervous parts are ill because venery is an enemy to these parts Internal causes We may number the affections themselves among external causes as where any one is troubled with a Tertian this speaks the liver affected a Quotidian the ventricle a Quartan the milt because these parts are the randezvouz of their causes Observe That when we in practise search for the part affected we must not trace it by its essence and causes but from its actions excrements and changed qualities the signes are first to be deduced and after from the essence and causes thereof The Effects Actions Animal The laesion of an action shews the part on which it depends to be affected for instance Principal Deliration watching abolition of sense and motion signifie the brain affected Sense private Laesion of a particular sense as of sight or hearing shews that the instrument thereof is affected Pain pungitive tensive A pungitive pain shews the membrane affected chiefly by sharp and eroding matter but a tensive pain is often caused in the membranes by flatulency and in the veins by over-repletion Gravative A gravative pain signifies the parenchyma of any of the bowels to be affected for all
Pain A pulsatory pain is a signe of inflammation in the part aggrieved A stupid pain shews a cold distemper A sharp and eroding pain discovers exulceration Vital Actions A great and frequent pulse shews an hot distemper a small and rare one a cold distemper Natural Actions Attraction A dejected appetency and great thirst shews a hot distemper A great appetency and small thirst argues a cold distemper Expulsion Nidorous belching shews a hot distemper but acid a cold Frequent vomiting and excretion of feculencies hindred shews an obstruction lurking in the intestines Generation The appetite to coition being lost signifies a cold distemper A vehement desire of coition with a perpetual and painful erection shews an inflammatory affection Excrements By the mouth Bloud copiously expelled by coughing through the mouth shews a ruption of the vessel but a small quantity permixt with purulent matter an exulceration Belly Fragments ejected through the belly shew exulceration in the intestines Bladder Urine having red and sandy sediments is a sign of the stone or of an hot distemper of the reines scorching the humours Heart Small sweats and frequent interludes of shaking signifie an Empyema 10 Coat 1. By the acrimony of the corruption the internal parts are vellicated which is the cause of trembling but the small sweats proceed from the debilitated faculty Substance Aliments excreted in the same manner as they are taken shew a Lienteria drink if it be expelled unchanged by urine signifies a Diabete Yellow Choler excreted in the beginning of a paroxysme signifies a Tertian Feaver Manner Blood copiously flowing through the nostrils in the beginning of a Feaver signifies a synochical one Bloud flowing abundantly from any part signifies a ruption or anastomosis of the veines but softly sweating out a diapedesis Quality changed Redness in a deep grain in any part speaks a phlegnumous inflammation so redness in the cheeks signifies a peripneumony A Yellow colour shews an Erisipelatous affection so in an exquisite pleurisie the eyes do often appear as it were delineated in yellow colours so the Jaundise doth not seldome succeed bilious Feavers A yellow colour of the whole body without a Feaver shews an obstruction in the bladder of the gall The skin of the whole body preternaturally drawn in a blackish colour signifies an obstruction in the milt CHAP. VIII Of the signes of a great and a small disease A Physician who undertakes the cures of diseases is not sufficiently furnished for it by the bare knowledge of their essential differences by their proper signes for the accidental differences also are to be diligently inquired after that we may pass a certain judgement of them We will therefore propose signes of the chiefest of them viz. of those which are of near necessity to the practise of the Art in respect of which every disease is called great or small gentle or malignant acute or slow and so forth That disease is termed great which is very intense and oppresseth our body with much violence The signes of which are taken from the three heads aforesaid for we judge that disease great which being great in its Essence was produced by great and intense causes and hath great and vehement symptomes all which for clearer instruction are in order to be handled as is described in the following Table noted with the Letter E. E. A Table of the signes shewing a disease to be great or small The signes of a great or small disease are taken either from The Essence The causes Efficient External Internal Helpfull and hurtful Material or subject Effects or symptomes which are either Actions Animal Vital Natural Excrements Qualities changed That we may therefore in proposing the signes of a great disease conform to this Table we shall institute the following theorems The Essence Great distempers or inflammations great tumors great obstructions great wounds or ulcers extended to the full dimensions long broad and deep shew great diseases The Causes External Whatsoever external Causes are very prevalent in affecting our body do usually produce and discover great diseases So long and violent exercise used in a very hot air doth excite a great Feaver Internal Those humours which are nested in our body and which are the ordinary causes of most diseases if they extremely erre in quantity or quality they cause and foreshew great diseases So the bloud copiously abounding or very hot either choler copious sharp or putrified are signes of a great disease Helpful and hurtful Those diseases to which there are none or few remedies profitably many noxiously applied are accounted great Those diseases which outrage the dignity of the principal or the publickly officious parts are in respect of them judged great if they be but accompanied with any other signe of magnitude So a wound though of it self inconsiderable if it be inflicted on the Heart Liver Lungs or other the like parts is counted great in respect of the part affected as also because it produceth great symptomes EFFECTS Animal Actions Whatsoever disease introduceth a deliration profound sleeping immoderate watching privation of sense or motion or a very vehement pain discovers a great disease Vital Actions Whenever we perceive in any sick person a great frequent and difficult respiration a great frequent or else very small pulse we may safely pronounce him troubled with a great disease Natural Actions A small appetite or thirst or on the contrary an insatiable appetite and ever quaffing thirst inconcoction or a long flux of the belly and suppression of urine or a tedious and copious profusion thereof signifie a great disease Excrements A superfluous quantity of excrements or a total suppression of them or a bad colour or a most fetid smell or substance very remote from their natural one are signes of a great disease Qualities changed A Colour of the body very red yellow or pale a tast bitter in the tongue the colour thereof black and much driness declare a great disease A Corollary By these signes before mentioned we may easily discern what diseases they are which deserve the name of small diseases viz. all those in which the mentioned signes are not found CHAP. IX Of the signes of a gentle and malignant disease WE term those malignant diseases which are attended by some malignant and venomous quality and their signes may be derived from the same heads All which shall be in the following Table mark't with the Letter F orderly proposed F. Of the signes of a gentle and malignant disease The signes shewing the benignity or the malignity of a disease are drawn from either The Essence The Causes which are either Material Out of which Aliments Medicaments In which The disposition of the parts Efficient External Necessary Aire Not-necessary Venery Fortuit Wounds Internal Bloud Flegme Divers species of choler Helpful and hurtful Effects which are either Actions Animal Vital Natural Excrements ejected by Vomit The belly Urine Habit. Qualities changed and proper accidents Therefore to follow the series of this Table
that the colour of the excrements do dissemble that yolk colour or that that yolk matter is in diseases expelled by vomit or secess Porraceous eruginous and glasteous are generated two ways one by depraved aliments and of a vicious juyce such are Onyons Leeks Watercresses and the like The other by vitelline choler parched by vehement heat by virtue of which it is painted in various colours according to the various degrees of exustion for the porraceous is generated by less adustion the eruginous by greater the glasteous by more intense for as the colour more emulates black it argues the greater adustion The signes therefore of these species of choler will be all those which discover yellow choler and much more intense and besides them these two chiefly viz. long use of the aforementioned bad aliments and excretions infected with those colours Black choler is produced from the foregoing species of choler by a more scorching exustion It is known by the mentioned causes parching and burning the humors and especially by the effects For when it is expelled in excretion it is known by its black colour and insufferable acrimony it exulcerates the parts by which it passes and being diffused on the earth it ferments it Some accidents also are fathered upon it as the issues thereof as cancrous tumors malignant scabs noisome ulcers and the like black choler is also sometimes the product of putrified melancholy but it is somewhat more mild then the former producing the same but less vehement symptomes A Corollary Blood varies into no species but when it deviates from a natural condition and is too much altered by heat and so changed into divers species of melancholy so also scorched or putrified melancholy degenerates into black choler all which need no further scrutiny CHAP. XII Of the signes of preternatural Flegme NAtural flegme is usually called sweet or insipid yet from this exceeding in quantity motion or any other manner transgressing the bounds chalk't out by nature many affections are generated Some of the species of it are perpetually preternatural and those are salt vitreous gypseous Salt flegme is produced two ways according to Galen in his book of the differences of Feavers Chap. 6. one out of putrefaction the other by the salt serous humidity But it is known by these signes viz. by long use of salt diet great thirst a Dysenteria with pituitous excrements noisom scabs much itching and chiefly by a salt raste caused by a Catarrhe flowing into the mouth But the vitreous flegme is onely gathered in the intestines and by reason of its intense coldness it is accounted very biting so that it often produceth colick pains which are by their mark distinguished from them which are produced by flatulencies viz. because vitreous flegme generates fixt pain and perferating like an awgre but wandring and unsetled pains are generated by flatulencies Gypseous lastly is that flegme which is indurated almost to stone and appears in the gravel and nodosities of gouty persons or is also sometimes expelled by main force from the lungs like hail CHAP. XIII Of the signes of serum abounding THe serous humor produceth many and these not contemptible affections such as distillations into divers parts dropsies and the like therefore we will in short propose the signes thereof drawn from two heads viz. the causes and effects according to the following Table mark't with the Leter H. H. The signes of the serous humor a bounding in the body are taken from The Causes which are either Material Assumed Meat Drink Excreted and retained Efficient Natural The various disposition of parents Preternatural Various diseases The Effects which are either Excrements Proper accidents By conforming to this order the serous humor abounding in the body will be discovered by the following Theorems The material Causes Frequent use of moist diet as of summer fruits and herbs causeth a full stream of watry humors and breeds a suspicion that they are like a torrent in the body Large and frequent tipling of water is abundantly advantageous for the copious generation of this humor The usual evacuation of urine suppressed or intermission of sweats signifies that this humor is copiously cumulated in the body The efficient causes A cold and moist temper of the ventricle and liver doth produce serous humors plentifully Those who are by temper melancholick abound with this humor The obstructions of the liver milt and reines causeth abundance of this humor in the body because it hath no free effluxion the customary passages being blockt up THE EFFECTS Excrements Frequent sweats and irrigations of the whole body signify plenty of this humor They who abound with it do expel much water by spittle They whose blood let forth by phlebotomy is converted for the most part into this humor may assert by the demonstration of this signe that the whole mass of blood is infected Accidents They who being lean have a tumid abdomen are well furnished with this serous humor CHAP. XIV Of the signes of flatulency FLatulencies are copiously generated from crude and crass matter passed over by weak heat The signes of them are drawn from two heads viz. the causes and effects the series of which the following Table will declare noted with the Letter I. I. The signes shewing flatulencies are taken either from The Causes External Aliments Internal Temper of body Effects which are either Actionsanimal hurt consisting either in Sence Common Dreams Private in respect of Touching Hearing Motion depraved Excrements Qualities By observing the series of this Table we may propose these Theorems Chesnuts Turneps Rapes Beans Pease and almost all sorts of pulse produce copious flatulencies They whose milt is obstructed or who are of a melancholick temper do very much abound with flatulencies Dreams of light things and of quick motion signifie flatulencies to abound in the body Attensive and moveable pain without any sense of gravity is excited by wind The ears are turned to a tinckling by the eruption of flatulencies through them A palpitation and concussion of the parts and oscitation and retching shew plenty of wind Belching and the alarum of the belly the engineer of flatulencies discovers them to be in the body A croking and rumbling of the belly as also the sound caused by percussion of a swelling abdomen demonstrates plenty of flatulencies CHAP. XV. Of the signes of the times of diseases THe times of diseases are by Galen termed sometimes the parts of diseases sometimes the ages of them sometimes the motions of the morbifick cause Hence it appears that the instruction of them must accompany the diagnosticks of preternatural things which is easily spun out of the mentioned heads as by the succeeding Theorems shall appear Those diseases whose nature is intelligible by sense their times also are easily distinguished by it So we know a Feaver to be beginning when we perceive the heat diffused through the whole body to run in the same course it begun in without any remarkable increase to higher
the natural state cannot be reconciled but in a long time Excrements As much time as intercedes from the beginning of the disease to the manifest signes of coction so much time also is spent in the total solution of the disease According to the legitimate constitution of diseases the beginning of a disease is equal to the two subsequent times but the beginning of augmentation is computed from that day in which the signes of concoction manifestly begin to exert themselves Of this event many examples are found in Hippocrates as the 1. Epid. chap. 3. aegr 3. where he saith that one was judged on the seventeenth day who had manifest signes of coction on the ninth and book 1. chap. 3. The wife of Epicrates was judged on the twenty seventh having these manifest signes of coction on the fourteenth and Cleanactides on the fortieth had manifest signes of coction and was freed on the eighteenth day and 3. Epid. 3. Anaxion began on the seventeenth to void his concoctions and on the thirty fourth day was freed from a Feaver and Pleurisie And Epiphanius Ferdinandes reports that many examples of this thing fell within the compass of his experience hist 86. In diseases in which coctions appear in the excrements from the beginning they are signes of brevity but when they are slow in coming forth they signifie longitude The contions of excrements appearing on the indicative day denote the brevity of the disease but appearing on any other day they shew the longitude Those diseases in which the excrements suffer some grand change and much increase of coction are accounted shorter but long if they be small and made by degrees Diseases in which coctions continue long are quickly finished but slowly if after appearance they with draw again Hot excrements sent from any part signify the brevity of the disease but cold ones the longitude thereof Thin excrements signify the brevity crass the longitude of a desease yet if they become crass after coction they are signes of brevity But note that this holds not alwaies because in some diseases the tenuity of excrements is more laudable but in others the crassity so Thin and discoloured urine signifies the longitude of a disease Urine very thin and having none or very thin sediments amd changing sometimes into better sometimes into worse signifies the diuturnity of a disease Excrements of one colour denote the shortness but of divers colours the continuance of a disease For they shew variety of dispositions which are with more difficulty conquerable A very noysome stinke proceeding from the excrements signifies the diuturnity of the disease because they fall off from the natural state In distillations a very salt humor flowing from the head shews a long distillation because that proceeds from a very grievous distemper Excrements few and expelled by degrees discover the longitude of a disease many and copiously sent forth the brevity thereof Excretions which are stopped in their beginning as when sweats retreat they are messengers if not of death yet at least of a long continuing disease Excrements expelled with a great noise signify the longitude of the disease So spittle excluded by a troublesome cough because it argues much difficulty speakes longitude All those diseases whose solution is by abscession are longer by excretion shorter Excretions driven out through convenient places and fit for the expurgation of the parts cause a short disease So the head is purged by the nostrils and palate the inferiour parts of the belly by the guts and bladder Parts are more easily purged by direct passages and effect a shorter disease So the inflammation of the liver is easily allayed by issuing of blood through the right nostril but not through the left Excretions made through larger passages sooner dispatch a disease then those made through narrower So the solution of the affections of the head is more speedily caused by the palate and nostrils then by the ears So feavers are sooner ended by help of the belly then of the bladder Excretions in acute diseases on the critical day shew the shortness of a disease but on another day the continuance thereof Bubbles inflated on the surface of urine signify a renal and long disease Aph. 34. sect 7. For bubbles as Galen in his comm a verrs are caused when the humor is distended by a flatuous spirit and this contingency is more frequent when the humor is any thing tenacious for then the bubbles themselves are firme and difficultly soluble When therefore flatuous spirits are conveyed forth with the urine it shewes the reines to be troubled with a cold affection which musters up the flatuous spirits and so causes a long sickness For all cold things are difficultly soluble and hardly admit of coction and so are of long continuance When the sediments of the urine of men feaverish resemble course meal they portend a long sickness Aph. 31. sect 7. For they signify that a feaver is caused by thick humors which require much time for concoction and edomation So in Hipp. 3 Epid. Sect. 2. aegr 3. one who lay sick in Dealces garden of a great feaver voided thin urine having a small enaeorema like course meal and was judged the fortieth day But this opinion is to be taken in this sense that such urine should signify the longitude of the disease if it be probable that the sick person may escape it for it is sometimes deadly and by it many are snacht away with death before any longer protraction of sickness as may be seen in Hipp. book 1. Epid. aegr 2. where Silenus who dwelled in Platamon was neighbour to the sons of Euacles by weariness and drinking and unseasonable exercitations was taken with a great feaver on the tenth day he expelled by urine copiously something thick separating subsiding farinacious matter his extreme parts were cold on the eleventh day he dyed We must therefore affirm with Galen that such like sediment signifies either death or continuance of the disease First qualities When mutations run through the whole body if the body be refrigerated or again heated or if one heat spring out of another this signifies the duration of a disease Aph. 40. Sect. 4. For by these vicissitudes it appears that various humors abound in the body which cause various dispositions But nature wants much time to unburden it self of many dispositions Cold sweats signify with an acute feaver death with a more gentle one longitude of the disease Aph. 37. Sect. 4. For cold sweats as Galen in his comm affirmes proceed from some cold part and cold humor but they properly coming from the skin it self it is consequent that the skin should in cold sweats be refrigerated and contain in it or the parts subjected to it cold humors But when putrefaction of acute feavrs resides in the bigger vessels it sometimes happens that a great inflammation being in the inner parts it preyes upon the native heat seated in the skin and the parts under it and so when
taken with an acute Feaver waking anxious trembling in her own mind voiding the like urine on the ninth in the same condition and the daies following the deafness so persevered on the seventeenth large effluxions issued out of the nose little of the deafness remitted on the daies following surdity and fondness seised her on the twentieth a pain of the feet deafness and fondness took her some blood issued out at her nose she sweated without a Feaver on the twenty fourth the Feaver visites her again surdity again the pain of her feet remained with an alienation of mind on the twenty seventh she sweated much without a Feaver her deafness departed the pain of her feet remained but in the rest she was perfectly iudged Deafness succeeding an acute and turbulent disease is shrewdly bad 1 Coac cha 3. Aph. 2. As surdity in conjunction with good signes is good so with bad it is usually bad if therefore the disease be acute and turbulent that is joyned with fondness and other dangerous symptomes deafness following upon it threatens death So in Hipp. book 3. Epid. Sect. 7. aegr 2. Hermocrates was taken with a great feaver and began to be pained in his head and loynes a soft tension of the hypochondrium but his tongue at the beginning scorcht deafness presently followed want of sleep not very thirsty his urine thick red and separating subsided not yet excrements not a few scorcht were expelled by the belly On the fifth day his urine thin had an Enaeorema did not subside at night he raved the seven and twentieth day he dyed And his surdity persisted with him to the end So again Aegr 4. of the same section Philestes in Thasus vomited bilious matter a little yellow first after much eruginous but the excrements proceeded from his belly in the night with trouble on the second day he was deaf on the fifth in the morning he dyed Yet it is observable that surdity also joyned with bad signes is not perpetually deadly but dangerous onely and with it some escape As appears in the same Hipp. in 1 Epid. Sect. 1 aegr 3. where Herophon was troubled with an acute feaver had effluxions from the belly such as in a tenesmus at the beginning Afterwards issued thin bilious and subcontinuous excrements sleep was wanting The urine was black and thin On the fifth day he became in the morning deaf with a total exacerbation his milt swelled a contension in hypochondrium he excluded by the belly some few black excrements and was out of his senses on the ninth day he sweated was judged intermitted on the fifth day following he relapsed his milt was presently tumefied he taken with an acute feaver and deafness again But the third day after this recidivation his milt was asswaged his deafness diminished his leggs pained at night he sweated on the seventeenth day he was judged neither was he idle in his recidivation If after a Phrensy or other grievous disease of the head deafness succeeds upon the cessation or alleviation of the first disease the faculty being not debilitated it is a good signe For this is caused by the departure of the matter from the internal to the external parts of the brain and then as the result of this we may expect impostumations An humming and sound of the ears in acute feavers is deadly 1. Coac cha 3. Aph. 5. A tinckling of the ears and other sorts of sounds perceptible to sick persons in acute diseases shew a very difficult and dangerous disease because they are produced from thick flatulencies which proceed from thick matter and this matter being contumaciously rebellious nor subjugable in the short duration of an acute disease it followes that nature by this burdensome oppression must first fall and so the sick person dy Smelling and tasting If the meat drink and medicines offered seem putrid and of an ill savour it is bad For this signifies that humors very putrid and unsavoury are copious in the body whereas smelling and tasting are vitiated by vapors exhaling from various putrid humors to the tongue nose or brain and that smell or tast which is within keeps out any other external according to the Philosophers position and hinders its reception This is the cause that when the nose and tongue are infected by putrid vapors elevated from the inferior parts all things then smelled or tasted seem putrid Touch. Pains possessing the ignoble and farr remote parts from the bowells and long exercising them the signes of concoction appearing and those chiefly which begin on a decretory day are healthy For they hint to us that nature doth exonerate the principal members and excommunicate from its commerce the noxious humors But the ignoble and farr remote parts from the bowells are the groin the leggs the knees the thighes and feet as also the armes and hands But we must observe by such like paines that diseases are not alwaieâ—â—erfectly judged but sometimes imperfectly so that afterward a recidivation may succeed But diseases are perfectly discussed when evacuations convenient for such like pains succeed for instance by sweats effluxions of the belly and the like which may exhaust all the morbifick matter but if no evacuations follow such pains or insuficient ones the solution of the disease is imperfect and obnoxious to recidivation because that the whole morbifick cause can by no means be hedged into an ignoble part it is therefore necessary that the disease should be finished by other evacuations as appears in Hipp. 3. Sect. 3. aegr 9. Where Heropytus affected with a great and contumacious disease after divers symptomes and flux of bloud too which indeed did diminish but could not operate a solution of the disease he was troubled with pains in his inferiour parts and lastly he was totally freed by the effluxions of the belly Hippocrates words are these On the fortieth day bloud was copiously effused out of his nose and he was better in his senses he was indeed deaf but little the Feavers remitted bloud flowed on the following daies often and in small quantities But about the sixteenth day the effluxions of blood ceased but he was notably pained on his right hip and his Feaver was intense and not long after he felt pains in all his inferiour parts but it happened that either the Feaver was augmented and much surdity or that that was remitted and asswaged but the pains of the inferiour parts about the hips heightened But about the hundreth day his belly was much molested with many bilious excrements and many such did proceed in no little time then followed a dysenteria with pain 〈◊〉 a convenient state of the other members Finally his feaver left him his deafness cease on the hundreth day he was perfectly iudged So also Aegr 7. of the same Section on the seventeenth day copious effluxions proceeded from the nose of Abderitana a maid on the twentieth she was pained in her feet taken with deafness and fondness some bloud issued from her nose she sweated
cannot govern nor sustain the weight of the body but it is forced down by its own gravity to the lower parts If one troubled with an acute disease sleep gaping it is mortal Hipp. 1. progn text 20. and 3. Coac tract 1. aph 12. For this gaping is caused either by reason of the infirmity and exolution of the faculty moving the jaw bone or by a great inflammation of the heart and other parts whence vapors are effused in such plenty that for their continual exclusion the sick persons are forced to ly gaping But this is principally caused in sleep because then the heat of the inner parts is intended which sends up a greater plenty of streams But if the sick person doth not onely persist gaping in his sleep but be in the same posture when he is waking it is much more dangerous Yet observe that some by assuefaction even in health do sleep gaping which if the Physician knows he cannot from thence take occasion of a prognostick To lye upon the belly for one with whom it is not customary so to sleep is bad Hipp. 2. Prorrhet text 9. and 3. Coac tract 1. aph 13. For this preposterous decumbency shews either a fondness or error in understanding or a dangerous affection possessing the parts of the belly If a sick person be taken lying with his feet naked and not very hot as also with his hands neck and legs thrown unequally and naked it is dangerous for this denotes anguish Hipp. 3. Coac tract 3. aph 14. When sick persons in the greatest rigor of a feaverish exacerbation being very hot all over their body do lay naked their body and members to cool this gives no occasion of judging danger But if upon no compelling necessity and when their body is temperate enough they strip their parts and toss their whole body to and fro this is very dangerous For this as Hipp. averres signifies an Alysmus or anxietude which Alysmus is grounded upon two causes one a proritation and biting of the stomach caused by the sharpness of humor with heat the other is the oppression of the faculty by the heaviness of the body so that no collocation is in that anxiety pleasing The signes of both causes are syllogistical of the first nauscation and appetite to vomiting of the second frequent jactation impatient of a pause with out nauscation But the principal cause of jactation is the faculty languishing and oppressed and the cause of denudation of the body is a burning feaver and lypyria It is pernicious also to tumble to the bed side and first to put out the feet then to raise up the body and without cohibition either to fall out or rise For this denotes an obscure fondness and is so dangerous that Hollerius in his comm to the Coac praenat ashrmes that he never knew any other recover upon these signes Those sick persons which desire to be erect and sit in the vigour of an acute disease and chiefly in a peripneumony are in danger Hipp. 3. Coac tract 1. aph 16. For this either threatens an imminent phrensy by reason of which they are so unruly and tumble inconsiderately without any advantage or it shewes a great inflammation of the heart which by this means they desire to allay by a more free inspiration of air or lastly it denotes a great oppression of the spiritual parts possessed by much inflammation so that respiration can hardly be exercised with erection of the body Those sick persons which toss their hands about idly snatch at strawes and pick the wooll from their clothes or pull motes from the walls and gather the bedclothes as a burden are mortally affected Hipp. 1. progn text 23. For these are symptomes of imagination offended and signes of a very deadly phrensy So in Hipp. 3. Epid. Sect. 3. aegr 15. In Thasus the wife of Dealces was covered from the beginning and remained silent to the end she scrabled with her hands pulled scracht and gathered the wooll on the twenty first day she dyed But here arises a doubt how Hipp. termes these deadly symptomes when Galen 4. of affected places cha 1. reports of himself that being sick of a burning Feaver he gathered strawes and pulled the wooll and then he admonished his friends to take care lest he should fall into a phrensy yet from this disease he himself recovered We must answer that such symptomes are caused in a true phrensy the brain being essentially affected or by sympathy by the elevation of vapors to it which do usually generate a Paraphrenitis if it happen in the first way it is deadly if in the second not though it shew greater future evil Those persons who are broken and extenuated with a disease if they fall a trembling they are in danger Hipp. 3. Coac tract 2. cha 4. aph 63. Trembling Trembling according to Galen in his book of trembling cold palpitation and convulsion is caused by the imbecillity of the animal faculty And this infirmity is by oppression or exolution That weakness which is produced by oppression though it threaten danger yet it is not deadly because that oppression which proceeds from the multitude of humors may be expelled by evacuations but tremblings which happen in the beginning of a disease are most commonly caused by oppression and are not alwayes deadly as appears by the example of Pythion in Hipp. 3. Epid. Sect. aegr 1. who from the beginning of his disease had a trembling in his hands yet he escaped But when a trembling happens in the progress of a disease the sick person being now weak and extenuated this without doubt doth proceed from exolution and therefore denotes death at hand It is better that a Feaver should succeed convulsion then convulsion a Feaver Aph. 26. Sect. 2. Convulsion Convulsion according to the mind of Hipp. is either caused by repletion or inainition When therefore it happens that any person in health is suddenly convulsed it is necessary that this convulsion should be caused by repletion for then the nerves are stuffed with cold and glutinous humors which introduce convulsions a Feaver therefore coming upon those doth for the most part heat extenuate digest and so resolve the convulsions But if a convulsion happen in Feavers they are most ordinarily caused by inanition and driness produced by a burning and scorching Feaver which is a very great and almost incurable evil because long time will be required to remove the siccity of the nerves but the sharpness of the disease will admit of no procrastination but soon dissolves the strength and produces destruction Those Convulsions which appear in the beginnings of acute diseases are less dangerous then those that happen in the state of them All Convulsions which succeed Feavers are not deadly but sometimes less dangerous if they happen in the beginning for they then signify a multitude of humors by which the nervous parts are stretched and convulsed And they use to be far less dangerous if they remain not long because
cold sweat on the sixth again she was extreme cold with an universal sweat yet coldness of the extreme parts fondness convulsions followed it and she died the same day because that coldness happened not on a critical day but on the sixth day which by Galen is termed tyrant so that Hipp. deservedly said Aph. 29. Sect. 4. If coldness happen the sixth day to febricitating persons an hard judgement followes Yet it may be objected that Larissea a maid whose history we find in 3. Epid. Sect. 3. aegr 12. was on the sixth day upon a coldness which was seconded by a copious flux of bloud and universal hot sweat perfectly judged To which we must answer with Galen in the comment that this is one of those rare examples in which Hipp. observed judication to be sometimes made on even daies which so rarely falls within the compass of example that it will no way disorder the common method of good Crises To this adde that her months then first flowing from her were very advantageous for the solution of the disease If coldness do happen without the intermission of the Feaver the sick person being now infirm it is deadly Aph. 46. Sect. 4. Galen in his comment saith that it signifieth not the same to say if it shall happen and if it do happen for the word shall happen denotes one assault of cold do happen many therefore upon cold happening once we may sometimes presage good sometimes bad as appeareth by the precedent theorems but for cold to happen often without any deficiency of the Feaver being otherwise not good is in infirmity more pernicious for if any evacuation follow the coldness which causeth no intermission both conduce to a mans dissolution as well because by reason of imbecillity the body cannot bear the agitation of the cold as because the strength is by evacuation dissolved but if coldness alone happen without the attendance of evacuation it is both waies bad for as a bad cause it tries the strength of a man and is a bad signe shewing his imbecillity which did usually evacuate the noxious humors in colds but now it is not able Coldness often coming in a long disease or rather shakings without any order or type signifie an internal suppuration Hipp. in Coac Or they may signifie plenty of depraved humors by which sharp vapors are usually elevated See Hipp. 1 Coac Apn. 10.13.16 Shakings frequently appearing in the beginning of acute Feavers are bad For they shew a very great pravity of humors vellicating the sensible parts and the infirmity of nature spending her labour in vain to move the humors Such shakings do usually appear in the beginning of malignant and pestilent Feavers Frequent tremblings of the loyns with a quick return of heat are dangerous for it signifies a painful suppression of urine and for it to sweat out there is perillous 1. Coac Aph. 18. For it signifies an inflammation of the spinalis medulla or the membranes thereof which parts by the violence of preternatural heat are scorched and by the want of native heat they are refrigerated as it happens in a sudden and frequent mutation of the parts into both This also is not seldome found in an Empyema but the suppression of urine followes because by frequent cold the native heat of the bladder is extinguished and so its expulsive faculty destroyed and sense of irritation lost Shaking after sweat is not good Aph. 4. Sect. 7. Iudicatories which judge not are bad so sweat breaking forth on a Critical day if it be not beneficial to the sickperson but shaking followed it is a bad signe for it shewes that either the useful humors onely were evacuated by sweat and the vseless and copious keep their station or that a part onely of these depraved humors was evacuated by sweat but the rest dwell within and vellicate the sensible parts and so cause shaking It is therefore evident that either nature is so weak that she cannot rid her self of the morbifick matter or the humors so strong that they give nature the foile Sternutation It is observed that if a sick man sneese onely once that he will yeild up to the ferocity of the disease but if he sneese twice the disease will lose the day and he recover But the contrary is noted in women if any of them dangerously sick sneese twice this is destructive and exitial if the sneese be once it is an healthy sign Forest obser 487. distillations of the head and sneesings precedent or subsequent in the diseases of the lungs are bad But in other even exitial diseases sneesings raise hopes of solution Hipp. 2. progn chap. 16. In a phthisis pleurisie and peripneumony by that concussion of the brain sneesing the parts of the breast are lacerated and violently torn which increaseth much the inflammation and so there is no vacuation of the morbifick matter But in other diseases the morbifick cause may be dissipated and dispelled by the strength of nature sallying upon it by that violent motion therefore sneesing signifies that nature resumes strength and is excited to expulsion whence we may conjecture that it is the beginning of a recovery Galen in his comment on this place affirms that sternutation without rheume in the declination of a disease or after the sickness is past is alwaies a good sign though the sickness be pernicious Sternutation happening to a woman in hysterical fits or when she brings forth with difficulty is good Sneesing is very commodious in hysterical suffocations dissicult labour and retention of secundines both as a signe and as a cause as a signe because it shews that nature is mindful of her proper motions and that being before dulled she is now excited and revived because she casts out some superfluity as a cause for that by vehement concussion and fervour it partly rouses up nature partly causeth excretion of those things which adhere to the parts of the body Vital actions Good and easie respiration conduceth much to health in acute diseases Hipp. 1. progn Respiration For as Galen instructs us in his com good respiration signifies that the breast heart lungs ribs midriffe and all the parts subservient to spiration are in good case And when they are so we need fear no danger from an acute discase unless it be malignant and pestilent For such feavers do often as it were surprise us by an ambuscado so that we cannot be sensible of any injury offered to respiration though in their progress they are deadly affections When in a not intermitting Feaver difficulty of spiration and desipiency happen it is a deadly signe Aph. 50. Sect. 4. Because the two grand Patrons of life the heart and brain are vehemently hurt and sympathize to destruction but both passions viz. desipience and difficulty of spiration must last long that they may be called mortal for both sometimes do happen healthfully in a critical perturbation Great and unfrequent respiration in an acute Feaver is very bad For this shews
excludes them through the inferiors Sincere dejections in acute diseases are very bad Hipp. termed those sincere dejections as Galen saith in Aph. 6. Sect. 7 which are not mixt with aquous humidity when the humor alone which is evacuated is dejected whether it be bilious or melancholick or whether it represent the colour of a leek or be that choler which is termed eruginous For such dejections demonstrate that all the native humidity is scorched by febrile heat which very much endangers the life So in Hipp. 1. Epid. aegr 2. Silenus on the first day expelled much bilious sincere spumous deep coloured matter on the fifth his dejections were sincere bilious smooth fat on the eleventh he died Such dejections also happened in the daughter of Euryanax Parius Pithon and others who were affected with deadly diseases Fat and viscous dejections are deadly Fat dejections in acute diseases are caused according to Gal. comm in text 22. hock 2. prorrh as often as the fat is melted by fiery heat But when they are viscous also they signifie not onely a colliquation of the fat but also of the solid parts of the body whence they necessarily pine But because fat and viscid dejections are sometimes generated by fat and clammy aliments as also by flegme made viscid by much heat they are so to be distinguished that those which proceed from aliment or flegme are more copious and stink not but those caused by colliquation are few and very fetid and as Galen will have it stink is the chief sign of colliquation These fat dejections therefore signifie a great inflammation and certain destruction if they be attended with any bad signes and the more if the disease be great and vehement as in a more gentle disease they presage diuturnity instead of destruction such as Hipp. observed in him who dwelt in Dealces garden of whom he saith that on the sixth day his dejections were black fat spumous viscous and fetid who was not judged before the fourtieth day But they proceeded not from the colliquation of the solid parts but from fat and viscid numors putrified for they were many But these which are caused upon the pining of the solid substance of the parts are wholly exitial such as Hipp. observed in Silenus as we noted in the precedent Theorem Spumous dejections in acute Feavers are bad For they denote either an inflammation of heat by which the boyling excrements contract a spume as we see in a kettle by the force of heat or that flatuous spirits are mingled with humor as appears in the forth of the sea upon an insurrection of windes but both is bad because the one argues a melting heat the other an unequal perturbation Yet they are worse which denote a melting inflammation of heat and they are known by an acute feaver and expulsion of spumous excrements somewhat hot as also because they are sincere Of these we may read in 2. Prorrhet A spumous efflorescence in bilious and sincere dejections is bad But those which proceed from the commixtion of flatuous spirit are also bad because they declare a crudity in the excrements In acute diseases if things assumed be cast forth unaltered it is deadly Such a lienteria shews that the natural functions in the ventricle are abolished by the very great exolution of native heat which denounces the proximity of death as appears in Hipp. in 3. Epid. Sect. 3. Aegr 15. in the wife of Dealces to whom on the seventeenth day happened a turbulent irritation in her belly after her very drink flowed from her and on the twentieth day she died Wormes In the beginning of a disease if wormes creep forth it is bad either alive or dead chiefly if they come unattended with feculency For alive they signifie a very great crudity or penury of aliment and dead they denote great putridity by which they are killed Wormes in the declination of a disease expelled with excrements and upon appearance of concoction is good For this shews that nature hath power over the excrements Quantity Dejections of the belly in any disease too copious are bad But if when they be expelled the belly do something swell and increase they are very bad Too copious a flux of the belly doth much resolve the strength and debilitate nature as Hipp. mentions in 2. progn But if there be an universal and frequent dejection it imminently endangers a defection of life which he also confirmes in Coac prenot in these words A liquid dejection and flowing out copiously and at once Here insert Table marked solio 183. A Table containing all those heads from which the signes of humors predominant in the body are derived The signes which discover the humor predominant in the body are taken either from The Causes which are either Material Things assumed Aliments in which is considered Quality Quantity Order Time Medicines Excretions and retentions Efficient Natural Various temper of hereditary disposition The ventricle Liver Heart Brain Age. Sex Not-natural Aire to which referre Region Time of year Meat and drink Motion to which referre Exercitation Venery Quiet Sleep Watching Passions of the mind Helpful and hurtful Effects in which are considered Actions Animal Principal Imagination to which referre the Various disposition of phansie Various passions of the mind Ratiocination Memory Lesse principal Sence Common Sleep Watching Dreams Private The five natural sences Motion Vital whence the pulse Great Small Frequent Slow Soft Hard c. Natural Nutrition with her servants Attraction to which Hunger Thirst Retention Concoction Expulsion Accretion either in Quantity Great Small Time Quick Slow Generation whence An appetite to venery Aversion from it Hurt by it Benefit thereof Passions Excrements excluded by Mouth Ears Nostrils Belly Bladder Womb. Habit of body and in them is considered Consistence Colour Taste Smell Habit in which are considered The skin with its qualities First Calidity Frigidity Humidity Siccity Second Hardness Softness Roughness Smoothness Third Colour Parts arising from the skin viz. hairs and in them Quantity Continual Longitude Brevity Discrete Multitude Pancity Quality Patible Second Hardness Softness Roughness Smoothness Thinness Thickness Third Colour Figure Rectitude Curvitude Passion Rise Increase Fall Partssubiect to the skin and in them Vessels in which Narrowness Latitude Flesh and in it Gracility Obesity Carnosity and by degrees is bad for one introduceth wakings the other exolution But if to a copious dejection a swelling belly be added it signifies a great exolution of native heat whence many crudities and flatulencies are generated whereby the belly swells A very small loosness or such a one as stops as soon as it begins is evil For we have shewn in another place that all evacuations that proceed in a little quantity are of small moment both because they do not suffice to take away the cause of the disease as also because they signifie either a great multitude of humors oppressing the strength of nature or else a great weakness of nature it self Besides if a
begin to rage judgement will be made on the twentieth or twenty one Here it is to be noted that those Crises do not seldome prevent the days of judgement or retard them according to the fluidness or obstinacy of the matter and are perfected on judicatory dayes which also are somewhat judicatory and thus may these be known when the vehemence of the disease either begins either a little too soon or too late as for example when the violence begins in the beginning of the second quaternary that is on the fifth day the Crisis will be lookt for on the fourteenth But if it begin on the sixth or seventh expect the Crisis upon the seventeenth day But there is required in this a very diligent exercise perfected by the use of art If signes of concoction appear in the first day of the disease the disease will be judged the fourth day if on the fourth then the Crisis will come upon the seventh If on the seventh judgement will be made on the eleventh If on the eleventh the day of Crisis will be the fourteenth and so of the other dayes computing the quaternaries or septenaries according to the nature of the disease The signes of concoctions are to be seen in another place of which the chief in feavers is the sediment of the urine Note here that in observing the signes of concoction you must take along with you the vehemency of the symptomes that you may thence make a certain prognostication But the approch of the Crisis is easily known from the perturbation that precedes it for when the combate between nature and the disease begins then the symptomes are chiefly exasperated Which Hipp. intimates Aph 13. Sect. 2. where the Crisis is made the night before the access of it is troublesome Lastly the hour of the Crisis may hence be artificially presaged suppose that every Crisis is made in the height and vigour of the disease when therefore we know when the disease is at the height we may easily perceive the hour of the Crisis Again if the disease use to have any fits or exasperations we first note the hour of their coming and the time of their stay and at what hour the vigour and height of that fit prevails most for it being certain that the Crisis comes in the heat and vigour of the disease and exasperation thereof those being diligently found out not onely the day but the very hour of the approching Crisis may be foretold CHAP. V. Of the place where the Crisis will appear and first of the signes of the Crisis approching by vomit EVery critical evacuation is made by vomit by flux of the belly by sweat by urine bleeding in moneths hemorrhoids or abscessions the signes of which being fetched from the mentioned heads shall be declared in the following theorems beginning with vomiting Actions and visions Dark apparitions presented to the eyes foretel an approching vomit For they shew that the matter causing the disease is heaped up in the stomach which sends up vapours in great plenty to the head that causes those dark visions A sharp and pricking pain in the head foretels vomiting For that pain being excited by the foresaid vapours they with their acrimony bite the filmes of the brain A griping at the mouth of the stomach foreshews vomiting Motion For it is caused by the foresaid vapours pricking those parts A stifness and coldness of the Hypochondriums fortels a speedy vomiting For it is caused by the said vapours gnawing those parts A trembling of the lower lip shews approching vomit For it is caused by a sympathy of the inner tunicle of the stomach with the mouth and palate Frequent spitting shews immediate vomiting Excrements For they proceed from the sympathy of the mentioned tunicle and the compression of the stomach which sets it self in that manner to its work A Corollary Note that most commonly after critical vomiting there follows a loosness which puts an end to the disease and scowres away the reliques thereof CHAP. VI. Of the signes of the Crisis by loosness THe Crisis which is made by loosness hath not very plain and manifest signes yet may it be known partly by the signes which shall be set down and partly also by the want of those signes which usually shew other Crises For the knowledg whereof observe these following theorems Those who are troubled with frequent belching followed by much wind coming from the belly with a great noise and a kind of swelling thereof must expect a sudden loosness For all these shew a translation of the matter that causes the disease into the guts Pain of the loyns with other signes joyned to it foretel a sudden loosness For when the noxious humor is carried through the mesaraical veins into the intestines it communicates a pain to the loyns by the continuity of the mesenterium that draws its original from the ligaments that knit together the joynts of the loyns Those whose Hypochondriums being lifted up have a murmuring sound with a pain in the loyns will have a loosness unless statulencies break forth with a great quantity of urine but this is onely in feavers Aph. 73. Sect. 4. When the region of the Hypochondriums swels and makes a noise it is a signe that the humour and wind doth abound in that place to which if a pain in the loyns succeed that humour and wind creepeth downward which causes a loosness or at least an cruption of wind from the seat unless that humour be voided by urine A Corollary Note that a better conjecture may be made if the belly were open all the time of the disease or appeared more loose on the indicative day then at any other time CHAP. VII Of the signes of an approching Crisis by sweat ACute diseases are more frequently judged by sweat then by any other evacuation And therefore we shall be more exact in searching out the signes of sweat of which the following table will afford an easie knowledge being noted with the letter M. The signes that shew the approching Crisis by sweat are taken either from the Essence Causes which are either Efficient External The air Internal Humors Material The body of the patient Effects which are either Actions Animal Coldness Vital Pulse Natural Suppression of urine Excrements Change of the qualities From the observation of the series of this table we shall propound these theorems following The essence Most acute diseases are judged most commonly by sweat For that proceeds from a cholerick humor hot and thin easily expelled through the habit of the body The efficient causes the aire In a hot and moist constitution of the aire diseases are terminated most commonly by sweat For by a hot and moist temper of the aire the pores and passages of the body are loosened and opened and the humors are renderd more fluid so that they are more easily purged forth by sweat The humors Whatever diseases are produced from a hot and thin humor are judged by sweat So
difficult wholly to expel the morbifick cause The subject Those persons who have a good constitution of body and are once recovered of a disease never suffer relapse but persons of a bad constitution often fall into it For in those the strength of the parts easily dissolves the morbifick cause but in these weak nature doth imperfectly expel the humor Helpful and hurtful Those that cannot regain perfect health being helped but by few things and hurt by many are in danger of a relapse For this signifies that the reliques of the morbifick cause do lurk in the body whence proceed relapses Effects If the actions excrements and qualities of persons recovering differ much from the natural constitution and return not to their former condition a relapse is to be feated in those whose feavers cease without the signes of concoction a recidivation is to be feared Hipp. 2. prog The noxious humors cannot be conveniently expelled unless they be first concocted and therefore although the feaver cease if the signes of crudity appear they shew that the morbifick matter is still retained within and will cause a relapse If after the Crisis is made the patient for a long time voyd thin water and very little coloured t is a signe of a relapse For it shews a weakness of nature which doth not perfect its concoction duly and in order whence arise new and fresh excrements by which we may expect a relapse THE FOURTH BOOK OF Physical Institutions WHICH IS THE HYGIASTICK PART OR TREATISE OF THE CONSERVATION OF HEALTH The Proem THe end of Physick is twofold viz. the conservation of health which is already enjoyed and recovery of that which is lost In the Hygiastick part is handled the former the latter in the Therapeutical That which contains the conservation of present health consists in the administration of six things not natural Those are Aire meat and drink motion and rest sleeping and waking excretions and retentions and the passions of the mind They are called not natural as being between natural and preternatural For those things are properly and absolutely natural which are ingredients to the constitution of a living body and are treated of in Physiology but these are said to be not natural because the right and true use of them preserves the health and then they are referred to natural causes but the preposterous and unlawful use of them produces diseases and then they are preternatural and the causes of almost all diseases as is declared in Pathology But there are some of them that are contained in the rank of things truly natural as motion of the body passions of the mind as the functions do proceed from their faculties but being considered as the use of them affects the body they are called not natural They are also said to be necessary because we cannot want nor be without their efficacy but they do continually and necessarily affect our bodies It may be objected that there are many other things that do alter our bodies which for this cause are to be numbred among those things which are not natural as the heaven water fire earth and the countrey or place of abode and therefore their number must be multiplied I answer That the heaven fire earth and countrey are reduced to aire because they act not on us but by the mediation of air water may be referred to drink if it be assumed but if it be applied as in a bath and lotions we deny it to be a necessary for that we may easily want it and therefore it is to be rased out of the catalogue of things not natural Therefore all this book shall treat wholly of the explication of the six things not natural wherein shall be shewn how to make use of them for the conservation of health and to defend the body as long as may be against the assaults of diseases we will begin with meat and drink because they are of most consequence and therein are most things do offer themselves to consideration CHAP. I. Of meat drink or of the matter of our nourishment NOurishment is that which being changed by the natural heat may be converted into the substance of our bodies and nourish it It differs from a medicine in this that a medicine is defined by Galen 1. simpl to be a thing that cannot alter the substance of our body nor as such be changed into it Yet there is a certain medium between these two partaking of both natures which may both nourish and alter and it is called a medicinal nourishment But there are several sorts of nourishments which are taken out of several things all which things notwithstanding are contained under the several sorts of plants and animals All sublunary things which are used in Physick are comprehended under a threefold head as plants animals and minerals Now every mixt thing endued with a nourishing faculty must of necessity have had life whereby minerals are excluded out of the number of things that nourish In the use of them are to be considered the substance quantity quality order time and hour of taking them the preparation custom delectation age and time of the year Of which we shall treat severally and as a consequence relate the qualities and faculties of those meats and sawces which are chief and most in use and at length discourse the use and substance of things potable CHAP. II. Of the substance of aliments BY the substance of the nourishments we understand the form and matter whereof they are composed Under the word form we comprehend that propriety of the whole substance by which the nourishment is made fit to be converted into the substance of our bodies Whence it is vulgarly said that the meat doth nourish us by reason of the likeness of substance it hath with our bodies Hence meats are said to be of good or evil juyce much or little nourishing according to the analogy which they hold with the substance of our bodies or according to their purity or mixt composure of the heterogeneous parts To the matter hardness softness thinness thickness heaviness lightness crassity tenuity clamminess and friability are related which although they be contained in the rank of second qualities yet because they are inherent to the matter and are therefore called material qualities as proceeding from the various mixture of moisture with driness they are referred to substance or mood of substance Therefore as to the substance those are said to be good and wholesome nourishments which beget good and wholesome juyce and few excrements and which are of a midling substance as being neither over hard thick or close nor oversoft thin or fine Of which sort is bread made of the purest flour of wheat new well baked and leavened mutton kids flesh veal capons hens pullets chickens partridges and other mountain birds and other things which shall be more copiously reckoned up hereafter Meats of evil juyce hard to be concocted of bad nourishment and begetting many excrements are
those which have a hard thick heavy close substance as bread of bran beef goats stags flesh pulse old cheese and the like But these good or evil nourishments are not to be esteemed generally wholesome or unwholesome to all men but according to their various nature way of life and exercise those are more convenient for some these for others so those who have a stronger heat such nourishments of hard digestion as ox-flesh stags hares smoked meats and the like are more easily concocted And on the contrary meats of an easie digestion as lamb veal soft eggs fresh fish and the like are by them most difficultly concocted as being rather corrupted and scorched up by the strong heat of their stomachs for as they are easily altered so they are easily vitiated and corrupted But the other which are commonly thought to be hardly concocted as they are difficultly altered so they are scarcely reduced to a worse condition We have the examples of this in those things which are concocted outwardly viz. hony which is naturally most sweet but if it boyle beyond a fit time it contracts a bitterness On the contrary beef and pork being long boyled are more savoury Hony also is noxious to young men because it is scorched up by the heat of the stomach and turned into choler But it is wholesome for aged men because it receives a fit concoction by the moderate heat of the stomach For the same reason countrey-men labouring-men porters mariners and others exercised at hard labourious trades are not so kindly nourished with kids flesh veal pullets pigeons and soft eggs not onely because the stronger heat of their stomachs so soon consumes and dissipates those aliments but because it doth also over-concoct and corrupt them On the contrary they are more conveniently nourished with pulse coleworts cheese beef and such like CHAP. III. Of the quantity of aliments THe quantity of aliments ought to be very moderate onely as much as may suffice for the nourishment of the body and refreshing the strength thereof So that if the true limits be far exceeded it produces various diseases and shortens life But as the multitude of meats begets many diseases so a sparing diet which is vulgarly called soberness and frugality serves to prevent and cure many diseases and makes life long The chief order of diet consists in the moderate quantity thereof For although the aliments should be a little faulty in the substance quality and other conditions thereof yet if they be taken in a small quantity and well concocted they nourish well And therefore in the first place we must take notice of the quantity which most commonly is received in the excess This is hence apparent that most diseases are cured by bloud letting purging and other evacuations by which the superfluous multitude of humors is to be taken away which proceeds from an abundance of meat assumed Hence soberness and sparing diet is called the parent of health and long life Whence Hipp. 1. Epid. Sect. 4. Aph. 10. He that studies his health must not over fil himself with meat nor be idle and lazy and again Aph. 17. Sect. 1. where a man eats more meat then is sufficient for nature he brings himself to diseases Plato discovers an intemperate City by this sign that it maintains many Physicians Hence proceeds the Proverb Intemperance is the nurse of Physicians As also that other gluttony kills more then the sword But Galen saith thus Our ancestours were less troubled with diseases because they lived more frugally And Seneca saith that the luxury and gluttony of his age called Hippocrates lyar who affirmed that eunuchs and women were not troubled with pains of the gout Aristotle in his Problems saith that it is most wholsome to diminish the quantity of meat and to increase labour Diogenes the Cynick was wont to say that it was a foolish thing to begge that from the Gods which is in our power while we pray to God for health and presently fall to glutting our selves with meat and drink To all these we may adde the authority of holy Scripture in Ecclesiastes Be not greedy in thy banquets and give not thy self over to meat for in much meat there is sickness and greediness will turn to choler Many have died through fulness but he that is temperate lengthens his life This also may be made evident by clear examples S. Paul the first hermite as S. Ierom records in his life lived to a hundred and fifteen years of which he lived one hundred in the wilderness for the first forty years eating nothing but dates and drinking water for the rest of his time after the dates failed him upon half a loaf which a crow brought him every day S. Anthony as Athanasius testifies lived a hundred and five years of which ninety he spent in the desert receiving no other sustenance but onely bread and water with which in his old age he now and then eat some herbs Arsenius the tutor to Arcadius the Emperour lived a hundred and twenty years fifty five of which he spent in the desert with a wonderful temperance and abstinency In our age Ludovicus Carnarus a noble Venetian having been very unhealthy to the thirty fifth year of his age though he used many medicines in vain striving with many diseases at length by the advice of a certain Physician he began to oppose his diseases by diet diminishing by little and little the quantity of his meat and drink till he came to fourteen ounces of meat and bread or the like and sixteen ounces of drink in a day to which order of diet accustoming himself he by this temperance prolonged his life being free from diseases and vigorous to above one hundred years As himself testifies in a book of the profit of a sober life written by him in the Italian tongue and translated after both into Latin and French From which we gather that sparing diet doth not onely extraordinarily avail to keep and preserve health in a good condition but also to expel durable and pertinacious humors For after the natural heat hath concocted that small quantity of nourishment then it works upon the superfluous humors digesting and dissipating them causing them insensibly to exhale through the passages of the body which renders the body pure and free from morbifical causes Now while a man persists in this course of diet the body is made free from diseases at least in respect of internal causes Which if it be endangered by external causes the harme is less considerable because the body being free from superfluities is better able to make resistance And therefore we see in great alterations of seasons viz. when from a southern hot and moist constitution of the aire a swift and sudden alteration is made into the north being cold and dry that many are troubled with Catarrhs Pleurisies or peripneumonies in whose bodies was hoorded up much matter for diseases but others are not troubled whose bodies are void of
have hot stomachs and in the summer time is not inconvenient for that water is quickly drank up by the dry liver whence it receives a cool refreshing Neither doth the custome of the ancients alledged by some impugne this rule at all which is reported by Atheneus book 4 Deipnosoph that formerly there were set before the guests twenty silver cups which being emptied the bread and meat was presently brought in He in the quoted place describing the frugality of Cleomenes King of the Lacedemonians saith that there was given but one cup to the guests before supper With the Latines also this custome was observed as Pliny saith l. 12. c. 22. that in Tiberius Claudius his reign above forty years before it was an institution to drink fasting and that the wine was usually brought in before the meat but it was a pernicious custome and to be condemned as being used no where but in profuse and intemperate banquetings nor admitted into the company of sober men which Pliny intimates saying that this custome was introduced by external and forregin arts and prescriptions of Physicians that would commend themselves by bringing in novelties It is disapproved by Plutarch l. 8. sympos quest 9. where he reckons these carowsings before meat among the causes of diseases The ancients saith he drank not so much as water before meat now before they eat full of wine with a moistened and hot stomach they fall to their meat It is most wholesome to take solid meats before drink till thirst be stirred up and those actually hot lest they offend the heat of the stomach and that they may be as it were a firme foundation for the rest of the meat But to conclude the meat with drink is not inconvenient It is a thing of no great moment whether you eat or drink last but this is to be noted that you must not drink too great a quantity for it makes a fluctuation in the stomach but if after the conclusion of the meal you find any kind of thirst it will not be a miss to drink Celsus is of opinion that it is good to drink a draught of cold water after meals which is not contrary to reason seeing that it lightly binds up the orifice of the stomach by its coldness and gathers the heat close together by antiperistasis binding the ascent of vapours for experience teaches that the rank steam of some meats as of onions garlike old cheese and the like is kept from the head by a draught of cold water after meals CHAP. VI. Of the time and hour of eating THe time and hour of eating depends altogether upon custome for if one have accustomed himself to eat twice or thrice in a day and at certain houres and finds himself well with it he may continue so doing till he find any occasion to alter his mind There can be no certain rule set down concerning the hour and time of eating but first you must take it from custome which hath such an influence upon nature that at the hour of eating the hungry stomach will be an exact remembrancer to healthy persons But after that hour their appetite will grow faint and their hunger leave them But the hour of dinner and supper coming it is necessary that the appetite should be very quick to shew that the meat last eaten be throughly concocted For otherwise it will be necessary to omit that hour and to eat nothing or very little The intent of this rule that you do not eat again until the meat already in the stomach be very well concocted and fallen down to the guts for then the appetite is reinforced and concoction is afterwards very well made But if you eat again before the former meat be throughly concocted the concoction is spoiled and it is the cause of many crudities But this onely concerns those who on some extraordinary occasion as at some banquet have eaten too largely but then it would be very necessary to abstain from the next meal or to be content with one draught of drink and a very small portion of meat For if it should happen that in the ordinary custome of eating the appetite should be lively at the accustomed hour and that there were other signes of inconcoction of the former meal t is to be suspected that too great a quantity of meat was taken which ought to be diminished But there being a certain time of eating to be fixed to the greater number of men we judge that it is most convenient to eat twice a day For more frequent eating begets crudity And a longer abstinence weakens the body and draws down humors to the stomach which may cause many bad affections The greatest part of men are contented with a dinner and a supper many notwithstanding add a breakfast and others a bever also which is most used by children and old men by children because as Hipp. teaches they have much natural heat and consequently have need of much nourishment by aged men because having but a weak heat they ought to eat but little at a time for the easier concoction that the body may be sufficiently nourished But long fasting is naught especially for such as are troubled with bitter choler because the stomach being empty is filled with cholerick humors which cause pains of the heart bilious colicks and other diseases But in other men an empty stomach not having matter to concoct draws what it finds from the adjoyning places and so fills it self with ill humors whence proceed many diseases and therefore after much fasting it is better to take away somewhat every meal from the quantity of meat then to use long fasting A supper in some persons that are healthy and in the flower of their youth ought either to be equal or larger then the dinner but in all others more sparing There is no question in the whole art of physick more controverted then whether supper ought to be larger then dinner or the contrary which ushers in another difficult question whether concoction be soonest perfected in the day or the night asleep or waking for they do both muster up their arguments with equal force And that the supper ought to be the larger is proved out of Hipp. 3. of diet where he teaches to eat but once a day in the winter unless you have a very dry belly If that cannot be done he bids us eat but a smal dinner whence t is easily gathered by that one meal which Hipp. prescribes in the winter he means a supper Celsus following Hipp. In the winter saith he men ought to eat but once in a day unless the belly be very much bound And after that he addes If a man dine some small matter were most convenient and that dry without flesh or drink Galen 7. Meth. c. 6. expresly saith that supper ought to be greater then the dinner and gives this reason that after supper comes rest and sleep and longer time double to that which is between dinner
about to dye the Physician asked him what kind of diet he had formerly used He made answer that he was very much averse to that meat and drink and syrups and soft bed which they then used him to whereas before he had not slept for nineteen years in a bed and for his diet had used altogether onions and cheese and such like and had slept in the open aire onely upon straw The Physician permitted him one night to sleep in straw and to eat onions and salt and to drink cold water and although he thought this would the sooner kill him yet contrary to the opinion of all men the next day he found him sitting at the fire Use and custome is to be observed not onely in the substance bt also in the quality and quantity of meat and time of eating This rule also is borrowed from Hipp. Aph. 17. Sect. 1. It is to be considered saith he who ought to eat twice or oncea day and where to give more or less for much way is to be giving to the time country custome and age When meats to which the body is accustomed being bad do upon any occasion hurt the body they are to be changed and others which are better must be used so it be done by degrees for every sudden alteration is dangerous For many causes do manifest that the change of diet is sometimes necessary as when by such or such diet it appears that the diseases are cherished and increased sometimes age coming on is not able to concoct such meats as were easily digested in youth therefore if it seem necessary for any cause to change the course of diet it must be done by a little and a little which Hipp. teaches Aph. 51. Sect. 1. to empty or fill much and suddenly to heat or cool or to make any other kind of subitaneous alteration in the body is dangerous for every excess is hurtful to nature but that which is done by degrees is safe as at other times so when we proceed from one thing to another This may be confirmed by many examples but especially by the example of Dionysius Tyrant of Sicily who was much given to luxury and drunkenness Who being besieged and compelled by necessity finding that he must leave his wonted custome of drinking suddenly left it off which when he had done a little while he fell into a consumption neither could he recover till he fell to his accustomed manner of drinking again Though had he left that custome by degrees he could have received no dammage at all Those meats are first to be preferred which are most pleasing to a man though they be not altogether so good as those which he doth any way loath This Hipp. expresly teaches Aph. 38. Sect. 2. Meat and drink though it be not so good yet if it be more pleasing is to be preferred before that which is not so though it be better in quality For when the meat is acceptable to the palate it is more welcome to the stomach and the stomach more quickly and readily concocts it On the contrary it rejects that which is not so acceptable so that it neither receives it with greediness nor concocts it with expedition Under the protection of this Aphorisme many flattering Physicians do shelter themselves who to gratifie their patients deny them nothing that they covet But they erre shamefully and are condemned by Galen l. 12. method c. 1. As saith he he shews himself to be cruel that takes awaythe life of the patient with the disease so he that perpetually indulges to the palate of the patient regarding his pleasure not his health is a flatterer And 1. meth c. 1. he inveighs much against those flatterers Those that give cold water if the patient require it who wash when they bid who give wine and snow when they demand it like obedient slaves contrary to those ancient Physicians who were the true sons of Aesculapius who governed their patients as captains do their souldiers or Kings their subjects and would not obey like Getes Phrygian and Thracian slaves Therefore that there may be a certain proportion set down for these things which may be given to sick people Hipp. is to be consulted who thus speaks 6. Epid. Sect. 4. These are the things wherein the patient may be gratified and that the meat and drink may be purely tempered that what they see may be acceptable and what they feel soft but that they may do no harme or such as may be easily repaired as the giving them cold water where need requires and the like where these words are particularly to be noted which may not do any harme or such as may be easily repaired for if those things which the patient requires will do any considerable mischief they are utterly to be rejected CHAP. IX Of meat convenient for every age THe diet for children ought to incline to cold and moist and therefore wine is hurtful The bodies of children being endued with much heat have need of cooling diet Hence wine is dangerous for them because it increases heat and fills the head full of vapours for which reason Galen forbids it them in his 1. lib. of preserving health c. 9. and Plato 2. of laws teaches that children ought not to drink wine till they come to be twelve years of age That moist meat is most convenient for them Hipp. teaches Aph. 16. Sect. 1. moist diet is convenient for feaverish persons but most convenient for children And reason perswades the same for the body all this age being in its prime of growing the increase thereof is not to be hindered by drying meats besides that the substance of children easily dissolves and therefore is to be repaired with moist nourishment which is easily concocted and distributed A greater quantity of meat is to be given to them then to others by reason of the plenty of their heat and the growth of their bodies This Hipp. confirmes Aph. 14. Sect. 1. Those that are growing are full of natural heat and therefore want much nourishment otherwise their bodies would be consumed The reason of this Aphorisme is because the body being soft and tender the substance thereof is consumed by the great heat which must be repaired by store of nourishment By youths and young men a midling diet both as to the quantity and the quality is to be used Youths and young men have a more moderate temper and therefore to be nourished with temperate diet viz. such as hath a moderate proportion of the first qualities The quantity of them also ought to be moderate that is less then in children and more then is used in other ages Young men because they are extremely hot and dry are to use contrary diet that is cold and moist Although the diet prescribed to young men ought to be like the diet of children in relation to the qualities yet as to the substance it must be different whereas the moist nourishment prescribed to children ought
of peel'd Oats boyled in water adding thereto a little Sugar and Almond milk which is lighter then Barly-water and therefore more easily concocted it moves urine because of the thinnesse of the substance as also by reason of its temper which inclines to heat Beans are us'd either dry and that by the vulgar sort and people of mean degree or green which is accounted among the more delicate dishes or boyl'd in pottage or fry'd in a pan However they are prepared they are of ill digestion and hardly distributed they increase thick and flatulent humours they swell up the belly and beget a difficulty of breathing and withall binde the belly they obstruct the Liver Spleen and Meseraick Veins they send many vapours to the head so that they hurt the eyes and cause turbulent dreams being of a cold and dry temper yet the green are moistest Although Beans are reckoned among the worst sorts of nourishment yet they afford excellent medicines which although it be not our intention here to reckon up where we only discourse of the matter of nourishment yet we shall here contrary to the method of our Theorems briefly touch upon them as being most usefull and which we have known by certain and daily experience And first there is a water drawn from the new shales of Beans most profitable for such as are troubled with the Stone for it cleanses the reins and hinders the generation of the stone if the patient drink thereof in a morning at several times two or three ounces thereof It is very profitable for such are troubled with a hot distemper of the veins because it is cold and moist when as all other nephretick medicines are extremely heating Of the dry'd shels of Beans and the stalks burnt are made a sort of Ashes which being boyl'd in water of Pellitory of the wall to a kinde of lye and taken for some mornings to the quantity of five or six ounces with an ounce of syrup of Maiden-hair like a julep cures efficaciously all contumacious and stubborn Gonorrhoea's The same is most excellent against the stone hanging in the ureters causing there very great pains for it removes it presently The same effect is performed by a salt drawn from the said ashes and given to the weight of a dram in water of Pellitory of the wall Outwardly also Bean-meal is applyed with very great successe in many affections especially in inflamations of the testicles which often proceed from an ill cured Gonorrhoea Most Chirurgeons who are oftner consulted by ignorant patients in venereal diseases then the Physicians observing an extraordinary hardnesse of the inflamed testicles presently apply mollifying Cataplasms which increase the inflamation when as that soft and spongy part by these dissolving Plaisters are made more fit to receive the flux of the matter Therefore those tumors are to be cured with astringent and discussing medicines to which purpose a Cataplasm made of Bean-meal boyl'd in Oxycratum extraordinarily conduces This plaister is to be often changed and renewed because it suddenly dries up by reason of the want of fat ingredients which are mingled in all other Cataplasms Though they are not here convenient because they inflame the part Yet there may be added to this Cataplasm that the sudden drying thereof may be hindred a little simple Oxymel which hath a faculty both to discusse and binde Pease are to be preferred before all other pulse being in the middle between things of good and bad juice things easie to digest and hard to concoct as Gal. testifies 1 de Alim facult cap. 21. and endued with no excessive quality and so coming near to a middle temper Yet cold and dry is a little predominant they are prepared divers waies both green and dry They are more easily concocted being shal'd and strained after they are boyl'd for the shales are of hard digestion evil juice and astringent The dry are preferred before the green being lesse windy and of easiest digestion but either of them as as all other Pulse are hurtful to melancholick persons and such as abound with thick humours and obstructions Chiches have a thicker substance then Pease and are of a harder concoction both within the without the body for they aske longer time of boyling ere they grow soft neither doth any water boyle them so tender as rain or the purest and thinnest fountain water Neverthelesse there is made of them an excellent Broth which hath a cleansing opening faculty and which provokes both urine and the flowers for which uses the blackest are most commended which are therefore called medicines amongst the vulgar Our Countrey women make a kinde of Broth to provoke the flowres of black Chiches roots of Petroseline and Saffron which they give for three daies together the evacuation being begun or near beginning Lentiles are the worst of all Pulses being of a cold and dry temper hard of digestion and begetting a melancholy juice they breed obstructions hurt the sight excite tumultuous dreams hurt the head nerves and lungs binde the belly stop the urine and the Courses which proceeds from their thick and binding substance CHAP. XIII Of Pot-herbs most in use and their faculties LEttice as Galen saith begets the best bloud of all Pot-herbs but little being cold and moist it provokes sleep increases milk loosens the belly cools the heat of the stomack represses the acrimony of all the humours it agrees best with cholerick sanguin and young people especially in the summer It is eaten raw in Salads as also boyled in broth it agrees best with those who have a weak stomack The often use thereof weakens the sight as Dioscorides saith Many relate that the juice of Lettice drunk to the weight of three or four ounces kils like other poysons Yet should so much Lettice be eaten as would yeeld the same quantity of juice it would do no hurt The reason of which is twofold the first is because that whole Lettice remains longer in the stomack so that the coldnesse is corrected by the long concoction thereof but the juice quickly pierceth to the vitals the second is because that Lettice is amended by the mixture of salt oyle and vinegar and sometimes sugar also Colewort as Galen saith 3. simpl cap. 15. hath a double substance juicy and earthy the one hot in the first degree and nitrous the second cold and dry The nitrous juice is sharp and abstersive and therefore moves the belly but the body of it is thick dry earthy astringent and for that cause bindes the belly The thinner part of the juice is drawn out by the first boyling of the Cabbage and therefore that first broth moves the belly the third and second doth not so Cabbage gives little nourishment and breeds not good humours like Lettice but rank and vitious The ill juice thereof is seen first by the decoction thereof which smels rank especially that which hath the heads cut off Besides Cabbage putrifying in gardens yeelds a most noisome smell Cabbage
as being lesse moist and excrementitious The tame ones which are brought up at home are fatter indeed and more fleshy but much inferior in taste and wholsomenesse to the wilde ones they taste of the pasture where they feed and therefore if they eat Cabbage as sometimes they do they taste abominably If they eat wheat they grow very fat and afford a delicate nourishment The wilde ones which in our thickets are fed with Thyme Lavender Origan and other aromatical herbs afford a pleasant and wholsome nourishment CHAP. XVIII Of the Entrails and extreme parts of Beasts THe substance of the Liver considered in the generation thereof affords a thick nourishment and of hard digestion and fit to increase obstructions Yet there is great difference in respect of the several sorts of creatures from whence they are taken For the Livers of Hens Capons Geese Chickens and Pullets are excellently good But concerning the Livers of four footed Beasts those of Kids Calves and Hogs yeeld an indifferent good nourishment The Spleen produces a melancholy juice and affords a very depraved nourishment which is hard to be concocted and distributed The Reins are of a hard concoction by reason of the solidity of the substance wherewith they are endued they breed a thick juice and evill by reason of the various and excrementitious humours which continually oppress them The Heart hath a kinde of fibrous flesh solid and hard and therefore is of a hard digestion slowly distributed and generating an evill juice yet if it be well concocted it affords not a little nourishment and that not evil The Lungs are of an easier digestion then the Liver and Spleen because they are softer and looser yet not inferior to the Liver as to nourishment All Kernels have this common among them that in meat they appear sweet tender and short they give a thick nourishment and if the beast be sound very good and being well concocted in the stomack they nourish as much as musculous flesh Not well digested they breed flegmatick and raw juice this is chiefly to be understood of the Kernels of the brest for of other Kernels those which are soft generate flegmy bloud but those which are hard raw bloud The tongue of Calves Kids Lambs Hogs and Sheep are of easie digestion and breed laudable juice Neats Tongue is thicker but more fit for nourishment and not dry'd The Brains afford a flegmatick diet of a thick juice hard to be concocted slowly descending it banes the appetite and causeth nauseousnesse Fat and Grease are of little nourishment and rather sawce for our meat then nourishment They loosen the tunicles of the stomack and spoil the retention thereof and therefore they breed nauseousnesse and dull the appetite In cholerick bodies they turn into choler and are of hard digestion The substance of the Stomack is filmy and therefore cold hard dry and glutinous It is of a hard digestion generates flegm begets obstructions and is the cause of many diseases Soft and Sedentary men must abstain from it it being only fit for Potters Ploughmen and Mariners The same reason serves for the Guts because they are of like nature but the Guts of younger creatures as of Lambs and Kids are of an easier substance and concoction The Feet and other extreme parts of four-footed Beasts consisting of membranes ligaments nerves veins arteries and gristles are cold and dry clammy viscous of little nourishment and hard digestion We except the extreme parts of young and sucking Animals as before where we spake of the Stomack and Guts CHAP. XIX Of the nourishment contained in the parts of four-footed Beasts THE Bloud is hot and moist hard of digestion and breeds many excrements For although while it is contained in the veins it easily turns into the substance of the body yet after it is drawn out of them and hath lost its spirit and vigour it congrals and hardens into an evil substance Marrow is hot and moist it gives good nourishment if it be well concocted taken in too great a quantity it loosens the stomack and begets a nauseousnesse Milk in the active qualities is temperate inclining to cold in the passive moist by reason of the fat and watry substance thickning through its caseous or cheesie quality and abstersive in respect of its serous quality asswaging in respect of its butyrous quality That is best which is white clear pure and sincere sweet voy'd of all acrimony sowrenesse bitternesse and saltnesse rendring a sweet but little sent For its substance moderate neither over thick or caseous nor over thin and serous not fluid but sticking to the nail if it be dropt thereon new and milked from one that is well fed and in good pasture Milk thus qualified is of all nourishments the best it is easily concocted and presently turned into bloud it nourishes sufficiently and fattens but it swels the stomach and guts But for all this it must be used only by those whose bodies are in health and free from superfluities In cold stomacks it turns sowre in cholerick at begets adust smell But bad Milk is most pernicious and is so far from breeding good juice that it breeds very bad humours in the bodies of those that use it The bad effects of vitious Milk Galen shewes in l. 3. de Alim fac c. 15. by the example of nurses who in times of famine used wilde herbs and their children sucking their Milk became full of ulcers and other diseases As also by the example of Goats fed with Scammony and Tithymal whose Milk purges Of all the sorts of Milk fit for the diet of healthy people Cowes Milk is the thickest and fattest for it hath most of the caseous substance and least of the serous So that it loosens the belly lesse and nourishes more It is more difficultly concocted more slowly curdled slower to descend and more hard to be distributed and more liable to breed obstructions Goats Milk is of a midling substance as also Ewes Milk which is thicker then that of Goats for it hath more of cheese and lesse whey and therefore loosens lesse and bindes the more Asses Milk is thinnest and most wheyie But that concerns the cure more then the preservation of health Butter is hot and moist in the first degree and almost of the same nature as oyl of ripe Olives as Avicen witnesseth But is more moist then hot stale Butter is hotter and thinner new almost temperate in the active qualities It nourishes loosens fattens and is good against the cough The too much use of it loosens the retention of the stomack takes away the appetite and begets a nauseousnesse and therefore to be avoided by those who are subject to loosnesse as also by men of hot complexions who burn it and turn it into choler it is to be eaten first for it speedily descends into the paunch and makes way for the other meat but if it be eaten last it loosens the stomack and hinders the orifice from embracing
that in buying ground the wholesomnesse of the air is first to be lookt at For no sound man ought to lay out his money in a pestilent air though never so fruitful a soil when the enjoyment thereof is so hazardous And therefore a temperate air both for heat and cold is to be sought almost begirt with a hill which neither freezes with continual frost in the winter nor too much evaperates in the summer nor at the top of a hill subject to all wind and weather An exquisitely tempered air as it were in the middle between hot and cold moist and dry fits a contrary constitution best So it is better for those of a hot temper to live in a moist air and for those that are of a colder temper to live in a hot air those that are dry love a moist those that are moist love a dry aire But when every one cannot finde out an air fit and proper for his constitution we must supply by art what nature denies Thus a hot air is to be cooled a cold air heated a moist to be dry'd a dry air moisten'd If for a hot body we want a cold air which is not such either through the situation of the Countrey or house it must be brought to a coldnesse by often watering by the use of cold flowers and plants by opening windows to the north that the wind may cool the house If the air be cold it must be heated with good fires all the crannies and inlets of the house must be stopped up to hinder the approach of the cold or else to live in a stove as the Germans and all the northern people do A moist air must be dry'd by suffumigations and fires a dry air by irrigations of waters must be moisten'd A hot air renders the body hot melts the humours attenuates and dissolves them weakens the natural strength if the heat be immoderate weakens concoction and makes life short Aristotle would have the Lybians and those that inhabit the sun burnt parts of Lybia to be short liv'd because the sundries up their natural heat and hastens age through the drynesse of the body A cold air cools the body thickens bindes and helps concoction increases plenty of urine causeth Catarrhs and other diseases of the head if the cold be intense The heat being driven inward by the force of the ambient air is more strong and vigorous Therefore Hipp. saith that the belly is hotter in winter by which heat concoction is the sooner performed Cold air increases urine by reason that the pores of the body being shut the humours that were to expire being kept within condense and are carried to the passages of the urine and therefore the matter of sweat and urine is the same so that the sweat flowing out there is lesse plenty of urine and the sweat being stopped there comes forth a greater plenty of urine So common experience teaches that in winter time and when the North wind blows men do pisse in greater quantity But in the summer time and when the South winds blow in a far lesse quantity but if the cold be intense it causes catarrhs through the coldnesse of the brain cold being very hurtfull to the brain as Hipp. teaches in Aph. A moist air softens the skin moistens the body increases excrements makes it slow and heavy brings a dulnesse upon the wit A dry air dries the body diminisheth the excrements makes the body nimble and the senses quick A troublesome cloudy air fils the body full of ill humours and impure spirits increases flegm in the flegmatick Daily experience teaches that in moorish plashy places or near great rivers or which have a thick and troubled air through any other cause putrid and malignant Feavers are most common CHAP. XXVI Of the seasons of the year TO the air are referred the seasons of the year because of the great variety in them Astrologers have divided the year into four equall parts So that the Spring should begin the Sun entring into Aries and end when he leaves Gemini The Summer from the beginning of Cancer to the end of Virgo Autumn from the beginning of Libra to the end of Sagittarius and Winter from the beginning of Capricorn to the end of Pisces But the Physitians and divers people measure the seasons of the year by the temper of the air and as the air in some places is naturally more hot in others colder there the summer there the winter is longer So Hipp. defines the winter in Thasus where he liv'd 3. de diaet From the setting of the Pleiades or the beginning of November to the vernal Equinoctial the Spring from the vernal Equinox to the rising of the Pleiades or the 7. day of May the Summer from the rising of the Pleiades to the rising of Arcturus or the middle of September Autumn from the rising of Arcturus to the setting of the Pleiades By which computation four moneths and ten daies are allowed the Winter and as many to the Summer but two moneths only and some daies to the Spring and hardly two moneths to Autumn In the Northern Countreys the cold is most fierce in the Equinox that the Winter season may be said to last five moneths and more Prosper Alpinus l. 1. de med Aegypt c. 7. writes that the air is remperate in Aegypt and that the Spring flourishes in January and February that the Summer begins in March and lasts to the end of August that Autumn is in September and October and that the Winter lasts only November and December therefore from the temper of the air the times of the year according to the doctrine of the Physitians are to be defin'd by the following Theorems The Spring is the most temperate of all the seasons of the year and is in the middle between the first qualities neither being over cold and moist as in the Winter nor over hot and dry as in the Summer Hipp. in his Book of Humane Nature saith that the Spring is hot and moist which is to be understood in comparison of other seasons for in respect of the Winter it may be said to be hot in respect of Summer cold but considered in it self without any other relation it may be said to be temperate Which Galen shows in his first Book of Temperaments by common experience For seeing that we do not freeze as in Winter the Spring keeping its natural constitution nor are oppressed with heat as in the Summer nor abound with humors nor are tormented with drought nor feel any manifest excesse of these qualities we must necessarily judge the spring to be temperate But this moderate temper is not to be found through the whole course of the Spring for at the beginning it resembles Winter and at the end it is like Summer The Spring is the most wholesome season of the year according to Hipp. Aph. 9. sect 3. The Spring approaching our bodies which were bound in Winter begin to be loose and
weaknesse of the body which comes by watching proceeds from a losse of spirits those being restored wearinesse then leaves a man But by concoction plenty of the nourishing humour is afforded to the internal parts which moistens them very much as Hipp. taught 6. Epid. Exercise is meat to the joynts sleep is nourishment to the bowels Lastly it conduces much to old men because there is nothing more which heats and moistens their cold and dry bodies and so it restores the moist substance being lost Whence that of Homer cited by Galen de san tu As soon as he hath bathed and eaten let him sleep for his age requires Immoderate sleep loosens the members causes an ill colour and habit of body makes the head heavy filling it full of vapours and humours duls the natural heat and renders all the parts of the body more unapt to exercise This proceeds from an over long retention of the excrements which are caused by immoderate sleep for 't is most true that fleep hinders all evacuations but sweat so that after concoction perfected if the excrements which ought to be presently after evacuated are kept in the body it makes it subject to all the above mentioned inconveniences In going to sleep three things are to be regarded the time space and manner of lying The most convenient time for sleep is the night an hour or two after supper a gentle walk preceding that the meat may the better descend The night is fittest for sleep through the moisture and tranquillity thereof and it affords time long enough to finish concoction so that it is not necessary to break sleep for businesse sake as fals out in day-naps Sleep at noon is very hurtfull especially to those that have not used it For the time wherein a man sleeps by day suffices not to finish concoction Hence it comes to passe that they who sleep after dinner being raised out their sleep because of an interrupted concoction feel a heavinesse in their stomack belch sowre belches are fill'd with wind and have no appetite at supper Besides sleep by day filling the brain with over-much moisture begets Catarrhs and other diseases of the head for it fils the brain with moisture which is done sufficiently in the night time so that there is no reason to oppresse the head in the day time with moisture but rather by waking to dry up that moisture which for the most part is excessive But if any one by reason of their labour in the morning or a weaknesse of the body as in sickly people become weary as also not having slept the night before he may sleep then in the after noon without danger Nay an afternoon-nap may be profitable if very short which may only serve to recall the heat to the internal parts for the better perfecting concoction For if it last not long it cannot fill the head with vapours and yet it recreates the strength and rather dissipates the vapours in the brain then gathers it the heat being for a small while drawn inward Also in long and hot daies sleep in the afternoon is lawful to those that do use it For the nights being short and oft-times unquiet it is lawful to sleep at noon especially to those that have used it that the want of sleep in the night may be recompensed by sleeping after dinner Beside that the spirits which the heat dissolves are restor'd by sleeping But such sleep profits them most that are us'd to it as among the Italians who all the summer sleep in the afternoon and receive great benefit thereby As often as a man indulges to that afternoons sleep it ought to be very long or very short Why it ought to be very short the reason is given before why very long is because if the sleep be interrupted before full concoction the concoction is disturb'd which causes many diseases Yet sleep at noon hurts lesse if it be taken with the body upright and not lying down for so the vapours have a freer passage to ascend Neither must a man sleep presently after dinner but after a short space and some gentle walking that the meat may descend to the bottome of the stomack The space appointed for sleep is taken from the perfection of the concoction in the stomack and liver and that from the concoction of the urine and cheerfulnesse of the body Now some having a quicker some a slower digestion those ought to sleep lesse these more So gluttons men full of humours flegmatick women and those that have weak stomacks require longer sleep because they need a greater retraction of the heat A shorter sleep suffices fat temperate thick and well concocting persons Lastly a moderate sleep must be us'd by those that are sound and in good temper which is commonly allowed to be for seven or eight hours space The manner of lying in the bed ought to be with the head highest on either side but first on the right then on the left lying on the belly helps concoction but it hurts the sight lying on the back hinders the evacuation of the excrements being very dangerous for those that are subject to the Stone A more erected manner of lying makes the head freer from excrements lying on the right side causes the meat to descend to the bottom of the stomack and is easier for respiration lying on the left forwards concoction through the nearnesse of the liver to the stomack To this Aristotle adds that a man must not lie straight but with his limbs gathered up for the warmth of the belly Moderate watchings quicken the senses diffuse spirit and heat into all the parts of the body help the distribution of the nourishment and further the evacuation of the excrements But immoderate watching consumes and dissipates the spirits dries up the body but chiefly the brain increases choler inflames and is the cause oft-times of hot diseases Sometimes also of coldnesse the heat being dissipated and consumed CHAP. XXIX Of Excretions and Retentions TO Excretions and Retentions are referred the excrements of the belly urine insensible transpiration the flowres and seed which if they come forth seasonably preserve health but being retained beyond their time beget several diseases The excrements of the belly if they do not come forth in due time binder concoction deprave the appetite and beget nauseousnesse putrid vapours arising from the retained excrements to the stomack that cause colick pains the wind being hindred from coming forth together with giddinesse and head-ache the fumes arising to the head But coming naturally forth they are soft of a middle substance of a brown colour yet not stinking very much the quantity corresponding with the quantity of things received Natural urine is of a moderate substance of a brown colour either with or without a sediment white smooth and corresponding in quantity to the liquor taken in Insensible transpiration if it be prohibited by a stoppage of the external pores by the ambient cold or of the internal
by the bad humours retain'd causes very great diseases as Pleuresies Peripneumonies putrid Feavers c. but being according to nature it preserves the body in health Here we must observe what Sanctorius hath said of insensible transpiration l. de stat Med. where he affirms that more excrements are voided by insensible transpiration then by all other evacuations taken together which no Physitians till then ever knew yet this he saith he hath found by the experience of thirty years in several bodies exactly weighed both before and after meat and after voiding of their excrements which are all to be seen in the Author or in Sennertus in his Theory of putrid Feavers The flux of the Flowres ought to be moderate according to the temper and custome of the woman observing certain intervals and certain periods Otherwise being suppressed or immederately flowing they are the cause of many diseases To the excretion of seed is referred the use of Venery which if it be moderate offends not the health though a man may want it without hurt as experience teaches in Monks and Batchelors For in those the seminal matter is transmitted to several parts and consum'd in the nourishment of them but the seminal parts dry and are made incapable of their function The immoderate use of Venery hurts men more then women dissolves the spirits refrigerates the body weakens the brain eyes nerves stomack and joynts duls the senses and begets crudities and stinking breath The fittest age for Venery is youth and middle age it is hurtful to others especially old men and men of dry and weak constitutions Such intervals are to be observed as Galen teaches that a man may seem more light and nimble then before The Spring is a fitter time for Venery then the Winter Autumn lesse and least of all the Summer at which time it is better to abstain As to the parts of the day Venery is most usefull in the morning or after a mans first sleep the concoction perfected and not after meat 'T is most hurtful after hard drinking strong exercises in time of famine or after long evacuations CHAP. XXX Of the Passions of the Minde THE Passions of the Minde have a great influence upon the whole constitution of the body so that not only extreme sicknesse but death also sometimes happens from the immoderate excesse of them being moderate they preserve health He therefore that labours to preserve his health ought to seek tranquillity of minde and resist vehement passion For so the body is preserved in its natural state and the passions cause no change in it But because it is impossible to be free from all the passions a man must labour to resist them with all his force and to bridle their violence Now the effects of these passions or of the chief of them we shall briefly lay down Moderate joy chiefly conduces of all the other affections to the preservation of health for by that the heat spirits and bloud are diffused to the whole body exciting the vigour of the faculties nourishing and moistening the habit thereof and gracing it with a lively colour Hence that of the Wise man A cheerful heart makes age youthful But immoderate joy dissipates the substance of the spirits dissolves the strength of the vital faculties whence proceed convulsions and sudden death oft-times especially in old people women and weak constitutions Sadnesse weakens the natural heat cools and dries the body makes the face pale lessens the pulse and by a straightning of the heart oft times causes Feavers hindring the dilation thereof whence arises putrefaction in the humours Avicen l. de vir Cor. c. 6. saith that two things do proceed from sadnesse a weaknesse of the natural faculty through an extinction of the heat and a thickning of the spirits and humours through cold which increases the melancholy humour Fear cals the heat suddenly to the heart which causes the outward parts to wax pale cold and tremble the teeth to chatter an interrupted speech and decay of the strength sometimes it loosens the belly and causes an ejection of urine a weaknesse and resolution of the muscles death sometimes ensues abundance of bloud being call'd to the heart by which it is oppressed and the vital faculty extinguished Anger vehemently stirs the heat and spirits increases and quickens the pulse whets the choler and increases quotidian and putrefi'd Feavers If it be too outragious it overcomes the reason and moves it from its seat It profits cold natures for it excites the weaker heat and enlivens it THE FIFTH BOOK OF PHYSICAL INSTITUTIONS CONTAINING The Cure of Diseases THE PREFACE THE fifth part of Physick containing the Cure of Diseases is divided into two principal parts The first part contains the general Method of curing and proposes all the Rules necessary for the cure of diseases The second Discourses of the Materials necessary to fulfill those Rules Therefore this fifth Book shall contain the general Method of Curing and the second shall set down the Physitians Rules and Materials The first part of the Cure of Diseases Of the general Method of Curing THE PROEME THE Method of Curing is by Authors said to be twofold General and Particular The general Method is that which delilivers the common Precepts which are for the curing of all sorts of Diseases and shewes what Remedies are proper for similar what for organick and what for common Diseases The particular Method shews how every Species of diseases is to be cured hapning to every part from the head to the foot which Method is observed in their works which they call Practick And this universal cure of particular Diseases depends upon the common Precepts which are set down in the general Method and is nothing else but a practise of the general Method upon all the several Species of Diseases and the several parts of the body Now because the dogmatical Method of Physick proceeds alwaies by way of Indication therefore this our Tractate shall comprehend four Sections The first shall be of the Method of Curing and their several Indications The second of the Indications from Causes The third of the Indications from Diseases And the last of Indications from the Strength And so there shall remain no Precept touching the cure of Diseases which shall remain unfolded SECTION I. Of the Method of Curing and the Indications CHAP. I. What is the Method of Curing what is Curation and what are the conditions of it THE Method of Curing is that part of Physick whereby helps are found by Indications to restore the lost health Curation is the change of the present vitious habit of the body into its natural habit Now the cure of a Disease ought to be speedily safely and with as much delight as may be to the Patient Between the Method of curing and the Cure of diseases there is little difference The Method of curing being nothing but a rational way which the Physitian observes in the cure of diseases And by
they are more difficult and require greater skill to finde them out and therefore proper to the method of curing Fourthly Indication is either profitable or unprofitable That Indication is profitable which declares such a remedy whose matter is such as that it can of it self take away the effects of the disease Vnprofitable Indication is that which shews such a remedy whose matter is not found to be such as that of it self it can take away the disease Some preternatural effects do shew profitable Indications others unprofitable As for example in a hot and cold distemper Indication is profitable because there are many remedies that can effect the cure But an obstruction that shewes only that it must be opened affords an unprofitable Indication because there is no medicine that can of it self open an obstruction But the opening of an obstruction looks at other things as incision attenuation abstersion and evacuation of the peccant matter CHAP. III. Of the things that Indicate THE thing that Indicates is a certain agent remaining in the body which by its proper nature and essence declares a certain help and that the thing indicated as is required ought to be directed to it that the lost health may be restored This definition comprehends only the curing Indicate not that whose end is to preserve the health but of that which is to restore it There are four conditions of the thing truly indicating First That it should be a certain Agent and affect the body So a disease because it affects the body by destroying and corrupting it is a thing that indicates and cals for a removal of it self The second condition is that the thing indicating remain in the body For as it points out the removal of it self by remedies which are us'd to the body so it ought to inhere in the same body The third is that the thing indicating should be known to the understanding It is explained thus For what ever indicates brings us into the knowledge of another thing as of the thing indicated or of the remedy but that which is not known cannot insinuate the knowledge of another thing Therefore saith Gal. 3. Meth. c. 6. and in other places that those things which act by an occult quality and therefore are not known to the understanding are to be excluded from the method of curing which is perfected by Indications The fourth condition is that the thing indicating should indicate one thing as one thing is indicated only by one thing This Axiom is delivered by Gal. 11. Meth. l. de opt sect and the reason thereof is because the Indicant alwaies declares its contrary by which it is taken away now there can be but one thing contrary to another but mark the effect that which is call'd one is often compounded and therefore as it is compounded it may indicate more things or as Galen speaks 9. Meth. c. 12. That which is simple hath a simple Indication that which is not simple hath not a simple Indication Mark also that to have one Indicant is to be generical subaltern and specifical so that having a divers nature it may indicate several things by its Generical essence a Generical by its Subaltern a Subaltern by its Specifical a Specifical remedy But the true and proper Indicants are two the Disease and the Cause of the Disease The Indicant is a thing beside nature which is to be taken away by contrary remedies But remedies are to be applied to the morbifical cause and to the disease it self First to the Cause seeing that as Galen teaches 7. Meth. c. 12. it is impossible that any affection should be cured the efficient cause remaining But although Galen affirm that preservation is properly due to the causes which hath made some to call the Cause the preserving Indicant This is notwithstanding to be understood of the avoiding of future and imminent causes not of those which actually produce diseases in us in the curing and taking away of which the whole force of curation lies For no man ever cured a Feaver proceeding from putrefaction till the putrefaction was taken away If thou wouldst therefore talk with Galen let this be only a Preserving cure when the other may be term'd simply a Precaution in a condition healthy or valetudinary Curation must be also applied to the disease for that being let alone the disease staies and indeed sometimes a bare distemper by it self without the presence of any cause remains very long as in a hectick Feaver Then again in most diseases the Indication which proceeds from the effects of the disease is contrary to that which the cause it self affords as in a quotidian Feaver which as to its proper nature would be refrigerated but as to the cause which is flegm requires things that heat Moreover from the definition of an Indicant above related it manifestly appears that those are in an error who reckon the strength of the body among the true Indicants whereas every Therapeutick Indicant requires a taking away of it self but the strength is alwaies to be preserved and therefore more fitly to be numbred among the Coindicants when they are considered in the disease although in a healthy estate and in that part of Physick which is called Hygieine the strength does properly and truly indicate because all Indication considered in that part respects conservation Therefore in a word we may conclude that the strength of the body in the preserving part of Physick is a true Indicant in the curing part a Coindicant A symptome notwithstanding cannot be numbred among the Indicants Though Indications are taken from supernatural things yet they are comprehended in three things as they contain the disease the cause of the disease and the symptome Yet all Indications are taken only from the disease and the cause of the disease For the symptome borrows its essence and existency so dependingly from the disease that the one taken away the other presently vanishes And though there be a certain mitigation due to the Symptome which is subalternate to Curation yet that doth not happen as it is a symptome but as it obtains the reason of the cause and by its presence may prolong or increase the disease So bleeding is to be stopped because it may be the cause either of a cold distemper or of death it self water is to be taken from Hydropical persons because it increases the distemper of the Liver So pain is to be allaied in a wound or inflamation because it increases the violence of the Flux and weakens the natural strength CHAP. IV. Of Coindicants Contraindicants and Correpugnants COindicants are those things which do not properly shew the use of the remedy but increases the efficacy of Indication that endevours to perswade it or to render it more easie Those things are natural or not natural To natural things are referred the strength temperament age sex custome and manner of living also the part affected and its substance the temperament
and by the state of the air In all purgation it is necessary that the strength of the patient should be very lusty or moderate The strength is something impaired by purging and therefore if it be very much weakned purging is not to be attempted Hot and dry bodies as also cold whether they be moister or dryer endure purgation very hardly hot and moist more easily Those which are endued with a hot and dry temperament by purgation may be easily heated rarifi'd and dry'd and also fall into convulsions if the purgation be overmuch Cold and moist and cold and dry have a faint heat and little spirits which are easily dissipated by purgation but hot and moist have a greater heat to resist the force of purging a thin tender and loose habit is easily dissolv'd but a fleshy and well compact tolerates purgation but a fat habit not so well Fat people are diligently to be distinguished from fleshy for although both may endure purgation yet much lesse the fat because they are colder and have lesse spirits and narrower vessels Boyes and old men require gentler medicines in their middle age more forcible Women with childe in the 4 5 and 6 moneth upon urgent necessity and with great caution may be purged This is to be taken from Hipp. Aph. 1. sect 4. and it agrees with reason For when nature stirred up by the purging medicine endeavours to expel the excrementitious humours and the disease it self it shakes the womb and expels the birth unlesse it stick very close but if when she is with childe she is troubled with a disease that requires purgation it must be used but with milde and gentle remedies and the more confidently in those moneths wherein the birth is more strongly bound to the womb which is in the 4 5 6. moneth For as Galen elegantly saith the adhering of the birth to the womb is like the hanging of the fruit upon the trees For the fruit at first is held on with more tender stalks and therefore more easily fall off when the wind shakes them but being grown bigger they are not so easily loosened from the boughs and again when they are ripe they fall of of themselves So the birth at the first beginnings of its formation and when it comes to perfection are more easily shaken forth but in the middle time they cling faster to the womb The particular nature of the patient is diligently to be observed for some are purged easily and plentifully by weaker medicines others are hardly moved by stronger Those who are accustomed to purgations more easily endure them but in those who are seldome or never purged we must proceed more cauriously In a hotter or colder air purgations are more difficult in a temperate more easie A hotter air weakens the strength and begets hot diseases and therefore admits not purging which impairs the strength Therefore saith Hipp. Aph. 5. sect in the dog-daies and before them 't is bad purging The cold condenses the humours and stops up the passages rendring the body lesse fluid which makes purging lesse successeful Therefore Hipp. Aph. 47. sect 6. saith that purging is better in the Spring then at any time of the year The quantity of the purge is shewn by the quantity of the vicious humour for it is all to be purged out that the body may be freed If the noxious humour be not wholly taken away the disease is not cured or if it appear cured it is subject to a relapse Therefore Hipp. Aph. 10. sect 2. Those things which are left in diseases cause relapses but if but a little portion of that humour be left by exquisite diet by nature and the natural heat it may at length perhaps be overcome A small Cacochymie may be drawn all away at one time if the strength be vigorous and the matter be concocted and thin but if the strength be impaired both a small and great Cacochymie is to be drawn out by degrees This Theorem is confirmed by that of Hipp. Aph. 36. sect 2. Those that eat bad meat if they purge they lose their strength thereby The reason is because they abound with many and vicious humours and have little good juice so that their weak strength is much wasted by a strong medicament and then that sink of ill humours being mov'd by the purging medicins sends stinking and ill vapours to the heart stomack and brain which do cause swounings giddinesse and other accidents yet these humours are not to be left in the body but to be purged out by degrees and at several intervals of time and by Epicrasis without much agitation The most fit time for purgation is at the height or declination of the disease in which the humours are concocted and prepared for evacuation This rule is founded on Hipp. Aph. 21. sect 1. Physical cures belong to concected not to crude things But in the declination of the disease or at least at the end of the height thereof they are perfectly concocted This Theorem is to be limited with this restriction viz. if nature do not perform evacuation of it self For when the humours are critically evacuated there must be then no purgation unlesse the crisis be imperfect For then the reliques of the morbifical matter are to be drawn forth by medicines lest they breed a relapse At the beginning of diseases purgation is to be used if the humour be too superfluous and swell The humours are then said to swell when they are agitated with violence and provoke and pain the body But this swelling is proper to cholerick humours which are hot thin and acrimonious and most subject to breed acute diseases But thick and cold humours which generate long diseases are not wont to swell so much If therefore such humours swell it is lawful to purge them forth before they are concocted for it is to be fear'd that the strength may be impaired by the agitation of the matter and that the humours stirred up by that violence may fall upon some principal part but then those humours are easily purged although they be not concocted because being thin and movable nature being also excited by them and provoked by the purging medicins lends her helping hand to evacuate them her self So that the patient receives more good then harm by the purging away of those swelling humours before they are concocted Whence Hipp. Aph. 10. sect 4. It is good to administer cure in acute diseases if the matter swell the same day for to delay longer in such diseases is evil but this is to be performed with caution and premeditation for the most part the matter swels not as in Aph. 22. sect 1. and as the same Hipp. teaches in Aph. 24. sect 1. In acute diseases and at the beginning seldome use purgations but with premeditation for purgations by their heat and acrimony increase acute diseases and acute diseases are sooner wasted by a critical evacuation then by purging But those Crises are not rashly
Sudorificks the pores of the skin are opened to the great damage of the spirits and strength By the same sudorificks the body growes hot so that it is to be feared lest the hot distemper should cast the patient into a Feaver or Consumption Lastly while the matter is much being agitated all together and vehemently attenuated it is to be feared that it should fall upon some principal part or shut up the pores of the body which causes putrefaction tumours and other diseases And therefore it is the best way before the provocation of sweat to diminish the morbifick matter with universal purgation THE THIRD SECTION of the FIRST PART OF THERAPEVTICKS Of Indications from the Disease CHAP. I. Of Indications from a similar Disease EVery distemper is to be corrected by alteration which is to be performed by Contraries So a hot distemper points to a cooling Medicament a cold distemper a heating Medicament a moist distemper driers a dry moistners so in compounded distempers hot and moist diseases require cold and dry medicins hot and dry cold and moist cold and moist hot and dry cold and dry hot and moist A more intense distemper and more remote from the natural temper of the body wants stronger medicines a more remisse and lesse remote from the natural temper requires more remisse medicines In correcting any distemper the part affected must be accurately considered the remedies applied must be appropriate and specifical having a peculiar affinity with the disease and agreement with nature So when the brain is to be heated we must not apply indifferently any sort of heating medicines but those which are called Cephalick to the breast those medicins that are fit for the breast to the heart Cordials to the liver Hepaticks to the spleen Spleneticks to the womb Hysterical and so medicines appropriate to any part are to be used endued with those first qualities which the distemper of these parts requires CHAP. II. Of Indications from an Organical disease OF an organical disease there are many sorts viz. in conformation magnitude number and situation whose several Indications are distinctly to be propounded Diseases of conformation are in figure in passage cavity roughnesse or smoothnesse The figure is viciated either in the womb or after the birth That error which is contracted in the womb may be omitted as incurable That which happens afterward if it be of a long time is hard to be cured if lately done much more easily If the depravation of the figure be produced by an afflux of humours or by any other cause external or internal by the removal of those causes it will be amended So the depravation of the figure which in preternatural tumours and the faces of leprous persons and such like appears it is to be restored by the revulsion derivation or evacuation of the humours causing those effects If the depravation of the figure happen without the afflux of humour as in those who have crooked legs or bunch backs or their ribs one higher then another In children it is to be amended by often stroking then by lying on the opposite side and by swathing and pasteboards In those that are more grown by softning medicines to be mollified and then to be contain'd in its due place by the means mentioned But if disfiguration happen by some fracture or ill bred callosity caused by the undue collocation of the member the callous part is to be cut away that it may be made to grow more handsomely if it may be done without danger that is in a strong well disposed and temperate body Diseases of the cavities and passages are dilatation astriction and obstruction which are wont to be produced by innumerable causes and according to the variety of causes they have many sorts of Indications which cannot be handled but in a particular method Roughnesse and smoothnesse that are preternatural proceed from many causes both internal and external wounding gnawing cleansing drying and the like the removal of which must be in a particular method Diseases in number are only to be cured by nature for that which is wanting is either flesh bone or some other part which the Physician cannot add yet he may help the generation thereof removing the impediments which delay nature in her work As also when the members are lost which cannot be recovered be nature yet the Physician may suborne something in stead thereof which may supply in a manner the use thereof as when an iron arm or a wooden leg is put in the place of that which is lost Whatever exceed in number are presently to be cut away so it may be done without danger and to the advantage of the patient but as there is very great variety in this this particular so the way of cure is manifold yet all is performed by iron fire or medicament Magnitude increased is to be cured by diminution diminished by addition almost by the same instruments by which number increased or diminished its usually cured When the parts lose their situation and natural connexion they are to be put into their former place by that method which is set down in the curing of dislocations and burstings CHAP. III. Of Indication from a common Disease or solution of unity EVery solution of the Continuum requires an uniting which is perfected by nature whose servant the Physician is whose chief duty in that office is contained under four heads 1. That he be cautious that nothing fall into the part affected that may hinder conglutination 2. That the extremes of the dissolved unity be rightly joyned together 3. That being joyned they may be rightly kept together 4. To forward their uniting and mutual adhering one to the other 5. That the symptomes which may happen may be prevented and corrected The practise of which precepts is shewed in the cure of wounds ulcers and fractures THE FOURTH SECTION OF THERAPEVTICKS Of Indications from the Strength CHAP. I. What it is that Indicates and Coindicates Diet in sick People THE Strength in whatsoever state of the body indicate their own preservation But that conservation is perfected by diet which as it is properly indicated by the strength so it is coindicated or prohibited by the disease or the morbifick cause As it is said before A remedy as it is the instrument of curation is indicated by things preternatural and coindicated by things natural So now it is certain that nourishment as it is the instrument of conservation is indicated by things agreeable to nature and coindicated by things averse to nature But the strength is the faculties themselves or rather the instruments of them that is the vigour of heat spirits and the solid parts which being firm and vigorous the strength is vigorous and so on the contrary since therefore the conservation of the solid and spiritous parts is by the benefit of the nourishment therefore the use of it which is called Diet is said to preserve the strength But the disease or the morbifick cause
Repelling and Astringents Simple Roots of Snakeweed Lungwort Tormentil Reapontick Rindes the middle rinde of Sumack peels Granates green Walnuts Acorn cups Leaves of Vines and Tendrels of the same Myrtle Cyperus Oak Olive-tree Sumack Knotgrasse Shepherds purse Horetail Plantain Wormwood Mint Mullin tops of Bramble Seeds of Purslain Plantain shepherds purse Dyers grains Grape-stones Flowers of red Roses grounds of distilled Râ—ses Pomegranates Fruits Myrtle-berries Cypresse-nuts unripe Galls Medlers Services Quinces Juices of Plantain and of the foresaid Herbs Acacia Hypocistis Gums Mastick Dragons-bloud Frankincense Sandarach Tragacanth Sarcocol Gum Arabick Minerals Bole Armoniack Terra sigillata Alum Coral Compounds Waters of Roses Plantain Nightshade Peculi rosarum of the rindes of Nuts Oyls of Roses sowr Grapes Myrtles Mastick Lentisk Wormwood Mint Oyntments de Comitissa Emplaisters against Ruptures of Crusts of Bread CHAP. II. Of Emplasters EMplasters are something near the nature of astringents and repellents and are convenient in defluxions and eruptions of bloud out of any part For they are of a glutinous and fat substance whereby they stick fast to the part and obstruct the pores thereof so that the slowing humour cannot passe through them then by compressing the part they drive the humour another way Of these some are simply such having no other manifest quality and some also do dry or bind withall and indeed the greatest part of them have these two qualities joyned together The matter of them is this Simples Meal of Wheat Beans Juices Amylum or unground Wheat Gums Mastick sanguis Draconis Animals the white of an Egge Mummie Minerals the Bloud-stone Coral terra Sigillata bole Armoniack Parget Litharge Ce-Pompholyx Cadmia Lapis Calaminaris Antimony Alum Lead Compounds Unguents white oyntment of Rhasis of Litharge nutritum Diachalcitheos Diapompholygos Desiccativum rubrum or drying red oyntment CHAP. III. Of Medicaments that ease pain PAin afflicting the parts of the body uses to be asswaged three waies either by taking away the efficient cause or by stupifying the sense with Narcoticks or by the use of those Medicaments which are properly called Anodyne Now those are called Anodyne or Paregorical which ease pain the cause and the disease still remaining This they do by a kinde and moderate heat by which the part affected is cherished and reduced to an evennesse the skin is relaxed and the pores opened that by it a certain portion of the matter may be resolved The matter of them is this Simples Roots of Althea Mallowes Lillies Leaves of Mallowes Althea Bears-breech Seeds of Hemp Fenugreek Marshmallowes Flowers of Lillies Camomil Melilot Meal of Hemp-seed Fenugreek Compounds Oyls common of sweet Almonds Lillies Camomile Dill of Plower-de-luces of the whites of Eggs. Oyntments Dialthea Resumptive CHAP. IV. Of Narcotick Medicaments NArcotick Medicaments ease pain by stupifying the part and taking away the sense thereof or by causing sleep which takes away the feeling of the body This effect they are said to produce by an extraordinary coldnesse which they have in the fourth degree according to the ancient doctrine of Galen but many modern Authors do think that they take away the sense and provoke sleep not simply by coldnesse but by a peculiar faculty and specifical quality which they call a Narcotick vertue The use of them is not admitted unlesse after Anodynes tryed in vain The matter of them is this Simples Roots of Mandrake Henbane Leaves of Henbane Hemlock Mandrake white Poppy Seeds of Henbane white Poppy Juices of Lettice Hemlock Henbane Opium Compounds Opiates Philonium Romanum Requies Nicolai Oyls of Mandrake Henbane white Poppy Chymicks Laudanum Opiaticum CHAP. V. Of Emollients ALL hardnesse is produced by three causes drynesse tension and concretion Those things which are dry'd are harder those which are repleted are stretched and resist the touch are called hard those things also which are condensed by cold obtain a hardnesse as appeareth in yce All these kinds of hardness happen to our bodies For the humours contract a drinesse by a long action of heat or resolving medicaments because the more thin and moist parts are dissipated and the thicker and dryer remain By the multitude of humours the parts are stretched and repleted Lastly humours naturally cold and destitute of proper heat or setling in a part labouring with a cold distemper condense of themselves and harden That hardnesse which arises from drynesse is cured by humectation that which comes by repletion is cured by evacuation that which comes by concretion is taken away by those things which are properly called Emollients Now true and right Emollients are very like to Anodynes endued with a moderate heat and drynesse according to Galen 5. de simpl med fac c. 8. being destitute of all acrimony or corroding quality whereby they melt the humour congealed by cold and so take away the hardnesse thereof The matter of them is this Simples Roots of Mallowes Althea Lillies Flower-deluce Briony Wallwort wilde Cucumers Leaves of Violet Pellitory of the wall Bears-breech Mallowes Althea Orach Walwort Seeds of Hemp Fenugreek Mallowes Althea Flowers of Camomil Melilot Lillies Fruits fat Figs. Gums Turpentine Ammoniack Bdellium Styrax Galbanum Opoponax Animals Butyr Hogs-fat Hens Goose-grease Sheeps-dung Harts-marrow marrow of Veal Compounds Oyls common of Lillies Violets Wormes of Camomil Hemp Flower-deluces Whelps Unguents of Althea Resumptive Emplaisters the great Diachylum of Mucilages of Melilot of the son of Zacharias Ceroneum Oxycroceum of Frogs CHAP. VI. Of Resolving Medicaments REsolving Medicaments are hotter then Emollients also they have a thin substance so that they easily penetrate dilate the pores of the skin attenuate the humours and convert them to vapours so that they may be evacuated by insensible transpiration or Diaphoresis The matter of them is this Simples Roots of Elecampane Orris Carrots Birthwort Galingal Leaves of Marjoram Wormwood Hysop Calamint Penny-royal Origan Lawrel Rue Savoury Sage Rosemary Seeds of Carrots Cumin Dill Fenugreek Hemp Nigella Anise Fennel Fruits Lawrel-berries Juniper-berries Pepper Flowers of Stoechas Hysop Lavender Dill Camomil Melilot Compounds Oyls of Dill Rue sweet Almonds Cappars Scorpions Nard St. Johnswort of Foxes Turpentine of Spike Oyntments of Agrippa Aregon Martiate Emplaisters of Sulphur of Lawrel-berries Diachylum ireatum CHAP. VII Of attracting or drawing Medicaments ATtracting Medicaments are hotter then resolving and being applyed to the skin they draw forth the humours lying in the deep parts of the body and discuss them But though they do obtain this faculty for the most part from the heat and thinnesse of the parts yet they perform it also by a certain natural property as Dittany is said to draw forth arrowes out of the body others from the likenesse of the substance as a Scorpion being laid upon a wound caused by it self draws the venom to it self The matter of drawing Medicaments is this Simples Roots of both Birthworts Pellitory of Spain Thapsia Hermodactyles Orrice Hellebore Cyclamine Anacardium Leaves of Pimpernel Calamint Sopewort Nettles Setwall Seeds of Thlaspi Mustard Watercresses
neither retains its pure nature nor hath a sincere cause to which it may acknowledge its production A tertian feaver excited by sincere choler is called true and legitimate as also a quartan the effect of pure melancholy But those feavers are called bastard spurious and illegitimate when they have a confusion of other humors befides those now mentioned 3. In respect of the place or region in which diseases are generated some are called endemical some epidemical some sporadical Endemical diseases are those which are peculiar to some Region and are in it commonly powerful They are otherwise called vernacular and gentilitious because they are alwayes appendent to one Region by reason of the air aliments c. proper to that Countrey So the Inhabitants of the Alpes are troubled with a Bronchocele the Spaniards are perplexed with strumous swellings the Lusitanians pine away with tabifical consumptions and all these are judged Endemical diseases Epidemical diseases are those which in any Region rage among the popularity In this Endemical and Epidemical diseases are neerly related that they seise upon many and spend their fury upon the popularity But in this they differ that Endemical confine themselves alwayes to the same Countrey but Epidemical are indifferent and inclinable to forain invasions The reason of which is this because Endemical proceed from the peculiar disposition of the air water or dyet of the Countrey but Epidemical are caused by the air alone not infected by means of the place but rather by the malignant influences of superiour bodies The Sporadical are they which neither commonly range abroad nor particularize themselves to any Region They are also termed dispersed and are opposed to Endemical and Epidemical diseases because they are various and driven by contingences do sometimes light here sometimes there So in this or any other Region one is sick of a pleurisie another languishing by a continual or tertian feaver another troubled with a catarrhe nephretical pains gout dropsie or any disease of another nature according to the various nature and constitution of individuals Thus much of the nature and differences of diseases as well Essential as Accidental now it rests that we handle their Changes The second Section of PATHOLOGY Of the Changes of Diseases and chiefly of the Crises The First CHAPTER Of the Changes contingent in Diseases IN Diseases there are two mutations worth our notice either when they metamorphose into some other disease or when they are absolutely and simply dissolved without a transmigration into any other The change of one disease into another is frequently seen when the Apoplexy makes a transition into a Palsie a Tertian feaver into a Quartan a quartan the swelling of the liver or spleen and many other affections turn their stream and run into the channel of a Dropsie Diseases are absolutely and simply dissolved when without the intercession of any other disease they are determined either by health or death But their end in health or death is double To wit leisurely and by degrees or suddenly and unawares When a disease is slowly and by little and little ended in death it is called a Marasmus but when it is so ended in health it is called simply Solution by the Greeks termed Lysis When it is hastily and suddenly ended either by health or death it is called Crisis which is commonly opposed to Lysis or solution it being a frequent expression with Authors that all diseases are terminated by Crisis or Lysis CHAP. II. Of the nature of Crisis A Crisis is a sudden and unexpected change happening in a disease to health or to death HIppocrates and Galen use this term Crisis many wayes sometimes they intend by Crisis nothing else but a secretion of humors as Galen Comment on Aph. 13. Sect. 2. saith That a Crisis is caused by Nature separating the noxious humours from the good and preparing them for excretion But sometimes by Crisis they signifie excretion it self because the best Crisis is compleated by excretion So Hippocrates in his Book of Art terms the excretion of a corrupt bone a Crisis or lastly it is taken for a conflict which upon the imminency of a Crisis is usually waged between the disease and nature But the more frequent and usual acception of it is for judgement which construction hath been from Galen's age to this imbraced by many for Galen in his Comment on 1 Progn witnesseth that judication passed on diseases was derived from the Courts of Judicature and applyed to the Art of Medicine nor truly very improperly for though the things from whence these translations are taken be not altogether like yet the judgement passed in diseases hath some similitude with forensical judgement For in Courts of Judicature in capital causes there is the person that brings the action and the person guilty The person that brings the action maintains a conflict with the person guilty and constantly accuseth him produceth witnesses and menaceth death or punishment But if this accusation be falsly charged upon the person seemingly guilty he pleads boldly for himself and retorts the punishment on him that brings the action but if he cannot stand in contradictory opposition to the accusation he is forced to give up and yield All these things are transacted before a Judge who weighs them all and at last on a certain time gives judgement of the whole matter In the same manner in the Crisis the disease represents him that brings the action nature the person guilty the morbifick cause brings nature into the Court endevouring to overthrow it of this invasion the symptomes are witnesses which declare the whole progress of the contention But nature which is as it were in the capacity of a guilty person defends it self stoutly against its adversary disease whose resistance if she be well fortified she baffles and turns him off as an unjust Plaintiff and thrusts him out of Court but if she want good supports she must submit to the fury of her Antagonist All these things are points of accurate inspection to a Physician who after a serious pensitation of the strength of both parts gives sentence as a Judge and designes that day of judgement in which either the disease or nature shall be cast From hence it is evident that the comparison of a Crisis with Judicature is not wholly absurd and contemptible But to draw neerer to the very definition of a Crisis it being defined by mutation it is requisite to be known that in all motion according to the Philosophers there are many things considerable the point from which the point to which the medium through which motion is made motion the mover and the moveable All these things are perpetually found in a Crisis For the Mover is Nature it self performing coctions separating humors and at last expelling them on the Critical day The Moveable is the Morbifick cause and preternatural humors to which only a Crisis is incident The point from which a Crisis is derived is the augmentation
superfluous humors And if sometimes such persons through the vehemency of external causes be hurried to any disease they recover so much the sooner by reason that the internal cause moved by the external is of no great force which is therefore the more easily vanquished and resolved Furthermore if this exact diet do not altogether take away the disease yet it very much impairs the vehemency thereof and makes it more tolerable so that the patient may live long enough to struggle with the disease And thus daily experience informs us many live long with an ulcer in their lungs with a scirrhus in their liver or spleen with the stone in their reines or bladder which Aristotle testifies in his Problems saying that there was a certain Philosopher in his time by name Herodicus who was in a consumption yet by well dieting himself lived to a hundred years It is commonly objected that many live to a very great age that are very liberal in their diet To this we answer that those are very few and endued with an extraordinary strength and good temper of body who if they should live soberly would produce their lives to a much longer age and be better disposed to the actions of the mind For of necessity those that live intemperately must abound with ill humors and be often assailed with diseases nor can long intend the high and difficult functions of the mind without manifest impairing of their health For in those persons the strength of nature and the spirits is wholly enslaved to the concoction of the nourishment from which if it be violently drawn by the studious labours of the mind the concoction cannot be good whence follow many diseases and crudities because they require much exercise or physick to purge the body and so though they seem to live long in their body yet their mindes and ingenuities seem already interr'd being unable to hold out long in the performance of those noble functions the greatest part of their time being to be spent in drudging for the body Add to this that though it may happen that such as are endued with a strong nature may live long with such profuse diet yet we find no examples that weaker constitutions using the same diet would ever live to old age But on the contrary if they live temperately they may live longer then such as indulge themselves to intemperancy though of stronger nature But this moderate and necessary quantity of meat cannot be prescribed by any general rule the diversity of times ages and tempers causing much alteration in that particular In this theorem is shewn that the example of Ludovicus Cornarus above mentioned is not to be followed by all men for there are many men whose natural heat is strong and vigorous which would be much damnifyed by such a sparing diet For Hipp. writes in 1. book Aph. 5. that a diet too strict and sparing is more dangerous then that which exceeds a little for it is an easier thing to have remedies against the plenty of humors then to repair the natural moisture and the wasting of the solid parts by aliments A threefold order of diet is instituted by Hipp. and Galen sparing which diminisheth the strength moderate which preserves it and full which increases it Sparing diet is not convenient for healthful people but onely for the sick For as meat is health to the healthy so it is a disease to diseased persons and by how much the more you nourish unsound bodies by so much the more you hurt them In healthy people the strength of nature is to be preserved or increased with nourishment not to be broken which cannot be in sick persons because a moderate diet preserving the health in healthy people diminisheth it in those that are sick by increasing the disease because by how much the more you feed it by so much the more you hurt the body of the patient And therefore so exact a diet as was observed by Cornarus is not convenient for all men but onely to such as are sickly and whose natural heat is weak and not able to concoct much meat and also to such whose bodies are full of humors for hunger dries up the body as also lastly to those that use little exercise leading a sedentary life being addicted to contemplation and the tough labours of the mind Yet there are certain rules which may be set down by which every man may prescribe to himself a certain and convenient diet at all times The first theorem is That a man in health must never eat to satisfie but rise from the table while his appetite is still quick This rule answers to the afore cited Aph. of Hipp. do not clog your self with meat For in healthy persons the appetite will be lively till the stomach be very much filled which repletion is very hurtful as we have said before The second Theorem is If you ordinarily take so much meat til you find a kind of drowsiness heaviness and weariness when as you were before nimble and cheerful it is a signe you have exceeded your accustomed measure and that you must diminish the quantity of your meat till you find no more of those inconveniencies The third Theorem is If after meals you be unfit for the actions of the mind as study meditation or contemplation and other functions of the mind and body then it is apparent you have exceeded your due proportion The fourth theorem is taken from Hipp. 3. Of diet where he proposeth the signes of repletion which proceeds from too great a quantity of meat eaten and is therefore to be diminished nay if it do so much exceed that it threaten a disease seeing that sparing diet doth consume the superflous humors but very gently the fulness must be taken away by evacuations The signes of repletion propounded by Hipp. are here to be briefly set down being reduced into order according to the method of our semeiotical discourse that they may be the better understood They are these pain and heaviness in the head long and troubled sleeps troublesome dreams when a man imagins himself to be fighting sleep in the daytime chiefly after meals laziness of the whole body weariness and pain either in the whole or in any part thereof want or decrease of appetite crudities in the stomach sowre or inodorous belches and hard binding of the belly or more then was wont to be frequent distillations the nose stopt after supper yet with little or no excrement proceeding thence in the morning much excrement at the nose and much spitting uncustomary abundance of wind loosness of the body proceeding sometimes from the meat corrupted sometimes from a dysentery The fifth theorem is That you must not immediately change from a full course of diet to an exact and sparing one but you must do it by degrees physically diminishing it by moderate with drawing from the wonted quantity until you come to such a proportion as doth no more offend