testimonium defectuum naturalium signaque in fronte gerunt aliquid amplius in venis ac arteriis adesse Whence sometimes Pustules in the Face Redness of Eyes with a swelling of the circumjacent veins whence also Tumors in several parts of the body Pain in the head and other parts and many other Diseases which owe their original to no other than this essential cause 27. All which indicate a Plethory or Turgescence through overmuch plenty of blood whence the mass of blood through a distention of the membranes of the vessels doth as it were restagnate therein especially in the Bronchy's of the Lungs where the blood setting as the vulgar word is and the motion of the Diaphragme being unproportionable towards its agile transmission into other parts and that by reason of the Laxation and flagging of the membranes thereof over-charged with too great afflux of blood Whence an Indisposition Dulness and Sluggishness of the body Shortness of Breath an oppression of the Praecordia or upper mouth of the stomach c And in a further degree of this restagnation or setting of the blood proceeds sometimes Syncopes Palpitations and Suffocations yea at length Death it self And all this from a bare solitary restagnation of the blood in the vessels through a retention of that which should naturally be separated at its due critical season 28. Now further if the blood upon these retentions restagnate about the mouths of the vessels of the Matrix especially if tainted with any virulency from the reflux of some corrupt Menstrual blood whose current hath been stopped by cold passion or the like at the very time of Critical evacuation thence the Archeal Regimen of the Matrix that Animal furibundum becomes rouz'd up which acts at a distance viz. in other remote parts of the body by that manner of operation which Helmont calls a Blass alterativum which I cannot nearer compareto any other than to the spiritus sylvestris or flatus incoercibilis mentioned before yet is not formally the same 29. It is an influential manner of acting which I judge to be Identical with that whereby the Soul acts upon the Body by passion darting a Raye here or there upon this part or the other ad lubitum for this influential Blass or what other name we may give it so it comprehend the nature of the thing it exerciseth its tyranny on remote parts viz. the Hypochonders Stomach Lungs Brain c. as by violent forcible motions and tensions of the Hypochonders enough to require the strength of two or three men sometimes to keep down and by causing the blood to restagnate in the Lungs and Heart whence a cessation of the Pulse and circulation of the blood also an instantaneous Asthma together with a cespitation of the animal Spirits accompanyed sometimes with a contorsion of some musculous parts whence Convulsions and the like in the conclusion it puts a stop to all the digestions and functions of the body save its own and that irregular 30. These Hysterical paroxysms are often occasionally brought on by passions in those women inclinable thereto which like as a Feverish Delirium imitates the narcotick Sulphur of Opium or rather as the animal Spirits are identically wrought upon by a Fever as by a large Dose of Opium both working the same effect perverting the imaginative faculty causing wandring irregular Phantasms and sudden irrational Idea's with preposterous glances the operation of the one scarce distinguishable from the other So in like manner the uterine Archeus or Spiritus impetum faciens connatural to that part is equally irritated and provoked by a passion of the mind as by a virulency from regurgitated foetid Menstrual blood recurring upon the innocent mass thereof in those I mean inclinable to these Hysterical Fits 31. This uterine Faber takes a like occasion from both to become furious and to act by its alterative Blass upon other distant parts and that à vi regiminis as the noble Helmont calls it whereby it equally from the one cause as from the other stretcheth the Hypochonders by a furious incoercible flatus which if it should proceed from a windiness of the Matrix according to the vulgar Galenical notion the part had need to be charged with wind like a gun yea and ramm'd too which how they will be able to make forth I know not and after every discharging the wind or air must be forcibly attracted by the mouth or posteriors to make a fresh charge for a new fit which forcible attraction hath never yet that I ever heard of been observed only if the Paâ—ient get a rift the incoercible flatus gets vent and she is better until the next arbitrary Blass or flatus stretch the parts again 32. This flatulent Blass of the uterine Archeus is far more prevalent than the Elastick power of the air for if the trite notion were true That the Fits of the Mother were from a bare windiness of the Womb which rowls up the Abdomen to the Hypochonders puffs and swells up the parts then must the Womb be supposed as a Pneumatick Engine out of which the air being exhausted how or by what means I know not the air of the convex part must of necessity have a strong pressure or Elastick force to return into the concave thereof to supply the forced vacancy so that the pressure would not be so much from the Womb as towards it unless at the time of the suction of the air Which suppose we grant yet would the external pressure of the air be as strong to return into its vacant and deserted cavity and thereby force the membranous parts of the Matrix to give way flag and falk before it till it came to an equal poyse again and so no forcible wind would thence press the adjacent parts to any such injury as ordinarily the uterine flatus doth 33. So that let them contrive all the ways imaginable how to solve all the urgent Phoenomena's of this Hypothesis grounded upon a solitary flatus which according to the ordinary acceptation is only a latio or motus aeris and we shall find a flaw in them for as such though forced with Engines in the body which we know not how they can prove yet cannot perform neither with that clerity nor force what the otherwise violent operative Blass of the Matrix can suddainly display even ictu oculi For as a blast or malignant influence in the chanels or peroledi of the air doth suddainly smite and wither branches of Trees or other Fruits of the earth or Faces of People where they hit so quanquam hand passibus equis where this malevolent influential Blass or incoercible flatus of the Womb hits those parts are afflicted with the raging force thereof But to return 34. Now as obstructions and regurgitations of the Menstruals and passions of the mind are the Procatartick or occasional causes of Hysterical Fits and concomitant symptomes thereof so as I said are debilitudes of the Placenta
irrational as the former for to call the decoctions of these Diaphoreticks forenamed drying decoctions implies no less than a palpable contradiction for the operation of these Diaphoreticks are drying only à posteriori by carrying through the pores of the body by insensible transpiration or sweat that superfluous latex which cumbers the blood and not that they actually dry by a positive quality 15. But that I may give you one sleight hint concerning the manner of the operation of Iron in the Cures of the formerly named Diseases and that without taking cognizance of any drying or stiptick qualities it is thus First we must presuppose there are several digestive ferments in the body which if regular and uninterupted in their functions are the Authors of transmuting edible food from one manner of juyce or liquor into another until it terminate in nutrition coming for a supply of the continual wasting and transpiring spirits which so long keeps an occonomy and harmony of parts subservient to the health and vivacity of the body 16. If these digestions by any occasional cause of inordinacy of living perturbations or passions of the mind ex in equale partium robore ab origine nato or any other essential or accidental cause of Diseases become irregular degenerating from their primitive intentions perverting their original juyces thence a spurious acidity becomes exorbitant although a chiliferous acid ferment is peculiar to that digestion of the stomach extra lares suos fertur in alienam mensem reliquarum digestionum fluctuates in the vessels being too much heightened or decocted in the stomach it self causing Heart-burnings Pains and Gripings and sometimes Vomiting descending into the intestines causeth the Collick and Illiack Passion this getting into the veins and arteries becomes the intrinsick Minera of Feavers mortis inopinati 17. The same vitiating the spirituous Liquor of the genus nervosum gives the seminary of Apoplexies Palsies Spasmes and Convulsions also coagulating it self upon the bowels causeth obstructions thence oedematous and scirrhous tumours of the Spleen or Liver and lays the ground-work for Aposthumations in other parts the same acting diversly upon different parts vitiates their spermatick elementary Liquor distends the fibres of the parts beyond their natural tone perverting their peristaltick motion whereby the superfluous watry parts should be percolated from the Blood by Urine Sweat and insensible transpiration which distention and sometimes flagging of the fibres having original often from the same dilutes the Blood by retaining what should be separated thence whence come Dropsies 18. The same spurious acidity or Salresolutum vitiating several digestions defedates the Blood and floteing in divers parts too and again gives the beginings to the Scurvy causeth also obstruction of the Menses and having vitiated the most of the digestions produce a Cachexia or a totally corrupted and vitiated habit of body concerning which the noble Helmont saith Cujus viz. salis excrementii sive uterus hepar lien renes panchreas mesenterium vel stomachus fodina sit ingentes parere laborantibus molestias Which premiz'd 19. We say that Steel sometimes given in filings or in the form of Crocus Martis may precipitate and coagulate this Tartarum resolutum or Sal excrementitium I mean this spurious acidity that had fastened it self in the bowels of the Spleen and Liver altering the tone of the Fibres diluting the Blood letting forth the potulent part of the Blood not by the natural way of Urine Sweat and Transpiration but either by an unnatural back-door thrusting it between the Peritonium and Omentum whereby restagnating in the Abdomen swels the belly of hydropical Persons or running along the Vessels with the Blood into the habit of the body amongst the small capillary Veins which are subservient for the last digestion viz. Nutrition or Assimilation restagnates there being carryed in greater Vessels swels the legs but being amongst the lesser cause that sort of Dropsie we call Ascites 20. I say the manner of operation of Steel whether filings Crocus or Sugar of Steel is by coagulating this excrementitious Salt which because acid is therefore partly Mineral for as soon as Steel aforesaid enters the stomach and so passeth from the first to the second digestion in the intestines as it passeth along the spurious Salt runs head-long towards it to dissolve it but instead thereof is coagulated thereon spending its activity upon the Steel loseth its accuteness or sting and so is carryed away with the Steel by Stool hence the excrements of those that have taken Chalibeat Medicines are black and that for no other reason but that the corrosive fretting Spirits and spurious acid juyces of the body those grand authors of pains and torments are precipitated upon the Chalibeate body which by coagulation thereon grows black 21. Hence it is that those corrosive fretting pontick and acid juyces which vellicate and prick the Nerves in whatsoever part of the body they are found and twinge the Fibrous parts of the Membranes throughout the whole body utpote patrones dolorum ac torminum are I say dinted softned and sweetned by the taking in such fixed bodies of the Metalline compage of Steel or of animal or vegetable Stones or petrefied concretions in whose texture is wrapt up a fixt Alkaly viz. for instance Crabs Eyes Coral and Pearl 22. All which petrefied animal or vegetable concrete juyces as also testacea quaevis together with the body of Steel being taken into the humane body do coagulate the preternatural acid juyces upon themselves and do so alter the texture of the whole mass of humours that whereas before by their fretting nature they caused the floting to and again through the body divers Pains Swellings Indispositions c. they are now become sweet and circulate in the body in a due proportion proper for the functions of the several digestions 23. Even after the same manner as we sensibly perceive that when they are put into any sort of acid Liquors as Vineager or the like though their powders fall to the bottom yet they give not over working one upon another until the acid Liquor hath become sweet viz. insipid robbing it thereby of its sowrness the like doth almost any Metal dissolv'd in an Aqua fortis which thence separated by distillation or precipitation becomes most what debilitated so that it shall not be able to make another the like solution 24. Hence we may throughly resolve that seeming objection which might stare us in the face at the very first proposal of this Hypothesis viz. that seeing the Metalline body of Steel or petrefied concretions of Coral Pearl and Crabs Eyes being yet in the stomach or on their passage through the second digestion along the intestines do even there sweeten the acid juyces of the body whereas they themselves viz. the acid juyces may be in more remote parts and at a great distance how comes it therefore that these remote corrosive pontick juyces become dulcified at a distance 25. Which we
like the water of the Spaw it self or the solution of Allom which with addition of Spirit of Vitriol or aqua fortis becomes clear and with Oyl of Tartar becomes white which may be again restored to its pristine Clarity by adding Spirit of Vitriol or aqua fortis c. 4. The fame Solution having some drops of Spirit of Harts-horn mixed therewith gives a white separation and with Spirit of Salt becomes clear again answerable in every particular to the Spaw water it self 5. Some of this clear Solution I distill'd in a Glass retort until what remained was a bright styriate floscule increasing the fire somewhat more it came to be a dry white Salt of a stiptick allumenous taste 6. The water which was distill'd off from this Salt being saved in a glass Receiver whose joints was close stopped would not give any alteration of colour either with solution of Gauls or with lixivium of Tartar which argued that no heterogeneous volatile parts of the same nature with the Salts came over the helm 7. All which put together evince no less than a parity or likeness of Principles between that Mineral earth and the Spaw water for from a parity of Principles in an homogeneal process results a likeness of products so that the Spaw is nothing else but this Essurine acid Salt in its Mineral earth in toro suo Metallico being an allumenish terrestrial Globe dissolv'd in the current Spring of water 8. For the specifical difference of all Mineral Salts depend upon these three viz. a Sulphurious acid essurine spirit water and a Mineral Glebe from the various solutions and mixtures of which arise the variety of Mineral Salts in the bowels of the earth 9. Water impregnate with this acid sulphurious spirit diffus'd thorough the occult Meanders of the terraqueous Globe according to the nature of the Mineral Glebe it meets withal it becomes coagulated into such and such a salt for if this acidulated water find a salsuginous Glebe it becomes coagulated according to the property of that Glebe together with its connate salt in a sal marine which with greater dashes of water passing thorough the subterraneal channels becomes dissolv'd and carryed into the Ocean thence the saltness of the Sea which hath its Minera from fossile salt from which also some Springs are fatturate as the Sulphur Well at Knarsbrough c. 10. If the suphurious acidulate water meet with Nitrous Veins it coagulates into Nitre which being by other current streams of water dissolv'd very probably become the original of intensely cold springs viz. such as Magnus Well Cockroft Well c. which though to touch extremely cold yet by an intrinsick sulphurious warming property doth so notably open the pores of such as are bathed therein as that it resolves the congealed blood and latex settled about the joints and outward parts of the body thence becoming the cause of Pains Aches Stiffness Numbness and Lameness of the joints which by the penetrating opening virtue of those Nitrous springs are resolv'd and thence a redintegration of the glyssent ferments of the blood and humours which give warmth and motion to all the parts again 11. If the aforesaid essurine water find a Mineral Iron bed it becomes determin'd thereby either into a Vitriol or becomes the original of most acid Spaws called Fontes aciduli sharp springs such as Tunbridge Epsom Knarsbrough c. amongst which this of Scarbrough is not the least 12. The sweet Spaw of Knarsbrough is but languid of Mineral principles having but a very slight touch of the Minera of Iron and hath the essurine acidity but in a very remiss degree thence it is that great quantities must be gulped down before any sensible operation by purgation 13. As the Minera of Iron terminates the sulphurious acidity into vitrioline sharp springs so in like manner the Minera or primum ens of Copper coagulates this essurine salt into a cuprous Vitriol and that either fossile to be digged out of Mines or iâ— further dissolv'd in a water spring which by exhaling the moisture by the Sun or by boyling it up over a fire it shoots into Vitriol Or lastly this acidity is coagulated in Mineral cuprous stones which being expos'd to the air become resolv'd by the falling of Rain water thereon which after filtration and boyling up shoot in great troughs into common Vitriol 14. But if this essurine sulphurious water find an allumenish Glebe or Rock it becomes thereby coagulated into natural Allom receiving a specifical difference from that particular Mineral Glebe whereby it becomes different from the other coagulations of the same Mineral acidity which by further dissolution in the current of a water spring give being to this of Scarbrough and other the like Spaws SECT 5. 1. NOw whence the great variety of Mineral glebes should proceed is a Philosophical query worthy our most choice consideration especially seeing that from the multiplicity hereof the sulphurious acid spirit becomes determined to this or that particular specifical salt of sal marine Nitre Vitriol and Allom. 2. For in these the Metals are in solutis principiis in their primitive juyces their Mercuries though volatile crude and undigested yet are spermatical and as such are the radical moisture of Metals not to say the Mercury of Philosophers these are apt to be coagulated and maturated into Metals by the embryonate Sulphurs which lurk in intimis Thalamis glebarum metallicarum which according to the purity or impurity of the terrestrial Matrix and degrees of the graduation of the Sulphurs are determined and specificated in imperfect and perfect Metals to the completing the septenary of the Metallick order besides their middle Minerals which are in the Road to Metalization 3. That all Metals and Minerals have their innate seeds shut up in themselves we shall not need to spend time to confirm in auro semina sunt auri quamvis abstrusas recedunt longius seeing that their spermatick principles become prolifick suo more whose seed operating in a volatile crude Mercury and an embrionate Sulphur become deducible after the manner of a natural genesis unto their state of maturation accord to the process of their concretes in the Vegetable kingdom 4. We may therefore consider that as God the original Founder of all beings hath implanted in the superficies of the earth that great variety of vegetable seeds whence the diversity of Plants not only sprung up at first but by their seminal beginings or somewhat analogous thereto have continued to propagate themselves in their species 5. Every Vegetable at its proper season by the instigation of the heavenly influences having its seminals set at work in which it hath its own specifick faber or if I may so call it Archeus which by its innate plastick power begins to hew forth it self a body out of the elementary principle of water shaping it self in stalk branches leaves flowers seeds and fruits according to the platform laid in the seminal beginings
therefore exquisitly penetrative forcing its passage thorough the otherwise obstructed Meanders of the bowels notably opening the obstructions of the parts and thereby restoring the blood and other peculiar spirituous juyces of the genus nervosum to their primitive fermental vigor 3. For the better understanding of which we are to consider first the natural fermental digestions of the body next to that the depravations thereof by excrementitious parts and thirdly the Diseases thence depending and lastly the restoration of these digestions by removing the interrupting obstacles and redintegration of the blood and humours 4. First by the digestive ferments of the body I mean such alterative juyces as are ab origine implanted in such various principal parts as are adapted for the transmuting of the nutritive juyce of all aliment from one consistence colour and taste into another untill it hath run the whole circuit of alterations giving a proportionable nourishment to every part for growth of children in the way to maturity and for the supplying the deficiences contracted by constant transpiration in adult persons 5. These ferments are as the ingenious Helmont saith transmutationum parentes à priori indemonstrabiles the authors of all transmutations and cannot be demonstrated by any thing before them because they are primitively inserted ab ortu and so become radical principles 6. That of the stomach is certainly such a one as is scarsely to be parallel'd in rerum natura excepting the prodigious effects Helmont tells us of the grand Liquor Alkahest which makes every concrete fatiscere in suam primam materiam resolving them into their primitive juyces This acid ferment of the stomach is so powerful as no other extraneous acidity in the World can if in its native vigor resolve the hardest of aliments into a milky juyce and transmute several sorts of food as Beef Mutton Veal c. taken at the same time into one similar cremor which no other acidity we yet know of can do though assisted by as equal a digestive heat as we can imagine to be in the stomach or the parts adjacent 7. I shall not enter upon a large discourse of the Ferments being notably and fully discuss'd both by the noble Helmont and the ingenious Dr. Willis I shall only assume so much of that Doctrine as to illustrate what I intend viz. that these vital ferments being strong and vigorous make such alterations separations depurations exaltations and assimilations of the nutritive juyce as are convenient for health and the common functions of life 8. But if they become alienated and depraved by excrementitious parts accumulated through the inormities of living as by excess of meats or drinks which burden by out-proportioning the digestions as also by food which agrees not with the ferment of the stomach as also by unseasonable exercises and by passions of the mind all which together with the inclemency of the air c. have such an influence upon this and other parts of the body as that by perverting the ferment or precipitating the fermented mass doth so alter the function thereof as that thereby no small foundation is laid for the multiplicity of Diseases both acute and chronical but especially chronical whose deep roots are most what inserted in the seminals of the depraved ferment of the stomach 9. The Diseases thence proceeding are generally the Scurvy Dropsie Asthma Vertigo Nauseatings Vomitings Diarchea's and sometimes Dysenteries c. all which though when in their full state of symptomes and products indicate a vitiating of other ferments of the body and appear in other parts yet have their beginings from the perversions of the stomachical ferment 10. For no sooner is the ferment of the stomach vitiated by the foresaid or any other occasional cause but the nutritive juyce receives such different alterations according to the degree of the error of the ferment from what it should be as that either the crudeness or over acidness of the chile whilst yet in the stomach lays the begining of the seminaries of the foresaid Diseases which being transmitted thus raw or too pontick into the other digestions draw them likewise into consent and so vitiate one digestion after another until the Diseases appear in their full dimension and latitude of symptomes 11. Now if the ferments become debilitated by the accumulation of excremental impurities which in persons of weak constitutions in tract of time more easily happen than the alimental juyce proves not well dissolved and digested which passing the first digestion thus crude either before its transit through the pilorus causeth a flatus then a Nauseating Vomiting or Pain of the Stomach a Vertigo or lays the foundation of a Feaver either continual or intermitting if it pass the pilorus it vitiates the second digestion in the intestines and thence Worms Jaundice Obstructions of the Misentery c. 12. If this vitiated juyce pass thus uncorrected from the thoraeical vessels into the vena cava and so into the heart which I suppose to be the third digestion taking the second and third of Helmont's digestions to be but one which is done in the intestines and lacteal vessels The third to begin with sanguification viz. when the chyle hath passed the second digestion in the intestines and there receives a further depuration and separation into a more refined milky juyce whose receptacle are the glandules of the Mesentery and the Lumbazes is further carryed by the thoracical vessels into the jugular veins and there meeting with the blood is dasht with a rubicund colour and carryed into the ventricles of the heart and there undergoes the third ferment where it is elaborated into vital blood I say if the foresaid vitiated juyce come thus raw into this third digestion it terminates in Fevers both continual and intermittent 13. For the otherwise nutritive juyce coming so indigested to the vital ferment of the heart which is not able to master it or make any good arterial blood subverts the vital digestion thereof rouseth up a spurious febrile fermentation and intestine commotion of the blood hence the burning heat in Fevers and coming from an impure digestion in the stomach whose footsteps it yet retains thence the great thirst and from the same yet further vitiating the other digestions of the genus nervosum which is the Minera of animal Spirits proceeds Frenzies Deliriums c. and therefore according to the degrees of this vitiated juyce and consequenly of the intense or remiss disturbance of this vital ferment it causeth the paroxysmes of intermiting Fevers to come sooner and later thence the variety of Quotidian Tertian double Tertian Quartan Agues c. 14. If this depraved juyce arrive at the succus nervosus ubi spiritus animales cuduntur which I take to be the fourth digestion or depuration of nutritive juyce in its road to absolving the function of sense and motion thence a perturbation of those animal Spirits an inversion of their natural crasis whence Lethargies Epilepsies Apoplexies Convulsions
from that spurious one of the stomach but sometimes are new products hatcht in the very latter digestions by the occasional and spontaneal depravations of their ferments and therefore must only cause Diseases where they are found Next That these transmitted acidities are sometimes in other digestions transmuted into other properties no less hurtful than before as for instance may be turn'd in the third digestion in the blood to a spurious saltishness or styptickness c. as prejudicial to the balsam of the blood as the other would have been 45. And lastly I answer by saying That spurious acidities may be transferr'd at distances ad nutum Archei at the beck of the Archeus which is the overseer of all the Engine-works of the digestions as for instance In those erratick pains of the Gout how suddainly will the Archeus in whose aura vitalis the morbid character of that Disease is intimately imprest transmit an acid ferment from one part to another from the left foot to the right shoulder or arm in a small moment of time yea from one foot to the contrary knee and to the contrary foot in a little time all which is done by an Archeal transmission of an acrimonious ferment skipping by an influential manner the intermediate parts and hitting upon this or the others Juncture sets the humours of those parts a working which fretting the tender membranes and periostium like a Mole sometimes works under-ground and otherwhiles throws up its little hills viz. Tumors Tophous knots and coagulations SECT 8. 1. NOw some may say What 's all this to the virtue of the Spaw water The answering to which quaere will give me liberty to prosecute what I aim at viz. The restoration of the digestions and redintegration of the blood and humours by removing the interrupting obstacles and how far the virtue of the Spaw may reach in the cure of the foresaid Diseases For having in the former Section given a short account of the essences and original causes of many if not most Diseases what they are and whence they proceed how they arise from a vitiating of the several ferments either causing a rawness or over-acidness or other hostile properties in the nutritive juyce having distinguisht them into the several classes of the digestions 2. I shall therefore now signifie what Diseases this Spaw is proper for what not Helmont tells us Potae Spadanae non multùm conferunt in epidemicis eudemicis astralibus morbis ut sunt pestis pleuritis prunella c. nec quibus venenum subest vel assumptum vel intus genitum vel contagio participatum ut neque in morbis tincturae quales sunt lepra lues Veneris Morphea Cancer Epilepsia c. viz. that the Spaw water avails nothing in pestilential Diseases Plurisies Prunella's Poysons taken in or inbred neither in the Leprosie French Disease Morphew Cancer Falling Sickness nor in the Apoplexie Palsie or Asthma 3. And though in womens Diseases upon occasion of obstructions of the Menstrual evacuations there may happen Epileptick Paralytick Apoplectick and Asthmatick affections which by frequent drinking of the Spaw the obstructions being thereby remov'd the foresaid dreadful Diseases may cease yet doth it not thence follow that they as such Diseases considered as from their own natural causes or as they are found in the male Sex are therefore curable by drinking the Spaw water so that great distinction must be made between those Diseases flowing from their natural seminaries in the body and those which proceed from the regimen of the Matrix which Proteus like puts on the same vizard of such Diseases as if sprung from their proper inbred causes in the male kind 4. So that to the curing of the Epilepsie Apoplexie Palsie and Asthma the solitary drinking of the Spaw though accompanyed with all the rules imaginable is not sufficient unless assisted by the efficacy of some noble specificks which yet without the Spaws might do their work though it 's not amiss to absterse the sordes of the primary culinary digestion by the Spaw which may thereby somewhat contribute to the energy of specificks whose work is to dint and mortifie that malignant-blass which arising from the virulent circulated recrement suddainly surprizeth stupifieth and taketh the animal spirits 5. For in the Epilepsie the circulated cadaverous excrement coming to its maturity brings on a fit of that Disease by impugning the aura vitalis of the Archeus From the antipathetical concourse of which two ariseth a secret incoercible flatus which being pent up by obstructions in the ultimate digestion smites quasi ictu oculi the animal spirits which ceasing to act the body falls down or if they act it 's after a retrograde and irregular manner causing Convulsions and Distortions of the musculous parts but the flatus being after a while disperst the spirits return to their former offices Which happens otherwise in apoplectick and paralytick Diseases for though there be the same concurring causes to these as to that of the Epilepsie and a flatus which at the second or third fit proves mortal by secretly stifling the spirits yet the flatus inclines to one side of the body striking in with the peroledi if I may so call them or influential chanels of the Microcosm settles the anodynous cadaverous recrement in the organs of Sense and Motion and there lodgeth along time to the great disinablement of the animal spirits hence the tediousness sometimes of apoplectick and paralytick paroxysms 6. The incoercible flatus which accompanies these Diseases is no better demonstrable than by putting one ounce of sal-armoniack into four ounces of Aqua-fortis stop the glass up close and in half an hour or less you will be convinced of the power of an incoercible glass for you will see the glass and that with a great noise broken into many shivers which happens from the antipathy of those two working one upon the other exciting thereby a strong flatus which being pent up by the sealing or stopping of the glass forceth its passage by breaking the glass though never so strong 7. So in the body of man the incoercible flatus arising from the mutual contact of the circulated cadaverous recrement and the aura vitalis though it splits not the body yet it either quite extinguisheth the vital taper or at least flattens and disinableth the animal spirits 8. Now the remedy must either be equivalent to the cause or it effects nothing But the Spaw water comes short and reacheth not to those inward recesses where the animal spirits lie on their death-bed and therefore can administer no help especially if the Disease by graduated to the maturity of one or two paroxysms For though by abstersing the primary digestions it may help to prevent the plenteous ingendring of the excrements in the after-digestions and so consequently if timely taken might prevent the occasional cause thereof yet if the Disease have once become raised from its seminaries to a full stature then nothing
them They so much enfeebled him as that he lost the use of his limbs for a time after and almost weakened him to death The Medicines I ordered him were chiefly volatile Spirits viz. Spiritus Salis Armoniaci to smell at and Spiritus Sanguinis to take inwardly together with a Plaister of Mustard Seed and Vinegar anointed over with the Balsam of Antimony Amber Turpentine c. applyed to the shaved crown of his head The volatile Spirits had a very remarkable operation for so often as he held the bottle to his nostrils which he would do a long time together having an eager desire of receiving benefit by what was ordered him he could after a while feel it run sensibly down the vertcbrae of his back disperse it self into his loyns and upon those parts to bring a fine gentle warmth which before usually were very cold and then run down to his very feet also to run along his arms to his very fingers ends with a dindling and pricking as it run along but he had not this sense of this operation of the volatile Spirits he smelt to at the first till he had several times taken inwardly the Spiritus Sanguinis which usually brought him into a moist sweat thereby opening obstructions of the genus nervosum after the use of these for awhile he found a stiffness in the sinewy parts of his joynts then began the shaking and trembling of his joynts upon endevouring to stand or to go a little which before frequently troubled him to go away and that stiffness brought strength from the sinews into the musculous parts so that he could after the use of these awhile go a little alone upon the house-floor and begun to get the sense and use of his hands so that he can now not only serve himself but cut his own meat which he never could do before since the Distemper seiz'd upon him also can put on his own cloaths From all which duely weighed results these following considerations First hence appears the reason why Patients do not usually reap that expected benefit from volatile Spirits in these and such like Diseases for these Spirits whether inwardly or outwardly administred or both are neither palatable nor pleasant to the smell but being nimble and quick do ferire nares after a smart manner which many people too much indulging their sense and palat will not have the patience to undergoe but boggle and fly back at the first onset of such penetrative Medicines and consequently deny themselves the expected efficacy thereof Secondly That sense and motion are the products of life and not the life it self for this Patient sometimes lay void of any visible sense or motion and that once or twice after he came out of his Baths and yet life was present so that all vital functions whether fermentations heat motion sense c. performed by organical parts are but the sequels and posterior products of the anima sensitiva Thirdly That sense and motion are different modifications of the animal Spirits in the genus nervosum and membranous parts of the body For it is not enough that nervous vessels be replete with so many of the animal Spirits as to give motion to the muscles and those to the joynts I say to have such store of these Spirits in those vessels as to cause motion is not enough also to cause sense unless these Spirits retain their natural sting and acuteness by which they communicate that we call sense to all the membranous parts of the body as happened to this Patient and so vice versâ The Spirits may be acute enough and give their vibration to all the membranous parts so as to cause sense and yet the motion of those Spirits may be so intercepted and dull'd in the nervous vessels of some parts of the body as to cause a defect of motion in the same parts which happens in the generality of paralytick and apoplectick persons only with this difference that the virus cadaverosum viz. the putredinous anodynous circulated recrement which is with the explosive incoercible flatus thence arising the efficient cause of all the Diseases of the genus nervasum whether Palsies Apoplexies Epilepsies Convulsions c. The foresaid anodynous recrement is I say more or less according to whose graduated accumulation the Disease becomes more or less mortal For if this recrement be ultimately carryed and settled in the membranous parts of the body then becomes the sense deprav'd as happened in this Patient but if it seize upon the animal Spirits in their current glidings along their own vessels it becomes their remora mortifies them in some parts thence comes the depravation of motion and all symptomes accompanying the common sort of Palsies Apoplexies c. Fourthly Hence it also appears that the volatile Spirits in the blood are of the same family with those of the genus nervosum and membranous parts only in their own vessels they receive a more natural determination to their proper functions of sense and motion For unless the blood give being to the animal Spirits they are not and unless they were a kin to those saline Spirits in the blood the Patient could not upon the use thereof I mean of the volatile Spirits of blood have perceived his joynts to have become more stiff and strong than before Fifthly That there is a concatenation of the vessels of the genus nervosum and anastomosis of one into another through the texture of the whole body was apparent in that the Patient felt sensibly the volatile Spirits which he strongly smelt at to pass through the processes of the medulla spinalis down the vertebrae into his loyns and so down to his feet also along his arms to his hands and to his very fingers ends Whence also it is more than probable that the springy motion of the animal Spirits in the nervous kind have their original in the brain for as the heart is the spring of all the Arteries the liver of all the Veins so likewise the brain of all the Nerves Which yet doth not infringe our doctrine of the generation of the animal Spirits from the Spirits of the blood being the pure defecate essential parts thereof ingendred from all parts of the Arterial blood becomes exquisitely elaborated in their own vessels and at length receive a determination of motion in the brain Sixthly That the head is not the chief seat of the Palsie was evident in this Patient for all the senses of his head were untouch'd save a weakness as I said of his eyes so that the animal Spirits in what part soever of the body are the subject matter upon which the cadaverous recrement seizing gives being to the Diseases of the genus nervosum And that without respect to the head unless the same efficient cause be there and then indeed it gives original to the Epilepsie Catalepsie Convulsions c. of that part More observations I could make but am not willing to prosecute them to
offers it self How comes it That when we drink plentifully of strong Drink we become stupid and inebriate therewith is it not from the vapours of the strong Drink ascending into the head that makes a man drunk The Answer is no. For strong Drink is no sooner taken if in an excessive quantity but the subtle inebriating Sulphur thereof begins to act upon the Spirits whether animal or vital communicable with the brain by the nerves of the sixth conjugation and every where at work in all parts of the body so that there is neither need of ascending nor descending the Spirits which are overcome by the toxicum of strong Drink are every where present and as easily oppress'd in the stomack by the inebriating Sulphur of vinous Spirits as in any place 25. But before I go from the figment of a Catarrh I shall give you some account how I apprehend that defluxion of Rheume to happen which I have denied to proceed from vapours ascending from the stomack It is therefore a spurious depravation of the Latex which runs along with the blood and is every where while in the channels of the veins and arteries one with it under a ruby colour but upon any injury inflicted upon any part is almost at hand at the beck of the Archens ready to be separated from its boon companion the blood and to assist towards a washing of that stain impress'd upon the weakned part 26. So that if any injury of Cold become as a Thorn to prick or offend any part which is the same as is meant by taking of Cold presently the Latex which upon all such occasions is ready at hand is commanded away to bring what speedy help may be to the injured part but not being able to perform that work by reason of the prevalency of the thorny impression if I may so call it becomes rather tainted thereby receiving an exotick ferment from the injured part becomes thereby the Patron of all those exorbitant defluxions which are accompanied with pains inflammations or the like This falling upon the Larynx already alienated from an injury of Cold is sometimes turned into a copious mucous matter frequently expell'd by a Coughing 27. But if the Larynx happen to be debilitated through a continual defluxion thereof then it falls upon the Lungs where it perverts the alimentary juyce of that part turns it into a putrelaginous corrupt matter which as worm'd up by the force of a Cough still increaseth as fast so as at length fretting upon the spungy substance of the Lungs wears them away hence Ulcers of the Lungs Tabes or Consumption 28. If the Ossa Ithmoeida in the Nostrils be the parts affected from an injury of the cold Air or smoke of Coals or other bad offensive fumes thence a Coryza viz. a Disease we should all be troubled with in case that vapours actually ascended from the stomack to the head If the eyes be the parts offended thence an Ophthalmia viz. a defluxion of Rheums with an accompanied inflammation If the teeth or nervous parts therein be offended and that from the injury of the Air reaching thither through the hollowness thereof thence an Odontalgia viz. Tooth-ach with a defluxion of Rheum or portion of Latex showring down that way 29. Besides the exotick quality the Latex gets from injured parts to which it is carried by the next adjacent glandules to wash away the things offending or the impression it hath left behind as if a Mote injure the Eye a great quantity of Latex will presently flow to it to wash it out and that too from the soundest of bodies The like happens if any volatile acrimonious Spirits as of vinous Sal armoniack or Harts-horn smite the Nostrils presently an insipid Latex runs to the affected part and makes the Nose run The like also if any unwonted taste offend the Palate what a spitting doth it cause which is nothing but an insipid Latex which hasts away to wash off the impression the offensive thing hath left so a thorn pricking any fleshy part presently the adjacent Latex is sent away which endeavouring to wash off the impression the Thorn hath left but cannot thence upon a further conflux of more Latex comes a tumour and a pulse a pain and inflammation c. which being vitiated by the perverted ferment of the part turns sometimes to an Ulcer 30. I say besides the hurtful quality the Latex gets from the injured parts it also sometimes becomes depraved and badly qualified from some inbred cause even in the very vessels of the blood or in the lympheducts often tinctured with an hostile sharp pontick saltish acrimony which upon that very account is often proscribed from the oeconomy of life into some external parts quibus poenas luit whom it punisheth with its own crime tainting them with that they knew not before If this by the motion of nature be thrown upon any part it actually weakens it by impressing its own character thereon Hinc tincturae ac impressiones venenosae in vitam durabiles if it be thrown upon the Lungs it certainly causeth a phthisis Tabes or Consumption wears away the life insensibly 31. If upon the menninges of the brain hence inveterate and most obstinate head-aches not bending unless to the best of Arcana's If upon the Eyes it causeth Opthalmia's of most difficult cure If upon the Gums it ulcerates them loosening the Teeth together with intolerable pains If upon the Palate it ulcerates and mortifies them and in the French Disease it is that spurious Latex which retains the venomous properties for wherever it settles it ulcerates when tainted with the venom of that Disease It is also the author of Scorbutick and other cacoethical Ulcers 32. The waters of the Spaw may I confess at the long run and with continual use for a competent time help to dint the acrimony of this spurious Latex if it be not too much graduated nor hath not too immoderately weakned the parts for then nothing short of noble Chymical Arcana's that are enriched with a penetrative and restorative Balsom will effect the cure such as are the Spirit of Salt of Tartar the prepared Sulphur of Vitriol the tinctura lilii c. 33. Now as the forenamed Diseases are not curable by the Spaw so neither are Fevers especially continued for a Fever is a spurious fermentation of the blood from a depravation of the Elementary juyce coming too crudely into the third digestion where it should be elaborated into vital blood but by reason of its rawness or other alienated properties it perverts the natural ferment of the heart causeth a preternatural working and boyling in the blood by reason of plenty of Heterogeneities that are heapt up with the nutritive juyce 34. Now whatever hinders the natural fermentation of the blood from purifying it self by separation of Heterogeneities that I say rather aggrayates than abates a Fever but such is the coldness of the water Cold being the great enemy to the ferments of
volatile as not the least of it discernable in any body of Sulphur or otherwise nay though one should distil it with never so much curiosity of exactly fitting and joynting Receivers yet would nothing of a Sulphur become apparent but would be gone insensibly as happened to a solution of above a pound of thrice calcined Salt which upon the affusion of water did exactly resemble the Sulphur Well as I said which filtred and placed over the fire to evaporate before one half was gone it had lost all its embryonative Sulphur being so volatile as it took wings by the assistance of so much heat and left no footsteps of its presence 8. Thirdly I conclude that such a solution of the Sal Marine together with its embryonated Sulphur in a sabulous Spring having received that previous digestion in the intrails of the Earth as to make apparent its Embryo Sulphur may be nearer the Primum Ens Salium then a coagulated Salt and may be better taken in order to the preparation of that great Solvent the Sal circulatum And my reason is partly grounded upon a sentence of the grave and long experienced Helmont where he saith In Sulphure sunt fermenta fracedines odores sapores specifici seminum ad quasvis transmutationes that is In Sulphur are ferments hogo's smells specifick tasts of seeds fit for all transmutations so that in the bosom of Sulphurs lyeth the main wheel of all transmutation the beginnings to which are also putrefactions which those Embryo-Sulphurs may much promote For all bodies that are capable of resolution into Heterogeneities their texture is subverted by the working of ferments upon the Sulphurs of such bodies whereby they may be readily analyz'd or taken in pieces 9. Lastly That Spirits such I call the Primum Ens salium before they are coagulated upon Minerals or other bodies are but in Embryo or in their infancy as I may call it or nonage and therefore coagulable upon bodies to the impairing of their own activity by locking themselves up in the textures of bodies and so require a resolution from their coagulation before they can be brought to that purity and simplicity they were in when they found bodies to dwell in viz. before incorporation 10. Hence it is that Paracelsus giving an hint concerning the preparation of his grand Liquor Alkahest which I do not remember he calls by that name in all his Writings save De Viribus Membrorum Cap. De Hepate but by Sal circulatum Primum Ens salium c. saith à coagulatione resolvatur iterum coaguletur in formam transmutatam that is as I apprehend That seeing we can scarcely find the Primum Ens salium in its pure spirituality and naked simplicity but as it is infolded in the arms of a Mineral body and so coagulated into many shapes of Salts as Marine Vitriol Allom Nitre c. which are several bodies wherein this hidden Spirit or universal embryonative Solvent appears to our view in divers corporeal dresses putting on Proteus like new shapes according to the Mineral vestment wherewith he is cloathed requires therefore if we would have him appear unmasked to be resolv'd from his coagulation till then we cannot expect him capable of performing much in the way of a penetrating Master-Solvent but acts according to the freedom of his keepers 11. And though this Spirit or Primum Ens salium while it is in its infancy or embryo be so weak as to clasp hold of every body that comes near it and prostitute it self to every woer in many strange Mineral bodies so as to dibilitate it self before it arrive to those more mature and masculine functions of penetrating and dissolving bodies without being contaminated with their touches or debilitated and baffled by their re-action I say notwithstanding this weakness of the Spirit before coagulation yet if after the the resolution it becomes set at liberty from its bonds divorced from its first consort and then exalted and fortified in its own purity by a gradual process becomes so noble and virile a liquor as that it acts upon all Mineral Animal and Vegetable Concretes dissolving them into their Primum ens or seminal Crasis whereby their medicinal virtues are at hand and that without the least re-actions of those bodies upon this universal Solvent Liquor But to return 12. This Spaw as to medicinal use is not of much more efficacy than so much Trencher-salt dissolved in such a proportion of water answerable to that of the Sulphur-Well which both alike would much-what have the same operation only the foetid embryonate Sulphur doth somewhat provoke nature and therefore extimulate the expulsive faculty of the stomach purging either upward or which the rather downward 13. The plenty of the Salt wherewith it is strongly saturate preserves much against Putrefaction and Diseases thence proceeding viz. against worms and wormatick corrupt matter in the stomach and intestines which so much common Salt as I said dissolv'd in fair water would effect the same The blackish Salt which remains after the boyling up of the water hath no more virtue against worms for which it is frequently used than a like quantity of common Salt for it hath no specifical difference from common Salt especially when depurated by solution filtration and evaporation then it is exactly the same 14. And though there be a Marcasite or stone of Vitriol to be found about Sixscore yards from this Well which will fall in the Air in a moist place and by solution filtration and evaporation will become a transparent green Vitriol as an ingenuous Friend of mine for tryal sake made I say though this be found near it yet doth not in the least partake thereof neither in taste nor virtue Concerning the Original of Hot Springs IT is not the least amongst Chymical Enquiries to know the true original cause of heat whether in Vegetables Animals or Minerals amongst which the cause of hot Springs is not inconsiderable seeing that in them are found many medicinable virtues useful for the help of Man Where I shall proceed first to shew That hot Springs or Baths are from Mineral Salts next How Mineral Salts upon the contact of one another or of Mineral bodies are the efficient causes of heat in those Springs and thirdly How artificial Baths may be made analogical in virtue and operation to the natural and Lastly shall shew the efficacy of hot Springs and Baths whether natural or artificial As to the first That hot Springs or Baths are from Mineral Salts is evident because no Mineral or Metalline body is dissolvable or alterable in the bowels of the earth without the concourse of Salts for in the Mineral and Metalline Kingdom there are but two Agents which makes the great alterations amongst those bodies and those are Fire and Salts by Fire I mean not only the external and elementary fire by whose force Metals and Minerals become separated from their connate Heterogeneities and brought to the best but also the
inward inbred fire viz. the Sulphur of those bodies which ripens and maturates the Minerals and Metals making them more or less pure according to the disposition of the place and graduation of the Sulphur By Salts I mean the Primum Ens salium with its various coagulations into specificated Salts for without these Agents all Mineral and Metalline bodies are at rest There are neither solutions nor coagulations Now there are few sorts of earth through which water in its current passeth saving the Quellem or Arena bulliens but they are impregnate with Mineral juyces of one sort or other which by some sleight touch of a Mineral Salt in the water-Spring becomes dissolv'd in some small proportion enough to give that great difference we find in Spring-water both as to taste which some that have accurate palates and have accustomed themselves to drink water can easily discern an eminent difference in taste of one sort of Spring-water from another as also to the frequent use waters are put to both for boyling meat washing and bleaching cloaths Dying Tanning Brewing c. All which difference I say proceed some small solution of different Mineral juyces by the Medium of a little touch of Salt dissolv'd in the subterraneal chanels of water Here I might expatiate and shew the reasons of the difference of waters both as to taste and also in order to the foresaid uses but least I make these papers swell too much I shall wave it My next work is to shew How Mineral Salts upon the mutual contact of each other or of Mineral bodies are the efficient cause of heat in those Springs I am now speaking of To which purpose I shall propound several mechanical experiments of the productions of heat as first from the mixing acid and alkalizate Liquors as for instance of Oyl of Vitriol with Oyl of Tartar which upon mixing give a great heat making a strong ebullition which when over the heat wasteth and that is either when the one by its greater proportion over-acts or overcomes the other or when both proportionable they are reduc'd to an Equilibrium or neutral Salt called Tartarum Vitriolatum Which heat is caus'd not only by Oyl of Vitriol upon the Alkali of Tartar but also by any other acid Spirit as Spirit of Nitre Spirit of Salt Aqua fortis Spirit of Vinegar or the like which after the ebullition is over give a Tartarum nitrosum salinum acetosum c. And as Salts mutually acting upon each other cause heat so in like manner do some Liquors or Spirits affus'd upon Salts effect the same as Spirit of Wine poured upon drie Salt of Tartar will make a great heat so that in mixing them to rectifie Spirit of Wine therefrom we usually do it per vices or by sprinkling the Salt leisurely therein least we should indanger the glass by heating it too much The like heat happens by pouring the Spirit of Wine upon Arsenick fixt upon Nitre which as from the same cause with that of Spirit of Wine upon Salt of Tartar for the Nitre by the open calcination with Arsenick is partly turned into a fixed Alkali which that it is so appears because if to the dulcified Arsenical powder after the washing away the Salts Spirit of Wine be poured no heat is contracted So water poured upon Calx vive gives a considerable heat which it doth by resolving the acid and alkalizate Salts contained therein who by their mutual contest cause an heat As Salts acting one upon another and the affusion of some Liquors also upon them cause heat so also Salts acting upon Minerals or Metalline bodies by corrosion and dissolution are the efficients of heat Thus any corrosive Menstruum fretting Mineral or Metalline bodies cause the same as for instance in the solution of any Metal in Aqua fortis during the ebullition there is an heat so in making the Vitriolum Martis upon the affusion of the Menstrum the heat is so very strong as that I have not been able to hold the glass in my hand Which proceeds from the agile Spirits of Salts fretting upon the Metalline compage taking it in pieces and reducing it in minima in whose forcible not natural Analysis through the agility of motion the heat is caused But in the pouring Aqua Regia upon Antimony or Spirit of Nitre upon Butyrum Antimonii for the making Bezoardicum Minerale there an heat is caused by an actual humid calcination of the Sulphur of that Mineral where the Sulphur by those corrosive Spirits almost takes flame passeth off with a strong stifling Arsenical vapour Also the motion of bodies one upon or against another by concussion or frication cause heat so fermentation gives quickness of motion and that produceth heat which is sensibly perceived in some fermenting liquors in others not Now the Query pertinent to my purpose is Which of all these several causes of heats may probably be the efficient of hot Springs To which I answer That it is most likely to proceed from Mineral Salts one acting upon another that is from the Essurine Salt which alone with a slight touch of a Mineral give being to those Fontes Acidi viz. Vitrioline Spaws which meeting in the chanels of the Earth with some lixivial Marcasites are by the current of a water-Spring dissolv'd and set a boyling one working and fretting upon another give that heat to the water which dissolves them Which two Salts viz. Acid and Alkalizate are sometimes embryonative in the same Marcasite which may happen in some natural stone or middle Mineral of Calx Vive into which a current of water being opened presently dissolves the two Salts makes them contest and struggle by reason of the antipathy of their natures and thereby cause the heat in hot Baths So that in short It is very probable that it is from a natural stone of Calx Vive which being plentiful in the Minera thereof may give cause for the perpetuation of heat To confirm which Some have found a white Marcasite about the place of those hot oprings in Sommerset-shire which put into water give an heat Now that two such opposite Salts should be embryonate in the same Mineral stone is an argument that the seminal principles of Nature are at work in all places according to the capacity and manner of the matters reception viz. ad modum recipientis Calx Vive distill'd with fresh Urine makes the Spirit thereof arise at the first with that difference also from soliary Spirit of Urine as that it gives cause to think that some volatile Alkali of the Calx ariseth up with it which hinders the coagulation of the Spirit into an Offa with Spirit of Wine usually happening from simple Spirit of Urine and Spirit of Wine mixed together Which very thing argues the difference of Salts of Calx Vive That it hath an Alkali in it is demonstrable enough from its inriching of grounds for which purpose it is frequently used in barren Soyls which the
and for ought we know most of the Islands have been belcht forth of the belly of the Earth and also are incompassed with the waters are therefore more inclinable to Subterraneal Belchings Ructures Vapours Exhalations c. which in some Islands not finding vent is the cause of frequent Earthquakes in others finding Flewes or Chimnies belch forth fire smoak stones c. But in the third sort of Islands where there is neither those actual Vent-holes nor indeed is in need of them nor is the Vapours so pent up as to force the Earth to a tremulation but finding passages or pores large enough breaks forth and being carryed according to the Lation of the Air is the probable cause of those Storms Winds Hurry-canes and other alterations of weather within the Orb of the Atmosphere to which Islands and the adjacent Seas are more expos'd than the large Continent 33. Cold we see in Animals is that which benumbs the Joynts stupifies the parts forceth the vital heat to retreat into its inward and more strong forts which if assaulted there and overcome death 's at hand and the combat over Now if Cold be so great an enemy to vital heat as is evident not only from what I have said but from what every doth or may experiment than no Medicine as a Medicine is or ought to be cold in its operation 34. And therefore to talk of Curing a Fever with cooling Medicines as the Galenists frequently speak is very improper not to say absurd and argues no less than ignorance of the essential cause of a Fever which because there is a great heat arising from the boyling and spurious fermenting of the Spirits therefore they think according to their own maxim Contraria contrariis curantur that it must surely be Cured by cold things and to that purpose they follow a method of cooling to a purpose both by frequent Phlebotomy robbing the blood of its vital treasure whereby Cold the great enemy of life may indeed have better access to the vitals and destroy the sooner as also by cooling Julips and cooling glisters Why do not they give them cold water in Glisters or blow a little cold wind into their breech surely that would cool notably and do the work more speedily 35. It is very strange to me that their own dayly observation doth not convince of the folly of administring cooling things They cannot but observe that no good effect follows thereon It is much to me they should notwithstanding the fruitlessness of such a method yet again and again trace the same trod unless they be resolved never to go out of their pace Spaniard like though they be lashed for it both in their Reputation and otherwise 36. Next to which they cannot but observe which also most old wives take notice of that the best and most hopeful Medicines in Fevers are such as cause sweat and therefore ordinary people will frequently without the advice of a Physician give Feverish Persons something to endevour sweating and that often times with very good success Which is a very fair admonition to Physicians to be more serious and copious in Diaphoreticks for therein indeed lyes the main hinge of Curing all sorts of Fevers which very thing is the least consulted of any other They will Blood twice or thrice and Purge as often and yet scarce will they order one good Diaphoretick which if they do is commonly compounded with such a farraginous mixture as Nature abhors and as soon sweats to see the folly of the mixture as naturally inclin'd thereto by the virtue thereof 37. Now no Diaphoretick was ever cold in its operation but always of an heating attenuating property and therefore of power to promote the natural fermentation of the blood and of abstersing the vessels of their recrements and of carrying away by transpiration the superfluous tainted Latex together with other Heterogeneities before disturbing the oeconomy of the blood and that through the pores of the body though not always actually by sweat but sometimes by insensible transpiration for there is no better way of taking away the cause of excessive heat in Fevers than by removing or allaying the bastard fermentation in the blood which is most aptly done by Diaphoreticks especially after a previous abstersion of the primary digestions by some generous Salts or well prepared Solutives together with an anodyne as an additional auxiliary 38 This and no way else according to the tenure of Nature is if we must speak in the vulgar Idiom to cool the immoderate heat in Fevers or rather according to our own language to reduce the blood and humors from their spurious and Feverish into their own natural genuine fermentation where the erratrick excentrick motions becomes regular and every thing falls into its natural course again 39. So that by this time I hope any ingenuous Person will apprehend it to be dissonant to the rules of Nature and contrary to reason to administer cooling things in order to the Cure of a Fever and further that hot things such I mean as are actually Diaphoretick with their previous preparatory abstersive Salts are the chief if not the only means to Cure burning Fevers whether intermittent or continual and consequently that the Galenical notion and application of cooling things is very flat and frigid 40. They altogether prohibite the use of Wine in Fevers as being they say too hot mistaking still upon the old Hypothesis that heat is the efficient essential cause of a Fever and therefore must be abated by the actual presence of a proportionate cold whereas sometimes I indulge the Feverish Patient with a glass of the richest Sack he can procure especially after the use of some noble abstersive Salt or as a Vehicle to give my Medicine in and that too because I am satisfied that heat is not the efficient cause of a Fever but only a supervening symptome consequent to the Feverish fermentation 41. To confirm the truth of what I have said in order to the application of hot things in Fevers or acute distempers of Colicks or the like I have had an experimental observation upon my self in a Colical Distemper together with a Feverishness that accompanyed it which surpriz'd me since the writing of the last Section or numerical division which whether it proceeded from cold or the transmission of an acid juyce into the intestines or from both as the occasional cause thereof or from what other concurring cause I know not but however this I am sure of and felt to my own great trouble the tormina Pains or Gripings of the Colick which proceeding from a fermental acidity rouzed up an acrimonious flatus that not finding passage per inferiera that vent-hole of intestine flatus or wind returned upwards oppress'd the stomach and vital Spirits thence I became very sick and was somewhat provoked to vomit 42. Whereupon in order to my assistance I took a Dose of a gentle Emetick but that nor reaching the Minera Morbi
the Disease rather than against the Disease it self For unless the Theory of the Diseases were certain and infallible the method of practice grounded thereon cannot be satisfactory to any ingenuous man for if he espy a flaw in the method by observing it for the most part not answering his expectation in the cure of Diseases it will give him just cause to suspect an error in the Theory and by that time begin to question both yea and lay them aside too if he can but discern another more probable Theory whose consequent practice doth more certainly inable him to cure Diseases more happily Now to be better convinced of the inefficacy of the Galenical method in the curing Diseases Let us consider how often in most Chronical Diseases for in acute they have not that time is their method baffled How frequently do they run over the same course of Physick even till the Patient is tired out and out having their vital Principles more really weakened and linger in an hopeless manner under the tyranny of the Disease and after all this that the Methodists have spun out their longest thred and left them some honest Country-man or good old woman hath a specifick Remedy which they have known by experience to have done good in the like case and the Patient is now though not before at leisure to try it takes it and though his or her skill is not so good as to give it with such advantage as some congruous circumstances might second it withal yet I say often succeeds and cures the lingring Patient of his Disease made worse by a method Now because he which gave this Remedy did it without the formality of a method if by the good success thereof he be encouraged to give it frequently he gains the name of an Empirick viz one who gives a Remedy at random without a method or without being able to give a reason for the operation of his Medicine Whereas indeed if we make a scrutiny into the essential reasons of the operation of Medicines I am apt to question whether any Methodist can give a solid satisfactory reason of the operation of any one Medicine he gives in his whole method and that because the reasons and causes of things are so very abstruse as Jurare in verba Magistri to subscribe to the placets of other men is not enough to any ingenuous man to satisfie himself in the reasons of things attainable thereby And if I should Query why the infusion of Stibium or of Crocus Metallorum should operate by Vomit and Stool And why the same if further prepared by the fire and salts should operate by Sweat And to the first it be answered That it provokes Vomit because it hath an antipathy to and disagrees with the stomach This would be no sufficient reason because many other things may have an antipathy to the stomach and yet not cause Vomit but may either rouze up an incoercible flatus or may march off by Stool So that for things to disagree with the stomach is neither the real cause of Vomiting or Purging though it is true there must of necessity be a concomitant disagreement of the thing with the stomach But what that is that makes the antipathy is the thing in question To say that a Vomiting meeting with vitious humours upon the stomach dissolves them and provoking the expulsive facultie of the Stomach forceth them up by Vomit is still no sufficient reason or answer to the Question For What can one Ounce of Wine only impregnate with a Mineral odour do as to the dissolving of corrupt humours upon the Stomach and to provoke the expulsive faculty with such violence as by the convulsive motions of the stomach to throw up what is in the concave thereof What are the humours of the stomach to it It 's in taste and colour almost the same with so much simple Wine How should the expulsive faculty become thereby concern'd unless we have recourse to what we said before viz. the antipathy thereof with the stomach or Regent powers thereof And so be at as great a loss still as to a true Solution of the Query as before As to what the Atomical Philosophers say in this case I am not satisfied that they give a resolve to the Point who would have all such actions of Vomiting and Purging to be performed by the concourse of various siz'd particles acted by different motions which impressing the like motions upon the nervous and membranous parts cause that Systole or convulsive motion of the stomach which by compressing and contracting it self throws up what is contained therein Who though they go on slily and cunningly in the weaving their Atomical texture of bodies and make all Creatures to be but as so many Automaton's who like a Clock or Watch-work being once wound up keep going from their Springie power of motion Methinks they do as much petere principium as the former in that they take it for granted that what we call Life is nothing else but a result of motion and figure in all bodies For though all bodies as to the whole and to every seperable part are constituted of form or shape and acted by motion as the body stands inclined to its Genesis or Analysis whereby all things are in a perpetual Flux and constant transmutation Yet this evinceth not motion and figure to be the cause of that we call Life or as they say that there is no other existence of any Anima sensitiva than that but rather that motion and figure are the sequels of Life Besides methinks the niceties of vital function are too curious to be solv'd by so slight an Hypothesis Again if we endevour to answer the Query according to the Chymists viz. That it is the odour of the combustible Sulphur of the Antimony wherewith the Wine being impregnated becomes hostile to the Archeus or Anima sensitiva which hath its chief residence in the stomach which being provoked ceaseth not by opposition to that which offends not only to through it off but also the depraved humours which lie fast impacted in the tunicles of the stomach Which indeed is a fine notion and very probable to be near the truth yet to me the same Query remains as indemonstrated as in the former viz. How rationally it gives a satisfactory account Why the infusion of Stibium should act as an Emetick rather than any other way What do we know what this odour of the Sulphur of Antimony is And why the Anima sensitiva should rather be offended than pleased thereat I say how difficult a thing would it have been to have given a rational account of the manner of its operation so as to have said so and so according to reason will it work and this before an experiment thereof had been made for when we see a Medicine to work by Vomit or Stool or Sweat we then presently fall to conjecture the reason thereof But for one to have
Earth up to the Clouds and from thence down again to the Earth but that the moysture in the Air should be reputed Air transmuted into Water viz That which falls upon stone-walls in moyst seasons is so absurd as it 's enough to confute it to name it So that we may conclude that the moysture in the Air which settles it self upon the Walls and floors of Stone-buildings neither is nor ever was Air and that the transmutability of Air into Water in the bowels of the Earth is impossible and lastly that Springs viz. the fontes perennes have not their Original from Rain and Snow 36. Thus I have run through the most considerable things which the Doctor offers in order to the confirming his opinion of Rain and Snow Water to be the Original of Quick-springs and all along I think have probably if not demonstratively overturn'd his Opinion together with the grounds arguments and reasons thereof I might I confess multiply more words in prosecuting at large his whole discourse but studying brevity I have couch'd all he hath to say that is any way pertinent to his purpose saving the story he relates out of Dr. Heylin concerning the Island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea which without reflection on that worthy Author who as well as other Historians may probably take many things upon trust which I say as to the verity of matter of fact I should very much scruple viz. That a drought should continue so long as thirty six years so as all the Springs Torrents or Rivers were dried up and that in the dayes of Constantine the Great It 's very probable he had it by Tradition which many times to wing Fame makes large plumes That an Island so near the Mediterranean Sea should want rain for 36 years together would certainly put an ordinary credulity upon the Tenter-hooks and stretch a Thomas beyond his ordinary pitch for of all places Islands are the most frequented with Showers And that it should be done designedly by God upon a miraculous divine account I do not well understand because that has its ends and aims for the punishing the Natives where judgements are brought forth which done they frequently cease but here according to the story they were forc'd to forsake the Island and to seek for new habitations so that probably it may pass for a drought in Utopia 37. And lastly the two Rarities he mentions that are to be found upon the Castle-Hill in Scarborough viz. the deep Well which reacheth to the bottom of the rock which hath no water and the spring-Well which is within half a yard of the edge of the rock towards the Sea which never wants water which he saith doth somewhat illustrate the point in hand The first of which seems to me onely to be a Well digg'd within whose compass no Chanels have happened and therefore it is dry for so narrow a compass as a Well is may sometimes happen to miss of subterraneal Chanels And as for the other which is so neer the edge of the Rock towards the Sea which never wants Water I look upon it as supply'd from the same cause that other digg'd restagnant Wells are viz. from Land-springs which are feed from Rain or Snow-Water which yet makes nothing in reality towards the confirming his Thesis for it is no current Spring to the best of my remembrance which yet suppose it were it will not be uneasy to conceive the manner and way of its supply when I have propounded what I have to say in order to the establishing a new Thesis which will be positive to the point in hand 38. And that is as I hinted before from a circulation of Water in the Terraqueous Globe by the mediation of Subterraneal Channels along the Sabulum bulliens from Sea to Sea yea and from the Sea to the Heads of Springs and from them into Rivulets and those into Rivers and thence into the Ocean and so circulates round which also includes an other circle of Rain and Snow which first arising by exhalation from the Sea and Earth is carryed down again upon the Earth and Sea joyning Issue with rivulets from Springs swell Rivers which again discharge themselves into the Sea 39. So that a Circulation of water is as justly requisite according to the order and appointment of the primitive Cause for the upholding the Symmetry of parts and intirenes of the whole terraqueous Globe as the Cirulation of blood is necessary for the preservation of life and vital functions in the Microcosme or body of man The earth can no more produce Vegetables or Minerals without this connatural circulation of water replenish'd with Celestial influences than the blood in the body of man can produce Vital or Animal Spirits requisite for absolving the functions of life without its inbred circulation which concatenation of parts in the circulation thereof gave cause to some Philosophers of old to call the world a great Animal either because that animarum omnia plena viz. that the Seeds of all things are at hand and at the beck of the primitive Fiat alwayes at work or because of the great Symmetry of parts or coordinate circulations of the constituent Particles of the World whose proportions were so exact and actions upon each other in the circle of nature so uniform as if actuated by some Panspermion or universal operative Spirit Spiritus intus alit totumque infusa per orbem mens agitat molem 40. Not to say how Analogous the Sea and Hydrophylacia those great Cisterns of Water and Springs of the Deep that in Noah's Food joyn'd Issue with the Cataracts of Haven for drowning the World are to the heart of the Microcosme nor how Analogous the Channels of the Quellem or Sabulum bulliens which cary the Waters into the uttermost circle of the Earth for the supply of Mineral Glebes Minerals themselves and Vegetables upon the Green Carpet thereof are to the Arteries in the body of man by which the blood circulates from the Heart for the nourishment of the whole nor yet to determine the analogy of these circulating Waters further drawn up by Solar exhalations which clime up the slender Threds of Aereal Syphons into the Capitol of the Air to be impregnate there with Coelestial influences or Animal spirits if I may so call them which cohobated upon their own body promote vegetation yea and animation too by becoming that cibus occultus in aere of which the Cosmopolite and other Hermetical Philosophers discourse at large I say not to determine the Analogy of these Waters replenish'd in their circuit with Heavenly influences with those Animal spirits in the little World Man which in the Head receive a determination for obsolving the functions of sense and motion 41. Nor lastly to determine thoroughly the Analogy of water whilst circulating in the bowels of the Earth along the Channels of the Sabulum to the blood whilst circulating in the Veins and Arâ—â—ries of the humane body though
a gentle heat Analogous thereto and therefore could not have different colours from different degrees of heat none of them underwent any Calcination or stress of fire nor received any alterations from any additionals being simply done without mixture save of distill'd Rain-water all these sabulous separations were insipid for the Salt where the taste was became concentred in a small room Now if the water be drunke while these stony concretions are in it as it is in all that is drunke at the Spring or elsewhere if any harm I say happen to any Patients that drink of it for want of other good Medicines to carry away the feculent dregs thereof it is chiefly from these sabulous concretions which precipitate upon the bowels sides and Orifices of the Vessels which preventing or obstructing the wonted fluidness of the blood and intermediate juyces occasionally in some bodies apt thereto may cause Fevers Dropsies Defluxions of Rheume and the like It may also increase the Sabulous Duelech and thereby become improper for those afflicted with the Stone For the Spirit of Urine that Calculorum Architeccus meeting with these Earths or Sabulous Concretions becomes coagulated thereon in bodies prone thereto and by its petrefying Coagulation gives beginning at least increaseth the Duelech The same Sabulums may also contribute to the Torments or Gripings of the Guts by clinging to the Tunicles thereof and further may vitiate the Systole of the Membranous parts of the vessels and thereby may suffer the otherwise current Latex to stagnate in the vessels and thence produce swellings in the belly legs or elsewhere as some after returning from the Spaws find themselves troubled with For we are to consider That the several Digestions first have a concomitant heat by which the water may be inclin'd to a sabulous Precipitation upon the bowels themselves unless it be carried off by some other good Abstersives which ought of right to be given upon the drinking of the Waters and next to that we are also to consider the Anastomâ—sis of the vessels each into other in the whole circuit of the body to be as so many Colanders Streiners or Filters by which the recremental Sabulum may suppose as to the courser part be left upon some of the bowels and the finer part by closer Colanders may be left upon other more remote vessels and in both cause obstructions sufficient sometimes to procure trouble enough Not unlike to these stony Concretions is the Tartareous Sediments of our meat and drink and though Helmont laughs at Paracelsus for his bringing in a Clessis of Tartareous Diseases yet after that rectifying the Notion tells us That there may be a Tartarum resolutum in primâ vel materiâ ultimâ existens I say the better Kitching-Preparations and Fermentations our meat and drink undergo and the stronger the fermental Digestions are the less of a Tartar or rejected Sediment is thrown upon the parts and consequently the more raw our meat and drink is taken and the weaker the ferment of the stomach is not throughly volatizing the nutritive Juyce the more of this tartareous Sediment is by the Streiners and Filters of the several parts of the body left behind which encreaseth the Duelech gives beginning to Obstructions Dropsies Imposthumations c. Now from what stones these Sabulous Ramenta are I know not and at present have not a Microscope by me to make Observation of the various shapes thereof and though Masons tell us That the same stone differently cut nay though with the same Tools doth by various reflections give several and somewhat distinguishable colours yet here the water only as we may suppose running over or along the superficies of a Quarry or other Stones cannot penetrate into the inward parts thereof and so cannot make several colours from one stone Therefore it 's more probable That these Concretions are from several stones sands or earths And if it were water turned into earth according to the Experiment of an ingenious Friend of mine communicated to that great Naturalist Squire Boyl it would retain muchwhat the same colour and figuration of parts but here the parts separated seem to the unassisted eye to be very dissimular some gritty and hard others soft and impalpable some bright and glittering as if from Talke scales of Venice-glass or other bright Mineral stones and others are more dull The last of these stony Concretions which was separated and which one would have expected to have been the most subtile and impalpable powder I found to consist of larger siz'd particles and those bright and sparkling as if they had been razings of Crystals And that these should lie dormant and inconspicuous in the water after so many previous separations of powders much more impalpable than it self gives cause to suspect that there is a variety of pores in the body of water and those two of different sizes and angularities wherein sabulous Bodies and Salts of various shapes may lie undiscovered to the bare eye in the texture of water Therefore if Microscopes were so contriv'd as to take a view of Liquors we might discover many considerable things pertinent to the solving diverse Philosophical Phaenomena's whereof we are yet ignorant Now as to that which remains after all these sabulous separations I mean the esurine Salt which I call the Essence of Scarborough-Spaw is a kind of alumino-nitrous Salt or Sal Hermeticum and therefore where you meet in our Hydrological Discourse with the word Aluminous Salt you are to read it Alumino-nitrous Salt or Nitro-hermetical Salt This Salt if duly ordered is Crystalline shoots into long Stiria's and brancheth it self forth in curious shapes upon the bottom of the glass which I cause to be crystaliz'd in Balneo Mariae It s taste is more discernably nitrous than otherwise yet is a such a sort of a Nitro-hermetical Salt as being exactly dryed and cast upon hot coals or a glowing Spatula takes no flame nor doth it melt nor boyl in a Crucible as that Nitre Dr. Wittie speaks of doth for he means the common Nitre to be had in Shops viz. Such as is added to Cerots and Plaisters as his own words testifie Now this Hermetical Salt in the Spaw flows not in a Crucible in a strong fire but keeps in a dry white body and loseth some of its taste by the force of fire Therefore what we have said against Nitre in our foregoing Discourse is to be understood the common inflammable Nitre which is vulgarly used And it 's very probable that there may be a Magnetical earth not far from the breaking forth of this Spring upon which the Aereal Nitre whether in the Atmosphere upon the surface or in Caverns of the earth doth centre it self which joyning issue with a Mineral acidity may become a competent cause for the production of all Mineral Springs For to my knowledge there are some Bodies to be found in the World that are truly Magnetical of the Universal Spirit or Nitro-hermetical Salt which
to it either as it is an intire body of Vitriol or to the constitutive parts and principles of it 3. If these his assigned qualities as he calls them belong to Vitriol intirely as such then he must needs mean the common Vitriol if he mean any other sort why did not he for distinction sake name it But what Physician useth to prescribe common Vitriol unprepared for his Patient being crudely given a very nauseating and violent cmetick to the stomach and not a proper Medicine for an honest man to use and I believe the Doctor himself never gave it unless it was to try an experiment and if he had given it I am apt to think it as difficult to have learn'd thence his forced qualities 4. If these qualities are ascribed to it as considered resolv'd into its constitutive parts then he would have done well to have anatomiz'd it and told us to which parts such and such virtues and qualities did belong whether it was to the Salt to the Oyl to the Spirit or Phlegm to the Colcotar or to any Arcana's singly or jointly thence prepar'd and then we should have had some distinct knowledge of what he propounds 5. It 's probable he takes Vitriol to be a simple Mineral Salt not admitting it to be compounded of those Ingredients which must necessarily go to its natural genesis and hence depends all his grand mistakes concerning that concrete but why do I trouble my self or the Reader in expostulating those properties of which the Doctor is so barren as what he gives us is not from himself but from Gallen Diascorides Serapio c. 6. Iron is the next which he saith is dry in the third degree here we see that as the Gallenists have their degrees of the four qualities by which they feel and handle as it were the virtues and properties of Vegetables so likewise it seems they reach with them to fathom the nature of Metals I would only Query how they come to know that Iron is dry in the third degree Is not Iron as well as other Metals liquid or dry fluid or permanent according as they undergo the force of fire in fusion which while so in a crucible makes them liquid and fluid like water by actuating their Mercurial part which involving the Sulphur of the Metal makes it flow together with it as if it were nothing else but Mercury which when cool again is in statu quo prius 7. But what this third degree of dryness is of which Iron is found to be I know not I wish the Doctor knew himself and if he could to certifie these dry notions he saith also that it is stiptick drying up the superfluous humidities of the body somewhat like to Vitriol This wonted discourse of Gallenists ever and anon to these exotick qualities make no solid satisfactory Solutions of Philosophical Queries 8. For if a man should ask them how Iron even the very body of Iron given in filings sometimes or any good Preparation of Iron as for instance Saccharum Martis viz. Sugar of Steel become very frequently Medicines proper to Cure if rightly managed the Dropsie Scurvy Cachexia defectus Menstruorum c. it 's very probable their answer will be That they do it by their drying quality by exiccating the superfluous humours of the body now these notions of qualities are mostwhat grounded upon sense as for instance in this very particular the most superfluous humours in the Dropsie are in a Gallenical sense comparable to a mixture suppose of Water and Meal in order to making of Bread if the Water out proportion the Meal it 's no way at present to be corrected but by addition of more dry Meal and that so much as will bring it into a due consistence so drying up the superfluous moisture 9. Thus analogically the superfluous humours of hydropick and scorbutick bodies are as we say to be dryed up by those Medicines which having drying qualities be exiccating in such and such degrees soke up these moist Distempers and so effect their Cures which moist notion a few Queries will easily pump dry As 10. First how do these dry qualities act are not the superfluous humours of these moist Distempers most what in the blood diluting and making it too waterish how must therefore these drying qualities reach the corrigible moisture are they not first to pass the stomach and its ferment which no doubt must have pretty store of moisture proper for the absolving its own peculiar functions and doth the Doctor think these drying qualities will not bait and take a sup in the road sure enough if they be dry they will Doth he imagine they can pass the stomach that culina humorum without acting upon its moisture unless he grant they act electively saying to themselves This is not the moisture the Doctor sent us to dry up but we must pass into the blood and other humours of the body to dry up what is superfluous there 11. But if he say that there are also superfluous moistures in the stomach which feed those of the blood and other parts and therefore must also be dryed up which suppose we grant yet while these drying qualities are acting drying up the moisture they meet with what should hinder but they should also dry up the natural innate moisture of the stomach and so cause by their stiptick quality a clinging of the Membranes of the Oesophagus and Ventricle seeing moisture as such whether in equilibrio humorum or in exorbitancy is the proper object for these qualities to work upon unless he will say they act electively which would be absurd enough 12. So that by that time those qualities if any such there be had got through the stomach they would be so tempered with a competent moisture as that they would lose themselves and become no qualities and the expected Cure to be done by them would be left to such as should come after 13. Again the Dose of such drying Medicines how large should they be to imbibe and dry up such great quantities of superfluous humours as is ordinarily to be found in dropsical bodies surely if they should give Steel in so great a quantity as to dry up so great a bulk of spurious humidities when it had done its work it would certainly restagnate in the vessels and cause greater obstructions then was before 14. As for Saccharum Martis it is commonly given in a Vehicle either of Wine or Water and how this should dry is another Query for me-thinks it were enough to dash the drying quality of Steel with the very moisture of the Vehicle it is given in and for this Sugar of Steel thus given in a Vehicle to exiccate superfluous humidities is as much as if they should say a moist body ought to dry up a moist body which how contradictory it 's enough to name so likewise those decoctions of Sarsaparilla China and Guaiacum which they so much cant to to be drying decoctions are altogether as
some parts of the body where coagulating causeth Tumours Imposthumations inward Ulcers Pains becomes a thorn in those parts which pricketh if I may so say the Archeus incenseth the Spirits inflames the parts brings on a Fever which if mortal hurries all out of doors 27. The scorbutick ferment prevailing by degrees spreads it self by vitiating one digestion after another until it appear clad in all its colours branched forth in all its symptomes and products which are various sometimes in one dress sometimes in another viz. in erratick Pains Dulness and Heaviness of Spirits Tumors Ulcers of many sorts Spots Looseness of the Teeth Soreness of the Gooms Foulness of the skin by Botches Roughness and other impurities of the outward parts For the blood is so corrupted by the vitiating ferment of the Scurvy as that it constantly breaths forth staining Apporrhea's or impure steams which making their egress through the pores of the skin are by obstructions they find there coagulated upon the outward parts and so make Spots Botches Foulness Roughness as if nettled and other impurities of the skin I cannot otherwise at least not better compare the skin of mans body in these and such like foul Diseases than to a transparent glass which if the steams rising from a spurious fermentation of the blood and humours become too gross to be pervious to the pores thereof then they condense along the sides begeting Spots Stains foul Damps c. analogical to the dampy mists of the Scurvy which if it were possible to cover the body over with transparent white glass we might easily discover the impure mists and dark steams arising from the bastardly fermentation of the blood in Scurvies venereal Diseases malignant Fevers Plague c. which if the interception of the circulation of the air that necessary bellows of Life would not prevent the successfulness of the experiment of glass-Receivers we might discern very strange and unthought-of Apporrhea's cloudy mists impure steams circulate within the atmosphere of the aforesaid diseased bodies perhaps not much unlike those foggy mists cloudy vapours and tempestuous confusions which frequently happen within the Orb of the Earths atmosphere which gives that frequent change of weather in the Macrocosm as these cause alterations in the Microcosm These vaporous steams arising from the blood of persons infected with the foresaid Diseases are not simple distillations or meer evaporations of the blood for then neither our glass-Receivers or our skins would condense or percolate any other than fair simple water which would cause neither Spots nor Stains but the steams of spurious fermenting blood is quite otherwise for here nature endevours an analysis of the morbid matter in the resolution whereof it carrys of vapore tenus the very seminal Miasmes equivolent according to their proportion to the relicts thereof strugling in the chanels of the blood for we see in all fermentations a separation of some terrene faeces to the sides of the vessels also of an incoercible flatus which carries along with it some slight touches of the radical principles in the fermenting Liquor Whence first we see the reason of the infectiousness of the foresaid Diseases for in such spurious fermentations nature attempts a resolution and separation of the peccant matter which takes wing by those impure vaporous steams in its road it leaves its character of Spots Stains Blotches Buboes Ulcers c. in the outward parts of the skin and so goes on to the utmost extent of the activity of its own Orb which if as I said could be retained by glass-Receivers we should not only see the extent of its Orb but also view the corrupting soiling Apporrhea's which issue from such infected bodies now what bodies come within the orb of their activity if duly fitted for the reception of those Miasmes they become tainted with effluvia's thereof which retain the platform of the very seminal principles of the Disease in the body or at least carry along with them somewhat analogical to those very Diseases they spring from even so much as to be sufficient to propagate the like Disease in the next infected body as we see most frequently in malignant Fevers especially the Plague Whence also we see the reason why some precious stones worn in Rings or otherwise per modum appensorum will suffer a loss in their oriental splendor and brightness when near such bodies as have these soyling steams arise from their fermental impurities viz. in such bodies as have the Small Pox malignant Fevers Plague yea sometimes in such as have the French Disease and Scurvy in an high degree whence the Saphir or the Hyacinth being so held to a pained Member in suspicion of the Plague as that it reflects the light upon the affected part doth so collect and concentre those malignant steams which arise from the infected blood as that in a very small time if the party be really infected it makes the part grow wan and black and becomes the insallible indication of the Plague by which afterward as Helmont saith the virulency as through a tube or chimney is driven forth that a piece of red Coral should grow pale upon the touching of an hysterical or I rather think menstrual woman is from the same cause for upon the regurgitation of the menstrues there happens an extrordinary defedation of the blood which by a kind of virulent fermentation sets the blood into a venemous steaming which oftentimes is so powerful as it not only soils the external parts but also passeth forth and meeting with any trannsparent or reflecting glass or Gem stains them which is not so much from the breath of a menstruous woman as from other steams which pass through the pores of the body round but especially at the portals of the eyes In like manner appears the reason of the Evestrum vitae bene vel male affectae for amongst precious stones some are diaphanous others opake as Coral Cornelian Turcois Jaspis c. but in pellucids as Helmont saith that Evestrumvitae reverberates it self for as he saith gaudet vitaspeculo lucido reflecti and therefore he looks upon Gems as opake well polished glasses And seeing as he further saith that something doth constantly and necessarily breath through the pores of our bodies which participates with life it self and acts within the sphere of its orb and this in the most sound bodies which if it find a polite body reflects it self therein in the manner of a glass and hence it is that many periapta become effectual by being such polite bodies wherein the evestrum vitae reflects it self in modum speculi and from this very root ariseth most of the arcana sympathetica yea and from this original by sigmental additions came the Ganiahen and Talis manica of the Arabians from whom Paracelsus was taught that sort of Magical Doctrine viz. his Archidoxis Magiea c. 28. This Dyserasia sanguinis is not only compatible to the Scurvy but also to other chronick Diseases as the
the full at this time till I am more confirmed by some collateral experiments 16. The Doctor gives us two instances of the Cure of the Asthma by the Water viz. of an Alderman of Hull and of a Gentlewoman As to the first we answer that it is very if not more than probable That the Asthma wherewith the Alderman laboured was from a deuteropathy from a stuffing of the stomach which might compress and streighten the Diaphragm as also from some trivial obstructions in the lungs which together might very well produce a spurious Asthma or Shortness of Breath than which in ordinary foulness and oppressions of uhe stomach nothing is more frequent and upon that account might easily enough be cured by the Water which doth notably cleanse the sordes of the stomach c. But that this was a real Asthma I fear the Doctor mistakes in his diagnosticks 17. And as for the other Cure of the Gentlewoman I cannot otherwise apprehend from his enumeration of concomitant circumstances but that it was from an uterine cause Asthma ex regimine matricis influentiali prognatum and so was not primarily in the Lungs but only secondary and symptomatical depending upon the depraved occonomy of the Womb and that from inordinate obstructions therein which was caus'd as I suppose from cold taken at an unseasonable time when Nature was about its critical evacuation Now the Spaws by reason of the aperient Mineral Salt therein contained was very proper for opening those obstructions sending away what ought to be by those inferior chanels and so consequently the cause being removed the symptomatical Asthma might by degrees cease in which judgment I am further confirm'd in that he saith that not long after she had a Child 18. As for Rheumes or Catarrhs He mentions one that received benefit thereby which Disease according to the Galenists as I apprehend proceeds from vapours ascending from the stomach which being condensed by the coldness of the brain and obstructions in the head distill per foramen palati thorough the small chanel of the palate or by the nosthrils which falling upon the Lungs brings a Cough and sometimes a Consumption and descending in other chanels cause other Diseases all which may indeed be reckoned inter deliramenta Catarrhi 19. The essentials of which Disease we deny viz. any vapours to arise from the digestion of the meat in the stomach after such a manner as vapore terus to reach the head Which suppose we should grant let us see what absurdities would follow first no sooner would the meat and drink be taken into the stomach but the heat and moisture therein would forthwith send up vapors and we should thereupon be constantly troubled with Catarrhs Also the most sound strong stomachs whose heat was lively would certainly always breed Catarrhs because of sending up most powerfull vapours from the liquid parts of food also in cold Winters from the forcible injury of the cold air working upon the brain and causing a cold Distemper there we should never be kept free from a Catarrh not to say what constant droppings there would be at the pipe of the Alembick the Nose enough to fill a Receiver in a little time and to make every one go with one hung at his Nose 20. Also it would follow that all defluxions of Rheumes should have but one taste and that insipid too because if the vapours suppose in a pot arise from never so many sorts of meats where there is a competent moisture yet that which is sav'd by condensing will have but one taste viz. an elemental simple water whence therefore according to their own doctrine should the variety of consistence and tasts proceed that one should be falt another sharp and fretting one thin and another more thick So that difficulties and absurdities on all hands sit upon the skirts of this doctrin of a Catarrh 21. To be positive We say the stomach no sooner receives food into it but it closeth the upper mouth and the membranous oesophagus claps close together which also happens at every bit that is swallowed down so that no vapours can pass it and though vapours should arise which no doubt in small quantities they do from the lower concave of the stomach where the food lyes to the upper part thereof yet they are carryed up with so easie a digestive heat as that they circulate and fall back upon the digestive mass again like a globe of glass half filled whose neck is close sealed up and set in an easie heat of digestion the steams which arise circulate back again upon the matter without any pressing thorough the neck of the glass or any danger of breaking the glass 22. It is true that from the incongruity of the food in the stomack and from the reluctancy thereof and the indigestion thence following a flatus spiritus sylvestris or incoercible gas may arise which not suddenly finding vent by the opening of the upper mouth of the stomack stretcheth the membranous parts thereof makes one sick and faint but at length getting passage by the upper Portall flaps open the Oesophagus whisks forth with a sudden noise of a ructure or belch This flatin or wind carries with it the odour or taste of that part of the food which is most difficultly digested and this is all the vapour which is carried up which yet is not a vapour but an incoercible wind never condensable as all vapours are into water 23. But it may be objected That if no steams or vapours are carried up from the stomack to the brain as is usually and vulgarly supposed how comes it to pass that after meat we commonly find our selves dull and indisposed and as it were heavy to sleep many times Is it not from the vapours which ascend into the head and incline to heaviness I Answer no. But we are then inclinable to an heaviness and sleepyness from the same cause we are inclinable to the same at any time sleep follows waking as night the day heaviness and dulness are as precursory to sleep as the evening to the night waking is a vigilancy and action of the spirits each standing centinel in the Portalls of the senses sleep is a quiescence of the spirits from their action the animal Spirits are after a time of working wearied and willingly give themselves up to a lassation for a further recruit so that there is no need of vapours to arise into the head to cause sleep For though a man fast 24 hours or longer and consequently hath small matter left on his stomack to cause vapours yet is he nevertheless inclinable to sleep and many can sleep as soundly upon an empty as a foul stomack Employment either in mind or body keeps the Spirits in action and awake once give way by Idleness or solitary sitting after meat or at other times and a dulness begins which is the Harbinger of sleep and the Spirits fair and easily fall to rest 24. Another Objection
to the Galenists proceeds from an hot and dry Distemper of the stomach to answer which indication they most frequently order cool and moist things which if the cause of thirst were as they suppose they would have a most facile ready way of Cure in case that were true Contraria suis contrariis curantur viz. That every distemperature were curable by its contrary for then supposing such and such degree of heat and dryness of stomach in a Fever it is but applying the same answerable degree of cooling and moistning liquors and the Cure would forthwith be effected If so Why are not the thirst in Fevers presently quenched That after great draughts of cooling Julips and the like are drunke down they yet cry out Drie Drie as thirsty after a while as ever 50. What Can the elementary properties of cold and moist so much conspire the Patients prejudice as to forget their own natures of cooling and moistning Surely these qualities if they may be so call'd of heat and cold of dryness and moisture must act one upon another upon the very contact and no sooner can heat be encountred with cold but the heat must be abated and if the degree of cold be proportionable must become quite extinct so neither can driness meet with moisture in the like degree but the driness will cease 51. So that indeed a Feverish thirst hath not these elementary qualities for its efficient and so is not curable by the contrary qualities but hath a more abstruse cause and that is from a depravation of the ferment of the stomack which not being able to digest after the wonted manner what is upon the stomach turns it into recrement which by the heat of the part having lost its curb the ferment is burnt into a kind of Alkali or friable mass which being fast impacted in the tunicles of the stomach becomes the efficient cause of a febrile thirst 52. These burnt Alkalizate sordes parch the very membranous parts of the stomach oesophagus and tongue which membrane is but as one continued web overspreading all those parts thence the intollerable thirst foulness roughness and parchedness of the tongue which by abstinence from drink as is the foolish custome of some Physicians who understand not the Disease too strictly prohibit the Fever becomes the more increased the thirst the stronger and all the symptomes more exasperated For there must be some liquid thing of necessity to dilute and soften these burnt sordes though it do not satisfie and quench the thirst or else all things go the worse but if the skill of the Physician be such as to mingle with these diluting potable liquids something to absterse these sordes and to satiate these Alkalizate recrements then he effects something as to the real quenching of thirst which otherwise proves obstinate and rebellious to all simple liquids 53. For if all simple water or fermentally married to a vegetable juyce viz. Beer Ale or Wine be thrown into the stomach upon these friable sordes they do but and that scarcely for a moment quench the thirst but by the untameable heat of the stomach are cast into vapours and by sweat or insensibly are driven through the pores of the body and in the conclusion encrease the heat cause cold sweats faintness debilitudes and wasting lassitudes after the manner of water poured on an hot stone is presently dispersed vapore tenus or as Spirit of Wine poured upon an Alkali of Tartar causeth a great heat more than was before 54. But if these adust sordes be absters'd by the well prepared Salt of Vitriol or other proper emeticks or some proper solutive that may cleanse downward the recrement of the primary digestions and be seconded with Spirit of Salt Sulphur or Vitriol acuating the Patients common drink together with the use of some anodynous Diaphoreticks not only the thirst will be abated and quenched but the Feverish fermentation and consequently the Fever it self I have often wondred the Galenists should not more seriously take into consideration the efficacy of Diaphoreticks or sweating Medicines in Fevers in as much as in the whole round of their Practice they find not a more effectual means to quench thirst and to abate a Fever than by Sudorificks which is most obvious both to them and to ordinary People and yet there is nothing they less frequent If it were no more than observing the operation of a Dose of Laudanum methinks it might convince them of the excellency of Diaphoreticks and put them upon ingenuous enquiries how they might promote and improve that stock of Diaphoreticks they have in the Shops might I say put them upon enquiring how a few grains of Laudanum should so quiet the Spirits for a time quench thirst and allay pains and all this as a Diaphoretick which surely if the narcotick Sulphur was castigated and the power of the volatile Diaphoretick Salt thereof exalted would prove a much more effectual Diaphoretick than any Laudanum in the Shops 55. As for Antimonium Diaphoreticum because it is Chymical they are afraid of it and if they order any it is in so inconsiderable a quantity as the effect cannot answer the Patients expectation They will prescribe 3 grains it may be 4 5 6 or 7 grains and a great Dose too and this forsooth must be clogg'd with some other farraginous mixture which together makes such a confus'd jumble upon the stomach that the Archeus or vital regent knows not what to make of it for by their mixtures they miss the mark of Specificks and thereby of the best Diaphoreticks In effect do nothing sincerely viz. without mixtures in the whole course of their Practice They will wonder perhaps if I tell them that of this Antimonium Diaphoretick which they scruple to give 6 7 or 8 grains I can and do with good success give from one scruple to an whole dragm which is 60 grains and that without scruple or danger but with great satisfaction to the Patient Bezoardicum Minerale another as dangerous anti-febrile Diaphoretick as they account it as the former of which they scarce dare give above 3 4 or 5 grains of which I with the like success as the former give from half a scruple to 24 grains Indeed they are both of my own Preparation and therefore dare more confide in them 56. Now the conclusion of all this is That Diaphoreticks whether Vegetable or Mineral after a previous abstersion of the primary digestions are the only quenchers of thirst abaters of pains allayers of Feverish fermentations composers of the Spirits and in fine the chief Curers of Fevers and therefore whether duely to be considered let the World judge seeing it conserves thousands of Lives Thus far as to particular Diaphoreticks Besides which Helmont speaks of an universal Diaphoretick or Panacea by the name of Mercurius Precipitatus Diaphoreticus which is a fixation of Precipitate by the cohobating the Elementum ignis extracted out of the Vitriol of Venus at last
World and that without having their Letters of Advice or Bills of Exchange Translated by an Interpreter out of one Language into another or of being confin'd to have one of their own Language imploy'd as their Factor And to conclude all liberal Sciences Ingenuous Arts and thriving Manufactures with Mechanical inventions would receive no small improvement by this way of communication through the help of the Universal Character and by observations in Physiological Essays from all parts abroad the Structure of a body of true Genuine Philosophy might in a little time be raised to the great use and benefit of mankind in all sorts of useful learning both speculative and practick So that thereby in a few years more might be done as to the Compleating thereof then hath been in whole Centuries of years before And here concluding this Digression I re-asume my first intended matter and further assert That THus would Physiology be advanced in every part and branch thereof becoming more facile certain and grateful by being grounded upon experiments then by any other conjectural Hypothesis though as I said it is but Scientia naturalis à posteriori being as far or more short of that intuitive knowledge which Adam had in Paradise as conjectural Hypothesis is of it yet is this very acceptable because it joyns issue with our Senses whence we now after a Preposterous manner assume most of our knowledge of natural things A considerable part of this Book of Philosophia Naturalis would be spent in the Physical or Medical Science By which we should know what concrets how us'd and by what means they become helpful for the reliefe of our infirm and diseased Bodyes in which that improvement made in the Laboratories by various preparations and trials thereof upon sick persons would be of great importance And this brings me to the third and last thing I propounded to my self to discourse of viz. to signifie the use and efficacy of Chymical remedies I mean how much more assistance nature hath by the help of Chymical Medicines in order to the cure of diseases then by the vulgar Shop-preparations and here me thinks the Cabinets of natures rarities are opened and by this noble Art we are let into the grand Mysteries and choyce Secrets of medicinal Preparations which being seperated from their terrene Faeces and corrected from their annexed virulencies penetrate into the very intimate recesses and secret Meanders of the Body helping nature at every turn both to manifest what is useful by solution incision and abstersion of the peccant Sordes as also by fortifying the vital powers and functions and that corroboration and restauration of the vital Principals No Ingenious Person can longer satisfie himself in the common practice of the Galenical Physick when he once begins to reflect upon the uncertainty of the Method and unsuccesfulness of his Curing Diseases especially when he comes to consider the reasons thereof viz. the rawness and incongruity of the dispensatory Preparations the Farraginous mixtures whereof render them less effectual then if they were more simple and puts the young practitioner to a great loss whilst the elder and therefore accounted the more experienced Physician jogs on right or wrong according to his methodical rules of Art for when he expects as wel for his credit sake as his desire of doing good some great Cures he finds nothing considerable done And this gives cause to many Industrious searching Physitians now of late to begin to throw off this Galenical yoak and fall to work themselves making some neat Preparations according to the Chymical Art for their own practice by the efficacy of which they are encouraged to proceed further to the Preparation of more noble Arcana which they must do whilst they are young other wise when they grow old they either become too lazie to begin to work or too much settled upon their Lees then they think themselves to old to enter into the Chmycal Matrix to be born Philosophers by the fire The Chymical Preparations have these following advantages of the Shop-Medicines first they are commonly much less in bulk than the other are and therefore they less offend the Patient in taking them What nauseating Potions are frequently prescribed not to say that they are in their taste inferiour to Horse-Drenches which are apt to make the stomachs of some who have taken thereof even at the sight of the next Potion to Vomit whereas a few drops of a Spagyrical Liquor given in a proper Vehicle or a Mineral Powder given in a few grains which in some Preparations hath some taste in others none operates effectually enough according to the intention of the Physician 2. Chymical Medicines if rightly prepared are less dangerous than the Galenical I shall not here vindicate the confident boastings of some quacking Pretenders to Chymistry who presume to cure all Diseases with some secret Powder Oyl or the like which when known is but a meer trifle and scarce worthy the name of a genuine Chymical Preparation and yet forsooth these Medicasters boast themselves though you shall scarce hear it from any of their Patients what great wonders they can do vilifying all others that are more modest than themselves and yet are Possessors of more noble Medicines I am not ignorant how the Galenists have designedly insinuated into the Vulgar the great danger as I said before of Chymical Medicines which hath been no small Remora to the progress of Chymical Physicians till their unwearied diligence hath with time mostwhat worn off that apprehension of danger and they now begin to observe by ocular demonstration the great efficacy together with the safety of Spagyrical Remedies For where the Galenists in their Dispensatories ends there the Chymical Physician begins both to correct what they have done by making their compositions more homogeneal and to proceed further to what they have not done witness the elaborate Chymical Animadversions on the Augustane Dispensatory by the ingenious Swelfer who undoubtedly doth correct most demonstrably the errors of the vulgar Galenical Preparations shewing very evidently their incongruous and farraginous mixtures and besides adds other dexterous Preparations both Vegetable Animal and Mineral which they have not In whose Book of Animadversions with his Mantissa Hermetica and Appendix thereto the Reader may view plainly as in a glass the errors of the received opinions of the vulgar Practice of Physick 3. The Chymical Remedies are more purified and refined from their terrene feculencies than the Galenical for in Decoctions Syrups Conserves Electuaries Lohochs and some other Shop-Preparations there are but very small separations of the terrestrial Faeces little depurations made as for Decoctions either the Menstruum which commonly is water perhaps with the addition of some Wine is not proper for extracting the virtues of the Ingredients or by too much boyling they let the volatile and therefore most effectual parts flie away so that the virtues of the Concretes are not sufficiently hereby extricated from
earth to imbibe Rain-water as a sponge where it meeting with capillary veins as I may call them or small pores not clefts or crevises which are scarce to be found but amongst Rocks and Rocky Soyls sinks down by degrees into larger veins and those into Subterraneal Chanels where it makes Land-Springs which supply many Draw-wells yea and many of them run into Rivers too which help to keep Rivers high in Winter time above the ordinary pitch they are found to be upon droughts 29. The next difficulty that springs up which indeed is the most considerable is If Rain-water sink much deeper than ten foot into the caverns of the earth as he supposeth Then what shall fetch it up again to make it supply Springs that are upon Hills or high Heaths nay upon the very level of Plains themselves For it must be a retrograde motion of the same water which before descended into such low caverns of the earth Facilis descensus Averni Sed revocare gradum superasque ascendere ad auras Hic labor hoc opus 30. The next Objection he brings out of Seneca and his solution evince no more than what we grant viz. That there may be additional Land-Springs and that amongst Rocks which receive their supply from Rain and Snow-water which upon droughts are dryed up and therefore are not Quick-Springs whose Original I shall shortly hint to be otherwise besides he acknowledgeth that in solid Clay Soyls it is very rare to find any eruption of water because such are sad earth and have few or no caverns or chanels in them but our Springs Saith he break out ordinarily in rocky and gravelly ground especially the best and most lasting Springs such as we call Fontes perennes which indeed is most certainly true for they are not found but as accompanyed with a boyling gravel or sand called by Helmont Quellem or Sabulum Bulliens which makes nothing at all towards the proving his Assertion 31. The last Objection he brings out of Seneca is That in the dryest Soyl where they dig Pits two or three hundred foot deep there is often found great plenty of water which he calls Living-water as not coming from the Clouds Dr. Wittie's Solution of which Objection is thus From whence then should it come from the Sea Perhaps saith he the Sea is as many Miles from that water as the Superficies of the earth is feet from it Suppose it were say I What might hinder but that water might be carryed from the Sea by Subterraneal Chanels at far greater distances than so If Seas communicate with each other as we shall shortly endevour to prove it must be by Subterraneal Chanels many of which must be of far greater length 32. Perhaps it may come saith the Doctor from the Transmutation of Aer into Water for such a Transmutation I cannot saith he deny so that in short to me it seems as if he hovered between two whether to ascribe the Original of Spring-water to the Transmutation of Air into Water or to Snow and Rain-water Only he saith indeed It 's most probable to come from Rain so that That at the hardest and at the long run carries it yet that of the Transmutation of Air into water is not without its peradventure and that he thinks very well confirm'd too by an instance he brings in which is We see saith he Churches become wet before Rain falls from this cause Why What is the cause viz the transmutation of Air into Water and truely I am apt to believe that in moyst weather as sure as the Air is transmuted into water which moystens the Stone-Walls of buildings so sure is Air in the Bowels of the Earth transmuted into Water yea and so sure is the Original of Fountains from Rain and Snow Water 33. I wonder the Doctor 's Philosophy in his second Edition should not come forth more maturate then to adhere to this old and long since exploded transmutability of Elements which has no true solide Basis to be grounded upon For if the watryness we find in moyst weather upon stones of Walls and Floors of Buildings be from the transmutability of Air into Water and that he informs us before that reasons tells us that more then ten parts of Air will not serve for the making one of Water I think saith he twenty would be too little if so many parts I say of Air be too little to make one of water and yet so much water is made according to his own supposition as serves to moysten Stone-Walls and Floors in moyst weather before rain then what must supply the place and fall into the rear of so much transmuted Air The water thence made is but as onetoten or twenty which therefore cannot supply the necessary vacancy because one cannot make up nine much less nineteen Wherefore a horrible vacancy would if this Doctrine were true long ere this have surprised the body of Air. 34. Yea and suppose we should with him admit of the possibility of the transmutation of Air into Water in the bowels of the Earth for the furnishing of Springs for such Transmutation saith he I cannot deny and keep our proportion of twenty to one What a vast Vacuum long ere this had the Mundane Systeme groan'd under Which would have impos'd one of these two grand absurdities thereon viz. either the circulation of bodies one upon another requisite for the maintaining the unity and intirenes of the World would be intercepted by the great contiguous Vacuums which must follow wanting other bodies so to tear themselves in pieces as to supply the place of the deficient Air or else those who live in the last Ages or the longest might have cause to fear least the same mishap might fall to their lot as happens to those poor Animals that get into Squire Boyl's Air-pump viz. to dye of Spasmes and Convulsions through the thinness of the Air which would be so interspersed with contiguous Vacuums made wider yet by the frequent transmutation of Air into Water as that we should not be able to live therein or lastly we should constantly be expos'd to the same injury that those are who travail over the Mountains call'd Andes in America where the Air is so thin and rarified as they travayl not without danger of being stifled for want of Air and therefore usually they carry Sponges moystened with Water for the condensing the Air or the vapours therein which Air is so dispos'd there to Inflammations as that Travellers as the Ingenious Kircherus observes seeme to belch forth flames and being all in a sweat appear as if incircl'ed with Fire 35. I must needs indeed grant that the Air hath its Vacuolums or little Interstices its texture being like a net or spong by which it becomes the more capable of being as a vehicle for transmitting rarifyed Water and other vapours of the Atmosphere becoming thereby the better Subservient to the performing the great circulation of water from the Sea and
insipid upon being expos'd to the Air again was freshly impregnated with the same Salt which he did also a third time c. with the like effect by which he gathered that that which renew'd the Terra mortua as he calls it was the Spiritus Universalis or Anima Mundi or as I said the volatile nitrous Salt which is to be found both in the Earth and the Atmosphere Which experiment though it should have been inserted in our discourse of hot Springs yet is not very impertinent in this place because after all this digging they found no bottom or beginning of the Spring it self and was the same current whether cold or hot whether saturate with that Hermetick Salt or insipid and therefore might probably by its Channel come from the Seas in the great Circulation set on work by causes aforesaid A TERNARY OF Medicines FOR Curing most DISEASES HAving in the foregoing discourses of my Hydrologia Chymica had occasion to treat of the Essential and efficient causes of many Diseases as the Palsy Apoplexy Asthma or Shortness of Breath Scurvy Dropsy Hypochondriack Melancholy Fevers c. and there onely in a cursory manner hinted the most effectual Spagyrical remedies as the Treatise it self will shew I shall here in order to the practical part comprize most of them in three Catholick Medicines whose use are of large extent and may with a little Latitude be called Universal Remedies answering the three grand Indications or Requirings of Physick Those be 1. Cathartick or solutive 2. Cordial or expelling of Wind 3. Diaphoretick or Sweating The first I call Scorbutick Pills or Pills proper against the Scurvy 2. The second is call'd Elixir Proprietatis or Cordial Elixir 3. The third I call Diaphoretick or Sweating Pills These three Preparations are compos'd of the best and most useful Vegetables The Menstruums and Salts wherewith they are extracted are graduated to the highest pitch they are well capable of viz. by Digestions Circulations and Distillations being exquisitely depurated from all Phlegms and Heterogene Faeces The very Salts and Meustrnums given alone are Midicines of no inferiour order being abstersive and aperient of the Vessels but further They also open the bodyes of Noble Vegetals and being impregnate with their additional virtues become very considerable helps to nature to proscribe what is noxious and combersome to the digestions which is the cause of flatulencies or Winds and to fortify and strengthen the vital Ferments in their functions for the health of the body The operation of these three Medicines are innocent safe and harmless as I have found them by frequent and constant experience and not onely so but also I have found them very succesful in order to the cure of diseases with which three rightly prepared I had rather chuse to manage a practice than with so many score of the vulgarly prepar'd shop-Medicines whose larg portions and Farraginous mixtures rather oppress and nauseate the digestions than give any laudable help in the proscribing that which is noxious or strengthening to the vital powers And first as to the Scorbutick or Cathartick Pills which are proper against the Scurvy That being a disease which though at its full state it vitiates the ultimate digestion and whole habit of the body with its various Symptoms yet as you may see further in our discourse of Diseases the first Seminaries thereof are laid in the Stomach viz in the error of its Ferment which by some recremental Faeces being clogg'd and hindred from making a thorough digestion of the alimentary Juyce laies a foundation for the vitiating the subsequent digestions For as the Ferment becomes clogg'd and thereby weak the more Sordes are every day heap'd up in the Tunicles of the Stomach which doth still add to the debilitating the Specifical Ferment thereof towards which conduceth the plentiful drinking of Ale and that often not thoroughly fermented or wrought but thick and muddy which leaves abundance of dreggs upon the Stomach dinting and dulling the Ferment thereof Also the great use of late of Sugar both in Sweet meats Drinks and Sauces do not a little clog the Ferment and add to this disease so the eating of Salt-meat and Rye-bread by reason of an Aliennted sourish Ferment therein which not being Similar to the Acid Ferment of the Stomach begets flatulencies and leaves much Sordes especially to weak Stomachs to which disease also the plentiful feeding upon varieties of Dishes and the too often eating and drinking between meals before one part be digested and carried off an other part is freshly thrown down which sometimes makes that part of the nutritive Juyce which should have passed forth stay longer than of right it should and thereby become too much Fermented which over-acidness thereof passeth uncorrected into the second or third digestion and so vitiates the blood therewith which also in the Fabrick of the Animal Spirits vitiates that prolifique offspring whence proceed Scorbutick Palsies and Apoplexies c. And we frequently find that those who indulge their appetites too much as many do who make it most of their business to eat and drink at all times of the day as also those who foster and debauch their Stomachs with strong cawdles are the most apt to have this disease of the Scurvy and it various Symptoms creep upon them and after all this indulging of their appetites with plentiful variety of food many add to that idleness or want of exercise the want of which in the midst of plentiful feeding is the speedy way to bring this disease and that accompanied with Asthma's or shortness of breath with which we see many who are addicted to sedentary lives and yet feed high are very much troubled which I may properly call a Scorbutick Asthma Upon this account of the depravation of the Ferment of the Stomach whose error is continued down to the following digestions thereby levening it self with the whole mass of humours of the body this disease of the Scurvy with an inseparable Flatus or wind of the Stomach and blood disguiseth it self under the mask of most diseases and appears complicated therewith so that there are few diseases whose Seminals are not Identical with that of the Scurvy Therefore that which is proper for the curing or preventing the Scurvy is also proper for the curing or preventing other diseases that depend thereon whose Bases are much what the same viz. the depravation of the Stomachical Ferment In order therefore to the assistance against the prevalency of so Epidemical a disease as the Scurvy which creeps insensibly from the foresaid causes upon most men and women I compose these Scorbutick Pills whose operation is to purge gently thereby to carry off from the Stomach and other Officines of the digestions the Stagnant Recremental Sordes which are apt to settle as residences of the Food we take in and that many times for want of a penetrating volatizing Ferment which should after digestion leave no Faeces or Caput Mort
behind for with such volatizing Ferments strong constitutions are endued the constitution being most what to be computed from the natural vigour or weakness of the Ferments which are the Authors of all Transmutations of Food from one tast and consistence to an other in the whole circuit of the body These Pills I say taken at due seasons help nature to carry off that which is every day precipitated to the bottom and sides of the Stomach which is a kind of Tartar or slimy sediment of our meat and drink not volatiz'd by the Ferment which dayly increasing doth still more and more dull and dead the foresaid Ferment But if by such help as these Pills or other direct courses the digestions be reminded of their due separations then these preposterous precipitations may probably be prevented and the diseases thence springing whether solitary Scurvy or others complicated therewith be anticipated for these Scorbutick Pills are so prepared with noble vegetal Extractions by a depurated Menstruum and generous Salt as that they not only are gently solutive and abstersive of the Inherent Sordes but also are withal restaurative by their Balsamick Ingredients of the lapsing Ferments and that first by taking off the weights that oppress and load and next by inciting them to a vigorous activity especially if seconded by perance in meat drink and excercise together with a Dose sometimes of our Cordial Elixir which taken after a previous abstersion by the Scorbutick Pills proves the more effectual in rectifying the Ferment of the Stomach and in discussing of Wind which proceeds from the reluctancy of the Ferment to the recremental Sordes and therein proves a great Cordial if rightly prepared For indeed to speak properly nothing can truly be call'd Cordial which doth not allay this Flatus or wind by taking away the cause thereof at least mitigating These Pills also are proper for Dropsical bodies by making gentle evacuations for such remedies as are abstersive and diuretick and withal have a restaurative astringency communicable to the debilitated Membranous Parts reducing them to their proper tone are the most proper in Dropsical maladies Of which sort are these Pills for they are not onely abstersive but also by their included essential Salt of Tartar are not a little Diuretical and by its restaurative Ingredients gives a gentle astringency to the Membranous Parts promoting the proper tone thereof in their due Systole and Diastole To which also should be added the use of our Elixir Proprietatis to strengthen the bowels and Ferments thereof not that I say these will cure a confirmed Dropsye where the very Omentum or kel and Peritonaeum are become putrid and rotten through the long Stagnation of the extravasated liquor in which case I question whether the noblest Chymical Arcana viz. the Mercurius Diaphoreticus Fixus or Precipiolum Paracelsi would effect the Cure In Hectick Fevers and incipient consumptions these Scorbutick Pills are also effectual being taken in a somewhat less quantity than in the other Cases for besides their moderate abstersion by Vegetable Salts of excremental Sordes which otherwise oppress the digestions they hinder the resolution of the compage of the blood which frequently in those cases is apt to shew it self by faint sweatings arguing thereby a Solution of the Vinculum of the blood But by some Balsamick and gently astringent Ingredients therein the Retrograd Analysis of the mass of blood is prevented in which case these Pills are well seconded by some Doses of the Elixir Propietatis taken every other Morning fasting two hours after and the Pills also to be taken every other Morning two or three at a time according to directions given afterwards These Pills are also proper against Hypochondriack Melancholy by keeping the body soluble removing some Sordes whose reluctancy as I said with the Ferments either of the Stomach or Splene begets that Hypochondriack Wind which frisks to and again and floats round all or most parts of the body and such persons commonly feel themselves most at ease and free from the cumber of the wandring Flatus when their bodies are most soluble To a further assistance wherein the frequent taking of Elixir Proprietatis contributes not a little by helping to compose the otherwise irregular Flatus Yea in all diseases that are Symptomatical or secondary to the Scurvy these Pills are helpful as in Scorbutical Palsies Apoplexies Asthma's c. which depend upon the prevalency of the Scorbutick Ferment and Flatus thence issuing The like success they have also upon Colicks Diarrhea's or Loosnesses and Dysenteries or bloody Fluxes especially if seconded with some Doses of the Elixir Proprietatis and sweating Pills Further as to Fevers whether intermitting or continued so they be not malignant viz. whether Quotidians Tertians Quartanes or Acute continued Fevers these Pills are very helpful first by abstersing the recremental Sordes which adhere to the vessels and while they are there they promote the feverish fermentation of the blood and humours for that the Crasis of the blood and humours have an immediate dependance upon the Regimen of the Stomach and Regent Spirit thereof is apparent in the Febris Ephemeris or sudden Febricula which happens from a disorder of the Ferment of the Stomach not being able to subjugate the in taken food which causeth a perfect Fever in all its Symptoms till the digestion be either compleat or the deprav'd mass be thrown up out of the Stomach by vomit which done that sort of Fever ceaseth so that the Minera of a Fever whether intermittent or continued yea even of all or most diseases is radically in the Stomach after whose pipe as I may say all the rest of the Ferments of other parts dance and are really subject to the beck and influence thereof And that Fevers do much depend upon the Regimen of the Stomack is evident from the frequent vomitings pains in the head and back thence proceeding as also from the strong pressing thrist therein and is more manifest because if while the blood boyls strongly by a Feverish Fermentation a good medicine be given while it is yet in the Stomach the blood ceaseth from its spurious Fermentation and perhaps onely breaths forth in a gentle moysture the Pains cease the thirst is quench'd and all is at ease and quiet for a while So that in truth Fevers are but secondary in the blood and humours but primarily in the Stomach to which also all Medicines primarily are to be level'd I say therefore as these Pills work upon some of the deprav'd matter which lyeth heavily as long as it is unvolatiz'd by the Ferment of the Stomach by their solutive property and irritating the Systole or compression thereof vulgarly call'd the Expulsive Faculty together with the orderly Systole and Diastole of the Pylorus carries of part of that recrement which otherwise yeilds fuel to the feverish fire and promotes the Febrile Fermentation in the whole mass of Liquids in the body so that these by
their gently purging quality lessen the Alkalizate Sordes which cause thirst and feverish burnings and boylings in the blood and besides by their Menstrual Salts blunt the acrimony of the spurious fermentation of the Stomach and with the help of Elixir Proprietatis which I call the Cordial Elixir taken as I shall shew afterwards the cause of the feverish Flatus will be much abated which Flatus is the necessary concomitant and result of the spurious feverish fermentation in the Stomach from which incoercible Flatus or Spiritus Sylvestris all those usual sick and faint fits proceed And if upon a previous vomit which skilfully ordered lessons these Alkalizate burnt Sordes which sometimes lie fast riveted in the tunicles and fouldings of the Stomach these Pills be afterwards given two or three dayes together and a Dose of the Cordial Elixir be given in the afternoon about 3 or 4 by the Clock as also last at Night one of our Diaphoretick Pills with a glass of burnt Wine after it will so blunt the acrimony of those burnt recrementall Sordes the Minera of the Fever as that the feverish Fermentation will be abated the cause of the Flatus whence sick fits will be mitigated the boyling Spirits will be settled The Archeus or regent spirit of the digestions that Spiritus impetum faciens will be composed and all the clutter will be hush'd into a silent calmness with a gentle breathing sweat which Diaphoretick or sweating Pills are but to be taken every other or every third night and that too after a previous evacuation either by our Scorbutick Pills or at least by a Clyster ordered that afternoon before they be taken Thus the causes being removed the Fever will begin to decline nisi mors sit in ollâ unless death be at hand not but that the disease will rally up again but with less force then you must still repeat the Method of your solutive pills in the morning and Cordial Elixir in the afternoon and sweating Pill at night which last when repeated let alwayes be done that night after the solutive Pills has been before taken in the morning Thus you will by the Blessing of God find a considerable abatement of the violent Symptoms of a Fever in a very small time And as in continued so also in intermitting Fevers whether Quotidians Tertians or Quartans the same Ternary of Medicines are of great use and benefit and that thus viz by taking the day before the fit 2 or 3 of the Scorbutick or Cathartick Pills and the night after a Dose of the Cordial Elixir at bed-time and then that day the fit comes to take one or two of the Diaphoretick or sweating Pills two or three hours before the usually expected time drinking a draught of hot drink after as of Mace-ale Posset-drink or Burnt-Wine and to indeavour with one covering more than ordinary to fall into a gentle breathing Sweat which these will readily procure And during the time of the Patients sweating he or she is to take nothing but hot drink as aforesaid and to lye in bed if the fit come on the day time till the next morning and then to renew the taking of the Cathartick Pills and Elixir as also an other of the sweating Pills before the next expected fit according to former directions and by this means the Patient will find ready help sooner in a Quotidian or Tertian than in a Quartaine that being seated more deeply in the radical Ferment of the Stomach and Splene These as well as continued Fevers if not all diseases are radically begotten in the Stomach primarily there and secondarily or Symptomatically in other remote parts to whose Regimen this Ternary of Medicines is cheifly made to correspond For the general Indication of most diseases are reducible to three and those are first a Recremental Faeces or deprav'd humour from the error of the Ferments both of the Stomach and other digestions I say the abstersion of these degenerate Faeces in the several digestions is the first and cheif Indication in most diseases The second is a Flatus or Wind ingendred between the reluctancy of the Ferment and the foresaid Sordes which constantly begets according to the degrees thereof a fresh supply of an inbred Flatus or Wind the Author of many Pains disturbances in the vital occonomy and thence Sicknesses I say the quieting or allaying the Wind by curing or preventing the the true cause thereof is the second main Indication requisite in the Cure of most diseases The third and last is an acrimonious acidity with a spurious Latex in the intermediate Juyces and Liquor of the Blood and Genus Nervosvm whose Seminals are desum'd from an error of the Ferment of the Stomachical digestion The correcting which acrimony and reduction of the blood to its genuine Sweet Balsamick Eucrasia is the third Indication requisite to be performed in the Cure of many diseases The general ignorance of this Ternary of Indications among some Physicians doting in lien thereof on the quaternary of fictitious humours and the like number of external barren qualities by which they groap'd as in the dark after the heat and cold driness and moysture of diseases and ordering their medicines accordingly hath been no small Remora in the improvement of this noble science of Physick which through the Tacite Subscriptions to the Galenical prescripts by most Physicians hath thereby long been kept in obscurity but now at length by the sons of art become more manifest and are expos'd to open view To which triplicity of Indications this Ternary of Medicines are cheifly and primarily adapted For first the Scorbutick or Cathartick Pills are ordered for the carrying off those Recremental Faeces which are begotten through the depravation of the Ferment of the Stomach and other digestions which give Beginning and layes the foundation of most diseases Secondly the Cordial Elixir appeaseth and quieteth the Flatus or wind begotten from the reluctancy of the Ferment and corrupt matter oppressing it and therefore it is proper for those diseases where Wind is most predominant viz. in those diseases where the Ferments are most weakened for where the Stomach in its Ferment is most debilitated there Wind is most prevalent And thirdly the Diaaphoretick or sweating Pills dint and correct the acrimonious acidity of the secondary digestions and liquor of the blood and of the Genus Nervosum and carry it off with the spurious Latex in gentle breathing sweats and therefore it is proper in all diseases which depend thereon as in Fevers Colicks Defluxions of rheume dysenteries or bloody Fluxes and pains of all sorts in all places of the body Now as to the Cordial Elixir whose preparation is with a Menstruum impregnated with vegetable essential Salts and is either red or white according to Helmont's process and not with Mineral acidities according to Crollius who falsly reports Paracelsus his Elixir Proprietatis to be made with the addition of Oyl of Sulphur besides its uses aforesaid