Vein contiguous to the part affected is opened that the faeculent Blood contained therein oppressing it may be directly and moderately discharged that thereby the residue may be more difflable and easie to be discussed Likewise when there is some muddy foul Cruor restagnant about the Spleen and Womb threatning an Abscess or some other malady c. in this condition the Opening the inward Haemorrhoides or Uterine Veins may sometime profit without dammage to the whole supposed the Physician be destitute of those generous Arcana's that are able without any solution of continuity to reach the part affected and to conquer the Disease radically by mundifying the Blood and by ridding it of that Thorny Vexatious and Virulent acidity of the Latex that oftentimes gets into it All this seriously weighed who would not avoid this Blood-sucking course and rather commit himself to such a Physician who not as a meer illiterate Empyrick or Quacksalver ventures his Medicine at random without any sound reason or intellectual notion of what wherefore when and how much of it he gives but being throughly acquainted with the Diagnôsis of the Disease is able upon very firm grounds to make a Prognôsis of it and so to proceed to a Therapeia according to just necessary and direct Indications accurately designing an Adaptation Appropriation and Adaequation of the Remedy to the Disease Away then with this detestable lavish Phlebotomy that hath destroyed more then Tobacco or the Sword together may it be banished the Court City and Countrey nor ever be depended upon hereafter in this Island or any of His Majesties Territories for the cure of any difficult Disease but let it be confined and inflicted as a feral Plague upon all those that delight in Blood and hate our Gracious Sovereign and all his loyal Subjects CHAP. XIII Of the second Supporter fruitless Purgation T Is not without great reason that excellent Hippocrates mentions one Aphorisme no less then four several times 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is If that be carried out of the Body by Purgation that ought to be the sick man findes himself the better for it and his spirits more chearful and better able to bear his Disease as if he had foreseen the great mischief that was like to come upon indiscreet Evacuation with deletery Catharticks which putrefie and colliquate the lately tinged Chymus into a faetide and cadaverous substance whereby some juggling Physicians take opportunity to impose upon their credulous Patients that they are in a fair way of recovery though they finde it otherwise sith so many ill Humours as Choller Phlegme c. are purged out of their Bodies whereas in very truth not a jot of the morbifick Cause hath been so much as touched We have a History to confirm this out of Helmont experto credamus for the worthy Author tells us that taking his leave of a young Lady holding her by the hand he caught the Itch whereupon he sent for two of the most eminent Galenical Physicians in that City to consult with for the cure of it who upon the sight of a Purulent Scab presently delivered their opinions That there was abundance of Adust Choller and Salt Phlegme in his Body which occasioned a depraved Sanguification in his Liver Upon this account after they had largely bled him and prepared the Humour forsooth with their fulsom and nauseous Apozemes containing about fifty Ingredients with addition of Agarick Rhubarb every fourth or fifth morning to the end that this supposed retorrid Choller and Salt Phlegme might be drawn forth according to that innate similitude of Substance that they would fain make us believe is between the Purgative and the Humour and at length they gave him those virulent Pills de Fumaria every third day three times which wrought so liberally that they almost filled two buckets with the foresaid Humours But hear with what event in his own words Iam venae mihi exhaustae erant Genae conciderant vox rauca totus corporis habitus concidens tabuerat descensus quoque è cubiculo atque gressus erant difficiles quia genua me vix sustinebant That is Thus at length were my Veins emptied my Cheeks fallen away and I could hardly speak for hoarsness my whole Body was wasted so that I could hardly get down out of my Chamber it being most tedious to me to stir for my Legs were scarce able to bear me up yea my Stomack failed that I had neither Appetite nor Digestion and withall my Itch was as bad as ever Thus was this great Philosopher who at first setting aside this Cutaneous infection was found Winde and Limb as we say brought almost to the gates of Death by this enormous Purgation who without doubt might have been cured very suddenly if that true peccant matter which is the principal occasional cause of Diseases and is but little in quantity had been carried off by some appropriate Solutive and the Miasma which stole in through the pores of the Skin and there settled in the innate Archeus had been mortified which course Helmont at last took for his recovery after he had been macerated and excarnified by a Hypercatharsis alwayes accompanied with a Dysphoria and ill effect This remarkable Story of Helmont the same being re-acted many thousand times since may give men a strict Caveat how they put their Lives into the hands of such desperate persidious Evacuators who cast men into Purgatory and yet never expiate the Disease Assuredly those Physicians that exterminate out of the Body good and bad at random the Cruor or good Juyce and the Scoria or Dross with such uncorrected Catharticks that are no better then absolute poison leaving sometimes an impression behinde hardly deleble seldom giving any alleviation unless as clavus clavum expellit per accidens may be very well compared to a mad person that in cleansing a foul house casteth out with the filth some of the most useful Furniture belonging to it And yet what is more commonly practised amongst the Galenists who being consulted do upon the bare inspection of the Urine frequently and rashly prescribe Bleeding and Purging the last whereof being best of the two though bad enough as they order the matter doth generally more mischief then good We speak not this utterly to condemn some moderate Evacuations both by Vomit and Stool sith we our selves oftentimes intend the same and make it our Scope but we never give them so uncorrected as they to the injury and impairing of Nature but they are such that are alwayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consentient and competent Remedies for the profligatiag the Disease leaving behinde an Euphoria an alacrity of the Patient and an abatement of the Infirmity according to his capacity Neither do we depend upon Solutives simply as sufficient to cure any difficult Disease but having often that most excellent Rule of Hippocrates in our thoughts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to carry the Morbifick matter that way Nature
till he came to Pyrotechnie wherein he laboured fifty years compleat leaving those lying Sophisms that he had imbibed contemplating things as they were in themselves Hereby he learnt the genuine beginnings of all Concretes making separation of them into their fundamental parts dissolving and coagulating fixing and volatilizing Bodies looking narrowly into the defects alteration life and death of things extracting dividing conjoyning several bodies bringing what was crude to maturation and promoting natural Causes by removing those impediments that they could not arrive at their just ends Hence he dived into the Seminal virtues and properties of things and was able to give an account of their true efficient and natural Causes bringing to light the Doctrine of Fermentation the Original and activity of Spirits with the rare Effects of Tinctures and this by Mechanical demonstration of the Fire This is he that hath plainly detected the most absurd perilous Doctrine of the Galenists proving their palpable ignorance of the Causes of Diseases and their proper Cures setting down infallible Arguments to evince how destructive their Bleeding and Purgations are to mankinde challenging them to make good what he had delivered by visible instances and examples of fact which they would never come to nor ever dared to answer him by way of confutation but by denying all that he had proposed giving him scurrilous and opprobrious language as it is their common custom when they have nothing to say for themselves calling him Fanatick Innovator Dreamer carping at any lapse or Peccadillo in his Writings with aggravations to the height hating and abhorring to the death all those that stood up in his behalf naming them Hereticks in Physick and all this gratis dictum without the least tittle of truth Thus hath this worthy man been sleighted villified and reproached for not still conniving at those capital Errours in Physick which they have greedily swallowed down without any scruple to the ruine of millions However let these pittiful Physicians rail at and calumniate this Heroe 't is our duty who have received so much benefit from him to acknowledge him our Master and to maintain his true Positions to the utmost of our power against all gain-sayers CHAP. III. Of the Abuses and disrepute the Galenists have brought upon Physick and the Reformation they have of late pretended YE have of late made a great stir though to little purpose and credit to procure a Power from the Supreme Authority of the Nation that ye might make a Reformation in this Noble Profession of Physick there being as ye say no visible means left but your selves to compass it But what was your drift in this Truly we believe the first thing next the enslaving the poor Apothecaries would have been a total Suppression of those that had opposed your fictitious Principles false Axioms and indirect practices in Physick that then ye might have domineered as ye pleased But stay a while we hope the Sage Magistrate will take it into consideration that ye are the chiefest persons that need reformation and that your Purgations need purgation they being as we can prove by matter of fact not fitting so uncorrected to be taken into the Body We hope moreover they will take notice that your Bloody course ought to be voted cruel and unchristian the Life or Soul being seated in the Blood God having created the Medicines of the Earth not Bleeding cutting holes in the Skin Blisterings and such like butchering Tortures to cure miserable man 'T is true there are sad exorbitancies irregularities and abuses in Physick but who we pray have been the principal occasions of them but your selves who have conjured up such Swarms of Quacks in every place who like Locusts eat the bread out of honest Physicians mouths by your Profane Prescripts and now you would fain lay them down but ye cannot for they are become too potent for you some of them having so well improv'd their time that they are like for ought we can see to cast you out of the saddle and to ride with Foot-cloaths themselves dealing but deservedly with you If ye had better practised the Pythagorical Doctrine these things had never been or had ye delivered your selves as ye finde fault Paracelsus Helmont and other sons of Art did more obscurely and Aenigmatically who foresaw these mischiefs and endeavoured to prevent them Physick had flourished to this day in its splendor and beauty But as ye have handled the matter every Good-wife any silly fellow may read your Dispensatory use some of those Medicines without your method and sometimes no less success yea and may laugh at some of those ridiculous Compositions discovered to them by your trusty servant Culpepper But all this is no hinderance but a furtherance to encrease your Practice as we have heard some of you say sith these illiterate Ideots do but make work for you Is it so but we much doubt it surely if ye aimed at this at first to multiply these men to augment Mortalities for your advantage it was a very wicked Design not to be endured by a Nation but if this be fallen out through your incogitance accidentally that these men have brought in the more gain to you to the detriment and ruine of the people and simply for this reason ye desire to be Arnautists or self-deniers why do ye pretending to the Higher Powers a Publick Good not likewise instruct them in some way how the indigent Commonalty may be cured better and cheaper giving us infallible testimonies of some rare Cures above others and your zealous charity for your Neighbours by abating your excessive Fees and by curing him gratis that hath faln into Thieves like the good Samaritan And we think it were but just that they who have gotten such Riches in Physick as some of you undoubtedly by the destruction of those that might have been preserved should Zaccheus-like impart a portion to those that are distressed And certainly there is now great need of this retribution and as the state of things stands another course must be taken without this costly Physick to cure the Poor of the Nation which if our prudent Senators shall please to listen to we shall in all humility propose to their wise considerations beseeching them to consider what sad consequences must of necessity have come upon a Concession to the presumptuous Desires of these men How thousands of poor People must have neglected the means and so have run the hazard of perishing having not wherewithal to seek to these chargeable Doctors for recovery the Apothecary not daring to sell them a little London Treacle Mithridate c. unless authorized by them as if their Prescripts were able to infuse new Virtues into Medicines Neither should any have stretched forth his hand to have pulled his languishing Brother out of the ditch unless licensed by them What we pray should our City have done if some Epidemical contageous Disease as the Plague had reigned amongst us sith they according to
or Hermophraditical name as Galeno-Chymists invented by your brains to blinde the world a name altogether inconsistent with a true Physician who may very well be expressed by two syllables Why hath not your Sect yielded formerly to Helmonts fair Proposal while he was alive that there might be a final conclusion of these Controversies by matter of fact indifferent Iudges appointed on both sides to give their censure Why do ye not accept of the same at this day if ye were not conscious to your selves of your owne weakness What poor shifts and starting-holes have ye found out what pittiful fig-leaves have ye joyned together to cover your nakedness and to wave this fair necessary and most evincing way to discover Truth by Action Contrary to which all your Sophistical Disputes your Paralogismes your Quirks your Tricks and plausible Juggles signifie nothing no nor your great Schollarship not rightly squared and applied to the use and benefit of mankinde and the charity of your neighbour Let not therefore any Physignathus inflatus scientia supercilious Critick chattering Linguist or one that knows how to dispute Problematically and Artificially to deceive his Brother let not such we say who professes and practises Physick being grosly ignorant of the right knowledge of things for the commodity and use of the world boast or vaunt of his glittering endowments in this kinde but let him rather lay his hand upon his heart and considering his own emptiness reflect upon himself how he hath deceived and been deceived and at length let him though a Senior for it is never too late to repent sincerely and be wise to salvation embrace the sound Doctrine of Helmont who will teach him to save mens Lives as he ought If any be so ingenious to say I have done what I can and I know no other way then Bleeding ordinary Purging and Sweating Medicines and doubt whether there be a better and would willingly learn we shall undertake to demonstrate to this man that which will be very satisfactory to him and question not to convince him if he be not notoriously obstinate of his mistakes in this kinde CHAP. XI How much to seek the Galenists are in that necessary Philosophy which directs us to the Cure of Diseases NEeds must the Galenist erre in the cure of Diseases when they are very ignorant of their Causes Their very Fundamentals and Principles in natural Philosophy being false as Helmont hath plainly made it appear What an absurdity is it to take in Fire which is neither a Substance nor an Accident to make up the four Elements and to fetch it from the highest Region next the Moon that it might enter into all Concretes and from these Quaternary Elements to deduce their four Humours Complexions and Temperaments and accordingly to proceed in the Cure of man bending all their forces to remove Qualities Accidents and Products of Diseases leaving the Disease it self behinde What an erroneous Definition have they made of a Feaver and therefore it is no wonder if they go unsuccessfully about the Cure as if there were no more to be done but to take an Indication from preternatural Heat and so to cool in the same degree for the restauration of the Patient to his former sanity making that essential to a Feaver which is but a meer product depending upon the exorbitancy of the Archeus or vital Spirits What errour can be more gross then to maintain that the natural Heat of the Stomack by means of the parts adjacent is able to alter what is taken into it so powerfully that in a short time even such hard Bodies as Bones Iron and Glass are dissolved in it which the Culinary Fire cannot easily conquer taking no notice that the Stomack of Fishes are actually cold and yet digest most vigorously Surely 't is very improbable that these men should rectifie the indigestion and defects of the Stomack that know not how it performs its office aright Hence it comes to pass that they often destroy by their faeculent Medicines the Eucrasie or Tone of that part which ought to be taken into care above any in the whole Body Analogous to Fire they have brought in an Humour called Choller part whereof they say is gathered into a Receptacle of a Bladder which overflowing and exceeding they affirm causes the Jaundies and many other Diseases depending upon that Humour reckoning that an Excrement to be purged out with Rhubarb that is of most noble use which no perfect Creature can want neither Beasts Fowl or Fish ordained by God as a special Balsom to preserve the Body from putrefaction by virtue of which the second Digestion is performed the Acide juyce of the Stomack being converted into a Saline Their ignorance herein hath produced many capital Errours in Physick which would be too tedious to insist upon From the Element of Earth they have deduced another Humour called Melancholly which they have placed in the Spleen reputing it a part destinated for that purpose never dreaming till Helmont divulged it that in it and the continuate Arteries is resident a ferment of most admirable use for the Digestion of the the Stomack which being interrupted through multiplicity of occasional Causes engender various Diseases as Scurvy Plurisie Quartanes c. which they neither know how to cure nor by their good wills would suffer others What a miserable Errour is it in Philosophy to assert that the Stone in the Kidneys and Bladder is engendred from Phlegme which they say symbolizes with the Element of Water which Humour by power of a graduated Heat but where to be found in the Body we know not is brought to that stony consistence which how to break they are altogether unwitting unless by the knife It hath been a common practice to keep their Patients some moneths to Diet-drinks of Guaiacum Sarzaparilla Sassafras out of an intent of drying up superfluous moisture and imaginary Catarrhs in the Body as if one of their strong Purges would not more effectually answer that Indication in one day better then their former course in a moneth These things Helmont hath plainly shewed to be ridiculous Who in his right wits will take these men to be found Philosophers that attribute the cause of extream thirst in a Feaver simply to Heat and Drought whereas at the same time a great quantity of cool liquor floats in the Stomack to some pints perhaps They see Hydropick persons abound with great quantity of moisture all over the body and yet cannot be provoked to sweat however they never gave us any clear Reason thereof till Helmont appeared Infinite have been their mistakes in Nature and false Hypotheses to the detriment of mans life which are sufficiently laid open by that great Philosopher Helmont And therefore having given you a little glimpse of these things that ye may conceive ex ungue leonem we shall referre you to know more of that worthy Author who hath delineated and characterized them exactly from whom we