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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33709	A physico medical essay concerning alkaly and acid so far as they have relation to the cause or cure of distempers : wherein is endeavoured to be proved that acids are not (as is generally and erroneously supposed) the cause of all or most distempers, but that alkalies are : together with an account of some distempers and the medicines with their preparations proper to be used in the cure of them : as also a short digression concerning specifick remedies / by John Colbatch.	Colbatch, John, Sir, 1670-1729.	1696 (1696)	Wing C5003; ESTC R26032	33,359	174

which by many experiments I have found to be as much an Alkaly as either Crabs Eyes Corral Pearls c. the which I suppose no man will deny Now it being granted that the matter contained in the aforesaid Nodes to be an Alkaly how is it possible for this Distemper to proceed from Acids when in those very parts where the Distemper most violently rages there should be produced such large quantities of an Alkalious substance For if the Distemper proceeds from Acids as 't is generally agreed upon the Patient need not clog his Stomach with Alkalies as is generally practised there being a Remedy already placed in the part affected And I verily believe that the only reason why this Distemper has been accounted amongst the Opprobria Medicorum has been from the mistaken Notions they have had concerning it But if men will still persist to assert that this Distemper proceeds from Acids and at the same time own the chalky substance before-mentioned which is only the Morbifick Matter indurated to be an Alkaly they must tacitely believe the Doctrine of Transmutation though openly they are ashamed to own it and will laugh at and ridicule those that do But this is not all for suppose the Acid Matter causing this Distemper to be transmuted into a chalky alkalious substance the Distemper must never more pretend to come in or near the part where this substance is lodged it being placed as a Centry to guard it off Nay the Blood at times must all or at least great part of it pass through the Part or Parts where this chalky substance is lodged by which means a man would think it should be sufficiently guarded from any more growing Acid and so by consequence when the chalky Nodes are once setled people have not the least reason for the future to be in fear of the return of their Distemper The contrary of which a great many honest Gentlemen to their sorrows experience So that a man would think that these very Nodes alone were sufficient if there were no other reasons to be given for it to satisfie any man who is master of his reason that Acids are not and that Alkalies are the cause of this Distemper And if the Blood abound with too great a quantity of Alkalious Particles the giving of Alkalies must be preposterous is being to add Fuel to the Flame which instead of quenching or extinguishing makes it so much the greater It may not be amiss to take notice that few people are troubled with the Gout but those who drink large quantities of Wine or some other generous Liquors abounding with vinous Spirits so that the Blood and other Juices being impregnated with the said vinous Spirits these Spirits meeting with the volatile alkalious Salt of which even the Blood of sound People is never destitute By the means of which Salt the vinous Spirit is coagulated and turned into that substance or somewhat like it which Helmont calls his Offa Alba which coagulated substance not being capable of moving with the Blood and Juices through the small Vessels causes obstructions and violent pains and in time by the addition of other gross terrestrious Particles into the beforementioned chalky substance By the foresaid coagulation of vinous Spirits with the volatile Alkaly of the Blood may a very good reason be given for the Generation of the Stone in the Bladder and Kidneys And Mr. Boyle tells us being what Helmont had before done that having obtained some Stones of a certain Lythotomist he put them into a Retort and exposed them to a strong fire and found that the better half consisted of volatile alkalious Salt like unto that obtainable from Humane Blood and a considerable quantity of heavy Oyl so that it is plain that the Generation of the Stone is not from Acids but Alkalies From which may be inferred that it is not from the Acidity of Rhenish Wine that makes the drinking of it pernicious to Gouty People but from its abounding with spirituous Particles more than most other Wines CHAP. IV. Of Rheumatisms THIS is another of the Distempers generally said to proceed from Acids in the Blood but very falsly as I hope fully to make appear I having had to do with multitudes under this Distemper and that thanks to God with very good success I. shall not trouble my self to investigate the original causes of this Distemper which are various that being foreign to my design but shall immediately proceed to the business I have undertaken First of all Having by the fire analyzed the Blood of Rheumatick Persons I have found it to abound more with Alkanious Particles than that of sound Persons but not the least grain of any Acid substance in it from which alone it may readily enough be inferred That it proceeds not from Acids but on the contrary from Alkalies But it may be Objected From whence proceeds that syziness and viscosity of the Serum which is generally observed in the Blood of Rheumatick Persons if not from Acids For we know that Milk which is a sort of Serum of the Blood let it be in never so fluid a state by the addition of any Acid though never so gentle a great part of it will be immediately congulated and turned into Curds To which I Answer That the foresaid Objection is altogether invalid the viscousness that is observed in the Serum of the Blood being quite different from that of the Curds in Milk Though there are those substances contained in Milk that are fit to make both Blood and Serum but Milk is a much more compound liquor than the Serum of the Blood so the comparison being made between subjects so vastly different it is of no validity at all But suppose the comparison between the two Liquors good What agreement is there between Curds and a substance like unto Gelly None at all that I know of But if instead of curdled Milk they had made the comparison between the inviscated Serum and Hartshorn Gelly they had been in the right on 't for indeed I know not any two subjects more fit to be compared together But then this comparison will not in the least prove the inviscation of the Serum to proceed from Acids but on the contrary from Alkalious Particles for every body that knows what Harts-horn is know that the reason of its making a Gelly is from its abounding with volatile alkalious Salts And for the same reason it is that Calves Feet Izing-glass Ivory c. make Gellies By what I have said I hope I have freed Acids from occasioning the viscousness of the Serum of the Blood in Rheumatisms which viscosity if it can be once taken off every one knows that the Distemper immediately vanishes But this is not to be done by Alkalies that ever I could see although I have given them in large quantities But it is expeditiously to be done by proper Acids such as the before-mentioned Tincture of Antimony c. and Calibiats But

in due time confirm the Texture of the Blood and reduce the Serum to a state of fluidity by which means the Fever and Inflamation of the Lungs are taken off and the extravasated Globules of Blood by means of a thin Serum assisted by its quick motion in that part when in a fluid state are by degrees carried off and so the Pustles disappear But it may be Objected How comes it to pass that the broken Globules of Blood you so often mention come to be admitted along with the Serum into the Glands of several parts and that they cannot by the same reason be carried off to the parts designed along with the Serum or Lympha as it is stiled when it once comes into the Lymphatick Vessels To which I Answer That when they are first admitted into the Glands I mean the broken Globules coming just out of the extremities of the Arteries and being then very hot the sides of them are lax and so in some measure capable of being compressed or squeez'd together but being once admitted into the Glands the motion of the Serum from them through the Lymphatick Vessels being very slow they soon grow cool and so more firm and by reason of the different figure of these broken Globules from the Pores by which the Serum is to pass from the Glands to the Lymphatick Vessels they are not suffered to pass through with the Serum as in the forementioned instance of the mixture of Oyl and Water so that the Globules being extravasated and without motion corrupt from which corruption proceeds all the ill symptons I have mentioned to accrue from the broken Globules of the Blood being admitted into the Glands But to return to the business of Acids to confirm the truth of what I have said besides my own Observations I remember Riverius that famous Practitioner somewhere says That he hath several times cured a confirmed Pthisis or Consumption by giving only of large quantities of Conserve of Red Roses well Acidulated with Oil of Sulphur per Campanam And now I am speaking of Oil of Sulphur per Campanam give me leave to add an account that Helmont gives of it in his Arbor Vitae which altho it hath not any immediate relation to the Point in hand yet may be pertinent enough to shew the good effects of Acids in keeping the Blood in a good Texture and by that means prolonging Life and preserving us from Diseases Moses who perhaps understood the Mysteries of Nature as well as any man and who was guided by an unerring infallible Spirit says that in the Blood is contained the Life Now the Texture of the Blood being confirmed and its Globules whole must go a great way towards the prolongation of Life But on the contrary the Texture of the Blood being spoiled and its Globules broken which they are by Alkalies must in great measure shorten Life and occasion Diseases In the Year 1600. says Helmont a certain Military Man being burthen'd with a great number of small Children made his Complaint to me that he was 58 years of age and that if he should chance to die his Children must go begging from door to door He ask'd of me something whereby his Life might be preserved I being then a Young Man and commiserating his Condition I considered with my self that a lighted Match of Brimstone would preserve Wine from Corruption therefore I concluded with my self that the Acid Oil of Sulphur did necessarily so contain this Flame of Sulphur and all the Smell of it that it self was nothing else meaning the Acid Spirit or Oil but the Fume of Sulphur it self imbibed by its Mercurial Salt Last of all I was confirmed that the Blood was the Wine of our Lives and that being preserved if it did not occasion long Life it would at least in some measure be prolonged by our being guarded from Diseases and free from Pains Wherefore I gave him a Pot full of the Distilled Liquor or Oil of Sulphur and likewise taught him the manner of Distilling the said Oil from kindled Brimstone I furthermore bid him that every Meal in the first draught of Beer he drank that he should take two drops of the said Liquor and by no means exceed it I being satisfied that two drops did contain a large quantity of the Fume of Sulphur The Man followed my advice and at this time walks about the Streets of Bruxels being Sixteen hundred forty one And which is more than all for the whole Forty years he never laboured under any Distemper although once by a Fall upon the Ice he broke his Leg near the Knee yet all the time he was under Cure he was free from a Fever He continued slender and lean and although in want of all Necessaries lived to be thus Old The Name of this Old Man is John Mass who served in the Bed-Chamber of the Bishop of Ypre when Count Egmont and Horne were beheaded and was at that time Twenty five years of age The Truth of this Relation need not in the least be doubted the Man being alive and well when it was wrote By which Instance it is plain that Acids are not the Cause of Diseases but Preservatives against them and whatever is a Preservative from Distempers by the same parity of reason must be of use to repel them when we labour under them A signal Instance of which I remember I have somewhere read of a Person who purposely suffered himself to be bitten by a Viper in order to try the good Effects of Monsieur Charras's Volatile Alkalious Salt of the same Animal in preventing and taking off the Symptoms that attend the Biting of the said Creature The Volatile Salt and other Antidotes were in large quantities given but all in vain for instead of allaying the Symptoms so increased that nothing less was to be feared than the loss of the poor Man's Life To the best of my remembrance nay I think I may be positive that it was in the Wrist where he was bitten but for all the Volatile Salts and other Antidotes in a very little time his Arm was swelled so big and so high that Amputation could do him no service nay all the By-standers which were many gave him up for dead At last a certain Person advised the giving of him large quantities of only so simple an Acid as Juice of Lemmons which immediately abated the Symptoms and retrieved him from all manner of Danger We live in an inquisitive Age wherein People have more sense than to take things upon trust The obtaining of the Blood both of well and distemper'd Persons is no difficult matter and I desire no greater justice to be done me than that People would themselves Experiment the truth of what I have said And if after trial it be found that the Blood of persons in any of the before-mentioned cases hath any thing of Acid in it I will own my self in the wrong But shall never take the least notice of