Felicem illum Medicum qui novit lethalia ab Opiâ— separare cum retentâ potestate agendi in Duumviratum Happy is that Physitian who knowes how to separate the deadly qualities which are in Opium so as that it may retain its vertue of acting upon the Duumviratus For this Simple thus corrected by its innate specificated quality doth work on the seat of life pacifying the Archeus without the least stupefaction but rather keeping the Patient awake and provoking sweat either moderate or more strong as the strength of the party is and the malignity of the disease Thus it extinguisheth all defluxions called catarhs and on that score is a certain remedy for fluxes either bloudy or not all Coughs not brought to their highest exasperation or most intimate rooting in a word it resolves by sweat and urine the cause of many diseases which are not too deeply fixed and where it will not reach only a great Arcanum will To be brief many diseases carrying the face of an Ague or the like distemper may sometimes be beyond this Medicines cure yet even in such it will give ease and where it will not throughly extinguish the malady there let higher Arcana's be used Of all Vegetable remedies corrected this only that I know works by vomit which with some only it causeth the next day after its taking I usually advising it after a very light supper to bedward last because it is Diaphoretick and the next morning it causeth a spontaneous vomit with little sicknesse or nauseousnesse It binds the body for most part and so not at all times to be administred but with other advise added to supply what is defective in it 't is splenetick in operation and an admirable remedy against wind in the stomack or bowels as also against Hypochondriatick melancholy The same way Hellebore corrected is a noble remedy against lingring Quartans and so I could instance in very many Simples but that time will not permit my enlargement here Only this for a close I shall admonish that this Key being had the noble Energy of all Vegetables will be at command without the least footsteps of virulency and so a man may be his own experience with very much safety trie and satisfie himself of what my experience will not permit me to write nor will my time allotted allow me to mention so far as my experience hath gone And by the way as an admonition to our wise Masters of this science I shall mind them that in the whole Vegetable Family there is not a simple comparably so Diaphoretick as Opium which they account of all Vegetables the most cold in which let them learn from me that the Narcotick virulency may be separarated without altering the specifick vertue in the least and then it is anodynous with much pleasure to the Patient and a help for great maladies giving ease and comfort in most but prejudiciall in none save only an obstinate costivenesse it being the specifick quality of that medicine to bind the belly which it doth in most yet so as to appear like a purge to some but those very rarely In Zalap Rhabarb and all purgative Medicines so called or rather vegetall poysons it takes away the virulency totally without the least remain of the same and is then either Diaphoretick or Diuretick or rather both without any molestation to the Patient and thus a certain remedy for all acute and many Chronicall not too highly graduated maladies If any then demand of me an account of my mystery and method I answer By the Symptomes I judge of the disease and according to the strength of the Patient and the rigor of the distemper I order my medicines accordingly Acute diseases and many Chronicall not too highly graduated I cure by the Elixir of volatile Tartar alone given in Wine or else specificated with some Vegetable as I see occasion And with the blessing of God can promise the Patient cure to teir comfort and perform it to my own credit But where either the disease iâ—â—oo high or Nature too succumbent there I volatize Sulphurs by essentiall Oyls and make them into Elixirs and after give them a specification from restorative aromatick Balsoms And yet beyond this there is a way to make such a spirit of Tartar which is second to none but the great Dissolvent of which I shall not speak here having already transgressed the bounds prefixt to this Treatise and besides in my other Treatise concerning the Art of Pyrotechny it is fully handled and with as much candor as can be expected I shall at present conclude adising the Captious Reader either to mend what I have done or to forbear his censure and the studious Artist I shall advise to go on in â—is begun task with cheerfulnesse aâ—d diligence for true Medicine is a sâ—rious and weighty matter according to the Poet Facillo descensus Averni Sed superas evadere ad auras Hic labor hoc opus est FINIS Lector vive vale si quid scis rectius istis Candidus imperti si non his utere mecum
this whole mysterie Hereupon concluding what I had proved that the thing was fecible I wrote a Congest of methodical Arguments which might unfold how and here I found my self in a wilde labyrinth for I was soon by these studies brought to see the rottennesse both of Logick and Philosophy and found that he who sought truth of things there might soon lose himself This put me upon desire of a more secure path for now I apprehended before years and titles had engaged me that besides what I knew in Tongues my skill in Logick and Philosophy was not worth contemning yea nothing was in mine eyes more vile I therefore rejected Aristotle and all his fictions against whose fallacious shew I wrote with a pen dipt in salt and vinegar yet without gall a Treatise called Organum novum Philosophiae but before I could pitch on what way to turn for knowledge I desired too too immoderately I wandred through many pensive hours and waking nights till at length I got som Chymical Authors Those then I perused and noted with much diligence not so much out of desire to rifle their Hesperion Garden as to suck out of their principles some solid truth for truth I knew was uniform Wherefore as many experiments as I could try I tryed and took nothing upon any mans trust so as to build any thing on it or to draw any conclusion from it I invented many sorts of Furnaces procured what Glasses were possible with all manner of Simples Mineral and Metalline especially which I most esteemed in these I spent my time for several years and I may say without boasting that if ever any in the world were an infatigable prosecutor of experiments I was one In the mean time the Lord was pleased so far to be propitious unto my labours studies and many watchings that he let me see so much of truth as to make it lovely to me for which cause next to the glory of God I shall prosecute the same during my life Nor was this an imaginary content only but real for there is so great variety of objects in Nature which are exceedingly delightful to be understood that the discovery of any of them which is usually the crown of serious searches is more content then finding of sought treasure can be to him who in hopes of it digs the earth And although the wise man by an unerring Spirit hath laid all these things under vanity so that in much knowledge there is much vexation of spirit yet withall the Scripture teacheth us that the works of God are wonderful sought out by all that have delight in them yea and if a mans heart be not exceedingly out of frame a man connot behold the excellencies of the Creature without a contemplation of the super-transcendent glory power and wisdom of the Creator of which all things visible are but Emblems Yet do I not deny but that the spirit may be carried forth with too much eagerness after things of this nature which I have often suspected to be mine own fault but this is the fault of us that so immoderately affect the outside as to neglect the inward glory and so much admire the apparent glory of things visible as not enough to adore him who dwelleth in light inaccessible of whose beauty these are but a shadow and of whose fire but sparks There is then an unspeakable benefit may arise to a painful enquirer after the mysteries of Nature in reference to the spiritualizing of the affections since as Cicero said of Virtue that if it were to be seen with eyes corporal it would enamour the beholders it may most properly be applyed to this case For who is he who when he beholds Gods wonderful wisdom power goodness c. which all are most obvious in the study of Nature which is one of the Books in which the Almighty is discovered that will not cry out with Job I have heard of thee by the ear but now mine eye seeth thee and with David O Lord how wonderful are thy works the fool conceiveth them â—ot nor the unwise understandeth â—hem c. But considering that God hath endowed us with a Body 〈◊〉 which our Soul which is the Diâ—ine Image is caged as it were by â—neans of which we have our place â—ere among natural things And â—orasmuch as our life is laid unâ—er vanity of which our diseases â—o which our body is subject which â—re to us the Heralds of death is no â—mall part Also since man being by the Creaâ—ors ordaining made Lord of the other Creatures and these are made â—o serve him insomuch that there is â—carce a concrete which hath not its â—mmediate use applicable to man â—either for his necessity or conveniâ—ency And therefore all things are given into his hand that of them he may take for meat and drink what nature craveth for raiment what necessity and modesty and decency call for and likewise for the repairing the defects of decayed nature what is needfull therein God like a tender Father having provided for man in every respect and on every occasion I think it a great sottishness in them who cannot see both the nobleness and usefulness that the contemplation of Gods works carrieth with it insomuch that he who shall neglect it doth neglect in mine opinion a great part of the task for which he came into the world and is not to be pityed if he fall short of the comfort content or benefit that he might reap in the knowledge of the same Now that all creatures have in them a spiritual Celestial virtue I suppose there is none moderately versed in Philosophy that will deny and we shall in its place sufficiently discover which in concrete Bodies is more hidden most of all in such which are of the most exquisite composition This Celestial Spirit is that which is the life excellency and perfection of all things in which it is and though it have received in all specificated subjects a determination or bounding of its virtue yet the Spirit it self is free to operate upon other subjects and its operations are received per modum recipientis Now here is the grand fault or defect of those whose office it is more peculiarly to enquire into these things that they supinely neglect the search of the hidden spirit which is in all things by so much the more straightly sealed by how much it is in virtue more noble and excellent Contenting themselves with an overly view of the outside of things although yet they have the care of lives committed to their charge which fault as it is of high concernment so it requires a most sharp reproof For there are in Nature most noble and powerful medicines made by God for the use and relief of the afflicted which yet are neglected by such who undertake the care and cure of them and all because they are not without pains and industry attainable But go too my good friends hath not God laid this burden upon mankinde
above Art the other as besides Art But that I refer to this Art which by a natural course doth perform cures whether by Talismans or by Sympathetical remedies or by proper Medicaments either specifical or universal whether simply used as Nature prepares them or else prepared by the Art of the Physician and that either Chymically or vulgarly And yet Chymistry doth also comprehend the most absolute and perfect Medicaments besides which nothing can be desired for any disease or defect either inward or outward except those accidents which necessarily require the work of the hand as Fractures and Dislocations and pulling out of any thing violently thrust into the body of what kinde soever it be So then we need not any Medicaments which Chymistry doth not supply yet the Art requiring the administration as well as the preparation of the noblest Medicaments it followes that Chymistry is too narrow a Genus to comprehend the whole of Medicine which Art doth being equally referred to Theory and Practick And yet Chymistry is larger then to be totally comprehended by the Art of Medicine for by it are prepared Diapasmes which are in a sort medicinal and sundry curiosities some not at all referring to medicine as the making of Jemmes malleable glasse c. others are referred to Medicine and also transcend it as the Elixir of the wise the white respecting only riches the red both riches and health Yea and this supreme Medicine doth transcend the bare Art of restoring defects of nature in as much as it doth lengthen life wonderfully although I know few do believe it So then the Art of Medicine contains these branches first the knowledge of diseases and secondly the way of their cure And this also contains two parts first the choice and preparation of Medicines and secondly their administration Their administration includes a true knowledge of their virtue and so a proportionable and convenienâ— application of them in reference to the cause of the disease and the state of the Patient And this is universally to bâ— noted that the more languid the medicines themselves are the greater sagacity is required in the Theorical part and care joyned with dexterity in the practick I know that according to the received Doctrine of the Schools I should now unfold many very unprofitable questions but intending the reality of things and not respecting the empty bubbles of Aerial notions I shall not meddle with them I mean questions in reference to the definition and division and subdivision of this Art To proceed then to what I intend I said that Medicine is the Art of knowing curing and restoring all diseases and defects to which mankinde is subject to in reference to the body as Theosophy doth the same in reference to the soul so that next to it this Art hath the first place I express knowing curing and restoring not without cause as I shall by and by explain Knowing I say because without the knowledge oâ— diseases a man may be a Mountebank but not a Physician which knowledge of diseases is as it were his line and plummet by which he works By this he judges the facility or improbability of the cure for though no disease in its kinde yeâ— many particular diseases are incurable as in my Preface I touched and explained nor shall I here repeat There also I did clearly discover what knowledge was absolute and what accidental to a Physician the one constituting the other adorning him the one to be required the other to be desired in him I shall also passe that as already spoken fully to Curing is as much as to say taking care of and imploying diligence about them nor any diligence iâ— not enough or any care promiscuously for the nurse and cook c. do carefully attend the sick party but by cure or care which is all one being but the English of the Laâ—ine word Cura of the Physician is that which is intended to the recovery of the Patient and that with as much speed and safety as may be I add restoring as the grand mark of a real and true son of Art it is his diploma by which he appears to be one created of God and not by the Schools for their creatures they adorn with titles God graceth his with real abilities His knowledge is not such as he sucks from the Schools but such as is applicable to action the other being but empty shadowes of which in its place His cure and care is not consisting only in reiterated Visits feeling of Pulses and tossing of urines Stirring of Close-stooles and appointing Purges Vomits Bleeding Fonsinels Blisters Scarifications Leeches and such enfeebling Martyrdoms nor prescribing Syrups distilled Waters of green Herbs Lozenges Electuaries and such fooleries and what is more sordid he doth not oversee the Kitchin to make this Gelly or that Broth or this Glyster or the like but like a valiant Achilles or Hercules he assayles the Disease with powerful and prevailing Medicines and for the Diet he is not so precise provided alwaies meat be not taken immoderately of any sort and that diet he approves for a sick stomack which is of easiest concoction but of this by the way we shall insist larger on it in its place He doth not cowardly sum up a Catalogue of incurable diseases so that as the ignorant Academians of old had their Graecum est nec potesâ— legi so the School Doctors have a very large roll of maladies over which they only put this inscription Incurabilia sunt and so leave them with a sad recommendation to God But as the valiant Hercules fought against Giants and Monsters and overcame them so a true Son of Art makes it appear that all diseases are in their kinde curable And now my Reverend Doctors who perhaps some of you have read Galen at least cursorily and some have read Hippocrates but never understood him some have turned over Fernelius Sennertus Avicen and others both ancient and modern writers to you I speak The Art that you think your selves masters of so that you would perswade your selves to be the very natural Sons of Aesculapius what is your Art let us weigh it in the ballance let us consider it and compare it with this Art which we commend and admire and I doubt not but as a shadow before the Sun so your appearing Art before true Art will pass away Can you cure the Gout some perhaps of you will finde impudence enough to affirm it to whom I shall only object Fiat experimentum The people deny it according to the Adagy Nescit nodosam medicus curare podagram How then You can cure you will say the running Gout speak softly I pray lest some of your patients hear you and object this And why then did you not cure me 'T will be aâ— serious check But I suppose you much mistake the name and nature of the running Gout the Gout properly and truly is an Arthritical pain affecting the joynts immediately and some
many hereditary diseases and some chronical which are raised to a more then usual height to be out of his Medicaments reach which otherwise would be cured by a powerful Arcanum And here is the goodness of the most High that no man can truly boast himself to be a real son of Art but he hath at command Medicines to cure the most common and truculent diseases as for instance Feavers Pleurisies Flixes of all sort Agues of all sort small Pox and Measles which are indeed but a branch of Feavers Calentures also which belong to the same head the Jaundies Head-aches Tooth-aches with all running pains Hypochondriacal Colicks affections of the Mother and obstructions of all sorts causing indigestion Palpitations Syncopes Convulsions Vertigoes c. which a true son of art can confidently undertake and cure and though some are past recovery of life as is before said yet even to such his Medicaments will be effectual for ease and comfort and abating of raging Symptomes which is an effect not to be despised where more cannot be attained That therefore may well and truly be account a Febrifuge which ordinarily speedily and powerfully cures Feavers of all sorts at first or second dose oft times but never exceeds four daies in continual Feavers if administred in the beginning and Agues oft at one fit never misseth in three or four at most perfectly to cure and although some Feavers which have been neglected too long ere remedy be sought do miscarry yet of such not one of five of those that are taken in time not one in a hundred which doth not disprove the virtue or efficacy of the medicine I know what will be said in calumny against me though not in answer to me namely that I am an Emperick and by an Emperick they usually would have understood one who practiseth by fortuitous receipts without the knowledge of the cause of the disease or nature of what he administers and therefore shoots his shafts at randome This hath been an old reproach of Paracelsus Helmont Quercetan and all Chymical Physicians and therefore I shall not wonder if it be cast upon me But as a worthy friend of mine when a great Doctor of the Galenical Tribe very passionately reproached me to him as an Emperick and Mountebank asked him the difference between such a one and a dub'd Doctor The Galenist answered the one shot at random the other wrought according to Art and Method to which my friend replyed that to his knowledge I cured not only speedily but certainly and constantly those diseases namely Agues which the other Doctors alwaies failed in curing now if this were the difference between an Emperick and a Colleague of the Colledge that the first at randome as he objected never or very seldom missed but such as himself by Art never or very seldom hit the cure he had rather have an Empirical certain constant and safe cure then an artificial missing of the same It is known to the most vulgar and ignorant that not only Chronical diseases are out of the Doctors reach but all acute diseases also which nature doth not of his own accord cure which may appear by the effect How many Feavers do they cure certainly none if we judge that for a cure which is indeed so to be judged where the Crisis is prevented by the efficacy of the Medicine but how many in a year out live the Crisis many daies through the strength of Nature and yet die meerly through the Doctors taking part against nature by phlebotomy purging c. who is hired by the patient to oppose the disease against which their Medicines are as effectuall as the Priests holy-water is against the Devil or the ringing of Bels and mumbling a Pater-noster on their heads to both of whom I may say that of the Satyrist Ah pecus insipidum nullo non scommate dignum Siccine vos decuit fieri ludibria vulgi I have oft seriously wondred how it should come to pass that these silly Juglers should so long shuffle out since there is scarce one in the whole Nation that ever made use of them who in health hath not a flout ready in his bag to throw in a Galenists dish and yet in sickness they deifie in a manner those very men whom in health they scorned and I cannot but ascribe it to the justice and wisdom of God who is pouring forth his plagues all the world over I mean among Christians by which the third part of the world shall perish and I think in my conscience that few less perish by the Doctors craft 'T is a sad consideration that Christians only swarm with these Caterpillars the Heathens not knowing nor owning nor following their method witness the Turks Moores c. And then began it to grow to this head of esteem when the apostacy of Christians provoked God to the pouring forth of his plagues of which the most truculent of all is the Doctors Art The sword and all diseases put together destroy not so many as they namely such as by Natures strength would recover but are destroyed by the Doctors Art Without these the Romans flourished 500 years nor found any want of them Now Italy and Rome swarmes with them and never did diseases raign there as now and of all places where are the yearly burials comparable to those places where Doctors are most numerous How do they swarm in London and yet not a year in which many thousands dye not of curable diseases 'T is sad it should be so and yet who sees it not Let a disease be but epidemical the Doctor cals it a new disease although no other then an epidemical Feaver and here he is the by-word of every water bearer In Agues especially Autumnal and popular who more ridiculous and yet the people though they see and know this nevertheless submit to them and adore them in necessity to the cheating them of their money and the loss of their lives By all which it is most most evident that their Medicines are but ridiculous so named a medendo as Lucus a lucendo quod minimè medeantur which may scarcely pass as metaphors to true Medicines nor can any good be predicated of them without an Irony If we should take a particular survey of all their Medicines we shall finde them all partly ridiculous and partly desperate universally answering to their denomination as the rude painters draughts of old did the things they represented under which if it were not written this is a Dog this is a Cow this is a Stag this a Man this a Cock c. no man by the draught could tell what the picture represented so if those were not called Medicines a man should never by the effect know that they were so First are their Catharticks and Emeticks next their Diaphoreticks then their Diureticks then their Carminatives and next their Cordials which are either Hypnotick or Pectoral or Bezoardical or cooling These are indeed magnificent names let the
better retentive faculty in his hinder parts I could wish all posterior-fumblers so served to teach them a little more wit while they pretend to so much judgement and skill Purges then and justly we reject as dangerous febrile medicaments at some times or rather desperate alwaies as purges intended to the destruction rather of the man then of his disease of which not without cause said the noble Helmont Reus sim coram Deo nisi prorsus suasero à purgantibus abstinendum And as for Clysters they are the silly Non plus ultra's of our Bumprognosticators a dotage that it is enough to name it when to wit the Doctor by his information findes a distemper in the head stomack spleen or kidneys of the sick or ill affected Patient he by his profound Art findes out this remedy The Apothecary is ordered to make a caudle for the Arse-gut this luke-warm is tyed up in a bladder not without some superstition for fear some wind be tyed up with the liquor and so through a small pipe it is conveyed up at the fundament with promise in some cases of wonderful effects O brave Doctors O sweet Method This O this is one of the main pillars of your adored method and as universal a prescription as any next to diet to which it is is not inferior for its common and general application whence you may worthily be stiled the Glyster-pipe family or tribe In defence of Purgatives I know much may and will be said and that partly from experience and partly from the writing of the Adepti I shall therefore not pass over that because many ingenious men may be concerned in the Resolution of it And first for the Arcanum Corallinum which is Paracelsus Diaceltatesson and is Mercury precipitated by mean of the Liquor Alchahest and corallated by the water of whites of Egges and is purgative by siege and a most certain cure for all Feavers Agues Pleuresies c. yea the Hectique it perfectly restores as also Dropsies with all Ulcers inward and outward and the venereal distemper with the Gout c. and its operation is purgative and that certainly and constantly so long only as the patient is ill and no longer To which I answer that first it cures not qâ—atenus purging by siege for the Horizontal gold which is the same essentially with the Mercury corallated cures all the forementioned distempers yet without purgation by stool and the same doth the Ladanum or sweet oyle of Mercury which is Helmont and Paracelsus true Ladanum without Opium which is only Mercury cohobated so oft and long by that fiery liquor till it be all made volatile and then the sweet oyle or tincture of the Sulphur separated from the central Mercury is the Ladanum of Mercury curing universally all diseases in tono unisono as Helmont speaks yet without purging by siege So then this purgative virtue that is in this Corallatum Mercurii is a specifick power given to it from God by which it looseth the belly not promiscuously but only to sick parties and that only so long as the disease remains but it is not on that score that it cures the Gout Pox c. but by virtue of its resolutive power by which it penetrates all the digestions which are capable of excrements resolves all preternatural Coagulation in what place soever it is as also all extravenated bloud which after by a peculiar priviledge it causeth to be expelled by stool and sometimes by vomit which is accidental to the cure The same may be said of an Antimonial Panacaea which I know and is a certain cure for Agues Feavers and Pleuresie and is only purgative by siege for obtaining which many that I am acquainted with have been long courting Nature in vain the effect of curing such and such diseases is not to be attributed to the purgative quality but that is an acdent following the effect of cure not necessarily as its cause for the purgative virtue may be taken away in this Panacaea and it made an insensible Diaphoretick with no less success rather greater then while it had a solutive virtue Yet here by the way take notice of a true or right Purge it is not like to Scammony Colocynthida Jalap c. which intuitu veneni work promiscuously on all that shall take them diseased or no for a true Purge of which a Son of Art need not be ashamed will never purge ought from a sound body but work only on such as are diseased and that only so long as the disease lasts such is the Diaceltatesson of Paracelsus and such is this Panacaea of Antimony of which I now speak Now as concerning the purging vegetable poysons commonly known by the name of Purges their name contains a meer imposture and their manner of working deceives many and those learned and ingenious men For they by their fermental virulency do infect the bowels which being sensible of their hostility do weep forth their nutritive moisture together with the Latex alwaies at command on such an occasion which receiving the venemous impression are by the heat of the body cadaverated and cast forth in various colours according as the nature of the poyson is This with gripings of the bowels and a nauseous sickness at the stomack is the effect of the commonly named purges or rather poysons for so they are indeed and this is a main pillar of the pompous fabrick of the Galenists so adored Method For it is natural not only to the bowels but to all the exquisitely sensible parts if offended to weep forth a large quantity of moisture to wash away that character or impression made as the eyes by smoke the nose by sternutatories the mouth by Pellitory and so the stomack and bowels by Asarum Colocynthida Jalap c. which moisture is partly the Latex ready at call and partly the alimentary humour of the part offended and the judgement given upon the excrements so rejected is as sottish as if a man should throw pepper or salt into a mans eyes and then bless himself to see how they water which if let alone would have been well enough So that the matter cast forth by excrement is not what was before in the body but what was at the time made by the poyson and if ought chance to be avoided which was before excrementitious it is by meer accident it being the nature of the poyson given to work only on what is vital with which if ought that was offensive be cast out let not the Doctor boast of that for being but accidental and so hazardable so great mischief as is threatned by giving poyson into the body is not to be adventured in hopes of a casual good But moreover I shall give the studious Reader to understand that in many vegetable Simples under the mask of virulency great and noble virtues are hidden which are kept by the poysonous appearance from rash hands as the apples of the Hesperides were feigned to be