Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	circumstance_n	good_a	great_a	254	4	2.1093	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28806	A key to Helmont, or, A short introduction to the better understanding of the theory and method of the most profound chymical physicians	Bacon, William.	1682 (1682)	Wing B374; ESTC R28334	21,246	39

and becometh fit fuel to augment the disease for all ferments make aliquod tertium quod non fuit anie either a good or bad tertium according to the strength and regularity or weakness and irregularity of the alterer What then must the sick Patient have nothing to support him Yes Spirituous pure and incorruptible substances so adapted as that they joyn amicably with the vital Spirits without giving the least disturbance intoxication or inflamation though taken in great quantity And though such things if volatile seem as a potential fire yet they quench thirst and allay preternatural heat commonly giving a period to Fevers before the first Crisis as Helmont saith Ipse est Medicus non qui expectat sed facit Crisin Which I humbly conceive they do effect as they do comfort easily and friendly joyn with the vital Spirits or at leastwise the purer parts of the Juices wherein they inhabit thereby assisting and corroborating the said vitals so as to impower them to debellate and cast off preternatural heat or rather morbifick matter the occasion thereof As for instance a Fever I know is generally taken to be an extraordinary and preternatural heat causing Ebullition or undue fermentation of the Blood But I must beg leave to recede from this common Opinion sith I am convinc'd that the preternatural heat is but a symptom not the cause of the disease which I conceive to be a contest between nature and morbifick matter each striving for victory and thereby causing a great motion in the Juices of the body which motion produceth so violent heat The vitals being enforc'd into that disorderly motion to make good their post until they conquer or are conquered I must assure you that I have ever found that the hotter a man is in a Feaver the more hopes there is of him as arguing that Nature is strong and maketh a lusty resistance whereas small external heat in a Fever argues the contrary and is abundantly a more mortal symptom We find that generally Agues and Fevers begin with coldness and shivering of the external parts which seems to me as if Nature call'd in the heat strength and spirits that us'd to guard these parts and concentred them with those internal the better to withstand the approaching Enemy and at that time we find a great drought to attend such persons which argueth a preternatural heat within occasion'd as I conceive by the contest which being over and the Spirits remitted to their usual charge they carry away with them their inflamed particles Now what should we do should we clog and fetter our Champion the vitals with nasty depauparating flegms and gross substances or should we send proper and true assistance to him I leave you to judg I desire any impartial person to observe in the Countrey where many are so poor as they cannot apply to Physicians in Epidemicks and see how many more dye of them that use the common way of Physick than of those that use none at all though the latter commonly want all conveniencies I could never observe any advantange the poor had of the labouring Yeoman-like sort of people but that at a pinch instead of using those cooling slops they implor'd some Cordial-water of some charitable Lady of the Neighbourhood or for want of that did procure a drachm of Brandy or other strong-water to support their declining Spirits CHAP. V. An account of the seeming potential fire before mention'd I Mention'd in the Chapter preceeding a Liquor that was to sense as a potential fire yet would quench thirst and allay heat in Feavers a thing I doubt the prepossess'd world will hardly credit until they are evinc'd of it by experience Of which that they may be induc'd to make tryal of for their satisfaction I shall presume to give the best account I can and offer my weak Reasons with all humility and submission for the Cause I am entred on an abstruse matter but being certain that it 's so de facto rather then it should pass without some notice taken I am resolv'd to tender my mean sentiments if be it but to put more ingenious men on the consideration of it I confess I was Master of such Arcana's before I considered the Reason of their so benign Operation in mans body When calling to mind the words of the Ancients viz. separate and unite purifie and conjoyn destroy and revive c. For 't is the Hermophrodite that doth the great matters in Nature I easily saw that all the Noble Medicines that would raise Nature to act contraries whether fix't or volatile that I knew were of an Hermophroditical composure and then I conceiv'd and still do that by such an union the parts satiated one another Of which Opinion I was so fond that with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I acquiesced in it a long time until upon farther consideration I found I had taken too short a measure to give my self a satisfactory prospect And though I saw such Textures most agreeable to the vitals yet it did not satisfie me why it should be so and then I call'd to mind the Doctrine of Des Cartes which I had read in my youth concerning the Analogy and disproportion of bodies wherein he shews that things of like Texture do easily and friendly joyn and things of inconrguous particles difficultly and disturbantly and sometimes not at all At length happily meeting with the excellent Books of the honourable and incomparable Robert Boyle Esq his Origine of Forms and Mechanical production of Forms I was wonderfully enlightned and confirmed in Des Chartes's Doctrine And then I cast about to find what Analogy of Texture might be between those Medicines and the vital Spirits And sith the vital Spirits are too subtle for the best assisted sense to apprehend I endeavour'd by the same Doctrine to trace them in the parts where they lived and inhabited concluding with these Learned Authors that nothing could delight lye easie well or long continue in a disproportionate mansion and the blood being allowed to be the vehicle if not the seat of the vitals I easily found the products not principles of the purer parts thereof to consist of oleaginous saline and sulphureous particles I was then convinc'd that a volatile pure and incorruptible body which should consist of the like particles must readily and amicably joyn with the purer and more active parts of the blood sith it consisted of parts Analagous to it Certain it is that there is no more positive or innate heat in Spirit of Wine or saline Spirits than in common Water For set them in one place where let them stand until all accidental or adventitious heat be wasted and then try them with an accurate Thermoscope and you shall find them of equal coldness If so as no one that hath or shall experience it but will evidently find then it 's plain that it 's no innate heat in those spirituous bodies that seemeth to enflame us but as their particles

Medicines ought to be condemn'd let the Reader judg either those that are half dressed or those that are perfectly ready or either those that abound with nasty excrements and crudities or those that are so purified from their feculencies that they are become incorruptible See now how the Vulgar are deceived daily taking such things as they justly condemn and contemning these noble products to them unknown which would be of wonderful advantage to them if they could open their eyes to see it and disentangle themselves from the idolatrous opinions they have entertain'd of such or such persons or methods But now you would object Why should not there be as good Medicines in the Shops as in the private Laboratories I answer first because there are no better publickly known and call'd for and for the Apothecary to buy what he cannot sell were imprudence Again Many or most of these Operators that prepare for the Shops do nothing else and know not how to go farther or if they did would it be worth their labour For what they aim at is to make great quantities to serve many Customers and such as will sell to the Shops with most profit is fittest for their purpose whereas a man that prepares for his own practice is very tender and careful in his Operations and always studying to advance them both in energy and safety for his Reputation the ground of his profits sake And truly he that hath an ordinary practice will find enough to do to procure such noble Medicines for it I mean diligently to oversee the preparation though he hath Operators under him They are things of difficult and tedious acquest I know something that I could never rightly well obtain under Sixteen or Eighteen months time But some will say What need any Chymistry at all They may as well say what need we any Cookery at all For if the things that God designed for the necessary sustentation of our lives do require a previous preparation è fortiori it will be that there ought to be the like in Physick None will agree that Wheat or Barley in its own nature crude and uncocted is wholesom yet we see when it hath past the Culinary Chymistry how delicious and nutrimental it becomes being then fitted for the digestive faculty of our stomacks How much care ought there then think you to be to prepare such pure substances as when there is a necessity may evade the alteration of a foul and depraved stomack and pass to the vitals in quantity to bear up and strengthen the Spirits until they have obtain'd power enough to cast off the sordes and repair the injur'd and weaken'd tunicles of the ventricle And if crude Wheat and Barley be unwholesom what may we expect from crude Rhubarb and Senna nay from Opium Mercury and Antimony CHAP. IX A Character of a true Medicine IT hath been oftentimes objected to me You pretend to good Medicines and so do all other professors but how shall we know to distinguish betwixt the good and bad truth and falshood in matters we are not seen in Wherefore once for all I think fit to present these ingenious Gentlemen with as many hints to distinguish by as at present occur to my memory First then Discourse the Physician and see whether he can give a satisfactory Reason on the foregoing Principles for what he is about to do if so and he be a labourer in the fire for his own practice and not for common sale for such men though they take several methods in their operations seldom or never fail of good and safe Medicine but if either of these circumstances be wanting you have good cause to suspect him if the former because if he hath it it 's not of his own acquest and it 's a rare and an unwarrantable thing for true Artists to impart such secrets to men unacquainted with their Theory and method of curing if the latter though it 's not impossible that good Medicines may be put into mens hands that know them not yet these men have and can manage them but as Empericks Secondly Enquire of the ground or the matter from whence the Medicine was made if from Narcoticks see that it be divested from all stupefactive qualities which you may do either by the first tryal on your self or on others experience If from Emetick or Cathartick drugs see they be divested of those crude and poysonous qualities and become only Cordial But of this you cannot judg on your selves for it 's possible your bodies may require purging or vomiting if so a true Cordial that powerfully assisteth the Vitals will cause either so that the same thing in quantity and vehicle vomiteth one and purgeth another doth both with another sweats one composes another and purgeth another by Urine only in short hath all the operations of Physick in it on the sick as the Disease requireth to each one 's greatest benefit yet to the perfectly well signifieth no more than a large draught of liberal Wine which heightneth a man to pleasantness not transport if from acids be sure they be made sweet if from Volatiles see they are in due measure fix'd if from fix'd see they are in like measure volataliz'd but if from the dangerous Proteus Mercury see it be perfectly fix'd and unalterable for if acids or Alcalies will reduce it into Mercury again it 's an unsafe thing Thirdly See on the experience of others and your selves that it will act much differently at least if not contrarily Fourthly Let it be such as the weaker the person is the greater quantities ought to be administred Fifthly Let it be such as though never so often taken shall not grow so familiar or habitual as all digestible things do as not to produce its wonted effect Sixthly That the Patient being recover'd shall not at all desire or long after it Seventhly Whether it be a volatile or fix'd or both let them be so truly purified as to be incorruptible and consequently indigestible Eightly Adventure not on that which is given with caution to avoid sleeping eating drinking or the like taking cold only excepted Ninthly Avoid such things as cause gripes or convulsions in the working Tenthly It ought to strengthen the weakest to go through its operation and give a sensible relief presently after it is ended if the person be capable of recovery Eleventhly and lastly It ought to be so safe as to be given to women with child or in child-bed CHAP. X. A Word of Advice to the Chymists in general THough we have so many enemies dear Brethren that one would think it were a madness in us to injure one another much less that honourable and useful Art we all pretend to yet such is the pride avarice or other depravity of humane nature that we find Judasses in our little Family There are a sort of men which pass generally under our denomination which may be duly call'd Mysochymists which have never read or are capable