whatsoever also by force shall come neere unto it It remaineth that the heart is not neither can be subject to any disease or at least not easily Yea those other men who enumerate the diseases of the heart grant as chiefely Valescus de Tharanta and the Arabians all confesse that a Syncope hapneth or else death as soone as any disease approacheth or hurt toucheth the substance of the heart also Avicen Petrus de Ebano relate that the forementi-oned diseases kill as soone as any of them touch the substance of the heart So also Herophylus coefessed that sudden death followed if a Paralysis once surprized the heart And for Bothors or Phlegmo's or Erisipelas or the like they say that they are diseases of the heart initiativè only and not subjectivè to dwell there any time And indeed I am fully perswaded that the heart suffereth a marasmus privativè by negation of due transmission from other parts rather then that marcor should follow à d cordis substantiae ariditatem for if any part have good substance in it the heart hath and therefore Hippocrates saith that quando fontes resiccati fuerint homo moritur that the Ventricles have the last humidity in them wherefore Galen seemeth to desert his Master in saying a cordis ariditate incipere malum Viz veram senectutem interitum naturalem Whereas hee should have said the contrary that the aridity of the heart followeth the desiccation and want of due transmission of other parts Yee if J may speake my mind freely Hippocrates is not to be taken simply that the heart cannot be any wayes affected but perhaps in the sense of Galen that the heart suffereth little or no paine by reason the substance of the heart hath but little sensation having but one little nerve for feeling from the sixt Conjugation and that is somewhat obscure also Gal. 2. pla 8. Or if hee meane as indeed I am sure hee doth that diseases doe not affect the heart hee is to bee understood that ordinarily they doe not but very seldome by reason of the carnous parts Cor solidum ac densum ut ab humore non aegrotet propterea nullus morbus in corde aboritur caput autem Splen maximè sunt morbis abnoxia His speech is evidently comparative else wee see very often that which hee never saw in all his long life and experience And indeed we see now very frequently the heart affected with Imposthumes with Wormes with Abscesses with Fleamy concretion both in the Eares of the heart and Ventricles yea and now with a Serpent And yet men live divers yeares with them and many other diseases both per essentiam Consensum all kinde of distempers both equall and unequall of which the Ancients have left no memory nor mention unto us with which the Books of late Physitians are repleate Wherefore the propositions of the Ancient Physitians must have a friendly interpretation or else mens hearts now a daies are more passible and obnoxious unto diseases then in former ages which by me as yet cannot easily be admitted Wee are forced therefore to conclude that the heart per essentiam primariò subjectivè may be afflicted with a disease and cause of death and it cannot otherwise be conceived seeing such creatures are begotten in it yet doubtles exteriour diseases kill sooner then innate §. 5. BUt this then begets a greater question how this Monster or such as this should bee begotten or bred in the heart so defended as hath beene said more then all the body and in the most defended part of the heart the left Ventricle three times thicker of flesh and substance then the right as also of what matter seeing that Cell is possessed and replenished with the best purest and most illustrious liquor in the body the blood Arteriall and the vitall spirits There are who conceive that pervious passages may be found for little Wormes and the like to enter into the heart but they must give a better way then any that J have yet seene doe as also the Wormes must be very little Others say that such matters are caused by the ill habit of the heart by which if they meane the substance of the heart it is not to be receaved till the heart hath beene hurt by ill distributions and transmissions which in our case is otherwise for halfe of the heart the left Ventricle the Matrix of this Serpent was solid and still good Wherefore it is not in the ill habit of the substance Others thinke that those Wormes which create sometimes the mal della luna as the Italians terme it living in the pericardium and gnawing the heart Of which there are innumerable Stories Heben flreit lib de peste telleth us one of a Prince to whose heart a white Worme was found cleaving with a sharp and horny nose Alexius pedemont anus lib. 1. Sceret telleth us of an other and so Math Corvar lib. 2. c. 28. Consult med In Stowe's Cronnicle ad annum 1586. of Q Elizabeth a matter of this nature in an Horse is recorded as a memorable thing in these wordes The Seventeenth day of March a strange thing hapned the like whereof before hath not beene heard of in our time Master Dorington of Spaldwick in the County of Huntington Esquire one of her Majesties Gentlemen Pentioners had an horse which died suddenly and being ripped to see the cause of his death there was found in the hole of the heart of the same horse a Worme which lay on a round heape in a kall or skinn of the likenesse of a Toade which being taken out and spread abroad was in forme and fashion not easie to be described The length of which worme divided into many graines to the number of fifty spred from the body like the branches of a Tree was from the snout to the end of the longest graine seventeene inches having soure issues in the graines from which dropped forth a red water The body in bignesse round about was three inches and a halfe the colour whereof was very like a Mackerel This monstrous worme found in manner aforesaid crawling to have got away was stabbed in with a dagger and died which being dryed was shewed to many honourable personages of this Realme If this Horse-worme or Serpent be Chronicled how much more may this be memorized for Posterity Or that which you have or that which you told me was found in the heart of the Lord Boclew By reason these were found in Men that in an Horse and this found by me of greater length and more certaine forme then that which they could not tell how to describe As also those peeces of black flesh generated in the left Ventricle of which Benivenius historizeth one C. 35. de abdit is in forme of a Medler upon the Artery and Vesalius lib. 1. c. 5. de humani corporis fabricâ speaketh of a most Noble and learned Personage in the left Ventricle of whose heart two pounds
and hands when first I found it But you have found one like it in the heart of a Noble Lord but when you have seen this I shall know whether so grown or of this forme or otherwise Let the Vulgar and Ignorant beleeve it or not believe it Physitians and knowing men as you do will receive it And therefore briefly the certaine History and true Relation is this §. 2. THe seventh of October this yeare current 1637 the Lady Herris wife unto Sir Francis Herris Knight came unto me and desired that I would bring a Surgeon with me to dissect the body of her Nephew Iohn Pennant the night before deceased to satisfie his friends concerning the causes of his long sicknesse and of his death And that his mother to whom my selfe had once or twice given helpe some yeares before concerning the Stone might be ascertained whether her Sonne died of the Stone or no Upon which intreaty I sent for Master Iacob Heydon Surgeon dwelling against the Castle Taverne behind St. Clements Church in the Strand who with his Man-Servant came unto me And in a word we went to the house and Chamber where the dead man lay We dissected the naturall Region and found the bladder of the young man full of purulent and ulcerous matter The upper parts of it broken and all of it rotten The right kidney quite consumed the left tumified as big as any two kidnies and full of sanious matter All the inward and carnose parts eaten away nothing remaining but exteriour skins No where did we find in his body either Stone or gravell The Spleen and Liver not affected in any discernable degree only part of the Liver was growne unto the Costall membranes by reason of his writing profession Wee ascending to the Vitall Region found the Lungs reasonable good the heart more globose and dilated then long the right Ventricle of an ashe colour shrivelled and wrinkled like a leather purse without money and not any thing at all in it the Pericardium and Nervous Membrane which conteyneth that illustrious liquour of the Lungs in which the heart doth bath its selfe was quite dried also The left Ventricle of the heart being felt by the Surgions hand appeared to him to be as hard as a stone and much greater then the right which upon the first sight gave us some cause of wonder seeing as you know the right Ventricle is much greater then the left Wherefore I wished M. Heydon to make incision upon which issued out a very great quantity of blood and to speake the whole verity all the blood that was in his body left was gathered to the left Ventricle and contayned in it * Here those men may be handsomely questioned who say that the pulse is nothing else but the impulse of blood into the Arteryes or the Systole of the heart what was become of the pulse in this man all the while that the whole blood betooke it selfe into the hâ—art here was either a living man without pulse or pulse without the Systole of the heart For what could the arteryes receive where nothing was to be received or how could there be pulse where was no impulse into the arteryes The pulse the doubtlesse â—s from another cause and is a farre other matter then most men conceive for there are in a sound man 4450 pulsations in an houre in a sicke man sometimes in some percute fevers and diseases above 35600 and more which cannot be from so many severall expressions and receptions of blood for it is impossible the heart should make compression and the arteryes apartion so often in that space Nay in Dicrot Capizant and other inordinate pulses diverse pulses strike in lesse space then the mouth of an arterey can goe much more then in lesse times then it can open shut and open againe which 3. acts are requisite to the beginning of a second pulse But of this I have largely treated in my 3 Booke De Febribus No sooner was that Ventricle emptied but M. Heydon still complaining of the greatnesse and hardnesse of the same my selfe seeming to neglect his words because the left Ventricle is thrice as thicke of flesh as the right is in sound men for conservation of Vitall Spirits I directed him to an other disquisition but he keeping his hand still upon the heart would not leave it but said againe that it was of a strange greatnesse and hardnesse whereupon I desired him to cut the Orifice wider by which meanes we presently perceived a carnouse substance as it seemed to us wreathed together in foldes like a worme or Serpent the selfe same forme expressed in the first Iconography at which we both much wondred and I intreated him to seperate it from the heart which he did and wee carryed it from the body to the window and there layed it out in those just dimensions which are here expressed in the second figure The body was white of the very colour of the whitest skin of mans body but the skin was bright and shining as if it had beene varnished over the head all bloody and so like the head of a Serpent that the Lady Herris then shivered to see it and since hath often spoken it that she was inwardly troubled at it because the head of it was so truely like the head of a Snake The thighes and branches were of flesh colour as also all these fibraes strings nerves or whatsoever else they were After much contemplation and conjectures what strange thing that part of the heart had brought forth unto us I resolved to try the certainty and to make full exploration both for mine owne experience and satisfaction as also to give true testimony to others that should heare of it And thereupon I searched all parts of it to finde whether it were a pituitose and bloody Collection or the like Or a true organicall body and Conception J first searched the head and found it of a thicke substance bloody and glandulous about the necke somewhat broken as J conceived by a sudden or violent separation of it from the heart which yet seemed to me to come from it easily enough The body I searched likewise with a bodkin betweene the Leggs or Thighs and I found it perforate or hollow and a solid body to the very length of a silver bodkin as is here described At which the Spectators wondered And as not crediting me some of them tooke the bodkin after me made triall themselves and remained satisfied that there was a gut Veine or Artery or some such Analogicall thing that was to serve that Monster for uses naturall Amongst whom the Lady Herris and the Surgian made tryall after me with their owne hands and have given their hands that this Relation is true This Lady dwelleth at the signe of the Sugar loafe in S. Iames street in the Convent Garden §. 3. THis strange and monstrous Embryon borne in the said Ventricle which as Hippocrates saith is nourished neither
ulcerous matter So likewise his bladder full of ulcer and rottennesse and nothing in his body to be found the cause of this Wherefore the sharpnesse and extraordinary heate of the blood or some such like quality was the cause of the Ulcers and so also consequently of that extraordinary production in the heart For nothing els appeareth whatsoever may be conceived And this accidentall temperament of the blood I take to be the cause of this which we found in the heart For in the heart if any where was the greatest heat and if in any part of the heart in the left Ventricle the principall receptacle of arteriall blood and spirits And I have more to confirme me in this opinion having certaine knowledge both of the diet of his Mother and Grand-mother also and of his owne Which I am not willing to make publique but to make private use of it to my selfe All which shall not by me bee intended to prejudice any other better judgement concerning other like conceits by reason that passages to that Ventricle may be sometimes pervious although very rarely But to informe you of some peculiar knowledge that I have of this mans History which may give us great light concerning others of like condition I could here discourse how the imagination produceth strange things in men and worketh not only in our owne bodies but also in hyle mundi as Fryer Bacon prooveth Ro. Bacon l. de Coelo mundo and Prince Avicen But this I will not attempt except you shall judge this Relation may be beneficiall to any and then I shall discusse it out at large §. 7. BUt to me the resolution of this matter seemeth very profitable to know how these things may be bred in men for I suppose men from hence will take speciall care to alter the accidentall temperament of humors if they find them excell in any high degree of heate cold sharpnes or the like such as have in them inconvenience and danger and to deale with learned Physitians in time So also is the knowledge of singular use and benefit to know when men are affected with any such disease and how they may be cured As for the knowledge of abstruse and secret affections where perhaps no dolor gives certitude of the place affected as in diseases by consent when some other parts are more afflicted such skill is worthy of a Physitian and at any rate to be procured But how or where shall we have it Who writeth of it Who hath so much as ever dreamed of any such helpe to mankind For mine owne part I never yet read of any Signa pathognomonica of any such disease Neither doe I know where to find one graine of instruction in this as also in divers other diseases which I can nominate more then from mine owne observation and care Wherefore if I set downe one thing which is not common nor els where to be found I hope you will take it as my good wish unto the Common-wealth of Physitians and I will lay my ground upon two Histories of mine own the one was in December anno 1634. For being sent for to a yong gentleman whose name was Arthur Buckeridge son unto M. Arthur Buckeridge now of Tottenham Gentleman who was sick of that kind of pox which our Country people call the Flocks which were many flat headed white and wrought along as if wormes had made certaine crooked furrowes among them which when at first I beheld I was very diffident in my selfe of doing any cure because I never-knew any of that disease and manner saved Yet while the friends of the Youth declared unto mee what an ingenious child and scholler he was and what hopes all his friends had of him I still beheld the variegation or vermiculation of that kind of variolae And because no Physitian in all my reading ever gave me the least light or helpe to cure them J more studiously searching the cause of their forme strongly apprehended that that outward work and waving could proceed from no cause but from putrefaction caused of worms and that God and nature did assist in so great a difficulty shewing by this external signature the internall cause taking therefore my Indicative from the Conjunctive as Galen counselleth very well J prescribed chiefly against wormes and inward putrefaction and in very short space he was restored to his health And while I write these things the yong-man whom J never saw since commeth in to my house to search after me and to give me thanks so long after being shortly to goe for Oxford Wherefore to confirme this History I sent unto the Young-mans Apothecary to see what was yet upon file to ascertaine what I say and it is returned me that two of my bils are yet there remaining As also one honest Gentleman remembreth well that I then expressed as much and told his friends that I intended to prescribe against the worms principally The other History was of this Iohn Pennant whom we dissected who was well known unto me as his friends and others well can assure it in whom as is likewise sufficiently knowne I very often noted this that he had an excellent Eye but extraordinarily sharpe and like the Eye of a Serpent and so much I have spoken of it that divers Gentlemen and good Schollers did make answer unto me that heard of his long diseases of the supposed stone or ulcer of the bladder that pains and griefes did sharpen mens aspects But finding what we have seene in him thus much shall mine owne observation teach me ever Let others doe or believe as little as they please that secret unusuall and strange inward diseases doe send forth some radios or signatures from the center Analogicall to the circumference by which we may finde the causes if we be diligent and carefull And this is that which I would commend of which I know no man that hath written one word as yet Which although at first it seemeth new yet if men will well consider it and what I shall say I doubt not but they will be confirmed that it is an accurate and a most necessary observation and a chiefe Window to see into the most secret diseases and Closets of the body and heart also And first as an introduction to beliefe what helps Physitians may have from beames and signatures All learned Physitians will thus farre goe vvith me that this vvas that admirable way of the old Magitians to find out the natures of medicines from their peculiar beams signatures and similitudes and that there is no Simple or medicine Specifical as they say or excellent for any disease or very few but we are able to make the radij or signatures to appeare from which those learned Magi did or might find out the properties and virtues of those Simples or medicines and this you know to be true and this way you all know that Sponsa Solis or the Kiramides of the Synas went as that
were capable of And for them therefore not to shew themselves and who was their Father it is impossible Coelum est in terra sed modo terrestri Terra est in Coelo sed modo Coelesti Yea even putrid humours and materiall causes of diseases as being naturall things though corrupted are good and have their beames and their signatures in savours pustles bubos spots and tokens without of divers sorts according to the severall species of the humour putrified within or from the commixtion with other causes by which a Physitian is much instructed what is within and how to take heed himselfe and to come home to the very point and cause of all this Discourse we see in all kind of Animals in the world and I doubt not but your incredible desire to know and excellent naturall sagacity hath often observed that according as their arteriall blood is exalted such radij are in their Eyes as we see in some men more then others and in Cocks and in Serpents A Cocke hath an Eye whose radij are almost exalted to the beames of the Eye of a Serpent And doubtlesse such blood had this man and such spirits of an incredible heate or acrimony The Eye is an Index animi which cannot otherwise be then by the radij or spirits of it much more then doth it shew the blood arteriall upon which those spirits are founded and thus from the Eye I have made it evident that we may know much of the left Ventricle of the heart where the arteriall bloud is elaborated and made And thus in other matters if from the radij or signatures exterior we play the good Magitians and diligently consider them I am perswaded wee may have a singular helpe and insight to cure the most hidden and most dangerous diseases of all and such as otherwise cannot be known You see Sir I have founded my sentence upon God Nature and Experience and if it be hidden or not believed by any it is to them incredible who have grosse conceptions small skill as J am sure your great insight and wisdome will and can better confirme For what is that which makes some men wiser then others Magis sapiens est dicitur qui minus perceptibilia percipit de rebus earum conditionibus saith that wise man Alkindus There is no doubt therfore as the same man saith but that they who are informed with an holy desire of wisedome will labour much to comprehend the secret conditions of things as the antient Physitians did who with wonderfull sagacity searched for that skill which we injoy As for such as are neither wise nor have desire of wisedome I leave them to Ptolemey that other miracle of knowledge to instruct the world of them Reprehendunt insipientes quod non comprehendunt unwise men reprehend all that they doe not comprehend §. 9. IT remaines onely that something be said of the cure of such Conceptions if by any Physitian they be perceived in time Either by pulsation of the heart or by any externall signe or signature or Syndrome There are some who use no alterants nor other peice of art then to kill and dissolve such conceptions and they confide in this ℞ Succi Allij Nasturtij Raphani ana.ʒ.j. detur statim curabitur So Schenckins from Stockerus Others thus ℞ Tanaceti ramulum in umbra siccatum in pulverem redactum cribellatumque cui addatur pulvis sequens ℞ Rad gentian Rad. Paeoniae longae ana.ʒ.j. Myrrhae ʒ ss misce tere cum uti volueris ℞ ℈ .j. Et cum guttula aquae ut solum madefiat misce deinde inunge os lahra infantis aut patientis ter aut quater una cum caeteris medicamentis eijcientur So Schenckins This I grant is good for wormes that cause Epileptike fits in children but for such as lie deeper in the pericardium and the left Ventricle it is not likely they will be sensible of at so great a distance and inclosure I rather thinke that the use of some oyles which are more penetrative may do more good as some drops of Olei de Sabina in aqua juventutis Raimundi or Olei ex Baccis Iuniperi ob ejus penetrativam virtutem may with some continuance or with the successe before mentioned be more efficacious But why am I so large speaking to you But to lay some grounds of future discourses with you concerning both preservation and cure of such latent maladies rather then here to set them out §. 10. Yet for conclusion I have onely this one thing to note unto the world how that these which seeme so rare strange and incurable mischiefes might be more familiarly knowne and easily cured if it were not for a babish or a kinde of cockney disposition in our common people who think their children or friendes murdered after they are dead if a Surgion should but pierce any part of their skinnes with a knife by which it commeth to passe that few of those innumerable and marvellous conceptions which kill the parents in which they are bred as your selfe with admiration have knowingly spoken to me of their infinite number which are generated in mans body can ever be found out or cured so great a monster is begotten in the blood of fooles and fearefull people which destroyeth the common good of man-kinde in a very great proportion whereas that knowledge of their generations which Physitions have is commonly from the dissections of the bodies of Noble Personages and of the Gentry who with their friendes about them have beene bred to more fortitude and are more wise and communicative as most of our medicinall histories you know confirme and your selfe likewise hath told me of some All vertuous and heroick soules know that when their particle of divine perfection is returned to him that gave it that then their bodies are to serve the universe as that pious Bishop knew who when he had given away all besides his body at last gave that also for the good of the living when it should be found dead and therefore bequeathed it to the Physitians to dissect it but doubtlesse our Tradesmen their wives and children and our sugar-sop citizens are compounded of a rarer noli me tangere when they are dead then when they were alive And though Nobles and Princes may be cut in peeces yet is it piacular and the losse of grace for ever with them if a Phisitian should but intimate such a matter as decently but to open any part of their most intemerate Impes But what good more frequent dissections might doe what portentuous matters they might discover and how facile they might finde the causes and their cure you sufficiently know and in part others may by this history understand And although the learning and knowledge of some Phisitions of our age be singular and growne to such an happy degree of perfection yet there are by dissections every day something to be learned and how much the internall do simbolize with externall as in part I have discovered and J will yet give out one illustration more let but Phisitions well note their patients complections and colours for this time I will onely speake of the face and let them take afterward if they come to dissect them notice of their livers and if they be diligent in few dissections they shall be able looking into any mans face whatsoever to know the affections very manifestly of his liver Sir under favour and with you J have thus much freedome as to tell some of my brother Phisitions and Surgions that the inspections and dissections which they celebrate over the world are not to inable men to talke of names parts and places but to doe and to be able to judge of thinges hidden and secret that they may not be deceived touching the causes of mens diseases this is the chiefest end and yet how few study out of entrailes this learning I neede not intimate unto you The wayes of nature by which operations are effected as also the continuation of parts and vessels their communication and to finde the causes of sicknesses their epigeneses their metastases their apostases their palyndromyes The wayes of Simptomes reasons of revulsions and the like are the next and so much subordinate to the other and of lesse necessity as obuious inspections shewe this to be more facile and with lesse labour to be attained then that the other therefore not being so well perfected to our dayes I have by this extraordinary occasion and out of my good wishes ventured to speake a word by you unto such as are wise in our owne profession since Phisitians should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as our dictators word is like Gods what is in us in good skill and good will for the safety of man-kinde that as it was said of his dayes so it may of ours in corum diebu raro animae descendebant ad infernum in their dayes soules seldome descended into hell if any at last forsaking divine grace shall descend yet that hell may gape a long time ere it receive them and that others may have time to shake handes with Heaven that our profession the noblest and wisest of all others I speake of professions which concerne this life onely not of professions supernaturall may still be esteemed divinest as the old Phisitians were crowned deservedly and related among the Gods above all others while by our meanes miserable men are restored to the onely blessing of this life health and as I said be preserved from that great and eternall gulph of infelicity Hell many of them not being in state of grace because sicke upon their sinnes and lastly made live till they be friends and sonnes of God and so rich as to come to Heaven our Saviour Christ crowning us with such happy mindes as to be made instruments and meanes of many mens eternall salvation by occasion of their temporall restitution FINIS