Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	death_n	life_n	see_v	3,263	5	3.5236	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

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

its own passions or other external accident or deprav'd matter So we say with Helmont that though there may be millions of irritative material causes or external accidents yet the sole formal cause is the vital Spirit which either being enrag'd transported or suppressed frame diseases accordingly Patients are alter'd according to the energy and design of the Agents Now in all bodies the vital Spirit must be the Agent as the Excellent Sir Francis Bacon saith in his Natural History lib. 1. Exper. 98. being the only active part of the body the rest being but a dead lump when that is gone or become unactive absolutely insensible and consequently uncapable of Disease or Cure When this Agent acts vigorously placidly and without disturbance he doth all things for the best but if disturb'd it stirreth up such a hurry and disorder in him that he mouldeth pretern ural Forms or Textures and thence we affirm that the cause of life and health when in order is the cause of sickness and death when in disorder Now the vital Spirit is the occasion of diseases of it self as it admits of ill Impresses or Ideas by the senses from without as we see the same Spirit that is now pleasant and sedate will on a sudden degenerate into passions of different nay contrary effects according to the nature of the irritative cause from without or the diseased matter disturbing the free exercise and government of the vital Spirits within variously according to the quantity quality and texture of such morbifick matter But it cannot be said that they are first or last in point of time they being as Agent and Patient and therefore corival and co-existent though in respect of the irritative cause we compute them one before another For the vitals can be no sooner from their duty but matter will in some measure degenerate for want of its due preserver and there can be no offensive matter in the body but must in some degree affect the vitals though many times it be so little that we cannot discern it Hence cometh the insensible creeping on of Chronick Diseases CHAP. III. Where and how the Vitals do perform their chief Operation I Conceive the chief and regular Operation of the Vitals is extended for the preservation of the concrete which is by assimulating things out of other bodies to the nature of the body it inhabits Now this great work is done principally in the stomach where meat is converted into aliment and excrement and as Hippocrates saith A good crasis in this first digestion is seldom or by accident perverted in the second but never amended This is the place in which the Juices of our bodies take the main impress and are either made good or evil Pardon me Reader if for the better understanding the thing I bring thee this homely comparison I look on the vital Spirit to be the Cook and the Stomach the Cook-room or Kitchen wherein our Juices are prepared and according to the crasis of them to impress our nourishment with a good or evil texture Now if either the Cook be sluggish froward or forgetful or the Kitchen or its Vessels be foul we can never expect well dressed Victuals and indeed a bad Cook maketh a bad Kitchen and a foul Kitchen injures the best Cook Here I cannot but take notice of the vain humors of some men who cry out the blood is foul purge the blood purge the blood and never endeavour to rectifie the fountain from whence it cometh which maketh their endeavours so ineffectual The wise people of Marah threw salt into the fountain not into the Rivulets Is' t possible that a foul and disturb'd fountain can afford clear Rivulets Or is it possible that the draining of the Rivulets should purge the fountain If not away with the common use of Phlebotomy Issues Cuppings and Scarifications unless it be at a pinch to gain a little time until so potent a Medicine as may rectifie the disorder of the vitals can be obtain'd I say away with those deluding means which too often God knows by minoration doth so palliate for it cannot meliorate for the reason abovesaid that it causeth abundance to rely on them until they become incurable and sometimes relieveth them of an acute disease and leaveth them in a Cronick as too often we see in Quinancies and Pleurisies c. sometimes altering the disease from one shape to another making good Hippocrates his Opinion in one of his Epistles to King Demetrius viz. that one disease degenerated into another which I rather conceive to proceed from the defect of Art than Nature It 's also manifest that the common cure of mad people is effected by drawing away their Spirits and so making them sottish and foolish Now when the office of the stomach is well perform'd we need not doubt the other parts unless deprav'd through natural deformity or external accidents because there is no bad Chyle cometh to offend them but that being perverted the offensive Chyle that it sendeth out doth by degrees pervert all the other ferments and then we call it a high Scurvey until it hath begot daughter or daughters as Dropsie Astma Vertigo Cholick and Iliack passions c. and then the lurking Scurvey hath lost its name again and the daughters give their mother their own denominations I cannot conceive that any disease can befall a man without passion or undue digestion except it be by external accidents And truly I think a disease occasion'd by such accidents attain their height by disturbing the vitals and thereby causing a disorder'd and vitious ferment so that undue digestion though hardly perceptible at first I conceive to be the beginning of all internal diseases CHAP. IV. What is the Object of the digestive faculty THE Object of the digestive faculty I conceive to be all gummous viscous and solid bodies that are digestible or agreeing to such and such a species Not spirituous or incorruptible things which the ferment hath no power to alter These things if friendly and pure are as it were snatched away by the vitals Nay though impure yet the vital spirit doth so delight in the spirituous part of them that it immediately attracts them to himself as we see in swooning people Hence I conceive the reason to be as I have often observed that Brandy though very good in its kind will do a great deal more hurt and enflame more than duly rectified Spirit of Wine because the vitals greedily embracing the noble Spirit draws into its curious recesses upon the wings thereof foulness and lavid flegm wherewith the best Brandy aboundeth which afterwards doth grate and disturb the vitals Not that I commend the use of either for I think even the best Spirit of Wine very hurtful as it is of it self I mean to be taken inwardly if this be so what course then shall we take to restore a decayed ferment sith whatever is given that is the Object of digestion is putrified rather than digested

and is able to rend pliable Water into infinitely different corpuscles and thereby to mould them into as different forms or textures as we see in the World and as it form'd us it goeth along with us and preserveth our textures and several kinds as long as possible But here I foresee that I shall meet with an Objection of some learned and inquisitive Philosophers whose Opinion is that the diversity of Natural Operations are the products of different Textures and those Textures to arise from the Position or Figures of the Constitutive Corpuscles I readily grant them both being well assured that the aptness or unaptness of Textures make things grateful or ungrateful hot or cold to us and so of all other qualities Yet pardon me if I cannot conceive that either vegetable or animal things that beget their like can possibly be produced by the fortuitous coincidence of Corpuscles without the help of a guiding spirit nay I suppose that dead bodies would I say not could not be generated without the assistance of such a spirit also which coagulateth or mouldeth such different Textures for though there be many excellent and luciferous productions of this nature Mechanically obtain'd which plainly shew that there are such things in nature yet I hope it will be granted that they would not be without the art and guidance of the humane soul and if so why should we think that the world hath not an Aura vitalis or guiding spirit in it Now as spirits the Governours of the Sensories that have a distinguishing faculty in them embracing good and rejecting offensive things to the utmost of their power are affected so it acts for good or evil otherwise how could it be that the same Medicine which is but a dead thing of humane facture at the same time given in the same quantity and vehicle should act contraries in several bodies nay in the same body at several times nay in the same body at the same time as in Womens cases it may happen the Spirits being assisted exalted and thereby enabled to do all things for the best and to supply Nature in her several indigencies for the better and longer preservation of the concrete I could produce you many other Instances but for brevity sake I pass them by presuming that this one is enough to convince the considerate if it be so de facto ofw which I shall have occasion to speak more hereafter Now what sort of Water this is it matters not to my design sith it is enough to support my Hypothesis if it be granted that all things are made of Spirit and Matter CHAP. II. A Consideration of the Actions of the vital Spirit as tend to our purpose IF the vital Spirit form'd us according to the Omnipotent decree I presume 't will be easily granted that the same Spirit preserves us in that form and is the sole active and sensitive part of the body for having taken its flight from us we are no longer capable of Disease or Cure I shall presume to give my sentiments how that Spirit doth universally act for us and against us and thereby hope to elucidate that saying of Helmont that the cause of life is the cause of death I must first premise that all creatures in the universe are sustained by nourishment which I call the conversion of some other parts of the Creation into a symbolizing nature to the creature nourished which is said to be altered by vertue of the ferments but what nature the Leven of these ferments are is rather guessed at than known It hath been endeavoured to be describ'd by manifest qualities as Heat Acidity Acid and Alkali but the coldness of Fishes and sweetness of healthy Ventricles being suddenly and without terror destroyed overthrow the two former And if Acid and Alcali be unequally mix'd it would be tasted also if equally I could never find out of the body that it had any power to digest corrode or putrifie but is e contrà agreat preserver of bodies from putrefaction Praeternatural Heat and Acidity are the usual concomitants of Diseases and we well know that a diseased person cannot digest well according to Hippocrates's Aphorism Corpora impura quò magis nutrias eò magis laedas a Rule as little taken notice of by many Physicians as unknown to Nurses who think they can never do the sick right longer than they are suggesting something to eat little thinking whatever gross substance they take that is the object of digestion is converted by a deprav'd ferment into filthy matter fit to feed the disease for 't is not so much what we eat or drink as how our Alterative faculty is The same Joynt of meet that nourishes the well loads the sick nay will be converted into Dogs-flesh Swines-flesh Fish-flesh and Birds-flesh in a word into the several species of all creatures that will eat of it And we see the poor that feed on the coursest of fare as vigorous and as strong as those that feed most opiparously But pardon me this digression I lament therefore that so many ingenious and industrious men have and do still spend so much precious time to find out the causes of vital ferments thinking it to be so material as to be discovered by their senses whereas it seems to me most rational that that which gave us our formation should also prepare our aliment and distribute to us fit Juices for our preservation and so to unform the aliment if I may so speak it to form something for the preservation of its own concrete out of it If so we shall never know it a priori being too subtile for our most assisted senses but must be contented to guess at it a posteriori by its effects and parts it inhabits in However I confess and acknowledg that these ingenious inquirers have found cut several curious and different parts in the Ventricles and other parts of things of different species undoubtedly filthly adapted to work with to alter food of such and such a Texture to such an end But I must beg their pardon that I cannot think them the causes of fermentation sith of themselves they are but dead things longer than they are animated by the vital Spirits but conceive them as Engines stupendiously fitted for the vital Spirits to operate withal We see that creatures of different specist delight in different foods which no doubt are such that best agree to the Textures of their bodies and are most fit to be digested by their peculiar ferments Now sith it 's undeniable that we being depriv'd of the sensitive soul we are uncapable of sickness and health and all sensation whatsoever and all ferments except the putrefactive one cease though when present and active the smallest prick of a pin or any other the least injury given to the remotest parts offend all the whole body by startling the vital Spirits whose resentments of injuries and disturbance thereby cause them to form morbifick Ideas either through