has been familiarly taken notice of and discoursed by the Physitians which has not been long the name has from them been deriv'd down to the Nurse-keepers and Searchers and is grown so common in their mouths that Diseases which either they understand not or have a mind to conceal are now often given in under the name of the Scurvy The Rickets is I think very rightly supposed by the Learned Doctor Glisson to be a Disease wholly new and to have had for one of its chief its procatactick Causes the Peace Security and Plenty which the Nobility and Gentry of this Nation had long enjoyed immediately before the first breaking forth of it Glisson de Rachid p◠241. From whence they had addicted themselves to a more soft delicate and debauched way of living and by that means contracted a constitution of body more effeminate flabby and unfirm than their Ancestors who by continual Toils Wars Dangers and other Manly Exercises not only preserved their own strength of body and generosity of mind but also deriv'd it entire to their Children But I do not find that it is observed by any able Physitian That the face and appearance of it is in the least altered from that in which it discovered its self at its first eruption neither is it entered into any stricter complication with the Pox and Scurvy than formerly Glisson de Rachid c. 20. These being Diseases as Doctor Glisson himself tells us very little a-kin and only by accident sometimes meeting in the same body For the increase of the Consumption in the Bills of Mortality Mr. Grant himself gives so sufficient a Reason that we need go no farther to enquire the cause of it nor to ascribe it to the alteration in the nature of that Disease since he affirms That almost all who dye of the French Disease are put into the Bills of Mortality under the name of Consumption For upon enquiry he sayes he found That all mentioned to dye of the French Pox were returned by the Clerk of St. Giles 's and St. Martins in the Fields dead of the Consumption from whence he concludes Grant Bills Mortal c. 3. That only hated persons and such whose very Noses were eaten off were reported by the Searchers to have dyed of this Malady The Stopping of the Stomack I can imagine to be nothing else but the Disease which Physitians call Asthma or Dyspnaea because I find not the least mention of this very frequent Malady in the Weekly Bills and that I observe there is nothing more usual with the Vulgar in their complaints to Physitians than to assign those Distempers to their stomacks which properly belong to their Lungs The Rising of the Lights is I think truly enough believed by M. N. to be that frequent Symptom which is vulgarly called Suffocatio uterina or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And I am not of Opinion that that Suffocation is only the proper affect of Women and that solely it is caused from the disturbance of the Womb For I have seen some men very much troubled with a rising up in their Throats and especially in Hypocondriacal Distempers no less apprehensive of being choaked than Hysterical Wo It is worth the taking notice of in this place that the Author of Medela who everywhere else inveighs so bitterly against the Aristotelean and Galenick Philosophy when he pretends to give some account of the reasons and causes of these Symptoms for want of truer apprehensions of his own shelters himself under the very weakest and most exploded part of that Philosophy And flies to the pitiful and jejune notions of Vapors raised in the Lower-belly especially about the Spleen in the stomack and about the Midrif and in the Cavity of the Omentum which must needs whilst they continue there hinder the free motion of the Midrif And a little farther that there may be no scruple left of his Ignorance in Anatomy he acquaints us with the playing of the Scorbutick malignant Vapors through the Veins and Arteries to the Lungs and by communication thence to the heart Which Opinion is so contrary to the Doctrine of Circulation that there is scarce a Butcher who is not able better to inform him and he may learn at every Shambles for 't is not fit he should prophane a Theatre that not one drop of blood enters the Lungs before it has passed the right Ventricle of the heart And now by reason this is a Subject very well worthy of a more accurate Disquisition and the Account which M. N. has pretended to give seems very lame and unsatisfactory I will beg leave to digress and offer some apprehensions which I have concerning the Hysterical Passion and other Distempers which seem to come very near it and agree in many of the Symptoms and Accidents A Digression concerning the Hysterical Passion THough the Disease called Hysterica Passio be by almost all Authors treated of as only peculiar to Women and proceeding only from the distemperature of the Womb yet as I have before observed it may upon grounds drawn from Reason and Experience be very truly affirmed That Men also are liable to most of the Symptoms of it and that even in Women they are often caused when the Womb is not in the least concern'd in the guilt And the reason why this Sex is more frequently than that other afflicted with this Malady may very well be ascribed to their more delicate constitution and soft texture of their nervous parts whereby they become more liable to convulsive motions and upon the vellicating and twitching of any one part endued with exquisite sense to have Convulsions communicated to the whole nervous System from whence the whole frame of the Body is put into disorder as we see Clocks and Watches whose Springs and Wheels are contriv'd with too subtil and nice workmanship are oftner in fault than those of more plain work For the better understanding of the Nature of this Disease and of the Causes from whence all the Symptoms do flow it will not be improper to give those Descriptions of it which are delivered by Authors and of the Accidents which in some particular persons have occurr'd to my own observation The Paroxysms or Fits of this Disease in some move regularly and return at certain set-times in others are uncertain and wandring Some persons they invade in an instant in others they give notice and warning by certain signs which forerun the Fit and are a Prologue to the Tragedy As a dulness of Spirits Laziness Faintness Paleness of Face Sadness of Countenance The Parties press their Belly with their hands and perceive something to rise up to their apprehensions as big as a Cannon-Bullet their Legs fail them and tremble they find something rise up to their Throat ready to choke them Then they grow drowsie lose their understanding some laugh others weep some do both Besides they find a gnawing pain at the mouth of their Stomack a loathing of Meat
Domini 252. there was so universal a Pestilence that no Province in the World was free from the same These Instances sufficiently consute Helmont whom I will dismiss with Mr. Boyle's Censure of him in his Preface introductory to his Sceptical Chymist of whose Ratiocinations sayes that Learned Gentleman not only some seem very extravagant but even the rest are not wont to be as considerable as his Experiments In the next place M. N. tells us Me. Med. p. 166. That the French Spirit called Lues Venerea haunts not only the inward parts of Men but the outward also appearing in the form of Vlcers hard Bumps in the Flesh inflamed Tumors purulent Apostemes as also renders Wounds hard to be cur'd insomuch that the best Chirurgions do complain with admiration That of late even the slighter Wounds will hardly yield to the usual Remedies so that there is need of a new foundation for Chirurgery as well as Physick And the better to prove this he acquaints us That in the Year 1661. he himself had a hot fiery Impetigo which ran through his Beard round like a Red Half-Moon from one Ear to the other and after all manner of Vnguents Waters Lotâ—ons c. used for Twelve Months in vain he devis'd a Scorbutick Liquor and infus'd in it a Mercurial Powder which only by wetting the part therewith slightly with the top of his Finger twice a day took it instantly away But to what purpose is this Story of the Beard and Ears since it proves nothing but that the French Malady was got very near his Nose and that his Ears which he has so often forfeited are still upon his Head I know well that Bodies infected with the French Disease do usually break out in Bumps Ulcers Sores and Apostemes which do not yield to ordinary Remedies and only to such as do specifically respect the poyson of that Distemper But the question in Dispute is Whether all sound Bodies which never have contracted any Venereal venom by gross and corporeal Contact are notwithstanding so infected by the wandring Steams or Atoms of the Pox that as much as a Cut-finger or Broken-pate cannot now adayes be cured without the assistance of Antivenereal Remedies and as to this Point M. N. has not in the least prov'd it or by his Beard shew'd himself to be a Philosopher I come now to the Scurvy which I willingly grant may be often complicated with other Diseases and indeed it must be confessed that most Fevers which invade English Bodies towards the declination when the deflagration of the Blood is over and the Mass is left impoverished of its Spirit and richer part do leave the Blood in almost a necessary tendency and disposition to the Scurvy And therefore judicious Physitians very usually after the Crisis is over have recourse to Antiscorbutical Remedies as the Salts of Plants the acid Spirits of Minerals Preparations of Steel Juices and Extracts of Vegetables and the like by which the languishing Ferments of the Bowels are reviv'd and the Spirits of the Blood quickned and restored and the mixture of the Chyle with the old stock of Blood the better and more orderly performed But to make the Pocky and Scorbutick Ferment in all Diseases as general a Refuge and Sanctuary for Ignorance as the Devil and Occult qualities among the vulgar renderers of causes is very unworthy of a Philosopher and will at length so much debauch that most significant term of Ferment that it will bring it into discredit with enquiring men who cannot permit themselves to be satisfied with words except something be represented by them For in good earnest I do not see how M. N. has better explained the Nature of the Disease which he has treated of by the word Ferment and other terms insignificant as he uses them than if he had fled to the Asylum Ignorantiae Occult qualities For there is not one question you can ask him in Physick concerning the cause of any Disease or Symptom but he is presently ready to answer That it flows from a Combination with a Pocky and Scorbutick Ferment A very compendious way indeed of being a Philosopher but no whit more satisfactory in Physick than Bellarmine Thou lyest in answering all the difficulties and objections in Divinity CHAP. V. THe Third Point from whence M.N. inferrs That all Diseases are altered from their ancient state and condition is forsooth Vermination or breeding of Worms and he pretends That in these dayes they are more frequently appearing in all manner of Fevers and other Diseases than in former time and his Reason is Because by the intermixture of the Pocky and Scorbutick Ferments Humors are more vitiated and a more poysonous putredinous disposition or corruption is introduced into mens Bodies than was wont to be in elder time But that this is no new thing that it is not more frequent in Diseases than formerly or happens upon any score of the Pox or Scurvy the Authority of the Ancients the enquiry into the reason of the production of those Animals and the observation of their Generation throughout all the Families of Nature will evidently discover First then as to the Authority of the Ancients Hippocrates Galen and other Writers do not only treat of three sorts of Worms which are usually generated in the Guts but they have likewise some cases of Worms which in these days rarely have occurr'd to observation For Example Hippocrates treats of Worms being generated in Children whil'st they are in the Womb which is seldom taken notice of by Modern Writers Plutarch gives an Account of a young man at Athens Plut. 8. Symp. who voided Worms mingled with his Seed Alsaravius in his Chapter of the Cough Alsarav Cap. de Tussi treats of Animals generated in the Lungs as one cause of it And without doubt they may often be the cause of the Consumption and Ulcers of that part though I have not met with any Modern Writer who takes notice of it except the Learned Muffet who quotes a Story out of Hieronymus Gabucinus of a Lady Who spit up a Lump of Phlegm in the middle of which there was a Worm The same thing hapned not long since to a learned Friend of mine who affirm'd to me That having an untoward Cough he began to be very suspitious of his Lungs and being himself a Physitian to use those Remedies which he judged most fitting And one day observing diligently his Spittle he observ'd a Red Spot to move in the midst of a Clot of it which when he had disengag'd from the slimy Phlegm which encompassed it he discovered to be a long Red Worm with many Feet After this he Coughed up another of the same kind and then grew very well and has since continued free from his Cough There was a Disease of Worms amongst the Ancients though in their Times and Countries the Scurvy and Pox were not stirring which is seldom to be met with in our Age it was called by
pag. 40 All the Symptoms of that Disease easily deriv'd from thence pag. 40 41 Men fall into the Scurvy after Fevers by reason of the wasting of the volatil Salt of the blood in them pag. 41 The Vrin of healthy and young men abounds much more with volatil Salt than that of aged and sickly persons pag. 41 The Air in the Northern Countries abounds with fixed Salt and disposes the blood to the Scurvy pag. 41 42 Respiration necessary to life for the drawing in of Nitre to keep afâ—ot the Fermentation of the Heart pag. 42 There is a great difference in Nitres pag. 43 The Specificks for the Scurvy perform their effects by their volatil Salts ib. Why it is increased in the Bills of Mortality pag. 44 The Rickets a new Disease ib. The Reason of its first breaking forth in England pag. 45 Not altered since pag. 45 Not akin to the Pox and Scurvy ib. The Reason of the increase of the Consumption in the Bills of Mortality pag. 45 46 The stopping of the Stomack the same with the Asthma ib. The Rising of the Lights the same with the Suffocatio uterina ib. Men as well as Women subject to the Disease call'd the Hysterical Passion pag. 48 Why Women are more frequently troubled with Fits than Men. pag. 49 The Hysterical Passion described pag. 49 50 The Causes of this Disease and its Symptoms according to the Ancients pag. 51 They are rejected pag. 51 52 The Causes assigned by Dr. Highmore pag. 52 53 Reasons why they are insufficient pag. 53 54 55 56 The animal Constitution is primarily affected in this Disease ib. The motion of the Heart is caused by the animal Spirits pag. 57 An Experiment to prove it pag. 57 58 The Hysterical Symptoms are Convulsive motions pag. 58 The Nature of the Seed pag. 59 A nitrosulphureous Spirit the Author of all Generations pag. 59 60 61 How the Seed is made in Men and other Creatures out of the Blood pag. 61 62 How the Seed may cause the Hysterical Passion pag. 62 63 64 How a defect in the uterine Ferment may cause Hysterical Fits pag. 64 65 A suppression of the Menses often causes them ib. Ill Humors flung upon the Brain and nervous parts will cause them ib. Some other causes of them pag. 66 The Cause of the Rising of the Mother pag. 67 68 CHAP. III. THe Pox and Scurvy cannot alter all Diseases from their ancient state and condition pag. 70 The Pox and Scurvy not infectious at a distance pag. 71 Blood-letting in Agnes and Fevers in the Northern Countries is justified pag. 72 Dr. Harvy 's Opinion of it pag. 72 73 In the Rheumatism Blood must be taken away ten or twelve days together pag. 74 A mad Woman cur'd by being let blood seventy times in one Week ib. The Liver is not the shop where blood is made pag. 75 The use of it is to separate Choler and how that is perform'd pag. 75 76 77 How the Chyle is turn'd into blood pag. 77 78 The Heart the chief shop where the Chyle is turn'd into blood pag. 79 80 The innate Spirits Salts or Ferments of the Heart are the makers of blood pag. 80 The Fermentation of the blood in the Heart compar'd to the Ebullition which is caus'd when Spirit of Nitre is poured upon Butter of Antimony pag. 81 Of Colour pag. 81 82 How Colours are produced ib. New Colours are produced by mingling things which ferment with one another ib. Two wayes of producing a red Colour in Bodies by the action of Heat upon them or by the addition of Salts pag. 83 84 Phlebotomy is very necessary in many Sâ—orbutick Affects pag. 84 85 How purging Medicins perform their effects pag. 85 86 The Pox and Scurvy are not communicable at a distance and without Corporal Contact pag. 87 Whatever infects or poysons by immediate Contact must not necessarily work the same effect at a distance ib. Instances to prove this Assertion pag. 87 88 A Plague in Moravia which only infected those persons who were Cupped and Scarrified pag. 88 A strange Poyson us'd by the Huntsmen in Spain made of the juyce of White Hellebore pag. 89 90 An account of the Original and spreading of the Pox out of Guicciardin pag. 91 92 93 That the Pox infects not at a distance is argued from the Cure of it pag. 94 That the Scurvy infects not at a distance is argued from the Nature and Formality of it pag. 95 96 CHAP. IV. THe Pox and Scurvy are not complicated with all Diseases pag. 98 69 The Pestilence is not from a Complication with the French Ferment more frequent and violent now than in former Ages pag. 99 100 Instances of many depopulating Plagues in former Ages pag. 100 101 CHAP. V. WOrms are not more frequently appearing in Fevers and all manner of Diseases in these days than former pag. 105 As strange Cases of Worms observed by the Ancient as Modern Writers pag. 106 Worms generated in Children in the Womb observed by Hippocrates ib. In the Seed by Plutarch ib. In the Lungs and treated of as one cause of a Cough by Alsaravius pag. 106 107 The Drancucula of the Grecians and Vena Civili◠〈◊〉 Medena of the Arabians what kind â—â—â—â—sease pag. 107 108 Animals generated under the Skin observ'd by Aristotle ib. The Lady Penruddock kill'd by that Disease pag. 109 Worms ingendred in Metals Stones Fire and Snow the Bladder of Gall Vinegar pag. 111 Worms bred in all sorts of Animals not subject to the Pox and Scurvy pag. 112 Worms bred in Mill-stones pag. 113 A live Toad found in the Center of a huge stone ib. The Cause of the Production of Insects in Mans body pag. 114 Why they often accompany putrid Fevers pag. 114 115 Why Children are usually troubled with them at the time of their breeding Teeth ib. Insects produc'd by their seminal Salts pag. 116 A Disease in Germany and Hungary which the Polonians called Stony Robac and the Germans Hauptwurn pag. 117 The Seminalities of Insects may be conveyed into our Blood in our meat drink and air pag. 118 The manner of infection from the Plague is better made out by the figure and motion of Atoms than by Kirchers animated Effluxes pag. 119 120 Kirchers notion not conduciâ—â—e to the practise of Physick pag. 120 An account of the Plague given by Gassendus pag. 122 123 The comparison of Runnets coagulatiâ—â— Milk servâ—â— very well to explain how the Pestiâ—â—â—â— infects tâ— Blood and Air pag. 12â— The spots in the Plague are quar'd flakes of Blood pag. 124 CHAP. VI. MAny Maxims in Physick will remain truth the Worlds end They are grounded upon Experience and were in use long before the notions of Causes were invented pag. 127 Doctor Willis his opinion as to this point pag. 127 128 What Medicins are to be accounted Secrets pag. 129 Medicins the products of Chance not Invention pag. 130 131 132 CHAP. VII VVOrds imposed by the first Inventers of the Art
Sennertus in this point though he himself be plain M. N. either through Ignorance or want of Sincerity has falsly render'd him for in that place where he sayes Plurimae Febres quae hic aegros infestant omnes notas febrium a Graecis Arabibus descriptas non obtinent it is manifest that the Particle hic does not relate to time but place and that Febres is not to be Translated Agues but Feavers in general for it immediately follows Senâ—ert pr. l. 3. p 5 Sâ—ct 2. c. 4. Sunt autem Febres eae varii generis quandoque enim sunt lentae continuae quandoque intermittentes Sennertus in this place discourses concerning the Feavers of Scorbutical persons and the degenerating of Feavers sometimes into the Scurvy in that part of Germany wherein he liv'd But his Design is not in the least to prove as any man may find who will consult him That Diseases of late in general and much less Agues in particular have been wholly altered from their former Nature and are grown incurable by those methods by which they formerly were mastered As to Blood-letting which M. N. so much condemns in the Ancients and will not admit of in putrid Feavers I must tell him he will make foul work with his Patients if he be so sparing of his Launcet For it is known to all the World and confirm'd by the experience and practice of both ancient and modern Physitians That in putrid Feavers Phlebotomy is one of the greatest and most effectual Remedies without which the practice of Physick in Feavers cannot but be most lame and imperfect and as to his Objection against Aâ—icen for commanding Bleeding when the Urine is thick and red I know in many cases it is to be justified but it must be ordered by a more judicious Physitian than M. N. who does not at all distinguish between the times of a Disease nor for any thing I can perceive know a water highly tinctur'd by a dissolution of abundance of the Sulphur which is fired in the Feaver from the water of one who is Scorbutical which often without a Feaver acquires a colour intensely red from a large quantity of lixivat Salt I doubt Bleeding was untimely administred to those whom he observed to grow so much worse after it either in the state or declining of the Disease or when the mass of blood was low and poor and the body cachectical in which cases Galenists themselves forbid Bleeding If he consult the Learned Doctor Willis he will find him tell him Willis de Feb. c. 11. That at the beginning of a continual putrid Feaver care is to be taken that the Feaver be immediately extinguished that a stop should be given to the farther inflaming of the fired parts of the Sulphur To which end Blood-letting is in the first place most conducible for by this means the Blood is eventilated and the Sulphureous Particles which were got into a body and ready to burst into a flame are dispersed as when a new Hay-reek is preserv'd from burning which is just ready to be on fire by flinging the Hay abroad and laying it open to the Air. And in intermittent Feavers he tells us That by bleeding Willis de Fâ—b c. 4. the blood is cool'd and reduced to its natural temper and he instances in a young man of a cholerick Constitution in a Tertian whom being not able to bear Vomiting he cured by Bleeding But of this Subject enough at present since I intend in another place to handle it more fully But now Risum teneatis amici Enter M. N. upon the Stage Out-quacking Scoto Mantuano in Ben. Johnson and that he may recommend himself to the shrivel'd Sallad-eating Artizans accosts them with this most elegant piece of Mountebankry which though I suppose it be to be met with set out for the better advantage with Teeth and Scarlet at the corner of every street I will take the pains to Transcribe out of his learned Writings Forasmuch as abundance of People grow sickly and languish under the appearance it may be of a Consumption a Gowt a Dropsie an Ague a slow Feaver and sometimes an acute one Sore-eyes Green-sickness and indeed of all manner of Diseases which when the other ordinary means have been long used in vain have at length been relieved by an orderly use of such antivenereous Remedies as I have on purpose invented the Nature whereof is to fight against Humors both great and small in old or young which have been any way touched with the venereal tincture either through their own default or by Sigillation of thâ—se seminal Principles which contribute towards the Being of Mankind in the Act of Generation Et a tergo nondum finitus Orestes And at this rate he goes on in commendation of his Secrets in comparison of which No Indian Drug must ere be fam'd Tobacco Sassafras not nam'd Ben. Johns Foxe Nor yet of Guaicum one Small Stick Sir Nor Raymund Lullies great Elixir But I will have done with his Buffoneries and pass to discourse more seriously of the Scurvy which Disease without being guilty of a Heresie in Physick I am very apt to believe to have been as ancient in Britany and other Northern Maritim Countries as the very first Inhabitants and that ever since men were mortal and subject to Diseases the Climate and temperature of the Air in these Countries did dispose the blood and humors of those who breath'd it to that Dyscrasie or ill temper which we now call the Scurvy and so rendered it a malady Endemial to the people That this Disease is the same with the Stomocace and Scelotyrbe of Pliny seems very evident for that Author tells us That 〈◊〉 cure of that Distemper was performed 〈…〉 called Britannica which they of 〈◊〉 where the Romans were encamped shewed to the Souldiers and that this Britannica was Scurvy-grass and named either from the Brittains teaching the Germans the use of it or from the quantity which grew in Brittany is most probable For Mr. Caenbd Brit. Kent Cambden in his Britannia observes it to grow very plentifully in the Marshes of Kent and affirms That it was the opinion of Physitians that that was the Brittannica of Pliny Sennertus is positively of the Opinion That the Stomacace Sâ—nnert pr. l 3. p. 5. Sâ—ct 2. and Scelotyrbe of Pliny are the very Scurvy for that even in the same place where Caesar then incamped that Disease is now very frequent and most easily contracted and propagated and he doubts very much whether Pliny did rightly assign the cause of those Symptoms which afflicted the Roman Souldiers in their Mouths and Legs to be the drinking of the water since that now in Germany there is no Fountain known to be indued with such a power or property and that Pliny himself writes That they did not presently but after two Years fall into this Disease which more probably was caused by their ill Diet and the natural disposition
and contagion of the place with which the Romans being altogether unacquainted knew not what else to assign for the cause of this Distemper except the drinking of the water the impurity of which I confess might possibly concur in corrupting of the Blood and producing the Scurvy That the Scurvy was anciently Endemial to the more Northern parts of the World and consequently of no new upstart Original may be farther argued from the very nature and formality of that Disease and the common general cause which produces it That the Scurvy consists in the Bloods being degenerated from its spirituous Balsamick and volatilized condition into a salt sharp and austere Liquor wherein the volatil Spirits are either evapotated or deprest and the gross Salts either being disjoin'd from the rest of the Principles run together and are said to be in the state of Fluidity or continuing only their Combination with the earthy parts of the Blood render it wholly fixed and unactive in which states it becomes either sharp and eager like Vineger or dead and flat Sâ—nnert 〈◊〉 l. 3 â— 5 Sâ—ct 2. c. 2 like decayed Drinks is the Opinion of Sennertus and Dr. Willis de Feb. c. 1. Willis those Learned Authors And indeed I do not find that any Hypothesis gives so satisfactory an account of the Phaenomena and Symptoms of that Disease as this by them assigned for if we run through the affections of the animal the vital and the natural Faculties from whence Eugalenus and other Writers have drawn all their Diâ—gnosticks we shall find they may be all very naturally derived from the Saline Dyscrasie of the mass of Blood whereby it is rendered unfit to separate the heterogeneous Particles both of the alimentary juyce which is perpetually supplied from the stomack and of the Air drawn in by the Lungs which though it furnish the Blood with a Nitre most necessary to life yet oftentimes it comes impregnated with Atoms very destructive to the Being of Man which if they be not seasonably exterminated and separated by the active and volatil spirits of the Blood in time easily corrupt and destroy the temper and mixture of that Liquor Hence disorderly Fermentations Obstructions Spontaneous Weariness Difficulties of Breathing Varieties of Pains Defects in Motion Palpitations Giddiness Paralytical Affects Spots Scurfs and many more Distempers reckoned up in Eugalenus and other Writers which of necessity must afflict the body of man when the blood is once become unfit to maintain a regular flame in the heart and duly to supply the nervous parts with a soft juyce and well rectified animal spirit Wherefore I make little question but that even in the time when Julius Caesar invaded this Island a man who had been long sick of a Quartan or tedious Feaver especially towards the Sea-Coasts must in time have grown Scorbutical For in long sickness the volatil Salt of the blood is much wasted as appears from Mr. Boyle's Observation in his Essay of the Unsuccessfulness of Experiments That Chymists assure him Mr. Boyle's Ph. Essayes who have occasion to distill it in great quantity that they find a notable Disparity betwixt Vrines that of healthy and young men abounding much more with volatil Salt than that of sickly and aged persons And though in Spain Italy and other warm Countries men do not after tedious Feavers and Quartans notwithstanding the volatil Salt of their blood must be allowed to be confiderably wasted usually fall into the Scurvy yet the Air in these Northern parts of the World Gâ—ssâ—nd Epicur Philos Metcor abounding with fixed Salt to which Gassendus ascribes the freezing and â—ongealing virtue of the Wind is apt to dispose and alter the blood into the same temper if it be not furnished with a sufficient quantity of volatil Salt to maintain its own Liquor from too much fixation and to subdue and volatilize those Salts of the Ambient Air which the Lungs perpetually draws in andmingles with the mass of blood For that Respiration is necessary to life not upon the score of cooling the blood and Heart since then Fishes might live in water which is colder without Air which yet many of them cannot do but for the drawing in of Nitre to keep afoot the fermentation of the Heart Ent. Apol. pro Circ p. 98. is the Opinion of the Learned Doctor Ent and other sound Philosophers And Fernelius is inclinable to that Opinion Fernel de Calore innat p. 4. c. 2. where he sayes Si nulla in nobis esset tenuis spirituosa substantia vix ulla profecto nos ad inspirandum necessitas impelleret Now if this be true as is most probable I suppose the Air in the Countries which are infested with the Scurvy to afford a Nitre to the blood less pure and volatil and more infected with adventitious Salts than that which is breathed in Countries free from that Distemper That there is this difference in Nitres Mr. Boyle observes Mr. Boyle's Phi. Essayes and that the Salt-Peter of East-India is much to be preferred before that of Europe and that Barbary Niter before it is refin'd abounds very much with an adventitious Salt which tastes much like Sea-Salt From which difference of Niters in the Air I conclude That the firing of the blood in the Heart and the fermentation of it afterwards in the Vessels may be so diversified as to cause all the Symptoms observable in the Scurvy It is farther to be Noted That the chief Specificks used in the cure of this Disease are such which perform their effect by the volatil Salt with which they abound and with which they impregnate the flat and languishing blood such are generally all things which strike the Tongue and Nose with a quick smart and brisk taste and smell which though they for the present give relief and change the habit of the body to the better yet do they seldom make so perfect a cure but that upon the intermission of the use of them the Air by its ill Impressions reduces in short time the blood to the Scorbutick or Saline Dyscrasie from which it is no longer able to defend its self than it is inspired with the nimble and volatil Salts of those anti-Scorbutick Remedies The general cause then of this Endemial Disease the Scurvy being the constitution of the Air is peculiar to the Northern parts of the World and there appearing no reason why we should believe that to be altered for the worse in our times from what it was in former I shall be apt to conclude That it alwayes had the same effects upon the bodies of those men who breathed it and that anciently as well as in our times it produced the Scurvy in those Bodies which through Errors in Dyet want of Exercise or antecedent Diseases it found disposed to receive it As to the increase of it of late in the Bills of Mortality as that ingenious person Mr. Grant has observed I suppose since the Scurvy
impraegnata in lue Venerea afficiantur The Sum of what this learned person asserts is That nitro-sulphureous Spirits or Salts are as it were the Soul of the World and the Authors and Causes of all Productions and Generations These Seeds Spirits or vivifick Salts are certainly much more exactly elaborated and exalted in Animals than Vegetables and in those which are more perfect than in the less for that there are Instruments and Organs purposely ordained and contrived by Nature which are to give a perfection to the Seminalities of Men and other Creatures which are endued with a regular shape proportionable to the nobleness and exactness of the Fabrick which they are to design and build when they are employed for the continuance of the kind in the act of Generation Willis Dâ—script Nerv Therefore as Dr. Willis does very well demonstrate The Arteries do after the same manner instill into the Testicles a genital juyce for the making of Seed as they do into the Brain an animal Liquor for the production of Spirits which in the Veins and Arteries contrived for that cause with infinite turnings and windings is made more subtil and volatil and the Parts are in their passages exactly mixed the more gross and terrestrial are separated and at length the refined and exalted Liquor is sent into the inward substance and body of the Stones where being farther elaborated and mingled with the volatil Salt the innate ferment of those parts it becomes Seed It is farther to be considered That when the Ferment implanted in the genital parts comes to be sufficiently ripened and by a long digestion has arrived to its perfection Men and Women attain to that state and maturity which we call in Latin Pubertas At that time the genital parts grow hot and being filled with seminal Spirits discharge themselves continually of some part of them by the veins into the mass of blood from whence the nervous Juyce and Spirits become tinctured and impregnated with the seminal Ferments so that about that time the blood grows high and luxuriant and in Women being hardly contained within its own limits is emptied every Month by a periodical turgescency There is at this time a great alteration wrought in the manners and behaviour and the ranck acid scents vented by the Emunctories of the Nerves do declare That the Juyce which passes in them is inspired with the geniture Now if for want of seasonable Evacuation by Coition this genital spirit does not only too much abound in the blood but also in its frequent Returns by the Arteries to the Testicles is overdigested and too highly elaborated which is called by Physitians contracting a malignant quality it renders the spirits upon all slight occasions especially in Women whose Nerves and Brains are weak liable to sudden and impetuous Fermentations so that upon the Orgasms of these unruly Seminalities and a forcible disunion of the saline part from the sulphureous those Explosions and Convulsions are caused in the Abdomen and other parts This Notion I acknowledg to Dr. Willis which are so violent for the most part and impetuous that they cannot well be imagined to be produced by any other cause than such as must at least equal the force of Gunpowder And we find how apt these spirits are to take fire in the blood and nervous juyce by the causes which in Women liable to the Fits induce a Paroxysm For passions of the mind violent exercise sweet smells or any slight cause whereby the blood and spirits are chafed presently brings on a Fit that the abounding of the seminal spirits in the body may be one cause of the Fits of the Mother and certainly it is the most violent is confirm'd by the observation of Riolan who affirms That upon the Dissection of Hysterical Virgins he has found their Testicles bigger than his Fist filled with seminal matter But certainly as the Seed is one cause of this Disease so is it oftentimes produced from other causes and oftentimes when the genital parts are not in fault Nay it is often obvious to be observed That a defect in the uterine Ferment as in Cachectical Green-sickness Maids has occasioned them to be much afflicted with Hysterical Passions For the blood in such Women for want of the seminal tincture which ought at a due time to enliven and inspire it remains crude slimy and does not as it ought cleanse its self by its menstrual Purgations by which means many Impurities are cast upon the Brain with which the nervous juyce becomes to be much vitiated and to prove an improper Vehicle for the spirits and by exciting preternatural Fermentations in the nervous parts to cause Hysterical Paroxysms which happen for the most part periodically and at set-times when the body expects its lunary benefits for at such times the nervous juice as well as the Blood being saturated with Feculencies indeavours by fermentation to depurate it self by which the Animal Spirits are put into disorder and the nerves drawn into convulsive motions These two The Seed and Menstruous blood retained are the onely causes of Hysterical fits which are assigned by almost all Authours except Riverius who adds that other humours likewise retained in the womb and genital parts have likewise their shares in producing those Symptoms which he concludes from observing That many Old-Women who are neither troubled with Seed or menstruous blood are oft-ten very obnoxious to these distempers To which he adds a Notion of his own which he sayes is of very great moment and seems very agreeable to this Hypothesis That Hysterical Passions are not onely excited by vapours raised from the forementioned substances But the very humours which find no vent by the passages of the womb which is a kind of Sink to the body through a suppression of the Menses Riv. pr. l. 15 c. 6. or the Whites are sent back to the upper parts and infect them with an ill quality which they have contracted by too long a stay in the vessels of the womb by a contagion from the Seed and menstruous blood To these Causes which are delivered by Writers may all such be added as Authours of this Distemper which are apt by vellicating the extremities of the nervs to cause Convulsions Such are sharp juices in the womb spleen and other bowels schirrous tumours not onely in the womb but in the stomach mesentery breast and other parts The same accidents will wounds in the nerves produce and in Women subject to Fits even gentle Vomits which work by causing a convulsive motion in the stomach will put them into Hysterical Paroxysms as I observed lately in a Lady my patient to whom being above fifty years of age upon very urgent indications I gave onely Ê’iii's of infusion of Crocus metallorum and because I knew her to be Hystericall and had formerly observed in others Paroxysmes induced by Vomits before she tooke it I ordered an Hysterical plaister to her Navel The Vomit
wrought very gently with her but as soon as the working was over after her last Vomit she fell into a Fit of the Muther It might be expected that I should now give an account of every particular Symptom which belongs to this disease but not designing to make an exact Treatise of it in this place I must recommend to the Reader the consideration of these causes which I have mentioned or any other which he can imagine powerful enough to make disorders in the animal Spirits and convulsions in the nervous parts and as for the particular consents correspondencies of one part with another how distempers begun in one part manifest themselves in another far remote I referr him to Dr. Willis his most learned Treatise of the Brain and Nerves and to the Schemes wich he will there meet with For without such an Anatomical consideration of those parts it is impossible to receive any tollerable satisfaction concerning the affections of them And I will onely in this place give him an account of the most notorious Symptom the rising of the Muther from which all the rest receive their denomination in Dr. Willis his own words Plerique abdominis plexns praesertim vero insimus affinis ejus mesenterii maximus in passionibus Hystericis vulgò dictis saepenumero afficiuntur Willis Nervor descrip c. 27. Porro illud Symptoma in Paroxismis ejusmodi valde frequens nempe quo velut globus ab imo ventre efferri ac circa umbilicum impetuose exilire percipitur ut perinde uteri ascensus perhibeatur Dico id nihil aliud esse quam immanes horum plexuum spasmos Saepe quidem in foeminis interdum etiam in viris novi cum affectio convulsiva in aderet primo molem in hypogastrio â—ssurgere visam dein circa medium abdomen intumescentiam ita immanem successisse ut viri fortis manibus ut ut validissime intentis haud comprimi aut inhiberi potuerit Proculdubio admirandi hujus affectus causa est quod intra paris intercostalis nervos Spiritus animales influi quoties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sive motus Convulsivos ineunt primo uti plerumque assolet circa nervi extremitates nempe in plexu abdominis infimo effervescere ac velet explodi inciptant quae illorum affectio cum sursum perreptans ad plexum Mâ—senterii maximum deferatur adeo ut Spiritus ejus incolae pari inordiatione corripiantur nihil mirum est ista medii abdominis intuumescentia ac velut materiae cujusdam nitrosulphureae explosio cietur In this and the place before quoted out of him we see that Dr. Willis whose sense M. N. that he may honour himself by quoting of him every where either ignorantly or willfully mistakes ascribes Hysterical hypochondoriacal and asthmatical risings and stoppings to Convulsions of the nerves and not to vitious and malignant vapours raised in the lower belly especially about the spleen in the stomach Mâ—d. Mâ—d. p 49. 50. and about the Midriffe and in the cavity of the Omentum Nor to the Playing of the Scorbutick malignant vapours up through the veines and arteries to the lungs and by communication to the heart which accompt may be well enough tollerated in Sennertus but is by no means to be indur'd in M. N. who pretends so much to the new discoveries in Physick and undertakes to demolish and overthrow all the old Writers And yet aggrees with them in their grossest mistakes And now having clearly proved that the Diseases of this present age are not so much changed and of another nature as to render the old way of Physick uselesse I will next proceed to examine whither the causes assigned by M. N. are sufficient to produce that great alteration both in Nature and art which he imagines to be made CHAP. III. THE Causes of the alteration of Diseases from their ancient state and condition the Author of Medela assigns to be the Pox and Scurvey which by carnal contact by ill cures by accidental contagion by haereditary propagation and by lactation he supposes so to have overspread the whole face of Mankind as that by them there is introduced an universal alteration and depravation of Nature from whence he would inferr that the rules Methods and Medicines which were used by the Ancients in the curing of their diseases are become altogether uselesse in ours As to carnal contact haereditary propagation and lactation I very readily grant that the Pox and scurvy may by those ways be communicated from the diseased persons to the sound But as to accidental Contagion as he calls it upon which point lies the main stress of his Arguments for the universality of those diseases by which they like the Plague infect at a distance and by steams emanations taint the whole stock of Mankind it is a meer whim of his own and so far from being a solid truth that it is point blank contrary to the daily experiecne of the world and the authority and observations of the most learned and faithful Writers and the very Nature and Essence of those diseases When M. N. comes to handle the point of the propagation of the Pox and Scurvy by ill cures it is pleasant to observe that he does not onely fling dirt upon the learned Physitians for letting blood and using the purgers of the Shops but that he may ingross all the sinners of the Town he likewise falls foul upon his own Fraternity the men of his own Rank and Ability in Physick the poor Quacks and Mountebanks who pretend to the Cure of the Venereal disease and to make room for his own very injuriously tears down their bills from the Posts On my word he will make no ill trade of it if he can perswade the whole Nation that they have the French-Pox and then that nobody but himself can cure it But passing by his immodest and uncleanly discourse as not designing to make my self acceptable to Stews and Brothel-houses I will fall upon the other more important and less offensive disquisition concerning Phlebotomy And as to that he tells us he could forsooth willingly write a Treatise and a learned one it would be touching the mischiefs done by bleeding in these Northern parts of the world in most Diseases as well as Agues and Fevours because of the mixture of the Scorbut and his main reason is because that if it be true since the liver is turn'd out of the Office of Sanguification Sanguis sanguificat blood makes blood of the chyle and doth it ad modum tincturae c. Now I will grant to him that the liver is very justly discharged of the office of sanguification as I will anon more largely prove and that in some sense the blood may be said to make blood and yet upon this score is it impossible for that great remedy of bloud letting established by the Experience and Authority of the whole learned worlp in the least to grow out of esteem First then
Milk which is a very fluid Body into Cheese which is a very firm and fixed one agrees very well to solve the Phaenomena of that Disease for it is more than probable that the Plague kills by coagulating the Blood and rendring it unfit for Circulation for the Spots or Tokens seem to be nothing else but quarred flakes of it which being thrust out at the ends of the Arteries there stick can no more enter into the mouths of thâ— Veins than Milk when it is turned 〈◊〉 Cheese can pass through a Streiner The Definition which M. N. gives us iâ— this Chapter of the cause of Diseases me thinks is very pretty where he tells us That the cause of all Diseases Me. Med. p. 199. is a certaâ—â— Putrefaction secretly lurking among the hiddâ—â— Recesses of the Humors This Definition 〈◊〉 dare swear for him is his own though he has the face to fasten it upon the Vnanimous Consent of Physitians For by its being most unintelligible Fustian I know it to be of the same Wofe and Thred with the rest of Medela CHAP. VI. I Have in the foregoing Chapters prov'd at large that the Scurvy was a Disease antiently Endemial to the Northern parts of the World I have allowed a notable disparity to be between the Blood of the Inhabitants of the Regions subject to this Disease and that of those Persons who breathed the Air where the Ancients liv'd and made their Observations upon Diseases Yet is not the difference so considerable but that a rational Physician may make admirable use of much of their Method and Medicines in the curing of Diseases in these Climates and even in such cases where the Scurvy bears a considerable share in the complication And as to Vermination I have demonstrated that Worms are more often the Effects than Causes of Diseases that their productions in humane and other natural Bodies was no less frequent and observable in former times than ours and that from them so great a change in all Diseases as to make void all the Practise and Medicines of the Ancients can by no means be inferr'd It is confessed that the French Pox is of late come in upon us from America but M. N. has not in the least prov'd that it has so tainted and infected the Stock and Nature of mankind as to render all Diseases incident to humane Bodies uncurable by the Wayes Methods and Medicines which the faithful experiences of former Ages have recommended to us as effectual Some Maxims of Physick are by M. N's favor as Eternal as those of the Spanish Monarchy Though by the way he has unluckily quoted Balzac for this expression since it is very obvious to tell him That Maxims of Monarchy and Physick have been equally sacred to him and that there was a time when he treated Monarchs with less civil Language than that is which now he bestows upon the Princes of the Art of Physick and he must give me leave to mind that he might as rationally inferr from that monstrous and new Disease of the late Rebellion which was by his virulent Pamphlets diffus'd amongst the people like the Plaguâ— by the infected raggs of greedy and malicious Nurse-keepers that all Maxims in Policy and Government are become insignificant and unnecessary as to conclude from the breaking out of the American Disease that the old way of Physick in respect of Method and Medicines is insufficient and useless For many Maxims in Medicine are founded upon the long and constant Observations and Experience of the World and so adapted to the very Nature and Constitution of Man that in all places and times they must of necessity be of admirable use For indeed many Rules of this Art are not grounded upon any Hypothesis contriv'd by mans brain but are themselves the very foundations which will though possibly Philosophers have raised upon them an ill contrived and incommodious Structure remain when the Superstructure is demolished stable and unshaken And though it must be confessed that the Physiology and Pathology of the Ancients are very insufficient to satisfie an inquiring man concerning the true causes of Diseases and their Symptoms yet much of the Method certainly is not grounded upon them but was long in use before those notions of Causes were invented The learned Dr. Willis de Feb. Willis speaks much to this purpose in his Preface before his Book de Febribus He tells us that in the cure of Feavers some indications anciently received do in this age stand firm and ought to be observed to the worlds end and that they are not founded upon the precepts of Schools but upon Experience the Mistress and Teacher of the Art of Physick And that though the Hypotheses of the Ancients were erroneous that did not hinder the practise of Physick which was first established by induction from Observations from going on successefully And thence he concludes that much less shall a Theory built upon true grounds be pernicious to the sick or cause practitioners to leave that track which Time and Experience has recommended to them as safe And it cannot be denied continues he that bare Empericism without the assistance of Method and Reason does signifie very little nay that it does most commonly do a world of mischief considering that the very same Diseases are not at all times and in all places to be encountred with the same Remedies but he that has so joyned both together that Reason shall not give Laws to Nature and Experience nor these corrupt Reason seems to be a most absolute and compleat Physician Now if it be true as this excellent Philosopher and Physitian affirms that much of the method and many of the precepts of Physick do and will alwayes continue firm and useful because they are not established upon phantastical Notion's such as are the Author 's of Medela but upon unerring Experience no lesse will those Medicines which the constant trial of the World has recommended as effectual remain serviceable to Physitians before such as are imagined by the touchy head of M. N. or any other whimsical Inventer of Secrets and Remedies For I have already prov'd at large in the first Chapter that the Materia Medica is wholly founded upon Experience That Medicines were at the first found out Crebro singularium tentamine by a frequent Triall of each Medicine upon sundry persons I have there shew'd how dangerous it is for ignorant Quacks to Experiment Medicines especially such as are hazardous upon the Bodies of men I am for my part of the same opinion with Varandaeus who told the ingenious and learned Doctor Primrose Primr Popular Err. l. 1. c. 12. that those Remedies are the best which are no Secrets but best known as being confirmed by more certain Experience I confesse sayes that eminent Physitian that all the virtues of Simples are not yet perfectly known as yet many lie hid If therefore any man hath found out by Experience the virtue of some
congealing power Farthermore every days Experience informs us what changes and alterations are made upon our Bodies as to Epidemical diseases by the hot cold moist or dry Constitutions of the Seasons and Years And I cannot but wonder that the Chymists should exclude the four first Qualities from having any causality in diseases when in their own operations they observe a notable disparity between the effects of a dry and moist heat and they employ heat as the common instrument of almost all their operations But whil'st I assert the Essiciency of the first qualities in the causing of diseases in the humane Body I would not be understood to mean by the word Quality a Being or Entity distinct from matter or Body But that I apprehend by hot cold moist and dry the parts of matter or Atoms so figured and moved as to produce those Effects which we call heating cooling moistning and drying For Example We use to have an apprehension or notion of heat from the relation it has to the sense or as it is the efficient cause of that acute passion or sensation which we feel in our skin or any other organ of touch whil'st we are burnt or heated But this being too particular an effect of heat only as it works upon an Animal we ought therefore to consider it from its more general and comprehensive effects upon which this which is more special does depend which is to enter into the Pores of a Body to penetrate through the parts of it and to force or rend them asunder from one another and so to dissolve the union and continuity of the Body This cannot be understood to be done by a bare naked quality but by certain Atoms which are endued with such a motion figure and fize as are fit to penetrate discuss dissolve and perform all those effects which we usually attribute to heat On the other side since we find cold the most opposite thing in the World to heat if it be the property of heat to dissolve discuss and tear asunder it is then the property of cold to congeal fasten and close together and those Atoms which by their shape and figures are fit and proper for those effects may with very good Reason be called Atoms of cold and Bodies made up of such Particles cold Bodies Thus the Air which is the common Receptacle of heat and cold upon the blowing of North-winds is usually filled with such Atoms as bind and congeal the Earth and Water and in the body of man both by mingling with the blood and closing the pores or breathing holes of his body oftentimes produce considerable disorders As for humidity or moistness it seems to be nothing else but a kind of fluidness and Liquors are commonly said to be moist inasmuch as when they are poured upon hard and compact bodies some small parts of them are left behind either sticking in the little Cavities of the Surface and then the body is said to be wet or else have insinuated themselves into the most inward pores and recesses of the hard body which then we commonly say is moistned And on the contrary driness is nothing else but a kind of firmness inasmuch as a dry body is upon that score the more firm for being void of all moisture And now I cannot see why these four first Qualities as they are term'd should be excluded from having a share in the number of the causes of Diseases since they are notably active especially the three first modifications of matter and not only apt to excite various motions and cause as well new Combinations as dissolutions of bodies in the great World but also powerfully to alter the Microcosm and produce fundry different Symptoms in relation to the motions and harmony of the humane Engin. In the next place though it be utterly untrue that there are in the Vessels four distinct humors but whatsoever is contained in the Arteries and Veins is either the stale deflagrated blood or the alimentary juice fresh come into the Vessels or else the Serum or Whey returned by the Lymphaticks or else some Particles of Nitre and other bodies received in by the Lungs and Mouths of the veins from the Ambient And though the blood differ in several persons only as to the abundance or defect of natural heat yet are men not improperly said to be of a melancholick cholerick or some other temperament inasmuch as by how much the more vigorous or remiss the natural heat is in their bowels and entrals by so much the more weakly or powerfully concoctions are perform'd and consequently the blood apt to be overcharged either with stale and adust or else crude and phlegmatick Excrements In which respect the person either way disposed is not improperly said to be of a phlegmatick or cholerick temper and if the adust or raw Excrements be not rightly and duly separated out of the mass by the effervenscy of the blood I see no reason why I may not say that a man abounds with a melancholick cholerick or phlegmatick humor and if so the Notions about Pharmacy aiming at an evacuation or else alteration of these humors are not framed amiss nor whatever M. N. argues to the contrary without very good reason For I suppose it alters not much the case as to practice whether a man suppose that there is too great a redundancy of one of the humors in the blood or whether which is the right Notion he apprehend the blood depraved either with phlegmatick and raw juyces or the bilious Excrement consisting of Salt and Sulphur or the melancholick in which the Caput mortuum or earthy part is most predominant For either of these Notions will direct us when the blood is unable to fine its self to assist it with those alteratives which time and experience has recommended to us as proper in those cases and those Purgers which have been long observed more particularly to make a separation either of the pituitous cholerick or melancholick parts of the blood For though it be irrational to think that Purgers do with a certain knowledge or choice lay hold of one humor rather than another yet is that distinction of Purgers into Chologoga Phlegmagoga Melanagoga and Hydragoga of very good use and founded upon observation and experience inasmuch as these several Purgers by causing very different Fermentations and variously agitating the Particles of the Blood may with very good reason cause different separations and so one Purger to evacuate that sort of Excrement Barm or Lee which another cannot And in this matter I do not find that the Improvements which have been made in the Theory of Physick have much altered the Practice for the indication for Purging was not founded upon the Notion of the four Humors but upon long observation that when Distempers discovered themselves by such and such signs the body was to be emptied and by frequent tryals one Purger as especially Hellebor in Melancholy was found more essectual than
accurately examined and their uses admirably assign'd The blood the nutricious and nervous juyces have been by Dr. Willis as to their Principles Motions Stagnations Coagulations Dissolutions Exaltations Praecipitations and all Alterations which are incident to Liquors diligently considered and from thence more plainly and mechanically than from the Seminalities and fretting and fuming of the Archaeus according to the Chymists or indeed the indisposition or distemperature of the solid parts according to the Galenists have the causes of Diseases been deduced and excellently explained It is not I think to be question'd that a man is as Mechanically made as a Watch or any other Automaton and that his motions the regularity of which we call Health are perform'd by Springs Wheels and Engines not much differing except as to the curiousness of their Work from those pieces of Clock-work which are to be seen at every Puppet-play He who has heard of Drebels Organ which was set a going by the Sun-beams or Memnon's-Statue or but seen the subtil Workemanship of one Mark an Englishman who as the learned Muffet reports made for a Flea a chain of Gold of a fingers length Muffet Insect Theat c. 28. with a lock and key to it which was so finely and exquisitely wrought that the smal animal with much ease drew it after him and yet with the lock key and chain did not exceed the weight of a grain He I say who considers these works of Art and compares with them the subtil contrivances of Nature will certainly rest better satisfied in the Mechanical account of the operations and diseases of an Animal than in the Ens Pagoicum Sen. de Con. Dissen Chym. cum Galen Cagastricum Illiastrum Archaeus Reâ—lleum Chironeum Evestrum Yleck Trarames Turban Leffas Srannar Perenda Zendâ— and a thousand such conjuring unintelligible words of the Chymists and will plainly see that Anatomy is of no less use in the Curation of diseases than is the understanding of the springs and Wheels of a Watch to the man who undertakes to mend it and probably this speculation will make a considering man think it as possible with a preparation of Antimony or Mercury or any Universal Medicine to mend a Clock when it is at fault as with it to cure all the diseases belonging to the Body of Man That the body ought to be Mechanically considered not onely as to its actions but also in relation to its Diseases is I think the Opinion of every sound Philosopher Des Cartes in his Treatise of the Passions gives an account of what it is wherein a dead Man differs from a living Let us consider Des Cart de paâ—sion pâ—rt 1 Art c. 6. saith he that Death never happens through default of the Soul but onely through the corruption of one or other of the principal parts of our Body And let us judge that the Body of a living man doth differ from that of one dead only as much as a Clock or any other Automaton when it is in good order and has within it the Corporal Principle of its motions for whose use it was framed and all other things which are requisite to its action from the same clock or Engine when it is broken and the principle of its motions ceases to act The truth of this is abundantly evident to every mans Senses The shape and fabrick of the Heart and Valves the water-works of the Kidneys the admirable workman-ship of the Brain and Nerves and the Artificial Structure of all other parts do evidently demonstrate the Mechanism of mans Body and the usefulness and necessity of Knowledge in Anatomy both for the preserving of it in its due frame and likewise for the setting it in good order when it is out of it Fits of the Mother Epilepsies Apoplexies Madness and sundry other diseases of the Brain and Nervous Parts have usually by ignorant People been asctibed to Witch-craft and possession of the Devil And yet the causes of these astonishing distempers may without much difficulty be understood from an Anatomical consideration of the Brain and Nerves The whole structure of which has been examin'd with so much industry and sagacity by the incomparable Dr. Willis in his excellent book De Cerebro in which the wonderful Make of the Brain the turnings and windings of the Vessels and Receptacles the commerce by the Nerves with remote parts the Chymical production of the Animal Spirits and many more rarities of Nature are so clearly deliver'd that now a skilful Anatomist may without vanity undertake to give a rational Account of those very strange Distempers and Affections of mans Body which have formerly not only amazed the Vulgar but caus'd the Roman Senate to break up their Assemblies and adjourn their Consultations Wherefore the Author of Medela should in my opinion have been more wary in discovering his gross Ignorance in this so material a Point which is the Foundation and Corner-stone of Physick and without which nothing solid can be established And as for the Reason why his Touchy-head imagines Anatomy to be of little use in Physick Because forsooth when the Body is out of order by diseases the blood and humors have other Vagaries than in their usual Channels I do freely confess I do as little understand his Vagaries as I believe he does the true Motion of the blood and other juyces As for Chymistrie and his new Medicines and Secrets wrought out of the fire to which M. N. so much pretends though I am a very great friend to that Art and acknowledg that Physick is indebted to it for many neat and effectual Remedies yet I cannot be of that opinion that by it all Philosophy Anatomy and Method are to be justled out of the Schools and the Dispersatories out of the Shops For doubtless the advantages whicâ— came from Chymistry to Medicine were very slender and inconsiderable till it fell into the hands of Rational Learned Men who by adapting it to the Atomical Philosophy have made excellent use of the Analysing oâ— Bodies in giving an account of the Appearances of Nature and by using Chymical Remedies with good Method have found a more speedy and pleasant way oâ—curing Diseases than probably was knowâ— to the Antients But it does not in the leasâ— follow from hence that presently all the Medicines of the Shops are to be flunâ— away which having been known and tried by long experience the Mother of all Knowledg upon which the Materia Medica is wholly grounded are not so lightly to be set-by For that judicious Author Sennert de con dissen Chymic cum Gal Cap. 18. Sennertus tells us in his sober Treatise De Consens dissens Chym. cum Gal. that Chymists do often too curiously waste both their time and their mony in preparing those Medicines which Nature has rightly prepared to our hands as if Conserves of Roses and many other as also Condites and Powders and Compounds made of these were not used in Diseases
a pain and Swelling of their Belly a rumbling in their Sides under the Ribs They have a weak Pulse a trembling at the Heart a pain in the Head a redness in their Lips Face and Eyes which are sometimes distorted sometimes so fast shut that they can hardly be opened And being now high in the Fit they are ready to be strangled are deprived of Voice Sense and Motion except such as is Convulsive some cry out with a despairing Voice and presently fall down for dead their Pulse is then very weak and sometimes none to be felt When the Fit is going off their Cheeks redden they recover their Senses their Eyes with a very dull and heavy Aspect are opened and at length fetching deep sighs and sometimes pouring forth showres of tears they come to themselves This is the Picture of that dismal Disease which most frequently afflicts poor miserable Women though Men are not exempted from it In some all or most of these Symptoms meet in others only the strangling or danger of being choked with some other Accidents are observable But generally the Fits are so terrible and amazing to them who consider not the reasons of these affections that by the Vulgar the persons subject to them are believed to be bewitched or possessed by the Devil The ancient Physitians do with one consent deliver That Seed and menstruous Blood corrupted in the Womb and Genital Parts do send forth malignant Vapors which with violence carry up the Womb against the Diaphragm and Organs of 〈◊〉 spiration and thereby suddenly stop the motion of the Heart and Lungs and from this impetuous motion of the Womb they suppose to be caus'd that sense of a Globe rising upward in the Belly But they who have so much insight in Anatomy as to know That the Womb is immoveably fixed to its place by Ligaments and that in Virgins it is usually not much bigger than a Walnut and do consider that in Women with Child the Womb presses upon the very stomack and yet never causes these Accidents And that oftentimes in Dropsies of the Womb that part is extended to a vast bigness and is full of putrid Humors and yet none of these Suffocations or other Accidents are caused They I say who consider this cannot allow that these stupendious Symptoms can be produced by that cause The Learned Doctor Highmore in his Exercitation upon the Hysterical Passion having examined all the Hypotheses invented either by the ancient or modern Physitians Highm de Passion Hystericâ to solve the Phaenomena of this Distemper and finding them all very insufficient to give a satisfactory Account delivers most ingenuously his own Opinion and supposes all the Symptoms to be caused by an overstuffing of the Ventricles of the Heart and Vessels of the Lungs with thin servous and fermenting blood which does so distend and fill them that the Lungs are thereby rendred unfit to comply with the motion of the Diaphragm and Chest and the Heart disabled to discharge its self by its Pulses of the burden which oppresses it though it attempts to rescue its self by more frequent pulsations and from hence necessarily to follow first A difficulty of Breathing and then a Suffocation which that Nature may avoid she calls to her Succor the Animal Faculty which lest she perish together with the Vital pours forth the whole force and strength of her spirits though in so much disorder that by their confused Sallies those irregular motions are caused in the Body which men call Convulsive This is the account according to my best apprehension of his meaning of the descriptive Definition which that excellent person gives of this Disease And I am so much of his Opinion as to believe That very often a Dyscrasie or Distemper of the Blood and probably of the Serum or Whey of it is one cause of this Distemper But I beg his pardon if I am apt to believe That even then when these Fits are caused from a Serous Dyscrasie in the Blood they are rather to be attributed to the Impurities and sharp Salts which are either cast off upon the Brain and from thence distributed through the Nerves into remote parts of the Body or else upon some of the Bowels where those pungent juices pricking and vellicating the extremities of the Nerves cause the original and whole system to participate of their disorders than to the Bloods stuffing and distending the Vessels of the Lungs and Heart For besides that there are many Women Cachectical and Hydropical whose Vessels are filled with little else but waterish Blood and Whey who are notwithstanding very free from Fits of the Mother It is often observed that Women of a ruddy Complexion who have a brisk and lively heat in their Blood and that rich with spirits which purges its self every Month in its constant periods are oft-ten miserably afflicted with Hysterical Paroxysms For they are not seldom such as have an excellent good appetite and digest their meat well whose Lungs are not flabby weak or disposed to a Consumption and whose Blood when it is let out of their Veins and setled is observed to be thick and full of Fibers all which are Qualifications quite contrary to those which are required by Dr. Highmore's Hypothesis if I mistake him not to render a person liable to Hysterical Passions Moreover in my Opinion crude and waterish Blood is altogether unfit to be set so impetuously on fire as to cause so extravagant a Fermentation in the Ventricles of the Heart that by overstretching the Lungs they should be unable to disburden themselves of the Blood For we find that Cachectical and Hydropical persons and Maids in the Green-Sickness are troubled with a shortness of Breath upon Exercise and walking up steep Places or Stairs which undoubtedly is caused for that the Blood of such persons being thin and waterish and wanting its due proportion of the sulphureous and inflammable part does not afford a sufficient quantity of vital Oyl to the Lamp of the Heart and therefore when upon exercise and motion there is a greater quantity of Blood than ordinarily sent into the Heart that being not well rarified and fired in the right Ventricle passes not so swiftly through the Lungs to theleft as it ought to make room for that which is to succeed so that at the same time the Lungs and Heart are overburdened upon which a difficulty of Breathing a beating and throbbing at the Heart must necessarily ensue Besides in Feavers where the Blood is most of all rarified and fermented except the matter of the Disease be cast upon the Brain Hysterical Symptoms do not constantly happen and yet the sulphurious part of the Blood fired is much more apt to fill and distend the Chambers of the Heart and Vessels of the Lungs than the Whey It is farther observable That Women who have their Courses too frequently and vent by the Womb overgreat quantities of Blood are often troubled with
the Grecians Drancucula and by the Arabians the Vena Civilis or Medena I have met only with two Modern Authors who treat of it Muffet Insect l. 2. c. 20. The one is Muffet who writes That in India and the Countries beyond Aegypt a certain kind of Worms is bred in the Arms and Legs and other musculous parts af the Body which are endued with motion and commonly called Dracontia The other is Petrus Monavius in a Letter to Hieronymus Mercurialis in the Fifth Book of Crato's Epistles set out by Scholzius who relates That there was a Disease in the place where he liv'd very frequent amongst Children which in their Language they call Mittiser The Children afflicted with it pin'd and wasted away without any manifest cause The way of curing them was by rubbing the Back all over with the Crums or Pith of Wheaten Bread or the Flower of it tempered with Honey and then the heads of some things like Worms here and there appeared which being cut off with a Razor the Children presently grew well and recovered Some sayes he will have this Tabes to be the same with the Drancucula of the Grecians or the Vena Civilis or Medena of the Arabians but if I am not mistaken he continues it comes nearer to the Disease in Kine or the Worms bred under the Skin which Nicolaus Florentinus makes mention of Aristotle in his History of Animals Aristot 5. Histor Animal c. 32. makes mention of a small Animal generated under the Skin which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the same with those little Creatures which are call'd Syrones 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quia tractim sub cute repunt they are a sort of Mites which the English call Wheale-Worms like to those which are bred in Cheese and old Wax which like Moles dig their way under the Skin and cause a very troublesom and importunate itching They are sometimes as Muffet observes bred under the Coats of the Eye and he sayes some Women were very skilful in picking them out with a Needle And that John Arden a learned English Chirurgion has written That the Eyes are certainly cured by washing them with sublimated Wine This very ancient Disease observ'd by Aristotle hapned in a very great height in Muffets own time to the Lady Penruddock Muffet Insect l. 2. c. 24. Who being very apprehensive of a Consumption of her Lungs fell to the Drinking of Goats Milk in very large quantities by which means her whole Body became miserably afflicted with swarms of Mites insomuch that she having for some time liv'd without any manner of sleep in a most restless and painful condition being intolerably tormented in her Eyes Lips Gums Soles of her Feet Head Nose and every other part of her Body her Disease growing upon her and her misery increasing and all her flesh being as it were devoured by these Creatures in spight of all Remedies which were in vain used by the Physitians at length ended her miserable life The same Author adds That it was very observable that by how much the more often and diligently the Mites were digged out of her Skin with her Womens Needles the increase of their swarms was so much the greater and that when they had devoured her flesh they appeared of a more considerable bigness than at first I have observ'd in Berkshire in the Months of July and August a little Animal no bigger than the Mite in a Cheese of an Orange-Tawny Colour which very much vexes the Skin with a troublesom itching the Countrey-people call it a Harvest-Louse when it first begins to dig its way into the Skin which is perceived by the itching of the part it is easily picked out with a Needle but if upon the first itching the part be rubb'd the little Animal shelters it self deep under the Skin and by undermining the place and digging or eating its way causes an itching and immediately a Pimple to rise I suppose that this Creature though it be like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Aristotle or the Syrones is not the same because I observe that if it be digged out with a Needle no Blister at all is rais'd and therefore rather think that this Animal is generated in the Air or Corn at that time of the Year whereas it is observed that the Syrones and the tineae are bred out of putrified Serum collected in a Pimple and that they are sustained and fed by the same and that this being dried away they suddenly dye From these observations of Plutarch Alsaravius and Aristotle of the Production of Insects in mens Bodies it is most evident That the intermixture of the Pocky and Scorbutick Ferments have nothing to do in the generating of Worms since in Ages and Places when and where those Distempers were never known as frequent and strange cases of Worms as any which have hapned in our times have been observed The truth of this will farther appear if we consider that not only in humane but likewise in all sorts of other Bodies and in all kinds of Creatures which are not in the least subject to any alterations from the force and infection of those Diseases the like generations of Animals do continually happen For not only in Animals and Vegetables every one of which breeds its peculiar Insect but in Metals Stones Fire and Snow Worms are ingendred Muffet affirms upon his own knowledg and the authority of Pennius Muffet Insect c. 18. l. 2. That though nothing be bitterer than Gall or Agarick nothing salter than the Sea nothing sowrer than Vinegar nothing hotter than Fire or colder than Snow yet it is most certain That Worms are bred out of all these As to Insects being bred in other Animals besides Man every Farrier Huntsman Shepherd Faulconer and Butcher can furnish us with innumerable Observations I will instance in some few which I have met with in Authors Doctor Wharton in his Book De Glandulis Dr. Wharton de Gland c. 23. Muffet Insect c. 30. and before him Muffet observes That under the Horns of Does Sheep and Goats there is a mucous kind of matter like a Gelly out of which in April a great many Worms are produced which coming away by the Nostrils and Palat are turn'd into a flesh Flie. Sheep which dye of the Rott have in their Livers Worms like Box Leaves Platerus tells us Plat. ob l. 3. p. 616. That upon Dissection of a Youth he found his Guts full of long Worms and those Worms full of lesser ones It is observ'd that the long sort of Beetles have all of them a long Worm in their Belly near three times as long as themselves Bartholinus in the second Century of his Epistles the 56 Epistle gives an account of the Dissection of a Dog which had in the inside of his Oesophagus several hard Swellings out of which when they were opened crept a great number of Worms in the inside of the Oesophagus were
not seem strange to any man that these rare Productions of sundry species of Worms should happen in mens Bodies if we consider That in our Meats Drinks and Air the Salts or Seminalities of sundry Insects may be conveyed into and mingled with our Blood which are kept under by the dominion of the Spirits and never are permitted to exercise their own natural Operations till in Diseases and Disorders of the Body they come to be set at liberty Now the causes and reasons of the generation of Insects as well in humane as other Bodies being as ancient as the Creation it self in which the Seeds of Worms as well as Vegetables received their power of multiplying there appears no reason why Worms should in these times be more frequently appearing in Fevers and other Diseases than in former or that any alteration should by vermination be brought into the nature of Diseases Now as to the Experiments of Kircher though I will not question the faith of that Author in delivering them yet I do not doubt but in former Ages by the help of a good Microscope the same Observations might have been made And though I will allow that in times of Pestilence by the indisposition of the Air and the rambling of pernicious steams flowing from infected Bodies more plentiful swarms and numerous productions of insects in the Air and other Bodies may insue than in other more healthful seasons yet I must beg leave of Kircher to apprehend some difficulties in assenting to his Hypothesis since the manner of infection from the plague may be more easily made out from the figure and motion of Atoms than by those swarms of living creatures perpetually vented from the infected Body which if they poison the sound Body by turning its Blood and Juices into the like pernicious Vermin I see no reason why they should not fill the whole Air with their fatal progeny and impregnating the Winds with their Venemous Colonies permit no man to be safe though removed at a considerable distance from the places which are infected Whereas it is found true by constant Experience except by some common cause which has corrupted the whole aire the plague be produced The pestilence insects not at a far distance but only within a narrow Sphere It is very possible that not only the Blood of men in Feavers but also that of healthy persons may sometimes be observ'd to be full of Mites or Worms as well as Milk and Vinegar and yet no malignant Distemper much lesse the plague be produc'd by them For we find that these Liquors though almost constituted of innumerable little Animals are not in the least adverse to the nature of man and on the contrary the best and sharpest Vinegar which most abounds with Worms to be an excellent Antidote and preservative against the plague Neither will M. N. I must tell him be er'e the nearer as to the curation of Diseases from this Notion of Kirâ—her For even those Remedies which will destroy great Worms in the Stomach and Bowels are perhaps apt to produce little Mites in the Blood as in the Experiments quoted out of Dr. Ent the Spirit of Moscatel produces Flies and Vitriol which is an admirable resister of all putrifaction in Water or Wine produces Worms As to the Cure of malignant Feavers though I know well that in them Worms are often produced in the Bowels and other parts from the putrifaction of the Aliment and corruption of the Ferments of the parts yet they are not seldome free from those accidents and when they happen Nature and Physicians have so ordered the matter that generally most Medicines which are Alexipharmical are likewise proper against the Worms Riverius River Obs 91. in his Observations recommends it as a thing worthy of especial notice That Bezoar is of admirable virtue against VVorms and in another place highly commends Scordium The virtues of Treacle Mithridate Diascordium Harts-horn Coral Pearls Trochisks of Vipers the acid juices of Minerals and Vegetables the Compound waters of the Shops as Aqua Scordii Composita Theriacal frigida Saxon and many other Remedies used both by the Galenists and Chymists are sufficiently known to be of admirable Virtue and Use in both cases So that the very same Remedies which are of force against the malignity of the Disease are also very prevalent in destroying VVorms As to the Plague as I have before intimated the account which the Learned Gassendus gives of it seems to me abundantly more satisfactory than what Kircher pretends to by his animated Effluxes Videtur inprimis sayes that Learned Author halitus pestilens idem posse proportione praestare in aere quod Coagulum in lacte Gassend c. de Calore Subterraneo Ut enim dum Corpuscula coaguli per lactis Substantiam diffusa excurrunt ita situm partium illius commutant ut ex fluido fixum consistensque reddant eo modo quo si confusam fluxamque congeriem tessularum exquisite aequalium perflans Ventus sic emoveret ut facies faciebus exquisite coadunaret Sic Corpuscula halitus pestilentis insinuata in aerem intelligi possunt ea ratione invertere commutareque ejus situm ut ex salubri insaluber evadat qui prius egregie naturae animalis accommodabatur incommodus illi summopere fiat Neque mirum sit si qui prius animalis Corpus fovebat continebatque in suo statu illius partes deinceps conturbet immutare coactet Deinde videri quoque poteâ— halitus idem sive in aere sive in animalis corpore quod flamma ignisve praestare Ut enim dum flamma aeri admota in quem Naphtha halitum pinguem corpusculis-ve igneis turgentem circumfuderit ipsum sui similem facit creatve in eo flammam quatenus corpuscula ignis subeuntia in halitum quae sunt in eo sui similia hoc est ignea Corpuscula ex ipsa halitus textura quam discutiunt extricant iisque similes suos motus reddunt Sic dum halitus pestilens aeri Corporive animalis admonetur intelligi potest subeuntia â—ejus corpuscula ita emovere illa quae in ipsis sui similia reperiunt ut ea in texturam novam segregent motus suis similes exitiales utpote induant Nempe ut nemo diceret esse in illo aere circum Naphtham fuso neque etiam in ligno corpuscula ulla calorifica quatenus propter conditionem ejus naturae ad quam spectant indicium caloris nullum exhibent sic nemo etiam diceret esse in aere viso puro animalive habito sano venenata ulla pestiserave corpuscula quae esse tamen omnino valeant utcunque ob eam Contexturam quam attinent se minime prodant Possemus id uberius ex Gangrenae effectu aliisque multis declarare And indeed the Hypothesis which explains the way of the working of the pestilent Infection upon the Air and Blood of sound persons by the comparison of the Runnet's coagulating and fixing
of Virriol is taken away by Salt of Tartar or Wormwood Habet says Fonseca Sal Tartari magnam vim domandi humores melancholicos atros nam trahit ad se proprietate quadam accetositates si aceti fortissimi lb iiii cum â„¥ i. Tartari vini destilletur per ignem aqua sine ulla aciditate exibit And truly it is very probable that the reason why Melancholy persons find so much benefit from Medicins of Tartar is that by sweetning of the blood and juyces after the same manner as that dulcifies Vineger the Tartar frees the body from those inconveniencies which are caused by their Pungency and Acrimony From this Hypothesis an account may very rationally be given why Medicins of Steel are used with very good success as well in Cachectical and Hydropical Distempers in which usually the Splenick Ferment is deficient as in Hypochondriacal and Scorbutical Diseases in which that Leven is too plentifully abounding and too highly exalted For the vitriolick Salt of Steel in which much of the force and virtue of that Mineral resides is very properly substituted to supply the defect of a Ferment to the blood and likewise the same Salt when the blood is become sharp and eager and overcome by too large a quantity of fluid and acid Salt does as Salt of Tartar works upon Spirit of Vitriol or Vineger abate its Acrimony and sweeten the whole mass It may now be time that I should more particularly explain the manner how the blood and humors of the body by passing through the Spleen do from that soft sweet and balsamick constitution which naturally is in sound and healthy persons degenerate into a Liquor altogether harsh sharp and unpleasant to the nervous parts of the body And for the better understanding of the way how this alteration is effected it is very necessary to look back to that description which I have in the beginning of this Discourse given of the Make and Fabrick of the Spleen To wit That the Spleen consists of a great many Arteries not so many Veins and of a multitude of fibrous Threds upon which the Parenchyma like Clots of blood does everywhere stick fast leaving little spaces or pores here and there interspersed between the parts of it throughout the whole substance of that Bowel I suppose then the little spaces or vacuities in the Parenchyma of the Spleen to be of such a figure and size as is unproportionable to the shape of the saline Particles of the Blood as long as any Sulphur or Phlegm sticks to them and therefore they are not admitted to pass along with the rest of the Blood out of the Arteries into the Veins but deteined so long in the little Cells or Cavities of the Spleen till by the frequent Circulations of the Blood and the Collision and justling of the Salts against the more solid parts of the Parenchyma they become free from the Phlegm and Sulphut which was join'd to them from which other Principles as soon as they are disingag'd they do very readily and easily pass along with the Blood which is circulated through the Spleen as being then very sutable to the figures of the Pores or Passages to which as long as they were united to those other Principles they were not in the least agreeable The fixed Salts thus prepar'd in the Spleen and passing from thence by the veins into the mass of Blood serve to impregnate and ferment the Liquors of the body and to preserve them in their due mixture and motions As long as the small Passages in the Spleen remain free and open and that the substance or Parenchyma of it is not grown so hard and earthy as to alter the natural position and shape of the Pores or little Spaces in it the supply of a well prepar'd Ferment to the Blood is duly and regularly perform'd But if either from a natural melancholy constitution or errors in dyer the substance of the Spleen be rendered too compact solid and earthy and the Pores or Spaces are altered from their natural Figure and Magnitude The saline Particles in their Percolation through the Spleen are so worn and grinded that they are not only separated from the Sulphur and Phlegm which is necessary for the making of a fit Ferment but likewise forcibly disjoin'd from the earthy Principle without which they cannot remain fixed but presently become fluid And then instead of a Ferment which should maintain in the Blood and Humors an orderly and moderate Ebullition asharp eager and pungent Liquor is sent into the Blood which puts it into irregular and tumultuous Fermentations and puts the whole frame of the body into disorder That this is the fault of the Spleen in Hypochondriacal persons seems to me the more probable for that it is observ'd That sar guin and phlegmatick Complexions are very rarely troubled with distempers of this nature and that even they who are naturally of a melancholy temperament fall not into them before they arrive at a ripeness of Age when the Blood begins to be adust and the Spleen to grow earthy and black whereas in those who are very young it is of a lively red colour It is worthy observation That this fault or disease of the Spleen is seldom or never perfectly cur'd and therefore the best Medicins do only by sweetning the Blood so long allay the Symptoms and Disorders of it till the mass becomes again infected with acidities from the Spleen and therefore persons who have been once troubled with Hypochondriacal distempers do usually periodically relapse into them From hence it will be no very hard matter to give an account of the causes of the particular Symptoms and Accidents which accompany the Hypochondriacal distemper They concern either the Natural Vital or Animal Faculties As to the Natural the appetite to meat is often by reason of the sharpness of the Ferment in the stomâ—ck too extravagant and yet the meat is ill digested and much of it turn'd sometimes into a sowre water at other into tough slime by reason that the extraordinary sharpness of the Ferment makes it unproportionable and unfit to dissolve the Aliment for that this may happen upon such a score the observation of the Chymists does sufficiently evince who find Berigard Circ Pisan Menstruum nimis acidum metallum suum non solvere From the same cause they who labour of this distemper are troubled with continual spitting loathing and sometimes vomiting the stomack being provoked and convell'd by the gnawing acidity of its Menstruum They are usually hard-bound in their bodies and seldom go to stool partly by reason that the Passages from the Gall are obstructed one use of Choler being to irritate the Guts and cause them to thrust out their Excrements and partly for that the Pancreas as Riverius observes is usually affected in this distemper and does not furnish the Guts with a Ferment For it is very probable that by Wirsungius his passage a Liquor is sent into
the particulars offer'd by M. N. in his eighth Chapter do not either at all or else no more than the Notions by him rejected conduce to the practice of Physick And first he offers it to our consideration that Diseases like Pompions and Turnips do grow from their peculiar Seeds and that the distemperatures which we find in our Bodies are but the blossoms fruits and products of them and that they like Animals ingender and propagate their kinds This opinion is taken from Paracelsus and Severinus Danus and concerning the Origination of these Seminalities they Phanatickly talk after this manner They tell us That though at the first Creation when by the Divine impression all Seeds of things received the power of generating and multiplying they were pure entire and perfect and free from corruption and death Yet after the fall of Adam by a Curse of the Creator new tinctures were added to those pure Seeds by which mixture the Beauty of the whole Creation was deform'd and the pure Seeds of things were invested with new and pernicious Habits and Properties and that these impure Seeds received from the same Divine impression and word from which the purer and more perfect did powers and faculties of multiplying and transplanting This is the sum of what Paracelsus and Severines deliver concerning the Seeds of Diseases and out of them the rest of Chymists who treat of them have borrowed their notions But the Opinion seems so Phantastical and Extravagant to all sober Chymists that they have wholly rejected it as a whimsy and have with much more reason deduced the causes of Diseases from the Exorbitancies and Combination either of three or five Chymical Principles Sennertus particularly has shewed Sennert de Con. Dissen Chym. cum Gal. c. 16. the absurdity and impiety of this Opinion In eo vero parum a delirio abest Manichaearum Severinus quod post hominis lapsum primis illis Seminibus puris maledictione divina novas tincturas supervenisse scribit quarum Commixtione pura illa semina corrupta inquinata sint eaque semina voce divina aeque ac alia semina vim sese multiplicandi accepisse In qua opinione multa absurda imo impia sunt Primo Deum auterem Creatorem mali morborum mortis faciunt Eumque aliquod malum Substantiale creasse statuunt quod impium Deinde duplicem faciunt Creationem priorem quae benedictione sex dierum spatio perficitur alteram jam diebus sex elapsis post hominis lapsum qua maledictione Dei rerum puris seminibus radicibus radices malae vel tincturae morborum mortis autores concreatae additae sunt Cum tamen Literae Sacrae expresse testentur Deum die septimo quie visse ab omni opere nihil amplius creasse Et maledictio Die tantum poenam indicavit non vero naturam pravam induxit The next point which M. N. would have considered as of great importance to the practice of Physick is to increase the number of Concoctions and Digestions of Aliment which the Ancients have assigned to be but three And indeed if we consider the grand dissolution alteration and apposition of the nourishment the division of the Ancients will be found sufficiently comprehensive For the great and remarkable alterations of the Aliment are the dissolving it into Chyle the changing of that Chyle into Blood and the apposition of the nutritious Particles of the Blood to augment and nourish the Bulk But if we reckon the separations and impregnations made in all parts of the Body the generation of Spirits the particular nutrition of each distinct Similar part for Digestions and Concoctions of Aliment which I think is much too nice I know not why there may not be assigned a hundred or more But by the way how many soever there be M. N. might very well have spar'd some of his kinds of Concoction For through his ignorance of the Lacteals he readily assents to a Concoction made in the Veins of the Mesentery and in this he sayes the old Stagers and Helmont agree From hence it may be well observ'd that M. N. for want of insight into the true grounds of Physick most commonly very easily swallows down the grossest Errors of the Ancients and usually picks a quarrel with them in matters where no fault is to be found But to mend the matter he tells us that the third Concoction is farther elaborated in the common Receptacle invented by Pecquet Now to let it passe that matters of Anatomy are not properly said to be the Objects of Invention but Discovery it is very shreudly to be suspected that he knows nothing of that passage but by hearsay for if he had been conversant in dissections he would have known that the Chyle in that Receptacle differs not from that in the Lacteals and that the swift passage of it through that Channel into the Subclavials together with the formation of that Vessel do sufficiently argue that it receives not any alteration there worthy the name of a Concoction all that is imaginable being the mixture of the Serum which returns from the Lymphaticks through the Communis ductus into the Blood As to this third particular concerning Ferments though I allow that term to be of excellent use for that it has been of late imployed by learned men to convey to the understanding an easy and familiar apprehension of the operations of nature by referring it to the common and obvious arts of Brewing and Baking Yet till the nature and operations of the Ferments of every part come to be more particularly explained and more intelligibly discours'd of than they are by M. N. I do not see that his Pratling about Ferments will better conduce to the Practice of Physick than Quality Power Virtue Property and the like terms of the Galenists The fourth Particular which M. N. offers as of grand concern in the Practice of Physick is the Notion of Helmont who as he says makes a Disease a real substantial thing inherent in that which he calls the Archaeus or vital Spirit In which description of a Disease he abundantly convinces us of his want of Logick by saying That one real substantial thing or body inheres in another Since the term Inhesion is only proper to express the Aristotelian Notion of the union of an accident with a substance and so one material substance cannot be conceived to inhere in another without allowing a penetration of bodies And now he comes in the fifth place to describe what this Bug-bear the Archaeus is and tells us That it is a thing very delicate to be conceived that it is Medium quid inter vitam corpus veluti auro nitâ—ns splendensque And why not as well Medium quid inter corpus mortem Indeed M.N. must have a very delicate understanding if he can make sense of this description for I think the Nature of the Archaeus is every jot as intelligibly explained in these
Verses which were made in imitation of the mysterious and aenigmatical expressions of the Chymists Ignis in igne fuit sed non fuit ignis in igne Lux sine luce fuit non sine luce fuit All that any sober man can conceive of the Archaeus or Spirit is That it is the most fine volatil and aethereal part of the blood contained in the Arteries Veins and Nerves and I grant that the Dyscrasie of the blood their Vehicle is the cause of many Diseases But this is a very different thing from the words of M. N. and I suppose too from his Notion of the Archaeus which is either unintelligible by any rational man or else must be the very same which the Ancients had of the Vital Animal or Natural Spirits and therefore upon either account is very vainly offered as a new particular of great moment and weight for the meliorating the Practice of Physick As to his Quotations out of Fernelius and Heurnius those Authors speak no more than what is said by Hippocrates and Galen and all their Followers That the Spirits the impetum facientia are the immediate instruments of the Soul that by them all motions sensations and operations in human bodies are perform'd Wherefore the learned Sennertus though he allow Paracelsus and his Disciples to impose new words upon new things justly blames them For introducing new improper insignificant and barbarous terms upon notions and things anciently receiv'd Sennert de Con. Dissen Chym. cum Gal. c. 5. and rejecting such as by long use and custom had been rendered proper familiar and intelligible And he asks Paracâ—lsus What necessity there was to bring into use the word Archaeus since that upon diligent examination that signifies nothing more than the Faculty and natural Virtue or the natural Spirit the Servant of the natural Faculty do in the Schools of the Philosophers and Physitians And he adds That neither Paracelsus or Severinus are such great persons that we must presently for their fancy or humor reject those familiar terms which have alwayes been us'd by the learned World and in their stead without reason admit of the Paracelsian Gibberish And certainly if we consider the nature of the Spirits aright we shall find that nothing more than what is signified by them can be meant if that term signifie at all by the Archaeus of the Chymists For the vital Spirit is nothing else but the more fine more sublim'd and subtilifed part of tho Blood by which the Fermentation and internal motion of the Particles of that Liquor is maintain'd and that in its circular motion preserv'd from Coagulations and Stagnations and when the body remains in the state of health a separation is continually made of all immiscible and heterogeneous bodies which are either taken in with the Aliment or else come into the blood from the Ambient The animal Spirit is nothing else but the same vital more volatilised and refin'd in the brain and from thence distributed together with the nervous juyce through the Nerves to perform the offices of Sense and Motion The natural I take to be some of the animal Spirits which take up their residence in the extream Fibers of the parts and there remain and are continually refreshed and recruited by an influence from the brain and these the Schools call the innate Spirit Faculty or Virtue of a part Either one of these or all must be meant by the Archaeus of the Chymists or else that term be altogether insignificant Vox praeterea nihil And whether it be considered as an idle word or a new term to express an old Notion it cannot but be absurd to offer it as a particular considerable in order to the Practice of Physick in the place of the old Fundamentals which he pretends to have demolished CHAP. IX IN his Ninth Chapter M. N. proceeds to an examination of divers old Doctrines which more immediately relate to the Practice of Physick and first he cashiers the Doctrine about Critical days which he calls as childish a conceit as ever was owned by any Long-beards called the Children of Men. But I shall plainly prove That this Doctrine is not so easily to be blown away being of so absolute necessity to the true management of Fevers that except a diligent heed be had to the Critical motions of those Diseases the best and most proper Remedies prove as dangerous to the sick as a drawn Sword in the hands of a blind man who lays about him at random and knows not upon whom or where the edge will light For though the Ancients possibly might be ignorant of the true causes of the Critical motions of Diseases that did no more hinder them from making true observations upon them than the disagreement of Philosophers concerning the reasons of the Fluxes and Refluxes of the Sea does cause Mariners to be ignorant of what Tides will carry them into and out of several Harbors And though it must be confessed that in these Northern Countries wherein we live Fevers are neither so constantly nor so orderly terminated by Critical Evacuations as punctually to agree with the descriptions of Hippocrates and Galen by reason that in this colder Climate which is perpetually liable to alterations from the Air the Blood when it is fired into a Fever does not burn with so equal and constant a flame and therefore cannot observe so exactly the times and periods of its burning and consuming the sulphureous or combustible part And for that the Blood of most Persons being tainted with the Scurvy cannot so easily concoct and at once separate the adust Recrements but that they are often instead of being Critically evacuated translated upon the brain and nervous parts Yet is not the Credit of those grave Authors by every impertinent Man to be called into question concerning the truth of the observations which they made upon the motions and burning of Fevers in the Countries wherein they liv'd and practis'd Physick since they have been always reputed by the most Learned of unsuspected Faith and integrity in delivering matters of fact which fell under their own notice And indeed if we consider the true causes of critical Evacuations we cannot question but that in continual putri'd Feavers in those parts of the World in which neither the coldnesse of the Air nor the Scorbutick distemper made the difference Nature was as precise in observing her periods as she uses to be with us in Quotidians Tertians and Quartans For indeed a Crisis in a continual Feaver is the very same with a Paroxysm in an Intermittent as Doctor Willis very well observes Willis de Feb. c. 9. for sayes he as in an Intermittent when the mass of blood is overcharged with the Particles of the deprav'd Alimentary juice which can by no means be subdued and assimilated that falls aworking and by its fermentation depurates its self and sends out by the pores of the skin the heterogenious matter so in a
of Physick and established by the use and consent of both Galenists and Chymists are to be retained pag. 134 The first qualities are causes of Diseases pag. 135 Proved by sundry Arguments pag. 136 The meaning of the word Quality ibid. The nature of Heat pag. 137 Of Cold. pag. 137 138 Of Humidity and Driness pag. 138 Though there be not in the Vessels four distinct humors men are not improperly said to be of a Phlegmatick Cholerick Melancholick or Sanguine temperament pag. 139 It alters not the matter as to practise whether a Physitian suppose one of the humors or the rawness or overstaleness of the Blood to be in fault pag. 140 Purgers are properly divided into Chologoga Phlegmagoga Melanagoga and Hydragoga pag. 1â—1 Hepaticks must be used in Diseases caused from imperfect Sanguification though the Liver do not make Blood pag. 141 142 The Spleen is the Receptacle of Melancholy according to the opinions of Bartholinus and Doctor Highmore pag. 143 144 A Digression concerning the use of the Spleen and Hypocondriacal Distempers pag. 145 A Description of the Spleen pag. 146 147 It prepares a Ferment for the Blood pag. 149 Two sorts of Ferments pag. 149 150 How the Ferment is made in the Spleen pag. 152 Fixed Salts ferment the Blood pag. 153 How Medicins of Tartar Steel and Vitriol perform their effects pag. 153 How the Ferment of the Spleen comes to be deprav'd pag. 156 157. What is the fault of the Spleen in Hypocondriacal persons pag. 161 162 163 The causes of the Symptoms in Hypocondriacal persons pag. 163 164 165 The Head and nervous parts how affected from the Spleen pag. 166 It is proper to say there are bilious or cholerick complexions and Diseases pag. 167 168 M. N's ignorance in Chymistry pag. 168 Sulphur is not lighter and more aetherial than Spirit pag. 169 CHAP. VIII THe particulars offer'd by M. N. in the room of them which he pretends to have demolished are not conducible to the practice of Physick pag. 171 The growing of Diseases from Seeds according to Paracelsus and Severinus a ridiculous fancy pag. 172 173 The number of Concoctions assigned by the Ancients sufficient pag. 174 Helmonts notion of a Disease unintelligible pag. 176 What the Archaeus of the Chymists means pag. 177 New words are not to be imposed upon old notions and things pag. 178 How the Vital Animal and Natural Spirits differ pag. 179 The Archaeus either an idle word or a new term to express an old notion pag. 180 CHAP. IX THe use of the Doctrine about critical dayes pag. 181 The ignorance of their true causes did not hinder the Ancients from making true Observations upon them ibid. Feavers in the Countries where Hippocrates and Galen liv'd observ'd regularly the critical motions which are by them describ'd pag. 183 A Crisis in a continual Feaver is the same with a Paroxism in an Intermittent ibid. The cause of critical motions according to Doctor Willis ibid. Sweat the best way of Crisis pag. 184 The cause of a Crisis by an Haemorrhage pag. 184 When a Crisis is to be expected pag. 185 186 The Dootrine of Pulses is justified pag. 188 189 The respective differences in the motion of the Arteries may be observ'd as well as the absolute pag. 189 The reasons of the different motions of the Pulse assigned by Doctor Highmore pag. 189 Paracelsus his whimsies concerning the Pulse pag. 190 The use of the Doctrine of the Pulse in Feavers pag. 191 192 Direction must be taken from the Pulse for the giving of all sorts of Physick in Feavers pag. 193 What accidents may cause an alteration in the Pulse pag. 194