in the bodies of Beasts we have been inclin'd to think partly by the having Chymically analyz'd as they phrase it the blood of divers Bruits as Sheep Deer c. and found its Phlegme Spirit Salt and Oyle very like that of humane bloud and partly by our having observ'd in the bodies of severall Bruits not excepting Fishes Wormes Imposthumes and the like some of which seem'd manifestly to spring from such causes as are wont to produce resembling distempers in men and if the acute Helmont had been a more diligent dissector of Beasts he would perchance have escaped the Error he after others run into and into which his Authority hath tempted others to run when he affirm'd that the Stone was a disease peculiar to men for that in the bodies of Beasts especially very Old ones Stones are sometimes to be found not only severall Butchers have assur'd me but you may gather partly from that taken out of an Oxe's Gall which I have formerly mention'd which was about the bignesse of a Wallnut but principally from what I elsewhere deliver'd on purpose to disprove that fond assertion and greater leasure may upon another occasion invite us to mention some pathologicall Observations made in diseased Beasts by which were we not willing to hasten we might now perhaps much confirme what we have propos'd touching the possibility of illustrating by such Observations the nature of some of the Diseases incidenâ— to humane bodies And here we may also consider that there are diverse Explications of particular Diseases or troublesome Accidents propos'd by Physitians especially since the Discoâ—ery of the Bloods Circulation wherein the Compression Obstruction or Irritation of some Nerve or the Distension of some Veine by too much Bloud or some Hinderance of the free Passage of the Bloud through this or that particular Vessell is assign'd for the cause of this or that Disease or Symptome Now in diverse of these cases the Liberty lately mention'd that a skilfull Dissector may take in Beasts to open the Body or Limbs to make Ligatures strong or weak on the vessells or other inward parts as occasion shall require to leave them there as long as he pleaseth to prick or apply sharp liquors to any nervous or membranous part and whenever he thinkes convenient to dissect the Animall again to observe what change his Experiment hath produc'd there such a Liberty I say which is not to be taken in humane bodies may in some cases either confirme or confute the Theories proposd and so put an end to diveâ—se Pathologicall Controversies and perhaps too occasion the Discovery of the true and genuine causes of the Phaenomena disputed of or of others really as abstruse To this let me adde that there is a whole classis of diseases to be met with in Physitians Books which proceed not originally from any internal distemper of the Patient but are produced by some exterior Poyson and are therefore wont to be call'd by Doctors Morbi à veneno orti to the more acurate knowledge of divers of which Diseases Experiments made on Bruits may not a little conduce For though I deny not that some things may be Poysons to Man thâ—t are not so to some Beasts and on the contrary as we have more then once given to a Dog without much harming him such a quantity of Opium as would probably have suffic'd to have kill'd several Men yet the greater number of Poysons being such both to Man and Bruits the liberty of exhibiting them when and in what manner we please to these which we dare not do to him allows us great opportunities of observing their manner of operation and investigating their Nature as our selves have tryed and that sometimes with unexpected events as when lately a Cat ran mad so that her Keeper was fain to kill her upon a large dose of Opium which we caus'd to be given her And on this occasion I shall not scruple to transcribe an Observation out of a Discourse I some years since writ to a Friend about the tuâ—ning Poysons into Medicines because that Treatise I am like for certain reasons to suppress The words as I there finde them are these Before I take leave of Vipers or Adders as some will have those that here in England commonly pass for Vipers it will not be impertinent to tell you That it may be justly doubted whether they be to be reckon'd amongst poysonous Creatures in such a sense as those other venomous Creatures who have in them a constant and if I may so speak gross and tangible Poyson for it may be suppos'd that the venom of Vipers consists chiefly in the rage and fury wherewith they bite and not in any part of the Body which hath at all times a mortal property Thus the madness of a Dog makes his teeth Poysonous which before were not so And Authors of good repute supply us with instances of hurts in themselves free from danger that have been made fatal by a Venom created by the fierceness of the inraged though not otherwise poysonous Creatures that inflicted them And Baccius if I mistake not in his Treatise De Venenis tells us a memorable Story whereof he affirms himself to have been an eye-witness of a Man who was kill'd within three days by a slight hurt received in his left hand from an inraged Dung-hill Cock And that no parts of the Viper have any constant inherent Poyson in them I have been induced to suspect upon this Experiment That dissecting some live Vipers there came in accidentally a strange Dog to whom I gave the Head Tail and Gall which are the parts supposed to contain the Poyson of one of them and the Head and Gall of another wrapt up in meat after which I locked the little Dog up in my own Chamber and watched him but fouÌ„d not that he was sick or offered to vomit at all but onely lap'd up greâ—dily some drink which he espyd in the Room nor was he alone very jocund for divers hours that I kept him in but liked his entertainment so well that he would afterwards when he met me in the Street leave those that kept him to fawn on and follow me And having since related this Experiment to an inquisitive Friend of mine he assured me That to satisfie himself further in this particular he gave to a Dog a dozen Heads and Galls of Vipers without finding them to produce in him any mischievous symptome To which I shall adde That the old Man you know that makes Viper Wine does it as himself tells me by leaving the whole Vipers if they be not very great perhaps for some moneths without taking out the Galls or separating any other part from them in the Wine till it hath dissolved as much of them as it can And though it may seem somewhat improper whil'st we are discoursing of Poysons to insist on a remedy against them yet the mention of Vipers recalling into my minde a memorable Experiment which I tryed
did me the favor to tell me by word of mouth as a thing himself had also made was in short this That the Remedy was made by precipitating Quick-silver with good Oyl of Vitriol and so making a Turbith which is afterwards to be dulcified by abstracting twenty or twenty five times from it pure Spirit of Wine of which fresh must be taken at every abstraction But I would not advise you to recommend so furious a Powder to any that is not a very skilful Chymist and Physitian too till you know the exact Preparation and particular uses of it the reason of my mentioning it here being but that which I expressed at the entrance upon this Narrative CHAP. XX. YOu will perchance wonder Pyrophilus that having had so fair an opportunity as the subject of this Essay afforded me of discoursing to you about the Universal Medicine which many Paracelsians Helmontians and other Chymists talk of so confidently I have said nothing concerning the existence or so much as the possibility of it But till I be better satisfied about those Particulars then yet I have been I am unwilling either to seem to believe what I am not yet convinced of or to assert any thing that may tend to discourage Humane Industry and therefore I shall onely venture to adde on this occasion That I fear we do somewhat too much confine our hopes when we think that one generous Remedy can scarce be effectual in several Diseases if their causes be supposed to be a little differing For the Theory of Diseases is not I fear so accurate and certain as to make it fit for us to neglect the manifest or hopeful Vertues of noble Remedies where ever we cannot reconcile them to that Theory He that considers what not unfrequently happens in distempered Bodies by the Metastasis of the Morbifique matter as for instance how that which in the Lungs caused a violent cough removed up to the head may produce as we have observed a quick decay of Memory and Ratiocination and a Palsie in the Hands and other Limbs may enough discerne that Diseases that appear very differing may easily be produced by a peccant matter of the same nature only variously determined in its operations by the constitution of the parts of the body where it setleth and consequently it may seem probable to him that the same searching Medicine being endowed with qualities destructive to the texture of that Morbifique matter where ever it finds it may be able to cure either all or the greatest part of the Diseases which the various translation of such a Matter haâ—h been observed to beget Moreover it oftentimes happens that Diseases that seem of a contrary nature may proceed from the same cause variously circumstantiated or if you please that of divers Diseases that may both seem primary the one is but Symptomatical or at most Secundary in relation to the other as a Dropsy and a slow Feaver may to unskilfull men seem Diseases of a quite contrary nature the one being reputed a hot and dry the other a cold and moist Distemper though expert Physitians know they may both proceed from the same Cause and be cured by the same Remedy And in women experience manifests that a great variety of differing Distempers which by unskilful Physitians have been adjudged distinct and primary Diseases and have been as such unsuccessfully dealt with by them may really be but disguised Symptomes of the distempers of the Mother or Genus Nervosum and may by Remedies reputed Antihysterical be happily removed To which purpose I might tell you Pyro That I not long since knew a Practitioner that with great success used the same Remedies which were chiefly Volatile and Resolving Salts in Dropsies and in not Symptomatical but Essential Feavers And our selves have lately made some Experiments of not much unlike nature with a preparation of Harts-horn of equal use in Feavers and Coughs both of them primary I might on this occasion recur to divers of the Remedies formerly mentioned in several places of this Essay since divers of them have been found effectual against Diseases which according to our common Theory seem to be little of kin one to another And by telling you what I have observed concerning the various operations of Helmont's Laudanum of our Ens Veneris and even of a Medicine devised by a Woman the Lady Kents Powder I might illustrate what I have lately delivered But it is high time for me to pass on to another Subject and therefore I shall rather desire you in general to consider whether or no several Differing Diseases and ev'n some commonly supposed to be of contrary natures be not yearly cured by the Spaa waters in Germany And to assist you in this Enquiry I shall address you to the rare Observations of the famous and experienc'd Henricus ab Heer and to his Spadacrene in the 8 â—h Chapter of which he reckons among the Diseases which those Waters cure Catarrhs and the Distempers which according to him spring from thence as the Palsie Trembling of the Joints and other Diseases of kin to these Convulsions Cephalalgiae I name them in the order wherein I finde them set down Hemicraniae Vertigo Redness of the Eyes of the Face the Erysipelata Ructus continui Vomitus Singultus Obstructions and even Scyrhus's if not inveterate of the Liver and Spleen and the Diseases springing thence the Yellow Jaundise Melancholia flatulenta seu Hypochondriaca Dropsies Gravel Ulcers of the Kidnies and Carunculae in meatu urinario Gonorrhoeas and resembling affections Elephantiasis or the Leprosie fluor albus mulierum Cancers and Scyrrhus's of the Womb Fluxes and even Dysenteries the Worms though very obstinate and sometimes so copious as to be voided in his presence even with the Urine Sterility and not onely the Scabies in the Body and Neck of the Bladder and clammy pituitous Matter collected therein besides Ulcers in the Sphyncter of it but he relates upon the repeated Testimony of an eminent Person that he names and one whom he stiles Vir omni fide dignissimus That this Party being troubled with a very great Stone in his Bladder and having had it search'd by divers Lythotomists before he came to the Spaa did by very copiously drinking these Waters finde by a second search made by those Artists that his Stone was much diminâ—shed the first Year and by the same way of tryal that it was so the second Year And of the Cures of these Diseases the Physitian mentions in the same Chapter as to many of them particular and remarkable Instances and in the beginning of the next Chapter having told his Readers that he expects they should scarce believe these Waters can have such variety of Vertues Caeterum saith he si in Spaa maturè constantibus naturalibus vitalibusque facultatibus venerint aquasque quo dicemus modo biberint indubiè quae dixi vera esse fatebuntur And though we be not bound to believe nor doth he â—ffirm
the time of that Plague which in the Years 1624 and 1625 miserably vexed Ours and all other the Cities of Holland for want of the Bezar-stone I remember I prescribed this and found it let me tell You a more great and excellent Sudorifick Adde pag. 159. Credo c. I believe Simples in their own simplicity are sufficient for the Curing of all Diseases Adde pag. 19. Quod c. But if You come not to that Arcanum of Pyrotechny learn at least to make the Salt of Tartar Volatile that by means of it You may perfect Your Solutions Which though it leave those things which it dissolveth equally Homogeneous being digested in Us Yet it borroweth some of their Vertues which it carrieth along with it self to overcome Diseases Adde pag. 199. Dicam c. I will speak it for their sakes who are ingenious that the Spirit of Salt of Tartar if it dissolveth Unicorns Horn Silver Quicksilver Crabbes Eyes or other like Simples it will Cure not onely Feavers but other Diseases in great abundance Ib. Mirum c. It is a wonder what the very Salt of Tartar alone being made Volatile will performe for it cleanses the Veins of all the feculencies and the causers of Contumacious Obstructions and doth disperse the congregated Matter of Apostems Of this Spirit of the Salt and not of the Oyl is that saying of Paracelsus true That whether this Medicine cannot reach there is scarce any other more powerful that shall reach it Ad pag. 201. Ars c. Art is Long Life is short But where the End is by gift there Art is short and Mans Life long if it be compared to Art Therefore Hippocrates had reason to make the complaint for it even happen'd to his followers according to his Words The Art of Medicine consists in Philosophy Astronomy Chymistry and Physicks and therefore it may truely be said that the Art is long For there is much time required throughly to learn and search these fower Pillars of Medicine Ad pag. 202. Est enim c. For this Art is conjectural and not onely Conjecture but Experience it self doth not allwaies answer Ib. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Experience is Uncertain and Fallacious Judgment is difficult to be made Ib. Hoc modo c. And this was the fashion of Medicine in the beginning that it had no Theory onely Experience that such a thing was Laxative such a thing Astringent But how or why they were so that was not found out and therefore one was heal'd another perish't but now c. Ib. Per rationem c. By Reason it is not easy in a Disease to give Judgment but is as difficult as any thing imaginable Ib. Neque c. For if the truth were easie to be found so many and so excellent men as have made it their business to find it had never been divided into so many Sects and Opinions Ad pag 203. Non titulus c. It is not a Title nor Eloquence Nor Skill in the tongues nor the Reading of many books though these are Ornaments which are to be considered in a Physitian but a prime knowledg of Matters and Mysteryes which alone may stand in the steed of all the rest It is the part of a Rhetorician to speak eloquently to be able to perswade and to draw the Judg to his own party It is the part of a Physitian to know the several sorts of Diseases their Causes and Symptomes and then which skill and industry to apply Medicines and to make Cures of them all according to their several Natures and Fashions Adde pag. 207. Imo c. Nay I saw divers as it was in an instant redeem'd from death who had been poison'd by the eating of Venomous Mushrooms and other unwholsome things onely by drinking a Recent Infusion of the Root Jaborand whilest my self and other of Galens Disciples blush't to see the ineffectual endeavours of all our Alexipharmaca Treacles and other Antidotes So that afterwards I suffred my self to be joyn'd in Consultation with those barbarous Collegues not so much to be arbiters of the condition of our men by their Pulse as to give their assistance and Councel in the foremention'd way viz. the prescribing of proper Medicines Ad pag. 208. Hujus c. The Vertue of this Stone is much above that of any other gems for it stops the Flux of Blood in any part When the Women perceive a fit of the Mother coming upon them by applying this Stone they are immediately eased and if they allwaies weare it they are never troubled with those Fits more Of this they make faith by many Instances Ib. Vidimus c. We have seen some that were troubled with the Flux of the Haemorrhoides who found Remedy by wearing Rings made of that Stone continually on their Fingers and the Monthly Flux is stai'd by the same way Ad pag. 209. Praegnantibus c. This Stone is not proper for those who are with Child for it is so sure to cause Abortion that the Women of Malaica told me that if at any time their Monethly Evacuations were obstructed that if they only carried this Stone in their hands they found Remedy thereby Ad pag. 210. Hoc loco c. In this place I cannot but relate the admirable Vertues of our Electrum which I have observ'd with my own Eyes and therefore can attest with a good conscience For we saw Rings of it which he that wore neither felt Cramp no Palsy nor other pain He was subject to no Fits of Apoplexy nor Epilepsy insomuch that if one of these Rings were put upon the Ring Finger of a person actually in any vehement Fit of the Falling sickness the Fit would immediately assuage and the person as soon come to himself Ad 225. In the Citty Posto where I liv'd certain Years a certain Indian cured all sorts of Diseases by the juice of one Plant alone wherewith he anointed the Limbs and any other part particularly affected and then covering them warm with Blankets provoked Sweat The Sweat that came from the parts so dawbed was meer Blood which he wiped off with Linnen Clothes and so he proceeded until he thought they had Sweat enough In the mean time he gave them Diet that was most Nourishing With this Remedy many desperate Diseases were cured and the sick person upon the Use of this Physick improv'd so as to appear younger and lustier after it But we could never prevail neither by Mony nor intreaty nor foul means upon him to shew us the Plant. Ad pag 227. Mira c. Wonderful things are daily found out in Physick to the Confirmation of the Operation of the Learned Naturalist Servius's Weapon-Salve For the assured us that a piece of Cloth dipt in the Blood and put under hot Ashes stops the Monthly Flux the Experiment having been often prov'd And my Master Petrus Castellus affirmes that He found by Experience that the Haemorrhoids if they were touch'd with the
Anima Mundi furnished with various Passions which watchfully provides for the safety of the Universe or that a Brute and Inanimate Creature as Water not onely has a power to move its heavy Body upwards contrary to speak in their Language to the tendency of its particular Nature but knows both that Air has been suck'd out of the Reed and that unless it succeed the attracted Air there will follow a Vacuum and that this Water is withal so generous as by ascending to act contrary to its particular inclination for the general good of the Universe like a Noble Patriot that sacrifices his particular Interests to the publick ones of his Countrey But to shew Men by an easie Experiment how little Attraction is perform'd to avoid a Vacuum I have sometimes done thus I have taken a slender Pipe of Glass of about four Foot long and putting one of the open ends of it into a Vessel full of Quick-silver I have suck'd as stronly as I could at the other and caus'd one to watch the ascent of the Quick-silver and mark where it was at the highest and I found not that at one suck I could raise it up much above a Foot and having caus'd a couple of strong Men one after another to suck at the same end of the same Pipe I found not that either of them could draw it up much higher Nor did it appear that by repeated Suctions though the upper end of the Pipe were each time stopp'd to hinder the relapse of the Quick-silver it could at all be rais'd above the seven and twenty Digits at which it us'd to subsist in the Torrecellian Experiment De Vacuo Whereas the same end of that Tube being put into a small Vessel of Water I could at one suck make the Water swiftly ascend thorow the perpendicularly held Tube into my Mouth which argues that the ascension of Liquors upon Suction rather depends upon the pressure of the Air and their respective measures of Gravity and Lightness compar'd to that Pressure then it proceeds from such an abhorrency of a Vacuum as is presum'd And so likewise in the other Question propos'd it is imply'd that there is in a Female Body something that knows the rule of Physitians that of a Plethora the Cure is the convenient Evacuation of Blood and that this intelligent Faculty is wise enough also to propose to it self the double end above-mentioned in this Evacuation and therefore will not provide a Quantity of Blood great enough to require an Excretion nor begin it till the Female be come to an Age wherein 't is possible for both the Ends to be obtain'd that also this presiding Nature is so charitable as that Man-kinde might not fail it will make the Female subject to such Monethly Superfluities of Blood from which Experience informs us that a whole Set of Diseases peculiar to that Sex does frequently proceed And in a word there is a multitude of Problems especially such as belong to the use of the Parts of a humane Body and to the Causes and Cures of the Diseases incident thereunto in whose Explication those we write of content themselves to tell us That Nature does such and such a thing because it was fit for her so to do but they endeavor not to make intelligible to us what they mean by this Nature and how meer and consequently bruit Bodies can act according to Laws and for determinate Ends without any knowledge either of the one or of the other Let them therefore till they have made out their Hypothesis more intelligibly either cease to ascribe to irrational Creatures such Actions as in Men are apparently the Productions of Reason and Choice and sometimes even of Industry and Virtue or else let them with us acknowledge that such Actions of Creatures in themselves Irrational are perform'd under the superintendence and guidance of a Wise and Intelligent Author of Things But that you may not mistake me Pyrophilus it will be requisite for me to acquaint you in two or three words with some of my present thoughts concerning this subject That there are some Actions so peculiar to Man upon the account of his Intellect and Will that they cannot be satisfactorily explicated after the maner of the Actings of meer corporeal Agents I am very much inclin'd to believe And whether or no there may be some Actions of some other Animals which cannot well be Mechanically explicated I have not here leisure or opportunity to examine But for most of the other Phaenomena of Nature methinks we may without absurdity conceive That God of whom in the Scripture 't is affirm'd That all his Works are known to him from the Beginning having resolved before the Creation to make such a World as this of Ours did divide at least if he did not create it incoherent that Matter which he had provided into an innumerable multitude of very variously figur'd Corpuscles and both connected those Particles into such Textures or particular Bodies and plac'd them in such Scituations and put them into such Motions that by the assistance of his ordinary preserving Concourse the Phaenomena which he intended should appear in the Universe must as orderly follow and be exhibited by the Bodies necessarily acting according to those Impressions or Laws though they understand them not at all as if each of those Creatures had a Design of Self-preservation and were furnish'd with Knowledge and Industry to prosecute it and as if there were diffus'd through the Universe an intelligent Being watchful over the publick Good of it and careful to Administer all things wisely for the good of the particular Parts of it but so far forth as is consistent with the Good of the whole and the preservation of the Primitive and Catholick Laws established by the Supreme Cause As in the formerly mention'd Clock of Strasburg the several Pieces making up that curious Engine are so fram'd and adapted and are put into such a motion that though the numerous Wheels and other parts of it move several ways and that without any thing either of Knowledge or Design yet each performs its part in order to the various Ends for which it was contriv'd as regularly and uniformly as if it knew and were concern'd to do its Duty and the various Motions of the Wheels and other parts concur to exhibit the Phaenomena design'd by the Artificer in the Engine as exactly as if they were animated by a common Principle which makes them knowingly conspire to do so and might to a rude Indian seem to be more intelligent then Cunradus Dasypodius himself that published a Description of it wherein he tells the World That he contrived it who could not tell the hours and measure time so accuratly as his Clock And according to this Notion if you be pleas'd to bear it in your memory Pyrophilus you may easily apprehend in what sense I use many common Phrases which custom hath so authorized that we can scarce write of
those things as they are discoverable out of mans body may well be suppos'd capable of illustrating many things in man's body which receiving some Modifications there from the nature of the Subject they belong to passe under the notion of the Causes or Symptomes of Diseases If I were now Pyrophilus to discourse to you at large of this Subject I think I could convince you of the truth of what I have proposed And certainly unlesse a Physitian be which yet I fear every one is not so much a Naturalist as to know how Heat and Cold and Fluidity and Compactnesse and Fermentation and Putrefaction and Viscosity and Coagulation and Dissolution and such like Qualities are generated and destroyed in the generality of Bodies he will be often very much to seek when he is to investigate the causes of preternaturall Accidents in men's bodies whereof a great many depend upon the Presence or Change or Vanishing of some or other of the enumerated Qualities in some of the Fluid or Solid Substances that constitute the body And that the Explications of a skilfull Naturalist may adde much to what has hitherto commonly been taught concerning the Nature and Origine of those Qualities in Phisitians Schools a little comparing of the vulgar Doctrine with those various Phaenomena to be met with among Naturall things that ought to be and yet seem not to be explicable by it will easily manifest to you And questionlesse 't is a great advantage to have been taught by variety of Experiments in other bodies the Differing waies whereby Nature sometimes produces the same effects For since we know very little à priori the observation of many such effects manifesting that nature doth actually produce them so and so suggests to us severall wayes of explicating the same Phaenomenon some of which we should perhaps never else have dream'd of Which ought to be esteem'd no small Advantage to the Physitian since he that knows but one or few of Natures wayes of working and consequently is likely to ignore divers of those whereby the propos'd Disease or Symptome of it may be produc'd must sometimes conclude that precisely such or such a thing is the determinate Cause of it and apply his Method of relieving his Patient accordingly which often proves very prejudiciall to the poor Patient who dearly paies for his Physitians not knowing That the Quality that occasions the Distemper may be as probably if not more rationally deduc'd from an other Origine then from that which is presum'd This will scarce be doubted by him that knowes how much more likely Explications then those applauded some ages since of divers things that happen as well within as without the body have been given by later Naturalists both Philosophers and Physitians and how much the Theory of the Stone and many other diseases that has been given us by those many Physitians that would needs deduce all the Phaenomena of diseases from Heat Cold and other Elementary Qualities is Inferiour to the Account given us of them by those ingenious Moderns that have apply'd to the advancement of Pathologie that Circulation of the Blood the Motion of the Chile by the Milky vessels to the Heart the consideration of the effects deducible from the Pores of greater bodies and the motion and figuration of their minute parts together with some of the more known Chymicall Experiments though both of those and of the other helps mention'd just before them I fear men have hitherto been far enough from making the best use which I hope it will dayly more and more appear they are capable of being put to He that has not had the curiosity to enquire out and consider the severall waies whereby Stones may be generated out of the body not only must be unable satisfactorily to explicate how they come to be produc'd in the Kidnies and in the Bladder but will perhaps scarce keep himselfe from imbracing such errors because authoriz'd by the suffrage of eminent Physitians as the knowledge I am recommending would easily protect them from For we find diverse famous and otherwise learned Doctors who probably because they had not taken notice of any other way of hardning a matter once soft into a stonelike consistence have believ'd and taught that the Stone of the Kidneyes is produc'd there by slime baked by the heat and drinesse of the Part as a portion of soft Clay may by externall heat be turn'd into a Brick or Tile And accordingly they have for cure thought it sufficient to make use of store of Remedies to moisten and cool the Kidneys which though in some bodies this be very convenient are yet far inferiour in efficacy to those Nobler medicines that by specifick qualities and properties are averse to such coagulations as produce the Stone But not to mention what a Physitian skill'd in Anatomy would object against this Theory from the nature of the part affected 't is not unlike the imbraces of this Hypothesis would not have acquiesc'd in it if they had seen those putrefactions out of the bodies of men which we elsewhere mention'd For these would have inform'd them that a Liquor abounding with petrescent parts may not only turn Wood as I have observ'd in a petrifying Spring into a kind of Stone and may give to Cheese and Mosse without spoiling their pristine appearance a strong hardnesse and weight but may also produce large and finely shap'd Christalline bodies though those I try'd were much lesse hard then Chrystall in the bosome of the cold water which brings into my mind that I have diverse times produc'd a body of an almost stony hardnesse in lesse then halfe an hour even in the midst of the water by tying up in a rag about the quantity of a nutmeg of well and recently calcin'd Alabastre which being thus ty'd up and thrown into the botome of a bason full of water did there speedily harden into a Lapideous Concretion And that even in the bodies of Animals themselves such concretions may be generated much otherwise then the Hypothesis we have been speaking of supposes may appear by what happens to Craw-fishes which though cold animals and living in the waters have generated at certain seasons in their heads Concretions which for their hard and pulverizable consistence divers Authors call lapides Cancrorum though in the Shops they are often but abusively styled Oculi cancrorum And such strong concretions are affirm'd to be generated in these Fishes every Year which I the less scrupled at because I have not found them at all times in the Head of the Fish And besides these and many more Concretions that had they been observ'd by the Physitians we have been speaking of might easily have kept them from acquiescing in and maintaining their improbable explication of the manner of the Stones nativity There is yet another kind of Coagulation which may both be added to the former and perhaps also serve to recommend the use of Chymical Experiments in investigating the Causes
conduce to the discovery of its nature And not that I think as Spagyrists do the experiments or notions of vulgar Chymists sufficient to explicate the whole doctrine either of Digestion or of Diseases for it would be very difficult for them to make out the manner of Nutrition or so much as how they that feed only on Vegetables should to propose the difficulty in their own Terms have their Blood and Urine copiously enrich'd with a volatile sulphureous Salt of which sort plants are not wont to yeild any in distillation And much more difficult would it be for them by principles peculiar to Chymists to make out the propagation of Hereditary diseases or how madnesse some other distempers that do not visibly vitiate the organes of those functions that they pervert should not only prove hereditary but lurk very many yeares in the inheriting person's body before they begin to disclose themselves and sometimes too be transmitted from the Grandfather to the Grand-child and skip immediately the intervening Son And therefore I say again that I pretend not that Vulgar Chymistry will enable a Physitian to explicate all or most of the Pathologicall Phaenomena but that True Chymistry may assist him to explicate diverse of them which can scarce be solidly explicated without it And let me adde that he that throughly understands the nature of Ferments and Fermentations shall probably be much better able then he that ignores them to give a fair account of divers phaenomena of severall diseases as well Feavers as others which will perhaps be never throughly understood without an insight into the doctrine of Fermentation in order to which for that and other reasons I design'd my Historicall notes touching that subject Yet I am not sure but there may be effervescences and perhaps periodicall ones in the Blood and other Juices of the body without Fermentation properly so call'd For there may be divers other waies of begetting a praeternaturall heat in the Blood We often see that in Coughs when the flegme is rottten as they speak that is when its former viscous texture is alter'd it does no longer stick fast to the vessels of the Lungs to which it obstinately adher'd before And so at certain times other humors in the body either by growing more fluid themselves or by some change in the Blood whereby it becomes fitter to dissolve such humors may swimme in and be circulated with the masse of blood and thereby occasion praeternaturall heats either by their indisposition to be well and incorporated therewith or by altering its texture or disturbing the wonted motion of its minute parts or by opposing its due Rarefaction as it passeth through the Heart or by obstructing the more slender Vessels and so hindering the free Circulation of the Blood through them perhaps also causing some Extravasation as we see that wounds bruâ—ses are attended with some inflammation more or lesse of the part affected or by some other of the waies not now to be declared And tryall hath taught me that there are Liquors in which the bare admixture of Milk Oyle or other Liquors nay or of cold water will presently occasion a notable heat and I sometimes imploy a menstruum in which nothing but a little flesh being put though no visible Ebullition ensue there will in a few minuts be excited a Heat intense enough to be troublesome to him that holds the Glasse And yet it seems not necessary that this should be ascrib'd to a true fermentation which may rather proceed from the perturb'd motion of the Corpuscles of the menstruum which being by the adventitious liquor or other body put out of their wonted motion and into an inordinate one there is produc'd in the menstruum a brisk confus'd Agitation of 〈◊〉 small parts that compose it and in such an agitation from what cause soever it proceeds the nature of Heat seems mainly to consist But to dispatch I scarce doubt but that if in the history of diseases there were better notice taken of those Phaenomena that agree not with the opinions already in request as well as of those that are thought consonant to them and if also Chymicall tryals were skilfully varied and judiciously applyed to the illustrating of Pathologicall Phaenomena the former might be made conducing to the better explication of the latter especially if the businesse were mannag'd by a Naturalist well vers'd both in Chymicall Experiments and in Anatomy and the history of Diseases without being too much addicted either to the Chymist's notions or the receiv'd opinions of Physitians And as the Naturalist may thus illustrate Pathologie as a Chymist so may he do the like as a Zoologer for either the true knowledge of Anatomy must be much lesse usefull to Physitians then they have hitherto beleived or else the discoveries made by recent Anatomists of the Asellian Pecquetian and Bartholinian vessels by either overthrowing the receiv'd doctrine of Digestions from whose aberrations many diseases spring or at least by making diverse discoveries in relation to the aeconomy of Digestions unknown to the Ancients most probably contribute much to the clearing up of diverse Pathologicall difficulties in the explication of some diseases besides that the very liberty of making those Experiments in live Beasts which are not to be made but in living creatures nor are allowable to be made in living men may enable a Zoologist by giving us a clearer account of divers parts of the body to determine divers Pathologicall difficulties springing from either our ignorance or mistakes of the use of those parts as by the formerly mention'd Experiment of the exsection of a live dogge's Spleen and a watchfull observation of all the diseases upon that Account befalliâ—â—â—im and other Dogs so serv'd much light perhaps may be given to the doctâ—in of the use of the Spleen together with the diseases supposed to depend on that part which I fear is hitherto to the no small prejudice of the Sick by few Physitians throughly understood and by many unhappily enough mistaken And here we may represent unto you Pyr that not only the dissections of sound Beasts may assist the Physitian to discover the like parts of a humane body but the dissections of morbid beasts may sometimes illustrate the doctrine of the causes and seats of diseases For that this part of Pathology has been very much improved by the diligence of modern Physitians by dissecting the bodies of men kill'd by Diseases we might be justly accused of want of curiosity or gratitude if we did not thankfully acknowledge For indeed much of that improvement of Physick for which the Ancients if they were now alive might envy our new Physitians may in my poor opinion be ascribed to their industrious scrutiny of the Seat and Effects of the peccant matter of Diseases in the bodies of those that have been destroyed by them And that the instructions deducible from such observations may be either increased or illustrated by the like observations made
by onely drinking some of the Infusion of the Root he calls Jaborandi and this after I know not how many Alexipharmaca and Theriacal Antidotes had been fruitlesly administred You will perchance tell me Pyrophilus that these three or four last Instances are of Poysonous Distempers and their Antidotes not of ordinary Diseases and their Specifick Remedies But to thâ—s I have a double Answer and First Many of those Distempers that proceed from Poyson are really Diseases and both call'd by that Name and treated of as such by Physitians And indeed they may well look upon them but as Diseases exasperated by a virulent Malignity which yet appears to be not always easily distinguishable from that of Diseases that proceed not from Poyson by this That otherwise the Physitians of Princes and great Men if after having considered all the inward Parts of their dis-bowell'd Patients could not so often doubt and dispute as they do whether or no Poyson were accessary to their death And Piso who learn'd divers of their detestable Secrets from the Brasilians relates That some of them are so skilful in the cursed Art of tempering and allaying their Poysons that they will often hinder them from disclosing their deleterial Nature for so long a time that the subtle Murtherers do as unsuspectedly as fatally execute their Malice or Revenge These Diseases indeed are wont to differ in this from Surfeits and other resembling ordinary Diseases that in the one the venomous matter that produceth the Disease is at first much more small then in the other the morbifick Matter is wont to be But the activity of this little quantity of hostile Matter doth make it so pernicious that the Disorders it produceth in the Body being much greater then that of ordinary Sicknesses is the cure of such Distempers is the fitter to manifest how powerfully Nature may be succour'd by Remedies that work not by first or second Qualities since such are able to deliver Her from Diseases heightned by a peculiar and venomous malignity To this first I shall subjoyn my next which is That divers Passages of the former Discourse especially what we have related concerning the cure of Agues of the Rickets and of the Kings-Evil may satisfie you That even of ordinary Diseases some at least may be as well cured by Specificks as those produced by Poyson are by Antidotes You may also say Pyrophilus But what if a recommended Spâ—cifick do not onely seem unable to produce the promised Effâ—ct but have Qualities which according to our Notions of the nature of the Disease seem likely to conspire with it and increase it I Answer First That though it is better for a Patient to be cured by a rashly anâ— unskilfully given Medicine then to die under the use of the most skilfully administred Physick yet that the Physitian who looseth hâ—s Patient aâ—ter having done all that his Art prescribed to save him deserves more commendation then he thâ—t luckily châ—nceth to cure his Patient by an irrational course And therefore in such a case as you put Pyrophilus I think the Physitian ought to be very well satisfied of the matter of Fact before he venture to try such a Remedy especially if more ordinary and unsuspected means have not been imployeâ— and found ineffectual for it is not one lucky Cure that ought to recommend to a wary Physitian the use of a Remedy whose dangerous Qualâ—ty seems obvious whereas its vertue must be credited upon Report But then seconâ—ly If the Physitiâ—n be duly sâ—tisfied of the efficacy of the Remedy upon a coâ—petent number and variety of Patients I suppose he mâ—y without â—ashness make use of such Remedies at least where ordinary Medicines have been already fruitlesly try'd CHAP. XVIII THat you may cease to wonder at my daring to say this Pyrophilus I must offer to you three or four Particulars And first it is manifest to those that are inquâ—sitive Thâ—t the true Nature anâ— Causes of several Diseâ—ses are much less certain and much more disputed of among the Doctors themselves then those that are not inquisitive imagine Nor is the method of curing divers particular Diseases more setled agreed on that depending chiefly upon the knowledg of those Câ—uses which as I was saying are controverted 'T is not that I am either an Enemy to Method in Physick or an Undervaluer of it but I fear the generality of Physitiâ—ns for I intend not nor need not all along this Essay speak of them all have as yet but an imperfect Method and have by the narrow Pâ—inciples they were taught in the Schools been perswaded to frame their Method rather to the barren Principles of the Peâ—ipatetick School then to the full amplitude of Nature Nor do I finde that Physitians have yet done so fit a thing as seriously and with the attention which the impoâ—tance of the thing deserves on the one side to enumerate and distinguish the several Causes that may any whit probably be assign'd how the Phaenomena of that disordered state of the humane Body which we call a Disease or its Symptomes may be produced And on the other side by how many and how differing ways the Phaenomena may be removed or the Dâ—seases they belong to destroy'd And if this were analytically and carefully done I little doubt but that Mens knowledge of the Nature and Causes of Diseases and the ways of curing them would be less circumscrib'd and more â—ffâ—ctuâ—l then now it is wont to be And I am apt to think that even Methodists would then finde that there divers probable if not promising Methods proper to divers caâ—es whiâ—h Ways they yet over-look And though in a right sense it be true that the Physitian is but Natures Minister and is to comply with Her who aims always at the best yet if we take them in the sense those Expressions are vulgarly used in I may elsewhere acquaint You with my Exceptions at them and in the mean time confess to you That I know not whether they have not done harm and hindred the advancement of Physick fascinating the mindes of Men and keeping them from those effectual Courses whereby they may potently alter the Engine of the Body and by rectifying the Motion and Texture of its Parts both consistent and fluid may bring Nature to their bent and accustom Her to such convenient Courses of the Blood and other Juices and such fit times and ways of evacuating what is noxious or superfluous c. as may prevent or cure divers stubborn Diseases more happily then the vulgar Methodists are wont to do And indeed it is scarce to be expected that till men have a better Knowledg of the Principles of Natural Philosophy without which 't is hard to arrive at a more comprehensive Theory of the various possible causes of Diseases and of the contrivance and uses of the parts of the Body the Method which supposes this Knowledg should be other then in many things defective and in some erroneous as
tuberous Root of Chondrilla did dry away if the Chondrilla dry'd and did Run to Corruption if the Chondrilla was corrupted And therefore after such touching of the Hemorrhoids the Chondrilla was usually put to dry in the Chymny Ad pag. 229. Podagra c. The Gout is strangly eas'd if Puppies lie with the Person that hath the Gout for they contract the Disease so as not to be able to go but the Patient thereby finds Ease Ad pag. 236. Primo c. At the first Physick was accounted part of Philosophy so that the Cure of Diseases and the Contemplation of Nature did both arise under the same Authors Those being most set upon Medical Enquiries which had made their Bodies infirm by disquieting thoughtfulness and nocturnal Watchings Ad pag. 204. Est c. Besides it is altogether drying and therefore I should not despair that it being hung about Childrens Necks might cure the Falling-sickness in them I truly saw a Lad that sometimes would be eight whole Moneths free from the Falling-sickness and then when by chance this fell from off his Neck he became immediately surprized with a Fit and again hanging another Root in its place he would continue well Therefore for Experiment sake I thought good to take it again from his Neck which when I had done and found that the Lad fell into his former Convulsions we took a great piece of a green Root and hung it about his Neck and from that time He continued well and felt no more Convulsions It was therefore most probable either that certain parts did exhale from the Root and were drawn into the Body by Inspiration which did so work upon the affected parts or that the ambient Air was continually changed and altered by the Root For after this manner the Succus Cyrenaicus cures the Phlegmone upon the Uvula so Catarrhs and other Rheums are dry'd up by Melanthium if it be tyed up warm in fine Linnen and the hot fume of it be drawn up into the Nostrils by Inspiration Nay if you strangle a Viper with divers sorts of Threeds and especially with the Sea Purple and then you tye those Threeds about the Neck of your Patient you shall cure the swelling of the Almonds of the Ears and all other swellings in the Neck Ad pag. 257. Pestis Cayri c. The Plague at Grand Cair and in all parts of Aegypt is wont to invade the Inhabitants from the beginning of the Moneth September until June For in all these Moneths from September unto June the Plague from other Nations is brought thither and is wont to infect that Nation But in the Moneth of June of what nature and how great soever the Pestilence be when the Sun first enters Cancer it is immediately removed which thing many and that not without reason take to be a particular Mercy of God But what is more admirable all Houshold-stuff however infected with the Contagion of the Disease at that time shews no effect of any Contagion so that then the whole Nation passes into a most secure healthy condition from amorbid and dangerous And then those Diseases which are called by the Greeks Sporadici begin to appear which in no part of the World are seen to be rise together with the Plague Ibid. Hac c. These things are first observed about that time From which I think and perchance not without reason the cause of the extinction of the Plague and the change of the state from Morbid to Wholesome doth depend For no other of the conservative Causes which are wont to be called by Physitians Res non Naturales appeareth then besides the Air to which we may refer this change from Disease to Healthiness and therefore we must refer this change to the change of the Air. Ad pag. 259. The Inhabitants do strange things both in preserving Health and curing Diseases by Friction and Unction using the first in cold and Chronical the latter in acute Diseases And Strangers who arrive there are as they ought willing to imitate their ways of Physick and by Rules of Art to preside and moderate these ways of Empirical Healing Ib. Cholera Sicca is Cured by the same Remedies especially if their Horny Cupping-glasse be apply'd to the Region of the Liver of which I must attest the same thing that Galen doth of Cupping-glasses which he affirm'd to Work as Miraculously as if their Operation had depended on Enchantment Ad pag. 271. Neque c. Nor doth he say that a Physitian needs nothing of Counsel or Deliberation or that an irrationall Man may professe this Art But that those Conjectures of hidden things are nothing to the purpose Becâ—use it matters not what causeth the Disease but what removes it Ib. Interim c. In the mean time the Brasilian Botanists make all sorts of Medicines of Simples they find every where in the Woods which they make with so great Sagacity and apply them both internally and externally especially to Diseases that Spring from Venome that a man may more securely give himself over to their hands then to our unskilful Physitians who brag much of Secrets they have learn't in private and for the knowledg of these will be called Rationals in Physick Ad pag. 272. Fortassis c. Perchance some Sciolist in Physick may affirm that these things may not be used by reason of the Narcotick and Stupefactive property But these pretenses are as vain in effect as specious at first sight for besides that the hot temper of this Country requires it It is sure that without these Remedies there can be no Cure Adde that here we prepare Opium so well that you may give it to an Infant And truly if in Hot Diseases we had no Opiats we should in effect find that the use of all other Medicaments would prove altogether vain and fruitlesse Ad pag. 287. Si. medicinam c. Such was the Origin of Physick by the Recovery of some and the Death of others it first made distinction between things Soverain to heal and things which were Improper and Deadly And thus the Remedies being found out Men began to dispute of the Reasons of them Nor was the Art of Medicine found out by the light of Reason but Medicines being found the Reason began to be enquired into Ib. Ubi res c. Where the Matter is certain if it be against the common Opinion the Reason must be sought and not the Matter of fact scrupled Ad pag. 297. Paucissimos c. You will find very few of those who dwell at the Spaa who are troubled with the Head-ach Stone Obstructions of the Kidnies Liver Spleen or Mesariaick Veines none at all who were troubled with the Jaundice Dropsie Gout Itch or Falling sicknesse Ib. Inter caetera c. Among other Qualities it moveth the Monethly Evacuation as hath been prov'd by a thousand trials And yet it stops the immoderate Flux of them more happily then any other Medicine Ad pag. 299
Rerum c. The Contemplation of Nature though it maketh not a â—hysitian yet it fits him to learn Physick FINIS The INDEX to the Second Part. The Second Part Of the Usefulness of Natural Philosophy SECT I. Of its Usefulness to PHYSICK ESSAY I. Containing some Particulars tending to shew the Usefulness of Natural Philosophy to the Physiological part of Physick The advantage of the Knowledg of Nature towards the increasing the Power of Man and its Use as to Health of the Body and Goods of Fortune pag. 3 That in Man's Knowledg of the Nature of Creatures consists his Empire over them 4 That the Discovery of America is owed to the Knowledg of the Loâ—d stones Polarity 5 That the Martial affairs all over the World were altered by the Knowledg of the Nature of Brimstone and Saltpeter ib How prejudicial the mistake of that Aphorism that if teeming Women be let bloud they will miscarry hath been to Femal Patients 6 The interest of this Knowledg to the Happiness and Life â—f Man 7 The enumeration of those Arts to which this Knowledg is profitable ib. The Method or way intended for the ensuing Discourse 8 The Division of Physick into five parts 9 How the Physiological part of Physick is advantaged by the Knowledg of Natural Philosophy ib. That the Anatomical Doctrine of Man's body recâ—ives light from Experiments made on other Creatures ib. Proved by divers Instances as of the finding the Lâ—cteals and Lymphae-ducts first in Bruit Bodies 10 The Experiment of taking out the Spleen in Dogs ib. The same thing done by Fioravanti in a Woman 11 The Respiration of Frogs divers Hours sometimes Daies under water without suffocation ib. What use Aristotle and Galen made of the Dissections of Bruits 11 12 The Anatomy of Man counted now in Muscovy for inhumane and the use of Skeletons for Witchcraft 12 The Use of the comparison of the parts of Humane Body with those of Beasts ib. Illustrated by divers particular Observations 13 Divers Motions and Actions of Frogs after their Hearts were cut out 14 Observations of the motion of a Chicken 's Heart after the Head and other parts were cut off 14 Of the Vivacity of dissected Vipers 16. and Tortoises 17 Whether there be a necessity of the unceasing influence of the Brain to Sense and Motion 17 That the Silkworm-butterfly is capable of Procreation after the loss of its Head 17 That the Redness of the Bloud is not to be ascribed to the Liver proved by the inspection of the Liver of Chickens unhatcht 18 That the loss of a Limb in all Animals is not irreparable ib. That notwithstanding the great Solution and Digestion of Meat in the Stomachs of Fishes no sensible Acidity is found there 19 Experiments concerning the Solution of Meats and their change of Colours by acid Menstruums 20 VVaies of Artificial Drying and preservation of Plants and Insects 22. and more bulky Bodies 23 Particularly the Schemes of divers parts of Humane Body 24 Of the preservation of an Embryo divers Years by Embalming it with Oyl of Spike 25 Instances of men in the American Mountains kill'd and afterwards preserv'd from putrefaction only by the VVind ib. Of the use of Spirit of VVine for the preservation of Bodies from putrefaction 26 That the Examination of the Juices of Humane Bodies by the Art of Chymistry may illustrate their Use and Nature 27 That the Actions which are common to Men with other Animals being perform'd Mechanically the Skill of Mechanicks must be of Use to Physiology· 28 ESSAY II. Offering some Particulars relating to the Pathological Part of Physick That the Naturalists Knowledg may assist the Physitian to discover the Nature and Causes of Diseases 29. Prov'd by generall Reason 30 By particular Instance of the Cause of the Stone in the Kidnies 31 The cause of that Disease illustrated by the Petrifaction of VVood Cheese Moss VVater c. 32 The Origin of Helmont's Offa alba and Paracelsus his Duelech by the mixture of Spirit of VVine and Spirit of Urine and example of the Generation of the Stone 33 That a terrestrious Substance may lurk undiscern'd in limpid Liquors 34 The Vse of Chymistry in explaining the Nature of and aberrations in our Digestions 35 prov'd by a Catalogue of considerable Observations 36 The Salt and Sulphur have more influence in the causation of Diseases then the first Qualities of Heat Cold c. 37 Observations mad upon the Liquor that distends the Abdomen in the Dropsy 38 Observations on the Calculus Humanus 39 Of the changes that may reasonably be thought to happen to our aliments within the Body 43. Illustrated by the Example of Juices out of the Body 42 43 Difference between vulgar and true Chymistry 44 The Use of the Knowledg of Fermentation 44 Of Periodical Effervences in the Blood without Fermentation 44 45 Of the use of Zoology to the Knowledg of Diseases 46 Helmont's Error refuted that the Stone is a Disease peculiar to Man 47 That the Venom of Vipers or Adders consists chiefly in the Rage and Fury wherewith they bite and not in any part of the Body that hath at all times a mortal property 57 A certain Cure for the Biting of Vipers 59 Of external Application of Poisons and letting them into the Veins of Beasts 60 61 Postcript Experiments of conveying Liquid Poisons immediately into the Mass of Blood 62 63 64 65 ESSAY III. Containing some Particulars relating to the Semiotical Part of Physick That the Improvement of the Therapeutical would alter the Prognosticks in the Semeiotical part of Physick 66. An Instance to that purpose in the Peruvian Bark 67 68 and in Riverius's Febrisugum and a New Cure of the Kings Evill 69 That though no Disease should be incurable yet every Disease is not curable in every Patient 70 That the Hope of doing greater Cures then ordinary hath engaged Artists to make profitable Trials 71 Examples of some unexpected and strange Cures 72 73 Examples of the Cures of Cancers 74 An Example of a Cure of one that was born with a Cataract in the Eye 75. and other Examples of Cataracts strangely cured ib. Examples of the Cure of the Dropsie and Gout 76 77 Examples of the Cure of the Stone 78. The use of Persicaria for that Cure 79. Instances in other Medicines for the same Disease 80. The Use and Success of Millepedes 81. The Argument concerning the Incurableness of â—he Stone answered 82. That there may be a Liquor able to dissolve the Stone that may not be corrosive to any other part 83 84 Examples of those who could digest Metals and Glass 85 86 87 The Descriptions of a Menstruum prepar'd from common Bread able to draw Tinctures from pretious Stones Minerals c. 88 Helmont's Arguments from the Providence of God censured 90 The Argument that Paracelsus outliv'd not the 47th Year of his Age answered 90 The efficacy of Paracelsus his Laudanum 91 Butler's great Remedies 92 93 94 ESSAY IV.
a Wine unknown to most other Regions of the World of the Fruit of Acaju which yet upon his experience he much commends telling us That it is strong enough to inebriate and may he doubts not be kept good many Years and that though it be astringent yet both in himself and others he found it diuretical In the Barbada's they have many Drinks unknown to us such as are Perino the Plantane-drink Grippo Punch and the rare Wine of Pines by some commended more then the Poets do their Nectar some of which we therefore make not because the Vegetables whereof they are produc'd grow not in these colder Climats But others also they have which we have not though they are made of Plants to be met with in our Soil as for instance the drink they call Mobbie made of Potato's fermented with Water which being fit to drink in a very few days and easie to make as strong almost as the maker pleaseth would be of excellent use if it were but as wholsome as it is accounted pleasant In the Turkish Dominions where Wine properly so call'd is forbidden by Mahomet's Law the Jews and Christians keep in their Taverns a Vinous Liquor made of fermented Raisons after a manner which when we shall elsewhere acquaint you with it you will easily discern to be capable of much improvement from the knowledge of Fermentation And indeed by the bare fermenting of Raisons and Water in a due proportion without the help of Barm Leaven Tartar or other additament to set them a working we have divers times in a few days prepar'd a good Vinous Liquor which having for tryals sake distilled it afforded us greater store then we expected of inflammable Spirit like that of other Wine But I have sometimes wondered that Men had no more curiosity to try what Drinks may be made of the Juices obtainable by wounding or cutting off the parts of several Trees and some other Vegetables For that in the East Indies their Sura is made of the Liquor dropping from their wounded Coco Trees we have not long since out of Linscoten informed you And sober Eye-witnesses have assured us That in those Countrys they have but too often seen the Seamen drunk by the use or Liquors weeping out of the Incisions of wounded Vegetables and afterwards fermented And that even in Europe the Alimental Liquor drawn by Trees from the Earth may receive great alterations from them before it be quite assimulated by them may be gathered from the practice of the Calabrians and Apulians who betwixt March and November do by Incisions obtain from the common Ash Tree and the Ornus which many Botanists would have to be but a wilde Ash a sweet Juice so like to the Manna adhearing in that Season to the Leaves of those kinde of Trees that the Natives call it in their Language Manna del corpo or Trunk-manna and least we should think they draw all this sweetness from the Soil of that particular part of Italy where they grow you may be satisfied by the Learned Chrysostomus Magnenus in his Treatise De Manna that it is to be met with in several other places And he adds That in the Dukedom of Milane where he professeth Physick there is no other Manna used then that which is as he speaks Vel è trunco expressum which he somewhere calls Manna Truncinum aut in ramis stiriatim concretum and that yet it is safely and prosperously used I had communicated to me as a rarity a secret of the King of Polands which is said to do wonders in many Diseases and consists onely in the use of the Liquor which drops about the beginning of the Spring from the bar'd and wounded Roots of the Walnut-tree but because I have not yet made tryal of it my self I shall pass on to observe to you that in some Northern Countries and even in some parts of England bordering upon Scotland the almost insipid Liquor that weeps in March or the beginning of April out of the transversly wounded Branches not Trunks of the Birch-tree is wont to be used by Persons of Quality as a preservative from the Stone against which cruel Disease Helmont highly extols a Drink made of this Liquor and semen dauci and Beccabunga and I think not without cause For not to mention all the commendations that have been given me of it by some that use it I have seen such strange relief frequently given among others to a Kins-man of mine to whom hardly any other Remedy though he tryed a scarce imaginable variety was able to give ease and in whose dissected Bladder after another Disease had kill'd him a Stone of many Ounces was found that I usually every Spring take care to provide a quantity of this Water with which alone without the other Ingredients mentioned by Helmont my Kins-man used to be relieved as long as he could keep it which you may do the longer by pouring upon the top of it a quantity of Sallet Oyl to defend it from the Air and perhaps also by Distillation By which last named way I know an Ingenious Man that is wont to preserve it for his own use and says he findes it not thereby impair'd in virtue But the most effectual way that ever I yet practiced Pyrophilus to preserve both this and other Liquors and Juices is dexterously and sufficiently to impregnate them with Fume of Sulphur which must be at divers and often times as it were incorporated with the Liquor by due agitation the manual Operation belonging to this Experiment I may hereafter have occasion to describe more fully together with the particular Effects of it in several Bodies And therefore it may here suffice to tell you that if you practice it carefully you will perhaps think your self oblig'd to thank me for the discovery of it though a heedful Reader may finde it not obscurely hinted in Helmont's Writings I might here annex the great commendation which I have found given to this Birch-water by eminent Writers against the hot dâ—stempeâ—s of the Liver and divers other affections and especially how Freitagius commends it very much to dilute Wine with and adds Haec est dulcacida grati saporis sitim sedat viscerum sanguinis fervorem temperat obstructiones reserat calculum pellit But I suppose you will think it high time for me to proceed to another subject and indeed I should not have spent so much time in discoursing of Drinks but that I am apt to think that if there were greater variety of them made and if they were more skilfully ordered they might by refreshing the Spirits and insensibly altering the mass of Blood prevent and cure without weakning or much troubling the Patient almost as many Diseases as the use of our common unwholesome and sophisticated Wines is wont to produce For in Fermentation the Sulphurous as Chymists call them the Active and the Spirituous parts of Vegetables are much better loosened and more intirely separated
knowing what else to do applied to the part affected an Oyntment consisting onely of Aurum fulminans prepared and fixed by a slight and familiar way which you may command and made up with a little Oyle of sweet Almonds into a requisite consistence and though presently upon the application of the Remedy the pain for a quarter of an Houre hugely increased yet soon after it abated and the Hemorrhoids the next day were closed and the day after went away Nor has the Patient ever since that is for some Years been troubled with any thing of Relapse And the same Physician assures me that with the like Remedy he has found a strange effect in Venereal Ulcers And perhaps to this may be referred what has been found by some friends of mine that Phlegm of Vitriol and Saccharum Saturni which not only inwardly given are said much to cool the Blood but outwardly applied are good for Burns and hot Humours do yet potently discusse cold Tumours But least you should say that this diversity may proceed at least in part from the Corpuscles of differing Natures that may be imagined in the forementioned Medicines I shall return to what I was discoursing of before and take notice of the Efficacy of some other external Remedies Since the beginning of this ESSAY I saw a lusty and very sprightful Boy Child to a Famous Chymical Writer who as his Father assuâ—'d me and others being by some Enemies of this Physitians when he was yet an Infant so bewitcht that he constantly lay in miserable torment and still refusing the Breast was reduc'd by pain and want of food to a desperate condition the experienc'd Relater of the Story remembring that Helmont attributes to the Electum Minerale immaturum Paracelsi the Vertue of relieving those whose distempers come from Witchcraft did according to Helmonts prescription hang a piece of this Noble Mineral about the Infants Neck so that it might touch the Pit of the Stomack whereupon presently the Child that could not rest in I know not how many Daies and Nights before fell for a while a sleep and waking well cry'd for the Teat which he greedily suck'd from thenceforth hastily recovering to the great wonder both of his Parents and several others that were astonish'd at so great and quick a change And though I am not forward to impute all those Diseases to Witchcraft which even Learned Men Father upon it yet it s considerable in our present case that whatsoever were the cause of the Disease the Distemper was very great and almost hopeless and the cure suddenly perform'd by an outward application and that of a Mineral in which compacted sort of Bodies the finer parts are thought to be more lock'd up Among the proofs of the efficacy of appended Remedies we must not pretermit the memorable Examples that are deliver'd by the Judicious Boëtius de Boot concerning the Vertues of that sort of Jasper which is blood red throughout the whole Body of the Stone not being mingled with any Colour Testari possum saies he me qui alias lapidibus geminis tantas vires quantas vulgus solet non tribuo credibile vix de Jaspidis viribus observasse Nam cum ancilla fluxu menstruorum ita laborasset per aliquot dies ut nullo modo sisti posset Jaspidem rubram impolitam rudem femori alligari jussi Alius in eadem Domo cum in pede vulneratus esset nec sanguinis fluxus cohiberi posset admoto lapide extemplo impeditus fuit licet vulnus non tegeretur To these he adjoynes a much more memorable Example of a Maid he cur'd at Prague who had been for six Years sick of an Hemorrhagy so vehement that there scarce ever pass'd a Week in which she did not several times Bleed neither could she be reliev'd by any Remedies though she had long us'd them till she was quite tired with them wherefore our Author setting them all aside lent her a Jasper of whose Vertues in such cases he had made good trial to hang about her Neck which when she did the flux of Blood presently ceas'd and she afterwards for curiosity sake oftentimes laying aside the Stone and as often as she needed it applying it again observ'd That whereas the flux of Blood did not presently return upon the absence of the Jasper but after divers Weeks yet upon the hanging it on again it would presently be stopt so that she could not ascribe the relief to any thing but the Stone by which our Author tells us that at length she was quite cur'd And speaking of the praises given by others to Green Iasper speckled with Red he concludes Sed ego quod multoties expertus sum refero But amongst the Operations of outwardly appended Medicines I have scarce met with a stranger then that which the Experienc'd Henricus ab Heer mentions in the fourteenth of those Observations which he truely stiles Rare namely That a Woman who had by an unskilful Mid-wife the Bladder Lacerated and thereby been subject to a perpetual Incontinentia Vrinae and had been reduc'd constantly to wear a Silver Pipe was perfectly help'd by wearing as a Gypsie had taught her a little Bag hung about her Neck containing the Powder made of a live Toad burnt in a New Pot Which relation I the rather mention not only because the Author having try'd the Remedy upon a Merchant to whom an unskilful Lythotomist had left the like Disease found it presently to succeed But because having been very desirous to have further trial made of so odd a Remedy by a curious Physitian he lately gave me this Account of it that though in one or two it had fail'd yet having given some of the powder to an inquisitive Person known to us both he assur'd him it had succeeded in two or three and the Disease is too unfrequent to give occasion to have the Remedy often tried And the Physitian adds that one of those Patiens tels him the Physitian That though her infirmity were occasion'd by a Laceratio Vesicae yet the yet the Remedy helps her as long as she wears it about her in case she renew the Powder when the Vertue of it begins to decay but that which is remarkable to our present purpose if she leaves it off awhile she findes the Disease return The same Henricus ab Heer among his freshly commended Observations hath another of a little Lady whom he concludes to have been cast into the strange and terrible Dâ—stemper which he there pâ—rticularly Records by Witchcraft Upon so severe an examination of the Symptoms made by himself in his own House that if notwithstanding his solemn Professions of veracity he mis-relate them not I cannot wonder he should confidently impute so prodigious a Disease to some supernatural cause But though the Observation with its various Circumstances be very well worth your perusing yet that for which I here take notice of it is what he adds about the end
inch in Diameter were thus suddenly turned White all over the rest of his Hair of which you know the Irish use to weare good store retaining it's former Reddish Colour You will mistake my design Pyrophilus if you conclude from what I have said concerning the Power of Effluvia to work upon the Body that I am either so much an Helmontian as to condemne the Use of all those Remedies that make such more grosse Evacuations if I may so call them as are made by Vomit Seige and the like or that I would have you or am my self so credulous as to believe all the Vertues that are ev'n by Eminent Writers ascribed to the Remedies called Specificks For to mention here but this we have observed that the hopes built upon ev'n excellent Specificks unlesse they be of such a resolving and abstersive Nature as to be able to make way for themselves into the Recesses of the Body are oftentimes disappointed where some Emetick or Cathartick Remedy has not been first us'd to free the Stomack and Guts from those viscous Humours which obstructing the first passages much enervate the Vertue of the Remedy if they do not altogether deny it accesse to the innermost parts of the Body That then which I aim at is first to keep you from being prejudiced by the Confidence of some Learned Doctors who laugh at the very name of Specificks and will not allow any Disease to be curable but by visible Evacuations of store of what they call peccant Matter And next to give you cause to think that such Specificks as men of judgment and credit do recommend upon their own Experience ought not to be rejected without Trial upon the bare account of their not being either Laxative or Vomitive Sudorifick or Diuretical Nay nor so much as for this that they are not endow'd with any Eminent Degree of any manifest Quality such as Heat Cold Drinesse Odor Tast Astriction and the like nor able perchance to work any considerable alteration in a healthy Human Body For I consider the Body of a living man not as a rude heap of Limbs and Liquors but as an Engine consisting of several parts so set together that there is a strange and conspiring communication betwixt them by vertue whereof a very weak and inconsiderable Impression of adventitious matter upon some one part may be able to work on some other distant part or perhaps on the whole Engine a change far exceeding what the same adventitious Body could do upon a Body not so contriv'd The faint motion of a mans little Finger upon a small piece of Iron that were no part of a Engine would produce no considerable Effect but when a Musket is ready to be Shot off then such a Motion being applied to the Trigger by vertue of the contâ—ivance of the Engine the Spring is immediatly let loose the Cock falls down and knocks the flint against the Steel opens the Pan strikes Fire upon the Powder in it which by the Touch-hole Fires the Powder in the Barrel and that with great noise throw's out the ponderous Leaden Bullet with violence enough to kill a Man at Seven or Eight hundred Foot distance And that also the Engine of a Humane Body is so fram'd as to be capable of receiving great alterations from seemingly slight Impressions of outward Objects upon the bare account of its particular contrivance may appear by several instances beside those which may belong to this Argument in the foregoing part of this ESSAY When a man goes suddenly out into the Sun it often happens that those beames which light upon his Head and would not in so short a time have any discernable effect on the least Hair of it do allmost in a moment produce that strange and violent motion in the head and almost all the Body which we call Sneezing Men that from the top of some Pinacle or other high and steep place do look down to the bottome of it are at first very apt by the bare prospect which yet convey's nothing into the Body but those images if yet there intervene corporeal ones in sensation of visible Objects that enter at the Eye to become so giddy that they are reduced to turne away their Eyes from the Praecipice for fear of not being able to stand upon their Leggs And many that look'd fixedly upon a Whirle poole or upon a very swift stream have had such a Vertiginous Motion thereby impressed on their Spirits that they have been unable to keep their Bodies upright but have fallen into the Water they gazed on And it is no lesse remâ—rkable that when a man is somewhat discompos'd at Sea and yet not enough to Vomit freely the Seamen are wont to advise him to look from the siâ—e of the Ship upon the Water which seeming swiftly to passe by the Vessel has upon the gazer the operation of a rapid stream and by making him giddy hastens and facilitates his Vomiting as I hâ—ve sometâ—mâ—s tâ—ied upon my self when I had a mind for healths sake to be put into a fit of Sea sicknesse If a person be very Ticklish and you but gently stroke the Sole of his Foot with the top of a Feather that languid Impression on the bottome of the foot shall whether he will or no put all those Muscles and other parts into motion which are requisite to make that noise and to exhibite that shape of the Face so farre distant from the feet which we call Laughing and so the gentle Motion of a straw tickling the Nostrils is able to excite Sneezing Most men may observe in themselves that there are some such noises as those maâ—e by the grating of an ungreas'd Cart-wheele upon the Axle tree or the tearing of course Paper which are capable of â—etting the Teeth on edge which yet cannot be done without exciting a peculiar Motion in several parts of the Head I had a servant who sometimes complained to me of a much more remâ—â—kable and unfrequent disorder namely that when he was put to whet a Knife that stridulous Motion of the Air was wont to make his Gummes bleed Henricus ab Heer in his Twenty nâ—nth Observation Records a Story of a Lady to whom he was sent for who upon the hearing of the sound of a Bâ—ll or any loud noise though Singing would fall into fits of Sounâ—ing which was scarce distinguishâ—ble from Death anâ— we may confirm that this disposition depended upon the Texture of her Body in râ—ference to Mâ—terial sounds by whâ—t he subjoyns that having well purg'd her and given her for two Months the Spaa-waters and other appâ—opâ—iate Remedies he throughly cur'd her And it often enough happens that when a Woman is in a Fit of the Mother another Hâ—sterical person standing by is by reason of a peculiar Disposition of her Body soon infected with the like strange discomposure And to shew you that a distemper'd Body is both an Engine and also an Engine disposed to receive alterations
many Diseases proceeding from these two general Causes And though I dare not deny that divers of those Praises may be well enough deserv'd by the Remedies to which they are ascribed yet I am not apt to think them much superior to the generality of volatile Salts And even the Spirit and Salt of Sheeps-blood it self did by their penetrancy of taste and fugitiveness in gentle heats promise little else Efficacy then those others so much celebrated Medicines 10. Nor is it onely by being administred it self that one of this sulphureous and subtle kinde of Spirits may become a good Remedy but also by its being made a Menstruum to prepare other Bodies For it will extract Tinctures out of several sulphureous and resinous Concretes whose finer parts by being associated with so piercing a Vehicle may probably gain a more intimate admission into the Body and have their Vertues conveyed further then otherwise they would reach And a Learned Doctor to whom I recommended such kinde of Remedies confessed to me That by the bare extractions of appropriated Vegetables themselves with Spirit of Urine he perform'd no small matter But one difficulty You may meet with in drawing the Tincture of Minerals and other very compact Bodies even with good Spirit of Urine for that I account to be the cheapest of these volatile Menstruum and the most easie to be obtain'd in good quantities For we have found but with a little heat the more fugitive Particles to ascend to the upper parts of the Glass and there fasten themselves in the form of a Salt by whose recess the debilitated Liquor was disabled from drawing the Tincture so powerfully as was expected wherefore we were reduc'd to make our Extractions in short neck'd Glass-Eggs or Vials exquisitely stop'd which may also be plac'd stooping in the Sand and when we perceiv'd much to be lodg'd in the necks of the Vessels by barely inverting them the hot Liquor soon reimbib'd the Salt and was fit to be plac'd again in Sand so that notwithstanding this difficulty we were able by this means in no long time to impregnate the Spirit of Urine or of Haâ—ts horn for I do not perfectly remember which it was with the Tincture of Flowers of Sulphur which may probably prove a noble Medâ—cine in divers affections of the Lungs since in them these volatile Liquors alone have been found very effectual And I remember I have sometimes made a much shorter and more odde Preparation which at any time You may command of Crude Sulphur whereby in not many hours I have by the means of Salts brought over such a sulphureous Liquor or Tincture as even in the Receiver was of a red Colour as well as of a strongly sulphureous Scent To the Page 164 165 c. where Ens Veneris is treated of BUt before I enter upon Particulars I think it will not be amiss to tell You how this Preparation first occur'd to Us because by that Information Your happyer Genius may peradventure hereafter be prompted to improve this Remedy or to devise one more approaching to the Nature and Excellency of that which we endeavor'd but with very imperfect success to light on or equal by our Ens Veneris I must then tell You that an Industrious Chymist of our Acquaintance and I chancing to Read one day together that odde Treatise of Helmont which he calls Butler when we had attentively perus'd what he delivers of the Nature as well as scarce credible Vertues of the Lapis Butleri he there mentions we fell into very serious Thoughts what might be the matter of so admirable a Medicine and the hopefullest manner of preparing that matter And having freely propos'd to one another our Conjectures and examin'd them by what is deliver'd by Helmont concerning the Preparation of Butlers Stone or some emulous Remedy we at length concurr'd in concluding that either the Lapis Butleri as our Author calls it or at least some Medicine of an approaching Efficacy might if Helmont did not mis-inform us be prepar'd by destroying as far as we could by calcination the body of Copper and then subliming it with Sal Armoniack And because the Body of Venus seems lesse lock'd up in good Vitriol then in its metalline form we concluded that it was best to calcine rather the Vitriol then the Copper it self and having freed the Colcothar from its separable Salts so to force it up with Sal Armoniack But the Person I discours'd with seeming somewhat diffident of this Process by his unwillingness to attempt it I desir'd and easily perswaded him at least to put himself to the trouble of trying it with the requisites to the work which I undertook to provide being at that time unable to prosecute it my self for want of a fit furnace in the Place where I then chanc'd to lodge And though at first we did not hit upon the best and most compendious way yet during the Sublimation he being suddenly surpris'd as both himself and his Domesticks two daies after told me with a fit of sickness attended with very horrid and seemingly Pestilential Symptomes was reduc'd to take some of this Medicine out of the Vessels before the due time and upon the use of it found as he told me an almost immediate Cessation of those dreadfull symptoms bâ—t not of the Palenesse they had produc'd This first prosperous Experiment emboldned us to give our Remedy the Title of Primum ens Veneris which for brevities sake is wont to be call'd Ens Veneris though I am far from thinking that it is the admirable Medicine to which Helmont gives that name at least if his Ens Veneris did really deserve half the praises by him ascrib'd to it But such as Ours is I shall now as time and my yet incompleat Trials will permit acquaint you with that Process of it which among some others we are most wont to employ as the most easie simple and genuine Take then of the best Hungarian or if you cannot procure that of the best Dantzick or other good Venereal Vitriol what quantity you please Calcine it in a strong fire till it be of a dark Red Dulcifie it by such frequent affusions of hot Water that at length the Water that hath pass'd through it appear full as tastless as when it was pour'd on it Let this thus exquisitely dulcified Colcothar when it is thorowly dry be very diligently ground with about an equal weight of good Sal Armoniack and let this mixture be put into a Glass Retort and either in as strong a heat as can conveniently be given in Sand or els in a naked fire force up as much of it as you can to the Top or Neck of the Retort and this Sublimation being ended out of the broken Retort laying the Caput Mortuum aside take all the Sublimate and grind it well again that if in any part the Sal Armoniack appear sublim'd by it self it may be reincorporated with the Colcothar Resublime this Mixture
distinct Remedies may be afforded us by this single Experiment These Remedies too may be the more acceptable both to Physitians and Patients because they have not in them any thing that is Mineral and notwithstanding their great Penetrancy and Efficacy have in them nothing of Corrosive as many of the Saline Remedies prescrib'd by Physitians in their Dispensatories And thirdly That the Salt of Soot thus sublim'd may be also enrich'd with the Sulphur or Balsamick part of the Spirit of Wine which was employ'd about its Preparation may appear probable enough to him that shall examine by his tast and otherwise such rectify'd Spirit of Wine as has had a sufficient quantity of Volatile Salts sublim'd from it And how Balsamical a substance is diffus'd through pure Spirit of Wine may be guess'd at by the great change which is made in the Caustick Salt of Tartar when it is so dulcify'd as to make that Excellent Medicine which Helmont extolls against inward Ulcers and calls Balsamus Samech which if one had the abstruse Art of so preparing the Salt and Liquor as to fit them for Conjunction might be made onely by destilling very frequently pure Spirit of Wine from very fine Salt of Tartar For by this means the fix'd Salt retaining the Sulphureous Salt or Balsamick parts of the Spirit of Wine as may appear by the Aquosity of the Liquor that comes over the Helm in this Preparation is thereby so depriv'd of its caustick tast that when it will rob no more Spirit of Wine but suffer it to be drawn off a strong as it was pour'd on it will easily in a moist place run per deliquium into a liquor not of a Caustick but Balsamick and as it seem'd to us a pleasant Tast. And whereas Pyrophilus we have complain'd of the Difficulty we have met with to mannage the unruly Salt of Soot and keep it from breaking Prison we must to make this Experiment be more practicable and useful advertise You that You may if You please instead of Salt of Soot Aromatize that of Harts-horn or mans Blood And I might adde that a very ingenious Friend of Ours Dr N. N. has lately Practis'd yet a more easie and preferable way of preparing Medicines of this Nature But though I have partly try'd his Method and found it to succeed well enough yet since I had it but by communication from him and that he makes a considerable Advantage of it I must forbear imparting it to You 'till I shall have obtain'd his Consent to disclose it I know not Pyrophilus whether I shall need to adde That of these fetid Remedies which are Volatile and somewhat Sulphureous as I chose to mention to You but a few to comply with my present hast which would not allow me to insist on many so in what I have deliver'd concerning these few I have set down Particulars the more fully and explicitly because I find the Doctrine of Volatile Salts though in my poor judgment worthy of a serious Enquiry perfunctorily and indistinctly enough handled by the Chymical Writers I have yet met with which made me the willinger to contribute the few Observations I could readily find of those I have had opportunity to make about them towards the Illustration of so important a Subject of which having elsewhere spoken in relation to Physiologie as these fugitive Bodies belong to the Commonwealth of Salts I thought it might not be unacceptable to You if I also consider'd them a while in relation to Physick and presented You with some hints concerning their Medical Uses To the 166 th Page where the Author promises a Declaration how he would have his Praises of Medicines understood ANd now Pyrophilus having finished what I thought fit to adde at present in the past APPENDIX I should likewise put at end to the present Exercise of your Patience but that this being my first Treatise written to You concerning Medical Matters and not being likely to be the last which you will meet with among the Papers design'd You I think it requisite and not unseasonable to declare to you here once for all with what Eyes I desire you should look upon what I have written and shall write to you concerning matters of that Nature And first I must advertise You that I am not so much a Mounteback as to recommend to you the Remedies I mention as certain Cures in the Cases wherein they are proper For he must have been extraordinarily happy or very mâ—ch unacquainted with the Practise of Physick that has not found that even those Medicines which are most celebrated by the best Authors both Galenical and Chymical do sometimes prove ineffectual as well as often prosperous and the Remedy prescribed by the same Physitian to twenty Patients sick of the same Disease has more then once been Observed though it have succeeded in nineteen to fail in the twentieth And indeed the Causes of Diseases the Constitution of Patients and the Complications of Distempers are so very various intricate and obscure that it is extreamly difficult even for the most knowing and experienc'd Physitian to make an accurate and constant Experiment in the Therapeutical part of Physick and consequently such Experiments are much lesse to be expected from Me whose Condition as well Disabilities forbid me to make the Practise of Physick my businesse and allow me onely to administer it occasionally either to my own particular Acquaintance or to such poor people as are not able to gratify Physitians or such as I meet with where there are not any And thereby I am reduced to learn the Vertues of divers of the Remedies I have prepared by very few or none of my own immediate Trials but the Relation of Physitians who do me the Favour to administer them for me And therefore though I endeâ—vour to put them into the hands of faithfull as well as ingenious men Yet not being allowed to be my self a constant eye-witnesse of the Effects they produce I must here for all these reasons solemnly professe to you that as I do not set down Medicinal Experiments with the same positivenesse that I do Physiological ones so I do not intend to venture the repute of being a faithful Relator of Experiments upon the successe of any Medicinal Receipt or Processe Yet in the next place I must tell You that You would perhaps do Me but right to think not only that the Chymical preparations of Remedies are if you understand them aright candidly set down though the Vertues ascribed to them do not constantly upon all Trials display themselves but that I have not rashly and inconsiderately or upon uncertain Rumors recorded the vertues of particular Remedies which may be good though they be not infallible It being sufficient to make a Medicine deserve the Title of Good that it be often in some degree at least succesful though now and then it prove not availeable especially if it be otherwaies so safe and innocent that even when it proves
the last place Pyrophilus I must Advertise you not to expect that every one of the Remedies I commend should be Physick and Physitian too I mean that it should of it self suffice to performe the Cures of those Diseases against which it is commended For Medicines are but Instruments in the hand of the Physitian and though they be never so well edg'd and temper'd require a skilful hand to mannage them and therefore I cannot but admire and disapprove their boldnesse that venture upon the Practise of Physick wherein it is so dangerous to commit Errours barely upon the confidence of having good Receipts For though by Conversation with eminent Physitians I have found the learnedest of them to disagree so much about the Nature and causes of Diseases that I dare not deny but that he may prosperously practise Physick that either ignores or dissents from the received Doctrines of the Schooles concerning the causes of Diseases and some other Pathological particulars yet I cannot but dislike their boldnesse who venture to give active Physick either in intricate or acute Diseases without at least a Mediocrity of knowledg in Anatomy and so much knowledg of the History of Diseases as may suffice to inform them in a competent measure what are the usual Symptomes of such a Disease what course nature is wont to take in dealing with the peccant matter and what discernable alterations in the Patients Body do commonly forerun and thereby foretel a Crisis or otherwise the good or bad event of the Disease To all which is to be added some tolerable measure of Knowledg not only of the Materia Medica and the chief waies of compounding several ingredients into Medicines of several Formes and Consistencies as circumstances may require but also of the orderly and seasonable administration of the helps affordable by them These particulars Pyrophilus might easily be enlarged on but having neither the leisure nor designe to handle them commonplace-like I shall only give you this account of my requiring in the Profess'd Practiser of Physick some knowledg both of the Materia medica and the Method of compounding and administring Remedies that excepting perhaps the Arcana majora as Chymists call them even the best Medicines by being unseasonably or preposterously administred especially in acute Diseases where Nature's motions are to be diligently watcht and seconded may do a patient as much harm as the orderly and skilful administration of them can do him good And that he that has nothing but one good receipt for a Distemper and knowes not how to vary it by adding omitting or substituting other parts of the Materia Medica as urgent occasion shall require may oftentimes find himself reduced either to suffer his Patient to languish helpless or to venture by curing him of one Disease to cast him into another For sometimes the Patients constitution makes the Medicine prescribed by the Receipt unfit to be administred and sometimes too the Disease for which the Receipt is proper is in the Patient complicated with some other Distemper which may be as much encreased by the Specifick as the other Disease may be lessned I know for instance some eminent men that are wont to Cure very stubborn Venereal distempers by a Chymical preparation which some of themselves have been pleased to disclose to me of the Indian Plants Sarsaparilla Guaiacum c. But if these men met with Patients such as those which Eustachius Rudius mentions himself to have often met with who upon the use of the least quantity of Guaiacum though corrected with cold ingredients were wont to be presently affected with such sharpnesse of Urine and Inflammation of the parts to which Urine â—elates as hazarded their lives they would be reduced as well as our Author confesseth himself to have been to have recourse to Mercurial or other Remedies To which we may adde that the use of Sarsaparilla and Guajacum is generally forbidden by the warier sort of Physitians in those Patients whose Venerial Distempers are complicated with heat or Inflammation of the Kidnies or Livers And sometimes also it happens that the very outward forme of the Medicine prescribed by the Receipt is not fit or perhaps possible to be administred For not to mention that divers Patients can retain no purgative Physick exhibited in the form of a Potion and some others are as apt to Vomit up whatever is given them in the form of Pills not to insist on this I say I shall content my self to relate to You a memorable Case that hapned a while since to a Physitian of my acquaintance He was called to a lusty young Woman who upon an accidental but violent Cold was suddenly taken with such a Constriction of the Parts inservient to Speech and Deglutition as made her altogether unable either to speak or swallow any thing at all and having thus continued some daies in spight of Glysters or other Remedies prescribed by a very Learned Physitian and in spight of Endeavours to excite Vomiting by making Her hold emetick things in her Mouth the poor Woman was in great danger when my acquaintance came to her of perishing for hunger what in this case could be expected from the best Remedies that must necessarily be taken in at the Mouth Wherefore the Physitian finding her yet strong enough and without Feaver and yet her case almost desperate did as judiciously as luckily prescribe a Glyster wherein to ordinary Ingredients were added as himself a very few daies after told me about four ounces of the Infusion of Crocus Metallorum with an advise that it should be kept in as long as possibly She could and by this Medicine Nature being sufficiently irritated there quickly followed upon it some violent Vomitings and upon them a liberty both of Swallowing and Speaking And since this a young Gentleman and Fellow-traveller of mine had the Organs of deglutition so strangely weakned without any manifest cause that though he were able to make me a Visit and acquaint me with his Case yet he was very apprehensive he should in a very few Dayes be starv'd and being unable to swallow Remedies had quickly perish'd in despight of the Arcana Majora themselves had he been master but of such of them as like those wont to be magnify'd by Chymists must be taken into the Body if a very happy Physitian to whom I directed him had not by a very Efficacious and Specifick Medicine externally to be apply'd seasonably rescued him from so unusual and desperate a Case But Pyrophilus as I would not upon the score of good Receipts have the Physitians skill despis'd or thought uselesse so I wish that the Physitians skill may not make him despise good Receipts For we have often seen especially in outward affections not onely Empericks and Chirurgeons but even Ladies and old Wives with a lucky composition prescribed by a Receipt performe more constant and easie Cures of the particular Distemper for which that Receipt is proper then even Learned
the Usual Distillation ib. Of the power of good Menstruums in facilitating Distillation 181 That the calcination of Gold is facilitated by Amalgamation with Mercury 182 The power of Verdigreas distilled in drawing Tinctures of Glass of Antimony c. ib. That the Naturalist may find out wayes to preserve Medicines longer and better then is usual 183 Of fuming Liquors with Sulphur ib. And adding a little of the white Coagulum made of the pure spirits of Wine and Urin. ib. That the most principal way of lessening the charge of Cures would be the finding out New and more effectual Remedies 184 An History of a radicated Epilepsie that was cured by the Powder of Misselto of the Oak 185 Chap. VIII Other proofs that the Naturalists skill may improve the Pharmaceutical preparation of simples 186 Of the best waies to correct Opium 187 Of the best way of correcting Mercurius vitae 188 An Excellent Medicine made of those churlish Minerals Quicksilver and Antimony ib. Waies to take away the Vomitive faculty of Antimonial Glass 189 190 A New and excellent way to get the Primum Ens or Essence of some Vegetables 191 The influence of these Prima Entia to cause renovation or rejuvenescence 192 193 Of Helmonts Via Media of Elixir Propâ—ietatis â—94 And the perfuming it by cohobations with Musk and Amber ib. A Commendation of Helmont's Medicines 195 Of the power of Chymistry 196 Of the power of Noble Menstruums particularly 196 â—97 The power of Sal-Taltari Volatized 198 Of the possibility of Volatizing it 199 That there may be other Menstruums besides such as are Acid Urinous or Alcalizate 200 How these severally disarm and destroy one another and that what an Acid Menstruum dissolves an Vrinous or Alcalizate doth precipitate ib. Of a Menstruum unlike to all these ib. Chap. IX That Chymistry it self much more Physiology is capable of affording a New and better Methodus Medendi 201 202 203 Instances to prove that the unusual efficacies of New Remedies may alter and make the method of Curing more compendious 204. In the Kings-Evil ib. In Plurisies 205. In the Rickets ib. Chap. X. That great Cures may be done by outward Applications 207 Of the efficacy of Lapis Nephriticus and divers other Appensa 208 209 The Cures of the Dropsy and Schyrrhus Lienis by the external application of Spunges dipt in Lime water 210 Of strange Cures perform'd neer Rome in the Serpentine Grotta ib. Of the Operations of Suphur Cantharides and Quicksilver and Tobacco externally applied 211 Instances in divers Medicines which have differing effects inwardly given and outwardly applied 212 213 That preparation may much improve Simples which are outwardly applied ib. Instances in divers preparations of Gold ib. An Oyntment made of Aurum fulminans for the Haemorrhoides and Veneral Ulcers ib. The Cure of a Person esteem'd bewitcht by an appended Mineral 214 Of the power of Jasper to stanch Blood 215 The Incontinentia Urinae Cured by the powder of a Toad burnt alive and hung about the neck 216 Effects ascribed to Witchcraft cured Per appensa 217 Paracelsus cured Quartan's by a Plaister 218 Diseases Cured by Frights 219 Physick now in China in a good condition without Phlebotomy Potions or Issues 2â—0 Where practitioners of Physick are illiterate there Specificks may be best met with 221 The usefulnesse of the knowledg of the Medicines of Barbarous Nations 221 222 223 A Comparison of this Empirick part of Physick with the Rational 224 Chap. XI Of other Extraordinary Medicines which work by Magnetisme Transplantation c. 225 The Cure of an Vlcer in the Bladder by the Sympathetick Powder 226 The effects of the Weapon-salve and other Magnetical Remedies 227 228 Observations of the Transplantation of Diseases 229 230 231 The sometimes not succeeding of Magnetical Medicines no sufficient cause to abandon their Vse 232 Chap. XII Instances of divers Cures upon Bruits and how these are appliable to men 233 234 235 Chap. XIII That the handling of Physical Matters was anciently thought to belong to the Naturalist 236 That the rejecting Specificks because they make no visible Evacuation is irrational 237 That great changes may be made only by displacing without any Evacuation of the parts 238 The making of Vinegers is an Instance of this truth especially in the Indies ib. Instances in Sura and the Iuice of Mandioca 239 In the Effects of Thunder and Earthquakes ib. Divers Instances to prove that invisible Corpuscles may passe from Amulets and cause great alterations in the Iuices of a Mans Body 240 Galens Example of Peiony-Root c. 240 241 242 Of Purging by the Odor of Potions 243 Of the Purging and Vomiting Quality of the Air of the Mountain Pariacaca 243.244 The power of Steams seen in the Infectious Effluvia 244 Of alterations made by the Passions of the mind 245 Chap. XIV Divers Instances of the power of Imagination 246 An Instance of the Hair of the Head chang'd in Colour upon a sudden Fear 247 How the Authors discourse concerning the power of Effluvia ought to be understood 248 That the particular State of disposition of the Engine of humane Body is considerable as to the effects of these Impressions 249 250 251 252 The effects of the Moss growing on Humane skill in stanching Blood 253 Burnt Feathers or the Smoak of Tobacco remove Hysterical fits ib. Cures of Dysenteries by Fumesi 254. And by sitting on a hot Anvil ib. Cures of the Colick by Clysters of the Smoke of Tobacco ib. Of other Cures done by Smoak 255 Of the sudden ceasing of the Plague at Grand Cayro in June 256 257 Chap. XV. That Humane Body may be alter'd by such Motions as Act in a Grosse and meerly Mechanical manner prov'd by divers Instances 258 259 The Instance of the Cure of the biting of the Tarantula by Musick particularly modified 260 261 Chap. XVI Divers instances of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Peculiar aversion of particular persons from particular things and of the commotions made in the Body thereby 262 263 That since the Body receives such alterations from such unlikely things there is no just arguing against Specificks because they operate not by any Obvious Quality 264 Of the Operations of Poysons and Antidotes 265 266 267 What is to be done when the Specifick seems likely to increase the Disease 268 Chap. XVIII A Disquisition concerning the Ordinary Method of Physick 268 269 270 271 Instances of some Medicines condemn'd for Noxious which yet have prov'd Useful 272 Of the Use of Guajacum for Consumptions and Mercury for Palsies 273 That there are divers Concretes as to sense similar whose different parts have contrary Qualities as Rhubarb and Oyl Olive 274 Of improbable Cures viz. of a Plurisy by a Laudanum Opiatum 275 Of curing Coughs and Consumptions by Saline Medicines 276 Of the Curing Phtisical Consumptions by the Acid Smoak of Sulphur 277 The Use of the Livers and Galls of Eeles in expediting the hard labour of