as appears here and there by the writings of Galen and Avicen Notwithstanding I can scarce apprehend the foundation of these seats wherefore I desire to be satisfied in this doubt whether continual Fevors are said to bud forth in the veins because the blood that leaps out upon phlebotomy doth appear hot to the touch and shews deep red being mixt with a blew milky or yellowish whey But this blood is not different from any other that 's extracted in an intermittent Fevor or any other disease And whether the difference of seats is expounded to be such because the blood within the vessels having an immediate commerce with the heart is capable to foment a strong heat whereas entrails that are more remote from the heart do only by fits profuse those putrid and fevorish steems and under that shape do occasion an intermittent heat Certainly not Moreover the entrails being tyed to the vessels are not less commodiously situated by means of these small chanels that tend directly to the heart to foment a fevorish heat than if the cause were engendred within the foresaid vessels or whether because the vessels are of a just capacity wherein they may receive such a quantity of fevorish matter as may suffice to nourish a Fevor without intermission whereas the entrails are stated to be streight and not provided with a hollowness to retain matter enough On the other hand the entrails according to what the thing requires ought to ingurgitate a larger quantity of matter which might suffice to protract an intermittent Fevor to some months and years as doth oft happen But to touch the knot of the difficulty the cause of the continuation intermission remission and intention of Fevors is not to be imputed so much to the quantity as the quality of the fevorish matter as hereafter shall be treated more at large In the precited definition the heart is idly stated the part primarily affected for thence would follow that the greater part of Fevors should be mortal because the composure of its temperament being once subverted is not easily restored Secondly Suppose an inflammation of the Liver or other entrail attended with a Fevor which do you think the part primarily affected the Heart or Liver CHAP. V. Concerning the fopperies of Fermentation ALmost every Barber and Plaster-spreader have got the knack to buzze every patient in the ear the song of fermentation and know how to fit the tone of it to every disease but chiefly to a Fevor illustrating the exposition thereof with this commentary that the blood fermenteth and the humors are in a fermentation likewise the ferment of the Heart Spleen Liver and it may be of the Fundament too if they go not orderly to stool is depravated moreover if a Corn of the Toe doth but ake the distempered ferment is the cause of it Summarily fitting the word ferment to every disease cause and symptom they conceive the case to be very well handled and thence tell the Patient they will expel the disease by correcting the serment and so as if they had done their business mighty well they send the Patient home swelled with hopes Concerning this abstruse Philosophy borrowed from certain theorems of the Wine-press and chymical notions Anthonius Guntherus Theobaldius Hoghelandius Felicianus Betera Conringius Martinus Kirger and others have prosessedly treated whose Treatises if you peruse you will find the word fermentation to serve in divers significations the one in a large sense gives the description of it not at all different from Peripatetical mixtion excepting that this performs its task by qualities the other by action and reaction But fermentation in a narrower signification as it relates to fluids is stated an effervescency of any liquor tending to concoction At present we will examine whether a Fevor be a fermentation or effervescency of the blood To the resolving of this we must resume from what hath been said in the foregoing Chapter that a Fevor as it is a disease of the body doth necessarily inhere in a part as its subject and foundation but the blood cannot perform the office of a part therefore neither a Fevor or fermentation can be properly attributed to it Secondly Neither can the blood fermenting be probably conceived to be the continent cause of a Fevor because its fluid mixture is absorbed in a few days whereas a Fevor is protracted to some weeks Suppose a fevorish Patient to contain four and twenty pints of blood in his vessels whereof a quarter of a pint is consumed every day by abstinence and dissipated away through the pores into vapors and some days a whole pint or at least three quarters are drawn off by phlebotomy for it 's very familiar amongst the French the first and second opening of a vein to extract a whole pint of blood and every bleeding afterward which is commonly every other day to take away two Porringers containing three ounces a piece by this computation the whole mass should be drawn off in two weeks or less and consequently the fermentation must be quieted and stopt and the Fevor expelled But on the contrary if you should extract blood forty times as I have oft observed in France they have done the height of the heat will not be half a degree abated but rather augmented Who would then maintain the blood boiling through fermentation to be the cause of a Fevor However this experiment is observed to be true if you take off the third part of any liquor that is a fermenting whether of Wine Beer or any other mixture it will immediately be taken off from working but ofttimes the blood is tapt off to the half and sometimes to the last fourth part without the least quieting of the fermentation if I may call it so Possibly you reply that according as the vessels are emptied by bleeding sweating and other torments they swell up again by the food and drink that 's daily taken On the contrary there is a thin Diet ordered to such as are in a Fevor neither do most in the whole course of a Fevor allow their stomach so much as whereout the sanguifick faculty may engender a pound of blood add hereunto that their appetite for fourteen or twenty days is quite dejected But you reply that they take as much food as answers what is consumed to this I return that the blood which is daily ingendred and newly admitted into the vessels either it 's pure or stained if the former then it ought to dilute and temperate the fermenting mass which it doth in no manner do if the later it is not to be doubted but that it hath contracted its stain from the concocting and depurating entrails whence follows that the primar and principal cause is not to be attributed to the blood but the entrails Thirdly It 's confirmed by experience that fermentation doth happen to any mixt liquor and soft compositions as paste or dow electuaries and others which is observed to be a mild working of
the same manner if you pour some drops of those forementioned volatil liquors into a small quantity of blood though crude and phlegmatick you will digest it into laudable blood and preserve it warm and slorid but upon dropping some oyl of Vitriol into it it turns immediately into a curd the serum or whey is depressed downwards and assumes a purple red colour Spirit of Nitre doth pervert the redness into a whitish or ash colour but doth not precipitate the whey suffering it to swim a top Upon the further pursuit of the matter I dropt a drop into a large proportion of blood almost coagulated whereby almost in a moment the tye of the coagulative particles was dissolved and indued with a shining lustre not at all inferiour to the best digested blood Neither doth it only from this external use deserve to be termed so admirable but that in a short time being used inwardly as I have oft made trial it hath singularly digested the crude blood of Asthmaticks Scorbuticks and of worfer habits A consistency between thick and thin signifies a vigour of concoction chiefly to be ascribed to the volatil salt living in the vital Bitumen The causes of the thinness or tenuity of urine in those that are sick of a Fevor are the scarcity of volatil and sixt salts not being separated from the torrent floating through the great vessels also the drying away of the mucilage of the blood through the heat or its dissipation through the pores The thickness of urine is occasioned by the whey or serum imbibing too great a quantity of salt and thick mucilage Touching the matter of the hypostasis or settlement of the urine there hath hitherto but little certainly been stated among Authors though most are of opinion it proceeds from the superfluous humour of the third concoction To me the sediment appears to be a mucilage partly imbibed by the serum or whey within the vessels partly deterged from the slimy substance of the intern tunick of the ureters and bladder wherewith they are liquored to prevent their most exquisite sense be not hurt by the urine that flows by This mucilage if you examine the Chamber-pot shall be found to be a glutinous thick and slippery slime moreover that it 's dissolvable by heat and apt to be thickned by cold like phlegm may be observed in turbid urines which as long as they continue warm after they are made are clear and perspicuous but a little after growing cold are turned into turbid and dark being deprived of the energy of the particles of hot volatil salts that dissolved the slime for if you do but hold the urinal a moment to the heat of the fire or hold it in warm water they will resume their former shape of clearness Bubbles that oft swim a top the surface I judge ought not to be imputed to a slatuous but lixivious constitution of urine for ashes soap and other lixivious things being dissolved in water render it subject to turn frothy and bubbly with the least stirring The colour consistency and contents are chief universals whence a Physician may extract what preternaturals lye hidden in the body The colour discovers the active qualities of the salts the consistency the state of the serum or whey and the contents the quantity of the foresaid salts and other excrements that had performed their office a further and particular explication of all these relating to the kinds of Fevors shall be reserved to the sequel of the book Lastly it is to be noted that in the contents are included the enaeorema and hypostasis CHAP. IV. Concerning the true and Spurious Essence of a Fevor IN the first Chapter we had hinted at the definition of a Fevor what concerns its explication we have partly referred hither That a Fevor is a derivative from the nature of fire is abundantly suggested from its destructive manner of acting most fierce heat the tongue and roof of the mouth being crusted with a black smoak likewise from other symptoms thence proceeding as thirst dryness and roughness of the skin and inflammation of several parts Here the Reader is to assume that the vital Bitumen of the heart and the whole body being kindled into a fire is the disease or Fevor or rather that the fiery distemper of the heart and the whole body or part is the disease but not the preternatural heat being that's rather to be counted a symptom immediately flowing from the disease in no wise differing from the manner the heat emanates from the fire Wherefore the definition which is extant among Academick Authors as Fernelius Sennertus and others ought justly to be rejected To wit A Fevor is a heat against nature kindled in the heart and from thence by means of the spirits and blood diffused throughout the whole body and doing hurt to all the natural actions The objections against this definition I offer you in these positions First I assert that the essence of a Fevor doth in no wise consist in an universal heat nor secondly that the heat which attends a Fevor doth not altogether arise from sparks glittering in the heart The argument that confirms the former is taken from the genus of a Fevor which is stated a disease but a disease is said to be the constitution of a part hurt or injured which kind of saying doth not at all agree with a preternatural heat that depends on the burning fixt Bitumen of a part or oft on miasms or steems blown from the heart the receptacle of the fire to all or most parts of the body but those torrid miasms are not to be taken for the disease but causes that in process of time through their heat may occasion a disease Here may be offered a probable objection that a Fevor is the kindling or heat of the influent spirits of each single or more parts whose hurt is to be imputed immediately to the heat of the spirits whence a Fevor may justly be judged a heat Hereunto must be replied that the name of a part of the body can in no wise be given to the spirits because they flow continually neither are they in any manner permanent but are assigned for the animation and nutrition of the parts and for that reason their distemper ought not to be taken for a disease if notwithstanding the subversion of the temperament of a part should flow from a tumult of the influent spirits and that thence they should be incapable of performing their offices nevertheless because it 's a mediate affection and to be derived from the burning of the spirits it 's not to be taken for a disease but a cause Secondly If from the general opinion you have a mind to instance that the putrid heat of all the parts of the body is a Fevor to wit a continual putrid one supposing likewise that the said heat is risen out of the blood only being through its means conveyed to the sanguin parts I answer it ought not be
inferred a disease since the blood also because it 's a fluent matter cannot justly deserve the name of a part but a cause of a disease or the vehicle of it Thirdly The bones cartilages and ligaments are not sensible of heat neither are they subject to receive any putrid heat because in a Fevor they are seldom or never observed to be taken with a putrefaction or rottenness how can then a Fevor be termed a preternatural heat of all the parts Likewise Fourthly Why ought the name of Fevor to be attributed to a fevorish heat more than to a shaking or fevorish coldness in the beginning of a paroxysm of a Fevor both the former and the later flowing equally as symptoms from a Fevor Fifthly An universal heat is erroneously ascribed to a Fevor for in a lipyrious Fevor a torrid heat doth torment the internal parts though the externals are cold moreover it oft happens that the hands and feet are stiff of cold and the entrails do in a manner glow with a burning heat Furthermore it may be observed that a Fevor doth sometimes only haunt one single part as the foot or hand Neither have I forgotten a certain Fevor whose heat extended no further than the head and face Hereunto add that those particular Fevors are not only inferred to be such because of the preternatural heat but also by reason of the preceeding cold shaking and ulcerous lassitude Sixthly those that swell so much with the Doctrine of Fermentation they do not altogether affirm that it is a preternatural heat that constitutes a Fevor since the forementioned heat doth take its rise from a heap of influent spirits striving to expel humours and such small bodies as are annoying which heat ought therefore rather to be judged natural than against nature In the second position we maintain that the heat that attends a Fevor is not always kindled in the heart as if the primar hearth were there which assertion is proved from the kinds of symptomatick Fevors for the Fevor that surprises a wounded patient or one that 's detained with an inflamation of an entrail as the Spleen Liver or Kidney certainly it 's not first kindled in the heart but in the part affected whence afterwards it 's dispersed throughout the whole structure Secondly If the heart were the only brand of fevorish heat the blood that passeth through its ventricles should retain a mark of being burnt and undergo some change of tincture when on the contrary thousands that have been bleeded in Fevors their blood that was extracted hath appeared to the eye to be of a pure scarlet and florid until the fourth and oft until the sixth and eighth day In the next paragraph I have thought fit to please my self with the examination of the vulgar opinion concerning the common seat of continual putrid Fevors intimating it to be the blood seething in the vessels and stained with putrefaction but how grosly this rabble of Physicians is mistaken may be extracted from what shall be proposed First If the sprout of a continual Fevor were ingraffed on the blood it would not be so refractory to cure but consisting of fluid and moveable elements by means of alteratives purgers diaphoreticks and emptying the vessels by opening a vein might in a short time be reduced to its former purity and temperament moreover through one nights seething of the blood nature doth oft expel those thin little bodies that float in it and the grosser it casts forth into pustules botches and other such tumors Secondly I cannot grant that what is stirred by motion and continual flowing as the blood is that it is easily taken with putrefaction for being full of vital spirits and living heat it 's held in a continual motion Thirdly Until the third fourth sixth eighth or tenth day computing from the beginning of the distemper according to the degree of the height of the Fevor the blood at the first phlebotomy is extracted pure and florid as I have observed in hundreds whence it 's evident that the primar matter of putrefaction and the seat thereof is erroneously placed in the blood though afterwards passing the entrails it be stained with a malignant quality loading it self thence with hot Miasms and Salts Fourthly pure phlegm or veiny gelly being watered with an immoderate quantity of a pale green and blew lymph or whey since it makes two thirds of the blood in the veins of those that are troubled with the Dropsie Green-sickness and other kinds of diseases why is not that blood which is so heterogeneous and so far remote from a temperature moisture abounding and the plurality of particles breeding putrefaction always forced into a fevorish heat And on the contrary why are hot and dry temperaments where choler is abounding constantly so inclinable to putrid Fevors whereas dryness doth so particularly resist putrefaction Summarily the blood according as I have asserted in the premises since upon no pretence it 's to be accounted among the parts of the body doth utterly exclude it self being capable to be a seat place or part affected If peradventure you doubt that I have hitherto receeded from the path of the received doctrine stating the heart or other entrail the seat in Fevors you have the liberty to take it from the fountain what is to be concluded concerning the matter Avicen fen 1. lib. 4. tract 2. cap. 43. dictates thus Dicamus quod Febris sanguinis est Febris putredinis Febris calefactionis ebullitionis that is Let us say that a Fevor of the blood is a Fevor of putrefaction and a Fevor of heat and ebullition Here is to be noted that the blood is inferred the subject matter and seat of a putrid Fevor Also Galen lib. 2. de Cris. cap. 12. Manentibus igitur in venis humoribus continuae ex ipsis Febres generantur that is The humors remaining in the veins continual Fevors are engendred out of them Likewise Aetius tetrab 2. Serm. 2. cap. 74. Putrescentes igitur humores aut intra vasa arctati continuas nunquam intermittentes usque ad perfectam morbi solutionem Febris efficiunt that is Wherefore humours putrefying or streightned within the vessels do cause continual Fevors and never intermitting until the perfect solution of the disease Here by the way observe though according to Galen Fevors are seated in the veins by their name Arteries are also described as lib. 1. de Crisib cap. 7. it 's by him more largely expressed Febres omnes sunt passiones venarum itaque in Febribus omnibus quoniam venosi sunt generis passiones nam arterias in hoc genere comprehendimus ad urinas praecipue attendere oportet the English is All Fevors are passions of the veins wherefore in all Fevors because they are passions of the veiny gender for we comprehend the arteries also in this gender we ought chiefly to heed the Urins On the other side they have destined the seat of intermittent Fevors to be without the vessels
the sulphurous and volatil-salin particles exerting a temperate heat that attenuates expands and dissolves the whole essence and separates the suliginous-salin parts from the homogeneous ones by subliming them into a sharp salin scum the tartarous and fixt salin particles it precipitates into a mucid and slimy mud This being observed to be the signification of fermentation according to the true intent and meaning of those that imposed it on things that were to be fermented it seemed indeed a very simple and idle assertion that whilst the blood doth seeth boyl hiss and burn the hand of him that toucheth it and occasion a black and sharp steem being an effect of fire on the mouth and tongue that all this should depend on a fermentation and mild heat of the blood Doth not fermentation always tend to concoction but a Fevor oft to corruption and death and that one and the same word shall signifie two contraries is it not an absurdity To express alteration mixtion generation corruption calefaction and what not by the word fermentation a word wondrous pregnant is to set limits to all physical re-searches and inquiries Neither do they detract less from the art of Physick who assert a vitiated ferment the cause of a Dropsie Phthisick Pleurisie and of the whole train of diseases on the correcting whereof to wit the serment every old Wife and Barber-surgeon shall say the stress of the cure doth lie and is it not then lawful for this Tribe to vye with fermentitious Physicians yes and exceed them How formally and cunningly at this rate is the disease cause and cure proposed by every Glisterpipe What is it at last come to What necessity is there to apply ones study to Anatomy Botanicks Physiology Pathology and a thousand other things O wonderful Head-pieces You will notwithstanding by the way admire if this notion of fermentation be only assumed as a phaenomenon or supposition for the thing it self is not yet agreed on by those that are something higher advanced in Learning to shew themselves more dextrous in illustrating the causes extracting of indications and in the method of curing yet it is not to be doubted but that they ship off a greater troop of sick in Charons Boat and deserve a greater fraight than the putrid Physicians But to the business let us now be at leasure to examine the manner and method that Fermenters undertake the cure of continual and intermittent putrid Fevors what indications they answer unto and wherein they receed from putrid Physicians The Indicantia and Indicata ought to be ranged in this order The blood too much inraged or too little moved by fermentation and a vitiated ferment are the chief Indicantia those things that promote or quicken the too slack fermentation and temperate it when too violent and reduce the ferment when receeded from its temperament are the Remedies Indicated The vital faculty languishing and deprived of its spirits doth indicate a cordial and restorative medicine The animal faculty being broken through want of many nights rest must be relieved with Opiats The Belly if forgetful of its office must be rowsed up with a stimulating suppository or laxative glyster neither are the urgent symptoms of a two swelling fermentation to be neglected A Phrensie that proceeds from sulphurous steems fuming up from the fermenting mass must be allayed by means that revell or draw back from the Brain Astringent medicines bridle a loosness and enormous vomiting Thus far in general concerning indications taken from their theorems nevertheless these being waved the Fermenters do follow the method of cure of the putrid Physicians in posting away their Patients to the place of their fore-fathers as shall be recited immediately That it may be physically illustrated we ought to premise their practice being fitted to a particular sick person whose age sexe temperament former custom of living season of the year tenor of their Pulse state of Urine urgent symptoms occasional and procatarctick causes and manner of the first assault of the Fevor what symptoms attended what symptoms arrived afterwards manner of breathing the habit of the Hypochonders Stomach and Belly the manner of the look of the sick man his manner of speech what habit of body what usual evacuations are suppressed whether the Fevor be essential or symptomatick whether first come or a relapse what disease he was troubled with last what remedies were applied before the Physicians coming and many other particulars that are to be distinctly proposed all which I say ought to be represented to the serious meditation of any Physician that is to undertake the cure of a Fevor But they receed so far from these necessary animadversions that being sent for to a Patient having only felt his Pulse they look upon the Urine and make some little inquiry concerning the state of his Belly whether loose or costive neglecting all other necessary informations and apply themselves immediately to prescribing and their first business is to put the Belly in order which they endeavour by this following form of a glyster but I am to advertize you before concerning the custom that young Physicians that are newly come from the University diligently repair to the Apothecaries shops for to inform themselves with the forms and receits of the Elder Physicians and being acquainted with them it happens thence that every Physician is furnished with the same examples or forms of remedies neither doth the one go an inch from the road of theo ther. Wherefore I shall collect you the most received forms throughout the whole course for to remove a fevor compiled by our modern ones afterwards how successfully our age makes use of them I shall particularly observe The presciption of a glyster according as it 's commonly found in the Shops is this R. Decoct commun pro clyst vel juxta alios R. Decoct Emoll com lib. j. Elect. lenit â„¥ j. Ol. com vel viol Mel. Mercur. vel Ros. ana â„¥ j. vel ij Sal. com q. s. m. f. Enem Some there are that instead of common Salt put in Salt-peter or Sal-prunellae from half a dram to a dram which for its detergent and cooling quality is far beyond the other and indeed Crystal mineral being added to any sort of glysters is far more beneficial because it agreeth so very well with the temperament of the Guts on the contrary Sea-salt being of a drying inflaming and irritating faculty is very offensive to the Guts For this reason the Antients made use of it as well inwardly in Pills thick Syrups Glysters as outwardly in Oyntments Some among the Fermenters do extreamly oppose the giving of purges or laxative glysters in Fevors because they provoke the corrupted excrementitious humours to ferment whose steems piercing into the vessels do disturb and augment the fermentation of the Fevor On the other side the putrid Physicians make this reply to them that glysters doing their work quick and without the Vessels cannot transmit the least breath of heat nor blow up
A THEORETICAL AND Chiefly Practical TREATISE OF FEVORS Wherein it 's made Evident that the Modern Practice of curing continual Fevors is dangerous and very unsuccessful Hereunto are added several Important Observations and Cures of Malignant Fevors not inserted in the former Impression Written in Latin by Gideon Harvey M. D. Physician in Ordinary to his Majesty Now rendered into English by I. T. and Surveyed by the Author LONDON Printed for William Thackeray at the Angel in Duck-Lane 1674. TO THE Physical Reader I Have long since observed that Physicians did not cure continual Fevors but rather did render them mortal Though if by good fortune any one hath been delivered of a Fevor it is only to be imputed to the strength of nature which if she had not been disturbed by improper means would have disintangled her self from the disease much sooner and with less danger The cause of this so unfortunate practice depends on a false supposition of fermentation whence since they desume erroneous indications the success must necessarily frustrate their expectation I confess I have made use of the term of fermentation in several Treatises and possibly in the illustration of Fevors but to this intent only that I might in some manner be complaisant to the received opinion of the times not in the least imagining the notion thereof necessary or contributing any whit to the knowledge or cure of Fevors Moreover the Reader is to take notice that at present I have not written or acted the part of a Professor in the Chair making a Methodical and Pedantick Lecture on the definition division next the causes then the Diagnostick and afterward the Prognostick signs of Fevors c. But it is my purpose to discourse succinctly of such things as are most necessary for a Practical Physician and of such other cases as I could call to mind since the time when I had seldom less in cure than two hundred Patients that lay sick of Fevors What concerns other theoretical notions and farther observations touching the several kinds of Fevors I shall hereafter propose them in distinct Sections in the mean time farewell Hatton Street near Holborn THE BOOK SELLER TO THE READER TAking my measures from the reception of the Latin Copies I judged I should do the publick service in causing this Treatise to be faithfully translated and that it might be attended with a greater welcom I have obtained the favor from the Author to make a superficial survey of the Translation and to insert the addition of very remarkable and important observations and cures which have rendred the Treatise at least a fourth part bigger than it was before in having procured this I doubt not but that you will easily believe I am your Friend and Servant W. T. A Theoretical and Practical TREATISE OF FEVORS CHAP. I. Of the Nature of Innate Heat IT is usual among Authors to derive the name they intend to impose upon the distempers of parts from the chiefest symptom whence the word Febris or Fevor being taken from fervor i. e. heat or from februa a sort of fiery sacrifices of the Antients or from the verb februo i. e. I cleanse likewise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek a Fevor from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fire seem to be applied to this distemper The word Fevor in English is certainly derived from fervor heat only leaving out the r and therefore ought to be written Fevor and not Fever unless you derive it from the French word fievre by omitting the i. Wherefore what this fervor or heat or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fire signifie will best appear by conferring with them the words Calor warmth and Calidum heat being their opposits from warmth Calor and heat Calidum we have our strength and live but through Fervor a destructive heat and fire we lose our strength and end our days It will much conduce to our purpose I judge to premise the difference of these words Calidum heat denotes a hot essence or substance but Calor warmth signifieth only a quality separable from its subject or hot nature by our thoughts or concept and not really though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 calidum or heat and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Calor warmth are by Hippocrates used in the same sense Neither are you to imagine that in feeling of Pulses of such as are ill of a Fevor it is not the quality of heat but fiery steems bodies really physical do strike your hand and ends of your fingers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fire is by Hippocrates expounded the Innate Heat of man but among the Latines generally a Fevor whence a Fevor may be commodiously defined A fire kindled out of the Innate heat of the body chiefly of the heart but secundarily Wherefore that the heart and its constitutive principle is the part for the most times hurt is evident from the fevorish affection and life the proper action of the heart being immediately opprest from the inordinate pulse a sudden decay of strength and the actions of the whole oeconomy being very considerably and all at once depravated and diminisht The experience of those that have put their finger into the ventricles of the heart the breast being suddenly opened of malefactors who by sentence have had their head cut off and have extracted it again thence very hot doth confirm that the Calidum or heat of the heart is a substance really burning about its chambers and thence diffusing flames through the articles to the circumference If on the other side the destructive nature of a burning heat be objected it 's not material considering the burning or flaming of brimstone or spirit of wine whose purity of flame will not burn those bodies it touches especially when through graduation of the air it may be moderated to any tone of heat or warmth Furthermore I state the Calidum Cordis or heat of the heart to be a Bitumen really ethereal and vital most exactly defecated or refined dispersing every where its most subtile and pure flames and feeding on the most pure and flowring particles of the blood But since it 's difficult to gain an universal assent that the nature of blood excercising so slender a commerce with the air and limited within the narrow bounds of the heart and arteries should be convertible into a flame and a perpetual warmth it may be rendred obvious by this only instance Namely almost all subterraneous waters that partake of a continual heat as the water of Aix la Chapelle Bathe and of other hot Baths since they source out of the deepest and most remote bosoms of the earth just in the same manner doth the indesatigable soring of vegetative or living blood leap very hot out of the bosom of the heart into the arteries like rivulets and certainly that which by natural Philosophers is asserted to be the cause of heat in those waters may easily be imposed upon me to believe the same to be the cause of heat in the blood
℥ j. ss vel ℥ ij sometimes Syr. ros sol ℥ j. m. f. Pot. Capiat cras mane cum custodia Others make use of the Cold Infusion as they call it being made out of the said leaves of Sena in the same weight with or without a corrective infused all night in fountain water without fire dropping into it salt or oyl of Tartar ten or fifteen drops afterwards sweetning the expression with Manna syrup of Roses laxative or Sugar Rhubarb is set aside because of the heat that abounds in it and its binding faculty after it hath done working Although after this manner they give purges in the beginning of continual Fevors yet they do not contemn Hippocrates his precept 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that is humors that are concocted ought to be purged and stirred not crude ones unless they swell and run up and down because they expel only such excrementitious humors that lye lurking without the vessels in hidden places of the mesentery and guts which certainly would never be concocted for feeding much on roots cabbage salletting milky diets butter-milk and other things that contain a great deal of excrementitious juice their bodies do abound with those kind of humours Wherefore the foresaid law of our great Physician doth only relate to humors floating within the vessels Afterwards they order a Laxative glyster to be given every other day for to suppress those violent flames of the Fevor and frame Iuleps out of cooling waters and syrups and sometimes Emulsions out of Almonds and cooling seeds The impaired vital faculty they relieve with a spirituous potion after this form according as their prescriptions here and there in the Dutch Apothecaries shops do plainly inform us R. Aq. 4. cordial ana ℥ j. Aq. cinam ℥ ss velʒvj Consect Alkerm ʒj Spec. Diamarg frig ℈ ij Syr. è suc citr vel granator ℥ j. m. f. Pot. Ofttimes to these cordial waters the same quantity of Aqua Melissae is added Sometimes instead of Aqua Cinamomi they put in Aqua vitae Mathioli also Confectio de Hyacintho instead of Confectio Alkermes Nature moving towards the extremity they fly usually to this cordial powder R. Spec. Diamarg frig ℈ ss Magist. Perlar. Coral ana gr v. Lap. Bez. or gr iij. vel iv m. f. Pulv. sumendus bis per diem mane sero in Iulap Cord. modico The animal faculty being much broken through want of rest they cause sleep by this following potion R. Aq. Bor. nymph pap Rh. ana ℥ j. Aq. Cinam ʒij Consect de Hyacinth ℈ j. Syr. Papav. Rh. ℥ j. vel ℥ j. ss m. f. Pot. Capiat hora somni They very seldom make use of Opiats in this case being much dissatisfied in their unsubdued narcotick force especially where the strength of the Patient is scarce proportioned to dissipate it The sick body being surprised with a phrensie they draw blood out of the foot or if his principal faculties are two languishing they revel the blood by cupping-glasses from the brain to the extream parts The Fevor declining and discovering a white sediment in the Urin they cause an evacuation by purge once or twice The French subdue putrid and malignant Fevors by bleeding the first time largely and afterwards repeat it every other day to five or six ounces the days that are between they prescribe a laxative glyster and sometimes a potion of the infusion of Sena Manna and Cassia which later is in great veneration among them La bonne Casse as they call it syrup of Roses laxative and Crystal mineral For the critical days they take no notice of them often saying that to expect the Crisis is to expect death and so by drawing of blood and purging with glysters they go on very diligently For their ordinary drink they allow ptisan which is to be sold ready made in the shops all France over The Germans do not differ from the Dutch except that having emptied the body by purging and bleeding they propose powders to expel the febril miasms and to cool composed out of Terra sigil Bol. Armen corn cerv ust ras ebor rad tormentil bistort and the like but before all these they prefer Pulvis Rubeus Pannonicus set down in the Augustan Pharmacopoea CHAP. V. Shewing that the modern practice of subduing continual putrid Fevors is barbarous and killing THat the practice of Fermentators is to be abominated and that it is killing who can deny Since among a great company of fevorish Patients the greater part whereof are probably strong young well slesht-men not being swelled or retcht in their Hypochonders or Belly yet scarce the third man recovers his former state of health What must be inferred from hence when in the rage of a Fevor though the Physician be sent for at the first minute of the Disease and that the strength of nature is more than proportioned to subdue the Fevor nevertheless the poor wretch dieth yes let all things be administred according to the most received rules of Physick let the highest cordial be given also Extractum Cardiacum Pearl Bezoar and the spirits of Hartshorn it self yet very oft to no purpose and the Fevors will triumph until the hour of death But if in favour of the Fermentators it be instanced that before our Aesculapius came to the assistance of the sick man the flame was kindled to the top and that the Fevor had taken deep rooting that the malignity of the disease had trodden down the principal or commanding faculties the cause of the fatal day is not to be imputed to the Physitian nor to his remedies but to the malignant distemper too much inraged by too long a stay Hereunto I reply notwithstanding that the Physitian was at hand at the very glimpse of the first spark of the Fevor which possibly then was of no such ill aspect as I hinted just now nevertheless the case will run to ruine But on the other hand if any one that liveth in the Country be he a Country man or come from the City be taken with a Fevor and the care be committed to an old wife immediately shegives him a certain posset that is throughly savoured with Carduus or Pepper and puts him to bed covering him well with clothes until he fall into a dew sweat this being once or twice repeated she commits the rest to nature wherein she proves so lucky that out of ten nine if not all for the most part get the better of their distemper Moreover the Divine old man scarce ever gave greater relief to any in a Fevor than by doing nothing and committing the whole business to nature and therefore he oft urgeth that nature be not interrupted in concoction Aphor. 22. lib. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that is do not move crude humours and Aphor. 24. of the same book It were better if they cannot discover the adequate remedy to follow Avicens document sen. 4. lib. 1. cap. 1. Cum ignoraveris agritudinem relinque eam