Chyle then Blood Choler or Flegm c. Severinus is out when he saith there is blood in Balsom with spirit flesh bones ligaments and nerves and that these are seperated from it by help of the mechanick spirits There is in all sood somthing familiar to us that turns nourishment and may have divers forms as the parts are to which it comes call it Balsom or Mummy I am indifferent but I allow not that the things mentioned should be contained in them and be only made known and separated by the mechanick spirits Thus we should say with Anaxagoras that all things are in al things and there is no true generation But when chyle is made of bread blood of chyle bones membranes flesh of blood in every change there is a new form And every part hath force to turn its nourishment into its own nature which is the peculiar faculty of the vegetative soul what we have spoken of blood and humors is meant of alimentary humors that make blood We shall speak of excrementitious humors in the next Chapter in the Causes of Diseases Lastly They make two Anatomies the one local which they esteem little as the dissecting of bodies to see the shape figure and position and number of parts this they called a dead Anatomy for Butchers by which the Carcass is only seen but not the secrets of the nature of man The other they cal essential vital formal by by which every body is dissolved into its principles Paracel de orig morb ae tribus primis substantiis c. 6. alibi Severin c. 3. alibi passim he that wil try this must first know the nature of seeds and properties the offices of the elements and of the principles the roots of generation and transplantation the laws of Astronomy and the disposition not of the dead but of the whole living body Therefore they say the heart is wheresoever there is vital heat The Stomach is every cavity or place of concoction The womb is every place where there is seed of any fruit and they think the consideration of the great world is chiefly to be had in this Anatomy They say whatsoever is in the great world is also in man not according to a superficial likeness but indeed and according to the species and that man contains all things in himself though invisibly As to the local Anatomy they speak of they dishonor it for Anatomy is much beyond a Butchers work for by it all parts are artificially found out and their constitution and use Thus did Galen in his Book of the use of parts and others which if Paracelsus had read he had not written so absurdly They arrogate to themselves only the vital Anatomy but the Galenists had it as you may see in Galens Books of the faculties of nature of the Seed of the sorming of the Infant of Breathing temperaments Elements c. in which he speaks of the faculties of the soul which govern the body and of the instruments thereof in action Yet if the Chymists by their Principles can give it more light we wil accept of it thankfully But they here rather quible with words and with new terms they sell the opinions of the Ancients as their own and do little discover them or clear them up as when they say the heart is wheresoever there is vital heat It is the part of a wise Philosopher to call things by their own names and not so to quible with names as to confound things that are distinct Chap. 16. of Pathologie or Diseases THe Chymists seem also to enlarge the Pathological part of Physick Ideae Philos c. 13. when they suppose that the antecedent cause the Disease and the Symptom differ not in kind essence or specifical propreties but only in power and act Thus Severinus and that they differ no otherwise then a sleeping Physitian doth from the same being awake brimstone not burning from that which burneth salt not dissolved from that which is dissolved therefore he supposeth names are to be given from the roots as from the hidden roots of diseases in intermitting feavers when no heat is fired in the heart while the feaver lies close in the body and not from the antecedent cause But Galen doth better divide all things that are besides nature in mans body into three Cap. 12. that is the disease the cause and the symptom and there is no Discipline that makes no difference between the causes and the effects therfore it must be in Physick for the humors are the causes the diseases the effects and again the symptoms are effects of them both and all these differ in their whole essence and nature Therefore Severinus writes foolishly saying That which is most remote from producing of an effect is a genus that which is nearest to the individual is the species and the effect is the individual He makes the most general genus or kind to be the stony tartarous Mucilages in fruits and those in the stomach and guts to be the sudordinate genus But when they cause diseases and symptoms they are species and the last actions being hurt or hindered are the individuals But every true Philosopher may perceive this absurdity He writes like a fool when he saith he saw a feaver vomited forth for he saw the cause but not the feaver And more simply when he saies that matter so vomited up shaked for a time like an ague But either he read not or observed not what Galen and Galenists have written concerning the shaking of feavers But these Severinians are offended that the names of diseases are not given from the causes But they are unreasonable to think names must be given as they please and that fit names may be rejected Therefore it is not bad to define a feaver from its essence then let them enquire into the nature of the cause and whether the cause of a feaver may be called Choler or Sulphur Nor do the Galenists allows eye the disease alone but look often more at the cause much less do they only observe the symptoms for many of them come often from the same cause and one somtimes from divers causes and if these be not diligently disting dished he plaies the Emperick and will be deceived and if the Chymists will help us in curing we shall thank them As for the nature of a disease Paracelsus errs exceedingly when he saith a disease is a substance and that the disease is a whole man and hath an invisible body and this he shews by the Jaundies But every disease is nothing else but a quality in the body besides Nature Lib. 2. de morb podag by which the body is so disposed that it is unfit for its proper actions Now all error is from this that as plants come from their seeds so they think diseases do also and the true cure of a disease is nothing else but the taking away of those seeds and if they be not taken away by changing
of cold and heat and ther qualities and evacuation of humors no disease can be truly cured He illustrates this by an Example as saith he he that labours to keep fruit from growing in his garden doth not enough to pull off the fruit every year or lop off a branch or two from a Tree much less if he die the leaves or the fruit of another colour but he must take up the Tree by the roots So to take away heat or cold and the like qualities by their contraries is to take away the fruits onely and leave the root Concerning the original of the seeds of diseases they say That though in the first Creation when by divine power the seeds took their force to generate and multiply all things else were without corruption yet after the Fall there came new tinctures by the curse upon those pure seeds as Severinus saith by the mixture of which the beauty of the Creation was transplanted into a calamitous condition and these pure seeds were covered with unfortunate new garments and he adds that man who useth all sublunary things and lives upon Plants and Animals is defiled with universal impurity and hath many sorts of diseases and deaths Severine brings the rise of hereditary diseases from hence so that they may be to the fourth Generation And hence he saith is the reason why people not having the Gout or Falling-sickness beget children that have For the inbred impurities of the Parent not being ripe in thē may be increased in the children and bring unexpected symptoms He saith on the contrary that they which have the Gout may beget children that have not Either because the seeds of those diseases are not fixed in the root and Balsom of man but cleave only superficially or because they are overcome in the womb by the power of its natural Balsom or because the seeds grew old and barren For say they those seeds which are not united in species but individuals have their ages and when their root is exhausted they are barren and unfruitful They allow not the first qualities to be causes of Diseases and when they are convinced they say they are so inconsiderable that they require not the help of a Physitiā They regard not compound Diseases and say they are but a certain hinderance to actions For they affirm that the desect of Instruments and Figures and Cavities and Solution of Continuity come not as Diseases from Seeds but they say the Diseases of the Similary parts have their seeds They say humors are but Phansies In labyrinth med err c. 8. and though Paracelsus allow them yet he denies that they are causes of diseases and saith the humors come from diseases not diseases from humors But many of these opinions are not to be believed for in the generation of diseases it is otherwise for the good humors are altered corrupted and infected from the bad as from Leaven and do hurt the parts and bring preternatural qualities But we cannot find any forming force in the causes of diseases as in the seeds of Plants which may produce such a body And they are like the doting Manichaes when they say Those seeds and evil matters of diseases were made by God First they make God the Author and Creator of evil and diseases as if he had made any substantial which is wicked For God saw what he had made and they were very good for all substance as a substance is good and evil is not consubstantially but accidentally joyned unto it Then they make a double creation the first which was by the blessing of God in six daies the other was by the curse of God upon the pure seeds and roots of things by which the evil roots of Diseases and Death were added But God rested from all his labour the seventh day and the Curse of God only declared punishment Severine doth ill in bringing hereditary diseases from seeds It is true that the diseases of Parents come to the children by the seed and mothers blood but an hereditary evil is a vitious disposition in some part by which in time humors of the same kind are gathered and so produce the like diseases It is against experience to leave the first qualities out of diseases and their causes for all ages have allowed them for as soon as any preternatural distemper is in any part all acknowledge that its actions are hurt nor can it do its duty till the natural temper be restored Hippo. 3. Aphor. 16. in Epid. Severin this is dayly observed in the Stomach and there are thousands of Examples of this in Hippocrates and Galen Nor can we admit of the new interpretation of Hippocrates made by Severine saying that the South Wind makes not dull hearing nor other symptoms mentioned by Hippocrates First he should prove that absurd opinion that wind rain and snow are the fruits of the Stars nor need they fly to occult qualities powers and tinctures when a manifest cause may be shewed as appears in Hippocrates They are out also in Diseases of conformatiō saying they are only impediments of actions as if all diseases were not such they reject the humors erroneously because it is manifest to sense that divers humors are evacuated in divers diseases by vomit and stool by Nature or Art when they cannot deny this Severine thinks that excrementitious humors are to be called by other names and leaving the phantastick names of Vitelline eruginous salt and crude flegm he flies to the kinds of Salts nitrous aluminous vitrlolate and to the properties of salts in Plants as in Cookowpints Nettles Celandine c. That the names of Choler Melancholy and Flegm are to be rejected but there is no reason or cause why these ancient names should be rejected no more then the names of a Feaver Apoplexy Dropsie If they can find out more proper names we shal admit them provided they expound the intrinsical nature of the things For to speak plainly the difference and nature of humors cannot only be explained by the first qualities but they may be more specially determined by their more proper qualities which Hippocrates teacheth saying Lib. de vet medict It is heat moisture cold or driness that hath much force but sourness sharpness and bitterness c. The Cancer is an example in which he that acknowledgeth not a corrosive sait is blind And the same may be seen in the itch scab and ulcers that corrode and creep Therefore I deny not but such humors the causes of such diseases may be so called from the Salt or other Chymical principle although I denied when I spake of blood and natural humors that such humors in which such excess appear not ought to receive denomination from the Chymical principles Nor do I think that the excrementitious humors in which a manifest excess doth not appear should be denominated from the Chymical principles but keep their ancient names Yet it is not unfit that the differences of
mixed or peculiar natures made at the first Creation with other kinds of natural things as the principles of their kind which among themselves and mixed with the Elements give convenient matter to other natural things subject to generation and corruption as Metals Minerals Gems Stones Plants and Animals When I say they were mixed I deny not the concurrence of other Elements to their constitution as resolving of them doth prove to the Chymists Moreover I suppose that they have their peculiar forms from God in the first Creation as was given to other kinds of natural things as Scaliger saith Exercit. 138. s 20. The form of every perfectly mixed body though it be not a Soul as in a Diamond is of a fifth Nature and far differing from the four Elements And I suppose that from these diversly mixed by concurrence of the Elements the divers bodies of natural things are made and that the divers qualities and accidents come immediately from the same as from their first and proper subjects which others in vain bring from the Elements only for there is no force in the Elements to produce scents savors and colours And if there be any it is that Spirit which Aristotle saith is like the Element of the Stars And let none think that there is a matter required for mixture from the regions of the four Elements for when God created the Elements he mixed them by his Word and gave them their peculiar forms and seminal and essential reasons like those of Heaven and so he keeps on still the course of Nature by propagation of the species in the Individuals And now since the Creation those principles are to be seen in the Water and the Earth from divers corruptions For as the order in Nature is that inferior things should serve the superior so it is in bodies the Elements are first thence Salt Sulphur and Mercury or the first mixture by what Name soever termed which though made of Elements yet have they forms by which they differ that arise not from the forms of the Elements mixed together but from the first Creation Then from these being diversly mixed by concurrence of the Elements Minerals Metals Stones and Gemms Plants and Animals receive their matter and bodies in which by the form of every species they are diversly bounded as we see Salt drawn from the Earth may be taken out of the Plants that drew it and Creatures feeding upon plants are changed but never plainly change their Nature And this is not against the Ancients though these names are not mentioned it is sufficient that the thing is stil extant and we may put new names to things newly known because words are at mens disposing Hippocrates saith Lib. de nathuma That Plants drew not only heat and cold moisture and driness or that which was mixed of them but whatsoever was in the Earth agreeable to their Nature whether four or bitter sweet or salt And man is nourished of them and every living creature also and therefore they are in man and them and natural bodies are made of them being mixed and when they are well tempered together they cannot be seen nor be troublesom to man But when they are not well tempered they offend he writes thus Heat alone is not the cause of a disease Hippocr lib de veceri medici but heat and bitterness or heat and sharpness or heat and saltness and many more are the causes of diseases Hence the cure of pestilent malignant and venemous diseases is divers and hence are the divers Symptomes in malignant and pestilent Feavers and constitutions which cannot be from only putrefaction or distemper And though Hippocrates names not plainly Salt Sulphur and Mercury yet the Chymists cal them four bitter and salt But by what arguments we may prove there are such Principles First wheresoever the same affects and qualities are in many they must be in them by some common principle as all things are heavy by reason of the earth and hot by reason of the fire but colours scents savors and the like are in Minerals Metals Stones Jewels and Plants Therefore they are in them by some common principle and subject but the Elements are not such a principle because they have no power to produce such qualities Therefore we must search for some other principles And they are deceived who think to prove colours scents and savors to come from the Elements The next is the argument of Galen and Aristotle Arist 3. de coel c. 3. Gal. lib. 2. de ele c 3. Natural bodies are made of such things as they are resolved into but they are resolved into those three principles therefore they are made of them It is evident that Salt is in all things and may be drawn from them as from Plants and Animals And though Chymists say that Metals are made only of Sulphur and Mercury yet they speak of the next principles as Physitians when they say that seed and blood are the principles of mans body deny not the four Elements And he that knows Metals right and can make Crystals of thē may easily find Salt in them And though all mixed bodies tast not Salt yet it doth not thence follow that there is no salt in them nor can we deny fire to be in all mixtures though all things are not felt to be hot nor is this Salt to be accounted earth because Salt is hot and dry and clensing but earth is cold and dry What I have said of Salt may be said of Sulphur it is plain to be found not only in Plants In praesat in Georg. Agricolam but Metals and Minerals and as Cornelius Martin writes Sulphur is in all Metals except gold I mean combustible Sulphur that will flame and smell as the ordinary Brimstone Nor are they bound to shew the pure principles it is enough to shew the bodies in which they excel The forms of Chymical Elements or Principles do not their duty then Zabarel de generat interm c. 2. but since forms are made for a more active composition the superiors are made subject and are instead of matter and are called hot or dry as they are mixed by the predominate Element So from these principles are four salt combustible and scented things and when a mixed body is corrupted some parts turn to fire earth and air others into Salt others into Sulphur and to be plain and short the Chymical principles are in other mixtures as the Elements are in them and are so brought forth now in the next Chapter we shal shew how Elements are in mixed bodies but for the matter in hand I am of their side that hold the Elements are whole in mixed bodies according to their forms and when a mixed body is resolved again into the Elements the Elements return not again in specie or kind but in number I shal stand to this till I am convinced by solid reason Nor is the same quantity of Salt or
strong corroding humors which are divers should be distinguished with names taken from Sulphur or Salt when there appears any remarkable excess of any one humor For Hippocrates calls a defluxion from the head 4. De rat vic in acu sent 31. Lib. de vee Medici hot and nitrous and writes That men are not only fevorish from heat alone nor can that alone cause a disease but bitterness and heat and sharpness or saltness with heat and the like Nor is it strange that such things should be in the body when a man is fed with Plants and Animals which are nourished with plants and these have from the earth their nourishment which contains in it salt bitter and the like juyces and Mineral spirits which are derived into man whose altering force changeth them as much as it can but they can never be overcome by our nature Nature indeed labors to void them being unfit for nourishment and if they be retained and separated from the good blood and abide alone they hurt the body divers waies Galen and other Physitians own this who mention salt and nitrous humors and the effects of Salt are manifest in Catarrhs or Defluxions Some humors are called Aeruginous not that they are like Verdigreece as Erastus thinks but because there is the tast and force of corroding as in Verdigreece and other qualities Nor is it unprofitable to observe these differences of humors for they are of concernment for cures therefore there being great difference of humors as to their colours tast consistence and essence and they cannot be called at by the same name If the Chymists can here help us there is no cause why we should not observe them yet we must not cast off the old names of the humors for Rhubarb doth alwaies purge choler not Salt or Sulphur The Chymists speak diversly of the differences of diseases In labyrinth medic arr Paracelsus saich that there are two kinds of seeds the Iliastrum Cagastrum The Iliastrum is when the feed of the disease is from the beginning as of Apples Pears Nuts Cagastrum is that which is from corruption The diseases from the Iliastrum are the Dropsie Jaundies Gout c. Of the Cagastrum Plague Feavers Pleurisies But as I said diseases do not spring up from seeds but from preternatural causes in the body either bred therein or gathered Paracelsus hath another difference by which he constituteth five Beings of diseases First the Ens or Being of God In paramiro for he saith some diseases come from God The second being is an Astral Ens under which he comprehends not only diseases from the Stars of Heaven but such as come from the stars in Man that depend upon the stars of Heaven The third is a Natural Being when a disease by a fault in Nature and they consider Nature by their three Principles The fourth is a Mental Ens under which are comprehended all diseases from imagination in our selves or others and under this they comprehend Incantations The fifth kind is a Being of Poyson natural or artificial Here Paracelsus shews his ignorance in Logick and Philosophy and he never learned from the Metaphysicks what Ens or a Being is It is ungodly to say that any disease is from a Being of God And he speaks improperly in all the rest of his differences But we may bear with improper speeches so good things be under them Ideae Philos c. 14. Nor can we suffer what Severine saith in referring all diseases and cures to four Monarches The Epilepsie Dropsie Gout and Leprosie to every one of these he reduced certain diseases under the Epilepsie he placeth Catarrhs Palsies Cramps Megrims Melancholies Apoplexies and Suffocations of the Womb. Under the Dropsie Aposthems Jaundies Cachexy Under the Leprosie all Ulcers Under the Gout the Cholick Stone Toothach and Headach But it is evil to refer diseases that differ so in essence and causes to the same head Nor is this division to be admitted into coagulation and resolved diseases They say that some impurities come from the seeds whose fruit doth coagulate Others come from seeds whose fruit ends in flowing resolution those they cal coagulated these resolved diseases What Severine saith of the disease and fruits of the superior Globe hath many absurdities except they are explained otherwise then the words sound We grant that the causes of Epidemick diseases depend in a great part upon the Stars and their influence and arise from the air and spirits that we attract and breath in But that there should be any Opiate Arsenick Orpiment or the like or fruits of celestial bodies or resolutions of celestial seeds I cannot admit because matter of such corruptions which is in the air and drawn in by the breath to infect the body comes not from Heaven but is contained in the inferior World and the coelestial bodies may diversly stir dispose and mingle and alter them The modern Chymists dare not defend this Doctrine of Severine Quercetan searce mentioneth any seeds but saith In defensione contra Anoni That Mercury Salt and Sulphur have all sorts of vertues faculties and properties from whence come infinite varieties colours tasts and scents and the like which produce divers diseases from their distemper and the company of other things If Sulphur abound it brings divers inflammations and feavers besides other narcotick effects which the sleepy Sulphur produceth by its narcotick spirits which do the same thing that wine or the like doth which cause sleep not by cold but a narcotick Sulphur From mercurial sour and sharp vapors come Epilepsies Apoplexies Palsies and all kinds of Catarrhs From Salts he saith come corrosions inwardly Imposthumes Ulcers Dysenteries Bleeding and from the dissolving of them come heat of Urin and Strangury And from the variety of Salts come divers Ulcers Imposthumes Corrosions by their sharp and sour spirits also divers kinds of Colicks From Salts coagulated he brings Nodes Scirrhus Tumors and swollen Joynts and infinite sorts of Obstructions The best distinction of the Chymists is that from the three principles and causes of diseases if they would be constant therein or explain themselves for the matter is very intricate concerning Mercury For if they say every humor is not Mercury but the first and substantial humor which gives sense and motion to all parts it cannot be the cause of diseases But if Mercury be taken for the cause of a disease who will say that it is an excrement of natural Mercury and flegm And I see not how they can distinguish it from Tartar from which Severine saith Catarrhs do arise The differences of Salt and Sulphûr are manifest because sour bitter and falt matter is gathered in the body and vomited up Somtimes the humor is so sour in the stomach that before it is vomited up the teeth are set on edg by it The differences of Salts are plain in divers Ulcers as in the Scab Cancer heat of Urin and the like To this division belong
he saith thus If from the inbred Balsom weakned from error by immoderate diet in the mummy of the blood the Synoviae of flesh defect of separation come from impure matter the impurity being left which is full of corrosive salts if this happen often and then tincture be strong of the corrosive seeds and the mummy of the blood be transplanted they will bring in the roots of the flesh or Synovia and by constant nourishment from things of like impurity at a digested time they will produce fruit agreable to the roots He saith that salts of iron breed the roots and fruits of a Cancer in the flesh veins and members resembling the Anatomy of Mars and they dwell in the face lips papps breast and somtimes the womb The Herpes and Wolf have aeruginous roots near of kin to the Cancer and place themselves in the musculous flesh in the joynts and breast c. I shall not repeat more for brevity sake But many of these are false and absurd First he denies the causes alledged by the Galenists but every one may see them daily especially if they be in an impure body Moreover inflammations rise not as plants out of seeds but when bad humors are heaped up in the body if nature cannot expel them by usual waies she sends them to ignoble places where with blood gathered out of the vessels they are hot and putrefie hence comes pain and inflammation the skin discolored according to the variety of the humor And that which Nature doth every where she doth here also that is she makes divers quittors according to the humor the same is to be thought of the breeding of ulcers Nor are the Chymists to be totally rejected for their explaining of the differences of inflammations and ulcers though it may be objected against them there are divers effects of Arsenick Orpiment Vitriol if they be applied outwardly by things that appear in inflammations for animal Salt and Sulphur differ from vegetable Salt and Sulphur and things taken from the earth have a kind of alteration and the greater in Animals though they do never wholly change their Nature as you may see in Bubo'es Carbuncles Cancers and the like 2. De loc att c. 9. Concerning the cause of pain they say that the spirits of Salt dissolved causeth pain this we allow but it is also from burning cutting stretching as I said But I take it ill that he should reprove Galen because he denied that the names of tasts should be applied to pains Galen saies right That every sense hath its proper sensible therefore as colours cannot be perceived by the ears so tasts cannot be apprehended by the touch as they are such yet Galen denies not that things that are tastable as they are salt and sharp do diversly afflict the touching but this is not from a savor as it is tastable but as it is sharp which may be tasted also which Severine confessed therefore he unjustly accuseth Galen Also it is evident that differences of pain come from the nerves in the part being more or fewer Severine saies Those parts are most pained in which are the sharpest spirits of Salt which go outwardly at the mouth of the stomach the guts But he is out for parts covered with nerves and membranes have the sharpest pains Scheuneman in his Book called Reformed Physick or his Hermetical Penny laies down ten chief Causes of diseases as spiritual Mercury burnt Mercury sublimate Mercury praecipitate Mercury Sulphur coagulated Salt calcined Salt dissolved and Salt reverberated But he shews no cause of these Principles they are new beings which he no waies proves and therefore he useth new words nor plain Greek nor Latin as Pneumosus or spiritual Mercury Cremosus which is we suppose from Cremare to burn At last he propounds an aetherial Spirit-like fire the governor of all actions the radical moisture that bedews the whole body the spirit of the radical humor the quickning substance and immediate instrument of actions the aetherial spirit author of concoction and digestion But these being not sufficient he adds a fourth the most pure white sweet pleasant panting the cherisher of the heat of the whole body c. which he calls congealed Sulphur the first moisture or Virgins milk that bedews the body and refresheth it the first subject of generation also a moist and soft substance a fifth spirit which he calls Sulphur dissolved But here we admire He propounds so many Spirits and Principles and proves not in the least whether they are in being or be so many He brings inflammations from Sulphur congealed and burned but in the fifth Chapter he brings the Quinzy and Pleurisie from Mercury sublimated Then he brings Feavers from Sulphur fired So Hippocrates and Galen call them by the name of Fire but he mixeth false things with them What he saies of dissolved Sulphur is not wholly to be rejected for the Galenists say that pleasant vapors sent to the brain cause sleep nor when he saies That Narcoticks cause sleep not from cold but from Sulphur But he errs in saying all sleep is from a moist Nature and soft substance that bedews all the parts for who will say that the venemous quality in the Plague which produceth deep sleep is such In that he brings Fluxes and Dysenteries from congealed Sulphur and dissolved he differs from other Paracelsians that say they come from Salt which is more probable But he accuseth the Galenists false for saying excrements are diseases For the Paracelsians do so and Severine that saith he saw a Feaver cast out by vomit Then he makes diseases of Salt threefold calcined dissolved and reverberated Salt He saith the calcined Salt is the Balsom of life and if it melt in the body it causeth Dropsies Oedema and Cachexy He saith dissolved Salt is a liquid body of a fat tast that coagulateth and astringeth that nourisheth all with its good relish and preserves all and is therefore called the meat and drink of the Gods c. and whatsoever wants this Salt is quite unsavory He saith the reverberated Salt is the Lixivium or Clenser of all Nature that takes away filth To this Salt he brings the Itch Scurse Morphew Pox Scurvey Though we disown not the Salts of the Chymists which the resolution of bodies shews Scheuneman did well in a few things but adding some falsities he made the rest suspected He gives no reason why so many Salts nor is it needful that what compounds the body should cause diseases Moreover he is not constant in describing the kinds of Salts as appears when he derives all tasts from calcined Salt and that it is now bitter then salt now four and then sweet yet in another place he brings the tast from dissolved Salt saies nothing is savory that wants dissolved Salt Other Chymists are more right as we have shewed in the Chapter of Salts Moreover he errs much in shewing the causes of Sweat Cachexy Dropsie and the like That Sweat hath
the event is foolish What doth a furnace as high as a man concern the coustitution of the urin Why should the bigness of the vessels in a certain part answer to the just stature of a man All men are not of one stature and therefore this proportion will not fit all and you must make other furnaces and glasses for others but these are trifles Moreover Severine thought otherwise then Galen concerning the place affected and knowing the times of diseases but Severine jesteth at the word and distinguisheth not the disease from the cause nor the place from the cause nor the part affected by it self from that by consent And he unjustly accuseth Galen for making the brain the part affected in an Epilepsie because the beginning of sense and motion is from the brain Nor was Galen ignorant that the cause which twitcheth the brain and produceth it was not alwaies in the brain but he willingly taught and all other Physitians after him that it came often from the womb stomach and other remote parts as in other diseases The Galenists knew and taught that the root and fountain of the disease was to be found out And it is very hard to find out the part that affords matter to the disease Moreover the way of finding out the seeds of diseases is uncertain for the relation of the patient which Paracelsus slights shews us somtimes best to know the disease as for example in the Epilepsie by consent from the leg may be known best by the relation of the patient which cannot be known by giving medicines let them shew it otherwise not by promises and till then let us retain the old way of finding out the parts affected And let us not imitate the rash Chymists who write little of the part affected and not say That medicines of themselves know how to find the center of a disease which is meer folly Severine saith the times and periods of diseases come not from numbers or the peculiar Nature of man the motion of the Moon the flux of excrements and certain motion of the expulsive faculty but from the seeds and stars of the members and that in diseases the offices of Nature cease and all things are governed by the seeds of diseases And though it be true that concoctions and excretions are at certain times we must not deny that these inferior things are governed by superior causes which the very Countrey-swayns know from the motion of the Moon for all men are equally affected by the same coelestial influence and motion It is false that hereditary diseases as Epilepsie Gout and the like grow like Plants from their seeds as Severine writes which have their time of digestion and bringing forth fruit some in the seventh tenth or fourteenth year c. for there is another cause which is the vicious disposition of the parts And the reason why they seize not on all at one time but upon some in infancy others in youth is because the cause that produceth diseases is not easily bred in all ages The Epilepsie seizeth upon infants the Gout upon old folk but commonly the hereditary disease comes at thirty because that age useth to heap up the causes of that disease But it is against experience when Severine brings the continuity of diseases from Homogeneal roots and the intermission of them from heterogeneal roots For the cause of continuity and intermission is divers as we shewed in Feavers But this cast him into many absurdities by supposing that diseases arise onely as fruit from Trees He hath many absurdities but this is worst because in diseases he takes from Nature the government of the body but he speaks contrary to himself and to experience Thus It is the proper faculty of all vital Elements not to endure any strange thing in their Region but they expel all contraries by force Right for Nature doth not only her duty in health but in sickness Therefore Hippocrates saith well 6 Epid. that Nature is the Physitianess which is not ment of the Nature of Medicines as Chymists interpret but of the body For while Nature opposeth a disease as an enemy we must not despair of cure and the Crisis comes by Natures benefit which to impute to Medicines is foolish Nor is Paracelsus constant in Prognosticks Lib. 1. de orig morb c. 8. Lib. 6. param in sine in scholijs for he saith all diseases without exception are curable though they be from the birth because if venom be in Nature it is to be cured Elswhere he saith some diseases are uncurable as the Leprosie Therefore this is the question whether all diseases are curable First it is a wonder that Paracelsians should die so soon when they defend all diseases to be curable why do they not prove it in themselves The vulgar is governed by opinion and fair promises but not the Learned Moreover they erre in counting the Leprosie Epilepsie Dropsie and Gout curable which Galen saies are uncurable For they are not alwaies curable nor uncurable but some are of themselves so others by accident Of themselves they are uncurable when their Nature is such that no art of man can help in any patient and when there never was an example of cure They are uncurable by accident when there are remedies and by Nature they are curable and in some they are cured though in this or that patient they are not cured because somthing happens which makes it impossible Therefore the Epilepsie Dropsie and Gout are not well referred to discases of themselves uncurable Galen mentions some Lepers that were cured with Vipers and Treacle Parte 4. disp contra Paracel And Galenists have cured the other as Erastus shews and daily experience confirms and only by Galenical Physick Yet I deny not that there is great power in Chymical Physick in such difficult diseases but it is as impossible for the Chymists as for the Galenists to cure all Leprosies Epilepsies and Dropsies and it is as impossible as to raise the dead The reasons they bring for the cure of all diseases are of no force For though there are in Nature all things necessary for pleasure and necessity and God could make Medicines against all diseases as our Savior cured them that were otherwise incurable and raised the dead yet it follows not that God is envious for not making them Nor doth it follow that though God gave a remedy against eternal death that he also hath given a remedy against all diseases diseases and death are the punishment of sin therefore though God of his mercy hath given a remedy against eternal death yet he is not enviious nor unjust that he hath not given remedies against the first death and all diseases Read Bruno Seidelius of incurable Diseases Chap. 18. Of Medicines and the Method of Curing PAracelsus valued not diet as appears by his Practise for he drank with his patients nights and daies and said he cured them with a full belly But
here he did ill for all Physitians have acknowledged diet to be necessary to the cure of all diseases and he that neglects it finds it by experience In feavers it is plain for if the patient eat too freely or that which is improper he relapseth And in many diseases good diet is half the cure As for Physick let us consider the universal Medicine which the Chymists so commend by which a man may be preserved from diseases to the determinated time of his life as Robert Valensis writes Lib. de verit Chymiae This as Arnold de Vill a nova faith Hath vertue and force above all Medicines to cure all diseases both hot and cold because it is of an occult and subtile Nature it keeps Nature in health strengthens its vertues and makes the old young and expels all infirmities c. But many Chymists think there is no such universal Medicine that can cure all diseases in similary and organical parts in excess and defect and in conformation They confess that wounds fractures and luxations Ruptures and the like which require Chyrurgery are not ment here They except also the stone hereditary diseases hecticks and diseases in number deficient fixed Cancers and Gangrenes because God alone not man can cure all diseases only they are only curable with this universal Medicine that come from the inward fault of the humors or as they say Which spring from an internal Root And they call it a Medicine of much use as the Ancients called it a Panacea But the Chymists brag of this but few or none have explained it They say it is enough to know the patient to be sick and that next to the Word of God by which eternal life is promised there is nothing more precious but this Medicine is rather to be wished then hoped for nor was that yet found that hath done that which the Philosophers stone doth in transmutation of Metals it is plain and many of our age have had it but it is not evident what it hath done in curing diseases nor yet any thing proved by good witness If this Philosophers-stone can trāsmute ignoble Metals yet it follows not that it is an universal medicine for they should first prove it upon thēselves as Paracelsus and others that bragged of the Philosophers-stone and yet died all young But they which have this universal Medicine and do hide it have no mercy like Christians when they see so many men tormented and will not help them Nor are good things to be concealed because they are abused I doubt whether a Christian Physitian can with a safe conscience conceal a Medicine that can cure great diseases and if he do he doth not like a Christian that must love his neighbor as himself They agree not among themselves in determinating this Medicine for many take it for the Philosophers-stone yet Scheunaman makes the leaves of black Hellebore almost equal to the Philosophers-stone and saith that they being brought into a Balsom make a man live a second age and do purge beyond all There are three opinions of the universal Medicine The first is of them that think that it cures all diseases not primarily but secondarily by strengthening Nature wonderfully for according to Hippocrates Nature is the Physitian she concocts separates voideth and takes away all faintness And here the Chymists extol their Quintessence and Balsom and their incomparable vital Sulphur they call the secret flower the Sun and the Heaven They say their Quintessence and aetherial Spirit diffused through all natural things is the fountain of all vigor and actions In Animals it gives soul in Vegetables it gives growth and vegetation in Minerals and Metals it doth according to them In men it makes concoction and Crisis and then triumphs over his conquered enemy They say this Spirit and Quincessence and Balsomick Medicine comes from the great World to the less that the spirit in the body of man being helped by external aid that is by this strengthener may oppose diseases more valiantly and either change what is foul in the body to a natural state and expel it Some say this is to be done by Chymistry so that it may easily agree and be united to our natural heat and radical moisture and spirit and increase it and raise it to the height of purity And though this quintessence be in all things yet it is more in some then in others And the universal Medicine is to be made of that in which this Quintessence doth most abound but what and what kind of matter it is they do not explain Of this first opinion I think thus First I admit of what they say touching the strength of inbred spirit The Galenists teach this only let us have the soul to be the principle agent this inbred spirit Inst l 5. p. 1. s 1. c. 3. to be only an instrument of it Nor do I wholly reject their Quintessence but admit it so as I shewed in my Institutions namely to be somthing like to the Element of the Heavens a spirit such as is in wine by which it so strengthens the body and refresheth the spirits and by Chymical resolution you may shew it in all plants And many Galenists confess that there is in Medicines not onely that which works by the first qualities Part. 2. disp contra Paracels but by a nobler force Therefore Erastus speaks too rash to call the Quintessence a Dream of idle persons that desire to cheat But let us grant them this and that there is Nature that which abounds with this Quintessence and Spirit which being artificially prepared hath great power to strengthen and therefore may be called an universal Medicine Yet they prove not that it can cure all diseases without purgers alterers and openers and the like And it cannot be that Nature should purge water in a Dropsie with Medicines that move the belly or discuss the nodes in the Gout or the Stone without help of Medicines And though all diseases should come from the hurt of the vital spirit yet the cause of that hurt may be manifold therefore to restore the spirits divers Medicines must be given according to the variety of causes that hinder it Therefore it is not sufficient that the spirit which governs the whole body be strengthened but the strength of every privat part must be preserved The second opinion is of those that allow not only force to the universal Medicine to strengthen the inbred Balsom and Spirit but to dissolve consume and dissipate the seminary tinctures and impurities or diseases and causes thereof But let us consider if this may be to defend their opinion they say that fire burns all things Antimony consumes all Metals mixed with gold and hurts not that therefore the same may be by the universal Medicine which like a purging fire consumes all the impurities of our bodies Secondly they say as there are poysons as Arsenick and that of a mad Dog which hurts
Salts have power to dissolve others to coagulate therefore they say that humors coagulated by Salt are to be cured by Salt dissolveth And they say that a feaver from burning Sulphur is not cured by burning Sulphur but by sharp Sulphur that may coagulate these Spirits that are on fire and allay them De prisc mat med c. 3. 3. and keep them burning Quercetan proves this by gun-powder for though Salt-peeter and Sulphur are easily set on fire yet both have a sharp Spirit with which if you touch the pouder it will flame no more Therefore in one respect the like cures the like and in another the contrary the contrary for between humors and things that dissolve humors there is a familiarity But in respect of the taking away of the disease and the causes contraries are required And thus much of the consent and dissent between the Chymists and the Galenists He that considers this wisely Lib. 4. Epist ad Andr. Blauv wil find that Chymical medicines are not to be neglected for Galenical nor Galenical for Chymical for as Mathiolus writes None can be an ordinary Physitian that knows no Chymistry and he is admirable that knows what is Divine in Diseases in Medicines and Nature and finds out the fountains of actions all which may be done by Chymistry but he that cleaves onely to the first qualities in things cannot come to this Other things that respect the constitution faculties and actions the causes and differences of Diseases and Symptoms the Signs Prognosticks and Method of Curing may be found in Hippocrates and Galen and their Interpreters He that neglects these is an Emperick and no Physitian AN APPENDIX Chap. 19. Of the Constitution of Chymistry IN this Appendix we suppose what Libavius wrote at large and Beguin in short and what we mentioned in the fifth Book of Institutions That though Chymical Opeperations and Medicines are there added yet here I will plainly lay down as in a Table the whole Nature of Chymistry and its Constitution from the places alleadged and add some admonishments This I shall do without calumniating any or detracting from them For two may differ in opinion And still in friendship keep communion All Sciences and Arts as they are found ought to stand upon some Principles that reasons may be given of things done in them otherwise it is rather an ignorance then a science yet Chymistry the most noble useful Art hath few things fortified with reason and brought from certain Principles for there are many proceedings and Forms of Operation of which few teach the causes and Principles so that it seems to be an Art without an Art But as Physick so Chymistry is wholly subject to the natural Science and must follow the Laws of Nature in working so that there may be a mutual consent between them both In the first Chapter of this Tractate there is the Subject Definition and a twofold end of Chymistry But laying aside the former end we shall here speak onely of the Constitution of Chymistry as it serves a Physitian and helps him to good Medicines and we shal propound some things in Operations which may serve for the last end A Chymist to obtain his end must have some means or Mediums which are Chymical operations and instruments by which he worketh Of which we shall speak in order As for the instruments the chief are fire or heat the Menstruum air and water but that agents may be applied to the patients there are required furnaces glasses and many other vessels We spake elswhere of furnaces glasses and other vessels and of luting Inst l. 1. part 3. sec 2. c. 11.12.14 and we added instruments for other operations And Chap. 2. we spake of fire and heat The Menstrua are whatsoever things serve for solution extraction and separation of bodies and this name is commonly given to liquors which cast upon bodies have an actual force to dissolve or extract somthing out as common Water distilled Waters Dew Spirit of Wine Turpentine distilled Vinegar and things distilled in it Spirit of Salt Niter Vitriol Aqua fortis and Regia of which in the place of my Institutions cited We may bring all these liquors into three heads some are watery some have Salt others are oyly bodies are not dissolved but by their proper dissolvers that answer to their nature The watery bodies are like water and are dissolved and extracted by watery Menstrua Sugar and Salt which melt in water dissolve salt bodies and no other Things spiritual are dissolved by Spirits salt things by salt Spirits and extracted by oyl and fats Metals and Stones by Aqua fortis and Regia and the like liquors And without Salt no Metal is dissolved because all Metals are of a salt nature therefore the first melting must needs be by Salts Mercury dissolveth gold not so much by corrosion as by similitude or an occult quality And Aqua fortis though it be very corrosive dissolves not Rosin Wax or Pitch but they are dissolved in oyls and fats Therefore get the proper Menstruum for dissolving of very thing Some understand by the word Menstruum not only liquors but other dry bodies which dissolve things as Salt Niter Sulphur which being added to Metals or Stones and resolved in a fire of reverberation insinuate into the bodies applied and dissolve them Thirdly Chymists must have air which conduceth two waies namely as it is moist and hath waterish vapors and as it is cold as it is moist it serves a Chymist when it is mixed with things by nature dry and makes them of a moist consistence this is when air gets into Salts in moist places and makes them melt And in some distillations the moist air causeth the Spirits that are by nature dry and come forth like clouds to turn moist as in Oyl of Sal Gem made by a bell in Spirit of Salt and Vitriol and the like Also air serveth in respect of its coldness for cold by accident and binding of Homogeneal bodies doth congregate therefore Salts sooner grow together in water then in heat Fourthly water is an instrument of the Chymists not only as a Menstruum to dissolve and wash but to mix it self with dry Spirits in a moist air I should add Earth and the like but for offence therefore in making Spirit of Salt and Niter Poters Earth Bole and sealed Earth are used In distilling some Oyls the pouder of Bricks Sand and Ashes are used First that the body to be distilled may be as fine and small as may be and be better healed Secondly least the glass should be broken by things that easily dissolve as Niter another body is added to make it dissolve gently Also the Chymists use other instruments for some operations as Oyl of Tartar to precipitate Pearl and Coral being dissolved and other for others but I doubt whether these may be added to the former instruments As for Chymical operations they are diversly divided and I let
Chymistry Made Easie and Useful Or The Agreement and Disagreement Of the Chymists and Galenists Daniel Sennertus Nich. Culpeper And Abdiah Cole DOCTORS OF PHYSICK The two next Pages shew what is chiefly Treated of in this Book LONDON Printed by Peter Cole Printer and Book-seller at the Sign of the Printing-press in Cornhil near the Royal Exchange 1662. THE CONTENTS Of the BOOK Of the Chymists Galenists Physick CHap. 1. Of the Nature of Chymistry Page 1 Chap. 2 Of the Truth and Dignity of Chymistry Page 5 Chap. 3 Of the Inventors and Users of Chymistry Page 9 Chap. 4 Concerning Paracelsus Page 14 Chap. 5 Of the new Names and Principles by which Paracelsians are to be known Page 21 Chap. 6 Of the Analogie of the great and little World Page 25 Chap. 7 Of the first Matter Page 28 Chap. 8 Of the Elements Page 30 Chap. 9 Of the Forms Seeds or Stars of Things And Page 36 Of the Original of Forms Page 38 Chap 10 Of the Spirit and inbred Heat Page 44 Chap. 11 Of the Principles of the Chymists Page 50 Chap. 12 Of Generation and Mixture Page 64 Chap. 13 Of the Foundation of Medicine Page 76 Chap. 14 Of the strength of Imagination Page 83 Chap. 15 Of the Physiological part of Physick Page 92 Chap. 16 Of Pathologie or Diseases Page 99 Chap. 17 Of that part of Physick which is called Semiotick or of Signs Page 119 Chap. 18 Of Medicines and the Method of Curing Page 125 An Apendix Page 151 Chap. 19 Of the Constitution of Chymistry ibid. FINIS â—â—oks Printed by Peter Cole at the Exchange in London Several Physick Books of Nich. Culpeper Physitian and Astrologer and Abdiah Cole Doctor of Physick commonly called The Physitian 's Library containing all the Works in English of Riverius Sennertus Platerus Riolanus Bartholinus Viz. 1. A GOLDEN Practice of Physick plainly discovering the Kinds with the several Causes of every Disease And their most proper Cures in respect to the Causes from whence they come after a new easie and plain Method of Knowing Foretelling Preventing and Curing all Diseases Incident to the Body of Man Full of proper Observations and Remedies both of Ancient and Modern Physitians Being the Fruit of One and Thirty years Travel and fifty years Practice of Physick By Dr. Plater Dr. Cole and Nich-Culpeper 2. Sennertus Practical Physick the first Book in three Parts 1. Of the Head 2. Of the Hurt of the internal senses 3. Of the external Senses in five Sections 3. Sennertus Practical Physick the second Book in four Parts 1. Of the Jaws and Mouth 2. Of the Breast 3. Of the Lungs 4. Of the Heart 4. Sennertus Third Book of Practical Physick in fourteen Parts treating 1. Of the Stomach and Gullet 2. Of the Guts 3. Of the Mesentery Sweetbread and Omentum 4. Of the Spleen 5. Of the Sides 6. Of the Scurvey 7 and 8. Of the Liver 9 Of the Ureters 10. Of the Kidnies 11. and 12. Of the Bladder 13. and 14. Of the Privities and Generation in men 5. Sennertus fourth Book of Practical Physick in three Parts Part 1. Of the Diseases in the Privities of women The first Section Of Diseases of the Privie Part and the Neck of the Womb. The second Section Of the Diseases of the Womb. Part 2. Of the Symptoms in the Womb and from the Womb. The second Section Of the Symptoms in the Terms and other Fluxes of the Womb. The third Section Of the Symptoms that befal al Virgins and Women in their Wombs after they are ripe of Age. The fourth Section Of the Symptoms which are in Conception The fifth Section Of the Government of Women with Child and preternatural Distempers in Women with Child The sixth Section Of Symptoms that happen in Childbearing The seventh Section Of the Government of Women in Child-bed and of the Diseases that come after Travel The first Section Of Diseases of the Breasts The second Section Of the Symptoms of the Breasts To which is added a Tractate of the Cure of Infants Part 1. Of the Diet and Government of Infants The second Section Of Diseases and Symptoms in Children 6. Sennertus fifth Book of Practical Physick Or the Art of Chyrurgery in six Parts 1. Of Tumors 2. O Ulcers 3. Of the Skin Hair and Nails 4. Of Wounds with an excellent Treatise of the Weapon Salve 5. Of Fractures 6. Of Luxations 7. Sennertus sixth and last Book of Practical Physick in nine Parts 1. Of Diseases from occult Qualities in general 2. Of occult malignant and venemous Diseases arising from the internal fault of the humors 3. Or occult Diseases from water air and infections and of infectious diseases 4. Of the Venereal Pox. 5. Of outward Poysons in general 6. Of Poysons from Minerals and Metals 7. Of Poysons from Plants 8. Of Poysons that come from Living Creatures 9. Of Diseases by Witchcraft Incantation and Charmes 8. Sennertus Treatise of Chymistry shewing the Agreement and Disagreement of Chymists and Galenists 9. Sennertus two Treatises 1. Of the Pox. 2. Of the Gout 10. Sennertus thirteen Books of Natural Philosophy Or the Nature of all things in the world 11. Twenty four Books of the Practice of Physick being the Works of that Learned and Renowned Doctor Lazarus Riverius Physitian and Counsellor to the late King c. 12. Idea of Practical Physick in twelve Books 13. Bartholinus Anatomy with very many larger Brass Figures than any other Anatomy in English 14. Veslingus Anatomy of the Body of Man 15. Riolanus Anatomy 16. A Translation of the New Dispensatory made by the Colledg of Physitians of London in Folio and in Octavo Whereunto is added The Key of Galen's Method of Physick 17. A Directory for Midwives or a guide for women The First and Second Part. 18. Galens Art of Physick 19. A new Method both of studying and practising Physick 20. A Treatise of the Rickets 21. Medicaments for the Poor Or Physick for the Common People 22. Health for the Rich and Poor by Diet without Physick 23. One thousand New Famous and Rare Cures in Folio and Octavo 24. A Treatise of Pulses and Urins 25. A Treatise of Blood-letting and Cures performed thereby 26. A Treatise of Scarification and Cures performed thereby 27. The English Physitian enlarged The London Dispensatory in Folio of a great Caracter in Latin 28. The London Dispensatory in Latin a small Book in Twelves 29. Chymistry made easie and useful Or the Agreement and Disagreement of the Chymists and Galenists By Dr. Cole c. 30. A New Art of Physick by Weight or five hundred Aphorismes of Insensible Transpiration Breathing or Vapor coming forth of the Body By Dr. Cole c. To the Physical Reader THe greatest Reason that I could ever observe why the Medicines prescribed in the Physick Books before mentioned do not somtimes perform the Cures promised is the unskilfulness of those that make up the Medicines I therefore advise all those that have occasion to use
gladness at what is pleasant and sorrow at what is unpleasant these passions have great power to alter the body But phansie doth not immediately alter the body by the appetite but as the appetite moves the natural moving faculties in the members and chiefly in the heart these being moved do move the humors and spirits and the spirits comming and going to the part do change them Therefore the remote cause of alteration is the phansie and so it affects its own body and causeth divers diseases in it but of it self it causeth none And if it should the disease would be but imaginary not real So some melancholick people have thought they had great noses or bodies and yet were not so And though some fall into diseases by imagination yet the phansie doth not of it self but by accident by reason of fear which moves the malignant humors lurking in the body and these being moved cause the plague One Vincent thought his body so big that he could not pass through the door and when the Physitian commanded him to be carried through he complained that he was very much bruised and soon after died But this is not because the patient imagineth but because he is diseased And if imagination doth any thing it is by accident from sorrow or fear and the like passions Many diseases come by accident by means of the spirits and humors as they are different in nature and motion And imagination being the cause of divers passions as anger sorrow much joy they have such force to corrupt and change humors that we need not prove it Moreover strong imagination draws the spirits and humors strongly to the head and the heat is taken from the parts ordained for nourishment Thus imagination may cure diseases namely by accident not of it self for confidence makes the patient obey orders because imagination brings passions by which the humors and spirits are moved by which motion they oppose the disease Therefore confidence begets chearfulness and this stirs up the natural heat and spirits and so there is better concoction and the bad humors are overcome and the disease opposed Hence it is that they who are alwaies sad have many crudities and soul humors from the constant loss of heat and spirits From the same cause if patients have some meats they longed for they recover though they be not wholsom And Hippocrates saith that the best meats 2. Aphoris 38. if not affected cause loathing and the stomach doth not rightly embrace and concoct them hence come wind and crudities and the disease increaseth or the patient is longer sick 〈◊〉 â—â—at taken in with pleasure somtimes curethe because either by the joy the spirits which were dull by the disease are raised and refreshed which are the fittest instrument to conquer soul humors and the disease or because when then the patient hath his desire ceaseth from that imagination and the disease which was falsly supposed There are many Histories of this in Thomas á Vega and Alexander Trallian Com. in art med Galeni c. 48. Tralia lib. 2. c. 17. who speaks of a Woman that thought she had swallowed a Serpent Therefore if imagination of it self cannot afflict its own body it cannot change or hurt any other body For the soul cannot act upon externals but by means of the body because the phansie is an immanent action not transient But by accident it may do somwhat for what is said of Witchcraft is not to be wholly despised They say the Baselisk kils a man by the poysonous beams from his eyes These come from spirits and vapors by which the occult Sympathies and contracts of things are And the imagination may somwhat direct these spirits as we said by moving the natural faculties or stirring up the passions so in envy hatred anger venemous humors which are moved in the body are carried to the eyes and flow from thence But a certain distance is required and it is absurd to think that any can be afflicted at many miles distance and it is worse to ascribe to imagination things beyond its force and to which it no waies concurs as when they say a man may fall from a horse by imagination or corn be carried from one field into another Lastly let us consider what imagination can do in child-bearing Hipp 1. de supert Gal dether ad pis Avic fen 2. lib 1. doctr 2. c. 14. gen c. 30. of which there are many Observations so that it is simple to doubt them Hippocrates Galen and Avicen and many other Authors prove it and that of the Patriach Jacob is well known But it is hard to know how imagination could change a child It is certain that the phansie being known and an immanent power doth not of it self change the child and the forming faculty is the immediate cause of quantity figure number position and heat and not the imagination Nor is the child changed by a species of the phansie because of it self it cannot produce any real quality nor hath it any force but to move imagination and to represent to its object and if this species had any force there would be more changes in children It is therefore more probable to reason that the child is changed by the phansie either through the passions and motions of the spirits and humors or by directing the forming faculty The changes and hurts in children are of two sorts common and determinate The common are abortion death inward sickness and weakness smalness or greatness of some part defect or abundance in number The determinate are changes and signatures which have a determinate similitude to some outward thing as for Example when they long for Cherries the impression of a Cherry will be upon the child The first changes may be from phansie by means of the passions and motion of the humors and spirits but the determinate signatures which answer to external things that are offered to the imagination cannot be by motion of the humors and spirits by the imagination For the passions stirs the spirits and humors which stirred are carried with force or in plenty to the child which troubles it and cause abortion by stirring up of the expulsive faculty of the womb Somtimes the forming faculty is disturbed from the same cause in its operation or is overwhelmed or the spirits and humors being sent another way the parts are not rightly formed or they are greater or less But these are not determinate faults nor have they any resemblance with external things because they are made by an accidental motion of the humors onely stirred by the passions and they are not determinated by a peculiar manner according to the species received in the imagination Therefore these errors are to be attributed rather to the passions of the mind â—hen to imagination nor doth the phansie truly and effectually conduce to them nor otherwise then as it stirs up the appetite But when these signatures are determinated and peculiar according to
tartarous Diseases of which they speak often and many flie to that in time of ignorance they say then the disease is from Tartar but few explain what Tartar is Lib. de morb tar tar c. 1. Paracelsus rails against the Galenists because they call tartarous diseases sand or the stone because it is a Metaphorical appellation but in Physick we must speak properly and things must de denominated from their Nature which he doth not observe He saith the cause of this appellation is because an oyl and a water and a tincture are made of it which burns the sick as the Tartar of Hell therefore if the name be from the likeness of Hell fire it is taken from a similitude and is not proper Others extend the word Tartar larger then that it should be given only to the stone for they call a slimy humor by the same name which causeth the Colick corrosions and divers pains in the stomach Thus they cal divers things by the name of Tartar to which it doth not equally in reason belong and so is not proper But to the purpose agreeing about names let us see whether the Chymists and Dogmatists may be reconciled in this The Chymists have no clear definition of Tartar Lib. 2. de tar tract 1. c. 1. Paracelsus defines it thus It is stony disease or a bole or between a bole and a stone which hinders the effect and vertue of Nature Other Chymists say Tartar is that impurity in the nourishment under a resolved form that cannot be discerned but yet tends to coagulation and a stony Nature Some from Paracelsus say It is an excrement coagulated by its spirit Some Chymists seem to agree with the Galenists who say Tartar is a stone-making juyce or a matter by Nature apt to coagulate And this juyce is drawn from Plants with the nourishment and sent from Plants into Animals and then it hurts much when Nature is weak to concoct and void it They make four kinds of this Tartarous juyce Viscous bolare or like bole sandy and stony and hence come divers diseases in divers parts of the body First they bring most diseases of the stomach from Tartarous impurities when such a matter covers the sides of the stomach the vital spirits are obstructed which are the Author of all natural actions hence comes slow concoction compression loathing and the like and as the tinctures of the Tartarous spirits are stronger to wholly overcome the inbred spirits there follows want of concoction and nourishment But if these impurities have strange spirits with them they turn the nourishment into a strange nature and there is belching and stink and if they have vomiting properties as of Hellebore or Antimony they cause loathing and vomiting If they have the tinctures of Salts there is burning of the stomach gnawing and the like If of vitriolated Salt there is a Dog-like appetite Let us grant all this that we be not so unjust against the Chymists as Erastus Part 4. disp conâ—a para Yet this tartarous matter is not the onely cause of the hurt actions of the stomach for a hot or a cold distemper often hurts it Moreover from the opinion of Severine diseases breed from those tartarous impurities mixed or alone from the mixed come sulphurous stinking diseases thirst heat bitterness of mouth headach with cold and shaking called ordinary feavers But he thinks they come rather from their roots which are Niter with Sulphur Because he saith feavers have seeds and roots in which slimy and salt spirits with Niter are mixed with impure stinking dissolved Sulphur Therefore at set times when the mineral or matter of the disease begins to spring being nitrous Sulphur there is horror chilness panting and the like as the nitrous Sulphur differs As we are not in this enemies to them so let them be milder against the opinions of Galenists for first we must distinguish the seaver from the cause The cause is that matter which they call Nitrous Sulphur from the accession of which there is a hot distemper in the whole body by which all the parts are unfit for their offices and this preternatural disposition is called a feaver Nor must the name of humors be rejected for Niter or Sulphur are never vomited up or purged forth or sweat out but only humors Though we grant that the humors are set on fire by Sulphur we will not therefore reject the name of humors Scheunemamnus his opinion of the original of feavers is ridiculous he saith that a globe or bal of many Sphaeres like a Bezoar-stone is bred in the stomach or liver and thence come seavers and fits and when this ball is struck from Heaven it flames and smoaks and infects the air hence comes a little cold and trembling and then heat But this globe and its circles of which it is made ought to be very great because he writes that the patient shall have so many fits as are circles in it Against Severine I say the Colick cannot breed from a slimy Tartar mixed with stiptick or binding four spirits because he made one cause only of the pain of the Colick I agree with him about the name for the case is plain that the colick is from glass like flegm as Galen taught But if he make that the only cause he errs exceedingly because there are great pains from wind that extends the guts nor doth sharpness or wind cause pains but by stretching which being made to pass by a Clyster or two the pain ceaseth better then by the laborious Chymical medicines Ideo Philos 13. It is false that he saith the sharpest pains are only from the sharpest spirits of Salts he calls the pains from cuts burnings and stroaks Relolls But all men living do witness by sense that there is no greater pain then that from cutting and burning c. Severine proceeds and saies and describes the generations and differences of inflammations saying That the seeds of these diseases come to the matrixes not only in a liquid form dissolved but in a spiritual vapor and continual nutrication and digested fermentation and except the time of neaturity and separation which coming the spirits break forth and boyl And then the signatures that lay hid before in the spirits are explained colours tasts scents heat and other qualities And by nourishment daily attracted they make bodies agreable to the principles mattery slimy bloody coagulated dissolved stinking red black He brings the kinds of inflammations from the proprieties of the sulphurous spirits And Arsenick spirits make plague sores Orpiment spirits make Pleurisies not only in the breast but in the brain lungs heart liver spleen and stomach He accuseth Galen and other Doctors for saying That inflammations come from much blood violent exercise falls contusions And denies that these effects can come from these causes except some Arsenical seed cause the Plague or other the Pleurisie lying in the blood till it get an occasion to boyl For the breeding of ulcers
Salt is not to be denied but is not only Salt for in us it stinks often which the Chymists say is from Sulphur nor is sweat a dissolved Salt coming from the substance of the body we sometimes allow it to Diaphoretick sweats but not to others But the serous matter is the sweat and that sweat and urin have the same matter And if sweat were thus made feavers would not be gone with sweating which we see It is as absurd when he brings Cachexy and Dropsie from resolved Salt for the Dropsie is otherwise caused as in Lib. 3. Pract. Cap. 1. you may see Nor had Paracelsus or Severine any cause to bring the Dropsie from the resolution of parts or their Salts for there is water and Salt enough in our meats and drinks which if it be not well separated it breeds a Dropsie by degrees Nor doth a Scirrhus of the liver or spleen alwaies follow a Dropsie and never go before it for experience shews the contrary To what he faies of Tartar I grant that many difeases come from Tartar and Salt or being mixed with slimy humors But he errs saying that such Salt is the nourishment of the body and the meat and drink of the Gods and when it doth not its duty it breeds cartarous diseases This Tartar is rather an excrement unfit to nourish the body Lib. de veteri Medici as Hippocrates saith and wine which hath little Tartar is best As for his reverberated Salt I commend him for bringing the Itch Scab Scurse and Teter and Ulcers that creep from Salt and the Galenists say that salt humors cause them but I see not what he doth more then others For these diseases differ in their causes cure very much and the kind of Salt or salt humor is different in a Cancer and a Teter or Scab and if he had explained them he had sound favor from all Philosophers For there is great difference of diseases from salt humors and the French pox the Scurvey Cancer and Carbuncle differ not only in respect of the part affected and the greater or lesser heat of the salt Spirits or the kinds of Salts which the best Chymists confess and therfore they apply divers medicines to divers diseases that arise from Salts nor do I believe that Scheuneman cured the Leprosie French pox Cancer Teter Scurvey and all corroding Ulcers with one only Salt What he speaks besides is not considerable and I should loose time to treat concerning it Chap. 17. Of that part of Physick which is called Semiotick or of Signs PAracelsus varied in his Doctrine of Signs Part. 3. disp contra Para. as Eraslus shews sometimes he allows them somtimes he rejects them But when he saies we must not regard Signs and Symptoms he there erreth for Signs and Symptoms are considered of Physitians not for themselves but that they may bring us to the knowledg of hidden diseases and causes Nor can we commend the Paracelsians for slighting them for there is no curing of that disease which is unknown He speaks nothing in general of Signs let us consider what he saies in particular and first of the Pulse The modern Physitians think that he was well skilled in pulses as appears in his Book of the Plague Tract 1. where he saith The pulse is the measure of the temper of the body according to the propriety of the six places which the Planets possess c. And wrote more of pulses Lib. 2. de urina Iudi. as you may see And he saith the pulse continues till death and somtimes a quarter of an hour after If he had no more to say of pulses he had but little and what could be more simple then to write that the gall reins liver have their peculiar pulses and the feet and other members to attribute anger to the pulse And that is most simple when he saies A pulse may beat a quarter of an hour after death for how can there be vital actions when the soul is gone He was larger concerning urin which he desines thus It is a salt separated from the nourishment and some of the three first Principles neglected by Nature namely the stomach liver and reins send forth the urin He is not to be despised for referring urin to salt Institut lib. 1. c. 9. which is not in things by adustion only for the volatile salt of urin is without any adustion and in that part which it first comes forth of which we spake elswhere He divides the urin into the external internal and mixed The first he will have to come from the Elements and to shew no more then what belongs to the stomach reins and liver And saith it is of Tartar which shews that the separation from the pure and the impure is made in the three chief parts the stomach liver and reins and in this urin Salt Sulphur and Mercury may be known The internal urin which is of blood comes not from the nourishment but from the excrements of all parts and the Minerals that are in Nature He calls that a mixed urin which is compounded of the internal and external But Paracelsus did not much regard this distinction as appears in the Life of Oporinus who brought an urin to him and desired the Doctors opinion but he brake the glass against the wall and called him fool He errs in making the internal urin of blood not from nourishment but from the excrements of parts and Minerals in mans Nature for in a part constituted there are no Minerals that send forth a peculiar excrement John Rhenavus mentions other differences of urin from Paracelsus in his Vrocriterium Chymiatricum where you may see strange opinions of urin but let every man beware of them Some Chymists have spoken well of troubled urins but not they alone nor are they the first for in a troubled urin many things may be known which are not to be seen in a clear chiefly in feavers for in some somthing sticks so to the glass that it is hard to be scoured off In others though it stand long there is none This is easily known when the urinal lies on one side therefore in such diseases I suppose from experience that you may judge as well from troubled as clear urin Some Chymasts in Epidemick diseases distinguish urins from Arsenick Orpiment and Mercury They say Arsenick is like unslaked Lime and cleaves to the urinal and corrodes it that Orpiment is like Okar in colour and sticks fast also but doth not corrode the glass so much that Mercury is sky-coloured and is first seen in the circle Others teach that you may judg of diseases by distilling the urin but Paracelsus tried it not Gerhardus Doraeus de urin dest I suppose but this is my opinion in great diseases if any will distil it I am not against it that they may know better what is in it as you do in Spaw-waters Whatsoever he saies more of the part affected the disease and
good against wounds That plants that have slimy and glutinous juyce and have gums and rosin heal wounds those that are spotted and scaly leaved cure the scab and all defilements of the skin Those like Serpents and other venemous beasts are good against their bitings and stings Questot lib. designat externis Crol lib. de signat exter See Baptista Porta Quercetan and Crollius All these are not to be rejected nor do I think with Libavius that it is by chance that things answer to their external forms For experience witnesseth the external figures are the signs of the internal vertue And let Signature have its place among the rest for finding out the faculties of Medicines and diseases The Galenists have long approved that Medicines are proper to such parts as they resemble as Piony and Poppy are good for the head and brain but we must not trust only signature though it is the chiefest and let experience be yeilded unto Nor is it to be contemned that every plant is under a peculiar Planet because Heaven by experience acteth not upon things below only by heat and light but by an occult influence But this was not the Chymists Invention but the Astrologers of old Here 's a question Lib. 1. philos sagacis lib. de occulta Philoso Whether there be any force in Words and Characters in Physick Paracelsus caused it when he said Characters would cure diseases otherwise uncurable and he saith it is lawful to fetch remedies from the Devil if they will cure a man We answer as for words they signifie from a compact and convention of men For thoughts are the same in all men but the words or notes by which they are expressed are divers and the same words signifie divers things in divers Nations Lib 1. philoso saga c 6. Therefore words do only declare the sense of the mind and work no further for all principle of operation by which bodies are changed is a quality and a natural power and things have their efficacy by their qualities Paracelsus saith that words have an hidden forâ—e and vertue as Roots and Plants but because he proves it not we ought not to believe it The Devils in old time shewed their worshippers by what words signs and images they would be worshipped and called upon and so from a Covenant they are of power Hence it happens that they which read such words and conjurations though they understand them not yet do raise the Devil Martin Delrio hath an example of this Disquis magic lib. 2. q. 29. sect 1. There is great abuse in holy words which the Devils and Conjurers use often to delude the simple There is the same reason for Characters and Seals nor did Paracelsus and the Chymists first give power to them Lib. 30. nat histo c. 1. Lib. 9. de simpl me dic facult c. de lapidib but the Astrologers and Physitians and the Magicians chiefly as Pliny writes It is an ancient trick to grave a Dragon upon a Jasper-stone and put it in a ring Paracelsus propounds many Characters out of Galen in his Book of Archidox Magick and in that of occult Philosophy he prefers two before all Sigus and Characters the one in which the word Adonai is written in a figure the other in which the word Tetragrammaton is written as if it were the Name of God he writes these are good against Devils and diseases from Incantation nor is the Name of God profaned so because it is used for mans good and against diseases of incantation but evil is not to be done that good may come thereof But neither Paracelsus nor others that allow Power to Characters and Seals agree in giving a cause of the effects they produce Some bring their strength from Heaven Differ 101 as the Conciliator out of that of Ptolomy The countenance of sublunary things is subject to the heavenly countenances so that the coelestial Scorpion governs the inferior which being granted what doth it concern a Scorpion graven upon a Jewel nor are they under the same kind Others say there is a force instilled into them from Heaven and the Stars Others say that Individuals beginning to be under a determinate constellation receive an admirable faculty to work or suffer besides what they have from their species But a Jewel or Metal doth not then begin to be when it is graven but it was before Others think otherwise but none could yet bring any probabilities for the vertue of them much less have any of them power to get favor to men or knowledg wit memory or love of a King or Victory in War and Law or good success in hunting or merchandize or make faithful friends or raise a man to honor and the like Two things are in Seals the Matter and the Character to neither of which can this force be ascribed not to the Matter which is from nature nor hath it that strength as they confess and if it had it would have it without a figure or Character as a Loadstone under what figure soever hath pover to draw iron without a Character The Characters are from the Artificer and from the Idea in his mind which cannot work upon external things therefore cannot have force from themselves or from the Artificer of themselves they are nothing but figures but a figure is not active being but a quality of the quantity nor do artificial things act upon natural and change them or affect them as being such but they act upon them as they have natural matter and on the contrary natural things do not alter nor affect articificial as such but as they are of a natural matter Therefore images or names graven upon Matter can do nothing of themselves Nor can they take their strength from Heaven for if the matter of which they are made can receive any strength from Heaven it may receive it as well without Characters nor have they yet proved the contrary therefore if any efficacy be found in these it must be ascribed either to imagination which is of great force or to the Devil who by secret signs is invited by such characters by way of compact made of old with his worshippers For these came from the Gentils that were subject to Superstition and Idolatry and the Devils gave these Characters from a bargain either explicite or implicite by which only they prevail from the Devil who made a covenant with him that first learned them Nor is it sufficient what they say that such things are without the invocation of the Devil or adjuration or any unlawful way but work naturally For first they must prove that there is such a peculiar vertue in such Seals which Metals and Gemms have not of themselves for though it be not an explicite bargain or conjuration yet it may be implicite and the Devil knows the dice he gave his worshippers before Therefore the Primitive Church ordered the converted Gentils to abstain from things consecrated
to the Devil In Actis Apost But Paracelsus saith therefore that the patient be forsaken and lie without help when remedies that work by nature cannot cure him being inchanted We say first that it is false that diseases brought by Magick cannot be cured by natural means of which we have many examples For such diseases are often produced by natural means and when such things are removed as causes they are cured by natural means by a strong faith in God So Medicines that purge melancholy have been given with good success to such as have been possessed of the Devil See in Rulands Centuries for a melancholy humor is the Devils bath Also by purges and vomits hair needles wood iron and other strange things have been voided that have caused suspicion of Witchcraft and the patients have recovered Therefore we must never flie to the help of the Devil because it is deceitful he cures the body to get the soul and any disease or death it self ought to be more desired then health from the Devil To this is like the magnetick cure by amulets for many things work naturally by a vertual contract as Galen confesseth 6. Templ when he writes that Piony hung about the neck cures the Epilepsie and the best Physitians confirm it This force is called Magnetick from the Load-stone that draws iron and turns to the Pole without a corporal contract Part 1. disâ—â—t contra Para. He that denies such things is to be accounted very unskil'd in natural things or rash to deny what is proved by experience Though Erastus thinks otherwise Now if any cure be done by these occult consents and dissents of natural things I allow them such are given in the Plague and approved by experience as the great Dukes Oyl the Oyl of Scorpions of Mathiolus So Feavers are somtimes cured by Amulets and Vesicatories Only take heed that no superstitions nor Magick by an explicite or implicite bargain with the Devil be sold to you for Seals and Characters cannot be referr'd to Magnetick operations nor what Paracelsus allows of Images nor can all effects in nature be palliated by the example of magnetick operations There is another question here Part. 1. dsput contra parac Whether ought Plants to be gathered at a certain time according to the aspects of the Stars for Physick Erastus and others deny it and think the Scripture forbids it but where I know not Trees to build with are hewen down rather at the increase then decrease of the Moon In praefat In diosc Therefore I think with Mathiolus and many learned men that the Aspects of Stars are to be observed in gathering some Plants for these inferior things are governed by the superior and consent with them and many learned men think that Piony so famous against the Epilepsie doth not please all men for no other reason then because it was not gathered at the due time and it were good in Physick to observe this The Chymists also differ from the Galenists because the Chymists make nothing of the first qualities against experience by which it appears that the body is distempered by the excess in the first qualities and by the contrary is cured yet they do little good who are so intent on the first qualities regard not the occult moreover many Chymists proclaim all Apothecaries medicines as malignant and venemous and willh ave none but such as have bin clensed and prepared by Chymistry This they labor to prove in all Physick First for Purgers Com. 2. de rat vict in accut nor Pills nor Potions nor Electuaries but they tax as poyson from the consent of Galen the Greeks and Arabians and Galen saith The Nature of Purges ought to be contrary to the nature of our bodies Lib. 6. c. 6. They say our Alterers are as bad so they say from Dioscorides that Saffron is deadly Also Poppy Henbane Hemlock and many others Some are more moderate and say all our medicines are not poyson but have much impurity that hinders their profitable force and they who give whole medicines do like them that boyl the birds in their nests and eat Oyster-shels and all But Alchymy is that only Instrument by which the malignant quality given by God for sin is taken away Let the impurities which hinder the force of the vital spirit and break it be cast away Here they inveigh against the vulgar way of preparing of medicines and first they argue that there are too many simples in a medicine because one disease hath but one nature and requires but one proper remedy And as simple diet is best for a man and variety hurteth much more doth a compound medicine offend a sick person And to contract all in a word that they alleadg against Galenists they disallow the ordinary way of cure and making medicines saying that borh Purgers and Altererers are poysonous corrosives impure unpleasant unefficacious confused and strange Hence they cast off the ordinary Dispensatory they inveigh against forreign medicines and say they are Arabian fooleries and inventions of Apothecaries Then they carp at the Galenists because they use not Stones Metals or Minerals or very seldom being as they say the best of medicines and vegetables are not sufficient to root out diseases because they have a fugitive spirit and make not a fixed Balsom and preserve not from putrefaction as Metals do which last long therfore the Galenists send patients to the Spaw waters which have all their power from the spirits of minerals and metals Therefore the Chymists having a better physical matter and better prepared they say they cure diseases by the Galenists uncurable These accusations are not a few nor weak and if they could clearly prove them the medicines we use were to be totally rejected But it is not hard to vindicate the Galenists for what they say of poyson put into creatures by the curse is without reason and is refuted Chap 16. and the Chymists themselves think otherwise as Rulandus observes Progymnau Alkin qu. 25. Moreover it is foolish to say that all purges have the nature of poyson we grant some that are vehement are adverse in nature to our bodies But what is that against the Galenists or for the Chymists They have their Cauteries and Sections and Vomits that are adverse and yet they are not alwaies to be rejected So if the strong purgers molest in some way the patient yet the profit they bring by purging bad humors is greater Albeit the hurt they bring is from the want of right preparation and administration But no Chymical preparation or separation takes away the poyson from a venemous body or can make it a good Medicine nor do purgers prepare them how you please lay aside their nature wholly Nor have the Chymists given any purge that hath not some way disturbed the patient therefore purging extracts are to be given with as much caution as others What they bring against the vulgar composition of
Medicines is of little weight so that the way of composition used is not to be abolished and their arguments are most from the Galenists that allow them not and all Doctors disallow the crowding in of divers Simples without a cause and they think it rashness to use Compounds when Simples will do and that it is bad to put many Simples of the same faculty into one Compound But many may be mixed when diseases are complicate both in the affects and the causes when Medicines are to be directed by many ends which cannot be done by one simple Medicine for one simple Medicine can scarce be found that hath so many faculties joyned together as the Doctor hath ends propounded Therefore let Chymical preparations have their due praise and place and the Vulgar preparations theirs But it is the part of an idle and too curious person to prepare all things Chymically and when a Conserve or a Pouder wil serve to give an Oyl or a Spirit Nor is the commendation of a Chymical medicine for its smal dose sufficient because it causeth no disgust for so you may commend poysons This is the error of many who to please the palate only give the Extract of Scammony Cambugia or a little Pouder but great in operation but consider not whether it hit the disease and evacuate the peccant humor To conclude it is the part of a prudent Physitian somtimes to use Chymical somtimes whole Medicines according to the circumstances of the diseases place and time They also are not wise who reject exotick or outlandish Medicines for neither wine nor spices that grow from home being used every day are enemies Every Land doth not produce every thing Therefore there is commerce that one Nation should supply the other It is true that the Galenists say if home-bred Physick it were in vain to get forraign but if not there is no reason why exotick Medicines may not be used We reject not wholly Physick made of Minerals and Metals Dios l. 1. c. 17. Gal. de med fac parabilib 2. c. 36. being perswaded by the Spaw-waters that cure desparate diseases The ancient Physitians gave them inwardly as well as outwardly as Steel Sulphur vive scales of Brass burnt Brass and the like Therefore we may better use them Chymically prepared Niter prepared called Sal Prunellae is used happily against Quinzies and Feavers Antimony and Mercury if well given do what other Medicines cannot A Girl of twelve years old used Antimony Diaphoretick every day who had many ulcers about the joynts when other remedies were of no force and was cured But because these have often done hurt you must be wary in using them least Mercury of life so called become Mercury or a messenger of death It may be objected that Metals are enemies to Nature but we must labor to take away that enmity by Chymistry you may see this in Arseâ—â—â—â— which being present poyson laies aside all its venom by Chymical preparation Yet we commend not them that include all Medicines in a few Metals as if God had made Vegetables in vain It is known to all how Medicines made of Vegetables and Animals refresh both the sound and the sick with their pleasant tast and scent and it is not yet proved that Minerals can do the same Hence the question is easily decided whether Chymical or Galenical Medicines are best To speak my thoughts they both have their places and praises but if you ask which is to be preferred the one simply cannot be preferred before the other For though the Chymists have a certain prerogative yet indeed they are not better then Galenists but the Medicines excel in respect of preparation nor are they simply to be preferred for this cause for I said both have their place and it is the part of an unexperienced man never to desire to use Chymical medicines or not to use whole medicines but all Extracts or Essences For some medicines so disperse their vertue through the whole body that if their parts should be separated they would partly or wholly loose it Others have their strength in other parts where consider in what part it is Therefore use whole medicines when the force desired is in the whole body and vanisheth when it is dissolved But use dissolved or separated medicines when the strength of them is divers and comes from divers parts or when the force of the medicine may be brought into a small quantity by taking away what is unprofitable Here observe that which way soever Antimony and Mercury are prepared they never wil be so good and safe as Cassia Manna Tamarinds Senna Rhubarb and the like and from one grain of them more hurt may come then from an ounce of ordinary Physick And which way soever they are prepared they are alwaies accounted vehement medicines Though some brag of secrets and singular preparations they have not yet discovered them Therefore let the Chymists prove that the volatile purging Spirit that passeth through the whole body remains such in Antimony and Mercury after preparation so that it may be so benigne and familiar to our Nature as Cassia and Tamarinds and the rest This they will scarce do for that Spirit is easier to the fixed or thrown away then to be qualified as to loose its nature Lib. 4. Epist ad Andr. de Blauu Mathiolus saies well on the other side When the whole mass of blood is all over corrupt and filled with the seeds of diseases these cannot be cured but by Minerals Therefore a wise Physitian must use somtimes this and somtimes that as the nature of the diseases and circumstances requires as Pouders Decoctions Infusions or Extracts Minerals and domestick and forraign Medicines As for Example when you will strengthen and bind Conserve of Roses doth that which a Spirit or Water or Salt of the same cannot do on the other side the strength of medicines is greater in Chymistry as in Oyls and Spirits For the Physical part is separated from what is unprofitable that hinders its operation and so it is given pure Therfore we conclude that Chymical medicines considered simply are nobler of themselves because purer and more active but they are not alwaies and every where to be preferred before Galenical Nor is the objection against Chymical medicines of force when they say that what ariseth from the solution of the mixture is not specifical and the Chymists while they dissolve the mixture Lib. 3. de simpt med fac c. 14. destroy the essence For Galen shews that all medicines though to sense simple yet are in nature compounds and so have divers faculties in the parts and afford divers uses for divers things Moreover the solution is not alwaies into the first Elements as we shewed therfore when the Chymists dissolve such bodies by art and dissolve dissimilary bodies into similary parts they are so far from destroying the strength of the medicine that they rather separate them froÌ„ all heterogeneal mixture Nor
doth the Chymist transmute the thing but makes one thing of another by the power of nature As that which is extracted from Rhubarb in the Spirit of Wine or other liquor is the same in number and species with that in which the force of purging depends in Rhubarb being whole And so we grant that as he that gives butter doth not give all the milk so he that gives the Extract of Rhubarb gives it not all but onely that part in which the force of purging lieth Therefore medicines made by solution are not of the same species with the whole but are of the same kind with the parts of the whole from which they were made Let us conclude thus he that will be a true Physitian needs not only medicines to cure as an Emperick but he must follow method and his indications otherwise he will do more hurt then good for the abuse of the best thing is the worst Therefore Erastus saith well He doth least hurt in most diseases Part. 4. disput contra Parac that useth vulgarly prepared Medicines but he doth much hurt that gives Chymical Physick where it is not needful or gives them not aright This is to teach young Physitians that think themselves wiser then others and neglect all vulgar remedies approved by long experience and use only Chymical medicines lately invented and not well approved and so get a fame And to teach some Galenists that being ignorant of Chymistry yet to seem inseriour to none give dangerous Chymical medicines not knowing their strength and preparation The Chymists offend in this at this time who being ignorant of all other parts of Physick yet having a little skil in Chymical operations contemn other Physitians and proclame their own perfection and so with the Cobler they go beyond their last Let us now discuss the Controversie whether we must use contraries or things like for curing diseases It is an old Axiom Contraries are cured by contraries whence Hippocrates defines Physick to be addition and substraction that is to add things defective by the like and to substract or take away what aboundeth and happens to the body besides nature by the contrary For curing is a motion from a disease to health Arist 5. metaphys and motion is respect of a contrary The modern Chymists say that like cures like and when there may be a twofold similitude with the disease and with nature they understand both because Hippocrates saith Nature is the Physitianess of diseases and remedies are in vain when she resisteth Hence Galen shews that the vital indication is to be preferred before all therefore things are to be given which are like and familiar with nature Then they think that things alike are to be given in respect of the disease and its causes for purges attract vitious humors by the similitude of the whole substance and Alterers must be like to the part to which they are applied and there are proper medicines for every part some for the heart others for the brain and liver Then they say that diseases arising from Salt are cured by Salts and those from Sulphur by Sulphur But this Controversie is rather in words then things First they agree in this that alwaies there is a care to be had of the strength and it must be preserved by its like nor doth the other Axiom oppose this namely That contraries are cured by contraries For here we must distinguish between a vital and a curing indication in species And when Hippocrates saith Contraries are cured by contraries he speaks not of a vital Indication but of taking away what is preternatural and must be only ment so Hence it is that the patient desires contrary things to the disease as when he thirsteth he desires drink which is the cure of thirst for it is not the disease that desires remedies as the thirst doth not require drink but the thirsty and so by this general rule whatsoever is besides nature is to be taken away Nor do the Galenists deny that medicines are to be chosen which are familiar and proper to the part affected which familiarity is in similitude and an occult Sympathy Thirdly I suppose the Dispute is not of the contrariety of Alterers nor is there any Paracelsian so simple that will give a hot remedy as hot against a hot disease as so or thinks that a dried body as such is to be more dried For experience is against them and sense not onely in men but beasts who in great heat require to be cooled and in cold to be warmed Therefore the Axiom of Hippocrates remains unshaken which Galen confirms Lib. 9. meth c. 15. That the Remedies of contraries are contrary And though the Galenists contend among themselves about this and some would overthrow it yet hitherto they have not Therefore the Controversie remains about the causes whether remedies must be like or contrary unto them If by contrary we understand whatsoever is effectively so or that can produce an effect contrary to the preternatural affect I suppose the Chymists will not be against us for they give their medicines for that end namely that the cause and the disease may be taken away and not increased Nor do any of them deny that of Hippocrates 3. Aphor. 22. That diseases from fulness must be cured by evacuation The question then is How ought medicines to be against the causes of diseases according to internal strength and nature and substance Here lies the great wheel of the Controversie for the Paracelsian Chymists refer diseases or the causes of them to their Principles and cal some Sulphurous some Salt and some Mercurial the Sulphurous they say are to be cured by Sulphur the Salt by Salt and the Mercurial by Mercury if Sulphur be on fire it must be quenched and in this they admit of contrarieties but only by sulphurous medicines and so they think of salt and tartarous diseases as the stone which is to be cured by Tartar Hence the stones in Cattel and other Creatures are good to break it and the Jew-stone in the stone of the kidnies bladder and roots of Butchers-broom Smallage Marshmallows and so they say that the disease alwaies denotes the remedy In this the Galenists and Paracelsians seem to differ let us labor to reconcile them And first most Galenists to allow that Purges do attract foul humors by a familiarity of substance which doth not overthrow that old Axiom that contraries are cured by contraries For they are alwaies effectively contrary for the disease is alwales taken away by contraries mediately or immediately by it self or by accident and though Rhubarb attract choler by the likeness of its substance yet it causeth choler to be purged therefore Aristotle writes well 1. De gen ercor c. 7. the patient and the agent are the same in general and alike but unlike in species and such are contrary Nor do the Chymists deny contrariety when â—hey say Salt cures Salt for some