Florence Venice Rome Naples Paris or Sevill methinks it is apparent that the recommendation of Medicaments or Methods of curing in the Plague ariseth from the observation that some by the happy use of such a course or such a Medicament have perhaps amidst dangerous and seemingly deadly symptomes been recovered And herein Septalius and Massarias and others say as much for themselves as Mindererus or Sennertus And what Celsus saith of Hippocrates Herophilus and Asclepiades I cannot but call to mind when I reflect on the several Methods of Physick endeared unto us by judicious Practitioners Si rationes sequi velimus omnium posse videri non improbabiles si curationes ab omnibus his aegros perductos esse ad sanitatem So just I am to those excellent Practitioners It is certain that in Physick we do oftentimes commit the Fallacy of non causa pro causa and attribute those effâ—cts to one Medicament or Method which either did but accidentally ensue thereon it contributes nothing to the effect but only happening to be insisted on at or before the time that the Phoenomenon discovered it self or only removing something that hindered the natural production of the effect or only acting as a partial cause therein or meerly strengthening or making room for nature that the effect might more easily result Thus we directly yield the glory of one or more successful cures to a wrong original and delude our selves and others not only with vain hopes in the remedy or method but with new Hypothesis raised upon these frail foundations and with the same levity reject the Medicaments and Methods of others with which we celebrate our own nay oftentimes with more for those foundations are most sure which are laid by the most men if they be judicious and observing and have endured the test of more ages and tryals If presumption and arrogance could have entombed the Pest the most insolent but worst of Physicians that is Van Helmont had secured man-kind against its ill effects and what man could have dyed or languished under the Gout or other Chronical distempers if the Rhodomontades of Paracelsus Penaltus Severinus Danus had contained any solidity But experience hath shewed us that we have only exchanged not amended our practise the Tinctures the Essences the Elixirs however graduated or how gloriously soever denominated do not exempt us from that condition humane nature is subjected unto the general intentions of curing cito tuto jucunde are old the performance now answers not the pretenses the Athanasia Iucunda Mysterium Ambrosia of which you may read in Galen If I were to chuse my Medicaments by the sound they make would seem as good as the Anima Auri Tinctura polyaceia or Pulvis pestifugus and better than the Alexistomachon for that like 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would affrighten me as if it were a Medicine to drive away a mans stomach And if I were to word my discourse I would more willingly use a known tongue than an unknown and write Secretary rather than the Vniversal Character If I cannot acquire knowledge above others there is more of vanity than glory in the ostentation of a new-fashioned ignorance I write this because I am convinced because I do not believe that there is any thing more intelligible in the modish word venome then in the profound sordid or superlative putrefaction wherein the Galenists placed the Pest If such a putridity be unimaginable which yet is but graduated above what we see and unto which 't is evident that diseases sometimes gradatim do arrive it is certain that there is no such thing as the Arsenical or Napelline poyson in the Pest but somewhat forsooth Analogous thereunto as Mindererus and Sennertus assure us and here we are put upon Gradations again by which Cerusse and Lithargyre Napellus and Tithymal Canâ—harides and Dipsas are to be transmuted into or graduated up to Arsenic Most assuredly in this Age the Chimaeras have exchanged their pasture and being cloyed or starved with feeding upon the Second intentions they are now luxuriously dieted with Metaphors and Similitudes I would not therefore have this following discourse to be construed as an Apology for the failures of the Galenists but of all judicious Practitioners even of different principles who intermeddle with the Plague The first reason of their miscarriage is the difficulty or rather impossibility of discovering of the Plague oftentimes in its first approach and sometimes the disease continues and makes a progress hopeful and promising for several dayes and then manifests it self in the sudden death of the Patient of the truth hereof â— need no â—nstances the only care a Practitioner can shew is after that frequent Funerals have informed him of an approaching or raging Pest to tend his Patients whatever the distemper be little or great as if it were the Plague and yet that this supposition is fallacious I can demonstrate out of the Histories of several Plagues particularly that of Vicenza and Breda Here then our Physician is no more to be blamed than he is for not being an Angel or a Deity Another reason is that the sick parties do not come to our Practitioner upon the first and smallest sense of the disease for after the Pest hath seised upon them a few hours eight or twelve hours Sennertus himself could not cure one in an hundred and of this Erastus complains who was for bleeding that most that died came not unto him till that the Plague had too far seised their spirits and debilitated them so as to render all means ineffectual though he tryed Sudorifics and complyed with all Hypothesis in his practise I must here note that the diversity of Plagues as to their nature and continuance makes a greater latitude in the opportunity or timing of Medicines than to restrain it to eight or ten hours but this cannot be known till the Plague hath lasted some while A third reason is the great difference betwixt the Nature of one Plague and another so that neither one Method nor the same Medicaments will serve in all Pests no noâ— in any two hardly besides the particular diversification which the Pest receives according to idiosyncrasy and constitution of each infected person And for this reason Nicolaus Ellain in his Treatise of the Plague commented upon by the renowned Guido Patin refused to write down a special cure of the Pest in that book Quantum ad curationem spectat eam attingere nolui quia periculo sissimum est ex solis universalibus regulis curationem instituere idemque calopodium singulis quibusque adaptare Iuris peritorum effatum est Theorias generales non informare animum practicum qui consistit in singularibus Si haec propositio in jure vera existit potiorem locum in Medicina habere debet in â—ffectu presertim adeo anâ—malo atque insolenti cujus ut Protei nunquam facies eadem est Nulla enim pestis alteri
health not so much as being obliged to keep his armes in Bed On the fourth day he gives them one very gentle Cordial to promote their eruption and abandons them to Saffron and Milk to be given twice a day and ordains that he be kept in a constant moderate warmth such as is natural and usual to the Patient This is the sum of his Method except I add that when they are upon maturation he gives a mild Cordial twice each day morning and evening And in case that during the time of the decumbiture of the Patient by any accident a new Feaver arise then is the Patient to be kept still in such a proportionate heat as is usual to him in health if the season be temperate he is not to have a fire to be dieted with small Beer and Water-gruel stewed Apples or the like but to have no Cordial not so much as Harts-horn posset-drink By this Method Doctor Sydenham doth not doubt but this disease which so afrighteth people and is so frequently mortal will pass off with much gentleness ease and safety Betwixt these two there is a little discrepancy in their Method of curing the disease though there be some in their expressions and Doctor Sydenham doth seem the Comment the other the Text. Both of them oppose Phlebotomy Vomits Purges and Glysters as well as Sudorifics Though they differ in the râ—ason for their rejecting Phlebotomy For Doctor Whitaker doth avow that it draws from the Circumference to the Center But Doctor Sydenham yields that it produceth a quite contrary motion and causeth the Small Pox to come out Doctor Whitaker doth avow that this course of his is the old English Method and the ancient national and successful government of our Nation But Doctor Sydenham would seem to erect his practise upon his own Observations though all he propose in a manner be no more than the common actings of Countrey-people except when by any accident the Feaver be exasperated in the beginning or progress that he prohibits Cordials and what I belive was derived from Avenzoâ—r and Fracastorius Of these Writers it is remarkable that Doctor Whitaker doth never allow that there can be any malignity in the Small Pox so great and urgent as to induce a Physician to intermeddle beyond a moderate Diet and temperate Air because the Motion being Critical admits of no violence But this is a great Errour in the fundamentals of Physick For first in Diseases complicated with malignity not only the prognosticks but the issues are very uncertain as to life or death and the Critical evacuations deceitful so as that oftentimes they bring a momentany alleviation oftentimes notwithstanding those evacuations the distemper increases and the Patients dye This every man understands who is conversant in our accounts of Malignant Feavers so that to grant at any time that there is a malignity or venenate indisposition in the sick and to abandon him to a temperate Air and Diet relying upon Saffron and Milk is a practise never to be justified in Physick But alas we are not to be afrighted with the bug-wâ—rd Critical motion nor half an Aphorisme out of Hippocrates viz. Quae judicuntur sinere oportet These general sentences neither qualifie a Doctor in Law nor a Physician It becomes us to consider in a Critical motion several things First Supposing it to happen in its due time we must consider whether it be only a Motion or whether it be proportionate to the Disease for no evacuation that is diminute is properly Critical If therefore the pathognomonies of the Disease be such as argue a multitude of the Small Fox to be requisite for the recovery of the sick and only a few come out the Physician is obliged to assist Nature Secondly Supposing that they do come out plentifully yet if they be not such as should come out but black livid green or interspersed with purple spots not to mention other circumstances which every Nurse can tell 't is certain that the evacuation how critical soever doth not oblige the Physician to stand an idle Spectator No more ought he to be in case that all symptomes increase upon the critical motion and his Feaver and dangers multiply thereupon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thirdly It is requisite that the Critical evacuation be per loca conferentia by such wayes as are necessary to the disease But if the Small Pox during their eruption be attended with a dysentery bloody urine or other pernicious excretion that scrap of Hippocrates will not excuse the Physicians negligence for it supposeth that all the conditions requisite to a good evacuation be found in that which the Physician is not to intermeddle with I need say no more to intelligent persons 't is not my present work to turn Institutionist Whether Doctor Sydenham intend to ascribe sense appetite and judgment unto the Blood I cannot well tell but either He canteth in Metaphors or explaineth himself in his general Hypothesis about Feavers as if his meaning were such Quinimo nec mea sententia minis liquet febrilem sanguinis commotionem saepe ne dicam saepius non alio collineare quin ut ipse sese in novum quendant statum diathesin immutet hominemque etiam cui sanguis purus intaminatus perflat febre corripi posse sicuti in corporibus sanis evenire frequenti observatione compertum est in quibus nullus apparatus morbificus vel quoad plethoram vel quoad cacochymiam fuerit nulla insalubris aeris anomalia quae febri occasionem submiâ—nistraret Nihilominus etiam hujusmodi homines praecedente insigni aliqua aeris vel victus caeterarumque rerum non-naturalium ut vocant mutatione identidem febre corripiuntur propterea quod eorum sanguis novum statum conditionem adipiscigestit qualem ejusmodi aer aut victus postulaverint minime vero quod particularum vitiosarum in sanguine stabulantium irritatio febrim procreet 'T is true he did not pen it in Latine but another Mr. G. H. for him and perhaps his skill in that tongue may not be such as to know when his thoughts are rightly worded But it seems strange and irrational to attribute such an understanding to the Blood and to transmute a natural Agent into one that is spontaneous and which is more having represented it as such to make it so capricious as not to know when it is well but to run phantastically upon such dangerous changes as occur in putrid Feavers and the Small Pox for even in this last ariseth from a desire the Blood hath to change its state Since natural Agents demean themselves uniformly and of them 't is most true Idem quatenus idem semper facit idem I was surprised to see these new principles and to see effects of this nature arise without any cause It doth not seem possible for him ever to demonstrate that there is no Plethora or Cacochymy or obstipation of the pores of the body
administred it is so far from debilitating Nature that it adds to its strength mitigateth the present symptomes prevents the violence of the future and concocteth the disease apparently I will not undertake to justifie the demeanour of each particular Physician any more than I will answer for their intellectuals and skill in Physick It is not the reading of Sennertus and Riverius with a little knowledge of the new discoveries in Anatomy and a few Canting terms about Fermentation texture of bodies or such like knick-knacks and Conundrums of the novel Philosophers which accomplish a man for practice These men will never come to be ranked with Vallesius Mercatus Fernelius Duretus Rondeletius Massarius Septalius Claudinus Crato or Rulandus If Experience be our Guide let us inform our selves by the Histories of such as they have given us of Epidemical and pestilential diseases and of particular cases as also the cures and following them let us come to practise and not deserting our own reason let us be cautioned by them These others for want of judgment to consider each circumstance cannot make an Experiment or relate it whilest they extenuate the credit of the ancient and modern Physicians that are not Innovators though more observing and experimental than themselves they do it only to excuse their ignorance in that kind of Learning and whatever they have of the Lord Bacon they have this of the Russe in them that they neither believe any thing that another man speaketh nor speak any thing themselves worthy to be believed For such as these or any else that do not practise Phlebotomy according to the rules of Art I cannot make any Apology nor do I think that their errours ought to extend so far as to disparage all Physicians who demean themselves prudently and discretely Notwithstanding all our care some Patients will dye no Physician can secure all men from what their frail condition hath subjected them unto If our Method and Medicaments be such as the general rules of Medicine and an Experience generally happy do warrant 't is as much as can be expected from us and the Imperial Laws allow of this defence though they punish the immethodical and novel Experimentators and the Ignorant Sicut Medico imputari eventus mortalitatis non debet ita quod per imperitiam commisit imputari ei debet pretextu enim humanae fragilitatis delictum decipientis in periculo hominis innoxium esse non debet To conclude this Argument I say that although it often happens that diseases are cured by sole Phlebotomy Evenit ut saepius missio sanguinis sola curationem perficiat Misso sanguine saepe sponte naturae expurgatur corpus alui profluvio vomitu aut sudore succedente Yet no wise Artist will rely upon that alone but with the addition of other auxiliary medicaments Herein Spain and France are pretty well agreed And as no wise man will undertake to cure by bleeding alone so it is most foolishly done of our Helmontian to demand or expect it as he doth here I come now to his fifth Argument The means to let out bad blood without removing the efficient cause thereof is no direct method of healing Now Phlebotomy lets out bad blood without removing the efficient cause thereof Ergo Phlebotomy is no direct Method of healing The Major is proved thus Whatsoever suffers the cause to remain can never remove the effect For manente causa manet effectus Now Phlebotomy suffers the cause to remain Ergo it can never remove the effect The Minor is made good by frequent experience If the cause of bad blood were cut off the Feaver or Scorbute depending according to Dr. Willis upon the degeneration Sal and Sulph therein would quickly cease but we plainly see the contrary for after the veins are much depleted the disease becomes more truculent and oftentimes mortal which could never be if this depraved blood were any other than a product or an effect of an essential morbifick cause The same agent which in sanity sanguifies regularly without any considerable defection in sickness becomes exorbitant sending out a vitious juyce into all parts be it good or bad it still springs from a root which continually feeds the branches so that it cannot be other than great folly and wrong to the Patient to let out that juyce though it seem never so corrupt when another of the like condition must needs enter into its place derived from the shop the duumvirate where it first receives a previous rudiment which ought in all reason rather to be reformed than to give vent to those easily evanid particles inseparably joyned with this ruddy liquor how ill soever represented If all contained in the reins supposed to be corrupt were discharged yet as long as the ferments principally of the first and sixth digestion deviate from their right scope there would in a short space be a succedaneous repletion of a matter equally contemptible yea worse in respect of an enervation of strength than before This Argument though our Helmontian rely so much upon it is a pure Paralogisme First He supposeth that we use Phlebotomy in all diseases as a direct method of healing which is not true except in some maladies as Apoplexies Squinancies Haemorraghies or great eruptions of blood some Atrophies and sometimes in Feavers in which 't is frequent with us to rely solely or principally upon Phlebotomy yet even here we would think it very improper to admit of our Phlebotomy to be stiled our direct Method of curing because it is but a part of our Method which will include if not some other prescriptions yet at least dyet In many cases we use Phlebotomy as one part of our Method but not as the principal as when we use it antecedently to other remedies Pharmaceutical and dietetical to prepare way for or facilitate their happy operation I am not now to write Institutions in Physick for the documentising of this Disciple of my Lord Bacon 't is enough that he may learn any where almost as in Vallesius Mercatus Claudinus and Plempius that we propose more than one scope to our selves in Blood-letting neither is it ever except in diseases arising from a partial or total Plethora our direct method of healing If it be but a part and necessary or useful part thereof we are sufficiently justified Thus his Major is enervated for if he would have opposed the modern practise he ought to have urged it thus The means used to let out bad blood without removing the efficient cause thereof is no direct Method of healing nor an useful or necessary part thereof This is manifestly false as I shall shew anon As to his Minor That Phlebotomy lets out bad bloud without removing the efficient cause thereof This would the Ancients deny who bled their Patients in many cases until they swooned or fainted with great success and we must say it is not absolutely true there being no Practitioner I believe
of such as write what they will and defame as they please and permit not others to vindicate themselves nor undeceive the World 'T is ungenerous to pinnion a mans hands and then beat him In reference to that Controversie I add that the Statutes of the Colledge command the Physicians to send their Bills to an honest Apothecary And our Laws make the Colledge Judges of all Receipts as well as Methods of Physick which Act as it conforms with the general practise of Europe so it is very prudential for hereby provision is made not only against noxious Medicaments and the high prizes of Arcana but illegitimate Methods of practise by which last it is as easie to destroy a man as by poyson and more privately How the designs of the Experimentators will consist with our Laws and be accommodated to them I know not I know a Physician may be tryed upon giving his own Medicaments if the Patient miscarry how he shall defend himself I know not I have not seen any reason alledged that is likely to convert the Magistrates throughout Europe to permit it or to gain a repeal of the two last Edicts in Denmark against it 'T is an evil president to dispute against wise Laws 't is worse to act against them and what consequences it will bring upon the Land to see one Profession retrench upon another let the Lawyers judge The beginner of this Novelty the Lord Bacon stopped not at Natural Philosophy but carried on his humour to attempt or project a change of our Laws I do recommend it to the consideration of our Sages in the Law that if Physick Divinity and other Faculties be overthrown by a company of Wits whether it be probable that they shall long continue free from the attempts of the Omniscient But I shall resume the examination of the remaining Arguments of my Adversary Because I often observe many squaring their Therapeâ—tic intentions according to the Definition of the Feaver indeavouring to cool those that are in a scorching heat by breathing a vein let them know that a Feaver whose essential nature is to be inquired into for the use of man is very erroneously defined an Accident for a febrile heat is certainly the product of a foregoing Cause which is primarily to be searched after then whatsoever depends thereon will quickly vanish Now this cutting an hole in venal vessels for the removing a bare Quality is all one as if one should laâ—e out of the Pot ready to boil over a spiritous or some precious Liquor therein contained to the intent it may thereby be quailed neglecting to withdraw the fire the impulsive occasion of the violent motion made therein Do not they take the like absurd course who do think to cool the body in a Feaver by throwing away whole Porringers of the Nectar of life never looking after the ablation of the Causo-poietick cause and focular matter sited about the Stomach which makes an estuation and effervescence in all the other parts That way of frigidation which pillageth the vitals increasing the malady only obliquely abating a tedious quality is never to be approved by a Legitimate Physitian He that will bring to a moderation the finger excessively heated from a thorn impacted therein must extract the same otherwise he will take a wrong course by the use of meer frigefactives So he that will positively refrigerate in any preternatural heat must eliminate that spinous aculeate acid acrid matter which goads the Archaeus incensing it that it becomes exorbitant fretting raging Heautontimorumenos gauling it self at the presence of that which it abominates never to be pacified till it be excluded or some extraordinary Sedative given I mean not Opium vulgarly prepared which may for a time asswage its fury till it have leisure to thrust out the unwelcome guest I could wish my Adversary instead of consulting the Novum Organum of the Lord Bacon had been conversant in that more ancient one of Aristotle he had not then committed so many errors in point of Ratiocination as he now does which renders his discourse intricate confused and oftentimes impertinent to the great distraction of his Reader and vexation of his Antagonist He perpetually mistakes through an Ignorantio Elenchi he never apprehends what he opposeth That the Galâ—nists do define a Feaver by a preternatural heat diffused through the whole body is true They are contented to call that a Feaver which the vulgar does so and accordingly to define it Not but they distinguish in Feavers the Material and Formal cause thereof as also the several Efficients thereof and in their Method of curing except necessity put them upon another procedure they do alwayes and are obliged to do so by the Rules of their Art to remove the Cause of the Feaver and this is notorious to all that understand the first Elements of Physick They consider the evident occasional procatarctick Causes they consider the Antecedent causes which though they are not the immediate and conjunct Causes of the Feaver yet dispose unto it and are of such importance as that they may often degenerate into immediate and conjunct Causes and which is more in the Cure they do not only regard the Cause which gave birth unto and produced the Disease but that which doth foment and continue it and that which may produce or increase it Censeri debet causa non quae facit aut fecit solum sed quae faciet nisi quis obstet And although the curing of the Disease or Feaver be the object of their designs yet As all wise men consider by what means the ends they propose to themselves may be effected so do they deliberate how they shall effect their designs and that is by removing the Cause of the Malady But as in other designs it frequently happens so here they often meet with impediments which must be removed before they can prosecute their intentions by direct means Upon this account they are forced upon many actions which they confess are not immediately conducive to the cure of a Feaver which yet they pursue because without doing so the indisposition either could not be cured or not with such safety as becomes prudent persons Few of them ever bleed that I know of meerly for refrigeration and the extirpation of the formal heat without regard to the material cause of it which is to be concocted and ejected by Nature Though Phlebotomy be but one operation yet it produceth sundry effects in the body and in order to each of them is both indicated and practised For it evacuateth that redundancy of blood which frequently occasioneth diseases alwayes is apt to degenerate into a vitious morbifick matter during the Feaver and by an indirect and exorbitant motion to afflict some or other principal parts to the great danger if not destruction of the Patient upon this account we do use Phlebotomy in Feavers sometimes to diminish the Plethora and so to prevent the violence of the succeeding
disease and dangerous symptomes that may insue and then the veins are too much distended to facilitate and secure the operation of subsequent Medicines that are used to evacuate the Antecedent Cause and to maturate and expedite the continent morbifick cause Besides it promotes transpiration incredibly gives a new motion to those humours which together with the blood oppress and indanger the internal and principal parts it diverts them from the head and draws them from the heart lungs stomach and bowels into the habit of the body whereby Nature being alleviated prosecutes her recovery by maturation and expulsion of the peccant depraved matter deducing to its proper state that which is semi-putrid and not irrecoverably vitiated and separating first then exterminating what is incorrigible So the Patient recovers Nor is there any thing more true than this which every Practitioner may daily observe in his practise that Of all the Medicaments which are vsed by Physitians there is not any may compare for its efficacy and utility with Phlebotomy so expedite so facile and so universal is it The universality of its use appears herein that it evacuates the redundant it alters the exorbitant Fluxes of the peccant or deviating humours and blood It relaxeth the vessels and pores of the body and refrigerates the habit thereof And therefore is so absolutely necessary in putrid Feavers that though I do not say they are incurable without it yet I pity the languishing condition of such as omit it the violence of the symptomes being increased thereby and the cure procrastinated to the great trouble and hazard of the sick and his great detriment afterwards for you shall ordinarily meet with a slow convalescence and the blood be so depraved by so long and violent an effervescence that it becomes remediless and degenerates into an evil habit of body Scorbute Dropsie c. This being premised which is more clearly proved by Experience than Reason I answer to his Argument that we do not go about only to refrigerate the Patient but to concoct and eject the morbifick matter that we take the most befitting course to exterminate that spinous offensive cause and as upon the prick of a Thorn if part stick in the wound and be buried therein we proceed to maturate and bring to a paculency the vitiated blood and humours inherent in the part affected and with the suppurated matter draw out the fragment of the Thorn so we do in Feavers where the depraved humours are not so easily separated and extirpated as in the prick of a Thorn maturate and eject the morbifick cause and thereby atchieve the Cure And I do profess my self to concurre with the Ancients in their Opinion that there is a great Analogy betwixt the generation of the Hypostasis in the Vrine after a Feaver and the production of purulent matter in an Apostimation and that Feavers are but a kind of Abscesse in the mass of blood for the proof whereof I do remit my Reader to Ballonius de Hypostasi Vrinarum Amongst the Ancients I find two wayes commonly practised to extinguish this Febrile Heat by a course corresponding with the usual wayes of extinguishing a fire which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by substracting the fewel from it thus they did Phlebotomise at once till the Patient did swoone the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by quenching it thus they gave them cold Water to drink largely until the sick grew pale and fell into a shivering this last was not practised till there were manifest signs of concoction But 't is observable that upon either of these Medicaments they did expect that happy issue that Nature thereupon should presently discharge it self by sundry evacuations of the morbifick matter so that they did not thereby intend bare resignation but the extermination of the concocted febrile matter And thus much may suffice in answer to this Objection The last Objection he makes is this as I shall form it The great Indications of the Galenists for Phlebotomy are either Evacuation of the â—edundant blood in a Plethora or the Revulsion and direct pulling back of what is in flux or flowed into any part already But neither of these Indications are valid and oblige them to that practice Therefore the practise of Phlebotomy is not to be continued As to Phlebotomy in a Plethorick body he thus explodes that It by plenitude be meant an excess of pure blood I absolutely deny there is any such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or indication for Phlebotomy for during the goodness of this juyce there must needs be perfect Sanity arising from integrity of all the actions of the body so that it may justly be reputed madness to go about to broach this Balsome of life weakning Nature thereby as long as there is health with abundance of strength Imprimis not andum saith Van Helmont in cap. de febr p. 8. ut nunquam vires peccare possint abundantia ne quidam in Methusalem ita nec bonis sanguis peccat minuitate eo quod vires vitales sanguis sint correlativa i. e. We are to take special notice that too much strength can never be offensive to any yea not to Methusalem no more can any one have too much blood for as much as vital strength and blood are correlatives Well then it is plain that whatsoever sickness seems to indicate Phlebotomy upon the account of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sanguineous superpletion must needs come from an apostate juyce generated by vitious digestions which being hostile to life irritates the Archaeus to frame the Idaea of a disease not as it is meerly provoked by nimiety or plurality but from the pravity of the matter wherefore the case is altered now and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signification or demonstration of evacuating doth in a strait line respect the Crâ—or or Cacochymy directing the Artist to reform mundifie and rid those impurities contained in the seemingly corrupted marred juyce by proper means sequestring the vile from the precious not to let out indistinctly what comes next at randome to the furtive castration of the Eutony lustiness liveliness and strength of the Patient which is to be preferred before all motives whatsoever 'T is certainly known to those who are throughly versed in the Analysis and Synthesis of the parts of bodies that ebullition aestuation effervescence of febrile liquors arising from a pleonasme of degenerate Sal. and Sul. c. as they would have it may be appeased and allayed by Remedies assisting the vitals to make separation and afterwards an exclusion every way of what is reprobate reserving what is acceptable This being performed there is no fear that a plenitude simply of it self can do any harm for hereby so expedite a course is taken that the overplus is in a short time sent packing away by vomiting stool urine expectoration and sweat For this reason considering what strict abstinence the Patient is put upon in a Feaver
into one similar body the rest whereof were to be excrements but a more confused Mass of several distinct Alimentary Humours which Nature never intends to unite into one similar body but to continue in a certain more loose mixture each thereof retaining its proper congruity for the continuance of life and health They do confess that there is a pure crimson part sweet and balsomical which they call in rigour Blood but they say Nature never intended this for the sole vital liquor because she never produceth it alone or if it be ever seen so 't is in a morbid condition as in malignant Feavers where the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Blood free from the proportionate mixture of other Humours is reckoned amongst evil signs Qualis sanguis in malignis adurentibusque febribus solet excerni aut e vena tunsa educi And therefore as none of the Humours are ever seen alone any more than Blood is for they hold them all to be excrementitious when separate so they conceive they all together in a certain proportion make up that aggregate called Nutritive Blood and are all actually there because they do observe that all of them at sometimes have their distinct corruptions though they continue still in one mass which they conceive they could not have except they were actually there They do conceive them to be so there that the resemblance betwixt Gall or extravasated Phlegm is but Analogical so that they do not pretend to shew in the Blood a bitter Gall or a pontic arminonious Melancholy They will not allow these to be other than depravations of the Alimentarious Humours and the sincere alimental juyces are no more pretended to be evinced by them then the pure Elements except it be a posteriori by a diversity of effects arguing different causes They saw there was a great latitude in the blood of healthful men yet so as that the blood appeared with different colours and consonant to the colours there seemed a variety in their dispositions and other corporeal qualities they saw the Mass of blood upon perfrigeration to go into several substances and they intellectually disjoyned them more for doctrine-sake obliging themselves to produce each Humour in its imaginary purity when the Chymical fire should exhibite any body not decompounded or the Corpuscularians make more manifest their configurations of Atomes or Texture of Particles Having thus stated the Question with as much perspicuâ—ty as I could I pursue to enquire which is most conformable to the effects in Physick for I will not undertake to determine what God and Nature do in the production or mixture of bodies It is easie for a man to loose himself in those inquiries He that made us can tell how we were made our Argumentations are as vain as if one should assert that a Loaf of bread consisted of Cubes Lozenges or Trapeziums because we can cut it into parts of such a configuration Let us but imagine a subtle Chymist to analyse Chymically our Ale if ever he thereby discover that it is the product of a Barley-corn growing into a stem and grain then turned into Malt grinded boyled with water and fermented I will assent unto the Chymical resolutions of blood Physicians have been alwayes allowed hitherto to be a sort of gross Artisans and I remember Massarias some where calls it an Hippocratical demonstration Indicium autem Curatio To know bodies exquisitely mixed and to mix them intimately is a divine attribute this last is avowed by Galen Miscere corpora tota per tota non Hominis sed Dei Naturae est opus Perhaps it may be replyed that the most ignorant persons may say thus much It is true and if he speak it knowingly I confess I can say no more than he Sed quod dicemus objectioni illi Ignarus aeque ac Philosophus deum causam omnium assignabit Hoc ignarus inscienter Philosophus scienter assignabiâ— quemadmodum Aristoteles ait de Parmenide Melissâ— quemadmodum caecus alicujus tunicam albam esse afâ—erit Nil scimus Dicamus ergo Primarum rerâ—m principiorum aut elementorum cansas reddere nostri non est captus secundarum vero utcunque Id in singulis quaestionibus experiri possumus I say then that notwithstanding any allegations to the contrary it is manifest that a certain proportion of salt sulphur and spirit besides earth and water is neither requisite to perfect sanity nor its defect as to any particular the cause of diseases and this is manifest out of the constitution as well as colour of the blood in morbid and healthy bodies as appears by the burning and distillation of blood There is much of truth that T. T. sayes or may be so Now I am ready to discover in reference to miserable man that the pretended sanguine sulphur or Cacochymy of any in an high Feaver doth afford more salt water and earth each of them than sulphur I have taken that diseased blood termed corrupt which might seem to some to abound with sulphur being clearly conveyed into a Retort with a Receiver joyned thereto I have by a graduated fire regulated very strictly brought over what possibly I could In the upshot upon the separation of the several parts I have found very little sulphur in comparison of each of the rest At another time I procured the purest blood I could get from an healthful person putting it to the same igneous tryal as the former degenerate of equal proportion to it then after sequestration of the parts I could not perceive any considerable difference in the quantity or quality of the several parts of that sound and the seemingly corrupt blood I do say that in the Blood of all persons that are in health there is upon Phlebotomy somewhat that justifieth the supposition of the Galenists but not which confirms the Hypothesis of the Chymists The coagulable serum doth commonly represent their choler in part the florid fluid red their blood which if lightly washed away their is another more darkly-coloured which is proportionate to their Melancholy and if you wash the fibrous mass well it will be white and answerable to their Alimentary Pituita or Phlegm In this last part I have the concurrence of Malpighius who upon washing all the blood from the concrete Mass of blood found the remainder to be a fibrous conâ—texture of a whitish colour which he pitcheth upon as the materials for a Polypus in the Heart And had he taken more particular notice of that fluid blood in the cells of those interwoven fibres he might have discovered two sorts of blood one that readily ascends and is florid the other more black and faeculent which moveth not and both these stain the water they are washed into with different reds the one much brighter than the other That some fibrous concretion in some diseases as Rheumatismes and Plurisieâ— covereth like a pituitous mass the surface of the blood whilest that remains
by the History of Generation that no Parenchymatous part hath any operation in the first production of the blood all their Parenchymas being post-nate thereunto And if the blood be thus generated at first it is but rational for us to imagine that it is alwayes so generated during life For as it is true that the same cause acting in the same manner will alwayes produce the same effect So in this case to argue from the identity of the effect to the identity of the cause is allowable Est enim causarum identitas quae facit ut effectus sit idem quippe effectus supponitur non esse donec a causis existentiam suam indeptus fuerit dum existentiam illam largiuntur oportet ipsius quoque identitatem impertiant qua sine effectus ipsemet nequaquam fuerit That the Spermatic vessels in which the blood moves do contribute to sanguification much seems apparent from hence that the blood is seen in them before it is in the heart And because it is observed that the fluidity of the blood seems to depend much on them and therefore in the dead it doth not coagulate except praeternaturally in the veins though it do commonly in the Heart or wheresoever it is extravasated Manat praeterea aliquid a venis nobis incognitum quod dumearum ambitu sanguis concipitur prohibet ejus concretionem etiam post mortem in cadaveribus jam perfrigidis nequis hoc colori acceptum ferat quod vero coralliorum instar aliquando repertus est concretus in venis ipsis hoc merito Fernelius ascribit morbo occulto And not only the fluidity but motion of the blood seems to depend much thereon for if by a ligature the impulse and succession of blood be prevented yet will the blood in the veins continue its course and not stagnate Exempto e corpore corde motus tamen sanguinis isque satis celer in sanis videntur Et si vena ulla etiam lactea duobus locis ligetur laxata ea sola ligatura quae cordi propinquior est dum partes adhuc calent semper Chylus ad hepar sanguis ad cor cum movebitur qui nec a corde per Arterias nec ab intestinis per lacteas objecto potuit obice propelli nec stuiditate sua potius sursum quam deorsum movetur The truth hereof seeming undeniable to Pecquet he makes use of a new Hypothesis to solve this motion of the blood as if it arose from compression of other parts or contraction in the vein it self But the Phaenomenon will appear in such cases as admit not this pretence From these reasons it is that the blood doth not need so much as any pulse in the veins and arteries as appears in the first faetus but as soon as it comes to the Heart it does to prevent coagulation the punctum saliens being endowed with no such quality practiseth its systole and diastole when yet no such motion is observable in the Arteries at that time Whence the colour of the blood ariseth is a secret unto me I know that digestion reduceth some Juyces to a redness in some Fruits the fire doth the like in some the mixture of acid Liquors begets a Vermilion But here I conceive none of these causes produce the effect the generation of the blood is manifestly an Animal Action and as such unsearchable Whatever I attribute to the veins it is not to be expected that supposing they should instrumentally sanguifie the blood should turn blew from them any more than that water put into new vessels of Oak should turn white whereas it becomes reddish Thus the Plastic form produceth blood at first and whilest there is no first concoction in the stomack supplieth that defect by that albuiginous Colliquament which is of the same nature with the Chyle we digest our meat into and convey by the Lacteous Thoraciducts into the Heart That it is of the same nature appears hence that it resembles it and that it is extracted from the Blood of the Mother and produceth in the Embryo the like excrements of Choler and Vrine and Macosities nay it hath been observed by Riolanus to have been tinged yellow How much more may be concluded hence in favour of the Galenical alimentary humours supposed to constitute the Blood I leave those to judge who consider the variety of female constitutions and their condition during their being with child perhaps the Hypothesis of a proportionate mixture of the five Chymical Principles will not seem more colourable Having thus related how Sanguification is performed in the Faetus at first I come to give an account how it is performed afterwards and even here it seems an Action perfectly Animal for even Concoction in the Stomach is not the bare effect of Heat elixating the meat nor of acid or saline Ferments dissolving it nor of any other kind of imaginary Fermentation But 't is the effect of an Animal power operating upon the Meat in the stomachs of sundry Men and Animals by several wayes This appears most evidently herein that the same meat eaten by several Persons or different Animals produceth different Blood and different Excrements therefore Chylification is an Animal operation and is modulated by the specifick and individual constitutions Having thus determined of things that the Soul in all these actions is the Efficient we may consider that the meat being masticated in the mouth and commixed with the salival juyce or spittle is prepared in order to Chylification then it descends into the stomach and is there sometimes in a longer sometimes in a shorter space reduced into a cremor which is so far from being acid as Helmont saith that it is generally rather saline as are also the recrements of it that remain in the empty stomach It is true that according to the stomachs of Individuals and the meat they eat it happeneth so that this Cremor hath no certain taste nor colour Undoubtedly it must have been bitter in that Marriner and such as he of whom Vesalius writes that the Gall did naturally discharge it self into his stomach yet did he digest very well and never was apt to vomit or to be so much as sea-sick From the stomach the Cremor descends into the Intestines not all at once but as it is digested and there undergoes a second digestion receiving into its mixture the Gall and Pancreatick juyce I shall not speak of the variety that hath been observed in those two liquors nor trouble my self about the manner how they operate on the Chyle It is manifest that upon that mixture the Chyle suffers a great alteration if not some effervescence and some parts are coagulated and as it were precipitated and by a succession of changes the several particles are so blended and refracted in their qualities that the excrements at last are neither acid nor bitter but in dogs both sapors are extinguished In the mean time during