necessitated to tread in the steps of our Ancestors in the use of those very Remedies by them prescribed which this Author would fain perswade us is the opinion of the Dogmaticks since never any diseases I believe either simple or complicate did twice so correspond in every circumstance to any observation that there was not latitude enough left to the Physician to make use of his best Judgement and Reason in the selection of his remedies and attempering them to the disposition and constitution of his Patient Or lastly is it his intention to shew that in this last Age of the world there is a Complication of many new diseases not known to the Ancients and now generally raging This seems probable to be some part of his meaning from the whole scope of his three next Chapters chiefly the fourth where he endeavors to shew that there is now a complication of the Lues venerea Scorbute vermination c. and I know not what fermentation and seminal productions contracted either from new disorders or brought by contagion from our Parents which quite alter the nature of diseases Should all this be granted him of which there is not one part but is questionable for he cannot but know that many grave Authors are of opinion that the Scorbute and Pox were both known to the Ancients as well as Vermination he would from hence obtain no more than that liberty which Hippocrates took and was never denyed to make use of his own judgement as well in discerning as curing diseases Neither have the late discoveries of the Motion of the heart Circulation of the bloud the use of the parts ordained for the distribution of the Chile over the body and the Sanguification of it any whit changed the nature of the diseases formerly known or altered the method of their cure As for the purpose put case the Ancients mistook much in the office of the Liver but found among many other that Agrimony was very effectual in the cure of many diseases whose seat they took to be there called them Hepatick Herbs which perhaps performed their office by deputing the bloud which was carryed to the Heart another way and might therefore more rationally have been called Cardiacal doth it hence follow that their virtue is different in the cure of those diseases that are still the same though peradventure we have been deceived in their seats But after this it may perhaps be said that those diseases that have by the ancient method been taken away by Evacuation viz. Purging Bleeding Sweating Urine or the like may be taken away by some other way different from any of those mentioned before that is to say by some Universal Medicine of so great Analogy with the natural Balsame of the body that the Disease shall be taken away by an insensible way of operation which shall require none of the forementioned helps to be used This indeed was Helmonts way who by his Alkahest and Alterative would cure most diseases without Bleeding and seems to be the mind of this Author too who Pag. 46. tells you he would write a treatise of the mischief done by bleeding in most diseases Truly if such an Universal Medicine be in nature the Art would be extremely beholding to that man should discover it to the benefit of mankind But yet let him who ever he be consider that this is not yet enough to alter the ancient tryed method practised for many Ages though it be another different from it because there may be and perhaps are several ways of bringing to pass the same effect or end If a man shall tell you by experience and many years travel he hath found it a good way from London to York to go by Lincoln another by Nottingham is the way to York altered by the one or the other method of bringing you thither Just so t is with this great Pretender the nature of diseases is altered new indagations new causes Pag 2. Pag. 237 238. new cures must be found Physick must be rebuilt from the very ground and have a new foundation the Philosophical principles false c. In his seventh Chapter at large So that we must cast off whatever our Reason and Judgement has found profitable in the cure of diseases and preserving the health of mankind and all this upon his bare testimony and unknown method not backed with the authority of one Age. A man meets with a Porter heavily burthened tells him Friend I see you laden and faint under your burthen I have an invention that if you put it upon your back will make your burthen seem lighter Another tells him Friend I see you laden I will take part of your burthen from you and then you will easily master the rest which of the two is likeliest to gain credit The case is alike A sick man troubled with a Calenture Pleurisie or the like in which the bloud being inflamed disorders the whole One tells him Sir I have an Alterative Medicine will cure this distemper as I have often tryed by experience without Bleeding or any other expence of time or Physick another tells him Sir many hundred years experience evince that by Bleeding this disease of yours may be cured and the other method is not more certain than this and not backed with the like experience Were he not mad should relinquish the first for the second I very well remember a learned Physician in a part of France where I then was who upon the reading Van Helmont de Febribus resolved to quit the Ancient and follow his New way by Alterative Medicines to cure all Fevers he there met with without letting his Patients bloud but 't was accordingly observ'd that in the space of six moneths more had dyed under his hand than he had been observed to have cured in many years before Forestus tells you in his observations de Febre quartana of one in Delf as I remember that having been troubled a whole yeer with a Quartane and in vain used the assistance of the ablest Physicians was thus cured by an Empirick He was advised to drink about a quart of very strong wine just when he expected his fit and then to annoint his body all over with butter and roast himself by a fire enduring as much heat as he could possible This Medicine cured him and made him very jocund and himself now become the ablest Physician for that disease in the world It fell out the next fall of the leaf his Ague returned and he to his Medicine but instead of being cured was found dead the next morning the Observer hath this note upon it that the Humor being the first time by much use of Physick rationally applyed well prepared might give way to that violent remedy which it would not do the second time when t was crude and unprepared So fallacious and uncertain are their new ways where the Ancient Method is rejected for another not more certain and less reasonable We have lately
perhaps lately brought into Europe that their Cures were found out by and upon the Foundation of the ancient Method which is able to furnish a Physician not onely with means to find out the seat of any disease but also to apply appropriate remedies thereunto I have shewed in the third place that the Complication of Diseases cannot alter the general Method of curing them though it may cause a variation in the application of Remedies That the variation of Remedies according to the nature of Diseases in their Complication is the Office of a Physician who ties not himself to any Remedies delivered in Pharmacopoeus but ordering them pro re nata and that 't is impossible to give any general Method to cure any one complicated Disease as it is lodged in Peter because never any such Disease came twice alike in all circumstances nor can any Remedy be found out I am confident is not by this Undertaker that shall have that effect What the Chymists speak of their Sulphur fixum and their Vniversale solvens which shall have that power and also with some other help of Art shall six an imperfect Metall into Gold as I will not deny the truth of it so will I suspend my judgment till I shall be better convinced For all other Remedies in the preparation whereof Chymists have laboured I shall give them my ready thanks with much gratefulness of mind for their pains they have many of them made their Medicines and Preparations publick and daily use is made of them when this unknown M. N. makes us partakers of any of his betâ—er than what we know I shall readily return him my due thanks but must not believe some few moneths study of Chymistry under Mr. Johnson set up by the College of London for their use have made him so perfect an Artist as to know more than his Teachers in that Art The pretending to be Masters of great and universal Remedies and conceal what they are a practice now used by Odowd Manwairing and some others is a thing so unworthy a Scholar that I would not have this Author so like a Mountebank in any thing The Examination of the Sixth Chapter THus have I with all possible brevity run over his first Five Chapters which indeed contain most of what is Argumentative in his book I come to the Sixth which begins with a recapitulation of what he had formerly proved In the former we have had a taste of his Philosophy and Logick we shall now try his Logick alone and see whether the Conclusion drawn from the Premises now laid down be answerable to those of his first Chapter where he argues thus If Diseases are altered in their nature wholly from what they anciently were Then New Indagations new Causes new Cures must be found Physick and Surgery must be rebuilt from the very foundation But Diseases are wholly altered in their nature Therefore in his sixth Chapter he argues thus If there be now introduced in Men and Diseases as it were another nature Then The former Rules calculated for Curation from other Causes or from Causes less important are almost if not quite out of doors But Men and Diseases are as it were altered in their nature Therefore the former Rules c. Quo teneam tandem mutantem Protea nodo In the beginning of his book his premises were universal and general in this place they are limited and particular At the first there was a total alteration of Nature now a partial perhaps at the later end we shall find none at all But this is not all we must find other infirm parts of his Argument Certainly Aristotle as dull as he was would never have thus concluded nor any man that had read or well understood his Analyticks or the reason why they are so called Where he first supposeth the Conclusion which is the Res ignota as known and true and then infers it ex veris concessis so that if there be any thing in the premises which is not verum concessum then can the Conclusion be never truly inferred and the thing sought concluded Now Sir would I gladly see how you infer the consequence of your Major what have we to do to leap from Nature to Causes You ought thus to have assumed If there be now introduced as it were in Men and Diseases another nature Then Curations found out for Men and Diseases which now are as it were of another nature than formerly must be as it were changed But Men and Diseases are as it were altered in their nature Ergo. But in this Syllogism both the sequel of the Major and Minor are neither of them granted for there may be a partial and circumstantial alteration of a Disease and if you will of a Man without any alteration at all of the Nature of that Disease in its Cause or the Nature of the Man in its Cause But certainly when we can believe the Nature of Man can be altered in its Cause the next step will be to believe he may be altered in his species too May not a Fever that invades a Pocky or Scorbutick body have the same Cause though in respect of the Complication there may be a partial alteration in the Disease and consequently a circumstantial variation in the Cure I admit that the Cures of the Ancients were built upon the considerations of Diseases in their Causes but must not grant that the same Cause may not produce a Disease somewhat altered in circumstances So that if it were granted him which he hath no way proved and is not true that Diseases anciently known are at all altered in their Nature yet would it not follow that they were altered in their Causes The whole Argument brought into form ought to run thus Major If there be now introduced in Men and Diseases as it were a new Nature from rebellion and alterations not known to the Ancients in their Causes or taken notice of so fully as they ought to be by the later Physicians Then The Rules of Curation calculated for Men and Diseases now as it were of new natures from those alterations not known to the Ancients in their Causes or taken notice of so fully as they ought to be by the later Physicians must be as it were altered and changed Minor But there is now introduced in Men and Diseases as it were a new Nature from malignity and alterations not known to the Ancients in their Causes or taken notice of so fully as they ought by later Physicians Conclusion Therefore the Rules of Curation calculated for Men and Diseases now as it were of new natures from alterations not known to the Ancients in their Causes or taken notice of so fully as they ought to be by the later Physicians must be as it were altered and changed 'T is evident here that the whole strength of his Argumentation depends upon the introduction of a new Nature into Men and Diseases so that till that be proved 't
M. N. who in the quotation of that passage even now recited leaves out the most material part of the sentence he cites first altogether leaving out that which gave a rise to the discourse viz. that the Method of curing some particular diseases was not perfectly settled and then recites the sentence he doth cite lamely for whereas Mr. Boyle saith what may concern the generality of Physicians is not intended by him all along that Essay to be spoken of them all this Parenthesis is left out because it made not for him and strook onely at such who rested upon the bare Physiology wherewith Physicians as well as others were wonted to be imbued in the Schools pag. 236. part 2. without endeavouring to advance that knowledge by new accretions and neglected the use of Specificks in diseases because they found in them no sensible Evacuations of the Peccant humour If the generality of Physicians should be of that mind I should blame them as much as he but it appears he believes not that all are and I thank God I know none that are so inclined for my self I daily make use of Specificks when I know them nor ever met in consultation with any Learned person that refused the use of them I find nothing material in this Chapter that hath not already been answered the passage out of Hippocrates pag. 217. that of Riverius learning of a Begger-woman the curing the Haemorrhoides I approve well nor will I refuse to learn what I know not of any man not that this Medicine was the Begger-womans for you may find it commended for stopping Fluxes of bloud both in Matthiolus Commentary upon Dioscorides and in Macasius his Promptuarium but 't is not possible any Physician should have such a memory to carry in his mind whatever he had read I very well remember a Gentlewoman once told me she learnt of a Begger-woman that Hollihock flowers boiled in Milk would stop the Fluxus mulierum post partum 't was new to me then but I have since found it commended by many Authors for the like effect and truly I have not yet been so happy to meet with any of those Old Womens receipts which I have not been able to trace where they had their beginning These Country-women get the Country Houswife some English Herbal or the like and sometime light of good things which to those that know them not pass for their own Pag. 222. he enters into commendations of Humility I joyn with him in that and shall not onely commend his Conversation with those that cure Horses but would advise the use of his and the rest of that Gangs concealed Medicines upon those creatures before they ventured them upon Men till the world were better acquainted with their Preparations or their Abilities thereunto I should now give over this Chapter did I not find it necessary once again to vindicate my Noble Friend Mr. Boyle from the Calumnies of this bold Assertor and Disingenuous person who now pag. 226. mangling Mr. Boyle's words endeavours to make him say there is no need of Learning commonly so called to make a good Physician I will transcribe his words though they are long Pag. 394. And in the last place Pyrophilus I must advertise you not to expect that every one of the Remedies I commend should be Physick and Physician too I mean that it should of it self suffice to perform the cures of those diseases against which it is commended For Medicines are but instruments in the hands of the Physician and though they be never so well edged and tempered require a skilful hand to manage them and therefore I cannot but admire and disapprove their boldness that venture upon the practice of Physick wherein it is so dangerous to commit errours barely upon the confidence of having good Receipts For though I dare not deny but that he may prosperously practise Physick that either ignores or dissents from the receiv'd Doctrine of the Schools concerning the causes of diseases and some other Pathological particulars yet I cannot but dislike their boldness who venture to give active Physick either in intricate or acute diseases without at least a mediocrity of knowledge in Anatomy and so much knowledge of the history of diseases as may suffice to inform them in a competent measure what are the usual symptoms of such a disease what course Nature is wont to take in dealing with the peccant matter and what discernible alterations in the Patients body do commonly fore-run a Crisis or otherwise the good or bad event of the disease Then goes on and tells you he will stand in need of a competent knowledge of the Materia Mediâ—a and the Method of compounding Remedies Now then let the world judge what ingenuity there is in this Citation as he has mangled it and what he saith more than Fernelius saith in his Life put out by Plantius nay Avicenna himself saith as much lib. 1. Fen. 1. cap. 1. fol. 8. edit Venet. 1608. apud Junâ—as speaking de subjecto Medicinae Harum verò rerum quaedam sunt de quibus medico nihil aliud est agendum nisi ut quid sit tantùm essentiali formatione informet utrum sint vel non sint doctori sapientiae physicalis credat and so goes on to the end of that Chapter By which it is evident from that learned Arabian that a Physician is not bound with too great scrupulousness to search into every thing the knowledge whereof may be useful but not absolutely necessary to him as a Practiser Of this rank I reckon the too scrupulous inquiry into the nature of all Plants the too much wading into the niceties and new discoveries in Anatomy of which Mr. Boyle well saith a competent knowledge is necessary not that I discourage or dislike the labours of those that can afford themselves liberty to spend all their time in these Contemplations for the increase of their own knowledge and the great good of others but would not have it prevent their excellent Abilities in the cure of Diseases and visiting Patients which is the main end of all their studies In this number I would also reckon the Doctrine of the Composition of Mixt bodies the Combination of the four qualities Hot Cold Moist and Dry the Doctrine of Critical Days Pulses Urines and Temperaments which is the subject of the rest of his book in which I hold it more safe for a man to rest upon the Opinion of the Ancients built upon great Reason and many years Experience in the curing diseases by Remedies found out upon supposition of those things though perhaps in every minute particular not exactly true than upon whimsies and conceits of our own not built upon greater Reason and less Experience to overthrow the Method and Foundation of Physick without first erecting another upon which we may build with as much safety and assurance I might here make a close to his whole book the rest of his time and ink