by all means so to do it as it may be safe and yet successful Now this Medicine is used in Malignant Fevers or otherwise when we would provoke Sweat but if it be not well prepared and purged from its Arsenical Sulphur what woful work would there be if instead of sweating the Patient should fall into vomiting or purging Ay but says he it is of my own preparation and therefore I dare more confide in it Therefore indeed he may the better give it but the main Question is Whether the Patient may the better take it Besides if Antim Diaph may contract a malignant quality from the Air were it not safer to give it in a less quantity and may not there also be danger lest the Acid Humors in the Body should make it resume its Malignity as well as the Air Upon the account of all which let wise men judge whether acts more prudently he that gives 60 Grains or he that gives 8 or 10. For further satisfaction concerning this thing I refer the Reader to what I have to say in my Animadversions on the 195th Page of this his Book P. 115. He proceeds to treat of what Diseases the Spaw at Scarbrough cures viz. The Scurvy Dropsie Stone Strangury Jaundice Hypochondriack Melancholy Cachexia Womens Diseases c. I confess I cannot but wonder to see the confidence of Mr. S. who knows nothing at all of these things but by my Book no more than he that lives at Constantinople and has read my Book there Indeed this is the onely thing wherein I am beholden to him in that he gives me Credit although sometimes he makes Comments which the Text will not bear and by a multiplicity of foolish new-coyn'd words doth obscure that even to some wise and learned men which was plain and obvious to Common Understandings ☞ But upon the grounds he yet goes on I declare it impossible that the Spaw should have such Vertue as to cure these Diseases for if we observe he owns nothing of a Mineral property to be in it but an Esurine Aluminous Salt P. 116. Numb 3. Now whether we consider the properties of Alome as I have instanced in the 145. Page of Scarb. Spaw 2d Edition or the Verdict of the most profound Authors concerning Aluminous Springs we shall find it impossible that the Spaw should have any such Vertue upon his Principle he rests on as I have already made out in my animadversions on P. 61. But to amend the matter He would have it seconded by other penetrating Medicines of his own preparation Why I can assure him the Cures I mention were done without any of his preparations and the like probably may be done again although not without some other helps sometimes as the Cases may require P. 118. He tells of a sort of Dropsie which he stiles Anasarcasis which is a word I guess of his own coyning for he means Anasarca He says They that are tapp'd for the Dropsie viz. the Tympany for he is speaking of it in which Case doubtless he never saw any man tapp'd they let forth an almest insipid liquor so that water which passeth from those that drink plentifully of the Spaw has no Vrinous Salt and so neither Tincture nor Sapour Sure he never saw any tapp'd for the Dropsie in that he says it is insipid I have several times found it of a brown Colour and a brackish Taste And if he will distill or evaporate away the water of those that drink of the Spaw as I have done he shall find a slimy Sediment highly impregnated with an Urinous Salt P. 119. He tells That There are some Causes of a Dropsie which will resist all Medicines except the noblest of Chymical Arcana's Really it 's great pity he had not found those Chymical Arcana's when Robert Beford was in his hands in this Disease of whom I made mention before whom if he had let alone he might probably have seen cured without Chymical Arcana's Lunar Pills P. 120 He reckons up several of his Chymical Arcana's which he counts highly of for the Cure of the Dropsie among which are the Pilulae Lunares of which he confesses he never found any considerable success and for the sake of the Aqua Fortial he rather advises against ☞ I am much afraid poor Beford had of these his Lunar Pills which he took for Chymical Arcana's for his Complaint was of such an Heat and Corrosion in his Stomach and Bowels as if he had taken his Aqua Fortial Spirits But it 's well he does confess his fault and I wish he may reform and not make Experiments of Poysonous Medicines upon the Bodies of Men to the hazard of their Lives in an Empirical use of unsafe and ill-corrected Mineral Medicines imperfectly described in Paracelsus and Helmont which he knows not either how to make or use Of Hysterical Fits P. 128. He proceeds to treat of the Hysterical Fits in Women where he runs as almost in all things such a riot in an unwholsome form of words peculiar to himself alone as who so will have the patience to read shall find matter enough for laughter but nothing that merits the least line of reply Satis est nominasse refelli A False Charge Only I observe he forges a Figment upon the Galenists as if they should say that the Fits of the Mother do proceed from a Windiness of the Matrix which he most scurrilously fancies to be charged like a Gun and ramm'd c. which I wonder he is not ashamed to have said and exposed to publick view in unsavory words which a regular Scholar or Physician or a good Christian would abhor to have written and every modest Person especially those of the Female Sex do abominate to read But besides this its utterly false for no such thing was ever said or writ by any man that deserves the name of a Galenist nor if you mark does he cite any of their Writings in the Case neither indeed in any thing that he objects against them but frames Arguments out of his own Brain on purpose to traduce them In this business I 'l refer the Learned and Judicious Reader to my late intimate Friend and Collegue Doctor Primerose in that excellent Treatise of his de Morbis Mulierum where he treats in lib. 3. cap. 11. of this Disease he reckons up the Opinions both of the Ancients and Modern Writers concerning the Causes of these Hysterical Fits but not one syllable of Windiness in the Matrix to be the cause of them At last he concludes of two principal Causes from whence they proceed ordinarily P. 207. Frequenter itaque causa est seminis corruptio ut in viduis libidinosis Mulieribus si Viri amplexibus fraudentur contingit And this he shews to agree with what Hippocrates Galen Epicurus Democritus Rondeletius and others have writtten Another cause which he assigns P. 209. is Quilibet humor in utero putrescens tetrum venenatumque vaporem
be liked being altogether novel and precarious His Candor and Ingenuity less Defamation being the main Topick of all his Discourses I wish for his own sake his Divinity may be better for I have seldom seen any one so Sceptical in Reason but the same has been Heterodox if not Heretical in Religion My Lord Cook says there are two things that marres many a Lawyer to wit Praepostera Lectio praepropera Praxis Give me leave to apply it to Physicians and particularly to this my Antagonist It does appear he fell among ill Books and read unwholsome Authors in Physick or else he began at the wrong end reading the Therapeutick part before he understood Physiology and Pathology otherwise his parts well laid would have rendred him far more useful in his Country than now he is likely to be as for the later viz. Praepropera Praxis he is at leisure enough for that save only in his Laboratory I confess I never saw any man so big with himself that like the Frog in the Fable he is ready to burst either through Pride or Envy if I could now help with a piece of good Midwifery and bring him to a safe Delivery he would have great cause to thank me But as to his Book more expresly thus In the beginning he stiffly denies all the Principles of the Spaw which I mentioned save Alome and disputes against me with Dunghil Language such as the Schools know not and all ingenuos men abhor and yet would you think it before he has done he yields them all to be there viz. Iron P. 39. and P. 44. and 45. So Vitriol P. 359. And Nitre P. 360. and 364. where he is put to a sore pinch to fumble at Expressions on purpose to blind some capacities from discovering his Contradictions To say no more than truth I never met with any Author so unstable in his Writings even to say and unsay as this my Antagonist which I shall point at as I pass along Then he goes on to tell what Diseases the Spaw cures and what not wherein he is altogether Mimical being wholly confined to what I have said in my Book or what in Reason may follow therefrom for otherwise I am assured he is a meer stranger to it almost as he that never saw it to which yet I can adde some eminent Cures that I have not already expressed He next passes on to treat of the Causes of several Diseases which he refers to some Fault in his Five Digestions I wonder he did not make 50. This Notion is purely Helmonts though he curtails his number of which he has a peculiar Tract called Sextuplex Digestio alimenti humani P. 166. But for want of the right understanding of Anatomy Sir S. grosly mistakes which our Modern Authors since the happy Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood and some Vessels lately found out in the Contexture of the Parts by some of our own ingenious Countreymen have more intelligently proposed In his Discourse about the Original of Hot Springs he determines the heat to proceed from a Mine of Vive Calx which Notion he grounds upon a Relation that I made in my Book of a most Ingenuous Observation of a Noble Lord of this Kingdome near the City Bathe though he has not so much ingenuity as to own it To say what I find he is resolved to do me no right Where he undervalues the Rational Method of Physick and extols his own Medicines as more Noble and Successful I shall joyn issue with him in weighing his Arguments and examining his Medicines which he himself has described together with some matters of Fact as they relate to him Here I would not be thought as if I were an Enemy to the Chymical Way or those that are Learned Professors thereof I am serious I account it a singular Additament and Ornament to the Noble Art of Physick and the most useful Part of Experimental Philosophy and such as the Old Princes in Physick would have rejoyced to have known And I do sincerely love and honour those that imploy their Talents in a genuine preparation of wholsom Medicines out of the Minerals and Metals and I have not been idle altogether in those Operations my self having sometimes had a Laboratory of my own wherein a very Learned Gentleman of this Kingdom and my self did imploy some time and money and of late I have not been wanting to make several Experiments out of the Minerals of this Spaw as I have mentioned in several places of my Book though not with such Noyse and Cracks Besides in my Practice near 30 years wherein on this sudden I can scarce think on any Disease which has not been under my Cure I have not been wanting to use them according as I saw cause wherein what my success has been I chuse rather to let my Countrey report only this I may with modesty affirm it has been like others of my Faculty And I must also declare that what ever my success has been I must rather ascribe it to the Blessing of God upon a Rational Method than Chymical Preparations But why any that addict themselves to that Study should go about to make Chymistry an Art of its own kind or like a Viperous Brat to eat through the Bowels of its Dam and so to cry down that wholsome Method and those Medicines that in the hands of Artists have in all Ages proved successful for the good of Mankind I see no reason in the world And I am sure there is no cause why this Man should so magnifie his own Preparations in comparison of others as I shall with satisfaction have occasion to make out anon Touching his Project for an Universal Character which a man would wonder how he should bring into this Discourse save that he would be a Sir Positive-At-all He has all his hints from a very Reverend Person of this Nation who before his Book on that Subject came out was frequently free in discourse concerning the thing and had given out several Essays As to his Discourse about the Constitutive Principles of all Concretes which he fetches from Helmont quarrelling at the Three Ordinary Principles of the Chymists to wit Sal Sulphur and Mercury and the Five of others he resolves all into Water which certainly is a Mixt Body and consists of the Four Elements And I pray may not that again be easily resolved into nothing and so become an Argument to prove the Creation In his Appendix concerning the Original of Springs He is most disingenuous and shews himself to be a man that can blush at nothing pretending to have answered all the Arguments in my Book which I have urged for Rain and Snow Water to be the Original of Springs when he leaps over no less than three or four whereon the stress of the Opinion does most lie and only touches upon something that I brought in by way of Illustration not of Proof I am ashamed that any man that
pretends so highly should respect his Credit no more but impose upon the Reader who perhaps not seeing my Book would be induced to give him Credit viz. Scarbrough Spaw Second Edition from P. 97. to 119. Besides that being pinched with an Argument of Demonstration which I deduce from Dr. Heylin in his Cosmography he calls in Question the Honour and Honesty of that Learned and Reverend Gentleman P. 301. In the mean time he establishes his own Opinion upon a meer naked Supposition P. 317. which he ought necessarily to have proved or else his Superstruction will fall to the ground for want of a Solid Foundation Yet in that Discourse all he has is from Kircherus in his Mundus Subterraneus Concerning his Ternary of Medicines which next to his opposing of me is the grand Design of his Book there is great cause to suspect he will fall short of his aim Those are his Scorbutick Pills for Purging his Cordial Elixir and his Diaphoretick Can any Rational Man think that all Diseases are so easily cured I am afraid these Pills may at length prove like his Lunar Pills which he mentions P. 120. sometimes as highly extolled by him and used as his Catholicon which upon trial some poor men probably smarted for for he declares them unsuccessful and advises against the further use of them being made up with Aqua fortial and other Corrosive and Poysonous Medicines As to the Elixir Proprietatis doubtless its a good Medicine being duly used Now there are several wayes of preparing it mentioned by Paracelsus Helmont Crollius Amynsicht and others all of them magnifying their own Preparations But it is a Medicine very hot whose Vehicle is the Tartarised Spirit of Wine and so not likely to sute as a Cordial in all Diseases notwithstanding there are some that use it till they are even come into a Proverb among the Vulgar Touching his Diaphoretick it is to be doubted he makes it of the Corrâ—sive Oyl of Antimony mentioned P. 180. which he tells P. 188. is a more desperate poyson than Mercury Sublimate it self which all men know will corrode Iron I suspect we shall shortly see his Bills upon the Posts of the City after the manner of Quacks proclaiming this Ternary as sometimes he did with his Amulet for the Plague unless he suspect I have marred his Market And lastly he concludes with an Epilogue wherein he most gallantly recants all that he had said in his Hydrologia concerning the Principles of the Spaw For whereas he denied Vitriol to be there and abused me for asserting it he confesses upon further trial that there it is in its Body to wit Terra Vitrioli P. 359. then he confesses Nitre P. 360. yea and P. 364. he yields it to be of all the Minerals the most predominant even as I had affirmed in my Book P. 13. And he is forced to come off with a woful excuse at the lower end of that P. 364. That he only meant that it s not the Nitre of the Shops which is vulgarly sold To say the truth he was forced to make this Recantation as I shall make out afterwards By this time I suppose the Candid and Judicious Reader discerns the folly of the young man whose wrath and envy against me have excited him to abuse the World with an ill premeditated piece of work Insipientis est dicere non putaram But what satisfaction have I now for the injuries he has offered me in his causless endeavour to blast my Reputation I most willingly submit all to the Ingenuity of the Judicious and Impartial Reader being ready to receive him when he shall make his Acknowledgment And now I suppose I might very well spare my self any further labour but I am not so minded let me beg thy patience a little Gentle Reader till I lay down the grounds of this mans quarrel against me and enlarge my Epistle with a few Notes upon his and then I le proceed to his Book About four or five years ago at the most Sir Simpson began to set up for himself in the Practice of Physick and about the same time another also whom he glances at somewhere in his Book These had a Project to overturn the Rational Practice of Physick in this City and County of York and reduce all to the Chymical Way In order to which in all Companies and more especially at the Coffee-Houses they were constantly declaming against the Medicines of the Shops which are prepared according to the Dispensatory established by the Law of the Land and magnifying their own Medicines by which they pretended to be able to do wonders How far this took with some of our Faculty I shall not now mention But there were not wanting others of my Learned Brethren who together with my self did judge it our duty Rem populi tractare and to stand up in defence both of the lives of our Friends and the Rational Method being yet no Enemies to the Chymical Way and such Medicines as therein we knew to be useful and safe Especially I my self did more frequently and publickly appear among the Ingenious Gentlemen that meet at the Coffee-Houses to countermine their design and did speed accordingly on which account they give out that I am a Discourager of Ingenuity which yet those that knâ—w me will testifie to be false They to requite me call in further Assistance as I shall by and by make out and combined to fall upon me in reference to my Book of the Spaw where though they wanted just matter of Exception as I shall no doubt clearly evince yet they designed like Hannibal upon the Alps aut invenire viam aut facere ever and anon jerking at my words and wresting my sense pretending to understand the Water both in its Principles and Vertues whereas in truth they could nor have said any more than I had done in more compendious and intelligible words And to make the Book more taking among the Vulgar they have stufft it with Experiments fetcht from all Modern Writers that have treated of Experimental Philosophy very few of them being their own which they have confusedly drawn into this Farrago as Cacus did Hercules his Oxen inversed or reversed to amuse the Reader and on purpose to palliate their Theft In the mean time they were all of them bolting out several Expressions against me and my Book this year and an half which now are come to light through my sides aiming to wound the Rational Practice of Physick which even now they think they have effected in this City or at least they were lately in hope they had done it Another difference there happened betwixt Sir Simpson and my self One Robert Beford a very ingenious Lock-Smith about 3 or 4 years ago was my Patient in a Dropsie which I had managed about 10 dayes not without great hopes of a Cure In which Disease I thank God I have often performed many good Cures On the sudden he told me he would take no
put it into Spring-Water with Gall but it received no Tincture so that I cannot find either the one or the other to receive a Tincture of Gall. Alome tinctures not with Gall. Now this doth plainly evince that its not from Alome that this Water at Scarbrough takes its Tincture but from some other Mineral and that in all likelihood must be the Vitriol unless we can find how to fix it upon another I shall therefore now enquire whether Iron will suffice to give it this Tincture with Gall If so then another Spring that passes through Iron must receive a Tincture but that it will not Ergo not from Iron does this take its Tincture Nor Iron There is an Iron Mine near Barnsley upon the Edge of Darbyshire where great store of Iron is melted out of which runs a Spring of Fresh Water This I procured Mr. William Cotton who is Overseer of the Iron Work to try if it would change Colour with Gall he writes me that it did not change the Colour at all He sent me also a Glass Bottle of the Water which I tried with Gall but it changed nothing at all neither being evaporated did it yield any Sediment notwithstanding that he writes that he observed it to have something of the Taste of Scarbrough Spaw at the Fountain He writes also that to make a further Trial he staied till they had got a Pit at the bottom of the Mine and so he caused a hole to be made under the bottom Stone for the Water to fall into and stand till it was clear and then took and tried it but it received no alteration from the Gall He sent me also some of the Mine it self which I calcin'd and put into Water to see if that would give any Tincture by the addition of Gall but it did not So then if neither Alome nor Iron will do it then it remains that Vitriol is that that gives the Tincture Nor Nitre unless Nitre will do it which neither he contends for nor any one upon trial shall find to do it and the same may I say of Salt which is the Fifth Ingredient from all which it follows that Mr. S. is in a grand mistake to think that Alome can contribute to this Colour by Gall. Furthermore as I have already made out this Water being carried abroad or left some while to stand in an open Vessel will receive no Tincture from Gall as also it will have laid aside its Acidity which methink is an argument of some force to prove that both these Qualities or Properties come from one and the same Cause to wit Vitriol which I suspect to be in its volatile parts imbibed in the Water and that the Sediment which remains after Evaporation is rather the product of the rest of the Minerals than the Vitriol for else I see no reason but while any thing of the substance of Vitriol is there it should keep its Acidity and also receive a mutation from the Gall. And also I infer that if that Tincture come from Alome then certainly that which he by and by calls the Aluminous Salt which he makes the essence of the Spaw should give the Black Tincture to the Gall so long as it remains in the Water From what has been said it also follows that ordinary Spring-Water takes no Salt at all and but little of Sapor or Vapor or Odor from perfect Mineral of Alome or Iron Indeed what it would do if it were made Corrosive by the participation of Vitrioline Juyce I cannot so easily determine From whence also it follows that if Minerals and Metals be but in Solutis principiis or their Concrete Juyces even Simple Spring-Water will be sufficient to imbibe them without any necessity of Helmonts Primum Ens which therefore I have with good reason exploded before and if any doubt be made of that which yet I proved to be the opinion of good Authors then here is the Juyce of Vitriol which will not fail to do it A bad memory Pag. 44. He tells us That the Medicinal Acidity or Primum Ens Which is the Solvent in the Water has made a flight solution of a Minera of Iron which being contempered together makes up the Body of the Spaw ☞ Is not this a Body of Iron then which becomes the Body of the Spaw and that very thing which he denied totidem verbis P. 20. in the close of the Fifth Section You know who had need of a good memory But yet he minces the matter prettily for he calls it but a slight solution of the Iron and yet 't is the Body of the Spaw Let the wise Reader judge how these things will hang together Well! But he says further That if Spirit of Vitriol be powred upon this Water of the Spaw it makes no alteration in it because of the similariness of parts between the Acid Spirit of Vitriol and the Acid Solvent in the Water no more than fair Water mixed with fair Water Would not any man think from this very Observation alone if there had been nothing else Mr. S. had reason to be perswaded that this Primum Ens or Mineral Acidity was nothing but Vitriol which I have proved to be the true Solvent if we need any in my reply to P. 3. since the spirit of Vitriol is as near of kin to it being powred upon it as Water is to Water that is in plain words they are both Vitriol nor does the Experiment which he mentions make out any thing to the contrary indeed it is nothing at all to the purpose Instability in Writing Pag. 45. Thus farr sâ—ys Mr. S. I assented That an aluminous Salt from a mineral acidity had dissolv'd a slight touch of the Minera of Iron and both dissolv'd in the Current Spring of Water makes up the Spaw What 's here Did he not say just now in the fore-going Page that the Mineral acidity and the Iron made up the Body of the Spaw and now he says there is also an aluminous Salt in it why could not he have said so before ☞ Is not here great instability in his Writing Methinks he seems to write Mente tremula with a trembling heart and hand being very unwilling and afraid to confess what he finds Here it 's plain he has granted Iron and Alome and how farr Vitriol I appeal to the Reader I doubt not but to wrest them all out of him at length Yet notwithstanding his plain confession of Iron here I appeal to all the Gentlemen that were present at the Spaw if he did not absolutely deny it in our Conference there allowing nothing but Alome until we had done that I shewed him the Cliffe which so much of it as is exposed to the Weather is turned into a Cindar as hard almost as Iron and out of which Mr. William Cotton being then by said he would undertake to make Iron at which he seemed to be startled in that he had denied
should thus contradict himself in his Epilogue and so plainly recant what he had said in the fore-going Discourse Mr. S. forced to make this Recantation To which thus Mr. Samuel Johnston of Beverley whom I mention'd before a very ingenious Chymist meeting him shewed him the Red Earth which he mentions in P. 359. and told him it was no other thing than Terra Vitrioli as also the Nitre which had shot in Stiria's above an inch long This being matter of fact he could not deny especially seeing them both so plainly made out Now his Book was then well-nigh printed so as he could not recall it and therefore was forced to bring it in an Appendix at the latter end and study out words to blind the unwary and ignorant Reader This Relation I have from the Gentleman himself when yet Mr. S. is not so ingenuous as to acknowledge his Director for he taught him the whole process that he lays down in the Epilogue but on the contrary falls into a simple Rant P. 361. as if he was the first that has made so many separations of the Minerals Yea and I can say he is the first that ever denied them of the Gentlemen of Art that ever came to the Water and he is the first that ever I met with that canted and recanted at this rate But the very truth is I my self had done enough that way having all the parts by me of several years keeping though I thought it impertinent to make so many separations Mr S. his Opinion whence the Saltness of the Sea P. 54. He undertakes to tell whence the Saltness of the Sea proceeds viz. From the Salt of the Earth which with great dashes of Water passing through the subterraneal Channels becomes dissolved and carried into the Ocean which has its Minera from fossile Salt from which also some Springs are saturate as the Sulphur Well at Knaresbrough Now let us turn to P. 303. and he tells us of a Circulation of the Sea Water from the Sea to the Heads of Springs by subterraneal Channels and these Springs are fresh the salt of the Sea being deposited in the Channels How these two Assertions can stand together I cannot discern A Câ—ntradâ—ction that the same Channels should convey a Salt into the Sea and also convey the Sea Water to the Springs here is a contrary Current in the same Channels for the same conveys Salt from the Earth to the Sea and lays down its Salt in its passage to the Springs I confess this is above my reason to conceive I shall leave it to the Reader to believe as he sees cause For my own part I think both parts of his Assertion are doubtful though indeed it is bravely resolv'd of the Gentleman on the sudden to find out the cause of the Seas Saltness which has in all Ages put the most grave Philosophers to a puzzle I do verily think that all the fossile Salt in the Body of the Earth which we see is very rarely found if it were dissolved will not serve to supply a twentieth part of the Salt that is in the Sea the sixteenth part whereof being a Body of Salt as I have tried at Scarbrough every Pint having about one Ounce in this our Northern Sea and in the Southern Seas it is far more strong of the Salt Besides the Peripateticks thought this came far short of an adaequate cause and thereupon they fly to the torrefaction of the Sun Moreover if the Saltness of the Sea should proceed from the fossile Salt of the Earth then being an extraneous quality to the Sea it would destroy the Fish of the Sea as we see fresh Water made sâ—lt by fossile Salt kills all manner of Sea Fish as well as other Hence it is that the Sea of the Plain called the Salt Sea Josh 12.3 which has its Saltness from the Earth for it was formerly no Sea but the Vale of Siddim and has its Original from Jordan and the Sea of Galilee which are both Fresh Water besides that Commentators and Travailers do unanimously report the Countrey about to be full of Salt-Pits is observed to kill all manner of Fish that fall into it from Jordan and is therefore called Mare Mortuum so that I suspect Mr. S. is much mistaken in his assignment of the Cause of the Seas Saltness Again As to the latter part of his Contradiction viz. That the Sea Water is conveyed to the Heads of Springs by the Subterraneal Channels we must imagine that these Subterraneal Channels must be sometimes 2 or 300 Miles long or more which how that should be Credat Judaeus Apella But this I shall reserve till I come to examine his Original of Springs A Contradiction But there is another thing which here I may not pass by He tells us now That the Sulphur Well at Knaresbrough is saturate from fossile Salt and yet if we turn to P. 143. treating of that Well he determines ☞ That a Salt Marine is the cause of that Sulphureous Spring I wish the Young Man would reconcile these Contradictions In the mean while till we understand the ground of them it may suffice that we understand a little what reason there is in the man Yet this makes me remember the Story that I read in Quintilian of Didymus Chalcenterus the famous Grammarian of Alexandria a man with Bowels of Brass so they named him because of his indefatigable pains in Writing for he writ says Sentca 4000 Books 3500 says Suidas Now one telling him an Historical Relation which he dislik'd and disapprov'd as vain and frivolous the party brougâ—t out one of his own Books and shewed him the Story which made Didymus look blank Truly the Old Man deserved some Indulgence but for a Young Man to be so forgetful and contradict himself so often to become a Didymus or rather a Dithymus double-minded as that one and the same Book nay within a few leaves should bring forth Didymos Twinnes one very unlike the other as if they had not the same Father I am very sorry to see it in any one that pretends to be a Scholar P. 55. He passes on to St. Mungo Well at Cockgrave which though to the touch it be extreamly cold yet by an intrinsick sulphurous warming quality it opens the Pores c. I believe he never saw that Well for if he had he could not have any ground to think it had any thing of Nitre or Sulphur in it but to be a Simple Water and an excellent Spring operating onely by its excessive Coldness whereby it suddenly repels the Blood and inward heat to the inward parts from whence it returns after bathing while the Patient lies in a warm Bed more strongly invigorated with Spirits and so concocting the Crudities that were in the weak parts encreaseth new strength and overcomes the lameness of the Joynts and the Rickets concerning which I have treated more at large in my Second Edition of Scarbrough
reperirentur quia melius ageretur cum iis qui laborant affectibus renum vesicae i. e. Because it would be very well for them that are subject to the Diseases of the Reins and the Bladder To which I 'l onely adde the Judgement of Kircher Aquae ferreae five Chalybeatae virtutibus ferri seu Chalybis imbuantur ad obstructiones hypochondriacas saluberrimis i. e. Iron or Chalybeate Waters have in them the vertues of Iron or Steel and so are most excellent against the Obstructions of the Hypochondres and the hardness or schirrhus of those parts and the beginning of a Dropsie as also they strengthen a relaxed and debilitated Stomach Of Vitrioline Springs And since this is a Vitrioline Water as I have prov'd sufficiently against all his Objections and at last brought him confessing as much it were but proper to lay down the Vertues and Properties of those sorts of Waters but that being done in part already I shall therefore be very brief I have prov'd already out of Fallopius and Paracelsus c. that a Water may imbibe Vitriol and yet not become Emetick or provoking to vomit and constant experience shews that it s verified in this Water besides hereby 't is become of a penetrating quality and so attenuating and cutting gross flegmatick humors being also drying and leaving a moderate astriction behind it and therefore good in all cold and moist Constitutions and for expelling of Worms Much of the same nature are such Waters as have imbibed Salt save that they are not so piercing but these having but little Salt in them I shall pass it over without more words Of Nitrous Springs But because Nitre is of all the rest the most predominant in this Water and himself has confessed it I shall therefore bring in the Testimony of the profound Kircher in Cap. de Aq. Nitrosis Praedominium dominium Nitri Aquas potentes facit c. i. e. When Nitre is predominant it makes the Water that has imbibed it powerful in operation inables it to correct an ill habit of body which such as are flegmatick are prone to it looses the Belly is good in the Diseases of the Nerves and for such as are subject to Defluxions upon the Lungs heals the Itch and other Diseases of the Skin Cures the ringing of the Ears being dropped into them and in a word makes it to be of an eminent abstergent property So far Kircher Now this Spaw having imbibed all these five Minerals must take its vertue from them all according to reason and the Testimony of Learned Writers as I have made out already and I am assured it suits full well with the Experimental Cures I have mentioned in my Book to which I refer the Reader and shall say no more at present ☞ Next P. 62. he falls to treat of his five Digestions which he pillages from Helmont verbatim though he curtails the number and corrects his Master for Helmont makes six vidâ— Helm P. 167. from the pravity or deficiency of every one of which proceed several Diseases whereas the whole Classiâ— of Physicians make but three viz. in the Stomach the Liver and the Solid Parts I wonder indeed he did not make 50 for there is not any the least part of the Body but if it be depraved in the Concoctive or Digestive faculty so as it cannot separate the serous part of the Blood from that which is for its nourishment Diseases may arise from it which may disturbe the whole Oeconomy of Nature and breed Aposthumations and Tumors according to the Nature of the Humor and the Constitution of the Parts Thus in the Breast may breed a Schirrhus or a Cancer in the Hands and Feet a Ganglion in other parts an Oedema or a Phlegmon and from thence a Feaver in the Joynts a Gowt or some other Lameness or Rheumatismes c but I may not digress upon this Subject The truth is in his describing of these Diseases he erres very much through a defect in the understanding of Pathology and Anatomy frequently confounding such as are nothing of kinne and all this in a canting form of Expressions that all the Learned Men I have met with that have seen the Book do laugh at These Spaws are found out by chance Then he undertakes P. 83. to tell what Diseases the Spaw cures and what not and cites Helmont but what I pray is Helmont's Judgement concerning this Water which he never saw Fallopius says that the properties of all those sorts of Springs are found out by Observation and doubtless he is in the right now since he could have no observation or experience of this Water his Verdict cannot be very Authentick I have in my Book made out my Observations and Experience for near Thirty years and that under the hands of the Persons themselves on whom such Cures were made which give better ground of satisfaction to wise men than all that Mr. S. can say who can have nothing of his own Experience as being upon my knowledge not much more acquainted with it than Helmont whom he cites Notwithstanding he takes upon him to give his Opinion of some of the matters of fact Of an Alderman of Hull in the Asthma and particularly of an Alderman of Hull whom I mention to have found Cure in an Asthma But that this was a real Asthma says he P. 94. I fear the Doctor mistakes in his Diagnosticks How civil this is in the young man to make himself a Judge of that which he never saw and thus severely to become a Cato Censorius over me I refer it to the wise Reader to judge The truth is this Alderman had joyned Dr. Primrose and my self in this his Disease to whom we prescribed Remedies according to Indications which yet the Malady did in a great measure resist so as after due prepâ—ration we thought fit to send him to the Spaw where after a few dayes he found cure and returned well This being about 15 years agoe and the Gentleman now alive and in health and by his leave we both thought fit to call a Spade a Spade and that Disease an Asthma If it would conduce any thing to teach W. S. that best point of Diagnosticks viz. to know himself I could every day let him see some that have found exceeding much benefit by this Vitrioline Water in the Asthma without his Arcana's Of a Gentlewoman in great Debility cured by the Spaw Then he undertakes to judge of the Case of a Gentlewoman whom I mention in a very Critical Point who had been long in a wasting condition bolstred up with Pillows through constant difficulty of breathing which he calls an Asthma from the Obstructions of the Womb and though he never saw her yet he undertakes to tell what was also the Procatarctick Cause of her Malady viz. a Cold c. Was ever any man so bold to be thus positive without ground I wonder what W. S. sees by the