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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62495	The English remedy, or, Talbor's wonderful secret for cureing of agues and feavers sold by the author Sir Robert Talbor to the Most Christian King, and since his death ordered by His Majesty to be published in French for the benefit of his subjects ; and now translated into English for publick good.	Blégny, Monsieur de (Nicolas), 1652-1722.; Talbor, Robert, Sir, 1642-1681.	1682 (1682)	Wing T111; ESTC R26272	26,144	122

Powder for there are some Droguists that infuse it entire and having by that means extracted the first Tincture out of it for their own advantage sell it afterward at the same rate as if it had not lost his chief virtue Hitherto the price of Quinquina or Jesuits Powder hath been very various and uncertain When it was only in the hands of the Jesuits it was sold at Rome and Paris for Eight or Nine Shillings Sterling the Dose which consisted only of Two Drachms but so soon as Droguists began to Trade in it it began to fall in Price so that Three or Four Years ago the best might have been had for about Forty Shillings the Pound weight but no sooner began the English Remedy to be in vogue but men began every where to make Experiments with the Bark of Peru which much enhansed the value of it yet that was not all which raised it to the highest price for Sir Robert Talbot observing that Febrifuges were prepar'd which came very near his own and fearing least some body at length might discover it resolved to buy up all the Quinquina that he could find at Paris and the other chief Towns of France and of England also The execution of this Design making some noise several Physitians Chirurgeons and Apothecaries thought it concerned them to make all hast to provide themselves and some that they might not be wanting in Precaution caused a considerable quantity of the Bark to be brought from Roan and Bourdeaux so that Mr. Audry and Mr. Vilain the two most famous Droguists in Paris having Sold all they had at the Rate of about Fifteen Pound the pound-weight and not being able to procure any more from any place for above a Fortnight there was not a bit to be had at any Droguist's shop in Paris nevertheless some small quantity came at length but it was held up so dear that it was like to have gone off at the rate of an Hundred Crowns the pound-weight since that time the Merchants having imported much from Spain and Portugal and the English Remedy having lost the Advantages of the Mode the price of that Commodity hath fallen daily in so much that at present it does not yield above Four or Five Pound the pound-weight and I make no doubt but that in a short time a Fleet from the West-Indies will make it much cheaper Amongst the Authors whom I have named there are some who endeavouring to explain the properties of Quinquina or the Jesuits Powder according to the principles of the ancient Medicine think it enough to say that it is hot and dry in the beginning of the Second Degree and some others of the number of those who have introduced bad Principles into the New-Philosophy think to mend the matter by saying That Quinquina as an Alkali stops the motion of the acid which occasions the Feaver but that is to illustrate one obscurity by others that are far more obscure That we may give the World somewhat more satisfactory as to that point we must in the first place with Willis take our measures from Experience and allow with him That all things which are actually bitter have great virtue in sifting preternatural fermentations and upon that account it was that the Root of Gentian was heretofore in so great reputation for curing of Quartan Agues and that the Flowers of the lesser Cantaury the Root of Contrayerva and Serpentaria the leaves of Wormwood and Chervil Scammony and many other bitter Drogues are really Febrifuges though in virtue far inferior to the Jesuits Powder Having laid down this from undoubted Truth we must now enquire into the Natural Causes which produce Bitterness in mixt bodies now supposing as it is reasonable we should that the true Elements of Bodies are acid liquid fiery etherean and terrestrial corpuscles it will be a very easie matter to discover those Causes for seeing all bitter things penetrate the Tongue in such a manner that they leave therein a sense of their action for a long time after and that of all the elements none are so proper as acids to produce that effect we must conclude that they are predominant in mixts which have that tast but also since being mingled with many liquid corpuscles they produce only sharp and corroding liquors as the spirits of Salt Vitriol Alum c. that being joyned to fiery corpuscles they make only Causticks as corrosive sublimat the spirit of Nitre cauteres c. and that being in intimate conjunction with Sulphurous and Oily Particles they only produce sweet mixts as Honey Sugar c. It follows that none but terrestrial corpuscles mingled with them in a proportionable quantity can produce a bitter tast and in effect the more of Earth there is in Salt the bitterer it is and on the contrary the more it is refined and depurated the less bitter it is thus Sea Salt dissolved in a moist Air and afterward filtrated through brown paper has no other tast than of an acid spirit though before that dissolution and filtration it was considerably bitter Now since among the Elements that I have named the acid is heaviest and by consequence the coldest and that though the terrestrial be not so heavy as it nor yet as the liquid yet it is more ponderous than the fiery and ethereal we may say that it is temperat I mean of a quality equally distant from the two extreams and that so being with the acid predominant in a mixt body the mixt must certainly be cooling or at least proper to preserve the just temperament of our body But because there are no bitter things made up solely of acid and terrestrial corpuscles and that there are some wherein either the fiery the ethereal or liquid particles are likewise in a considerable quantity so there are some more or less bitter and even more or less cooling and temperate but if we mind the dryness of Quinquina and yet how unapt it is to take fire it will not be hard to conclude That the three Elements which I have named last enter but in a very small quantity into the composition thereof and that by consequence amongst all bittter mixts none can be of a more temperate quality than it From the Principle which I have now laid down concerning the nature of Quinquina all the other properties thereof may be deduced for seeing its predominant parts are the acids whose property is to coagulate the more substantial liquors such as Blood Milk c. and the terrestrial which by absorbing the humidity and unctuosity that relaxates the solid parts does bind and strengthen them of necessity it must be stiptick and astringent and it is in effect in these two qualities principally that the rarity and wonderfulness of its operation does consist as I have made appear in former observations But it is not to be thought as some have imagined that this property of binding renders it so fixative as to keep within the febrifick

matter or other morbifick causes dispersed in the humours or adhering to the solid parts it is so far from that that by reviting the homogenious parts of the blood it seperates them from the heterogenious or superabundant parts whereby it facilitates their expulsion for which Nature alone does often labour in vain in the same manner as by strengthning and fortifying the viscera it puts them in a condition of resisting all attacks and of discharging themselves of the Impurties that oppress them Experience well agrees with these remarks for the heat that dries up and consumes the Hecticks is often extinguished by the use of several Preparations of the Jesuites Powder It is no less powerful against all other internal Inflammations Feavers and generally against all extraordinary and preternatural Fermentations in a very short time it rectifies the depraved motion and the altered consistency of the mass of Blood and it many times occasions such salutary evacuations that having dreined the sourse of Dropsies by the depuration of the natural voices which through their depravation and transudation were become the antecedent cause of it that it becomes the principal cause of the expulsion of the extravasated Superfluities which were the conjunct cause of the same It is nevertheless strange that among so many Authors who with admiration have written of its effects not so much as one have taken the pains to explain them by their true causes nor indeed thought that it could be done for Willis who without doubt hath spoken most judiciously on that subject limits himself to this that having never seen any other such like effects and not being able to ground a general conclusion upon a particular experiment all that is to be done is to endeavour to understand and well observe the phoenomina that depends thereon without troubling ones self with the efficient principles thereof But to make appear how far one may err in the explication of things when they are not known by their proper causes it will not be amiss here to relate some opinions of that Author touching the effects of the Jesuits Powder upon the mass of Blood The first is that it always causes therein a certain Fermentation that only destrovs that of the Feaver because it proceeds from another cause Now the Jesuites Powder does indeed sift the fermentation of the Blood and the other Humonrs but not excite any it self The Second is that it maintains its effect no longer than it is in the Vessels and that so soon as all the parts thereof are spent and gone the disposition that it had suppressed infallibly wears in so much that the Relapse is as certain as the stopping of the Fit Nevertheless the contrary appears daily almost to any who knows how to use it aright to be short the Third is that it stops not the Fits of the Feaver neither by fixing nor yet by resolving the Blood as other febrifuges do nevertheless it is certainly true that the principal effect of bitter astringent and stiptick februifuges is the reuniting of the proper parts of the blood divided and scattered by the disordered Animal Spirits or by Heterogenious and superfluous matters The Author of the Additions to Scroderus has had no better luck in saying that Quinquina or the Jesuites Powder cures the Feaver by the virtue that it hath in Precipitating the Fabrick Ferment for besides that it is hard to be understood how a matter contained within Vessels and mingled with the Blood can be Precipitated by a Medicine whose principal action is directly opposite to that of evacuatives those kinds of Precipitations being only to be made by Urines by little and little and in a considerable space of time cannot rationally be attributed to the Jesuites Powder that acts so powerfully and so suddenly produces its effect that many times a single Dose of it stops and prevents the immediately approaching fit of an Ague The Author of the Cure of Feavers and Agues by Quinquina who makes the cause of the Feaver to consist in a certain Acide Ferment refers the effects of that Medicine to the faculty that it hath of subduing mortifying and resolving that Poison but that Author hath not minded that if in effect Quinquina were able to destroy or even to expel the Acides that are in the blood it would not be taken without entirely perverting that Liquor seeing it would deaden or drive out the very Acides that make naturally a part of the same and that it must necessarily lose its form and be changed into another kind of juyce if the greatest part of one or the other of its Elementary principles were taken from it Mr. Lame●y in his new course of Chymistry is not so wide of the Truth when he says that Quinquina does fix and coagulate the Feaverish Humor much in the same manner as an Alcali sifts the motion of an Acide Salt for in effect it is the property of that remedy to rally bring together and rounite the parts of the liquid body wherewith it is mingled as often as it is put in action by necessary dispositions but that Author hath omited to take notice that this reunion is only made of the proper parts of the blood and that the Febrifick matter remains confounded in the superfluous Serosity wherewith it is evacuated either by Transpiration or by the way of Urine The Principle that I have Established is of another Nature than the Opinions which I have now related it is plain clear just and every way conforms to all the Experiments that have hitherto been made upon the Jesuits Powder and I cannot tell but that I may say to all that shall be made hereafter for whether it be given for our sort of Feavers or for another for Vapours against which I take it to be very good for Dropsies or for other Distempers whether it be given in Substance Infusion Tincture Opiat Extract or Quintessence I am persuaded that its pincipal effect will always be to separate the proper and Homogenious parts of Liquors from those that are Heterogeneous and of a different Nature to them to reunite the one and by that reunion to facilitate the expulsion of the others yet with this difference that that effect will be more or less considerable according to the good or bad use and Administration that shall be made thereof Moreover That we may not too slightly pass over the different Preparations that may be made of Quinquina I am not to omit that Pol Fincius describes a kind of Essence of it which is nothing else but its Tincture Extracted with excellent Wine and afterward gentlely evaporated That Sturmius makes a description of another much like to it that the Author of the Cure of Feavers by Quinquina will have it to be given in Bolus Extract Fermented Liquors and in Infusions made in Wine Ale Distilled Waters Tisance and in common water that Mr. Lamery gives the Preparations of a Tincture of an Extract and of a

guilty of a no smaller fault in forcing if I may say so his Patients to drink Wine and to eat solid Food during the whole time of continued Feavers and in time of the Fit in Agues for though in the abatement of the one and the intermission of the others that kind of nourishment may back and fortifie the operation of the Remedy yet they considerably oppress the Patients when Nature is taken up in defending her self against the vigour of the Distemper that attacks her and then it appears that the prudence and skill of a Learned and Experienced Physician are at least of as great relief on such occasions as the most efficacious and salutory Medicines I have no more to say to shew how little confidence we ought to have in such kind of Empiricks but that it is strange that this man who hath prescribed to us so many juyces and such like trifles about the composition of his Febrifuge whereof the principle effect is only to be attributed to the Jesuits Powder should conceale the use that he made of Opium whereof he many times added some drops of Tincture to this Febrifuge which may be of great advantage when it is given seasonably in over watchings light headedness and loosness which are frequent symptoms in Feavers and always allayed by the virtue of that excellent Medicine I hope the Reader will take in good part that I describe in this place a Febrifuge Opiat prepared with Quinquina and afterward explain its effects with relation to the Nature of Feavers and Agues An Excellent Febrifuge Take of the Jesuits Powder the Flowers or Leaf of lesser Centaury subtilly Pulverised and of Treacle of each a like weight make them into an Opiat of which the Patient twice a day shall take the weight of a Drachm and a half during the space of six days drinking upon it a Glass of good Claret with Plantin or Bugloss water Reflections upon the use of this Febrifuge The excellency of a Remedy is very often the cause why it is despised Antimony hath been in our days a manifest instance of this but the Jesuits Powder and the English Febrifuge continue us more plainly of the truth of it so soon as chance or industry hath discovered a secret for any particular distemper the people lay hold on 't as of a Publick Good and apply it indifferently to all sorts of evils and if on some occasion it succeed not as it must unavoidably come to pass it is cried down with as much Zeal and Precipitance as it was brought in vogue This is the fortune of all the new Febrifuges having seen wonderful effects of them in some kinds of Feavers men took them for Vniversal Remedies but so soon as they found them produce bad consequences in others for which they were not proper it was then generally concluded that it was dangerous to make use of them For this reason that all scruples may be removed which people may frame to themselves in the use of this Febrifuge I have thought it pertinent carefully to engage into the Nature of Feavers and to mark their differences to observe those which are submitted to this Remedy and those to which it may prove prejudicial and lastly to prove with how much usefulness it may be employed when that is done with all care and necessary circumspection Two motions are to be conceived in the blood that of the whole which is the circulation and another of the parts proceeding from its liquidity A Feaver is a fermentation of the blood fermentation is an irregular motion of the insensible parts motus intestinus partium insensibilium We must look into the causes of the regular motion of this liquid body that by the rule of contraries we may discover those of the irregular motion There are two causes that maintain Vniformity in the motion of the blood 1. It s quantity and the constantly equal force of the spirits which are the immediate movers and impulsers of all the parts that compose this liquid mass 2. the just proportion of the same parts as well in their quantity and quality as in their scituation that is to say when the Sulphureous Acide Watry and Earthy corpuscles are not only in a laudable proportion as to quanty but likewise are so well adjusted and united together that they no ways annoy one another and are moved by the Spirits or Celestial matter that animates them in a regular and uniform motion As long as things are thus it may be said that the blood is in its Natural state of Health and to that end the Author of Nature hath not only made our body transpirable thereby to give vent to the too great quantity of Spirits but hath also put in different places Bowels and percolatories designed to filtrate the superfluous and exceeding parts which might trouble the purety of that Liquor From thence it may inferred that there are two immediate causes of the fermentation of the blood the first is the too great quantity or the tor great motion of the spirits which may be excited by the heat of the Sun violent exercise watching fasting hot and spirituous nurishment and the passions and perturbations of the mind and from thence it is that all Feavers Ephemerae or of one days continuance and simple Synoches which are the slightest of all and may be cured by transpiration alone do arise the second is the mixture of irregular and fermentative corpuscles rerum non miscibilium mixtio which confounding the order and alliance of the parts of the Blood raise a Sedition there and deprave its motion And of these Bodies some only raise a simple Fermentation which at length may be governed and subdued by Nature and the others being more Malignant and Venemous cause Coagulations Dissolutions and Colliguations in the mass of Blood and can in no manner be corrected From the former of these proceed all intermittent erratick and continued Feavers which are called subintrant and from the other spring Burning Pestilential Malignant and spotted Feavers It is now to be considered in what parts of our Body and how these humours are produced Though I have said that there are parts viscera appointed for the separation of the superfluities of the blood yet seeing they do not always discharge their functions aright either through a fault in themselves or through the too great abundance of the same superfluities the same are hurried away by the rapidity of the circulation as filth is carried away by the impetuous current of a River but in the same manner as there happens a turning in that River where the water is stiller and where all that filth turning slowly with the current stops so these heterogeneous bodies turn aside by the coeliack Artery into the branches of the Vena Porta where the Blood circulates more slowly and which for that reason may be compared to a Lake or standing Pool of Water in respect of the other vessels there it is where wanting