do better then my Medicines it will be applauded notwithstanding my contempt of it and if not it will fall notwithstanding your high commendation of the same In the comparison of way with way and art with art which is better it may be true that both may be good but I have proved your Method to be erroneous your Art untrue and your Medicaments to be only nominally such but really poysons and yet if I had done no more you would I doubt not have recriminated a poor way of answering a Charge though without any proof Now because I did expect from you recrimination I have to anticipate your objection rejected all Mercurial and Antimonial Medicaments either Vomitive Purgative or Salivative as being sallets for your own Apparatus Pigs of your own Sow adopted sons of your own Method as also all Vegetals so long as either Purgative or Vomitive and their Oyles so long as Oyles and their Salts so long as fixt we renounce from our mysterie and leave them to you finding them with you ut similes labris lactucas But if any of you shall say that you know not any such preparations as I mention and therefore do not mention and therefore do not believe the commendations of them then say I why do you judge and censure an Art you know not why condemn you and reproach Artists while you understand not what they professe for shame cease imitation of the Fox and condemn not those Hens for lean and Grapes as sowre which are too high out of your reach We knew your Art both Theorically and Practically before ever we disliked it learn at least this candor from your professed Antagonist Therefore according to what we know we come to your own doors and dare you to combat we defie your Clysters as ridiculous your Purges and Vomits and Bloud-letting as dangerous your Issues Cauteris Blistering c. as cruell and needlesse and in a word your whole Method we have impugned Now because it may truly be replyed to what I have said That if a cure be never so desperate or uncertain or cruell yet it is good if it may do good to be used provided no better way can be had since not only a little bloud but skin for skin a man would be content to give to save his life Therefore and very seasonably did I lay down the efficacy of Medicines preparable by that Art which I commend and have instanced in those remedies which will perform my promise therein which was an absolutely required task for the making good of my assertion For if my Medicines would only do what your Method would perform as speedily and as safely yet it were the better as being more simple lesse chargeable not tying the Patient to such curiosity in diet nor by far so cruel as using none of all your martyrdoms and butcheries But if my Medicaments will perform what your Method accounts impossible and therefore dare not promise nor give hopes of as in the cure of the Palsie Epilepsie Gout Agues Kings-evill c. as also the Lues inveterate without Tubbing or Salivation in Gonorrhoea's of all sorts without purgation or vomiting or detaining within doors and will cure all acute diseases as Feavers Fluxes and Pleuresies Calentures Small-pox and Measles at the utmost in four daies without Blouding or Purging without suffering the Small-pox to fill but by an Antidotary killing the venome attenuating and avoiding the peccant matter by the pores and mortifying the venomous corruptor of the bloud not suffering the Archeus to make any purulent matter and in all this performance not tormenting the Patient with forbidding drink a common cruelty in the vulgar Method but allowing good Beer and Wine moderately in the most deplorable Feavers if I say this be made good certainly ordinarily and safely then it must follow that your Method is but a bloudy cruelty and a tyrannous cheat no more to be pleaded for or defended then Baal was to be pleaded for by Israel who were the people of God What I have said of the Medicaments commended by me I will hazard the cause totally upon making it good and can give past instances if required but if any shall undertake to combate with me we shall not go to rake up things past for to finde examples but Hic Rhodus hic saltus esto If the Methodists dare to contend with me if I do not stand contest let me for ever be branded for a vain-glorious boaster and till they do that they must never expect victory If their Method have done and can do what I promise by true Chymical remedies known to me and preparable by that Art professed by Paracelsus Helmont c. let them take up the Cudgels and come forth or if they will only try me let them only give me as much for each party cured as I will forfeit for each uncured of a thousand in acute diseases in four daies that is in Feavers Pleuresies Small-pox Measles Fluxes Calentures and Agues in four fits not Hectical or if Quartan and Hecticall in four weeks provided the strength be not wasted to despair and if I slink the proof of experiment let me be reputed what they please and if I cure not six for one I will recant what ever I have written publickly let them do the same if they dare And as for the dangerousnesse of my Medicaments which I know they will insinuate that is but a meer Bug-bear by which ignorant people are frighted without cause or ground as the Jesuites are reported to affright their deluded Catholicks by telling them that the English since the casting of the Popes Supremacy are turned into Monsters which those who know our Nation see to be but an invention to keep their people under restraint from falling into that Religion which they call and account Heresie I before advised the Reader that by the volatile Salt of Tartar all Vegetable poysons are so corrected as not to leave the least footsteps of the same and that without decoction but only by digestion in a heat answerable to the heat of the Sun in which warmth they in short space are turned into meer reall Salt which will crystallize like Sugar-candy tincted according to the concrete and retaining so much of its taste and odour as the Magnum oportet or vita media will retain So far then are these Medicaments from being poyson that my self will take of Hellebore or Elaterium two churlish poysons or any other Vegetal of the most malignant quality a dram at a dose and that on a fasting stomach and fast after it two three or four hours and let any Galenist do the like and I will lay down the cudgels But I have sung long enough to deaf men I shall have done with these captious Readers and shall come to speak a word to those who are better tempered after I have first given one word of admonition to prevent a Critick And that is if that any faults chance to
NATURES EXPLICATION AND HELMONT'S VINDICATION OR A short and sure way to a long and sound Life BEING A necessary and full Apology for Chymical Medicaments and a Vindication of their Excellency against those unworthy reproaches cast on the Art and its Professors such as were Paracelsus and Helmont by Galenists usually called Methodists Whose Method so adored is examined and their Art weighed in the ballance of sound Reason and true Philosophy and are found too light in reference to their promises and their Patients expectation The Remedy of which defects is taught and effectual Medicaments discovered for the effectual cure of all both Acute and Chronical Diseases By George Starkey a Philosopher made by the fire and a professor of that Medicine which is real and not Histrionical London Printed by E. Cotes for Thomas Alsop at the two Sugar-loaves over against St. Antholins Church at the lower end of Watling-street 1657. To the Right Honourable ROBERT TICHBVRNE Lord Maior of the famous City of LONDON George Starkey a Philosopher by the Fire wisheth all temporal and eternal felicity RIGHT HONOURABLE IT may be wondred at by many and censured by some that I to your Lordship so very a stranger should be so bold as to presume this Dedication and your Honour may perhaps account it as strange if not rash that without pre-acquainting your Lordship I should so venturously undertake to do it The wonder and censure of others I shall let pass as not esteeming either the applause or censure of the vulgar which is as uncertain and as changeable as the winde But for your Lordships dissatisfaction which I only imagine may be caused by this Dedication from him who is meerly a stranger to your Honour for remeving of that let me only crave your Lordships patience and I doubt not but to give such rational excuses of this presumption as may reconcile your Honours not offended but perhaps somewhat amused thoughts toward your unknown but cordially honouring servant First therefore let me assure your Lordship that it was not my own motion that incited me to present your Honour with this Tractate although the worth thereof may deserve an honourable Patron for I was sensible what boldness it might be esteemed for me so unknown to your Honour to dare to engage as I may say your Lordship in my quarrel by calling on your Honour to partronize a Polemical discourse on which ground and for which reason I intended to let it pass without any Dedication till at length I was perswaded by a good friend one in command at present in the Army to do what here I undertake be convinced by his solid arguments of the conveniency of the same Among which Arguments the most commanding was when he upon his knowledge of your Lordships inclination having been long acquainted with your Honour assured me how great a lover of Ingenuity and Art he had ever known you and by reason of your accomplished parts how competent and able a Judge of the same which was an unanswerable inducement to me to take the boldness of presenting this to your Lordship as to an able person to censure the same according to its worth and deserts Hereby Right honourable Sir I shall give a greater lustre to the truth for which I contend when I submit and prostrate what I have done to yours Honours judgement for censure and at your feet for patronage confiding so to the truth of what I have written as to assure my self and promise your Honour such a foster childe as will never shame its Patron and doubt not but so long as the Art of Medicine shall continue in esteem which will alwaies be so long as it is of use this short discourse will live with credit and where-ever it is preserved or kept there it will make mention of your Honours worth and desert and will prove a more clear and lasting monument then any statue of brass or Marble For My Lord I am past doubt assured that this small Treatise will be in esteem not in England only but in other Nations as being drawn out of the fountain of most undoubted experience in which though I am severe in reproving common abuses yet is it not without cause as if your Lordships most weighty affairs will permit you so much leisure as to look into the Epistle following and the Book it self you will see most evidently 'T is not my Lord all our Doctors but only such as are so qualified according to what I reprove that I tax and seek to reclaim for several among them to my knowledge are Chymically given as namely Doctor Ridgely Dr. Gurdane Dr. Goddard of Oxford Dr. French Dr. Bathursts Dr. Currar and many others who have chosen the Chymical for the true way and would wholly reject the other were they but Arcanorum Adepti Masters of those secrets which are taught and preparable by true Pyrotechny after which they seek seriously and sedulously only some thinking all Art with them already defend their Method against their knowledge and conscience My Lord who can be a fitter person for this Dedication then your self whose office cals upon you and whose power enables you to minde these things here within your Honours Jurisdiction whose vigilancy and care in your place hath been already eminent in reforming several abuses in this City which by being so long undisturbed could almost have claimed prescription were it not that what is unrighteous cannot claim prescription but the subject of my ensuing discourse is a discovery not of an abuse of selling Beer for which if a man give a halfpenny too much he is only so much the poorer and that is all but it concernes the precious life of thousands and their health a thing so much beyong estate that skin for skin nay all the world if a man had it oft times would he give for to save the same This as it is of high concernment to the sick so ought it to be the principal care of the Magistrate to see that nothing be maintained under colour of Law that may really prejudice and indanger the life and health of any In vain are men secured from injury done to their goods estate credit and liberty while the most precious of all their lives are monopolized and by colour of Patent bought and sold Our Doctors I mean the major part of them maintain a method of medicine which I impugn the Controversie concernes the way of restoring diseases safely speedily and certainly in which your Honour as a chief Magistrate is nearly concerned in vain are theeves and enemies provided against if a Method be by authority confirmed and defended which is of more dangerous consequence as to killing of many actually and immediately of more by not restoring such diseases which may easily be restored were but the right way of Medicine allowed and incouraged What their Method performes is obvious to and the by-word of the veriest rusticks in the Nation and the reason why more
and cure their deserted Patients to their deserved confusion But secondly her by they shut the gate to all further search in Nature for as for any among themselves they are sure for who knowes not the mighty force of education which being once suckt in a teneris annis as we use to speak is so lodged that it is with much difficulty eradicated yea and although an opinion to an uningaged person seem never so absurd yet to one whom education hath ingaged it appears not so yea acuteness makes little to the discovering the weakness of such an opinion but rather supplies curious and specious arguments to maintain it and to oppose any contrary Besides in this mystery there is not only a prepossessing of the phantasie and understanding but also a preoccupation of the will namely with things by which the will is intangled as honorary titles of Master Doctor your Worship and the like which together with Angels and Pieces can as powerfully hush a muttering conscience and salve a scrupulous breast when it is stumbled with the frustraneous event of the ridiculous method of medicine as the same medicine can loose a Lawyers tongue and make it rum glib which would else scarse wag in his Clients cause Moreover Truth is not to be catcht with gaping but with pains infatigable and serious meditation which they who are ingaged in many lucriferour visits cannot attend they may only read of better things and say I would I could see them but they not coming with a wish they sigh and say Audio at vix Credo and as for their own unsuecessfulness they thus excuse I proceed according to Art but the blessing is in Gods hand the party was too weak to bear the Cure or was too old or I was call'd too late or care was not used in following directions or the disease was epidemically malignant or incurable or some such thing or other is pretended and so the earth covers their defects And because they kil not all they meddle with God by his mercy preventing their endeavours to some therefore they are not discouraged with the multitudes they either kill or suffer to die miserably under their faithless medicines while they by their monopolizing Patent prevent lest any with better medicines should shame them Thus I say they have the Trade wholly in their own hands a Trade by which they never did nor can cure any but kill many but whatever they have that may do good they have it from the accidental experiments of old wives and good folks who have found or known much good done by this or that Herb or Simple which did more good by far when it was simply used by silly women then when the Doctors after had drawn it into Receipts castrating their virtue by confounding with many others in decoction or otherwise according to their Idiotism Whatever then they administer or advise that doth good it doth it not upon account of any method or art of theirs but would work the same effect if applyed by the hand of a Rustick as prescribed by them Yea and often their method of compounding decocting and administring both in respect to the Dose and time do notably hinder if not destroy the working and prevent the good of the applyed remedy though the Doctor little minde that when once his Fee is in his pocket Even the most serious of them will confess that all their Art consists in experimental Receipts which as not being minded by them I mean the collecting Simples in their time the keeping of them and ordering in administration exposeth oft a Doctor to scorn which same Simples formerly had commended some well-meaning woman in curing a deserted Patient to the Doctors disgrace Whose Art I mean of feeling pulses tossing urines and prophesying out of them stirring of close-stools letting of bloud at least commanding it to be done preaching on the disease ordering of diet prescribing purgations and the like is but a meer imposture a cheat of the world a butchering of the sick which is even a proverb among the vulgar yet the Doctor minding his sees too much will not perceive at least will wink at being content to bear any thing so he may get money for which a dreadfull account will at last be exacted by the just Judge of them who pretending to take the cave of the sick devour families and then expect a reward for destroying them But this only being intended for an Introduction and my propounded scope to discover nature and withall to vindicate noble Helmont from unjust reproaches I shall leave a while the Doctors to their Clients and come to give a brief of this undertaking First of all let me ingenuously professe that I have no personal quarrel with any nor do I upon any such account write prejudicately Secondly That I purpose not to disparage any thing that is good in them to make what is bad on my side to appear good or what is but indifferent to seem excellent but shall deal as candidly with them as may be Thirdly That what I write shall not be out of a principle of Jurandi in verba Magistri but what I write shall be for explication and for defence not for repetition sake Now concerning my self it will be requisite that I should speak a little not out of any content that I take therein but to give the Reader some small satisfaction in what he may at least as I conceive be prejudiced For mine own part I know the reward of this my labour will be Calumny yet I will be sure to reproach none and though I merrily and yet not without aversion of spirit carp at some things yet before the close of this Treatise I shall give Reasons I hope satisfactory for this practise for Ridentem dicere verum Quis vetat If any be troubled at my sporting jests now and then cast I must needs say there is in my Jests nothing scurrilous immodest or uncivil nor any thing bad in them except it be that they are true I wish heartily they were not CHAP. II. AS touching the Art of Pyrotechny and Chymistry I must seriously profess that of all Arts in the world it is to me most pleasing because its principles to an ingenious man are demonstrable by the fire It was not conceit nor novelty nor hope of gain that allured me but only love and desire of truth For I found demonstrably that the foundations of common Philosophy were totally rotten The first suspicion of them was occasioned by a dispute of the possibility of making Gold potable which being by the Antagonist held negatively I what out of Authors and what by study did so evince the possibility of it that my arguments were by him unanswerable and to my self satisfactory The speculation I confess pleased me well who above all things in the world prized health and as my mind was naturally propense to action I desired much to make it and comforting my self with the common Maxim
c. and to make up a total reconciliation betwixt Empericks and Galenists are not now all vulgar preparations of Minerals prostituted in every Apothecaries shop and yet the Art of Medicine among our reverent Doctors reputed the same as of old What then O their method their method this is the hidden stone and secret mark which distinguisheth them where then the same method is used there is the same way professed but Mountebaks Quacks Old Wives and all that rabble use the same method in curing If it be objected that they have not skill to discern when this when that remedy is to be applyed this accuses their sufficiency not their profession It is not then the materials used but the preparation of the materials so as to be able to effect what the Physician promiseth and the Patient expects surely safely and speedily that distinguisheth a true Son of Art from pretending bunglers of which some are more crafty and cautious others more ignorant and rashly venturous yet both more distinct from true Artists then from one another If Nature had made true Medicines ready prepared to hand for every disease that it were no more then to pluck them as an Apple from the tree then indeed a distinction might be made of professors of the Art of Medicine according to the materials wrought upon But contrariwise it is sadly evident that very few Simples are endowed with a medicinal virtue without virulency and those also have their excellency obstructed with the gross feculency which growes together with the spiritual tincture and as a shell doth hiddenly contain the same so that without some previous preparations few things are worthy the name of Medicaments Now that preparation is usual for vegetal Simples only decoction or infusion or conserving with Sugar or Honey whereby the good is not so separated from the bad but that several crudities remain but of this Helmont hath at large treated I shall not repeat It would be a tedious Wild-goose chase to trace their medicines and refute them for that will be but to agere actum and I intend here an Apology not a charge a defensive not an offensive conflict I shall come therefore to state our Case for till that be done in is a vain thing to contend in words First of all we differ from the Goosquil Tribe in the Theoretical discovery of Diseases and secondly in our Practical cure of them Now as to the Theory of Diseases and the Philosophical contemplation of Simples it is not essential to a Physician for a man may know the remedies with which to cure all diseases and yet erre very much in the discovery of Causes for the remedy being to the disease as water to fire which will undoubtedly quench it as a man may know certainly by water to quench fire and yet erre in the Philosophical appre-prehension of the same so may a man by a proper remedy rightly and in due proportion applyed certainly cure the disease and be able to distinguish the same generally though he be not able to finde our and apprehend the manner of its original with its occasional causes progress and variations Nor let this seem a Paradox for it may easily be evinced against the most snarling gainsayer for consider the forementioned example of quenching fire by water and it may be made unquestionable What rustick that doth not know that water is for the quenching of fire and will give a very near guess how much water will quench so much fire and yet how many of owr School Philosophers can assign the true cause of that effect it is now water as water for milk whey wine-vinegar c. will do the same nor yet as cold for hot water and other hot liquors will perform it as well as cold nor yet as moist for oyl and oleaginous moistures being thrown on fire in one measure encreaseth it and in another measure will quench it as a week of a candle or lamp may be drowned with too much tallow or oyle So that in very deed the Philosophical speculation doth follow practical knowledge and experience denominates that science which else would be but bare opinion But of this I speak sufficiently in my large Treatise called Organu Philosophiae novum and shall not in this place repeat what there is sufficiently proved and confirmed Therefore the effects of diseases so far as they are obvious to every observer can instruct any who make it their work to be conversant therein that are of capacity so as to be able to judge and distinguish one disease from another and by the Symptomes to discover if or no it do proceed in the ordinary course of the same malady or if by complication it doth alter and how this is as much as is absolutely requisite for a Physician in the knowledge of diseases for this knowledge doth essentially conduce to the cure but to be able to unfold the quiddity of it its efficient and continent causes the material and occasionate with other curiosities which a Philosopher doth contemplate upon and in which the intellect is occupied this adornes but doth not constitute a Physician So then the absolute things requisite in one who would conscionably undertake the lives of the sick are first to know how to unlock those medicines which the Almighty hath created and to prepare them and after how and when and to whom to apply them and how to order and dispose the Patient so as them which by careful administration of them is expected Mistake me not I do not deny nay I confidently affirm that he who is endowed with wisdom from above to be so curious and so diligent in his search as to attain the noble medicines which the Lord hath created for mans relief and unspeakable comfort he if he prove but so observant in the administration as he was acute in the preparation cannot but so far be mightned from Natures light in these observations as to apprehend the causes of the diseases and their whole quiddity or being which may by arguments à posteriori be collected from their effects as likewise he may be able to demonstrate à posteriori the cause and manner of cures wrought by medicines a work most worthily performed by noble Helmont which contemplation will wonderfully delight a true Son of this Art but yet as I said before this doth follow and adorn not precede and constitute a Physician And this I shall adde that the soul which is a I may say ipse in homine homo when once an effect is apparent and so known as to become a mechanism doth no farther any more reap content from it unless it be in reference to some deduction it gathers from it to the finding out of some new hidden truth nor doth the soul ever feed on it more as upon its object originally directly and in an absolute consideration no more then in the knowing how to make a fire or that the fire will burn boyl dry c.
Therefore justly saith the wise man that in much knowledge is much vanity and vexation of spirit but this only as a digression To return therefore we conclude that to a true Physician is required to know if a disease be probably curable and if so then how as for instance the plague-tokens appearing are rightly judged mortal and so may any such state be reputed in which nature will admit of no remedy nor death accept of any truce The careful observer of these things will by experience learn to distinguish between dangerous and desperate cases and so may order himself accordingly but in impossible cases he shall not meddle CHAP. IV. ANd here me thinks I see a Galenist beginning to frame a reply who after a few course complements doth thus out of his wonted gravity seek to defend his own faction Do not we quoth he the like in effect for we by our Art distinguish between easie dangerous and desperate diseases which we therefore undertake or leave accordingly For if there be only a light distemper as foulness of the stomack or bad humours clogging or obstructing the liver or the like we then by an usual purge or vomit and by bloudletting and glysters remove the same but if the distemper be more violent then by our Method we help that for that is our mystery which the prating Chymists not knowing cannot therefore do that by their medicines which we can by our method which is the master-piece of our Art for we are like to skilful workmen amid a number of tools we know our work and so can as cause presents and as Symptomes do move call in for this or that medicine and as occasion requires we can use external artificial helps when Nature is not in fit case to be provoked by a violent process This is the good old way and it is the safe way But these furnace-mongers would perswade the world that by medicines prepared by their Art diseases may be cut down as it were with a sithe which for all their boasting will not be These with several other things are pretended by them to conceal their ignorance in so blinde progresses But as it is an easie thing to lie hid in the dark the mantle of the night hiding that which the Sun discovers it will not be amiss to proceed to the true course of curing diseases and by it our adversaries will be easily quelled Besilius and Suchten both noble and worthy Artists advise as many as have given their name to Art to be doing and not to contend in bare words for it is as impossible to convince the Galenists with words without works as it was for Christ his Apostles to have convinced the Jewes by preaching without miracles therefore I shall first give you the Character of a true Physician and secondly shew you what his work is A true Physician is he whom God hath qualified with a longing desire to know nature in her operations her integrity and defects and how they may be amended For the attainment of which he doth ask seek and knock with diligence patience and constancy till it be given and opened unto him his heart is not set upon gain but out of charity to the distressed he doth persist in this pursuit of knowledge and the merciful God hears him and gives him what he seeks for then having received his talent he doth not bury it in a napkin but doth improve it untill with it he gain two and with them five and with them ten talents He knowes that diseases are all in their kinde curable without exception death only being out of the power of any man or means the definitive sentence being past irrevocable He laments the sad Catalogues of poor mortals the distresse members of Christ Jesus who flying from the Lion of sickness meet with a Bear in stead of a true Physician who in stead of bread gives them a stone and in stead of fish a serpent and yet these are the fathers of the sick so pretended to be but like old Saturn they devour and make a prey of their children He also that is a true Physician doth not seek fame and honour so much as the good of those he undertakes nor doth he startle at the sad catalogue of incurable diseases which the School Doctors have most shamefully compiled which he by his Medieines is able to overcome as the vlaiant champion is reported to have conquered the dovouring Monster His work is not to spend his time in turning over of leaves but he makes use of Authors so as not to conclude any thing upon bare reading without trial In a word he so behaves himself as if his great contest proposed were whether to be more assiduous in discovering nature or sedulous in conquering diseases of which the latter is the main end he aims at in the former Now I shall briefly discover the objections made by Galenists against this way of medicine and shall so fully answer them that there shall be no scruple left First of all they accuse Chymical Medicines as virulent too hot and therefore unsit to be given as oft in ftead of curing encreasing the disease they are say they a little too strong for our constirution being for the most part mineral and metalline or elese they are faline which are very sharp and corrosive or of a fiery sulphurous nature which therefore in stead of cooling and refreshing do inflame the body inwardly therefore say the such medicines are dangerous and desperate which if they were not they would as they make their patients believe use them themselves In such discourses you shall have them run at random and their aim in all is to make the sick believe that their medicameable to nature the other forcible violent and desperate which no man but a mad man would take This is to speak the truth the only main objection which Galenists usually produce against Chymical medicines and this they varnish over with many specious colours to make the patient believe that to meddle with a Chymical medicament is no other then to cast out the Devil by Delzebub or according to the old proveth to cure a desperate disease by a desperate medicine Therefore I shall briefly yet fully answer this cavil and so answer it that it may appear to the eye of any judicious man to be but a meer Morino which the Galenists have invented to scare the rude and ignorant with as nurses use to affright children with tales of Robin Good-fellow Raw head and bloudy bones and the like And first as to the point of irulency which is a very great Bugbear and enough to deterthe most confident Patient if once you can perswade him the remedies he is to take to be of an exquisite virulency for so a very smal error in the dose will hazard the life in stead of conquering the distemper Poyson I grant is a dangerous nay a desperate thing to deal with nor is it good to
well as the preparation of Medicines which knowledge doth help an Artist first in choice of Medicines and secondly in the administration of the same which is more then the word Chy mistry doth include Yea whatever it is that makes to the Art of healing diseases is properly Medicinal yea though it be miraculous yet it is the gist of healing or medicine or infernal and superstitious it is a Satanical imposture in medicine both which I exclude from the Art of Medicine the one as being above Art the other as besides Art But that I refer to this Art which by a natural couse doth perform cures whether by Talismans or by Sympathetical remedies or by proper Medicaments either specifical or universal whether simply used as Nature by the Art of the Physician and that either Chymistry doth also comprehend the most absolute and perfect Medicaments besides which nothing can be defired for any disease or defect either inward or outward except those accidents which necessarily require the work of the hand as Fractures and Dislocations and pulling out of any thing violently thrust into the body of what kinde soever it be So then we need not any Medicaments which Chymistry doth not supply yet the Art requiring the administration as well as the preparetion of the noblest Medicaments it followes that Chymistry is too narrow a Genus to comprehend the whole of Medicine which Art doth being equally referred to theory and Practick And yet Chymistry is larger then to betotaliy comprehended by the Art of Medicine for by it are prepared Diapasmes which are in a sort medicinal and sundry curiosities some not at all referring to medicine as the making of Jemmes malleable glasse c. others are referred to Medicine and alse transcend it as the Elixir of the wise the white respecting only riches the red both riches and health Yea and this supreme Medicine Both transcend the bare Art of reftoring defects of nature in as much as it doth lengthen life wonderfully although I know few do believe it So then the Art of Medicine contains these branches first the knowledge of disenses and secondly the way of their cure And this also contains two parts first the choice and preparation of Mediqines and secondly their administration their administration includes a true knowledge of their virtue and so a proporitionable and convenient application of them in reference to the cause of the disease and the state of the Patient And this is universally to be noted that the more languid the medicines themselves are the greater sagacity is required in the Theorical part and care joyned with dexterity in the practick I know that according to the received Doctrine of the Schools I sholuld now unfold many very unprositable questions but intending the reality of things and not respecting the empty bubbles of Aerical notions I shall not meddle with them I mean questions in reference to the desinition and division and subdivision of this Art To proceed then to what I intend I said that Medicine is the Art of knowing curing and restoring all diseases and defects to which mankinde is subject to in reference to the body as Theosophy doth the same in reference to the soul so that next to it this Art hath the first place I express knowing curing and restoring not without cause as i shall by and by explain Knowing I say because without the knowledge of diseases a man may be a Mountebank but not a Physician which knowledge of diseases is as it were his line and plumment by which he works By this he judges the facility or improbability of the cure for though no disease in its kinde yet many particular diseases are incurable as in my Preface I touched and explained nor shall I here repeat There also I did clearly discover what knowledge was absolute and what accidental to a Physician the one constituting the other adorning him the one to be required the other to be desired in him I shall also passe that as already spoken fully to Curing is as much as to say taking care of and imploying diligence about them nor any diligence is not enough or any care promiscuously for the nurse and cook c. docarefully attend the sick party but by cure or care which is all one being but the English of the Latine word Cura of the Physician is that which is intended to the recovery of the Patient and that with as much speed and sasety as may be I add restorng as the grand mark of a real and true son of Art it is his diploma by which he appears to be one created of God and not by the Schools for their creatures they adorn with titles God graceth his with real abilities His knowledge is not such as he sucks from the Schools but such as is applicable to action the other being but empty shadowes of which in its place His cure and care is not consisting only in reiterated Visits seeling of Pulses and tossing of urines Stirring of Close-stooles and appointing Purges Vomits Bleeding Fontinels Blisters Scarisications Leeches and such enseebling Martyrdoms nor prescribing Syrups distilled Waters of green Herbs Lozenges Electuaries and such fooleries and what is more sordid he doth not oversee the Kitchin to make this Gelly or that Broth or this Glyster or the like but like a valiant Achilles or Hercules he assayles the Disease with powerful and prevailing Medicines and for the o precise provided alwaies meat be not taken immoderately of any sort and stomack which is of easiest concoction but of this by the way we shall insist larger on it in its place He doth not cowardly sum up a Catalogue of incurable diseases so that as the ignorant Academians of old had their Gracum est nec potest legi so the School Doctors have a very large roll of maladies over which they only put this inscription Incurabiliasunt and so leave them with a sad recommendation to God But as the valiant Hercules sought against Giants and Monsters and ovencame them so a true Son of Art makes it appear that all diseases are in their kinde curable And now may Reverend Doctors who perhaps some of you have read Galen at least curforily and some have read Hippocrates but never understood him some have turned over Fernelius Sennertus Avicen and others both ancient and modern writers to you I speak The Art that you think your selves masters of so that you would perswade your selves to be the very natural Sons of Asculapius what is your Art let us weight it in the ballance let us consider it and compare it with this Art which we commend and admire and I dobut not but as a shadow before the Sun so your appearing Art before true Art will pass away Can you cure the Gout some perhaps haps of you will finde impudence enough to affirm it to whom I shall only object Fiat experimentuam The people deny it according to the Adagy Neseit nodosam medicus curare
podagram How then You can cure you will say the running Gout speak sostly I pray lest some of your patients heart you and object this And why then did you not cure me 'T will be a serious check But I suppose you much mistake the name and nature of the running Gout the Gout properly and truly is an Arthritical pain affecting the joynts immediately and some nerves sometimes by a Deuteropatheia a nd according to the situation it is called Podagra Cheiragra and Ischiatica to these I shall adde two other species to wit Cephalagia and Odontalgia which are reall branches of the same disease the Head-ach affecting the Meninges of the brain and the Tooth-ach the Roots of the teeth which are in these two griest equlvalent to joynts The Head-ach if tedious and durable is called commonly a Megrim the Tooth-ach retains alwaies its name Now all thse kindes of griefs are either habitual or accidental habitual either hereditary or gotten by some disorder or other The Accidental sorts of these griess are of their own nature transtent as having no fixed root and are caused by unusual cold or fals or strokes of strains it s healed or dislocations ill set and restrored or stactures ill conglutinated or else through some or other intemperance in meat or drink For the Remedy of the Tooth-ach if it come to extremity there is one only capital remedy of pulling them out which oft proves but an insufficient alwaies a lame remedy but our age hath found the way of counterfeiting the teeth which makes the loss appear the less For the Tooth-ach there are a thousand not to say more applications and tricks used to heart and abate the present pain and those sometimes effectual sometimes not at all for they are only topical and therefore at the best do but ease for the time others use Spels Charmes and Magical enchantmens for this end and yet for all this how many thousands there are who in their youth have their Teeth most rotted out and corrupted with this grief and all for want of help Well and what saith the Doctor to this In very deed he is as contemptible as a Bag-piper every old woman and nurse hath as many and as good Medicines for it as he Fie on your worship good Doctor with reverence to your gravity be it spoken are you not ashamed of your own craft which know not how radically to cure the Tooth-ach You will say it is a thing too mean for your gravity which therefore you leave to every Barber he being the only man when all is done for what with oyl of cloves Origanum Peper Vitriol c. he cannot mend with his instrument he can end But good Mr. Doctor why is your worship so squeamish and yet it is not below your worth to toss a piss-pot for a groat and to tell the Patient a long tale of you know not what your self when perhaps the grief is far of less concernment then the Tooth-ach What them Even this is the Reason here the cause is apparent every one knowes it as well as your self here is not room to juggle but you must come to action which you are as willing to as Hocus pocus is to act a Puppet-play with the curtain drawn open In cases that are not evident you can advise them to bring their water and this you will view as a Fortune-teller the palm of ones hand and then you have your tale as ready as a Jugler that shews his sights in Bartholomew-fair and a Bill to the Apothecary you can give them if need be or they desire it or some good counsel you have in readiness which if the case were your own you would think on it twice ere you would take it once But in such cases which oft experience hath made as notorious to others as to you there the Urinal must be thrown aside and then you are at your wits ends according to the Adagy Stercus urina medicorum fercula prima How then Marry thus The Academies have dub'd you and declared you Doctors which though at the first admission you know to be but a formal empty shew yet you had the knavery to dissemble it and the title bringing honour you are willing to accept it and that you may not make your selves ridiculours are apt and ready confidently to pretend what you know you have not that is skill And as a lyar by oft telling a lye doth at last come almost to beleeve it himself so at last after along profession you claim prescription which that you may not expose to derision you will undertake any thing and be as busie about any sick man as Davus in the Comedy he shall scarse piss but you will toss it nor go to stool but you will put your nose to it and stir it nor have a mess of broth drest but you will have a finger in its direction and as though you scorned Nature should stand cheek by joul with you if the patient be sleepy as oft times he must be kept waking yea and that on pain of death Massanelloes commands right if his stomack be indifferent he must be curbed in his diet if he be droughty and thirsty you will forbid him drink in a word you are of Caesars minde in that Aut viam inveniam aut faciam so you Aut morbum inveniam aut faciam If his appetite be to any thing more then other be sure that he must be restrained of and bound precisely to your Broths your Julips your Barley-waters Gellies c. In a word if the disease by too soon drawing to a period prevent you not you will use all the Electuaries distilled Waters Julips Diet-drink Potions Tablets Species and Cordials as you call them all the Herbs Flowers Seeds and Roots which you can probably conjâ—cture may chance to do good or at least you hope will do no hurt But if you prevail not here then as the Poet by degrees came to his Sicelides musae paulo majora canamus And from them to his Arma virumque cano So if your Diaeticall Cookery prevail nor as seldome in doth though sometimes for Reasons hereafter to be shewn then you go a step higher to gently Purges and Vomits as you call them and if those fail then by Issues or Blecding or Scarification or the like and lastly if all fail then you resolve to cure a desperate disease with a desperate medicine singing with the Poet this Palinode Flectere si nequeo superos Acheronta movebo Them must poysons be used in good earnest Helleboro purgandum Caput is an acient Adagy Hellebore Euforbium must do what Cochipils will not Opium must do what Lettice posset will not but first it must be mixed up into a ridiculous Laudanum Colocyntida Scammony must effect what Manna Sene Rhubarb will not O brave Doctors O capita Helleboro digna yet you are the men that cry out against poysons As though Scammony Colocyntide Elaterium
Esula Euphorbium Ialapium Bryony Asarum Aaron Hellebore and such like as Cambogia c. were not absolute Poysons O but they are tempered by the Art of the skilful Doctor Good words cost no money I wish it prove so But I pray Mr. Doctor if it be so what means the bleating of the sheep I mean what is the reason your Medicements retain their vomiting quality with convulsions of the stomack which have Hellebore mixed and their purging quality with gripings and such symptomes that have Scammony mixed thus you use to correct poysons thus you intend to cure diseases Minervain crassissimam But as a Jugler when his feats are discovered so you by this means become ridiculous you know the serious check the Frog in Aesop received who as you do would pretend to be a Doctor Our tibi ipsi labra livida non curas Coughs Colds Murres Hoarsenesses Head-aches Tooth-aches and the like nay oft-times the simple Itch and Scab doth reproach you at home and outdare you abroad and what is your excuse they are trivial cases By which it appears that if other diseases should become as common as these they would all be too mean for the Doctors reverence and good reason because they are above his abilities Though you name Mountebanks with contempt yet you differ from them obiefly herein They pretend skill in notorious diseases obiefly there where they are least or not at all known You in a place where you are most known are most desirous to deal in hidden unknown maladies How often shall a man finde the Doctors worship himself tormented and at his wits end with the Tooth-ach or Head-ach muffled up for a Hoarsness often coughing at every breath to whom if you object the common Proverb Physician heal thy self he will thank you heartily as much as if he did but he knowes he cannot do it but it must wear away he will take perhaps some old wives Medicine and what is the cause If another come to him for the same grief he is straight at his rules of Art the Cough saith he is caused by a Catharr and therefore first you must purge and then make an isfue and use Conserves of Fox-lungs and such like remedies why doth he not use these tricks himself this is the reason he knows it is a folly for these remedies are invalid yet be it as it will he that hath money shall have his counsel which he will not take himself because he wants some body to pay him for it and other good he expects none but the Patients confidence he hopes will help out the insufficiency of the Medicament which therefore he will confidently prescribe and count this his Counsel worth a Fee to another which to himself would not be worth taking Well be it so that according to the Proverb Aquila non capit muscas the Doctor is above these petty imployments which are too vulgar which might be the better beleeved if he were free from them himself yet I then desire to be enformed what they say to the forementioned Gout is not that a disease worthy their care and cure Yes without doubt for it is a disease that often followes great men and Heroes whom it so affects that he should not be unrewarded and that highly that could perform that here the Doctor hath proved his skill and method ad nauseam and at last he concludes it to be incurable Perhaps upon some disorder of the body by sudden heat and cold there may be caused a running and very sharp pain which as I said before is accidental and therefore transient the Doctor is advised and consulted with he adviseth fomentations unguents plaisters scar-cloths and scarifications then he purgeth the body once or again as the fansie takes him perhaps he will cause blisters to be drawn and after them cause issues to be made then he prescribes a Dietory and perhaps causeth him to sweat the pain goeth away sometimes he useth bathing of the part in hot Bathes either wet or dry then the Doctor strokes his beard and perswades himself he hath cured the running Gout Nesaevi magne sacerdos Oft times a good old woman sweating a party so taken soundly with Carduus Camomile-flowers batching the place affected with Brany Wine warm hath performed the like Amplaspolia This O this is the Doctors Method this is the Art they so magnifie in respect of which a Chymical Physician in contempt is by them termed an emperick and a Mountebank and what not We have seen their mystery in common maladies which are too vulgar for them a gallant excuse and in moe difficult cases in which being convinced by daily experience and opportunity of being more fully convinece still presenting it self hath extorted a confession of their impotency herein yet palliated with a shameless falshood that such discases are incurable which censure they give on a multitude of other diseases as the Phthisick Consumption Strangury Palsie Epilepsie and many others which it would be tedious to relate and hame But a true Physician acknowledges none of those shameful distinctions of trivial and considerable diseases nor that false distinction of curable and incurable but by his Art with Gods blessing he is able to cure and restore to their integrity all distempers of what kind soever which I shall briefly yet fully clear up and demonstrate This task may seem to some very difficult especially to a Pisse-Prophet who I suppose are very desirous to hear it demonstrated I doubt not but many of the Goosquill Tribe hope the contrary having this confidence that what ever is beyond their capacity is beyond possibility whom therefore I shall principally assail in this demonstration If any of you desire to know how I prove all disdases to be curable who am so consident to affirm it I shall aske you how you prove any diseases to be incurable which you so confidently affirm to be so I know that what ever you will answer though by much circumlocution it will all tend to this because you never could certainly cure such diseses there fore you so judge them In very truth Gentlemen if you from negative experience are so bold to collect a positive Maxim and confidently pronounce that incurable which you cannot cure I hope you will give the like liberty to a Son of Art to affirm those diseases to be curable which he hath oft and certainly restored Worth derision was that of an Ideot who being asked how many even and seven was he counted it on his fingers and could tell the number being asked how many four times seven was his finger Arithmetick failing he could not tell but being asked how many seven times seven was he said No man could tell he thought some men might possibly count up 4 times 7 but 7 times 7 God only knew So you some diseases you think you can cure others though you cannot yet some more experienced in your Art can but the knotted Gout Stone Strangury Epilepsie
of God in such cases or no what honour think you is Physician like to receive that when he is called to some Partient hath this shameful subterfuge it in not to be done Nor do there want examples sufficient to convince the truth of this if you were but as careful to minde true Artists and to incourage them as you are to hearken out all the vagabond and apostate Chymists and Empericks to make use of their ignorant rash adventures to the reproaching of true sons of Art Basilius Valentinus cures are beyond your cavils notorious so that he dared all the Doctors of his time to the field as I may say nor was he so contemptible a man to have exposed his credit so to derision in making such a challenge had not his cures been notorious Suchten a man of no obscure family and Georgius Phadro did both promise and perform the cure of diseases counted incurable Count Trevisan in his Treatise de Miraculo Chemico reckons up all incurable diseases which by his Medicine he affirmed that he had cured Paracelsus to the admiration of all Germany did both promise and perform the like as is beyond denial testified of him by an hounourable Prince of Germany in an honouble Epitaph for that end set upon his Tomb. Quercetan after him did effect most marvellous cures by this true Art whose testimony the quality of the man may make Authentical Yea so far was he from studying parties that his design was to supply the defects of Art in the common Apothecaries shops which he endevoured in his Pharmacopaea Dogmaticorum restituts in which he did exungue Leonem by those commoner things of Chymistry yet far surpassing the ordinary drugs do what he could to incite those who were diligent and judicious to a more serious search after secrets which because he would not prostitute he declared covertly yet nevertheless to a son of Art plain enough And in our Age the noble Helmont did perform the same to admiration and hath so satisfactorily written of the whole Art in his large volume every where extant that though many sharl and bark at him yet hitherto none hath appeared that durst take up the buckler against him What can you say to these men good Mr. Doctors are their testimonies true or no I suppose this question will prove to you as Christs in the like case did to the Pharisees and Scribes concerning the Baptism of John when he asked them if it were of heaven or of men If you confess it to be true then I aske you why you do not follow them why do you not beleeve them why do you reproach the Art so signally testified If you say it is not true the people will condemn you your own Chieftains-will convince you Sennertus Fernelius and many others have been forced to confess that of this Art in its commendation which would make your ears glow to hear it in English And to deal in good sadness How come you know any thing concerning the Art of Medicine Have you it not from testimony Are not Authors authorities your main pillars suppose your selves to be as you were before you had any practise yet you were dub'd Doctors and what was all your skill then but on credit are not the Herbals but so many collections of the Judgements of such Authors as have written on the subject And are the opinions of some men that you fancy to be believed before the absolute testimony of others What partiality is this What had Galen to induce credit more then Paracelsus Helmont Count Trevisan Valentinus Quercetan and those of his Art whose persons were noble whose learning not contemptible and who wrote not their placits but their experiences not what they thought but what they had done and could do Is a negation to be accounted as an oracle before a positive affirmation Away with this madness If you would desire a reason for the curableness of all diseases I answer the effect is to be the proof of the cause I suppose you are so good Logicians as to know that cause and effect do mutually argue each other If then all diseases in kinde have been are and may be cured then they are curable The assumption is proved by testimonies sufficient by experience and no obscure grounds from the Scripture CHAP. II. The insufficiency of vulgar Medicines is the cause why many Diseases are judged inourable BY the Catalogue of incurable Diseases it may appear what and how many diseases there be which the Doctor confesseth are without the reach of his medicines and method We shall take them at their word who grant indeed that they cannot cure them but that they are not therefore cureable that we have upon good ground denied Now let us consider the efficacy of their method and medicines in other cases which they do account curable and examine what they do perform there But first I shall adde a word or two of serious reproof to them in reference to the former number of incurable maladies in that they to me seem not a little culpable If they would candidly wave the cure of such griefs and deal ingenuously with the sick Patient it were commendable in them as honesty although they should much diminish their reputation thereby But yet though they I mean the ablest of the sect do confesse their unsufficiency to cure such and such maladies yet this notwithstanding if any through ignorance of their abilities come to them in any such case they will not turn him away verifying therein the sordid saying of an unworthy Emperor Dulcis odor lucri ex re qualibet And yet for this they want no a shift and a poor one too Although say they were know not certainly to cure it yet we know the causes of it what breeds it and what feeds it these we cannot totally remove but we can so diminish bad humors which is as fuel to it that it shall not be so dangerous nor so troublesom as else it would be also we can apply remedies to abate Symptomes and this Art will do These are good words which if they knew not how to give it is pity but they had been turned to plough when they had been first sent to the School But as good words alone will never satisfie a hungry belly so will it less profit in so difficult a case What our Doctors can do in abating the Symptomes of the Gout the Stone the Epilepsie the Palsie I desire to know and learn nay in a less case then those mentioned in the Quartan Feaver I confess that in the time of misery the Patient oft times will admit of any help real or only promised according to that old saying A drowning man will catch at a straw But the Doctors ready affording to them their help and counsel when called in such and other the like cases and performing nothing in lieu of great fees doth make them justly at last ridiculous so that the name of a Doctor is as
he hath not strength left to help the Physicians Medicines nature having been so exhausted that for want of strength it faints under its load nor hath it strength sufficient left to co-work with the Medicine and sometimes the defect of the highest Arcana which every true son of Art cannot command doth make many hereditary diseases and some chronical which are raised to a more then usual height to be out of his Medicaments reach which otherwise would be cured by a powerful Arcanum And here is the goodness of the most High that no man can truly boast himself to be a real son of Art but he hath at command Medicines to cure the most common and truculent diseases as for instance Feavers Pleurisies Flixes of all sort Agues of all sort small Pox and Measles which are indeed but a branch of Feavers Calentures also which belong to the same head the Jaundies Head-aches Tooth-aches with all running pains Hypochondrical Colicks affections of the Mother and obstructions of all sorts causing indigestion Palpitations Syncopes Convulsions Vertigoes c. which a true son of art can confidently undertake and cure and though some are past recovery of life as is before said yet even to such his Medicaments will be effectual for ease and comfort and abating of raging Symptomes which is an effect not to be despised where more cannot be attained That therefore may well and truly be account a Febrisuge which ordinarily speedily and powerfully cures Feavers of all sorts at first or second dose oft times but never exceeds four daies in continual Feavers if administred in the beginning and Agues oft at one fit never misseth in three or four at most perfectly to cure and although some Feavers which have been neglected too long ere remedy be sought do miscarry yet of such not one of five of those that are taken in time not one in a hundred which doth not disprove the virtue or efficary of the medicine I know what will be said in calumny against me though not in answer to me namely that I am an Emperick and by an Emperick they usually would have understood one who practiseth by fortuirous receipts without the knowledge of the cause of the disease or nature of what he administers and therefore shoots his shafts at randome This hath been an old reproach of Paracelsus Helmont Quercetan and all Chymical Physicians and therefore I shall not wonder if it be cast upon me But as a worthy friend of mine when a great Doctor of the Galenical Tribe very passionately reproached me to him as an Emperick and Mountebank asked him the difference between such a one and a dub'd Doctor The Galenist answered the one shot at random the other wrought according to Art and Method to which my friend replyed that to his knowledge I cured not only speedily but certainly and constantly those diseases namely Agues which the other Doctors alwaies failed in curing now if this were the difference between an Emperick and a Colleague of the Colledge that the first at randome as he objected never or very seldom missed but such as himself by Art never or very seldom hit the cure he had rather have an Empirical certain constant and safe cure then an artificial missing of the same It is known to the most vulgar and ignorant that not only Chronical diseases are out of the Doctors reach but all acute diseases also which nature doth not of his own accord cure which may appear by the effect How many Feavers do they cure certainly none if we judge that for a cure which is indeed so to be judged where the Crisis is prevented by the efficacy of the Medicine but how many in a year outlive the Crisis many daies through the strength of Nature and yet die meerly through the Doctors taking part against nature by phlebotomy purging c. who is hited by the patient to oppose the disease against which their Medicines are as effectuall as the Priests holy-water is against the Devil or the ringing of Bels and mumbling a Pater-noster on their heads to both of whom I may say that of the Satyrist Ah pecus insipidum unllo non scommate dignum Siccine vos decuit fieriludtbria vulgi I have oft seriously wondred how it should come to pass that these silly Juglers should so long shuffle out since there is scarce one in the whole Nation that ever made use of them who in health hath not a flout ready in his bag to throw in a Galenists dish and yet in sickness they deifie in a manner those very men whom in health they scorned and I cannot but ascribe it to the justice and wisdom of God who is pouring forth his plagues all the world over I mean among Christians by which the third part of the world shall perish and I think in my conscience that few less perish by the Doctors crast 'T is a sad consideration that Christians only swarm with these Caterpillars the Heathens not knowing nor owning nor following their method witness the Turks Moores c. And then began it to grow to this head of esteem when the apostacy of Christians provoked God to the pouring forth of his plagues of which the most truculent of all is the Doctors Art The sword and all diseases put together destroy not so many as they namely such as by Natures strength would recover but are destroyed by the Doctors Art Without these the Romans flourished 500 years nor found any want of them Now Italy and Rome swarmes with them and never did diseases raign there as now and of all places where are the yearly burials comparable to those places where Doctors are most numerous How do they swarm in London and yet not a year in which many thousands dye not of curable deseases 'T is sad it should be so and yet who sees it not Let a disease be but epidemical the Doctor cals it a new disease although no other then an epidemical Feaver and here he is the by-word of every water-bearer In Agues especially Autumnal and popular who more ridiculous and yet the people though they see and know this nevertheless submit to them and adore them in necessity to the cheating them of their money and the loss of their lives By all which it is most most evident that their Medicines are but ridiculous so named a medendo as Lucus a lucendo quod minimè medeantur which may scarcely pass as metaphors to true Medicines nor can any good be predicated of them without an Irony If we should take a particular survey of all their Medicines we shall finde them all partly ridiculous and partly desperate universally answering to their denomination as the rude painters draughts of old did the things they represented under which if it were not written this is a Dog this is a Cow this is a Stag this a Man this a Cock c. no man by the draught could tell what the picture represented so if those were