Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	day_n	die_v	think_v	4,534	5	4.2966	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93809	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.	Starkey, George, 1627-1665.; Helmont, Franciscus Mercurius van, 1614-1699.	1658 (1658)	Wing S5280; Thomason E1635_2; ESTC R13346	111,247	400

Gunner to fire a Gun that is charged with good powder and he with a lighted linstock in his hand nor is it presumption in the one more then in the other but alas is it not evident that if a Doctor be called to a sick man though at the beginning of the disease and in his full strength yet he can promise nothing but to do his endevour as the man doth who according to the man doth who according to the Proverb thresheth in his cloak whence it appears that when ever any one recovers he doth it only through Natures benignity and not by any art of the Doctor who could not warrant the cure much less how soon it would be effected Fie on that Art which alone of all Arts in the world can not dare not will not warrant to perform what it undertakes when as the most hazarbable Art of all Agriculture and the Mariners Art are usually warranted yet we know that the winds which are the directors and accomplishers under God of the Mariners design blow where they list rarely trade and the crop of the husbandman if the early and latter rains do but fail either impared or else quite frustrated yet both one and the other are warranted by the undertakers on penalty of loss of all their labour and cost at the least and oft times a voyage by Sea is warranted by Merchants for a small inconsiderable gain to be paid to them at adventure in lieu of which they will repay the whole if lost only the Doctor is of another minde for he will be paid at adventure nor will he warrant any thing in lieu of his payment but to do his endevour which is a ridiculous cheat of the sick both of their money and lives If a Taylor when cloath is brought him should demand pay at a venture and yet not promise to perform his work but only to do his endevour even the Doctor himself would think him as well deserving his wages as they in Lubberland deserve twelve pence by the day for sleeping but especially if such a Taylor should spoyl the cloth so brought him by cutting it into shreds in stead of making it into a garment and do thus ten times for once making a garment and yet exact his pay how like a knave would his acting be and yet how like a Doctor who never doth otherwise Contrariwise a Son of Art he confidently undertaketh a disease and as certainly performes what he undertaketh he comes armed with powerful Medicaments and not with a simple impotent method which are as effectual to the person that is sick for his recovery as water would be for the quenching of fire not that he attempts any thing without the blessing of God for he acknowledgeth it a great mercy of him first to have provided such Medicines in Nature for such maladies and secondly in revealing them to him for the help of mankinde and lastly in bringing him to those who finde help by him for otherwise where God intends a disease shall be fatal to any he with-holds the means from him either totally or so long till it be too late to recover him For although the consequent which is drawn from the cause to the effect be ceitain and undeniable yet the cause amy acidentally be trustrated of its effect by accident yet so that the cause doth not cease to be a cause notwithstanding I might instance in all generations which by accident may be hindred the fire may not burn what is combustible if by accident that be made too wet so water will not quench fire if the quantity be too little so a man cannot be cured by a medicine if already death be possest of the principal parts or if the party be not sensible and so will not take it otherwise it cannot be but that a medicine indeed must work its effect alse it is no Medicine But here it will not be amiss to answer a cavil I doubt not but some adversaries will object to me as of old was objectd to Paracelsus Do you cure all Do none die of your Patients To these I shall answer that indeed all do not recover and yet the truth of what I say nothing infringed for against all discases there is a remedy but against death none that only is out of the reach of all medicines Now if God hath numbred a mans daies and finished them it is not to be objected to the disgrace of a Medicine that it cannot prevail against the irrecoverable decree If that were all that were to be objected against the Galenists method and practise we should never finde fault with them for it is appointed to all men once to die and all our daies are numbred every man is not to live ad aetatem decrepitam But with all this we say that thought our Medicines cannot triumph over death yet against the miseries of life They will prevail over the disease even there where recovery of life is impossible and therefore a true febrifuge will refresh abate Symptomes compose and bring to quiet even there where the seat of life is possessed by death which is a levamen thought not a Restanratio Sometimes the stroke of death deludes with the face of a disease at least shewing some of the common usual symptomes of a Feaver not easily to be discerned and that because it is as we say preter spem Not hoped for and so not so easily beleeved according to the Adagy Facile speramus quae fieri volumus facilius quod speramus credimus And so on the other hand what a man would not have he is not apt to believe Adde to this the commiseration we have to those that are afflicted and in sickness which would make us desire to be instrumental in any thing which is for their recovery And lastly if a man do doubt the worst yet it is not good to affright the Patient with his jealousies which leave a deep impression on his spirit and make the hope if any were oft times desperate To conclude as nothing is without a cause and therefore diseases are curable because Medicines are endowed by God with such a virtue so that some particular diseases are excepted from the rule of the generals there are particular causes of which it is most true Faelix qui poterit rerum dignoscere causas Yet a Son of Art by his Medicines is able to cure what is curable which all diseases are in their kinde though sometimes the disease being heightned almost to its utmost period before he is called so that death having conquered the chief places will not accep of any truce sometimes the party is struck with deaths stroke at first which causing a commotion of the Archeus disdaining to be so overmastered by its adversary doth appear like unto an ordinary acute disease yet without possibility of cure unless by his power who can raise the dead sometimes the patient hath undergone so much of the Galenical Tribes methodical Butchery that

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

gemmae in trivio Those who were the first Heroes of this Art did hide the secrets of it so from the conusance of the vulgar that they had a Divinity ascribed unto themselves in reference to their hidden and secret skill only Galen to get a name made a great noyse about the world taking upon him to unveil Medicine and expose her naked to the eye of the most unworthily sordid covetous practitioner of the Art but as he who did but dare to gaze upon Diana naked was crowned with horns and made a prey unto his dogs so he who assayed such violence to this chaste and most retired Nymph is worthily rewarded with Midas purchase viz. a pair of Asses ears Those who know and see how studiously any of their own sect doth hide any one Receipt or Medicine which the finde singular so that many of them have never revealed it dying who would imagine them to be such Animals that whatever they read they should straight believe provided the Author have but had the luck to die famous and straightway to draw it into their Dispensatory to be put in practise by the Apothecary As though many who do write aiming at pomp and applause do not write meerly conjectures which they account rational Adde to this Natures simplicity which doth that with one or two things duly prepared and applyed which would not be done by all the Doctors pompous receipts which by hap some or other lighting of either by conference with some good old woman or having by success found the reality of the thing which the Doctor willing to advance by his method of extracting candying or conserving or compounding he finds it to answer his expectation worse in composition then in its simplicity with a due preparation which therefore he keeps to himself as a secret and perhaps gets much credit by it for that is the Doctors craft that what a good old woman shall do by natures simplicity shall be judged not worth thanks yet the same done by him shall be enhanced within a degree of a miracle two or three such trivial experiments yet more effectual then the ordinary slops perhaps he accounts his mystery which he will not discover till at last dying he is won to impart them to the world which he knowing to be so simple that if told sincerely would be received with this of the Poet Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici He therefore garnishes out the naked simple truth with addition of many things which he hopes or thinks will be but as herb John in Pottage of which some by reason of their dearness some for the hardness of procurement may raise a reverend esteem of that secret so much esteemed in his life and which he fears if nakedly declared would be contemptible after death and thus what to him was effectual being by his direction clog'd and perverted with a fortuitous medley becomes frustrate hence it is that so many things which were famous to the Inventor are at this day but contemptible slops Thus the Countess of Kents Powder is since her death brought into usual receipts which I rather suppose is a spurious Receipt forged by others then left by her yet in that she wanted not her costly additions which added to the price but diminished the virtue of the Simples the like may be said of Gascoines Powder which is by some accounted the ground of the other But what I particularise these things for I do to this end that it may appear how sottishly Doctors take for granted what ever they read in a book written by any man who was famous in his life which must needs be believed and taken thus on credit is so transmitted unto the Apothecaries to be accordingly prepared when as their secrets which they so esteemed they concealed in their life what they could and might have many reasons not to leave candidly written after death Partly lest the naked simplicity of them should bring them into contempt but it may be chiefly because perhaps to some friends under colour of friendship they have enviously given wrong Receipts which they must not alter at death lest they should brand themselves with a black note of infamy by so doing or for other reasons which it is not my design to reckon up or to endevour to conjecture only the grand reason I doubt not is because when a Doctor gets such a secret how simple soever it be he values it to the Patient richer then if made of Gold and Jems which therefore when ever published to the world must have some costly additions to make his price seem conscionable lest after his death by his own confession all that ever have used his Medicines should judge him an unconscionable cheat and so posterity falsly attributed the singularity of the virtue of the Medicine to the most costly ingredients come at last to leave out or neglect at least the due care and choyce of the most effectual ingredient Not that I do judge or think or contend for that a Physician is to sell his Medicines at the rate they cost him allowing such or such gain for his pains as a Merchant or Shop-keeper takes No verily for first Medicines are not every mans money the whole need them not and for their own use so long as healthy would not value that at twenty pence which might cost twenty pound The sick only needs them and to such they are precious if effectual and applyed in season As then I do not value Ambergreece the less because it is oft found by chance and seldom costs the finder more then his pains to take it up the like may be said of Jems in their first finding so I do not value a Medicine by what it costs but by what it will do and according to the party to whom it is applyed As then a poor mans credit is as dear to him as rich mans yet a defamation which to one may not be valued at six pence may to another be valued at six hundred pound so a Medicine which will cure both rich and poor though given to the poor for nothing yet doth not argue that it cost the maker of it nothing and though the making of it cost not above five shillings yet this doth not hinder but it may be valued to a rich man at five pound if it really do him more advantage then perhaps he would be without for five hundred pound A Physician then is bound only to the rules of true Charity and being given of God to help and relieve the lives of many that are endangered he may and that piously so take of the rich as to be able to help the poor freely and yet as cordially and as truely affording to them his best help and remedies for nothing as he doth to the rich for a reward Yet is it not fit that any reward should be accounted due where the disease is not cured for the Patient doth not want a Doctor for to

is threatned by giving poyson into the body is not to be adventured in hopes of a casual good But moreover I shall give the studious Reader to understand that in many vegetable Simples under the mask of virulency great and noble virtues are hidden which are kept by the poysonous appearance from rash hands as the apples of the Hesperides were feigned to be kept by a watchful Dragon or as the passage to the Tree of life was guarded by a flaming sword in the hand of Cherubims Thus in Hellebore under the churlish vomitive poyson caused with convulsion both of stomach and nerves is hidden a most noble remedy against Hypocondriack melancholy the Gout Epilepsie Convulsions and quartian or third day Ague which so baffles Physicians that it is grown to a proverb Quartanam nescit medicus propellere febrim So in Colocynthida under the laxative venome is hidden an excellent febrifuge so in Asarum roots a gentle remedy for slow lingring Feavers and so I could instance in Opium and many other Simples But he that thinks that the vomitive laxative or deleterial qualities in these simples are the effective causes of the good done by them is mistaken but they are only as a clog to a mastiffe or as a sheath to a sharp sword by which their excellency is not only held back but also notably perverted by this dangerous companion insomuch that nature abhorring the malignant virulency doth not admit oft times of the remedy although something in strong constitutions where the poyson cannot make that impression which in weaker bodies it would the vertue of the concrete through the cloud of its venome doth yeeld some irradiation of its specifick benignity to the extinguishing a disease which through Gods mercy sometimes fals out but little to the Doctors credit who gives the bad with the good being penally blinded with ignorance only by means of pride and sloth What is said of purges or laxatives may in their kinde be said of Vomits which quatenus talia intend only a violence to nature which sensible of their hostility rages and cals for help as I may say from its neighbours that is the Latex and the alimentary humour of the part affected which are oft time prodigally spent sometimes by vomit sometimes by siege sometimes both waies to wash away that odious character impressed maugre which diligence of the Archeus the impression sometimes perseveres till death which is effectively caused by this Medicine falsly so called being truly the reall poyson while the poor butchered Patient thinking to have a disease only purged away loseth his life either by an obstinate vomiting or an unconquerable loosness Thus the other day I heard of one in Fleetstreet a lusty man who for some distemper took a purge which when it was thought it had done working had left such a venemous tincture in the bowels as was not washed away with fewer then about three hundred stools in about three daies time and so he had like to paid for the Doctors folly with the price of his life besides his money Yet this must be a brave Art and he that cannot do thus in conscience must ipso facto be termed an Emperick and Mountebank To conclude this venomous vomiting and laxative subject we yeeld that vomits and purges as such may by accident remove a distemper inasmuch as they inrage the Archeus by their venome which growing mad by reason of so odious a guest rages to and fro without order or reason falling out with what ever comes in the way and as in case of a fire in the City the Pipes are broke up so here the next alimentary moisture is made use of to blot out this tinsture of venom the stomack turned up down the bowels torn and griped for moisture and in this general hurly burly perhaps something that before was offensive is cast out and thus is the devil cast out as it were by Beelzebub or as if a man should rid his breath of the smell of Onions by eating garlick this is the mystery of the Galenists which is little better then the mystery of iniquity A Patient is troubled perhaps with an Ague and the Doctor in the first place some I am sure do orders bloud-letting that is by striking a terror into the Archeus through loss of the bloud which threatens and strikes at the root of life indeavouring to cause it to leave its rage which sometimes it doth on the score of terrefaction but if this prevail not then is either a vomitive or laxative poyson given inwardly under the imposed name of a medicine and by this the Archeus is brought as we may say adrestim and enforforced to play one game for life and all hoping that in this commotion that is made the Archeus with the poyson may cast out what before inraged it and by being put into a greater danger may forget or neglect what before provoked it to fury as a man in imminent danger of his life will forget or neglect the loss of his goods which otherwife would trouble him sufficietly I appeal to all ingenious men if this be not a notable performance and yet it is the whole of the Doctors craft besides which he hath nothing but Juleps and Lozenges and such trinkets of which every Confectioner and curious huswife is better stored then he Whose method waves still from one extreme to another their potions and doses which they call Physick being so cursedly loathsom as if they were made to poyson Cerberus insomuch that the sight of many purging potions is enough to make most men and women vomit to sweeten which their method stores them with cordial fopperies of which may truly be said that of the Poet Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici Syrups of Clove gelly-flowers with all sorts of Conserves and Preserves Marmalads Quiddenies and the like are of this list which with Diascordium Methridate Alchermes and Theriacle distilled waters and the like serve if to nothing else yet to multiply the Doctors Fees and to enlarge the Apothecaries Bils and that is enough for them who care for nothing else Well then if this be not the way of curing diseases what is may a studious and ingenious Reader ask of me I have hinted it before and shall more fully insist upon it I say adaequate remedies are to be studied for the cure of diseases and by study they are to be found such I mean which will be to the extinguishing a disease as water will quench fire And this I shall be bold to adde that all the tricks that are used by the Galenists as they say according to their Method viz. Bleeding Vesications Scarifications Fontinels Cauteriés Diaetical prescriptions c. are but silly poor shifts analogical to Adams fig-leaves to hide his nakedness childish fopperies to deceive their abused Patients and to make themselves appear diligent curendo while they want adaequate remedies that might be morbum medendo therefore my brethren as many of you