determine the possibility and truth of a matter which is doubtful I shall content my self because I would not trespasse too much upon your patience at this time to make instance in one onely but it shall be one of the clearest the most perspicuous and the most averred that can be not onely for the remarkable circumstances thereof but also for the hands which were above the Vulgar through which the whole businesse passed For the cure of a very sore hurt was perfected by this Power of Sympathy upon a person that is illustrious as well for his many perfections as for his several employments All the circumstances were examined and sounded to the bottom by one of the greatest and most knowing Kings of his time viz. King Iames of England who had a particular talent and marvailous sagacity to discusse natural things and penetrate them to the very marrow As also by his Sonne the late King Charles and the Duke of Buckingham their prime Minister And in fine all was registred among the observations of great Chancelor Bacon to adde by way of Appendix unto his Natural History And I believe Sirs when you shall have understood this History you will not accuse me of vanity if I attribute unto my self the Introducer unto this Quarter of the World this way of curing Mr. Iames Howel well known in France for his publick works and particularly for his Dendrologia translated into French by Monsieur Baudouin coming by chance as two of his best friends were fighting in duel he did his endeavour to part them and putting himself between them seized with his left hand upon the hilt of the sword of one of the Combatants while with his right hand he laid hold of the blade of the other they being transported with fury one against the other strugled to rid themselves of the hindrance their friend made that they should not kill one another and one of them roughly drawing the blade of his sword cuts to the very bone the nerves and mussles of Mr. Howels hand and then the other disingaged his hilts and gave a crosse blow on his adversaries head which glanced towards his friend who heaving up his sore hand to save the blow he was wounded on the back of his hand as he had been before within It seems some strange constellation raigned then against him that he should lose so much bloud by parting two such dear friends who had they been themselves would have hazarded both their lives to have preserved his but this unvoluntary effusion of bloud by them prevented that which they should have drawn one from the other For they seeing Mr. Howels face besmeared with blood by heaving up his wounded band they both run to embrace and having searched his hurts they bound up his hand with one of his garters to close the veins which were cut and bled abundantly They brought him home and sent for a Surgeon But this being heard at Court the King sent one of his own Surgeons for his Majesty much affected the said Mr. Howel It was my chance to be lodged hard by him and four or five dayes after as I was making my self ready he came to my House and prayed me to view his wounds for I understand said he that you have extraordinary remedies upon such occasions and my Surgeons apprehend some fear that it may grow to a Gangrene and so the hand must be cut of In effect his countenance discovered that he was in much pain which he said was unsupportable in regard of the extream inflammation I told him that I would willingly serve him but if haply he knew the manner how I would cure him without touching or seeing him it may be he would not expose himself to my manner of curing because he would think it peradventure either ineffectual or superstitious he replyed That the wonderful things which many have related unto me of your way of medecinement makes me nothing doubt at all of its efficacy and all that I have to say unto you is comprehended in the Spanish Proverb Hagase el milagro y bagalo Mahoma Let the miracle be done though Mahomet do it I asked him then for any thing that had the bloud upon it so he presently sent for his garter wherewith his hand was first bound and as I called for a Bason of water as if I would wash my hands I took a handfull of Powder of Vitrol which I had in my study and presently dissolved it As soon as the bloody garter was brought me I put it within the Bason observing in the interim what Mr. Howel did who stood talking with a Gentleman in a corner of my Chamber not regarding at all what I was doing but he started suddenly as if he had found some strange alteration in himself I asked him what he ailed I know not what ailes me but I find that I feel no more pain me thinks that a pleasing kind of freshnesse as it were a wet cold napkin did spread over my hand which hath taken away the inflammation that tormented me before I replyed since then that you feel already so good an effect of my medicament I advise you to cast away all your playsters onely keep the wound clean and in a moderate temper twixt heat and cold This was presently reported to the Duke of Buckingham and a little after to the King who were both very curious to know the circumstance of the businesse which was that after dinner I took the garter out of the water and put it to dry before a great fire it was scarce dry but Mr. Howels servant came running that his Master felt as much burning as ever he had done if not more for the heat was such as if his hand were twixt coles of fire I answered that although that had happened at present yet he should find ease in a short time for I knew the reason of this new accident and I would provide accordingly for his Master should be free from that inflammation it may be before he could possibly return unto him but in case he found no ease I wished him to come presently back again if not he might forbear coming Thereupon he went and at the instant I did put again the garter into the water thereupon he found his Master without any pain at all To be brief there was no sense of pain afterward but within five or six dayes the wounds were cicatrized and entirely healed King Iames required a punctual information of what had passed touching this cure and after it was done and perfected his Majesty would needs know of me how it was done having drolled with me first which he could do with a very good grace about a Magitian and a Sorcerer I answered That I should be alwayes ready to perform what his Majesty should command but I most humbly defired him before I should passe further to tell him what the Authour of whom I had the secret said to the great Duke of Toscany upon
coming up the hill behind for having more men to carry my chair than they had I was there sooner It was not long that I might perceive the said fog descend gently to the place where I was and I began to feel a freshnesse that came over my face when I turned it that way When all my Troup was come about me we went descending the other side of Mount Cenis towards Suze and the lower we went we sensibly found it that the wind began to blow hard behind our backs for our way obliged us to go towards the side where the Sun was We met with Passâ—ngers that were going up and we down they told us that the wind was very impetuous below and did much incommodate them by blowing in their faces and eyes but the higher they came it was lesser and lesser and touching our selves when we had come to the place where they said the wind blew so hard we found a kind of storm and it encreased still the lower we went untill the Sun being well advanced drew no more by that line but caused a wind in some other place The people of that Country assured me that it was there alwayes so if some extraordinary and violent accident did not intervene and divert his ordinary course which is that upon a certain hour of the day the wind doth raise it self to such a rumb or point when the Sun is come to auother point another wind riseth and so from hand to hand it changes the point till the Sun set which alwayes brings with it a calm if the weather be fair and that alwayes comes from the Mount Viso opposite to the Sun They told us also that the daily wind is commonly stronger towards the bottom of the Mountain than towards the top whereof the reason is evident for the natural movement of every body natural doth encrease always in swiftnesse according as it moves forward to its center and that in an unequal number as Galileo hath ingeniously demonstrated I did it also in another Treatise that is to say that if at the first moment it advanceth an ell in the second it advanceth three in the third five in the fourth seven and so it continueth to augment in the same manner which proceeds from the density and figure of the descending body acting upon the cellibility of the medium And these smal bodies which cause a wind from Mount Viso are thick and terrestrial for the snow being composed of aquatical parts and of earthly united by the cold when the heat of the Solar beams doth disunite and separate them the viscous parts flie with them while the terrestrial being too heavy to fly upward fall presently downward This makes me remember a very remarkable thing which befel me when I was with my Fleet in the Port of Scanderon or Alexandrette towards the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea there they use to disimbark when they go to Aleppo or Babylon I had done already what I had intended to do in those seas and happily compassed my design so it imported me much to return to England as soon as possibly I could and the rather because my Ships were battered by a great fight which I had had a little before against a formidable power which although I had obtained the better yet in so furious a dispute my Fleet was in some disorder and my Ships full of wounded men To advise therefore of the most expedient road to come to some harbour where I might repair my Ships and be in surety I assembled all my Captains Pilots and Mariners the most experienced of my Fleet and having propounded unto them my design they were all of an unaminous opinion that the surest course was towards the South and to coast upon Syria Iudea Egypt and Africa and render our selves at the streight of Gibraltar and sailing so near the body of the earth we should have every night some small briezes of wind whereby we should in a short time make our voyage And besides we should not be in any great danger to meet either with Spanish or French Fleets for England was at that time in open war with both those Kings and we had advise that they had great Fleets abroad to vindicate some things we had done in prejudice of them both those sixteen moneths that we remained Master of those seas therefore it concerned us to make towards some safe Port where we might both refresh our men and repair our battered Vessels My opinion was clean contrary to theirs for I believed our best course were to steer our course Westward and to saile along the coasts of Cilicia Pamphylia Lydia Natolia or Asia the Lesse and to traverse the mouth of the Archipelago leave the Adriatick on the right hand and passe by Sicily Italy Sardinia Corsica the Golps of Lion and so coast all Spain telling them that it would be a great dishonour unto us to forsake our best road for fear of the enemy for our chief businesse thither was to find them out and the protection which it pleased God to afford us all along in so many combats in going was cause to make us hope that the same providence would vouchsafe to guide us as we should be returning That there was no doubt but the road which I proposed unto them considered simply in it self was not without comparison the better and the more expedit to saile out of the Mediterranean sea and gain the Ocean because said I that although we have the briezes from off the earth as long as we were upon the coasts of Syria and Egypt we shall not have them at all while we saile upon the coasts of Lybia where there are those fearfull sands which they call the Syrtes which are of a great extent the said coast having no humidity for there is neither tree nor herb grows there for there is nought else but moving sands which covered and enterred heretofore at one glut the puissant Army of King Cambyses Now where there is no humidity the Sun cannot attract to make a wind so that we shall never find there specially in Sommer time any other wind but that Regular wind which blows from East to West according to the course of the Sun who is the father of winds unlesse some extraordinary happen either from the coast of Italy which lies Northward or from the bottom of Ethiopia where the Mountains of the Moon are and the source of the Cataracts of Nile therefore if we were neer the Syrtes the winds of Italy would be most dangerous unto us and expose us to shipwrack I reasond so according to natural causes while they of my Councel of war kept themselves firm to their experience which was the cause that I would do nothing against the unanimous sense of all for although the disposing and resolution of all things depended absolutely upon my self yet I thought I might be justly accused of rashnesse or willfulnesse if I should prefer my own advise
execution of a Criminal who had his neck broken according to the laws of France whereof the took such an affrightment that made so deep a print upon her imagination that presently she fell in labour of her child and before they could carry her to her lodging but she was brought to bed before her time of a child who had his head severed from his body both the parts yet shedding fresh bloud besides that which was abundantly shed in the womb as if the headsman had done an execution also upon the tender young body within the matrix of the mother These three Examples and many others truely alleadged which I could produce although they mainifestly prove the strength of the imagination would engage me too far if I should undertake to clear the causes and unwrap the difficulties which would be found greater then in any of those instances wherewith I have entertained you because that those spirits had the power to cause such essential changes and fearful effects upon bodies that were already brought to their shapes of perfection and it may be well believed that in some of them there was a transmutation of one species to another the introduction of a new informing form in the subject-matter totally differing from that which had been introduced at first at least if that which most Naturalists tell us at the animation of the Embryo in the womb be true but this digression hath been already too long Est modus in Rebus sunt certi denique fines Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere Rectum To return then to the great channel and thread of our Discourse the examples and experiments which I have already insisted upon in confirmation of the reasons which I have alleadged do clearly demonstrate that the bodies which draw the atomes dispersed in the air attract unto themselves with a greater power and energy such as are of their own nature then other heterogeneous and strange atomes As wine doth the vinal spirits The oyl of tartar fermented by the levain of Roses draws the volatil spirits of the rose The flesh of deer or vemson buried in crust attracts the spirits of those beasts and so all the other whereof I have spoken The History of the Tarantula in the kingdom of Naples is very famous you know how the venome of this animall ascending by the hurt that the party hath received being pricked therewith towards the head and the heart doth excite in their Imagination an impetuous desire to hear some melodious aires and most commonly they are delighted with differing aires Therefore when they listen to an aire that pleaseth them they begin to dance incessantly and thereby they fall a sweating in abundance in such sort that this sweat makes a great part of the venom to evaporate besides the sound of the musick doth raise a movement and causeth an agitation among the aerean and vaporous spirits which are in the brain and about the heart and diffused up and down through the whole body proportionably according to the nature and cadence of such musick as when Timotheus transported Alexander the Great with such a vehemency to such and such passions as he pleased In the like manner also when it happens that one Lute doth sound it makes the strings of the other to shake by the motions and tremblings which it causeth in the air though it be not touched otherwise at all We find also oftentimes that the sounds which are no other thing than the motions of the air cause the like movement in the water as the sharp sound which is caused by rubbing hard with ones finger the brim of a glasse full of water doth excite a noise a turning and boundings in the water of certain drops as if the water did dance according to the cadence of the sound The harmonious sounds also of bells in those Countries where they use to be rung to particular tunes doth make the like impressions upon the superficies of the rivers that are nigh the steeple specially in the night time when there is no other movement which stops or choakes the other supervenient one For the air being contiguous or rather continuous with the water and the water being susceptible of movement there 's the like motion caused in the fluid parts of the water as began in the air and the same contact which is betwixt the agitated air and the water which is by this meanes also moved happens also to be betwixt the agitated air and the vaprous spirits which are in those bodies who have been bit by the Tarantula which spirits by consequence are moved by the agitated air that is to say by the sound and that the more efficaciously that this agitation or sound is proportioned to the nature and temperature of the party hurt And this intern agitation of the spirits and vapours helps them to discharge the vapourous venom of the Tarantula which is mixt among all their humours In the like manner that standing puddle waters and corrupted aires being putrified by long repose and the mixture of other noisome substances are refin'd and purifi'd by motion but winter approaching which devoures these bealts people are freed from this malady but at the returne of that season when they used to be pricked the mischief comes again and they must dance again as they did the year before The reason is that the heat of summer doth stir and raise up the venom of the beast whereby it becomes as malignant and furious as it was before And the poison being heated and evaporating it self and dispersing in the air the levain of the same poyson which remaines in the bodies of them who have been hurt drawes it unto it self whereby such a fermentation is wrought which infects the other humours whence a kind of smoake issuing and mounting to the braines of these poor sick bodies doth use to produce such strange effects It is also well known that where there are great dogs or mastiffs as in England if any be bitten perchance by any of these dogs they commonly use to kill them though they be not mad for fear that the levain of the canine choler which remaines within the body of the party bit draw unto it the malignant spirits of the same dog which might come to distemper the spirits of the party And this is not onely practised in England where there are such dangerous dogs but also in France according to the report of father Cheron provinciall of the Carmelites in this Countrey in his examen de la Theologie mystique newly imprinted and which I have lately read I will say nothing of artificiall noses that are made of the flesh of other men for to remedy the deformity of those who by an extream excesse of cold have lost their own which new noses do putrifie as soon as those persons out of whose substance they were taken come to die as if that small parcell of flesh engrafted upon the face did live by the spirits
it drew from its first root and source For although this be constantly avouch'd by considerable authors yet I will not insist more upon it and desire you to think that I offer nothing unto you which is not verified by solid tradition such that it were a weaknesse to doubt of it But it is high time tha◠〈◊〉 should come now to my seventh and last principle it is the last turn of the engine and as I hope will batter down quite the gate which hindred us an entrance to the knowledge of this so marvailous a mystery and which will imprint such a lawfull mark upon the doctrine which I hold forth that it will passe for current money This principle is that the source of those spirits or of the bodies which attract them to it selfe draw likewise after them that which accompanies them as also that which sticks and is glued and united unto them This conclusion needs not much proof being evident enough of it selfe if there be nailes pins or ribands tied to the end of a loug chord or chain and if there be a knurle either of wax gum or glue and that I take this chord or chain by one end and draw it after me untill the other last end come to my hands it cannot be otherwise but that I take into my hands at the same time the naile the pins the ribands the knurle and all that is applied thereunto I go therefore to relate unto you onely some experiments that have been made in consequence of this principle who wil most strongly confirm the others produced before The great fertility and riches of England consists chiefly in pasturage for the nourishment of beasts we have the fairest in the world with abundance of other animals and principally of beef and kine Ther 's not the meanest Cottager but hath a Cow to furnish his family with milk 't is the principall sustenance of the poorer sort of people as 't is also in Switzerland which makes them very carefull of the good keeping and health of their cowes Now if it happen that if in boyling the milk it swells so high that it sheds over the brim of the pan and so comes to fall into the fire the good woman or maid doth presently give over whatsoever she is adoing and runs to the pan which she drawes off the fire and at the same time she takes a handfull of salt which useth to be commonly in the corner of the chimney to keep it dry and throws it upon the cinders where the milk was shed Ask her wherefore she doth so and she will tell you that it is to prevent that the Cow which gave this milk may not have some hurt upon her udder for without this remedy it would come to be hard and vlcerated she would come to pisse bloud and so be in danger to die Not that this extremity should befall her the very first time but she would grow ill disposed and if this should happen often the Cow would in a short time miscarry It might seem that some superstition or folly might lie herein but the infallibility of the effect doth warrant from the last and for the first many believe that the malady of the Cow is supernaturall or an effect of sorcery and consequently that the remedy which I have alleadged is superstitious but it is easie to disabuse any man of this perswasion by declaring how the businesse goes according to the foundations which I have laid The milk falling upon the candent coales is converted to vapour which disperseth and filtreth it self through the circumambient air where itrancounters the light and the solar rayes which transport it further augmenting and extending still farther the spheare of its activity This vapour of the milk is not alone or single but 't is compos'd of fiery atoms which accompany the smoak and vapour of the milk which gave the milk mingling and uniting themselves therewith now the sphear of the said vapour extending it self unto the place where the cow is her udder which is the source whence the milk proceeded attracts unto it the said malignant vapour staying and stickiâ—â— it selfe there together with the fiery atoms that accompanied it The udder is in part glandulous and very tender and so consequently very subject to inflammations this fire then doth heat inflames and makes it swell and in fine makes it hard and ulcerated The inflamed and ulcerated udder is near the bladder which comes likewise to be inflamed making the anastomoses and communication which is twixt the veines and the arteries to open and to cast forth bloud and to regorge into the bladder whence ordinarily the urine useth to come forth and empty it selfe But whence comes it you will say that the salt remedies all this It is because he is of a nature cleane contrary to the fire the one being hot and volatil the other cold and fixed Insomuch that where they use to rancounter the salt as it were knocks down the fire by precipitating and destroying its action as it may be observed in a very ordinary accident The chimneys which are full of soot use to take fire very easily now the usuall remedy for that is to discharge a musket into the funnell o the chimney which loosneth and brings down with it the fired soot and then the disorder ceaseth but if there be no musket or pistoll or other instrument to draw down the soot they use to cast a great quantity of salt on the fire below and that choakes and hindreth the atoms of fire which otherwise would incessantly mount up and joyn with them above which by this meanes wanting nouriture consume themselves and come to nothing The same thing befalls the atomes which are in a train to accompany the vapour of the milk the salt doth precipicate and kill it upon the very place and if any do chance to scape and save themselves by the great struglings they make and go along with the said vapour they are neverthelesse accompanied with the atomes and spirit of the salt which stick unto them which like good wrastlers never leave their hold untill they have got the better of their adversary And you shall observe by the by that there is not a more excellent balme for a burning than the spirit of salt in a moderate quantity It is then apparant that'tis impossible to employ any meanes more efficacious to hinder the ill effects of the fire upon the udder of the cow but to east upon her milk being shed over upon the cinders a sufficient quantity of salt This effect touching the conservation of the cowes udder in order to the burning of her milk makes me call to mind that which divers have told me to have seen both in France and in England viz. when the Physicians do examine the milk of a nurce for the child of a person of quality they use to make proofs sundry waies before they come to judg definitively of the goodnesse thereof as
that the Oxen come to acquire so excessive store of fat that it doth extend it self in a great quantity to their leggs as also to their feet and hoofs which oftentimes causeth impostumes in the bottom of their feet which comes to swell and cast out a great deal of core and putrified matter which hindreth the beast to goe The proprieters when they observe that though the beefbe never the worse for the shambles yet are they damnified thereby in regard that not being able to bring them to London where the grand market is for fat beefs through all England as Paris is for Auuergne for Normandy and other provinces of France I say the Graziers not being able to bring them to London they are constrained to kill them upon the place where their flesh is not worth half the price that they might have got in London Now there is a remedy for this inconvenience which is that one must observe where the Oxe Cow or Heifer doth plant upon the Earth his sick foot the first time that he riseth up in the morning and at that very place one must cut out a green turf of that Earth where the beast had trod with that foot and put this turf upon a tree or upon a hedg lying open to the North wind And if that wind come to blow upon the turf of Earth the beef will be cured within three or four daies very perfectly but if one should put that turf towards the South wind or South west which in Tholouze is called d'Autant here in Montpellier le Marin and in Italy le Scirocco the distemper in the Oxe will encrease These circumstances will not seem superstitious unto you when you will have considered how that by the repose of the night the corrupt matter or core doth use to gather in a great quantity under the foot of the sick Oxe and comming in the morning to set his foot upon the ground he presseth forth the impostume the matter whereof sticks to that part of the Earth and makes impressions upon it Now this turf of Earth being put and exposed in some proper place to receive the dry cold blasts of the Northern winds the dry cold blasts of that wind doth intermingle with the said corrupted impostumated matter which strerching its spirits all along the air the ulcerated foot of the animal which is the source of all drawes them unto it and with them it attracts also the cold dry atomes which cause the cure the malady requiring no other help than to be well dryed and refreshed But if one should expose this turf to a moist hottish wind it would produce contrary effects Behold my Lords all my wheelsformed I confesse they are ill fil'd and polished but let us try whether being put together and mounted they will make the engine go but if these wheeles being well joyned and placed do draw the conclusion or this unshaken carraque to a good port you will I presume have the goodnesse to pardon the grossenesse and rude expressions of my language and passing by the words you will content your selves with the naked truth of things let us therefore apply that which hath been spoken to that which is practis'd when a hurt person is cured Let us consider Mounsieur Howell wounded upon his hand a great inflammation hapened upon his hurt his garter is taken covered with the bloud that issued from the wound it is steeped in a bason of water where Vitriol was dissolved one keeps the bason in a closet at the moderate heat of the Sun and at night in the chimney corner in such sort that the bloud which is upon the garter be alwaies in a good naturall temperament neither colder or hotter than the degree required in a healthfull body what ought then to result according to the doctrine that we endeavour to stablish from all this In the first place the Sun and the light will attract a great extent and distance off the spirits of the bloud which are upon the garter and the moderate heat of the hearth which acts gently upon the composition which comes to the same thing as if one should carry it dry in his pocket to make it feel the temperate heat of the body I say the moderate heat of the hearth doth push out the said atoms as the water which gathers it selfe round in the filtration or strainings use to drive on that which mounts up to make it go faster and more easily making it also to dilate it self and distill and so march of themselves a good way in the air to help thereby the attraction of the Sun and of the light Secondly the spirit of the Vitriol being incorporated with the bloud cannot chuse but make the same voyage together with the atomes of the bloud Thirdly the wounded hand expires and exhales in the mean time continually abundance of hot fiery spirits which gush forth as a river out of the inflamed hurt which cannot be but that the wound must consequently draw unto it the air which is next it Fourthly this air drawes unto it the other air which is next it and that the next to it also and so there is a kind of current of air drawn round about the wound Fiftly with this air come to incorporate at last the atomes and spirits of the bloud and the vitrioll which were diffused and shed a good way off in the air by the attractions of the light and the Sun Besides it may well be that from the beginning the orb and sphere of these atomes and spirits did extend it self in so great a distance without having need of the attractions of the air or of the light to make them come thither Sixthly the atomes of bloud finding the proper source and originall root whence they came do stay and stick there and so reenter into their naturall beds and primitive receptacles whereas the other air is but a passenger and evapourates away as soon as it comes as when it is carried away through the funnell of the chimney as soon as it is drawn into the chamber by the doore Seventhly the atomes of bloud being inseparably with the spirits of the Vitrioll both the one and the other do joyntly imbibe together within all the corners fibres and orifices of the veines which lye open about the wound of the party hurt which herby are comforted and in fine imperceptibly cured Now to know wherefore such an effect and cure is so happily performed we must examine the nature of Vitrioll which is composed of two parts the one fixed the other volatill The fixed which is the salt is sharp and biting and caustique in some degree The volatill is smooth soft balsamicall and astringing and 't is for that reason that vitrioll is made use of as a soveraign remedy in the collyres for the inflammations of the eies and when they are corroded and scorched by some sharp and burning humor or defluxion As also in injections where excoriations and