A SHORT DISCOVERIE OF THE VNOBSERVED DANGERS OF seuerall sorts of ignorant and vnconsiderate Practisers of Physicke in England Profitable not onely for the deceiued multitude and easie for their meane capacities but raising reformed and more aduised thoughts in the best vnderstandings With Direction for the safest election of a Physition in necessitie BY IOHN COTTA of Northampton Doctor in Physicke LONDON Imprinted for WILLIAM IONES and RICHARD BOYLE dwelling in the Blacke-Friers 1612. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE RIGHT WORSHIPFVLL AND WORTHY Gentlemen my desired friends and deseruing Patients of Northamptonshire honour health and happinesse of life RIght noble and renowned Gentlemen it is now the tenth yeares since the singular fauors loue merite and tried worth of my thrice honored friend hath first here detained mee in the eye of your vse In this short space of quick time as my publicke office hath bene truly deuoted vnto you all the common right so many your noble peculiar deserts haue worthily challenged their speciall claime In pledge therefore of my loue and dutie vnto you all and in memorie of my trauels amongst you when former vowes shall haply hence reâ—all me what my time here passed hath brought forth most rare or worthy vnto choice obseruation I freely publish and reciprocally here present vnto the countries good and together with generall caution and rule for safe and wholesome medication repay and dedicate The matter and subiect it selfe vnto common reading is of a virgine fresh and as yet vndiuulged view and no lesse of necessarie and serious vse The stile can neither be so farre in loue with it selfe as to forget the matter nor altogether sauoureth of his oft interrupted vnsetled leisure and breuity doth not suffer the reading to be any burthen The paines and losse of secured safetie in silence are mine own and the opportunity euery mans that lusteth to censure or to satisfie any other more honest end I haue thus freely exposed my selfe in a proposed hope that the hence deriued good of many may make good my good desire vnto all Since theÌ„ this small sacrifise of my selfe to all your happy healths a mite answerable to my might doth therwith include a needful vse vnto a common good that after succeeding participation may enlarge the benefite vnto all or at least my poore paines awake more ample merite in some others worth vouchsafe my free honest labor in your friendly acceptance shrowded by the true splendor of your generose and noble worthes may dazle the narrow sight of base obtrectation Thus shal your euer deseruing loues and now desired patronages make both so much more deserued loue your desirous seruant and religiously euer oblige my selfe in all true rights vnto your daigned fauours perpetuall solicitor of humble officious and thankfull memorie IOHN COTTA TO THE READER THe Sunne doth rise and fall and returneth euerie day but when the short day of mans life once goeth downe it neuer dawneth Life is deare and too deare being lost for all inestimable valewes to redeeme and health is the sweetnesse of life and the verie life of liuing without which men while they liue are alreadie dead Thou therefore that louest thy life and for thy life thy health take counsell of a Physition without a fee. So many and so infinitely do the numbers of barbarous and vnlearned counsellours of health at this time ouerspread all corners of this kingdome that their confused swarmes do not onely euery where couer and eclipse the Sun-shine of all true learning vnderstanding but generally darken and extinguish the very light of coÌ„mon sense and reason It is euery mans office to do good for goodnesse sake and both my generall duty vnto a common good and my speciall bond vnto my friends do earnestly solicite me hereto since no man that as yet I heare hath hitherto vndertaken this taske For their sakes therefore for whose harmes by vnskilfull hands I haue oft heretofore sorrowed and for their loues whose life and health I wish heareafter preserued and for their good who will take paines to know it I here commend leauing the common mischiefe to the common care vnto euerie particular for himselfe this needfull detection of harmefull succours and necessarie counsell for safe supplie necessitie being neuer more distractedly miserable in hard choyce of good in so common and confused multitudes of ill For the meanest readers sake whom in this whole worke I labour equally to obserue I haue suited the plainnes and simplicitie of a familiar style and for facilitie of common reading haue also smoothed and cleared the streame and current of this little volume from the stops and interruptions of vnusuall sounds and language as farre as the subiect will permit refreshing onely the learned in the margine Neither haue I esteemed it any indecorum for the meanest vnderstanding sake together with generall cautions and rules to insert particular cases and reports which may be both an inducement to reade and an enticement to continue example being neither least pleasing nor least profitable vnto the vulgar There shall appeare in this following treatise described first such insufficient workemen and practitioners as this time doth generally set forth with their seuerall manners defects and dangers and after shall succeed a plaine patterne of that sufficient Artist vnto whom with iudgement and better satisfaction vnto thy owne vnderstanding thou maist commend thy health and whom the Ancients right reason and experience haue euer allowed I labour not in this plaine discouerie with words to feast prodigalitie nor hope altogether for want of correspondence vnto satisfaction to macerate frugall satietie Few words do best hold memorie and a short taste doth breede more eager appetite I will therefore onely briefly point the common forgetfulnesse by bare aduertisement to better memorie which after may better thence guide it selfe to more large and accurate consideration This plaine endeauour begotten of succisiue houres by good desire thy proposed benefite deseruing Reader hath here brought forth into this common light Enioy therefore therein what seemeth liking or of vse the rest thy wiser thoughts may either in reading abstract or thy ingenuous mind compare with that is better or by it selfe censure as a cipher Farewell Thy weale-aduising friend IOHN COTTA THE SEVERALL TRACTATES of the Treatise following In the first Booke Chap. 1. The Introduction 2. The Empericke his defects and danger 3. Women their custome and practise about the sicke commonuisiting counsellours and commenders of medicines 4. Fugitiues workers of iugling wonders Quacksaluers 5. Surgeons 6. Apothecaries 7. Practisers by spels 8. The explication of the true discouerie of witchcraft in the sicke together with many and wondered instances in that kind 9. Wisards 10. Seruants of Physitions ministring helpers In the second booke Chap. 1. The methodian learned deceiuer or hereticke Physition 2. Benificed Practisers 3. Astrologers Ephemerides-maisters 4. Coniectors by vrine 5. Trauellers In the third Booke The true
in the assaults of diseases where the fight wrestling of nature is not alway in the same part nor in the same forme or maner nor with the same disease nor of the same period all which circumstances in the same subiect cannot happen alwaies to anie sight or sense the same which maketh experience yet are euer present in the generall notions of the vnderstanding whereby the prudent and wise man doth make supplie though experience faile Besides the differences which circumstances make many diseases in themselues and their owne kinde are such as are scarce seene in a mans life some in many yeares some in an age some in many generations therein how can experience giue prescription for those things whereof it hath not had experience for experience is of things oft seene If then the same things be in all circumstances seldome or neuer seene and some at sometime seene which a life or age shall not see againe and there can be no true experience where there is not sight and sense how blinde an helpe must oft experience be Doth not euerie day bring forth somewhat new or strange vnto the day and worthy denomination of the day The French Spanish Neapolitane Italian disease was a stranger sometime in old Albion which now is an English denison The Scorbut not maine yeares since was vnnamed of writers now commonly knowne vnto a common eye The English sweating sicknesse very seldome if more then once here seene nor at all or at least not oft elsewhere To wander yet farther into some more wonder Ruland with other reporteth a tooth of gold naturally growing with the common ranke in the mouth of a child Hollerius witnesseth a child in the wombe to thrust forth the hand at the nauill of the mother and so continuing the space of fifteene daies in the end the child borne liuing and the mother saued Brasauolus mētioneth his cure of a soludier who liued after 3 yeares hauing almost halfe his head cut away with a portion of his braines onely thereby losing his sense and memory neuer eating nor hauing memorie to require at any time to eate but as it was put into him nor redeliuerage at the posternes but insensiblie Albucasis knew in his time a womā carrying one dead child in her wombe notwithstanding to conceiue and quicken of another the dead child in the meane season rotting and falling away by parcels at seueral times But to passe these and many the like infinite receiued vpon credite and report my selfe haue met some accidents in my owne practise for the most part within the space of these eight last yeares worth their memorie In the yeare 1608. an ancient gentleman being neither sicke nor much pained and onely molested with a cough and shortnesse of wind from which his health was neuer free requested my aduice for the preuention of the increase of the former accidents in which also he found vnto the generall seeming vnto his owne sense and some other learned counsaile very chearfull and comfortable amendement my selfe onely suspecting and signifying vnto his friends my despaire Betweene his pulses on the right side and the left in generall manifestly appeared a wondered ods so continuing the space of 12. or 14. daies together On the left side no position of touch no search could finde any pulse at all On the right side the pulses were constantly continually as in his best health manifest strong equall in good order with full distentiō vnto all the dimēsions In the same parts where the pulses on the other side seemed dead all other faculties perfectly liued in naturall heate color vigour sense motiō This was thē witnessed by certaine honorable gentle women present whō well vnderstanding more then sufficiēt for such a taske I therto intreated it cold by no sense be denied It was imagined by some learned dissenting frō my first howres dislike that it was no other but an imperceptibilitie of his pulse and without danger as supposed vsuall vnto him in his health by reason of diuers deepe wounds tenne yeares before receiued vpon that side My experience of the contrarie oft in his former health and also in diuers other his sicknesses confirmed by owne doubt death which determineth all things sodainly and vnexspectedly determined this in so faire a visard so many dayes deceiuing many In the yeare 1604. my paines was solicited vnto a vertuous Lady honorably both in her Knight and her selfe allied and no lesse eminent in their owne worth then lying neare Grafton in Northampton shire I found her left by a former Physition to verifie his prediction by her death She was miserably perplexed with the doubtfull deliuery of a dangerously begunne abortion her owne strength failing and the ordinarie assistance of women in those cases shrinking from her and a deepe die of a mixt and diuers coloured iaundies with extreme paines of her stomacke giuing no rest nor intermission adding feare and sorrow the substance also of her vrine continually troubled confusedly thicke the colour altogether resembling the strained iuice of the grenest hearbe In the terrour of her abortion my indeuour proued vnto her speedily happy and succesfull Afterward according vnto the second indication from the iaundies necessity vrging and her strength then fauouring the worke I commanded her to bleede in the arme which done with good ease and felicitie nature in spite of all indeuour to the contrarie kept the orifice after still open running daily and continually the space of three weekes together and then healing and closing it selfe with her perfect amendment At the same time a sodaine sharpe paine giuing a speciall distinct sense thereof she disburthened of a round white hard stone full of little holes that part which giueth the name and seate vnto the Colike In the yeare 1607. a young woman of 30 yeares age with another graue gentlewoman accompanying her came vnto me requiring aduice in her wondered estate and condition The skin or membrane of her belly from the nauill downeward withered dead and gathered together in likenesse of a rotten bladder or a wet leather bag and in that forme falling flagge from the former close setting vnto the guts and bellie lay continually loose vnto the one side In the yeare 1601. a barbers boy of Northhamptō auoided wormes besides other ordinary passages by vrine In the yeare 1600. a shoomaker of Northampton sometime a bayliffe of the towne falling dangerously sick called my counsell together with an Empericke The other accused the hypochondriaca passio my selfe made knowne my suspition of an abscession in the bulke vaine hope gaue credite to that it rather desired and the patient trusted himselfe with the other Shortly after he was surprised with sodaine frequent swoundings feare of imminent suffocation but by cough and spitting escaped and with wonder in short space filled diuers large basins with
excellent vertues of prudence discretion and knowledge vpon which are safely founded wise moderation and temperate vse of meanes vnto which euer and onely God hath blessed all actions their ends and issues In whom therefore these are not how vnwarranted are their actioÌ„s vnto their owne hearts and how dangerous also must they be to others harmes If women then professe no arts nor as maisters of sciences can proue their rules let them with sobrietie gouerne the great rule of themselues and so shall they be most harmelesly happy in being freed from the vnhappinesse of hauing their hands so commonly in others mishaps vnto the dishonour of womanhood A gentlewoman lately falling grieuously sicke through the frights of bloud-letting wherewith womens counsell by many ill reports thereof had confounded her refused the only safe rescue of her life thereby Whereupon very shortly after her bloud grew so furious that breaking the wonted bounds and limits of her veines with violence it gushed out not onely at her mouth and nose with diuerse other passages of her body besides but also made a diruption in the veines of one of her legs from whence issuing in great abundance it speedily dispatched her euen vnto the end and last breath still making her choyce that rather her bloud should thus kill her then she coÌ„sent to part with any part thereof otherwise Thus she miserably died CoÌ„trariwise another gentlewoman in the yeare 1602. and of her age the 74. as shee her selfe numbred vexed many yeares with a continuall issue of bloud after she had bene long left in hopeles care despaire required and expected of me her last doome I found oft obseruing her pulse a manifest equall and constant magnitude altitude and vehemence the habite of her body well liking and by these assured my selfe as of the cause of her disease so also of the strength of nature Many other remedies before in vaine iterated and varied and none preuailing or profiting contrary to the iudgement of some former Physitions as also her owne liking in regard of her age and supposed weakenesse and contrary to the generall disclaime and wonderment of her friends her strength in the former indication fauouring it necessity vrging and therefore her age dispensing I commanded her to be sparingly let bloud in the arme whereupon without any farther other helpe she immediately recouered her strength and was freed the space of eight yeares together from the issue which had continually vexed her many yeares before I deliuer these familiar examples of mine owne for better satisfaction whereby vnto the meanest eye and simple vnderstanding it is apparent that bloud-letting or not bloud-letting as all other remedies are either good or euill or neither good nor euill in seuerall seasons and circumstances whereby the perswasion or disswasion thereof by such as want iudgement is euer casually also good or euill in it selfe but euer vniustifiable in the ignorant counsellor The iust will not herein offend but the foole will be babling whereof to beware vnto many had bene sauing physicke that now are dead Many times haue many by perswading without reason or iudgement drawne their friend vnto death contrarie to their better meaning troubling them with feare of death in the remedy while they run themselues to death for want of remedie Ill counsell for the most part produceth ill euent Ignorant counsell is neuer good counsell And therefore it is honest for it selfe and safe for the sicke that ignorance be euer silent or neuer presumptuous It is oft occasion of mirth to see how euen after sicke men are sometime perfectly recouered the very ill opinion of remedies past laboured into the conceite by the wauing of idle tongues holdeth them still needlesly sicke vntill their wiser thoughts draw their minds to forget their imagination or to remember themselues and thus vnawares they sometime ease themselues of their owne imposition which was first the vaine supposition of a friend Such friendship is oft simplicity and haply sometimes knauery but let the patient that desireth his owne good be impatient of such folly and not enlarge his kinde heart vnto so vnkinde hurt vnto himselfe remembring though it be humanity to heare a friendly voice that the attendant of wisedome is slow beliefe Oft and much babling inculcation in the weake braines of the sicke may easily preuaile with them to forget both that which their owne good hath taught them and also by a borrowed opinion from others indiscreete words to corrupt their owne sense It is the common custome of most common people thus ordinarily to molest and trouble the sicke Their presence therfore is dangerous carefully to be either prohibited or better gouerned Common vulgar mouthes easily incline scandalously to preiudice the things they know not Hence it is in these daies a customary worke to disswade physicke while meÌ„ not making right choyce of their Physition or perueâ—ting good counsell by their owne peeuish frowardnes and thereby multiplying vnto theÌ„selues continuall occasion of complaint vniustly therfore accuse art which they neuer duly sought nor found nor vsed therfore neuer knew The offences that men iustly take are the faults the blots the staines of vnperfect workemen not of art whereof art is as guiltlesse as they are void of art Many because they may haply obserue some others by the too much immoderate vse of physicke sometime too hardly to keepe vnder their owne streÌ„gth sometime haply to tire nature or too coÌ„tinually to interrupt perturbe her quiet fruition of herselfe the true sense of her owne power streÌ„ght in her selfe therefore in the other extreme they also with a nice and foolish morosity altogether contemne and reiect the temperate and moderate vse thereof denying vnto God nature their care duty to theÌ„selues restraining nature from the priuiledge of remedies which God hath giuen vnto her and iniuriously suffering her to liue within them imprisoned oppressed and oft needlesly ruined Physicke it selfe is honored by the mouth and mention of God himselfe and in it selfe hath demonstration of it selfe vnto them whose vnderstanding doth giue them eyes but the ignorant and the excessiue vse the abuse therof no lesse the peruerse contempt neglect thereof are the curse of God and the sinne of men They therefore that perswade the sicke that they haue no neede of the Physition call God a lyar who expresly saith otherwise and make themselues wiser then their Creator who hath ordained the Physition for the good of man Let men therefore flie and take heede of such foolish calumnie and in their necessities let them remember their Maker and thankfully embrace his blessing and benefite of ease and health which thereby he hath commended and giuen vnto them lest vnthankfull to him and accessarie to their owne hurt they perish in a double sinne Beside the ordinary meane sort of visiting people doing in the former kinds very