by the great Doctor Harvey yet the velocity of its motion and circulation was never so clearly and fully evinced as it hath been by Doctor Lower and how much this may tend to the clearing up of several of the dark and obscure phaenomena of nature as the speedy passage of liquors from the stomach to the reins c. I leave to the ingenious of our Faculty to determine And doubtless great service he hath done us in clearing out the nature origination conveyance and separation of milk in the breasts of women a doctrine so much controverted in former ages And no less service have the learned Doctor Walter Needham and Doctor Lower done us in their experimental demonstrations of the circulation of the Chyle with the mass of blood some hours before its assimilation which discovery with many if not all of the former are to be admired not only for the truth and excellency of their invention but for their great usefulness in physick as I have before mention'd Wherefore 't is apparent that these discoveries have not only tended to the better cure of diseases as I lately proved but have likewise been very advantageous in affording us more useful Hypotheses in physick for our principles having been more certain and demonstrative it were very unreasonable to conceive that our foundations should not be more firmly laid than the Ancients who were not acquainted with the distribution and natural motions of the nutritious humor blood nervous and Lymphatick liquors c. Since the investigation of which the world hath been made happy with the excellent writings both of foreigners and our own countrey-men One of which I mean the learned Doctor Willis hath satisfied the world so well with his excellent and surpassing abilities in that kind that his Name as well as his writings will be admired both in our own and succeedings ages And if as Noble Mr. Boyl hath acquainted us Pythagoras Democritus Plato and diverse others of those whose wisdom made after Ages reverence Antiquity did not only esteem the truths of Nature worth studying for but thought them too worth travelling for as far as those Eastern countreys whose wise men were then cryed up for the best Expositors of the obscure book of Nature How much reason then have we and the learned world to bewail our unhappiness in the loss of one of the greatest and clearest Commentators thereon Witness that ingenious explication of the phaenomena of those stupendous cases he acquaints us with in his book de morbis convulsivis c. and though he frankly confesseth that in his explication of the theory of diseases he doth not tread in the footsteps of the Ancients but his Hypotheses are altogether new yet saith that learned Author they are such quae super observatis Anatomicis fundatae ac firmiter stabilitae aegrotantium phaenomena quaeque melius solvunt symptomatum causas aptius declarant medendi rationes unicuique affectui magis accommodas suggerunt Which being more firmly founded and established upon Anatomical observations do better solve the phaenomena of the sick more aptly discover the causes of their symptoms and suggest more appropriate methods for the cure of every affection And though Sylvius his Hypothesis hath not been so universally embraced by our English Physicians yet in foreign parts it hath met with no less acceptance from the most learned and judicious of our Faculty than the foremention'd his Ternary of humors being question'd by none of the Anatomists of our dayes from the depravation and exorbitancy of which he would derive all the preternatural affections of humane bodies but however whether his Hypothesis be true or not 't is known very well to his friends and enemies too that his success in practice hath given him a reputation not only in the Low Countryes but amongst most of the learned men in Europe Which hath occasion'd your worthy friend M. N. to acknowledg that he hath done the world more service towards the promotion of the Art of Physick than ever any man did before him in the United Provinces and how kind and generous he hath formerly been to Doctor Willis in acquainting all the learned of our Faculty how much they were indebted to him for that excellent Treatise of his de febribus I shall have occasion ere long to acquaint them with But if all this will not satisfie Mr. H. of the improvements that our Moderns have made whereby they have done something more worth than a straw beyond what the Ancients have done I would advise him to read over what I have discours'd of in the precedent particular and what he may find in the latter part of that Section which treats of Chymistry and if he can spare so much time from his quacking avocations I would recommend to his serious perusal that excellent book of Doctor Lower's called Pyretologia Willisiana which was written against his countrey-man Meara upon this very matter of contest between my self and him which having been printed in the same year that his beloved friend's was printed in and received no answer to it from its most avowed Adversaries for eleven years methinks it should be own'd for a much more unanswerable book than M. N's which hath had four satisfactory answers already to it whereby I should be in some hopes that he might happily be reduc'd to his wits again which were unfortunately lost when he wrote this scandalous Pamphlet against the Colledge of Physicians though he spared not for pen ink nor paper And though Mr. H. and some others of his acquaintance would seem to commend the Ancients by this assertion that our late Anatomists have done nothing by Anatomy worth a straw beyond what was done by the Ancients I take it to be not out of judgment or skill in them of which they are generally ignorant much less out of love to them whom they contemn as oft as they are thwarted by them as witness the principal if not sole design of the foremention'd book Mr. H. so highly commends which tells us that we must proceed by other definitions of the nature of diseases and indagations of their causes and invent other remedies and reasons and rules of curation than what have been delivered by the Ancients and not confine our selves to their conceptions aphorisms and inventions c and chargeth the Aristotelians and Galenists for superstitious devotion to their old heathenish authors and their Sectators as drones of the old methodical Hive that practise in the ordinary dog-road of Physick and therefore calls them the herd of vulgar Methodists and the old way of practice lazy its principles dull and the bane of our profession c. which is a plain demonstration that Mr. H. in this assertion did only use the Ancients as an engine to pull down modern discoveries Whereas we profess our selves to have a great respect and veneration for them as having done great things in Physick in their times for which we and our posterity
Author which they fancy may be made serviceable to their designs as they have been with their confutation of the learned Doctor Willis in the title pages of their books but I hope that none of our Faculty will ever give credit to any quotation of theirs without a due examination of the Authors design for 't is plain by this account that I have given of Mr. Boyles quotation that he hath been so far from discoursing against Anatomy that he hath spoken as much in the favour thereof as any of our Moderns would have done and therefore as if he had foreseen this vile sort of men that would abuse these excellent passages he wrote them with so much caution that one could have scarcely imagin'd that a man who pretends to cure the poor members of Jesus freely for his sake durst have been guilty of such apparent and malicious falsehoods and that to maintain so bad a cause I shall therefore for the prevention of these Empiricks for the future from quoting any passages out of Mr. Boyl against Anatomy acquaint the world out of this very book what a great honour and veneration he hath for this noble Art where you may find in the first part of it p. 5. that telling us that one would think that the conversing with dead and stinking carkases that are not only hideous objects in themselves but made more ghastly by putting us in mind that our selves must be such should be not only a very melancholy but a very hated employment And yet saith he there are Anatomists that dote upon it And I confess its instructiveness hath not only so reconciled me to it but so enamour'd me of it that I have often spent hours much less delightfully not only in Courts but even in Libraries than in tracing in those forsaken Mansions the inimitable workmanship of the Omniscient Architect And in p. 9. he tells us that were we not lull'd asleep by custom or sensuality it could not but trouble as well as it injures a reasonable soul to ignore the structure and contrivance of that admirably organiz'd body in which she lives and to whose intervention she owes the knowledge she hath of other Creatures And in the second part of the same book p. 9. he positively asserts that since diverse things in Anatomy as particularly the motion of the bloud and Chyle cannot be discovered in a dead dissected body where the cold hath shut up and obliterated many passages that may be seen in one opened alive it must be very advantageous to a Physicians Anatomical knowledge to see the dissections of Dogs Swine and other live creatures which puts me in mind of what a very learned Physician ingeniously observed that Dogs Pigs and Monkyes have contributed more to the advancement of Physick than this sort of men ever did or are like to do But to proceed in a further account of the great estimation that this noble Author had for Anatomy which you may find in p. 46. of the same book where he tells you that not only the dissections of sound beasts may assist the Physician to discover the like parts of a humane body but the dissection of morbid beasts may sometimes illustrate the doctrine of the causes and seats of diseases For that this part of Pathology has been very much improved by the diligence of modern Physicians by dissecting the bodies of men killed by diseases we might justly be accused of want of curiosity or gratitude if we did not thankfully acknowledge for indeed much of that improvement of Physick for which the Ancients were they now alive might envy our new Physicians may in my poor opinion be ascribed to our industrious scrutiny of the seat and effects of the peccant matter of diseases in the bodies of those that have been destroyed by them And in the same page he blames the acute Helmont for not having been a more diligent dissector of beasts And in the following page he tell us that here we may also consider that there are diverse explications of particular diseases or troublesome accidents proposed by Physicians especially since the discovery of the bloods circulation wherein the compression obstruction or irritation of some Nerve or distension of some Vein by too much blood or some hindrance of the free passage of the bloud through this or that particular Vessel is assigned for the cause of this or that disease or symptome Now in diverse of these cases the liberty lately mention'd that a skilful Dissector may take in beasts to open the body or limbs to make Ligatures strong or weak on their Vessels or other inward parts as occasion shall require to leave them there as long as he pleaseth to prick or apply sharp liquors to any Nervous or Membranous part and whenever he thinks convenient to dissect the Animal again to observe what change his experiment hath produced there Such a liberty I say which is not to be taken in humane bodies may in some case either confirm or confute the Theories proposed and so put an end to diverse Pathological controversies and perhaps too occasion the discovery of the true and genuine causes of the phaenomena disputed of or of others really as abstruse Now pray Mr. H. can any unprejudic'd or impartial person read this account Mr. Boyle hath given of his estimation for Anatomy and yet believe that little is to be expected from it and that he doth not see wherein by any of those new discoveries any thing hath been done to better the cure of diseases I am apt to think he cannot and if so what reason hath Mr. H. to peruse these passages with blushing Cheeks if he hath either ingenuity or modesty left him and come and supplicate pardon of that Noble person for that injury he hath done him in publick print The third Assertion was this That the greatest Anatomists and Practisers of our Age have been the greatest Chymists For the proof of this I need not take any great pains seeing two of our latest Anatomists and greatest Practisers may afford us so clear a testimony to the truth of this Assertion I mean the eminently learned Doctor Willis and Sylvius both which excellent Physicians have obtained an universal reputation throughout the world for their admirable accomplishments in the Anatomick and practick part of Physick and how highly they did esteem of Anatomy their great industry and pains therein with their learned writings drawn from that fountain will sufficiently testifie to all posterity witness that incomparable book of Doctor Willis de Cerebro with what he hath wrote de ventriculo intestinis pulmonibus and Sylvius his disputationes Medicae and though a friend of Mr. H. would perswade us that Sylvius his doctrines had not their rise from Academies but from his own and others Laboratories yet I believe he will scarcely be credited by any ingenious Physician that hath been conversant in his writings for 't is plain that Anatomy not Chymistry laid the
so ignorantly And to conclude I will at present trouble Mr. H. but with one story more of this friend of his and that was of his exhibition of another of his effectual remedies to a young Virgin which unexpectedly as I presume having the fortune of raising some slight Salivation he ordered her to swallow her Spittle which speedily produced such Symptoms that both the Parents of the Child and the learned Physicians that were afterwards sent for did both judge her poysoned by the medicines exhibited which proved so indeed for in a very short space she dyed thereby Now surely Mr. H. had the forementioned person been half so good a Philosopher or Physician as the learned Dr. Witherly or Dr. Hodges whom he is pleased to call Novices although the former is a person of those excellent accomplishments in his Faculty that his reputation is great with most persons of Quality in this famous City and is Physician to his Majesties own person the later a person to whom posterity will own themselves endebted for leaving behind him so full and complete a History of the late direful London Plague he would have understood that when Mercurial or other mineral preparations had put the bloud into a fluor and impregnated it with sowre and Vitriolick parts it must needs be very dangerous to swallow that saliva down which would not only injure the Tone of the Stomach Intestines and other viscera but destroy the native temper of the bloud Animal spirits and all the other noble juices of the body And that Mr. H. this dearly beloved friend of yours may not for the future by such unjustifiable Arcana ruine the lives and health of any more of his Patients in this kind I will acquaint him with the following observation which was of a poor silly Dog who unfortunately lapping up a quantity of saliva in a Patients chamber of mine that was Salivated immediately forsook his victuals grew languid and weak pining away to skin and bones and in a short time dyed But to proceed according to my former promise I shall now endeavour to prove that what advancement hath accrewed to this noble Art of Chymistry did never own its original to these Adversaries of ours or any of their Predecessors but to Physicians of Academick education and Collegiate members Which certainly is so far from a difficulty to undertake that whoever hath been acquainted with the learned writings of Mynsicht Crollius Faber Beguinus Hartman Grulingius Horstius Schroderus Quercetan Zwelfer Becherus Langelott Borrichius c. most of which men I hope Mr. H. will own to have been better vers'd in Chymistry than himself or any of his Companions will give me their assent to so great a truth which any ingenious person may be satisfied in who pleaseth to peruse the forementioned Authors but more especially the admirable Pharmacopoeas of the learned Quercetan and Zwelfer the one having acquainted the world with the great improvements that may be made in the medicinal part of Physick by Chymical Pharmacy the other no less judiciously correcting the errors of the common Pharmacopoeias and substituting remedies that might answer the same intentions the Authors expected from their former compositions but much more efficaciously And surely he that reads how learnedly the great Borrichius hath defended this excellent Art against Câ—nringius will not only admire what he hath written upon that subject but expect something great in Chymistry from that learned man And for the famous Langelott there is none who hath been acquainted with the admirable remedies he hath already discovered but must acknowledge that he hath been very conversant with Nature even in her greatest secrets And he that hath read over the famous Becherus his Physica subterranea will scarcely scruple to allow us what vast improvements have been already made from these true Adepts of Nature who having divulged to the world the great familiarity they already enjoy in her palace what may be expected from them when they come to be admitted as part of her Cabinet Counsel Now good Mr. H. do you or any of your friends give us parallel instances of the like improvements that have been made by any of your Society in this Art we contend about and we will ingenuously give them their due but for my own part I profess that I know not of any neither do I believe that such instances can be produced and then what little reason hath Mr. H. to glory of that great spirit that is now up and at work for further and further improvement amongst the working Physicians as he terms those of his own fraternity And though he hath taken the pains to transcribe that thred bare story of Quercetan and Sir Theodore Mayerne out of that unanswerable book as he ignorantly calls it having I perceive never perused the replies to it Medela Medicinae in perpetuum rei scandalum as his friend would have the world believe yet how little to the purpose you may observe by the following account In p. 23. he tells us that in the year 1603. the laborious famous Quercetan and Sir Theodore de Mayerne were both of them in two several publick Sentences of the Academian Professors and whole Colledge of Physicians in Paris printed by their order condemned and in positive terms the whole Art it self of Chymistry as men not only unworthy to be consulted with by the Physicians of the Colledge especially Mayerne declaring him an unlearned impudent drunken mad fellow exhorting all Nations to abominate them both and banish them and the like practisers out of their Territories as Monsters of mankind and threatning all the Fellows of that Colledge that if they did consult with either of them about any Patient they should be deprived of all priviledge belonging to their Colledge Well quoted Mr. H had you known when you had done well you would have proceeded no farther in this relation but I perceive you were near the pitch of one and thirty when you transcribed this story and then unfortunately all came out for Children c. witness what follows in the very same page where he tells us That for all this the one of those condemned persons became famous in France the Kings chief Physician and lived to see that Colledge repent of their folly and their successors become admirers of those Chymical books and remedies which they had so rashly damned The other viz. Mayerne became Physician to two Kings of England and two of France and left a name of great wealth and honour behind him To this story of your friend's M. N. which I have observed twice quoted by himself and once by Mr. H. I might return this answer that Chymistry was then in its infancy in France and therefore no wonder that it met with such opposition even from a learned Society seeing it was not the fate of that Art alone to meet with so ill and unjust entertainment For Anatomy it self which is so much damn'd and hector'd
writings of the learned Quercetan Zwelfer and other eminent Chymists who had never been capable of doing half that service in Pharmacy for which the world is so much endebted to them had they not been as great Philosophers as they were Operators And therefore that excellent Chymist Le Febure hath well observed the two following maxims 1. That Chymistry doth not meerly consist in the skill of preparing well a remedy as many do erroneously imagine but in the using of it with due circumstances and respect to the Theorems of Art which is properly the true Physick 2. That whosoever meddles with Chymical remedies without the previous grounds of Theory can deserve no other name than of an Empirick since he is altogether ignorant of the internal efficient causes of their effects and cannot give the physical reasons why he doth administer such a remedy for such and such disease And further I can acquaint Mr. H. with several of the members of the Colledge of Physicians now living who for their elegant and rational prescriptions and true knowledge of the materia medica do not only excel Mr. H. and all his Society but are highly honoured for their admirable and surpassing improvements therein by all of their own Faculty as witness the most accomplished Dr. Thomas Cox Dr. Wolf c. And though Mr. H. is pleased to tell us p. 20. that remedies well prepared by Chymical Art seem to be as the hands of God reached down from heaven in this latter age in exceeding mercy to poor man when his iniquities have so altered the whole scene of diseases c. which makes them exceedingly different from what they were in the dayes of Hippocrates and Galen and indeed from what they were a hundred years ago and less so that the old Art and remedies are insufficient to deal with them To this I answer that in my opinion Mr. H's Divinity is as heterodox as his Physick hath been for 't is a little odd to conceive that the iniquities of men should have been the procuring causes of exceeding mercy I do therefore very much fear that Mr. H. hath been as great a stranger to his Bible as he hath been to Philosophy else he might have observed and that without the help of Spectacles that all the judgments that God Almighty hath inflicted upon poor man have been procured by his sins amongst the number of which Judgments Mr. H. might well have ranked his Chymical remedies which have proved so indeed to some that have made use of them as I have lately mention'd and then I am sure they can procure but little commendation to his Art And as for his discourse of the great alteration of diseases since Hippocrates and Galens time from whence he would prove that the old Art and remedies are altogether insufficient let me tell him that there are so full and satisfactory Answers given to his friend upon that subject that I should injure those learned men should I now dwell or insist long upon that controversie and therefore I shall recommend to his perusal those four books which were written against his friend's Medela medicinae ten or eleven years agone only by the by let me tell him that 't is possible that the old Art and remedies may be sufficient to deal with the diseases of our dayes though much altered from those in former times but that 't is Mr. H's and the rest of his Companions misfortune that they understand not how to exhibite them being so great contemners of a rational methodical practise by which I must frankly own that I have seen far greater cures performed with Chicken-broth Whey Milk and Water c. than by all their applauded Chymical Arcana And further for that alteration of diseases they discourse of I could tell them of a Physician of the learned Colledge they so much decry who hath done more service to the publick in acquainting the world with a faithful History of the Acute diseases of our dayes with their specifical differences and happy cures by the old remedies they so much damn than they or any of their Predecessors have done by all their books that ever they printed or medicines they published And though we may allow that the Theories of Fevers and other distempers may possibly of late by the industry of Collegiate members have been built upon more solid foundations than formerly yet this is so far from occasioning us to reject the good old remedies and methods of practise that Doctor Willis hath well observed Quod indicationes quaedam antiquitus receptae adhuc ratae perstant erúntque in perpetuum observandae quia Experientiae primae hujus artis magistrae debentur that some indications that were of old received are yet approved and will for ever be observed because they owe their original to experience the first mistress of Art And to the same purpose he discourseth of the remedies that were used by the Ancients and no less valued by the Moderns And no less ingeniously did the learned Doctor Castle acquaint the world in the Epistle to his Chymical Galenist where he solidly and rationally asserts that the practical part of Physick being grounded upon experience doth not so much depend upon the notional that this being overthrown the other must necessarily fall to the ground the Fancies and reasonings of Philosophers and Physicians being built upon the practice and signifying not much more to the Fundamentals of the Art of Physick than pinnacles to the body and foundation of a building which though they be blown down may stand unshaken much of the Therapeutick part of Physick being as he hath well observed like Dials and Almanacks which agree as well with that of Copernicus as Ptolomy's Hypothesis Therefore saith he as the Ancients made a true use of the light and heat of the Sun in distinguishing and measuring times and seasons and managing of their husbandry though probably they err'd in their notion of his motion round the earth so did the Physiâ—ians no less happily imploy Apollo's Art in the Curing of diseases though they were ignorant of the true motion of the bloud and of the Sun of the Microcosm the heart But to conclude this discourse about Chymistry I would gladly know of Mr. H. why the Chymical mineral medicaments set down in the London Pharmacopoeia are things but of the lowest form in Chymistry and neglected by knowing men in this Age of improvement And that because I find upon a serious perusal of them that the learned Quercetan and Sir Theodore Mayerne whom you will own I hope as most eminent Chymists have been the Authors Approvers and Defenders of some of them and have raised so great a reputation to their names by their successful administrations that they both became eminently famous in our own and foreign Courts and Cities but now it seems they are neglected by knowing men in this Age of improvement I confess I should be very thankful to Mr. H. to acquaint us