the faculty of concupiscence in the Stomach and Liver 15. Whither this speculation tends 16. They have also against their wills assented to the Paradox of the Authour 17. The seat of the mind is the same with that of the sensitive soul 18. The manner of existing in its seat 19. A piercing of Souls 20. What the sensitive soul is 21. A similitude of its existence 22. Heat is not the fountain of the light of life but the light of the Archeal life or product 23. What the mind is 24. By the comming of the sensitive soul death hath entred 25. A comparison of the dignity lost and obtained 26. The Spleen for the Duumvirate 27. The dignities of offices 28. All foolish madnesses do from hence take their beginning 29. A remarkable thing touching the examination of remedies a further progresse being denied 30. How immortality did stand 31. A change of the State 32. A Corollary of what hath been said 33. The errour of the Schools THE Sur-name of a Duumvirate or Sheriff-dome may astonish the Reader with the terrour of novelty wherefore I am first to render a reason of its Etymologie and afterwards I shall explain its government Before all things the seat of the mind is to be searched into For although the soul be every where where the life of it is yet as the Sun is not properly but in his own place in heaven although the light thereof be wheresoever he casts his aspect There is altogether the same judgment concerning the central place of the Soul But there is a strife about the center or place of exercise of the soul in the body And the Standard-defenders being as it were hung up in the air do encounter over this thing noâ— having a foundation where to fix their foot For Plato contends for the Heart for whom the Holy Scriptures seem to vote while they reach that out of the Heart proceed Murders Adulteries c. But Physitians do respect the Head as it were the Inn of discourse and understanding especially because the heart by such an unwearied motion of a stirred pulse cannot but make the soul to be troubled and unquiet Those that baptize do follow the opinion of Physitians Neither are there those wanting in the mean time who determine the immortal mind to be so every where and equally in the body that they will have it to abide in no certain seat no more than it can be tied or bound by the body And so they suppose the soul to be a wandring â—oving inhabitant of an uncertain cottage and to be every way dispersed where life is present But they do not regard that some parts are cut off the life remaining safe but that others being lightly smitten do presently bring death on the whole body Some one oftentimes by his mangled face and head as it were diminished testifies death to be present with him whose heart notwithstanding by its lukewarmth and pulse doth promise the soul to be as yet present And that thing is daily seen in those that do long play the Champion A certain Bride being willing to celebrate her marriage in Opdorp nigh Scalds because the Governour of the place was there is saluted by her retainers with the noyse of Guns But one of them dischargeth a Gun laden with a Ledden Bullet but it pierceth the Coach and the Temples of the Bride She presently falls down and is reckoned a dead Woman But Opdorp is seven Leagues distant from Vilvord whither when she was brought proceeding to Bruxels her Head was a dead Carcase cut in thin pieces and plainly cold yet nigh her heart I noted a luke-warmth and pulse Likewise a certain Image fell from a high place on the Crown of a Woman so as that the whole top of the Scull had depressed the Brain almost two fingers in breadth She was reckoned to have been dead yet there was a slender pulse in both Arms six houres after and it was noted by many A certain studious man being strong strikes another sitting at the Table with his fist about the orifice of the Stomach who presently fell down with a foaming mouth and being lifted up by us into his Seat he was forthwith deprived of Pulse and before Grace was read his whole Body was cold as Ice A Carter being thrust thorow about the mouth of the Stomach with a Dagger with a foaming mouth presently dieth he is also deprived of all Pulse and heat Therefore under a humble Censure of the Church I will declare another Paradox Although life be a token of the Soul and this life be every where yet as by the cutting of a finger or foot the Soul doth not fly away nor the life of the whole Body neither yet can the Soul or life be divided into parts that the Soul in its whole integral part may be any way dividable and that death seemes to be near through the hurting of a more noble member In the mean time it is certain that the life in the member cut off doth presently perish although a part of the Soul be not therefore taken away from the whole Body Therefore it is manifest from thence that the Soul doth not sit centrally in whatsoever part there is an operation and presence of life And it must needs be that the Seat of the Soul is in some place as it were its proper and central mansion For from thence it dismisseth its lightsom and vital Beames by the Archeus the Instrument of the vital light Because the Soul it self is a certain light and clear substance in the minde but in other Souls it is indeed a light yet not a substance As elsewhere concerning the Original of Forms The Creator to whom be all honour hath kept a certain progresse from a like thing who instructs us in the Seat-royal of the Soul that from the more grosse things we may consider things more abstracted For in a Tree an Argument is peculiarly drawn from a Tree by reason of the prerogative of the Tree of Life is seen a Root the vital beginning of it self For truly in the Root as it were in a Kitchin a forreign juyce of the Earth is cocted altered is alienated from its antient simplicity of water and undergoes the disposition of a vital Ferment there placed But being cocted it is distributed from thence that it may more and more be constrained and become like according to the necessity of every further Cook-room which hath established Lawes for the Spirit inhabiting So in the middle Trunck of the Body of man is the Stomach which is not onely the Sack or Scrip or the pot of the Food but in the Stomach especially in its Orifice or upper mouth as it were in a Central point and Root is the Principle of life of the digestion of meats and the disposing of the same unto life most evidently established For whatsoever natural Phylosophers have ever thorowly weighed concerning the heart that is of great moment they will
now what he would in times past it is not our part to aske of God a reason of his own will therefore it is a foolish Argument God doth not now do what he did in times past therefore he cannot do it The Hebrew people was a small people out of whom Christ ought to arise and that people were on every side beset with Enemies and the which unless they had been supported with the stretched-out Arme of God and as it were by a continual miracle they being presently brought to nothing had yielded as a prey to the Conqueror from whence notwithstanding it was decreed that the Messias should arise But the condition and Law of Christians is far otherwise For the Israelitish people in the hardness of their hearts did measure the grace or favour of God by the abounding of Wealth Of-spring Fruitfulness of Fruits and their peaceable Possession But we have known that offences should be necessary in the Church Tribulations also how great soever yet not worthy to be reckoned with the Expectations of the Age to come And likewise it hath so pleased God that for unjustice Kingdoms are translated from Nation to Nation But that I may shew that there is the same God of the Christians which there was in times past to the Hebrews I must not indeed run back unto the written Chronicles with which Atheists the Bibles themselves are of no credit the Argument of Atheists is to be overthrown Seeing their understanding admits not of that which is not introduced outwardly by the Senses Their whole Faith is from a knowledge but that knowledge is founded in a present Sensibility a fore-past Observation renouncing of Histories and succession of Ages for otherwise there ought to be no less Authority of sacred than of profane Writers Yea all the knowledge of Atheists descends to the Eyes to Sight Numbers Lines Figures Tones or Sounds Weights Motions Smells Touchings Handlings and Tasts that is it wholly depends on a brutal Beginning and they are unapt to understand those things which do exceed sense For that is the cause why they exclude themselves from the intelligible world and do kick against the corner Stone But at leastwise they confess that they do see and know those things which they are ignorant of which thing happens in the Speculations of the Planets But I wish that Atheists may measure the compass of the World I say the real distance of Saturn from us for they shall confess for that very cause even against their wills the distance of so many thousand Miles which their understanding it self will contradict by seen dimensions or they shall of necessity incline themselves to confess that a three-fold circuite of Saturne in respect of his own Diameter could not have arisen from himself or of his own accord but rather that there is some Author of these of infinite power wisdome greatness and so also of Duration c. But if the Atheist doth think that the Orbs of so incomprehensible greatness and so regular a constancy of successive changes have been thus of their own accord from everlasting at least wise the perpetuity of that infinite Eternity ought to follow a certain Law Order and ordained Government which did require a certain presiding or overseeing or ruling Being everlasting in continuance great and powerful Most miserable therefore are they who by an utter denial of all things do exclude Faith and the rewards of Faith For let us consider the Circle of the Earth to be cloathed with waters or that place without Earth and water to wit that all things do of their very own forceable Inclination fall towards their Center So that if two men were there to wit from East and West these should touch each other with their Feet and should look upwards with their head even as we and the Antipodes at this day This I say the Atheist doth believe although sense hath not suggested it unto him For weighty bodies do teach indeed their own ready Inclination of falling downwards but that the Heaven is on every side aboue in respect of one Center and that such is the property of this Center that there is not another like unto it neither yet hath the Atheist seen that property but nevertheless he believes it yea whatsoever he may at any time frame he alwayes finds the contrary and without that property of a Center he believes I say that same one only natural property in the universal Center but he never beholds or looks into the working cause thereof or that which is like it in the least and he had rather through unbelief exclude it from himself But at least if there be not a God nor he every where present and giving all things to all it should be all one if all things were confounded should fall upwards or downwards whether weighty Bodies did rush downwards or upwards whether Plants and Beasts did perish or not Therefore the constancy of order perseverance of the Species or particular kinds do of necessity require some primitive Fountainous Being from whence they began are and do propagate by a continual thred and the which doth govern all things at his own pleasure or by his own beck and gives a constancy and Succession of Continuation least all things should go to ruine and be confusedly Co-mingled Indeed he beares a universal care and keeps things in their essence or being In the next place let the Atheist consider the flowing and ebbing of the Water To wit that no water doth ascend of its own accord yet that the water of the Sea doth alwayes ascend as well in the flowing as ebbing of the Sea He believes this because he sees it but the cause thereof he believes not because he seeth it not neither hath the knowledge thereof entred by sense because it is that which contradicteth his senses But he at least ought to believe that those things do happen by a cause although he hath not known the same by which notwithstanding every thing hath drawn such a property For although all particular kinds should have this kind of power of seeds and gifts from everlasting yet nevertheless there is not a certain universal property in the Universe which may have respect unto all particular things that they may be ordained and which may know all particular things newly risen and to arise unless it be out of and besides the nature of all particular things Otherwise there should be innumerable Deities as there were in times past and moreover there should be continual Divisions and Dissolutions of the species or particular kinds For the Atheist denies to believe what things he knows not by sense he sees indeed the water to be moist but he knows not what that is which is moist in the water or why it is moist Therefore he believes that which he doth not know and that which he doth not pierce that is as the Beast doth for neither shall Humane knowledge ever raise him up
but afterwards as it were that of a burning Drop Being increased it afterwards stirs up Pains Burnings and at length oft-times Swellings For then the sharpness being conceived in the Spirit by a spiritual Fermentation to wit by an active alteration defiles the Spermatical or seedy Glew which is conjoyned between the Ligaments and the Bones I have already before demonstrated that the Character of the Gowt is of its own disposition bred to infect and to be transferred with the seed to wit even as Mercury infects the Mouth and Teeth but the Spittle of a mad Dog the brain as it were in an Inn in which it oft-times lurketh for a long Race of years Wherefore by virtue of a co-resemblance it is agreeable to truth that the Character or Impression of the Gowt doth originally respect the Seeds Notwithstanding seeing nature is wholly careful of the Sex and a diligent preserver of the particular kinds to be preserved and a saver thereof she peculiarly what she can forsees that that Character doth not infect the Species or that it do not fall on the Stones wherefore she could not at least prevent that in respect of its disposition it doth not Immediately infect the liquor next to the Seed which Paracelsus calls the Sunovie being plentifully powred forth between the chests of the Ligaments and the co-touchings of the Bones But at the very moment of Copulation the Character of the Gowt otherwise sleeping in the Spirit the Archeus being stirred up under so great a stirring of Lust is con-tempered with the Spirit together with the seed plainly after an irregular manner because nature being then unable to govern the Rains could not restrain but that the Poyson of the Character doth fermentally infect the Lustful seed Therefore seeing the Seed or Character of the Gowt doth regularly defile the Spermatical or Seedy parts therefore as speedily as may be the Sunovie which no where happens alone but where two Bones do mutually touch each other Hence is the place or Nest of the Gowt in the Joynts which things seeing they ought to succeed by causes already constituted nature being at least needy of her own preservation doth not suffer the imprinted Spirits to infect the Sunovie but in places far distant from the heart For from hence the name of Podagra or Gowt of the Feet and of Chiragra or Gowt of the Hands is borrowed But at length when as the Disease hath gotten strength in going and nature hath lost hers the Gowt molesteth more-nigh places also Therefore the sharpness of the Gowt being conceived is in the Spirit as also in the seed potentially without an actual tartness to wit even as the seed of a Pear doth not shew forth the tast of the Fruit but while the time of ripening is urgent or at hand a sharpness is actuated in the Spirit and desiles this which in a little space after defiles the Sunovie with its own Ferment no otherwise than as the smell of a soure Earthen-pot doth a little after curdle new Milk poured into it But in the mean time while these things happen within the whole Archeus of the body is altered in himself For many Gowty persons have known that they did foretel to themselves a fit at hand from the Excrement breeding between their Toes its being changed which thing surely doth not bewray so much the defluxion of a Humour as the very altering of the Sweat and Latex it self The Sunovie therefore from whence or what time it once falls down or becomes sharp cannot but provoke Paines wherefore by reason of a greater and less sharpness do the heats greatnesses or cruelties properties of the Gowt only differ But the Sunovie is a certain cleer Muscilage or slymie juyce such as drops out of the shanks of a killed Calfe when his feet are cut off but a sharpness being presently conceived the Sunovie waxeth clotty in the form of Cheese and becomes thick And so also it is thereby rendred unapt that according to a wonted Tenour of health it can wholly exhale without the residing of a dead Head And hence the degenerate diseasie Birth becomes an unhappy mother of knots for then it suffers a puffing away of the watery parts the remainders of the thick and hardened Sunovie being retained Hence are those monsters Lime and Chalke Therefore that sharpness is the cause of the pain but the pain is the cause of the flowing forth of the neighbouring venal bloud which is good and guiltless But the afluxion of bloud is not a defluxion from the Head or Liver sent thither thorow straight passages of wayes impossible to the understanding And although it may deceive the unwary senses and they may seem to feel a defluxion from aboue yet they are only the deceitful Judgments of the senses even as when the Tooth akes an increase seemeth to raine down to the payning causes on the whole side of the Head no otherwise than as at the pain of the cleaving of the Skin at the roots of the Nailes of the Fingers or a White-flaw a Kernel appears under the Arm-pit For by a local Remedy the pain of the Teeth departs or it being pulled out by the roots ceaseth and the Kernel vanisheth when as the Finger is eased of pain This is the original root of the Gowt this is the manner of its making the which surely is confirmed by things helpful and hurtful Not indeed that I do approue of that Maxime shameful in it self or that I will have curative judgments to be drawn from thence But errors being sometimes admitted do instruct Judicious erring persons who are willing to be wise in Charity as good Remedies do confirm good operators And therefore whatsoever begins a subtile sharpness in the Spirit doth ripen increase or promote the same that also Spurs on the Fits of the Gowt of which sort are white sharpish Wines containing little of Wine and much of Vinegar being the more largely drunk and likewise whatsoever things are corruptives of the liquor Later as Asparagus c. In like manner also whatsoever things do take away sharpness out of the Spirit of life and the Latex before the fit being inwardly taken or outwardly applyed do remove prevent or preserve from the fit at leastwise they do mitigate the pains and hinder the knots But in curing the Gowt the sharpness produced is not to be regarded which is instead of a fruit and of a product but we must meditate after what manner the Seminal oâ—seedy Character of the Gowt may be abolished out of the Spirit of Life The which otherwise remaining nothing is done which is worthy a choice Physitian For neither doth every Letter-Carrier come unto the Caskets of the vital Spirit but only the Embassadour who is a Friend And therefore the purging by the Coralline secret kills the Gowt in its seed But that Arcanum is not the Colour or Tincture of Coral as the rout that are ignorant of Chymical matters do
all forreign things except that of naked Air not joyned to smoaks it also necessarily follows whether any thing be swallowed by licking in or by drinking that the same care of the Epiglottis the keeper is alwayes acted and the same shutting of the wind-pipe observed For truly in the same place no less than the loss of life is concerned Therefore Ecligmaes and Syrupes although they make the parts smooth for the affording of spittings by reaching yet they in the first place hurt the stomack and do not in the least absolutely profit in affects of the Lungs But they say that the spittle by a voluntary sliding also without feeling doth flow into the wind-pipe and that Ecligmaes or Lohochs would in this respect be helpers But neither of these subsist with truth Because however the neck be disposed of the warinesse of nature is alwayes the same that not any thing do at unawares fall down or flow down into the wind-pipe A Player was lately seen his hands being unseen by raising up his feet and body to have drunk a great cup of wine having his head nigh the earth I appeal to Anatomy and submit my hand to the Ferule For there are some who sleeping a great deal of spittle flows out of their mouth who if they sleep laying with their face upward they do of their own accord presently rowle themselves on their side or are awakened nature being affrighted with the fear of eminent danger But if any thing of spittle shall then through carelesness fall down into the wind-pipe the cough henceforth ceaseth not presently to expel it But at length what shall sugar being licked in with fryed stinking Fox-lungs or being seasoned with the juice of Colts-foot profit the Lungs if the Lungs it self abhorring all forreign things admits nothing of the same but through carelesness and straightway with great trouble expels it For shall that be sufficient for the restoring of the hurt faculties Is the root of Catarrhes thus cut off Certainly which way soever I shall turn my self I do not see the Schools to withstand Diseases but by the feigned dreams of Heathens in an Image in their effects and from a latter thing And that by reason of the ignorance of Diseases and Causes For thus the name of Physitian hath deservedly departed into the merriments of Comedians because they do not think or consider what to do what to say or what is to be done by them that they may satisfie that precept Be ye merciful as your Father which is in Heaven is merciful And even as St. Bernard speaks concerning the Clergy who eat up the sins of the People as they live only by Alms-deeds for Physitians do not think whether they do satisfie the command and expectation of charity who eat up the sicknesses and infirmities of the People But I do not see that these plagues of Aegypt had been brought into the utter darkness of the Schools but that they being ill seasoned oft-times found affects whereto they might apparently and without narrow search attribute the Tragedy of Catarrhes Because some one having a pain in his Head hath forthwith felt his neck to pain him a difficult motion a restlesse night presently the pain hath manifested it self in the loynes being from thence propagated unto the thighs and then it hath seemed to descend to the calves of the legs and feet Hence arose the decree that pain seeing it is an accident of inherency doth not wander from one subject into another unless some material thing shall depart in dregs out of the brain by the muscles of the turning joynts through the readinesse of a sliding Rheume and doth square to the received Etymology of a Catarrhe This perswasion of a Catarrhe its mask being discovered by Anatomy ought to be known For truly if the painful matter doth successively drop down out of the brain through the neck surely that shall be brought down thither either through the bosomes of the brain or through the brain and its coats or between both coats or between the hard coat or Dura mater and scull or at length between the scull and skin For the consequence is of force from a sufficient enumeration of parts But not in the first place through the bottles or vessels of the brain because that could not subsist without an Apoplexy and an undoubted Palsey of the whole body if so be that the supposed doctrine of the Schools concerning these Diseases standeth For if it be successively expelled from the former bosomes unto the fourth bosome the matter of the Rheume cannot but shut up that forreign and sharp excrement into the thorny marrow and henceforth breed the Apoplexy and Palsey Secondly that matter of a Catarrhe cannot by sweating thorow the brain be heaped up and slide down between the brain and thin coat so that both coats may keep a continual separation from the very marrow of the thorny sinew because the sliding Rheume should bring forth a renting and solution of that which held together in the marrowy root of the sinews throughout its length Which doth not want very many absurdities In like manner if the Catarrhe should rain down between both the coats first of all both the little membranes should be double which might defend the thorny marrow as with a coat of Mail which thing the eye hath not yet viewed hitherto And that being supposed it could not at least wise disturbe the motion of the muscles or know pain And so there is an error in the Position Because a sinew is indeed a deriving or conveying instrument of the command of the will but not therefore an executive instrument of a voluntary motion Especially because a small Nerve doth now and then scarce exceed the grosseness of a doubled thread and it being externally implanted into the muscle the Rheumy humour could not be cast into it but by a bringing of a Palsey on the part but not cruel pains of the moved muscle In the next place if a Rheume should flow down between the Dura mater and the scull Anatomy teacheth that the egress of the sinews side-wayes thorow the little holes of the turning joynts is so suitable and narrow that a passage for a Catarrhe is in no respect granted from the thorny marrow unto the muscles Lastly if room should be granted for that device at least wise what should be the cause of its succession that the humour having once slidden between the little sinew of the two turning joynts should re-hasten unto other successive Nerves doth perhaps the Rheume being affected with a weariness of one muscle henceforward wish for other Clients of delights For how shall the Catarrhy humour flow down through the small little vein without an astonying or stupifying of the member Shall it enter into the muscle even unto its tail by a strange implanting but shall it again from thence depart unto other muscles which henceforward are of a more steep or inclinable scituation or if a new
the defending of a healthy life And if that be difficult to him that at first accustomes himself at leastwise it shall not be to him that hath accustomed himself For how foolish a thing is it for him that groaneth or sigheth through a Disease to wish for his long since denied ingorgings Yet I will not that any man perswade himself that this sobriety of living and light fardle of Food doth prevent any man from having the Plague a Fall or Bruise a Wound Thunder-bolt or Stone For external incidencies or accidents do despise the Family administration of the digestions because they overcome them Indeed I reject the Stone even among external things because it is made by a Ferment that is now a stranger 3. Seing all food ought to be changed into a Cream and an exquisite chewing is that which makes the digestions easie hence I most strictly commend chewing at all times For truly one onely morsel being not rightly chewed makes more adoe in the body than three which are well bruised in eating For therefore birds because they want teeth have need of a double stomack however most powerful otherwise they were in digesting Every Beast also which cheweth the cud as it was greatly esteemed in the Law so it seriously insinuates unto us that the necessity of chewing is not to be despised Yea for that cause a bruit which chewes the cud is in the holy Scriptures chosen for a clean Beast 4. In the next place whatsoever things are taken in gluttony beyond the power of the Ferment of the Stomack are indeed made hot within and do putrifie neither also are they for that cause digested as in Feavers is most plentifully to be seen But as much of the more tender meats as is taken under gluttony is indeed digested and slides out of the Stomack but it carries headlong with it a great heap of that which is undigested as well by reason of the extension of the vessel as the negligence of nature being loaded and forsaking the raines But if that which is most exceeding tender shall be digested and that stayeth in the Stomack longer than is meet that retained food doth also of necessity wax too sharp or plainly putrifie is brought over into a bitter excrement in the morning being oft-times rejected by Vomit And the which the Schooles have falsly called Choller For Diers do by one onely Kettle of Dye change above a hundred diverse colours if the Cloaths be first diversly affected So also one only wandering ferment of the Stomack doth diversly dispose and determine of the cream by reason of the diversity of its parts else single or simple if it containeth in it diversities not as yet plainly digested So that although it ordinarily tingeth nothing but the digested part of the cream with its ferment yet it ceaseth not to affect the undigested part and wrongfully to season it by reason of the defect of the receiver Wherefore most things do thus grow to an exorbitancy in the kitchin of the first digestion 5. Whatsoever accustomed thing is not taken as malignant but desired that also fulnesse being absent is the more easily digested and in Diseases is safely admitted if it be soberly and moderately taken Because the ferments do easily subdue those things which are accustomed and especially if they are desired For Hippocrates perswades us to use a most slender food in sharp Diseases to wit until an appetite doth arise again For I praise the more thin Ales or Beers as much as I trusting to the words of Galen do despise sweet Drinks and Barley-broths Barley saith he being a little boyled causeth Ventosities or windinesses but stoppages if it shall be somewhat better boyled Wherefore our Ancestors believing that Barley is not unhurtful being any way boyled do constrain that to bud which they then call Malt by which work they prevent aswell windinesses as stoppages But of Malt and Hop they make Beers or Ales. 6. I also urge none with Broths compleated with beaten Eggs c. if a sharp Feaver be present being mindful of that Precept Impure Bodies by how much the more thou nourishest them by so much the more thou hurtest them For although in sharp Diseases people live without meat and onely by drink yet a peril of their life doth not thereupon invade them Yea thus do they the sooner recover and the strength and appetite do renew with much less difficulty As oft indeed as a putrifiable or mortifiable thing is cast into the Stomack wanting its own digestive ferment it putrifies that which is digested not digested And that is the true explication of that Aphorism For I never wished that those who were sick of sharp Diseases might return fat or fatted but I did well intend that one only thing to wit that they might recover and indeed not much curtaild in their strength The greatest part of Diet therefore in Diseases of the Stomack I have drawn out of the Aphorism That a sower Belching of a repaired ferment coming upon burnt ones is good For burntish Belchings voluntary loathings an averseness to Fleshes Fishes and Eggs yea and loadings of the Stomack have commanded the sick to be nourished with things that are to be drunk onely For else by things subject so stink or mortifie I had learned that strange accidents were to be expected defects of the mind and other discommodities of that sort Then because drinks do moisten do comfort thirst and satisfie heat do drive away drinesses and weaknesses following thereupon But by drink I do not here understand the suppings of Broths which do abundantly nourish to wit of those which in a hot stomack without a digestive ferment are of their own accord mortified but altogether of those which do least of all putrifie such as are Ponadoes and likewise Beer or Ale tinged with wine wherewith crums of bread also are co-mixed that they may be meat and also drink Hither I recal what I have elsewhere taught at large To wit That digestion is made by a propper ferment but not by heat As oft therefore as there is an aversness to flesh and burntish belchings heat is signified to be present and a sharp ferment to be wanting Give heed to this how easily new flesh being fast tied to a hot foot or head doth putrifie and presently stink Therefore in a Feverish Stomack being very hot wise Nature fears least a dead or stinking carcass should be made in it and therefore she is presently averse to fleshes But whither then hath the ferment of the Stomack in a Feverish man departed Hath it wandred to some other place or was it extinct For whither had the Ferment departed which is no where acceptable but in its own dens neither also hath it perished because it is a vital thing but whatsoever vital thing hath once perished doth not return again after privation But a ferment is that which returns afresh That therefore happens For either sometimes the dismissing of the ferment
so as it doth if it boyle in Water Yet in an equal degree of the fire its laxative part would in like manner fly away Therefore others think that the crudity in Asarum is the effector of its loosening but these do neglect pot-herbs which are more crude than Asarum But that Hellebore is not to be ripened by boyling if Vomiting be to arise from crudity They boyl Scammony in soure things that they may mittigate it but the common sort of Physitians have already known that Scammony is thus gelded so as that if it be exposed unto the sharp vapor of Sulphur it is plainly deprived of its virtue and so much of the Scammony doth depart as it shall draw of the sharpness But I being willing from a fatherly affection to correct the furious force of Medicines do understand that the ancient faculties or virtues of things ought to remain and to be turned inward in their root or to be transchanged under their own simplicity into other endowments or qualities privily lurking in the same place under the Poyson their keeper or to be bred a new by reason of an added perfection After which manner Coloquintida turns its laxative and destructive quality inwards and a resolving faculty springs up from the bottom being a greater or singular curer of Cronical or long continuing Diseases For Paracelsus laudably attempted that thing in his tincture of the Lile of Antimony yet was he silent or knew not that the same thing was to be done in all Poysons of living Creatures and Vegetables whatsoever by their own circulated Salt For truly all the Poyson of those perisheth if they shall return into their first Beings This Hinge not the Schooles but Physitians chosen of God whom the Almighty hath chosen from their Mothers Womb in time to come shall know and he shall make a difference of the Sheep from the Goats Simples therefore of great powers or virtues are not to be gelded nor mortified but to be bettered by Art by reason of the extracting of hidden faculties or by a suspension or setting aside of the poysonsomeness or by a substituting of one endowment in the roome of another by commanding specifical adjuncts These things are for those to whom it hath not been granted to taste the power of the greater circulated Salt For some things do by adjuncts wax milde their cruelty being laid aside do become neutral to wit through virtues being partakingly assumed on both sides Neither therefore may we borrow these adjuncts from the received Dispensatories of the Shops which do not teach a bettering or even corrections but a destruction of things or surely they afford nothing but correctingmockeries For Example Marquess Charles Spinelli late General of the Genoans when as he had walked late on foot about the City having thorowly viewed all the Walls commanded the Physitians to be called and said unto them that he had sometimes laboured with the Falling-sickness and was cured by me and that now and then he as yet felt a giddiness in his Head since he had come out of Aquitane into Liguria or Genoa by crossing the Sea A circle of Physitians next morning gives him a scruple of white Hellebore to drink and for a correction thereof added as much of Annise-seed presently after half an hour he Vomiteth and afterwards he invokes the aid of me being absent and accuseth his Murderers saying Helmonti mio voi me lo dicesti gli Medici t'ucciderano Oh my friend Helmont thou toldst me this that these Physitians will kill thee He was silent and after two hours his Stomack being first contracted and then having a convulsion throughout his whole body he dies the Physitians seek excuses and the Earth covered their fault For so the Confections of the Schooles throughout their Dispensatories do carry many foolish correctives into the fardle with them Opiates have not things especially adjoyned unto them but laxatives for the most part Ginger Mace Annise and whatsoever things might cure wringings of the bowels from a later effect of loosening Medicines Fie with how unpunished a liberty doth ignorance rage on mortals How little do they understand their own Hippocrates If those things are taken away which is meet that is which hurt and burden the sick feels himself better and doth easily bear it For seeing those things which hurt within do now and then scarce weigh a dram every purge which is directed for health ought to be an evacuation either unperceivable or at leastwise exceeding moderate and that with a restoring of the strength or faculties For this is that which the sick do easily bear with profit or help The Correctories therefore of Medicines are unprofitable patcheries and a weight described by the Schooles without the knowledge of things and so destructive at least to the Medicines if not together also to the sick This part of Medicine requires a diligent and expert Secretary of Nature Because in that part the most ample riches of Medicines and guilded houshold-stuffe of Glaura is found The Schooles had in times past learned of our Philosophers that most excellent virtues do inhabite in Simples over which destructive poysons were appointed chief Keepers thereupon their rashnesse succeded which co-mingled express Poysons and manifest Corrosives with Antidotes hoping that by the goodness and quantity of adjuncts the malignity of the Poyson was to be overcome as if it were convenient for health for a pestilentious Glove to be brought unto guests into a chamber filled with healthy aire For I do not here accuse the Viper in Triacle without which to wit this hotch-potch of Simples is as it were dead For the flesh of Vipers is in it self unhurtful and without Poyson yea an Antidote against Poyson But little balls prepared thereof in the boyling do leave all their state in the Pottage which the raw flesh did keep I complain in this place of Arsenical things which are Magistrally as they call it put into an Antidote For the Schooles by reason of the rashness of boldness or self-confidence presume to deserve credit and to have placed the glory of Studies in the Authority of their possession Neither is it alwayes that even the most excellent virtues do abide or dwell about destructive Poysons in the same subject so as that these are covered over by Poysons For Arsenick and Orpiment c. How much soever they may be fixed and dulcified or made sweet yet they are never to be taken inwardly however others shall otherwise perswade They onely prevaile without and do kill and tame other Poysons of Ulcers if they themselves have been first subdued The corrections therefore of Medicines are without the knowledge of properties parts and agreements For what doth a spice Ballance in respect of a Poyson If the whole body of man being strong and full of life doth presently faint or fall down at the stroke of the tooth of a Viper Shall Wolfes-bane wax mild through the admixing of the clove Shall Coloquintida cease to
the great and new Paradox which I have undertaken to demonstrate in this Treatise Wherefore in the entrance obstacles that are obvious and devious are to be removed And first of all they object the Text The Earth shall bring forth unto Thee Thistles and Thornes In the sweat of thy Face thou shalt eat thy Bread I will multiply thy Miseries and thy Conceptions In pain thou shalt bring forth thy Sons thy Husband shall rule over Thee Thou shalt die the Death And by consequence ye shall be afflicted with the Calamities of Diseases and old Age. All which things issued forth on Posterity from the curse of the Sin of Disobedience even unto the destruction of the World upon no account to be redeemed and by no act of sanctity to be expiated Because God had appointed a Law to Adam that he should not eat of the Fruit of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil the transgression whereof hath defluxed as into original Sin So also it stirred it up into the perpetuity of a Curse from our first Parents equally on all their Posterity These things have been thus diligently taught hitherto Whereunto under the peace and censure of the Church I will humbly sub joyn my own Conceptions First therefore I negatively affirme the contrary because the Words of the Text do not precisely containe any Curses except on the Serpent and Earth but not at all on Man Whom if he with whom there is no successive alteration or change had cursed he had truly and alwayes cursed like the Evil Spirit For it is a foolish thing to believe that God should now curse Man whom presently after Sin and without the intervening of contrition or act of repentance he forthwith blessed with much Fruitfulness gave him the whole Earth and placed all living Creatures under his Feet Yea in the midst of the Curse uttered or brought upon the Serpent he replenished the femal Sex with his blessing saying The Woman shall bruise thy Head I will put Enmities between Tree and the Woman and between thy Seed and her Seed The which seeing it is not understood of the Seed of Man it promiseth the Messias the Saviour of the World to come of the Seed of the Woman So far is it that he had there cursed Man In the second place I deny that a Law was given and by consequence also a contradiction or opposing of a Law For it follows wheresoever there is not a Law Transgression nor Disobedience doth not interpose and by consequence a Curse doth not there befall But I prove that there was not a Law by the very Words of the Text And he commanded him saying Of every Tree of the Garden eat Thou but of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil Thou mayest not eat The Word he commanded Seemes to include a Precept and so also a Law Yet that one only Word obtains no more the force of a Law or Precept for the affirmative of every Tree of Paradise eat Thou than for the negative Thou mayest not eat For it included not a Sin although he had not eat of every Tree of Paradise And therefore it did no more contain a Law for the forbidding of one Tree than for a Liberty of all the other Trees Therefore the Text contained a fatherly Liberty for the affirmative and likewise for the Grant as also a fatherly Admonition of Caution for the Negative no otherwise than as if a Country-man being expert of the way shall say to a Traveller If thou shalt go that way thou wilt Perish and die the Death So the Admonition of the Creator thou mayest not eat and in whatsoever day thou shalt eat thou shalt die the Death do shew not a Law but a Persuasion and Wish But the transgression and Act of the despised Admonition doth indeed contain a Sin but not of Disobedience and Disobedience as much differs from a despised Admonition as a Law doth from an Admonishment it self The Prohibition therefore thou mayest not eat sounds as an Admonition to wit least he should eat his own and posterities Death by an unextinguishable Guilt because that Death was placed in the Apple but not in the opposition of eating And therefore that Death from the eating of the Apple was natural being admonished of but not a Curse threatned by a Law For the threatnings of Death which was unknown to Adam could not terrifie the same Adam And therefore threatnings had been void but not an admonition For Adam had not as yet seen a dead Carcase and the which before he saw living Creatures was ignorant of their Names And much less could he know what Death should be And least of all by far could Eve know what it should be to die in Paradise Therefore with our first Parents Death was as yet a non-Being and unknown but of a non-Being and of that which is unknown no Conception answereth and there is no fear at all Therefore neither hath God foretold Death for the threats of Terrour or a Law but from his meer goodness That when they had eaten of the disswaded Apple they might know that God had not made Death but themselves for themselves Neither doth the Text in Chap. 3. hinder these things Because thou hast eaten of the Tree whereof I had commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat c For the Words do manifestly declare the goodness of the foregoing Admonition but not a Law For the Word I had commanded is the same which before in the second Chapter and he commanded him saying signifies an Admonition only and not a Law Otherwise under an equal original Sin they had been obliged from eating of every Tree of Paradise which none of a sound mind will ever affirme For the great Sin was in a suspition of deciet falshood and fallacy of God and that they gave more credit to the Serpent than unto God and that they despised a fatherly and kinde Admonition But there was not Disobedience because a Law was not given It was indeed an Act against Gratitude Love towards God and a due and rational Obligation Therefore God cursed them not because they by eating had contracted the Penalties of Diseases Death and Miseries on themselves for a Punishment But God speaketh not of Diseases after the Fall Because it was sufficient once to have foretold Death to come while he admonished them that they should not eat In the next place the crafty Serpent assaulted not the Woman as being the weaker but because the Admonition was given unto Adam from the Mouth of God but signified unto the Woman onely from the relation of the Man And therefore God first requires an account of Adam First of all it doth not containe a cursing of the Man that the Earth should be cursed in its Work and should bring forth Cockle and that he should in the sweat of his face eat his Bread all his Life But they containe a remembrance of the loving Admonition that went before the
consist Neither are the solid parts nourished but by a spermatick slimy Liquor that is akinne unto them Therefore the simplicity of Galen is the more to be laughed at which forbad Membranes Sinews Cords or Tendons and so parts of the first Constitution in Food least a muscilage or phlegme should thereby grow as being unmindfull indeed that the similar parts in us are immediately nourished onely by that vitall muscilage Nor in the mean time do the Schooles heed that one of the Kidneys and that one onely side doth oftentimes breed stones and sometimes waxeth totally brawny when as the other doth in the mean time rightly perform its office for the whole life-time From whence at least it must be confessed that the urine doth not stonifie in its Foundation or bottom from its own vice or by reason of a muscilage the which be it already sufficiently suppressed before in the next place that it doth not wax stony from Dyet and from the imaginous Tartar of meats and drinks but that the Kidneys do through their own defect stir up a vitious Ferment and at length bring forth this insolent Monster For oft-times one of the Kidneys hath a good while flowed with much sand and afterwards is wholly stopped up with the stone It well perceives indeed a blunt pain of that side but no sand afterwards throughout the life-time Lastly the Schooles indeed take notice of that by Anatomy yet they do not as yet therefore cease to condemn the guiltlesse stomach as bringing forth a rocky phlegme for the one and not for the other of the Kidneys Therefore it is beaten for the fault of bringing forth the Disease of the stone it is sweeped with Besomes it suffers the lesser and familiar Evacuations of three dayes but the more rough punishments of solutive Medicines it undergoes at the set interchanging seasons of the Year Yea the stomach endures punishment because Cauteries are imprinted under the shoulders and hammes of the legs for the preventions wrestings aside and revulsions of a distilling phlegme and other old Wives fictions of that sort And the Tormenters do so much the more cruelly rage on the not-committed fault of the stomach because this stomach suffers their Cautery to be over-covered with a Scar but Physitians do keep it open As if a feigned phlegme rushing down from the plaine of the Head and remaining unchanged in the stomach should slide through the Bowels and should be again supt up by the Meseraick veines without any discerning of a hurt received but should from thence again be carried unto the Liver and Kidneys unlesse through the skin being opened beneath the shoulder and Knee it were revulsed outwards from its appointed Journey Good Jesus Thou Wisdome of the Father Are these thy Schooles which propose such kind of Toyes unto silly credulous poor people and which circumvent them with meer Trifles Which torment Mortals with so many Butcheries Far be it far be it from us to believe this to be a Doctrine of Truth that is Thine But the Enemy of the first Truth the Enemy of Men hath brought forth these trifling Discourses and doth even still defend them But moreover some prescribe Diureticks and others in the mean time being affraid of or driven from them to wit least the stone being driven forwards out of the Kidneys shall stick in the way For so an Abbatesse being oppressed with a descending stone by the perswasion of a Circle of Physitians abstained from a Urine provoking Remedy in the Dog-dayes least happily through the heat of that season and of the Diuretick Remedy the stone should wax big and harden Therefore she waited for four dayes space without sleep with a cruel howling untill the stone had of its own accord arrived into the Bladder And then the Councel of the Physitians was triumphed in and that unlesse she had observed that Rule surely she had not kept life A certain Noble Woman being sorely troubled with the stone and a Fever after blood-letting being four times repeated after Clysters the lesser Evacuaters Laxatives Vesicatories and other Remedies of that sort survived full ten dayes with out-cryes for a Spectacle of Physitians because they found not an hour that was free from the Fever wherein they might give a purging Medicine to drink against the stone neither otherwise would her strength be sufficient to undergoe a new tormenting Cruelty For what things I have seen committed by Physitians in time of curing under the Title or pretence of Heat I could scarce with horrour and Compassion describe in a whole Volume For I remember that a Jesuit at Antwerp in the Year 1606. both whose Kidneyes being beset with the stone denyed the passage of his urine at length after two dayes Combate of Physitians breathed out his Soul For they debated about the shadow of an Apulean asse to wit whether a Suppository Glans or a Clyster were to be administred unto him They all abhorring Diuretick Medicines or drivers forward of the stone In the mean time John Vermierden a certain Merchant having suffered a standing pool of urine for eight dayes space and being now near death took a Urine-provoking Medicine of the juyce of Palmer-wormes and of the juyce of black shell-fishes wherein he had boyled one grain of Cantharides to be drunk up at one entire draught I let these things pass But I thus decide the Controversie of Diureticks Every stone is either bigger than its Vreter or urine-pipe or lesse or equal If it be lesse urine-provokers shall be seasonable and not to be feared But if it be bigger than is meet Diureticks shall be plainly unfruitfull and vain But if it shall answer in equality to the Urine-pipe it is better that the same be more speedily expelled least it be encreased by delay Notwithstanding because in the trans-passage of the stone the Ureter being contracted by reason of pain is for the most part crisped or frizled Diuretick Remedies are in the fit to be given with a fore-Caution To wit those things that are to be given to drink are to be Restrainers of pain and of the Contracture sprung from thence Through the carelessnesse or ignorance of which onely poynt it sometimes happens that stones have stuck in the middle of their passage and have kill'd the Patient with miserable howlings And that not so much through the insolency of the Diuretick Medicines as through the errour of Physitians For neither must we think that the Channel or Pipe of the Vreter is of an unequal straightnesse that the stone which at the first onset descends through the Vreter doth at length stick fast as being pressed with the straightnesse of its Journey But the future Compressions are diseasie and convulsive frizlings arising from pain even as elsewhere concerning Sense and Sensation And so Fomentations or asswaging Applications as well those that are external as internal which appease those convulsive motions I chiefly exhort unto and judge necessary Why shall I not therefore distinguish of
channel through which they should so diversly flow down even unto the most distant Coasts of the Body But that it is a far more easie and nigh thing but only the hand being once delivered to Gentilism hindereth and that by a credulity they have stopt up their own way of enquiring into the truth to meditate that the life is to be on every side continued from the Principle of life next also that from a vital errour errours are spread throughout the whole body also into the whole body even into the part as well containing as the part contained Again It hath been rashly and frivolously devised that this foundation being once passed by any kind of remedy would be made â—oyd by successors thenceforth deceived by Satanical craft which thing I would those that come after might with me sufficiently contemplate for from thenceforth they should also easily with tears discern the great blindness of mortal men as well in Physitians as in all places in medicinable things For gowty persons are first ushered in and they should accuse the Stomach and that they do there feel the first motions and as it were feverish disturbances as the fore-â—unners of a fit For the tarâ—ness conceived and bred in the same place only by the aspect and in-beaming of the vital light is erroneously translated into a seminal glew which they now call Sunovia and it is the transparent nourishable seed of the joynts and it is there the more plentifully laid up by reason of the frequency of motions and a strong com-pressing of the bones For truly otherwise the bones should very shortly rage with heat and be dryed by a mutual rubbing together But although these things are much more fully described in the Chapter of the Gout yet it is profitable for me more plainly to enlarge them Surely divers diseases are met withal which draw their original centrally from the Stomach whose rise and remedy are hitherto by an unhappy guesse unknown For there are in the Concave or hollownesse of the Stomach sharp or sour bitter salt burntish or stinking poysonsom unsavoury c. savours especially the sour fermental digestive or trans-changeative savour is not proper or natural to the Stomach but it is prepared and inspired into it by the Kitchin of the spleen being a neighbour unto it for this end which ferment indeed failing for that very cause there is an un-concoction in the house a difficult or slow coction a dejected appetite a loathing of meats which things are presently beheld to be proper to and stamped on fevers Wherefore the old man hath said That sowr belchings coming upon burntish or stinking ones is a good sign Also it somtimes happens that a sparing ferment doth flow unto the Stomach From thence also that an unnourishing or wasting of flesh is stirred up and that meats do become hard to be cocted Yea the Stomach which seemeth to be deprived of its ordinary feeling neither which feels any things but those which are hurtful and that as oft as it is unworthily affected by forreign things contained within it it presently under the smalnesse of the ferment brings forth a watery liquor and is busie in thrusting it out with a loathing But I call that watery which now and then is nothing but a meer water likewise a slimy muscilage also oft-times unsavoury and not seldome seasoned with a forreign tartness which doth as far differ from a vital ferment as a dead man doth from a living one so that although they do participate in tast yet they very far differ from each other which may be seen in the bitterness of Wormwood and of asses or wild cucumber or Coloquintida For while the drink also the nourishment to be adjoyned in the Stomach do offend through the penury of a lively ferment they presently decay into a yellow liquour which the Schools have hitherto falsly called the bowel Gaul yea also one of the four constitutive humours of the venal bloud being ignorant the while by what authour and guider choler should be seperated unmixt from the venal bloud nigh akin to and intimately well mixed with it and that surely much changed from choler swimming on the bloud should be all alone brought unto the Stomach Seeing there is not a passage from the Liver unto the Stomach but by so many windings which may worthily accuse this invention of the Schools of blockishness But when the nourishment approacheth to the Stomach that it may be made like unto it and nourish it and it faileth through the penury of the ferment or a storm otherwise arisen in the Stomach it presently puâ—rifies and becomes infamous with a burnt savour For that being detained in a lukewarm place which hath now entred the threshold of life and hath been received into the number of things by an by vital it presently also putrifies is made burntish yea if delay shall have accesse it becomes cadaverous Whence are the disease of choler lienteries or smoothnesses of the bowels belly passions c. Also now and then the Archeus of the Stomach being even unwilling to supply the smalness of a sour ferment is wroth and brings forth a sharp sour cruel one from thence are inordinate appetites and likewise wringings as well in the Stomach as in the bowels themselves for the most part cruel ones But if the plenty or harshness of food doth flow unto and overflow a moderate sour ferment then the whole food waxeth bitter that excrement by such a degeneration grows yellow and gross and a various Troop of evils being thereby kindled it riseth up into a Flux unless the whole be at once presently cast forth by stool Somtimes also the Archeus of the Stomach doth conceive a fury is enflamed of his own free accord so as the tartnesse doth not strike into the meats but doth wandringly infect the Archeus himself Then indeed the joynt sicknesse or Gout is conceived and the Archeus being diffused throughout the whole body doth notwithstanding immediately affect with its sharpness the Sunovia or raw seed immediately adjudged for the fashioning of the Bones and therefore laid up within the joynts But he defiles the Sunovia or raw Seed of the more weak part in the strength of nature Therefore the joynt sickness is reckoned to choose at pleasure the part which it apprehendeth And because that tartness being received in the center of the Stomach is dispersed by the Archeus unto remote places therefore it is false that defluxions are propagated from the head through the sinews and veins So indeed great wringings of the belly by a conserving or consent of parts do stir up a hurtful sharpnesse in the Stomach which afterwards do oft-times wondrously shake the hands and feet with a convulsion and likewise straightway after doth also resolve them with a Palsie Therefore an undue tartnesse of the Stomach if it lay hold of the dewy nourishment and the spermatick nourishable juice thereof how slenderly soever it be it
stirs up giddinesses of the head and by so much the more troublesome ones by how much these do the more behold or respect its hinder part But an Apoplexy ariseth while as an unsavoury Muscilage plainly by a strange motion and entertainment doth enter from the hollow of the Stomach into the veins thereof about the Orifice and doth keep the rightness of its own side and distinguisheth a great one from a lesse by theabsence or presence of poysonsomnesse But there is for the most part in such chronical diseases a certain sealing Character So indeed the Gout doth oft-times issue from the Beginning of the Parents into the off-spring and doth there patiently wait very many years before that the proper fruit thereof doth obtain its own ripeness Therefore in the vital Beginnings and radical Organs of the Stomach which are the local or implanted Archeus it self that post-bume and translated gouty character or impression doth stick fast by a hereditary right and consequently likewise also that entired character which is gotten by an inordinary of living that sits in the Archeus of the orifice of the Stomach the which while it is wearied by the insolency of a strange guest doth sharpen it self for an expulsion of the same and from thence also the fruit of an Apoplexy issues For neither is that silent gouty Character materially laid up in a certain nest within and received in a separated Stable in the folds and wrinckles of the Stomach as it were some forreign Tartar adhering to it But it is a committed character in the very Archeus of life For let us feign a unity of the thing supposed and of the property whereby that character doth lay intombed for the Gout Apoplexy or Falling evil and is stirred up at the set stations of its own ripeness or is much stirred by certain meats taken or smels And then let us consider the natural sharpness of the stomach now degenerate and likewise the tenderness of its orifice stirring up swoonings and falling sicknesses which testifies nothing besides an easie feeling hurting suffering disturbance of the life and so an enemy present tumulting from very many things therefore if the sharpness which is co-mingled with the Archeus be stirred up besides nature and seeing this is chief over all the particular digestions that sharpness is beamingly brought down unto strange cottages whereto is wholly an enemy and from thence doth the Gout or joynt sickness issue forth But if it be co-knit to the meat or drink pains of the Colick wringings of the Guts and other exorbitances of the parts occasionally are present But if that the sharpness of the Stomach doth degenerate and associate it self with an opiate or drowsie poyson with a piercing toward the seat of the Soul the falling evil is straightway present But if a stinking muscilage inclining to bitterness doth arise there is a giddiness of the head and that more strongly insulting doth stir up an Apoplexy For neither is it meet to distinguish those precisely from each other while it is better to have the matter or occasion exhausted Likewise some external Medicines bound about the head do preserve from an Epileptical fall and fit which is for a signe that either the fruit of the Character is hindered or the applying of the occasion to the Archeus Indeed in either manner the hurtfull matter is to be letted or prevented to be extinguished or annihilated that it be not co-mingled with the Archeus And moreover as vegetables are wont for the most part to sleep in Winter and to be as it were awakened at Spring that they may send forth a bud leaves flowers or fruits So a Gouty Epileptical c. Character is also stirred up into a ripeness at a fet period unlesse the importunity of provoking things do forestal it At leastwise the giddiness of the head and Apoplexy c. although they are brought back within occasional causes yet they do sit immediately within the very nest of life in the Archeus which indeed is implanted in the orifice or upper mouth of the Stomach For in how easie a breviary by things hanged on the neck or body is the falling-evil suspended and detained Because an entrance of the hurtful cause into the sensitive soul is hindered for there is a piercing of the hurtful cause lurking in the Archeus to within and the which doth therefore wholly take away the mind Indeed it leaves a pulse to wit of the heart but it so tramples on the sense imagination and every principal power of the soul that for that space of time they seem to be plainly withdrawn From whence also we must note with a pen of iron that the Soul so trampled upon doth not dwell in the heart which never a whit stumbleth But the Gout as it tends to without so the Character thereof doth not so much affect the secret chamber or seat of the soul as the Archeus the President or chief Ruler of the digestions which things do therefore happen because an hereditary character of the Gout is stamped on the Young from the beginning of Generation and long before its quicking And therefore it respecteth only the Archeus but not the soul which then alone bare the whole burden on himself But he that hath gotten the Character of the Gout by the exorbitances of his life although it shall come to him being a man in years yet it keeps the nature of its own property whence it is made manifest that the stamp or character of every disease is promiscuously to be admitted into the lap of the sensitive soul So that as great fear hath made many persons Epileptical or to have the falling sickness for their life time so a co-like fear hath afterwards rendred many free from the Gout Indeed in the one the fear generated in the conjunction of the life and sensitive soul an Epileptical character which fear being more slack by one or two degrees and more outwardly killed the character of the Gout and rendred it either congealed by the fear or even oppressed the Root thereof Black choler according to Hippocrates which seeing it hath no where ever existed is to be taken for the effect attributed to that choler subsisting in the Midriffs for he hath had respect unto the seat of the soul or the Duumvirate not yet known if it he dispersed into the body provoketh the falling sickness but if into the soul madness For such was the plainness of the first age which indeed did candidly fift things but for want of light from above it came not unto the grounds of the matter There are some simples which are without a valuable abhorrency which by eating of them do produce true madness but others cause sleep some also produce madmen for term of life but others do bring forth doatages only as it were certain drunkennesses according also to the equalities whereof I will have the characters of diseases to be judged Because not only such hostile things being taken