has been familiarly taken notice of and discoursed by the Physitians which has not been long the name has from them been deriv'd down to the Nurse-keepers and Searchers and is grown so common in their mouths that Diseases which either they understand not or have a mind to conceal are now often given in under the name of the Scurvy The Rickets is I think very rightly supposed by the Learned Doctor Glisson to be a Disease wholly new and to have had for one of its chief its procatactick Causes the Peace Security and Plenty which the Nobility and Gentry of this Nation had long enjoyed immediately before the first breaking forth of it Glisson de Rachid p◠241. From whence they had addicted themselves to a more soft delicate and debauched way of living and by that means contracted a constitution of body more effeminate flabby and unfirm than their Ancestors who by continual Toils Wars Dangers and other Manly Exercises not only preserved their own strength of body and generosity of mind but also deriv'd it entire to their Children But I do not find that it is observed by any able Physitian That the face and appearance of it is in the least altered from that in which it discovered its self at its first eruption neither is it entered into any stricter complication with the Pox and Scurvy than formerly Glisson de Rachid c. 20. These being Diseases as Doctor Glisson himself tells us very little a-kin and only by accident sometimes meeting in the same body For the increase of the Consumption in the Bills of Mortality Mr. Grant himself gives so sufficient a Reason that we need go no farther to enquire the cause of it nor to ascribe it to the alteration in the nature of that Disease since he affirms That almost all who dye of the French Disease are put into the Bills of Mortality under the name of Consumption For upon enquiry he sayes he found That all mentioned to dye of the French Pox were returned by the Clerk of St. Giles 's and St. Martins in the Fields dead of the Consumption from whence he concludes Grant Bills Mortal c. 3. That only hated persons and such whose very Noses were eaten off were reported by the Searchers to have dyed of this Malady The Stopping of the Stomack I can imagine to be nothing else but the Disease which Physitians call Asthma or Dyspnaea because I find not the least mention of this very frequent Malady in the Weekly Bills and that I observe there is nothing more usual with the Vulgar in their complaints to Physitians than to assign those Distempers to their stomacks which properly belong to their Lungs The Rising of the Lights is I think truly enough believed by M. N. to be that frequent Symptom which is vulgarly called Suffocatio uterina or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And I am not of Opinion that that Suffocation is only the proper affect of Women and that solely it is caused from the disturbance of the Womb For I have seen some men very much troubled with a rising up in their Throats and especially in Hypocondriacal Distempers no less apprehensive of being choaked than Hysterical Wo It is worth the taking notice of in this place that the Author of Medela who everywhere else inveighs so bitterly against the Aristotelean and Galenick Philosophy when he pretends to give some account of the reasons and causes of these Symptoms for want of truer apprehensions of his own shelters himself under the very weakest and most exploded part of that Philosophy And flies to the pitiful and jejune notions of Vapors raised in the Lower-belly especially about the Spleen in the stomack and about the Midrif and in the Cavity of the Omentum which must needs whilst they continue there hinder the free motion of the Midrif And a little farther that there may be no scruple left of his Ignorance in Anatomy he acquaints us with the playing of the Scorbutick malignant Vapors through the Veins and Arteries to the Lungs and by communication thence to the heart Which Opinion is so contrary to the Doctrine of Circulation that there is scarce a Butcher who is not able better to inform him and he may learn at every Shambles for 't is not fit he should prophane a Theatre that not one drop of blood enters the Lungs before it has passed the right Ventricle of the heart And now by reason this is a Subject very well worthy of a more accurate Disquisition and the Account which M. N. has pretended to give seems very lame and unsatisfactory I will beg leave to digress and offer some apprehensions which I have concerning the Hysterical Passion and other Distempers which seem to come very near it and agree in many of the Symptoms and Accidents A Digression concerning the Hysterical Passion THough the Disease called Hysterica Passio be by almost all Authors treated of as only peculiar to Women and proceeding only from the distemperature of the Womb yet as I have before observed it may upon grounds drawn from Reason and Experience be very truly affirmed That Men also are liable to most of the Symptoms of it and that even in Women they are often caused when the Womb is not in the least concern'd in the guilt And the reason why this Sex is more frequently than that other afflicted with this Malady may very well be ascribed to their more delicate constitution and soft texture of their nervous parts whereby they become more liable to convulsive motions and upon the vellicating and twitching of any one part endued with exquisite sense to have Convulsions communicated to the whole nervous System from whence the whole frame of the Body is put into disorder as we see Clocks and Watches whose Springs and Wheels are contriv'd with too subtil and nice workmanship are oftner in fault than those of more plain work For the better understanding of the Nature of this Disease and of the Causes from whence all the Symptoms do flow it will not be improper to give those Descriptions of it which are delivered by Authors and of the Accidents which in some particular persons have occurr'd to my own observation The Paroxysms or Fits of this Disease in some move regularly and return at certain set-times in others are uncertain and wandring Some persons they invade in an instant in others they give notice and warning by certain signs which forerun the Fit and are a Prologue to the Tragedy As a dulness of Spirits Laziness Faintness Paleness of Face Sadness of Countenance The Parties press their Belly with their hands and perceive something to rise up to their apprehensions as big as a Cannon-Bullet their Legs fail them and tremble they find something rise up to their Throat ready to choke them Then they grow drowsie lose their understanding some laugh others weep some do both Besides they find a gnawing pain at the mouth of their Stomack a loathing of Meat
I will tell hm what Dr. Harvey sayes upon this point Hâ—rv de Gen. An. Ex. 51. But while I affirme sayes that Oracle the soul to reside first and principally in the blood I would not have any man hastily to conclude from hence that all blood letting is dangerous or hurtful or believe with the vulgar that as much blood so much life is taken away because Holy Writ placeth the life in the blood For daily experience shews that letting Blood is a safe cure for several diseases and the chiefest of universal remedies because the default or superfluity of the blood is the Seminary of most distempers and a seasonable Evacuation of it doth oftenescue men from most desperate maladies and even death it self for look how much blood is according to Art taken away so many years are added to the age Nature her self was our tutor here whom Physitians transcribe For she of her own accord doth many times vanquish the most mortal infirmities by a plentifull and critical evacuation either by the nose haemorrhoids or by menstruous purgations And therefore Young-people who feed high and live idely unlesse about the eighteenth or twentieth year of their age at which time the stock of Bloud increases together with the Bulk of their bodies be disburdned of the load and oppression of their blood either by a spontaneous release at the nose or inferiour parts or by breathing a vein they are dangerously set upon by Fevours Small pox Head-aches and other more grievous Didistempers and Symptoms Alluding to which the Farriers do begin almost all cures of beasts with letting blood This is the opinion of that great Secretary of Nature Nor is it onely his sense but the best Authors do affirm and Riverius for one that in the diseasecalled the Rheumatism which seldome is without a high tincture of the Scorbute blood must be taken away for ten or twelve dayes together Riv. Prax. Med. l. 16. c. 3. every day till the pain vanishes and the strength seems to fail which does not by loss of blood in this disease And in this case I can appeal to my own experience For being called to a person of Quality in August 1665. in Gloucestershire in councell with that Judicious and Learned Physitian Dr. Filding of Gloucester who then lay miserably tormented with a Rheumatism being free from pain in no part of his Body not having the use of any of his Limbs though he where a Person who these many years has been highly Scorbutical we drew from him at least the quantity of 70 â„¥ of blood before we could free him from pain and restore him to his health Platerus makes mention of a Mad-woman Plat. Obs l. 1. p. 80. who was cured by being let blood in several Veins seventy times in one Week I might run through all other diseases and shew the necessity of bleeding which may happen in most of them but because M. N ' s. main Argument is founded upon Sanguification I will endeavour to explain how the Chyle is turn'd into Blood and in what parts of the body chiefly this work is effected So that by discovering the true way of Sanguification his Argument may appear to be ill grounded That the Liver is not the Shop wherein the Blood is made is evident to any man who will examin the generation of Animals for Harv de Gen. Ex 18. p. 63. Ex. 50. p. 153. Ex. 59. p. 207. he shall perceive the Heart beat and Blood perfectly coloured before there appear any rudiments of the Liver so that the Liver is made after the Blood and as it were sticks upon little slender threds and the Parenchyma of it evidently grows out of the mouths of the Arteries through which matter is supplyed to the formation of it so that the Parenchyma of it seems to be nothing else but congealed blood Again the Chyle never goes to the Liver but empties it self into the Subclavial Veins and goes streight away to the right Ventricle of the Heart Now the use and business of the Liver Glisson Anat. Hep. c. 41. is without doubt that which is assigned by the eminently learned D. Glisson that it is made to receive the blood which runs to it by the Porta to separate the Choler from it and then being freed from that to deliver it to the Cava The very Make and Structure of that Bowel argues as much as also the distribution of the Vessels to every part of the Parenchyma for the Porta equally dispenses the blood into all parts of it and the small Capillary threads of the Porus Biliarius are every where dispersed and ready to receive the choler which is brought along mingled with the blood into every part And in like manner the small branches of the Vena Cava are every where interwoven and at hand to carry away the blood when cleansed and freed from the bilious part of it Now the choler is separated from the blood by a certain kind of Percolation For the blood issuing out from the Porta into the Parenchyma or fleshy parts of the Liver finds that substance full of pores or little spaces of divers shapes and figures and proportionable to the shape sise and figuration of the Particles or Atoms of blood and choler whereof those which are suitable to the shape of the parts of choler open into the small pipes of the Porus biliarius those which are answerable to the shape of the Atoms of blood convey it into the little mouths of the Cava These pores or little holes easily let pass those parts of mater which are correspondent to their shape but refuse all of another Figure as we see water will dissolve common salt and imbibe it so long till all the spaces which agree with the shape of it be fill'd and then will receive no more but yet afterwards will receive sugar or salts of another Figure so long till they have fill'd the spaces suitable to their shape The separation of choler in the Liver may not unfitly be explain'd by that which is made in Sieves whereof some are made only to sever Chaff and dust some for Fetches some for Barley others for Oats which according to the shape of the holes let passe or refuse this or the other Grain Having thus explain'd the Anatomy of the Liver I will proceed to discourse of the Nature of Blood it self and the principal Engine which is employed in the making of it and to that end let me trace the passage of the Chyle that we may the better find when and where it is turn'd to blood It is well known to every man who has but in any measure inquired into Physick and Anatomy Willis Descript Nerv that as soon as the meat is dissolv'd by the menstruum of the stomach it is pressed down into the guts and out of them all the way almost to the very Anus the thinner and finer part is forced into the Lacteals out of which it
a pain and Swelling of their Belly a rumbling in their Sides under the Ribs They have a weak Pulse a trembling at the Heart a pain in the Head a redness in their Lips Face and Eyes which are sometimes distorted sometimes so fast shut that they can hardly be opened And being now high in the Fit they are ready to be strangled are deprived of Voice Sense and Motion except such as is Convulsive some cry out with a despairing Voice and presently fall down for dead their Pulse is then very weak and sometimes none to be felt When the Fit is going off their Cheeks redden they recover their Senses their Eyes with a very dull and heavy Aspect are opened and at length fetching deep sighs and sometimes pouring forth showres of tears they come to themselves This is the Picture of that dismal Disease which most frequently afflicts poor miserable Women though Men are not exempted from it In some all or most of these Symptoms meet in others only the strangling or danger of being choked with some other Accidents are observable But generally the Fits are so terrible and amazing to them who consider not the reasons of these affections that by the Vulgar the persons subject to them are believed to be bewitched or possessed by the Devil The ancient Physitians do with one consent deliver That Seed and menstruous Blood corrupted in the Womb and Genital Parts do send forth malignant Vapors which with violence carry up the Womb against the Diaphragm and Organs of 〈◊〉 spiration and thereby suddenly stop the motion of the Heart and Lungs and from this impetuous motion of the Womb they suppose to be caus'd that sense of a Globe rising upward in the Belly But they who have so much insight in Anatomy as to know That the Womb is immoveably fixed to its place by Ligaments and that in Virgins it is usually not much bigger than a Walnut and do consider that in Women with Child the Womb presses upon the very stomack and yet never causes these Accidents And that oftentimes in Dropsies of the Womb that part is extended to a vast bigness and is full of putrid Humors and yet none of these Suffocations or other Accidents are caused They I say who consider this cannot allow that these stupendious Symptoms can be produced by that cause The Learned Doctor Highmore in his Exercitation upon the Hysterical Passion having examined all the Hypotheses invented either by the ancient or modern Physitians Highm de Passion Hystericâ to solve the Phaenomena of this Distemper and finding them all very insufficient to give a satisfactory Account delivers most ingenuously his own Opinion and supposes all the Symptoms to be caused by an overstuffing of the Ventricles of the Heart and Vessels of the Lungs with thin servous and fermenting blood which does so distend and fill them that the Lungs are thereby rendred unfit to comply with the motion of the Diaphragm and Chest and the Heart disabled to discharge its self by its Pulses of the burden which oppresses it though it attempts to rescue its self by more frequent pulsations and from hence necessarily to follow first A difficulty of Breathing and then a Suffocation which that Nature may avoid she calls to her Succor the Animal Faculty which lest she perish together with the Vital pours forth the whole force and strength of her spirits though in so much disorder that by their confused Sallies those irregular motions are caused in the Body which men call Convulsive This is the account according to my best apprehension of his meaning of the descriptive Definition which that excellent person gives of this Disease And I am so much of his Opinion as to believe That very often a Dyscrasie or Distemper of the Blood and probably of the Serum or Whey of it is one cause of this Distemper But I beg his pardon if I am apt to believe That even then when these Fits are caused from a Serous Dyscrasie in the Blood they are rather to be attributed to the Impurities and sharp Salts which are either cast off upon the Brain and from thence distributed through the Nerves into remote parts of the Body or else upon some of the Bowels where those pungent juices pricking and vellicating the extremities of the Nerves cause the original and whole system to participate of their disorders than to the Bloods stuffing and distending the Vessels of the Lungs and Heart For besides that there are many Women Cachectical and Hydropical whose Vessels are filled with little else but waterish Blood and Whey who are notwithstanding very free from Fits of the Mother It is often observed that Women of a ruddy Complexion who have a brisk and lively heat in their Blood and that rich with spirits which purges its self every Month in its constant periods are oft-ten miserably afflicted with Hysterical Paroxysms For they are not seldom such as have an excellent good appetite and digest their meat well whose Lungs are not flabby weak or disposed to a Consumption and whose Blood when it is let out of their Veins and setled is observed to be thick and full of Fibers all which are Qualifications quite contrary to those which are required by Dr. Highmore's Hypothesis if I mistake him not to render a person liable to Hysterical Passions Moreover in my Opinion crude and waterish Blood is altogether unfit to be set so impetuously on fire as to cause so extravagant a Fermentation in the Ventricles of the Heart that by overstretching the Lungs they should be unable to disburden themselves of the Blood For we find that Cachectical and Hydropical persons and Maids in the Green-Sickness are troubled with a shortness of Breath upon Exercise and walking up steep Places or Stairs which undoubtedly is caused for that the Blood of such persons being thin and waterish and wanting its due proportion of the sulphureous and inflammable part does not afford a sufficient quantity of vital Oyl to the Lamp of the Heart and therefore when upon exercise and motion there is a greater quantity of Blood than ordinarily sent into the Heart that being not well rarified and fired in the right Ventricle passes not so swiftly through the Lungs to theleft as it ought to make room for that which is to succeed so that at the same time the Lungs and Heart are overburdened upon which a difficulty of Breathing a beating and throbbing at the Heart must necessarily ensue Besides in Feavers where the Blood is most of all rarified and fermented except the matter of the Disease be cast upon the Brain Hysterical Symptoms do not constantly happen and yet the sulphurious part of the Blood fired is much more apt to fill and distend the Chambers of the Heart and Vessels of the Lungs than the Whey It is farther observable That Women who have their Courses too frequently and vent by the Womb overgreat quantities of Blood are often troubled with
is delivered into the common Channel of the chyle and being mingled with a whey which comes out of the Lymphaticks it enters the Subclavials out of which it runs mingled with the blood into the great Trunk of the Vena Cava Out of which passing into the right Ventricle of the heart by the motion of that Engin through the Pulmonary Arteries it is flung into the Lungs out of which having there separated some phlegmatick or crude excrements and being impregnated with the nitre of the air which is drawn in by respiration and being in the Lungs as with a Churn or Chocolate-mill more exactly mingled with the blood it hastens by the Pulmonary Vein to the left Ventricle of the heart out of which by the Aorta it is sent to all the parts of the body Thus far the Chyle may be easily traced and truly I know not why it may not having passed the last deflagration in the heart be justly called Blood I will not in this place bring the distinction of the Schools upon the Stage which distinguishes that Liquor which runs in the Veins and Arteries into Three humours and Blood as being now out of doors with all ingenious men and being no otherwise to be applied than as some portion of that Liquor has more often other more seldome or hardly yet at all passed through the heart and there been fired But I in general term all those juices Blood which run in the Veins and Arteries and have the form colour and consistence of that liquor which is vulgarly called so though it consists as certainly all blood does of parts very heterogeneous and I think the Chyle it self which comes very white and dilute into the Subclavials when it has undergone the fermentation in the left Ventricle of the heart may without impropriety be justly termed blood For though I do acknowledge that this juice before it arrive to perfection does undergo several fermentations and separations in divers parts of the body as for example in the Liver the choler is separated in the Kidneys the whey in the habit of the body several excrements are refused which can probably be no other wise blown off than by transpiration And though a fermentation in the Spleen Testicles Uterus and other parts be requisite to give a vigour life and height to the blood yet I take the Heart to be the chief Shop where it is first made and where it receives it's life motion and tincture In the heart as to our purpose three things are chiefly to be considered 1. The Ventricles or Chambers of it 2. The Parenchyma or Walls and 3. The Mechanick Spirits as Severinus Danus calls them which lodge and reside in the inscrutable recesses of the Parenchyma These Spirits may be justly called the Artificers or Labourers of blood and life to these we owe all Action Heat Motion Colour and what not These first working in the punctum saliens or vesicula pulsans with a wonderful skill and unexpressable art draw the lines proportions of an animal shape all the Springs wheels pullies and whatever Engine is necessary for life and after they have drawn the whole Fabrick in the small with an innate prudence and indefatigable industry they extend every line to the due Proportion and build up the Fabrick according to the design'd dimensions and afterwards are no less careful in keeping the body in continual Repair than they were at first in Building of it In the next place the Ventricles or Chambers of the heart being inclosed with their Parenchyma as with strong Walls do at the very first sight from their mechanical Structure sufficiently appear to us to be made for Laboratories for the Blood Hogeland well observes Hog p. 81. That upon the Bloods rushing into the Heart the like boyling and rarefaction is caused as when Spirit of Nitre is poured upon butter of Antimony Des Cartes and the best Philosophers and Physitians are much of the same Opinion This Fermentation seems to be caused by the Mechanical Spirits or Seminal Salts or if you please Ferment of the Heart which ferments with the active principles of the Blood and Chyle and produces heat flame motion and a change of colour the ordinary effects of Fermentation as it is well known to Chymists In the act of Generation the Seed or resolv'd Salt being cast by the Male into the Womb in the Conception frames the Heart and by the heat either of incubation or the cherishing warmth of the Womb is excited and gently falls a fermenting and at length boyling more violently breaks into a flame which is perpetually kept a foot by a new supply of Chyle the old stock of Blood after some Deflagrations being left poor and unfit to maintain the Fire That the Chyle in this Deflagration receives its Tincture or Scarlet-die is more than probable Ent. Apol. p. 141. The Learned Doctor Ent deduces the variety of Colours from the diversity of Seminal Salts and certainly with very good Reason For since Colour is nothing else than a certain perception of a motion or stroak of Light reflected from the Surface of a Body and striking upon the tunica retinae of the Eye and that the Superficies of every Body is made up of numberless Particles of matter variously disposed among themselves it follows That if upon the Fermentation of Bodies the site and position of parts be so changed and transposed that they return not again to the same order wherein they were first placed the Superficies must be altered and then the reflection as also the stroak of light must be different and except it prove diaphanous the Body must appear of a new colour Thus we see Water much agitated at Mills and Chataracts looks white The blew tincture of Violets having some drops of Spirit of Vitriol poured on it turns Purple and immediately by adding some few drops of Spirit of Harts-horn the Purple colour is turn'd into Green Doctor Willis Willis de Ferment cap. 11. and other Learned Authors have many pleasant instances of the alteration of colours by mingling Liquors which ferment with one and the other That the Chyle is turn'd red in the Heart after this manner I am very apt to believe and that the innate Salt or Ferment of the Heart by fermenting with the Chyle which abounds with volatil Salt and Sulphur produces this admirable tincture I have observ'd as yet but two wayes of producing a red colour in Bodies either by the action of heat upon them or else by the addition of Salts by heat white and pale colours are often changed into red and that especially in Bodies which are not very fluid and which admit of only a slow and leisurely Fermentation Thus Quinces by long boyling contract a Redness Fruit by baking in an Oven grows Redder than Raw and Bricks by Heat acquire a red colour Nay the Learned Doctor Glisson affirms That in the hot Months of Summer Glisson Anat. Hep. Blood
wrought very gently with her but as soon as the working was over after her last Vomit she fell into a Fit of the Muther It might be expected that I should now give an account of every particular Symptom which belongs to this disease but not designing to make an exact Treatise of it in this place I must recommend to the Reader the consideration of these causes which I have mentioned or any other which he can imagine powerful enough to make disorders in the animal Spirits and convulsions in the nervous parts and as for the particular consents correspondencies of one part with another how distempers begun in one part manifest themselves in another far remote I referr him to Dr. Willis his most learned Treatise of the Brain and Nerves and to the Schemes wich he will there meet with For without such an Anatomical consideration of those parts it is impossible to receive any tollerable satisfaction concerning the affections of them And I will onely in this place give him an account of the most notorious Symptom the rising of the Muther from which all the rest receive their denomination in Dr. Willis his own words Plerique abdominis plexns praesertim vero insimus affinis ejus mesenterii maximus in passionibus Hystericis vulgò dictis saepenumero afficiuntur Willis Nervor descrip c. 27. Porro illud Symptoma in Paroxismis ejusmodi valde frequens nempe quo velut globus ab imo ventre efferri ac circa umbilicum impetuose exilire percipitur ut perinde uteri ascensus perhibeatur Dico id nihil aliud esse quam immanes horum plexuum spasmos Saepe quidem in foeminis interdum etiam in viris novi cum affectio convulsiva in aderet primo molem in hypogastrio â—ssurgere visam dein circa medium abdomen intumescentiam ita immanem successisse ut viri fortis manibus ut ut validissime intentis haud comprimi aut inhiberi potuerit Proculdubio admirandi hujus affectus causa est quod intra paris intercostalis nervos Spiritus animales influi quoties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sive motus Convulsivos ineunt primo uti plerumque assolet circa nervi extremitates nempe in plexu abdominis infimo effervescere ac velet explodi inciptant quae illorum affectio cum sursum perreptans ad plexum Mâ—senterii maximum deferatur adeo ut Spiritus ejus incolae pari inordiatione corripiantur nihil mirum est ista medii abdominis intuumescentia ac velut materiae cujusdam nitrosulphureae explosio cietur In this and the place before quoted out of him we see that Dr. Willis whose sense M. N. that he may honour himself by quoting of him every where either ignorantly or willfully mistakes ascribes Hysterical hypochondoriacal and asthmatical risings and stoppings to Convulsions of the nerves and not to vitious and malignant vapours raised in the lower belly especially about the spleen in the stomach Mâ—d. Mâ—d. p 49. 50. and about the Midriffe and in the cavity of the Omentum Nor to the Playing of the Scorbutick malignant vapours up through the veines and arteries to the lungs and by communication to the heart which accompt may be well enough tollerated in Sennertus but is by no means to be indur'd in M. N. who pretends so much to the new discoveries in Physick and undertakes to demolish and overthrow all the old Writers And yet aggrees with them in their grossest mistakes And now having clearly proved that the Diseases of this present age are not so much changed and of another nature as to render the old way of Physick uselesse I will next proceed to examine whither the causes assigned by M. N. are sufficient to produce that great alteration both in Nature and art which he imagines to be made CHAP. III. THE Causes of the alteration of Diseases from their ancient state and condition the Author of Medela assigns to be the Pox and Scurvey which by carnal contact by ill cures by accidental contagion by haereditary propagation and by lactation he supposes so to have overspread the whole face of Mankind as that by them there is introduced an universal alteration and depravation of Nature from whence he would inferr that the rules Methods and Medicines which were used by the Ancients in the curing of their diseases are become altogether uselesse in ours As to carnal contact haereditary propagation and lactation I very readily grant that the Pox and scurvy may by those ways be communicated from the diseased persons to the sound But as to accidental Contagion as he calls it upon which point lies the main stress of his Arguments for the universality of those diseases by which they like the Plague infect at a distance and by steams emanations taint the whole stock of Mankind it is a meer whim of his own and so far from being a solid truth that it is point blank contrary to the daily experiecne of the world and the authority and observations of the most learned and faithful Writers and the very Nature and Essence of those diseases When M. N. comes to handle the point of the propagation of the Pox and Scurvy by ill cures it is pleasant to observe that he does not onely fling dirt upon the learned Physitians for letting blood and using the purgers of the Shops but that he may ingross all the sinners of the Town he likewise falls foul upon his own Fraternity the men of his own Rank and Ability in Physick the poor Quacks and Mountebanks who pretend to the Cure of the Venereal disease and to make room for his own very injuriously tears down their bills from the Posts On my word he will make no ill trade of it if he can perswade the whole Nation that they have the French-Pox and then that nobody but himself can cure it But passing by his immodest and uncleanly discourse as not designing to make my self acceptable to Stews and Brothel-houses I will fall upon the other more important and less offensive disquisition concerning Phlebotomy And as to that he tells us he could forsooth willingly write a Treatise and a learned one it would be touching the mischiefs done by bleeding in these Northern parts of the world in most Diseases as well as Agues and Fevours because of the mixture of the Scorbut and his main reason is because that if it be true since the liver is turn'd out of the Office of Sanguification Sanguis sanguificat blood makes blood of the chyle and doth it ad modum tincturae c. Now I will grant to him that the liver is very justly discharged of the office of sanguification as I will anon more largely prove and that in some sense the blood may be said to make blood and yet upon this score is it impossible for that great remedy of bloud letting established by the Experience and Authority of the whole learned worlp in the least to grow out of esteem First then
a little a swift and a slow a frequent and a rare a hard and a soft are by M. N. acknowledged to be established upon very good grounds So whosoever is frequent in handling the wrists of sick and dying men will find that there is very good reason to admit the other differences especially such as arise in respect of equality and inequality in respect of order and in respect of Rythm or proportion for the reasons of these as well as the simple motions are not hard to be understood from the true consideration of the motion of the heart and blood and are to be met with accomodated to that Hypothesis in the Writings of the learned Dr. Highmore from whose account it is very clear That the Pulsus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deficientes intermittentes High Corp. Human. Disquis l. 1. p. 2. c. 8. intercurrentes caprizantes dicroti undosi vermiculares formicantes tremuli serrati are not as M. N. calls them Quirks and Quillets and hard words but really different motions of the Heart and Blood and he tells us that In morituris semper aut unus aut singuli reperiuntur If any one be pleas'd with Extravagancies and Whimsies concerning the Pulse he may find enough of them in Paracelsus who gives this wild account of the Pulse Pulsus Paracels l. de Pestilent Tract 1. est mensura temperaturae in corpore secundum preprietatem Sex locorum quae Planetae occupant duo in pedibus attribuuntur Saturno Jovi duo in collo veneri Marti duo in temporibus Lunae Mercurio Pulsus Solis est in sinistro latere sub corde Hinc sequitur si Pulsus celerius movetur quam fieri debebat pati septem membra principalia Cor cerebrum hepar fel renes unde Pulsus irritetur sive ad iram concitetur Si vero aliquod principale membrum a morbo vincatur Pulsus debiliter movetur quod aer sive Spiritus vitae eo loci obstructus est And he has farther in another place Tom. 2. p. 743. Pulsum manere usque ad mortem imo aliquando quadrantem horae post mortem Concerning this opinion of Paracelsus the impartial Sennertus delivers his What I pray says he can be more absurd and argue a greater ignorance of humane body Sennert de Con. Dissen Chym. cum Gal. c. 18. than for Paracelsus to write That the Gall the Reins the Liver have peculiar Pulses and to ascriâ—e to the Pulse the passion of Anger For if we examine the Original of the Arteries and the use and intent of the Pulse we shall find that every alteration in that immediately comes from the Heart As to the Directions which are to be drawn from consideration of the Pulse in Diseases they are of so much importance to a Physitian in a Fever as the Card and Needle to a Pilot in a storm no hand of a Watch or Clock does more exactly signifie the motions of their inward Springs and Wheels than the Pulse does the alterations made in the great Engine of Life the Heart Framb Can. Consult Med. p. 25. The Pulse is says Frambesarius Fidelis nuntius cordis ex quo certissima vitae ac mortis petuntur indicia Pulsus magnus vehemens est virium index in quibus sanitatis restituendae spes ponitur Sed Pulsus parvus languidus facultatis vitalis imbecillitatem indicat unde mortis metus Inaequalitas Pulsus semper damnatur si perseveret intermissio juvenibus periculosissima repentinam quippe ill is mortem minatur nisi ex artertarum obstructione oppressione fâ—at minus pueris minime senibus The Pulse says Dr. Willis whom M. N. confesses to be no Defender of the unjustifiable Doctrines of the Ancients is consulted like a Weather-glass appointed by Nature to measure the degrees of the Heat which in a Fever is caus'd by the Bloods being set on fire if that be intense and causes a great Ebullition in the Blood the Artery as long as the Spirits continue vigorous beats vehemently and swiftly but when they begin to be spent the strength of the Pulse abates which is supplied by the swiftness and the Pulse becomes small and swift If the Fever be more mild Willis de Feb. c. 10. and the Heat less tumultuous the Pulse does less recede from its natural temper and during the whole course of the Disease a moderation in that does signifie a Truce between Nature and the Distemper Nor does the Pulse only give intelligence of the forces of the Fever as of an Enemy but it acquaints us with the strength of Nature and its ability to make resistance As long as there is a good Pulse all is safe and there is all reason to hope well but an ill condition of this is a very ill Omen and puts the sick person past hopes so that without a frequent and diligent examination of the Pulse the Physitian will neither be able truly to pass his Prognostick nor safely to administer Physick Nay the Pulse is of so great importance in Fevers that if it on a sudden alter for the worse though all other Symptoms promise well it is a dismal forerunner of death and upon the other hand if that continue good though all other Symptoms threaten ill we have reason to hope for a Recovery He goes on and shews that without taking advice of the Pulse neither Purgers nor Vomits nor Sweatters Cardiacks or Narcoticks can be administred without very great hazzard I know very well that what M. N. objects is true that the Passions the presence of the Physitian and many other accidents will make a confiderable alteration in the Pulse but to inferr from hence that no more credit is to be given to them by a Physitian Mâ— Med. p. 33. than by a Wise man to a Gypsie who crosses his hand to tell his Forune is as absurd as to conclude from the variation of the Needle that it is of no use in Navigation or to affirm that Watches are not useful to measure Time because accidental causes as moist weather walking or riding with them in the Pocket or the like may in some sort retard or accelerate their motions The Methodists have been so careful that in their Institutions when they treat of the Pulse they acquaint us with what accidents may make an alteration in them Therefore Sennertus and other writers of Institutions advise that the Physitian do not as soon as he comes to the Patient presently feel his pulse but stay till the motions which the presence of the Physitian has rais'd in his affections be over and that then when he is sedate and quiet and free from passion he examin the pulse and then neither not presently when he has been stirred but after the disturbance which was caus'd in his Body by moving of him be over then that the Hand of the Patient be free from all voluntary motion that the Fingers be not too