be understood yet if I be not deceived he endeavours to evince a thickness of Blood in Continual Fevers Leaving this I go to things more serious where it seems to me not improbable that one of the fundamental Errors into which the Doctor himself hath slipped is that which I have noticed before viz. The drawing of universal Conclusions from particular Propositions For by what I can learn from this Description it being indeed very hard at least for me to draw any thing therefrom he would gladly perswade us that Obstructions and only they are the Antecedent and for what I can see the Conjunct to Cause of Fevers The contrary of which not only innumerable Authors with infinite Examples have evinced But I my self have shewn above that there can be and frequently are other Three besides many moe by me over looked This is indeed a Rock upon which many excellent Men have split therefore to be pardoned in our Author and to disswade him therefrom to the Observation I gave before I shall now join other Two And First There was nothing more ordinary as upon the seeing Acids coagulate to assert that wherever Coagulation hapned there must of necessity exist an Acid While yet after Experience did teach us that Alcalies can crudle Milk and Spirit of Wine coagulate Humane Blood In the like manner Practitioners having found the good success of Acids at some occasions for they do it not always as Poterius observes in quickning the Digestion precariously they conclude an Acid Humor the principal Agent in Chylification Yea as Moebius observes it was received with so general Applause and Consent that it became almost Heresie to call it in question Albeit later Anatomists have not only demonstrate that Alcalies and Urinous Bodies may have the same yea greater Effect but have intirely banished the famed Acid its fictitious Office To shut up all it is this that hath given occasion to a great many Errors in Physick as well as Philosophy viz. That Phoenomena peculiar to this or the other subject have been generally applied to all kinds and so from particular Experiments and Observations we have formed universal Hypotheses Secondly I cannot conceive how Obstructions can be either so efficacious or so frequent as the Doctor insinuates I shall not make use of the ordinary Objection which nevertheless of no small force That there can be no Obstruction without a subsequent Tumor However I wish the Doctor had told us in which of the Vessels I mean Arteries or Veins these Obstructions fall out For first it is to me unconceivable how they can be in the Arteries seing nothing enters them that hath not first run through the small milky Vessels from thence to the Ductus Thoracicus which empties it self in the subclavial Vein and that again by the Vena Cava into the right Ventricle of the Heart out of which it is conveyed to the Lungs by the Pulmonal Artery and from thence to the Hearts left Ventricle by the Vein of the same Name from which as from a Fountain it is dispensed to the whole Body by the great Artery and its Branches All which being considered may not I reasonably argue That surely whatsomever hath passed these small Lymphaticks commonly called the milky Vessels and the capillary Branches of the Pulmonal Vein will never stick in any part of the great Artery especially when its strong and frequent Vibrations do afford great assistance to this its Motion Yea without stopping the Course of the Blood in the whole Branch it is altogether impossible that any Obstruction can happen in the minutest Artery The same Difficulties if not greater will meet us in the Veins which are the other kind of Vessels For if we consider their Figure we find it a Cone inverted now no Man of Sense will alledge that what hath entered the small end of a Cone as the Blood does in the Veins will stop in the great Ergo the Doctor 's Obstructions must be denied Several other Observations might safely be made on this Paradoxical as he himself P. 109 justly calls it Hypothesis But I shall detain the Reader no longer Only I cannot omit that in the beginning of the 8 Sect. he perswades himself that the rapid Circulaâ—ion of the Blood is wholly overturned and yet P. 105 where he is giving that which he would have us digest for a New Scheme of Fevers he boldly and as I think contradictorly affirms the Heart to redouble its Pulsations Which how it can happen ingenuously I nor I suppose none else can conceive Yea it is clearly repugnant to Reason and the Circulation Nevertheless I see by the 27 P of Philanders second Letter that the Doctor will needs defend it What D. Black or any who carries that Name may have said against it I am wholly ignorant these Books having never come to my Hands But what I shall do shall be only this to give a brief Account of the Hearts Motion and its Cause and so leave the Doctor and others to judge how reconcilable these Two are For the Heart to double its Pulsations and yet not to accelerate the Bloods Circulation The Blood that enters the right and left Ventricles of the Heart from the Vena Cava but especially Pulmoners does stimulate its Fibers By which stipulation the Animal Spirits are brought from the Brain by the Eight or wandring pair of Nerves and being deposed in its lax Fibers do contract the samen and straiten its Ventricles with so great a force that whatever is contained therein is expelled and thrust into the Arteries in this its Systole by which they are distended and acquire a Diastole After which the same Fibers are laxed and these of the Auricles contracted whereby the Blood these Auricles had immediatly received from the Veins is dismissed to the Heart which now by the Relaxation of its Fibers is in the Diastole Which Blood does a new stimulate as formerly and so procures to the Heart a new Systole under which the Blood is again thrust forth into the Arteries and occasioneth in them a Diastole or Beating So that the Arteries will never be distended except the Blood be admitted for they can be the cause of their own Systole but never of their Diastole Now how can a Man averr that the Heart can double its Pulsations and yet not render the Circulation more rapid Seing except it emit what Blood it had received in its last Diastole it can never obtain a new Systole The Systole being nothing save the contraction of the Fibers and expulsion of that Blood it had received in the former Diastole In a word it is as impossible for the Heart to be contracted in the Systole without expelling the contained Blood which must of necessity go into the Arteries and cause their Dilatation as it would be for the Doctor to press together the two sides of a Bladder filled with Water without expelling the contained Liquor By which brief and true Account of the
are either Heterogeneous Bodies mixed with the Blood which by stimulating the Ventricles of the Heart the interiour Coats of the Vessels and muscular Fibers of the Parts cause frequent Contraction and consequently swiftness of Motion or inciding and volatile Medicaments which partly attenuating and inciding the Mass of Blood partly amplifying and inlarging the Pores and Passages produce the same effect with the former When I speak here of intending the circular Motion I mean only that of the Arteries for both Reason and Experience teach us that the acceleration of the returning Motion by the Veins would rather prove a hinderance as a help to this as well as to all other Secretions First It is clear from Reason for if the Blood were as readily taken up by the Capillary Veins as its is brought in by the Arteries it must necessarly return again to the Heart from whence it came Whereas admittance being denied by the Veins it seeks another way or passage which is that of Secretion Neither does Experience deny its assent to this perpetual Truth For if you will tye the social Vein of any Artery by which Blood is carried to the secerning Organ v. g. the Vena emulgens you shall quickly observe the Secretion to be far more copious than when the regressive Motion was allowed So that I may reasonably affirm The slowness of the refluent Motion of the Blood by the Veins to be none of the least among the efficient Causes of Secretion And this much for the First Secondly I come to give some Reasons why in the Cure of Continual Fevers Physicians of all Ages have adopted and practised this Method of Sweating As also why we at this day especially while D. Brown offers a Surer and Better do imitate them in that which to speak in his Language is pernicious and destructive to Mankind Indeed if without Reasons and these weighty ones too we should do that which according to the V. S can be nothing but horrid Murder and devilish Malice In stead of being Cherished Honoured and Entertained as in all Ages and among all civilized People Physicians have been we ought to be taken and Hanged for Villains and publick Murderers But if I can prove our Method to be right which I 'le endeavour now and his to be wrong which is to be done hereafter when discoursing of Purging Then let him judge upon whom the Punishment ought to be inflicted It were easy to accumulate Arguments in Favours of Diaphoreticks but I shall satisfy my self and I hope my Reader to with the following three Let us then First According to the seventh Axiome consider the motion of Nature I mean the course it takes when left to its self as in many mean and Indigent People it ordinarly is And this is continually to seek its own Relief by Sweating so that not one Fever of a hundred and that of all sorts is Cured another way Is there any Country Clown so foolish but in a Fever he 'll cry for a Sweat and if either by Art or Nature he can procure it he will promise himself speedy Relief and certain safety Now this being granted the Dr. himself not darring deny it should not the Physicitians who have taken to themselves that modest Denomination of Natur 's Servants and whose duty it is to assist her when doing right and to Correct her when doing wrong as by all she is looked upon to do when endeavouring to ease her self by Seige in a Fever except perhaps once in a hundred times when it comes critically should not they I say imitate her in Curing Fevers by Diaphoreticks the ordinary yea I I may say the only way by which she removes that Distemper yea certainly they should and that according to good Old Hippocrats excellent Aphorisme Whethersoever Nature enclineth to go thither lead her and it conduceth Besides this it becomes us Secondly to consider the Seat of the Morbifick matter in Fevers which none will deny to be in the Arteries veins Likeways the conformation of these Vessels deserves our attention Their Roots being in the Heart while their Branches tend to all parts of the Body that I may shun all occasions of Objections I know that properly speaking the Origine of the Veins is in the parts and they terminate with one Root in the Heart Now let us consider by what way that which is contained in these Vessels may be best and easiliest expelled Surely any Man of sense and Reason will freely confess by their Extremities or ends of Anastomoses or Inosculations I have said what I thought necessary before which acknowledged we can not but also grant that whatsomever part of the Body manyest of these Extremitieâ— run to or where most of the Arteries end in there will be the readiesâ— and most natural way providing iâ— be as patent as others to discharge whatsomever is contained therein But most of these Extremities do terminate by far in the habit and that this way is as patent as any other insensible Transpiration which by the Doctors own concession exceeds all other Evacuations of the Body no less as three times does clearly evince Therefore from these premises I may lawfully conclude the habit to be the readiest and best way to expell whatsomever is contained Heterogeneous in the Blood It was not unadvisedly that I said where most Arteries end there will be the readiest way to expell the Morbifick matter For whosoever is not altogether ignorant of Anatomy will easily allow that whatever once enters the Veins can never be eliminate till such time as it again run through the Arteries At their small end it cannot be seing what once enters there can by no means return First because of their valves Secondly Because of the tonick motion of the parts And Thirdly because of the continual Influx of the Arterial Blood And as it cannot happen at their small ends arising from the parts so far less can it be at the great end which terminats in the Heart Nothing entring its Ventricles in the Diastole but what is again thrust out into the Pulmonal and great Artery in the Systole from all which it is clear that neither Secretion nor Excretion can be of the Venal Blood Yet here I 'll present the Doctor with a stronger argument for Purging in Fevers as his whole Book hath done to his Readers And it is this being I assert what no Physician if he be not destitute of Anatomy and Physiology the want of which bring inexpressible Damage to Physick will deny that wherever Arteries end and depositate what is in them contained there must needs happen the Expulsion of the Morbisick matter But the Arteries some of them at least end in the intestines Ergo there in these intestinal Glands must happen the secretion of the Morbifick matter All which I grant and acknowledge yea farther confirms by avowing the faces Ani to be not only Excrements of the first but also of the third and second Digestion
the adjacent Parts that the Doctor nor none for him shall ever by rubbing or Attrition procure Heat to a sphacelat Member Where nevertheless there be Muscles and Bones both but wants Blood and Spirits Yea Fifthly I humbly think that not only Motion but the Motion of Determinat Sulphureous Oyly c. Particles is requisite to excite Heat Which in my Judgement may hence be proven That not only Sulphureous Bodies are most ready to contract Heat Flame c. and according as there is more or less Sulphur in the Body so the Heat will be the greater lesser or none at all but also the intestine and confused Motion of the Minute Particles may sometimes be intended without the increase of Heat yea with the production of a sensible degree of Cold to the very same Hand as may be learned from Boyle in his Mech Orig. of Heat and Cold I being at the time removed from my Books can neither Instance the Experiment nor Page but sure I am severals are there to be found And here by the by I would seriously advise to the uniting of these Two viz. The New Philosophy and Chymistry which to the great prejudice of solid Learning have too long been unluckily separat For the former being mainly taken up about Motion has almost intirely neglected the Matter While the latter on the other hand being as much concerned with the Matter have wholly over-looked the Motion What is said I think may suffice to evert our Author's Position When in his 8. § he engages to prove Heat in Fevers to be the genuine Effect of slow Motion in the Blood It being rather produced while the Motion thereof especially Intestine is intended and the sulphureous Particles do move as it were from the Center to the Circumference I proceed to the Second and ordinary Symptom of Fevers vix A frequent and hard beating Pulse which the experienced Slyvius to whom the Hypothesis of the Ancients was unsatisfying made enter the Definition of Fevers as the Genus Nevertheless this his Opinion is lyable to the same Censures with the former For neither the beginning of Fevers have still the Pulse augmented nor yet can we always call it a Fever where it is accelerate As in congrumate Blood Commotions of the Mind Worms contained in the Heart c. is easily demonstrable Moreover by the by I cannot but observe that these further Discoveries made in Anatomy about the Bile Succus Paner c. do noways destroy this Hypothesis which are nevertheless given by the Doctor as the only Reasons why he rejects it For it can very well stand without that prope and hath been and still is maintained by these who never adopted his Triumverat The Cause of this frequency of the Pulse I take to be nothing else as the frequent and violent Contraiction of the Heart by which the contained Blood is squeezed out and so distendeth the Arteries Thirdly It is also to be noticed that Cold is not only a Symptom of all Intermittent Fevers But frequently also it is observable in the beginning of Continual Ones Which Cold any person acquaint with the experimental Philosophy the Doctor pretends to be so much versed in will think to be a more native product of the slowness of the Blood 's Motion as Heat In a word the Coldness of the Members in persons troubled with Sounding where the Motion of the Blood as well Circular as Intestine together with the Pulse is sensibly diminished does abundantly prove it The Fourth and last of these Symptoms I purpose to speak of is a change in the Urine and it admits of the same Exceptions with the former as to malign Fevers which in respect of their Consistence generally turn thicker seldom thinner As to their Colour the Natural or Citrin is often turn'd red and fiery and sometimes pale and watry but especially in the beginning these are remarkable while in the Progress and Status they appear still red and thick In rendring Causes for these Phaenomena I noways incline to follow them who run instantly to Acids and Alkalies Albeit I readily grant this Hypothesis to be of pretty large extent and conveniently applicable to several Cases yet I cannot in all acquiesce in their Sentence for Reasons perhaps to be afterwards rendred I shall suppose now with the Excellent Bohn and Experience That the elemental parts of Urine are Water Salt Sulphur and Earth So that the Urine whose watry and limpid portion is most saturate with these Saline and Sulphureous Particles is always observed the thickest and crassest Hence I conclude the cause of thick and turbid Urine to consist in the confused Admistion and unequal Dissolution of the solid Particles in the aqueous Vehicle So sometimes we observe the Urine to be clear when voided and afterwards to turn thick crass and turbide Which is commonly called Vrina turbata And in my Opinion ariseth hence That these saline and earthy Particles being more closly and naturally insinuate in the Pores of the watry part when first voided do permit the Rays of the Sun to penetrat and so it appears Diaphanous But if afterwards either by their own gravity and looser Cohesion or by the constriction and straitning of the Pores of the Serum by the ambient frigid Air they chance to be turnèd out the passage to the Rays is thereby intercepted and the Urine turns turbide and opack as I formerly said Again it is sometimes evacuate turbide and persisteth in that confused condition whence it is named Vrina confusa and this is ordinary in the Increment and Status of Fevers Perhaps there being many Heterogeneous and Terreous Particles unequally mixed with the watry portion which nevertheless are so firmly adjoined to the Serum all being yet in a state of Crudity that neither by their proper weight nor by the help of the external Ambient can they be thence separate And Thirdly the same Urine is sometimes especially in the end of the Status and beginning of the Declination emitted Thick and Turbide but does shortly after become Clear and Limpide Probably the Concoction being then approaching these Heterogeneous Minima which being kept in motion in the Body did still run up and down the containing Liquor whereby if seemed confused do now being voided and acquiring rest yea some two or three or more of them joining together become heavier inspecie as the Serum and consequently of necessity must seek to the bottom where they constitute the Sediment But if they Hang in the midle they are called Suspensio and if they swime above go under the name of Nubecula Upon the other hand that Urine which should ordinarly represent and a Ly mid-way boiled does sometimes turn thinner and this especially in the beginning of acute Fevers is observable For the explaining of which it will not be impertinent to distinguish betwixt Vrinam potus and Vrinam Sanguinis for the Urine of the Drink being never digested in the Ventricle nor assimilate to the
Malign And such are great Anxieties Inquietude sudden Prostration of the Strength Spots cold Sweats Tumors about the Glands called Parotides c. In enquiring after the Cause of these Malign Fevers I can find nothing save obscurity in the different Opinions of Authors While some with Willis fancy to themselves a great Coagulation of the Blood Again others who follow Sylvius strive as much for a lixivious and urinous Acrimony of the same De la Font pleads hard for an Arsenical and Corrosive Poyson inspired with the Air. For me in such ambiguity I willingly profess my Ignorance But still enclines to look upon their Cause as always Epidemick coming either from the Air Meat or Drink And whenever it effects seazeth especially upon the Head we ordinarly observing Symptoms of the Brain to insult whilst Pulse and Urine suffer small or no change And hence I suppose is the Proverb Good Pulse good Urine and the Patient Dies Acute Fevers are such as terminate against the 9 14 20 or 21. day But continuing no longer as the 7 they are called Peracute Yea sometimes they Kill in the Third and Fourth Day and so get the Name and that deservedly of Peracutissimae While these who extend themselves to the 40 day are termed Acutae ex Decidentiâ And all that exceed this Term whether Fevers or other Distempers have obtained the general Denomination of Lent or Chronick Diseases It is certainly beyond all question that this Diversity ariseth from the weakness or strongness of the morbifick Matter which in Lent Diseases at the beginning brings litle or no alteration to the Humane Body but through process of time partly by defatigating the Body partly by rendring more of the Blood like unto it self proves exitial to the Patient Which is too frequently seen in a Hectick it being of all Lent Fevers the most formidable Lastly Fevers were divided into Primary and Secundary or Symptomatick The first are such as have their Cause within themselves and own their Being to no other Disease as do the others called Secundary or Symptomatick Which be sometimes excited by pain as in the Gout Gravel c. sometimes they accompany Wounds Inflammations Ulcers and many other Maladies By all which the Motion of the Blood as well Circular as Intestine may be augmented and that which we call a Fever produced In the Page 185 of the V. S. the Doctor 's Exactness and great Skill in Physick is very conspicous For there he asserts Fevers and Tumors I suppose he means Inflammations Tumors being of a large extent to be perpetual Companions So that according to his Pathology the one cannot exist without the other Whereas all the World knows yea dayly finds it that Fevers can exist without his Tumors yea not one of ten Thousand without all Hyperbole hath them True it is indeed that Inflammations are ordinarly yet not always followed by Fevers and they are among the number of these I called Secondary or Symptomatick Many Things appertaining to Fevers and their Theory as Symptoms Prognosticks c. do as yet remain But I being far from presuming to give a particular Account or Description of that Disease knowing it to be a Load too heavy for my young and tender Shoulders finds my self nowayes obliged to mention them here My purpose being only to give a general and for what appears to me the easiest and best Description of the Malady into whose Method of Curing I resolve to inquire Neither will I labour it being more my desire to do well my self than to discover that others have done ill in refuting the Opinions of others as the Doctor doth though with Arguments I confess sometimes against but as often for them Yet I must pass some Reflections upon the Doctor 's New and Mechanical Hypothesis left my passing it by should offend its Author And to speak ingenuously his description of the Disease is as obscure as his Method of Curing is dangerous Have then the Scheme of the New and Mechanical Hypothesis in the Author 's own words P. 104. Seing then for the five Pages which go before contain only the Fundation though very unproportionable to the Noble Building afterwards erected in little more as one the returns of Repararation to the parts and functions ought to be made both in time and quantity in proportion to the waste by the efflux of the arterial Blood from the Heart as the Vehicle and thorow the Arteries as the Conduites of these Recruites When this is done Vegetly Integrally without any stop or delay then redounds Felicity Ease and Integrity of the Functions and Life But when that Efflux is retarded or stopt either by reason of the Blood it self or some stopage in the Extremities and small Channels of the Vessels or by reason of immoderate and unusual waste beyond the proportion of the ordinary supply as falls out in immoderate Exercise and Motion And so I say when by reason of any of these Causes the Heart cannot convey and lay in the desired Supplement in due proportion and timously by Stroaks repeated at the usual Intervals then it does by precipitating the Stroaks and straitning the Intervals of the Pulsations endeavour what in it lyes to overcome the slowness of the Motion of the Blood and to come so near as it can to the due and proportionable distribution of Nutriment in respect of the waste But if notwithstanding of these sedulous Endeavours of the Heart by redoubling of the Pulsations that slowness of the Blood shall by a gradual encrease of the thickness and of Obstructions in the Capillary Vessels prove yet so obstinate as still to be augmented then this leads straight to the Porch and Gate of Death Death being nothing else but a total and permanent Cessation and defect of this distribution Behold the Description of a Disease and it never once named Is this Doctor because it is so clear that who runs may read it surely then my Capacity is very shallow For had not the Title of that 7. Sect. promised a New and Mechanical Hypothesis I should from this Description never have inferred it and had not the very next Paragraph proposed an Objection I should further have looked back for it Yea I believe it would puzle your self were it not for these Marks to find it For my part I see nothing here described save Death and that perhaps not undeservedly for by means of the New Method Death and Fevers are become Synonima and so the one with you may safely go for the other But Thanks be to God it is otherways with us who walk in the Good Old and Experienced Path where it becomes but sometimes a passage unto it But why pray a New Hypothefis it being as old as since Bontekoe write de Febribus It is indeed very hard to know that Author's proper Opinion he being more taken up in refuting others as in explaining himself And what he hath said is so harsh and obscure that he can scarcely
Hearts Motion it may excellently appear how fitly it is compared by our Learned Doctor in the 27 P. of Philand second Letter to the ascension of Water in Pumps The true Cause of which Phoenomenon adscribed to the Ancients to a Fug◠vacus being only this That by the retraction of the Embolus or Sucket the place which it deserts is left void or at least the Air therein contained is noways proportionable to the external and so not able to resist its pressure In the mean time the Air having no access to the Cavity of the Pump does necessarly gravitat upon the Water in which it stands whereby it is forced to ascend in the Pump in which by the retraction of the Sucker it meets with no opposition till such a height as is able and beyond which it will by no means go to keep an Equilibrium with an equal Column of the external Air which hath the same superfice wherein the Pump stands for its Basis and the Atmosphaere for its height In a word there needs no more to make Water ascend in Pumps save to free it from the Impediment if found by the Suckers leaning upon it How bravely this grees with the Hearts 〈…〉 ation Doctor Brown himself may be Judge However it quadrates as well as the most of his Simile's And now while I 'm yet upon his Theory it may be a fit time to give a Specimen of his exactness in Anatomy Physiologie and Chymistry To begin then with Anatomy his great Skill herein is excellently shewn P. 178 where he pretends to give a Reason why hurtful to lye with the Head low Which is that then the grosser Blood does ascend whereas it being higher the more spiritous only gets up while the more crass seceeds at the N. B. Axillary branches Excellent indeed From whom I wonder did D. Brown learn but that whatever enters the Branches of Arteries is carried foreward to their end yea how can it otherways be seing continually by the help of their second Coat which is tendinous they are constringed and so at every place and in every moment give a new Impetus to the contained Blood But yet better Anatomy for ay till D. Brown did write we have been in a general Error when we used to say That the subclavial Arteries after they had demitted from themselves three superiour Intercostals the Mammariae Vertibrales Cervicales Musculae did go out of the Thorax or Trunck and tend to the Artus or Arms where they got the new Name of Axillares But now D. Brown hath discovered our Ignorance by shewing that they have their arise from the Carotides otherways it were Folly and Nonsense to say that the grosser Blood seceeds by them for except they arise from the Carotides how shall it enter them Had the Doctor said instead of the Axiliars that it seceeds to the Larynx and Pharynx they indeed receiving a share of that Blood which tends to the Head he might have concealed his Ignorance though not given any great proof of his Knowledge For so far is it from being true what the Doctor says That the great Artery is not at all according to the Ancients divided into the Trunck ascending and descending but rather according to the Learned and Excellent Anatomist D. Highmore it is immediatly upon its egrefs from the left Ventricle of the Heart divided into the two subclavial Branches Nevertheless it is not all true what he alledgeth when he affirmeth that from the right Subclavial both the Carotides do arise For frequent Experience hath taught me and no doubt will also do any who will be at the pains to try it that from the right Subclavial does only arise the right Carotis and the left which to my knowledge was never noticed by any comes neither from the right Subclavial nor yet from the left but is a third Branch arising from the Heart it self and hath no communication with any of the Subclavials but far less with the Axillary Branches I know the Doctor hath this from Des Cartes but really it is too well known that this great Wit and subtile Man was none of the best Anatomists and perhaps it was his greatest Fault to assert things he thought consonant to Reason never much careing or considering how they might be favoured by Experience nevertheless the Doctor when citing him should have known to discover his Error Good Physiology is still the Companion of accurate Anatomy as is also to be seen in the Doctors New and Ingenious Hypothessis of Chylification which P. 131. is most dextrously explained by a Grinding and attenuating the Aliments their parts one against another by the contraction of the Ventricle whereby it seems the Doctor would grate them to Chyle But I would willingly know if ever he or any Man else observed a solid Body turned into a Fluid except it were Ice Butter and and such like which have been Fluid before by meet attrition When ever the Doctor affoords me one instance for that of a Plume looks likeer expression as Attrition then and never till then I 'le grant his whole Hypothesis Moreover for what end is all that Apparatus of Glands in the Stomach and why do Physicians advise the swallowing of the Spitle with large drinking at Meat as great helps to the digestion if it happen by meer Attrition For certainly the harder any thing is it is so much the sitter for Grinding or else the Authors Idea thereof must be quite different from the Vulgar And really what is brought from the Ingenious Papins Digester does rather refute as confirm what it is brought for The Gelly being produced not by the Bones mutual Attrition but by the Waters dissolving and extracting Yea if I remembor right it being now a good time since I read that Book and not being at Home I cannot consult it the Ingenious Author himself calls it Extraction which all the World knows is quite different from Attrition Of the same kind is that account of Sanguification which in the 18◠Page of his V. S. he is pleased to communicate with us We are indeed extreamly obliged to him at least for his good Intentions for labouring in a few Lines to accomodate that Difference which hath caused almost bloody Contests for so many Ages I cannot enough admire the Policy of the Doctor who prudently knowing most Debates to be about Words conceals these invidious Terms of Organical and Similar Functions they having given occasion to no small strife Whilst some with the Ancients plead hard for the former others after Glisson cry as loud for the latter However albeit our Author hath not been so ingenuous as to confess it the Aetiology he gives makes it purely Organical only what some adscribed to the Heart others to the Liver the Doctor attributes allennerly to the Lungs But pray what does the Duty in the Foetus where during Nine Months the Lungs lye intirely idle For I doubt nothing but the Doctor knows the Foramenovale which
Ages Constitutions and Sexes is a practice which neither Reason perswades to nor Experience allows of We all acknowledge and not without Cause that our Life and Strength consists in our Blood It 's also confessed that Nature and Strength do Cure Diseases The Physician only assisting where Nature is weak and directing when she 's wrong Why then do we evacuate that Blood which we expect should Cure the Disease and relieve the Patient Ay but say some with the Doctor The ill Blood comes away and leaves the good behind I answer this is a Reason so ridiculous in its self and so repuguant to the Laws of the Circulation that hardly any save Gardners Old-wives c. to whom that Noble Invention is a Mystery will ever pretend it For whatever comes to the Vein good or evil is also evacuate Yea the Evil is so intermixed with the Good that till it self have made a separation no Art can disjoin them For Example suppose a sick Man having in his Body Twelve Pounds of Blood Eight of which are Good and Four Evil Now being all circulate through the Heart at least twise every quarter of an Hour is there any Man so absurd as to affirm that only the Evil and only at that time will come to the Vein which is wounded while the Good being strangely sagacious and desirous to stay in the sick persons Body to restore him his Health will go to the other and remoter places Is there I say any Man so absurd as to maintain this prodigious Fancy Nay I think it is far more credible that of the whole Twelve one Pound being evacuate two parts will be Good and one Evil just as it was in the Body And all the Advantage which the Patient by Bleeding does reap is only this That before he had Twelve Pounds of Blood Eight whereof were Good and Four Evil but now he hath only Eleven in all whereof Seven Pound with Four Ounces are Good and Three Pound with Eight Ounces are Evil. However the Doctor for his timous assistance to this decaying Opinion deserves to be listed with if not to get the precedence among the forenamed Medicasters For says he P. 151 As in a River we observe the heterogeneous Body still to tend towards the Brink so in the Veins the feculent and ill Blood runs to their sides and runs first out while the finer returns to the Heart A notable Invention indeed to preserve this feculent and exploded Figment What way pray can the fine Blood return not by the Arteries that being absolutely impossible for grant their Motion should invert which yet no Man of common Sense will imagine the three Semilunar Valves do still hinder Neither by the Vein for your Band put betwixt the Orifice and the Heart stops the passage So that of necessity whatever enters the Vein good as well as bad runs out at the Wound For do we not see that the Ligature being removed and passage being granted neither good nor bad appears a sure Evidence that it being present both of them evacuates When Doctor Brown finds the third way he hath gained the point If the Doctor had only given this as an Answer to some of the impertinent Questions of a Patient I could have forgiven him and applauded his Wit but seriously to propose it in a printed Book is absolutly inexcusable The Chirurgical Fountain does further supply us with Vesicator Platsters from which in Fevers whatsomever we obtain no small Advantage But especially in Malign and where the Head is affected yea in all Cephalick Distempers their use by reiterated Experience is approven But there being no debate about them and their use I proceed to Pharmacie which assists us with moe Weapons to strugle against this destructive Enemy The First whereof shall be Vomiters which providing they be timously and warily administrate do oftentimesnip the Evil in the very Bud and by stricking at the Root do with one blow dislodge this unkind Guest From what hath been said I suppose that for the most part the Antecedent Cause of a Fever comes from the Ventricle If then in the beginning of the Malady before the Antecedent Cause be all transferred to the Mass of the Blood and there become the Continent we use this Remedy we do thereby purge the Stomach withdraw the Matter and either extinguish or at least so notably asswage the Fury of the Fever that after it is hardly ever able to make great disturbance Nevertheless they are not to be given indiscriminatly but with great wariness as all other Remedies whatsomever Albeit the D. in his whole Book hardly ever mentions one Caution And First We are to consider where the Matter does lodge For if the Antecedent Cause should be any Evacuation supprest great Motion and the like There could be nothing more ridiculous than to advise Vomiting but if it be in the Stomach which is easily known by the Hypocondria Swelling frequent Rifting Nauseating c. they can hardly be neglected but with the Patients eminent danger Providing his Constitution Age shape of Body and other Distempers v. g. Hemorhagy adjoined do not disswade it All which being carefully observed they are most innocent as well as powerful Remedies in the beginning of Fevers It is likeways to be noticed that if the Circumstances require Bleeding it ought to preceed Vomiting lest by the shaking of the Body some small Vessel burst Next I come to Diaphoreticks which I may truly call the universal Cure of Fevers Nature pointing with its Finger to their use while in the universal Declination of Continual and in the parricular Declination of Intermittent Fevers Sweat breaks forth in a very great plenty This nevertheless is the Method which our Author rejects wherefore I shall take the more pains to confirm it Which I 'le endeavour to do by the following Three First By declaring how they work Secondly By giving some Reasons why we use them And Thirdly By answering the seeming Objections instanced by D. Brown against them About the First I need not be very prolix for if we consider what Conditions are requisite to insensible Transpiration and Sweating in a state natural Betwixt which there is no greater difference as that in the former the Matter is excerned in a lesser quantity and so absorbed by the Cloaths or ambient Air under the name of Vapour whereas in the latter or Sweat it chances in a greater abundance and so cannot be sweept up but rather constitutes Drops called Sweat I say whoever will be at the pains to consider the Conditions requisite for this insensible Transpiration and Sweating while they are natural Which are Fluxibility in the Liquor a due Amplitude in the Pores and a Briskness in the circular Motion will easily understand how Diaphoreticks work when given according to Art Whatever can either attenuat the Blood in its Consistence quicken it in its Motion or dilate and amplify the Miliar Glands and Pores will certainly procure Sweat And such
which may be proven by several Observations one of which at this time shall suffice viz. in the Foetus the Meconium is still observed to have its beginning and greatest quantity in the crass intestines Nevertheless all this concludes nothing against what either hath already or shall hereafter be said Because First the Arteries are but very few in respect of that infinit number which direct their course to the habite from the Coeliack and two Mesenterick Branches which tend to the Intestines Secondly Neither do we altogether for as little as it is neglect it but partly by applying Clysters partly by giving these Medicaments in the 10 and last Axiom called Laxantia drive away what may be lurking in the first ways But we never give Purges properly so called which by entring the Mass of the Blood do play therein their unlucky Tragedy except we intend which God forbid so wicked a Thought should ever enter a Physicians Heart to send the Patient to the House of all Living Yea farther it is with respect to this that after the Recovery we ordinarly advise Purging My Third and last Argument shall be the general Practice and constant Observation of Physicians in all Ages in all Countries and of all Perswasions yea of the Excellent Sydenham himself as shall afterwards be shewn Who as one Man acknowledge not only the great Advantage of Diaphoreticks but exclaim against the constant use of Catarticks in the Curing of Fevers What would the Doctor have all these so ignorant as that they should not know how to Cure the most ordinary of Distempers or so malicious and wicked as when they knew it yet neither to practise it themselves nor communicat it to others or were they so stupid as not to have known what they used neither from whence the Cure did proceed Were there never Physicians so conscientious in the World before D. Brown came to it as to confess the damage of Diaphoreticks or were they so blind that they could not see it Was Hippocrat was Galen Fernelous Sennert Harvey and all the rest of these brave Souls who have enriched the noble and useful Art with their curious Observations excellent Inventions and judicious Reasonings were all these I say besides many others who practised this Method themselves and recommended it to their Successors Fools or Ignorants Nay nay it is far better to say that D. Brown is both But of Experience more hereafter Therefore I go on to the Examination of the Arguments urged by the Doctor against this Old and long Practised Method Which we find in the 71 Page of the V. S. where the Common and Diaphoretick Method is considered and rejected forsooth and they be neither moe nor stronger as the following Two First We have no Specisick in Continuat Fevers therefore must not level at the Continent Cause which is truly the Disease According to which way of Reasoning I will go on and conclude We have no Specifick in any Disease save Intermutent Fevers therefore except them none must be Cured The consequent of the one is as native as that of the other and truly in both it is none at all Physick and Physician are obliged to the Doctor for bringing the Imployment to this weak pass Is not this a strong Argument to destroy a Theory of some Thousand Years standing Yet it is as strong as the other to be found in the same 71 Page where he farther inveighs against this our approved Method in these words This indeed were no unfit Design c. I look upon it as needless to resume what is formerly said anent Fevers and their Causes which I hope do sufficiently prove the Doctor 's Hypothesis to be none of the best I shall rather here observe that the force of this sham Argument drives at these Two First That Sudorificks translate the morbisick Matter or antetecedent Cause from the Ventricle Mesentery and Intestines into the Muss of Blood and by that means turns the Antecedent Cause into the Continent And Secondly That by the same we drive it to the Head whereby we produce these terrible Symptoms under which Nature not being able to overcome must of necessity succumb To which I answer these Three 1. All save D. Brown do know and confess that in Continual Fevers the morbisick Matter is in the beginning translated to the Blood and so does procure the Disease which otherways we should never have but only an Apparatus to it Yea in this seems to me to consist the difference betwixt Continual and Intermittent Fevers That in the former the morbisick Matter is translated all at once and so produces one great and Continual Fever whereas in the latter or Intermittent Fevers it is conveyed at several times and so constitutes several Paroxisms which may be said to be as many Continual but shorter Fevers By which we may clearly discern how falsely the Doctor alledges that by Diaphoreticks we carry the Matter from the first Ways to the Blood that being a thing already done else there could be no Fever And really all along it appears that it is not a Fever but an Apparatus thereto the Doctor would Cure So that instead of intituling his Book A new Method of Curing Fevers he should rather have named it A new Method for preventing them Secondly How any thing can be more urged on the Head by the use of Sudorificks I suppose if the Doctor were asked he could not well tell it being a meer precarious Assertion grounded upon no Foundation and he might with as good Reason have said the same of the Hands Feet or any other part of the Body For as they were only the Artertae Carotides and Vertebrales which furnished the Brain with Blood before So for ought I know by the use of Sudorificks no other are added Neither is there any other way by which any thing whatsomever can be carried to the Head save by the forenamed Arteries I hope the Doctor is not come to that Pitch of lgnorance to averr that Diaphoreticks by some occult quality are offensive to the Brain True it is indeed that Sudorificks by intending the Motion as well Circular as Intestine put all the Humours and perhaps the Spirits too in a little confusion But this carries nothing to the Head rather as to other places which went not before But Thirdly Where learned the Doctor that Sudorifick Medicines had their operation in the Ventricle Mesentery and Intestines Can any Man read this without Laughing Surely this is another Errour in which Physians till this time have been in for they still taught that Diaphoreticks did work in the Blood and not in the first Ways So then to grant what the Doctor desires which nevertheless so long as Physicians are Masters of Reason will never be That the Continent Cause for the Antecedent is no more it being converted into the Continent lodges about the forenamed places it will profit him nothing since Diaphoreticks will never awake it they working only in