blood Sixthly But to approach yet nearer to our mark I affirm that though there be no edibles received yet it follows not that there 's no sort of new chyle to renew the bloods fermentation for First In these cold bodies there must of necessity be a far greater quantity consideratis considerandis of pituitous humours than ordinary for if transpiration be denyed to our bodies but a very small time what a redundance of flegm doth presently oppress us which flegm being led into the mouth by a great variety of salivating ducts and thence conveyed into the Ventricle may take off the acidity the edge of the appetite by which they tolerate their abstinence with the greater patience and also suffer a sorry concoction which is much advanc'd by the attendance of all the concoctive forces to subact this sluggish matter which is other bodies are variously diverted by the great variety of food frequently admitted Secondly 'T is probable that some of these Fasters were more than ordinarily addicted to flegm before their abstinence which is usual with those whose concoctions are low and with these 't is more than an even lay they were not very high which must needs be augmented by the defect of urine and stool which if granted adds somewhat to our purpose Thirdly The air receiv'd continually into the Stomach by the Mouth and Nose and also into the blood more directly though sparingly by the pores and virtually if not formally by the Lungs may contribute much to this humour but more to the fermentation of the blood that the air is impregnated with Salts the Learned Dr. Ente affirms and ascribes vegetation as also the production of various animals thereunto as the worthy Willis doth frost and ice and 't is asserted by Chymists that Caput Mortuum's lixivated if expos'd to the open air for a good space they shall re-attain their saline principle and that salts cause fermentation in the blood hath been already noted Yet one step further I may advance upon good ground and that is these salts may much renew the ferment of the stomach also in lieu of other condiments Moreover the Liver being an ample bowell instructed with a great variety of vessels enrich'd with constant traffique from most of the Corporations in the Microcosm so curious in its elections and collections of the sulphuro-saline commodities so diligent in reconding them in a peculiar Cell and thence transmitting them to the intestines upon all occasions these severals I say considered it may be rationally inferr'd that 't is not only helpful to the guts in their excretions but also in their fermentations whereby the chyle is rendred not only more fermentiscible in the blood but also more fermentesceâ—t thereunto Yet Sir lest this lean meat should not satisfie your more delicate pallat I must advertise you that the blood in these persons must needs be sparing and therefore the lesser chyle may ferment it especially considering that their fermentations are but small as appears by the smalness of their heat and therefore pray do your self the right not to expect an account of robust ones Seventhly The heart it self contributes much to this fermentation 'T is acknowledged by all that the circulation of the blood being a rapid motion through the indefatigable pulsation of the heart adds much to the fermentation we see that motion given to Wine Ale Cyder or Cream of Milk though sufficiently fermented will yet without a new ferment give a new fermentation But Sir lest you should mistake me when I stumbled at an innate ferment in the heart and yet stood upon 't that fermentation may be ascribed thereto let me unbosome my self that you may see what the heart contributes thereunto First The heart is as it were a cistern into which the bloody veins milky veins and water veins or lymphaeducts by mutual consent deposite their multiform juices Secondly It hath the force of a Mill by its quaquaverse fibres continually busied in their constrictions and dilatations to grind and make small the more crassy particles of the juices Thirdly Of a Mortar wherein the more exact mixture of these different juices is highly promoted Fourthly Of a â—inne expelling the blood sufficiently subacted and then to the further execution of its Offices but too too troublesome and by the way the burden of the blood may be one cause of its pulsation for 't is said if a live heart be taken out of the body the prick of a Pin will renew its pulsation Fifthly Of a Pump to give motion and according to the sanguiterious ducts to the several parts distribution of this juice adapted to nutrition Sixthly Of a Loom wherein the blood is fermented Seventhly Of a kind of Philosophical Furnace wherein a spirital Biolychnium is kindled I intend only a heat perchance caused only by the motion and fermentation aforesaid Eighthly Of a Pelican to rarifie and exalt the vital spirits Ninthly of an Alimbeck not vulgar whereby the spirits receive a kinde of separation though yet they run with the blood which being condensed in the Refrigeratory of the habit of the body as the learned Walaeus expresseth it are the more easily subject to the brains Philtration and the nerves preservation Tenthly of a potential Philtre whereby there 's made such a fegregation of homogeneous particles into their proper classes as renders the blood much more obedient to the colatures and emunctories of the body as runnet in the milk potentially separates the whey and prepares it for an actual separation by the sieve and in chymical preparations the acid liquor or diluteing large quantity of weakning water provoke a kinde of fermentation whereby the suspended atomes in the strong Menstruums are precipitated and so prepaâ—red for a more facile separation so that indeed all the Engines in Natures shop depend mainly upon the right â—oâ—e texture and operation of the heart From which it seems apparent to me which yet I submit to clearer minds that the heart is further serviceable to fermentation and other offices of Nature than meerly Pump-like to conciliate motion which may be further confirmed by the site of the heart in the centre of the body as also by it's firmest muniments by which 't is garrison'd on its back by the spine on its face by the sternum on its sides by the ribs under its feet by the diaphragme and over its head by the canopy of the pyramidall thorax and lastly by its buâ—â—-coat the Pericardium and which is not nothing the curious fabrick with various camerations the retâ—form fibres and various passages the uniform procedure of Nature in the formation of the hearts of Animals whilest often it sports it self in the building of other parts and its primogeniture as appears by the 〈◊〉 vesi-cula palpitans first formed in Egges according to the renowned Harvey the rudiment of the heart and the bloods constant flux and reflux to and from the heart even then when the liver and lungs though famous
bowels are pass'd by unsaluted in the circulation of Embryo's as also Natures great care to supply the defective passages of those viscera by foramen ovale in the septum of the heart lest the intercourse of the blood with the heart should be impeded which hole is yet afterwards precluded when the Infant is midwiv'd into a new World much of this curiosity of Nature about the heart seems utterly unnecessary if it serv'd only for motion but we are sure that God and Nature do nothing frustraneously Neither am I yet satisfied that the whole of the bloods motion is to be ascribed to the hearts pulsation for Conringius affirms that in live dissections the blood strongly circulates a long time after the left ventricle hath lost its pulse yea though the heart be taken out yet presently is not the motion of the blood destroy'd which seems to be confirm'd by the experiment upon Frogs which leap so nimbly and swim so freely after their hearts are exempted that they cannot be known from unwounded Frogs that exercise in their company the story whereof that most dexterous Anatomist D. Needham hath published moreover if a Ligature be apply'd to a Vein or Artery whereby the pulse is intercepted with the undulation of the blood also yet the blood beyond the bond runs its course towards the heart and which is so much the more strange because 't is the motion of a heavy body contrary to its natural tendency upward Moreover if the pulse of the heart were the only cause of the motion of the blood why then is not the menstrual blood thrust into other parts as well as into the uterine sith the other parts equally with these receive the constant force of the hearts even pulsations and impartial distributions likewise we see that the animal spirits in the nerves with their juice the Lympha in its ducts the Chyle in its thoracicks the Seed in its seminals the Urine in the ureters and the Flegme in its pituitary Vessels are all in motion without the force of any such Engine to give the origen thereto Whereupon I am apt to conjecture that Nature hath furnished several parts with an attractive power the blood with fermentation and several Vessels with a kinde of Vermicular motion of their own no doubt excited by the nerves the Porta with Asinus in the Liver which serves for a Pump and the Cava or one part it with a pulsifick energy by which blood is thrust into the right ventricle as the learned Walaeus asserts by which the motion of humours is promoted and consequently that the rareness of the structure unweariedness of the puâ—sations of the heart c. are designed to some higher ends than meerly and as such to give motion though that it doth with an Emphasis Fourthly How can Spirits both vital and animal be prepared and separated without food and frequent fermentations â— I. Whether there be a flux of animal spirits through the genus nervosum seems yet not fully resolv'd and if no flux then the waste is small and a small reparation may supply a small waste but I confess I understand not how Narcotick fumes nor redundant humours restagnating in the brain can cause an Apoplexy Epilepsie Palsie c. in the whole body if there be no flux of spirits from the brain nor how the hurt from a Coach in the seventh Vertebre of the back mention'd by great Galen could cause a Palsey in three singers nor why we anoint the Vertebres of the back for Palseys in the extreme parts if there be no flux of spirits 2. Supposing a flux of animal spirits through the nervous systeme yet according to the Doctrine of famous Dr. Wharton much of the nervous juice separated by the glandules is returned by the veins and Lymphaticks and so not lost though enseâ—bled by its peregrination and more yet deposited according to Dr. Willis the great Reformer of Physick by the extremity of the nerves in the habit of the body is again retriv'd by the Lymphaticks which serving in our Abstinents little or nothing to assimulation only somewhat to the cherishing of the implanted spirits is the more plentifully return'd and so the loss thus far forth less considerable than ordinary 3. 'T is apparent that there 's a decay of these spirits as well as an obstruction in most of these Abstinents as witnesseth their great inability to motion 4. The fermentations mentioned before though small may contribute something to the encrease of these spirits for Chymists know that there are few juices so 〈◊〉 so sterile but by the help of fermentation may yield a not contemptible spirit 5. Those spirits that pass from the brain to the extremity of the body and thence returned as before by the Lymphaticks and that more forâ—eably and plentifully being reflected by the impervious cold and constipated skin seem rather tyred than exhausted which may by the small ferments aforementioned the contritions mixtions and exaltations of the heart and the perpetual motions of the scarlet liquor be rarifi'd and volatiliz'd to do at a dead lift further good service 6. 'T is notorious that sents do hugely affect the brain as to instance in Apoplexies hysterical passions and in some sort of Syncopes and Cephalalgies common practice doth demonstrate so then if feeding animals perceive such strange alterations by odoriferous exhalations as of Assa faetida Galbanum Verrucae Equinae c. which according to the prodigious invention of the most Philosophical Dr. Willis are able to restrain the most violent explosions like those of Gunpowder than which none more violent of the Nitro-sulphurous atomes with which in spasmodick distempers the nervous juice is impregnated and by which it 's reduc'd to the greatest disorders why may not these Abstinents be reliev'd by such enriched fumes also Fifthly without sleep no long life and without food no sleep for say the Ancients sleep is the binding up of the first Sensorium or common sence caused by the food digesting in the stomach elevating its fumes to the brain which there condensing stop the passages of the animal spirits whereby they are detained from their just visitations whence the senses are disenabled for the execution of their offices R. 1. 'T is not certain that sleep is absolutely necessary to life for we read of many that liv'd waking 'T is said that Ramus studied Philosophy so uncessantly that he became blinde or deaf or both through defect of sleep Bhasis watched so long at his study of Physick till at last he could not sleep at all likewise a Doctor of the Law studyed so indefatigably that he never laid his eye-lids together for four months yet all recovered by the use of Hypnoticks The most inquisitive Galenist Fernelius reports a certain man to have surviv'd 14 moneths waking The grave Heurnius relateth a story from he saith a truly learned man Ierom Montuus of a Noble Matron that lived 35 years without sleep nor
Sulphur also Likewise it must be granted that there is an actual heat abiding in us whilest we live and somewhile after death this is obvious to the sence of feeling it self this is the heat as I conceive joyn'd with the primogenite humour to which Aristotle ascribes life it self But yet Sir I am somewhat doubtfull whether this heat be properly cal'd calor vivens though the great Riverius term it so or an immediate cause of life though an Aristotle himself pronounce it so For certainly Holy Writ ascribes life to the blood the blood is the life thereof and death to a dissolution of the compositum the body returns to the dust and the spirit to God that gave it But of this dissolution I suppose the soul is not ordinarily the cause but the body and what part of the body may more justly be challenged to be the Parent if I may so phrase it of death than the blood which is in a famous sense the parent of life So then most killing distempers must arise from the excessive multiplication consumption or depravation of the blood and the pernicious effects thereof yet mistake me not this hinders not other parts of the body bowels and humours to be often peccant as undoubtedly they are by infecting the blood and receiving infections morbifick from it Moreover this heat continues some hours without life even after the dissolution and as it is without life so is life often found without it as not only in some Vegetables as Lettuce Hemlock Cucumbers c. but in Animals as Frogs and Fish which are said to be actually cold and the Salamander reputed cold in a high degree This heat may possibly be but the effect of matter and motion i. e. of the blood or before it of the seed impregnated with active principles which through their activity and heterogeneity suffer mutual collisions or fermentations whence ebullition and thence this heat which is by circulation not only promoted but also convey'd to all parts of the body and by the same causes preserved which possibly may prove the summe of Riverius's implanted and influent heat These things presupposed 't will not be impossible to guess that this heat is no such Coelestial fire as the most famous Fernelius would have it but only the igneous result of the combinations and commotions of the most active elementary Principles and if there be any other heat it may prove to be according to the conjecture of great Riverius the product of the immateriate soul but of that I understand little only this is unquestionable that the caelestial Soul chooseth for its more immediate organs the most subtiliated spirituous and active parts of matter such as the vital and animal spirits and the heat before mentioned which seems to be of the same Genius and all but the mechanick productions of various fermentations percolations and distillations in the humane Engine Wherefore I shall crave leave to dismiss this fire till we come to discourse of Fermentations And so I pass on the next flame which is the Biolychnium or the actual flame of the blood kindled in the heart asserted both by Antients and Moderns of astonishing titles and tremendous veneration which devouring flame if once kindled will quickly depredate all the oleaginous aliment if not renewed by frequent and plentifull assumptions but therefore 't is greatly suspected to have no existence in our bodyes because in these Jejunants it must needs extinguish for want of Sulphureous supplyes and produce death to those that have liv'd long enough to help to entombe it 'T is strange to me that provident Nature should require such vast supplyes both of meat and drink out of which to extract a small quantity nutritious juice which with divers Ferments Colatures Emunctories and rapid motions it endeavours to exalt and defecate and yet after all should expose what she hath attain'd of purity and activity and consequently of noblest use by her unparallel'd artifices cost and toil to the improvident disposal of wastfull flames for indeed flames are great wasters as appears in the preparation of the Balsom of Sugar c. no less wonderfull it is that a flame should continually burn in the heart and yet the fleshy walls thereof not boiled roasted nor so much as a fuliginous or cineritious colour imparted But lest Sir you should be confident that this perennial slame scorns an extinction by these few drops I therefore commend to your observation those numerous and plentifull buckets that are poured thereupon by the dexterous hand of the very learned and candid Dr. Needham But yet lest you should be so far praepossessed by the determinations of venerable antiquity as to reject this new Doctrine and avowedly maintain this unseen fire I shall therefore adde 1. That this Flame can be but small through the defect of bodily exercise and freer ventilations these fasters being mostly close Prisoners as also of strong fermentations therefore the less the Lamp the less Oyl will sustain it 2. Through the defect of heat the pores are bolted and transpiration restrained whence a scarce credible quantity of moisture is retained which returning both by Veins and Lymphaticks gives no contemptible quantity of food to this fire 3. Through the restraint of Transpiration the igneous particles are secur'd from their excursions to the great increase of intestine heat for in feeders the loss of transpiration often kindles in the blood a feaverish fire 4. The Air as impregnated sometimes especially entring by the mouth the nose and pores in parts passing the various concoctions may be converted into a humour not altogether inept to preserve the lingring life of this dying flame 5. In pituitous bodies the abundance of flegme through the various concoctions which it undergoes in the body may become usefull in the room of more proper aliment to this analogous Lamp in its Table-supplyes which flegme though some reject as excrementitious yet I suppose they do it only when consideration is from home of its usefulness in the mastication of our food wherein as some say lyes the first concoction at least therein lyes the main preparation for the grand concoction in the ventricle the constant mixture of our food with our spittle in the Jaw-mill may enforce some considering men to think that 't is nearer of kin to our natural moisture than hath been formerly acknowledged 6. The colliquation of the parts of these emaciated bodies may yield Oyl to these Lamps as 't is usually affirmed in Hectick feavers besides if fire be nothing but an innumerable host of sulphurous atomes breaking the Prisons of their former compositions with other heterogeneities then certainly all fire is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for nothing of that Sulphur remains it leaves only the heterogenious Principles with which it was combin'd 7. 'T is probable that the moisture of these jejune bodies is much not only condens'd by their cold but also loaded with terrestreities through the
non-reception of aliment impâ—egnated with active Principles whereby 't is rendred more durable in this flame As Oyls the more impure thick and clammy they are the less fiercely they burn but the more tenuious and spirituous the more nimbly do they flame and expeditiously consume As my face and hair did sadly experiment upon the unexpected and suddain conflagration of a quantity of the Oyl of Turpentine as I not long since drew it from the fire I dare say the Turpentine it self would not or rather could not have serv'd me so 8. This moisture being drawn from more jejune Principles as air flegme and lympha is the less impregnated with intro-sulphurous particles and therefore less inflamable as in oligophorous Wines where the spirit and sulphur are greatly exhaled and with a quality abundantly dilated there fire slowly burns 9. 'T is probable that the crasis of these bodies is so altered by the predominancy of fixed Salts not duely actuated by powerfull fermentations that they much retard the consumption of Oyl by this vital fire as if Quicklime Soap or other saline concretes be added to Wax or Tallow they will say Chymists make a candle of far greater duration than ordinary Strange is that story of St. Austine who reports a Lamp to be found in the Temple of Venus that no storms could extinguish Yet much more strange was that Torch reported to have burnt 1550 years in the Tomb of Tullia Cicero's daughter which being expos'd to the Air by the opening of the Tomb was quickly extinguish'd Now if our humours should chance to attain the disposition of these antient Oyls they might supply the Byolychnium long enough 10. Or if these fixed Salts should attain fluidity as 't is probable they have done because some of these Abstinents were of melancholick complexions then the sulphurous parts of the humours would be so fettered and oppressed thereby that they could not so quickly burst from under the yoke into violent flames but by degrees and leisurably as they could disentangle themselves from whence will arise a more durable though less forceable fire Lastly it seems probable that extraneous particles of fire may be convey'd into a body and therein lodged which shall afterwards cause heats to kindle therein That igneous particles pass from one body to another seems a matter of daily experience for 't is not easie to demonstrate how our bodies are warm'd by their approach to the fire if there be not fiery effluviums from the burning matter that enter our bodyes and that these fiery atomes thus lodg'd in a foreign body may afterwards by water air or the like break forth into a considerable heat is very imaginable as in Quick-lime which before 't is burnt is not at all subject to â—â—mbustions by air or water but when it hath endured the Kill-fire then 't is readily kindled by the addition of almost any humidity which humidities may not be supposed directly to contribute to the kindling of the atomes but to the dissolving of the Concrete and thereby the disentangling of the Atomes whereupon they fly out into a considerable heat like whereunto is that Powder boasted by Chymists to take flame in your hand by the only addition of Spittle Thus Sir having tender'd a slender repast for your antique lamp I crave leave to attend the more modern Hypothesis of fam'd fermentation Thirdly How shall Fermentation be continued in the blood without the addition of chyle and how can chyle be added without food assumed It is the opinion of ingenuous Henshavius that fermentation is caused by the addition of chyle to the blood in the heart like that of Wine by the adding of Must from whence doth arise he saith a necessity of frequent feeding which the excellent D. Needham seems much to approve and both the incomparable Willis and ingenious Castle cite Hogeland for ascribing heat to a fermentation in the heart like to that which happens upon the pouring of Spirit of Nitre on Butter of Antimony R. Now Sir to help us out at this dead lift also I shall take notice of the several opinions of the Learned touching the causes of fermentation 1. There is a ferment placed in the heart it self by the great Willis and his Hypaspistes the dexterous anatomist Dr. Lower with Dr. Castle and other renowned Assertors of fermentation This Sir would serve us eximiously to supply the defect of new chyle if it were but sufficiently evinced but I must confess ingenuously though as 't is not unknown to you I have laboured to advance the antique glory of the heart yet I cannot satisfie my self though I would that there is any such implanted ferment therein for I find not this ferment confirmed by any experiment or other sufficient evidence but absit invidia verbo too precariously asserted nor any necessity assigned for such a ferment the doctrine of fermentation being sufficiently demonstrated without it and though the honour ascribed to the heart may seem to require it yet I cannot approve of conferring honours which infer a necessity of multiplying Beings above what the opus and usus of Nature createth Neither can I conceive where this ferment should be nested it must be either in the walls of the heart or in the chambers thereof in the walls saith Dr. Castle from Severinus Danus D. Cartes and Hogeland are mechanick spirits seminal salts or ferments but yet pace tanti viri the heart by its carnous fibres membranes colour and consistence seems to be but a muscle as our worthy Dr. Needham and acute Steno affirm and if so how a ferment should be there generated any otherwise than in other muscles I do not understand it hath not the Parenchyma of the Liver Spleen or other parts which are colatures to the blood whereby they easily separate and having separated retain what may conduce to constitute ferments but the walls of the heart seem only like other muscles to receive blood for their own private use but none for a publick stock Moreover if there were such a salt ferment it is a wonder it doth not discolour the rutilous fibres as the salt in the Spleen manifestly doth but leave it of the same hieu with other nonfermenting muscles neither are there any cavities within these walls capacious enough to contain these mechanick spirits for publick offices nay it is observable that the heart is more firm fast hard and less stor'd with porosities than other muscles neither in the auricles or venticles can these spirits keep quiet possession by reason of that impetuous torrent which many times in every minute washeth both flores and walls and though these cavities have their cellars yet by the so frequent constrictions of the omnimodous fibres causing the systole there 's not only a mixture of the blood at the bottom with that on the top but also a violent extrusion of both made in the same
pulsation neither in dissections is there any considerable difference found betwixt that in the heart and that in the veins as famous Harvey observeth Yet with a non obstante to these premises I must tell you I opine that fermentation may not abusively be ascribed to the mechanick structure and operations of the heart though not enriched with an innate ferment of which hereafter more seasonably 2. It is not unknown that several liquors are self-sufficient to command a fermentation and that perfective as Wine Cyder with other like spiritosulphuro-saline-fluids as also fruits of a more crass consistence as Apples Pears Plumbs c. whereof many are advanced by lying to a greater perfection after pull'd from their Mothers Breast and it is at least a violent presumption that the blood confected by such self-fermenting bodies and they exalted greatly by the various additional concoctions percolations and as it were distillations in the transcendently exquisite and proto-laboratories of humane bodies is crown'd with the same Diadem of self-fermenting principles and indeed an ordinary analysis of blood according to the rules of Pyrotechny will discover all those principles of Spirit Sulphur Salt Water and Earth lodg'd in its embraces which are sufficient to elaborate fermentations which is further confirm'd in that when some of the innate fermenting principles as suppose Salts begin to languish several artificial ferments prove highly useful under this notion saith the sagacious Willâ— are the fixed Saâ—ts of Vegetables Chalybeats c. of such Soveraign efficacy Thirdly after various disquisitions touching the use of the Spleen some exalting it to the honour of sanguifying for the lower belly others depressing it to the vile use of a sink 't is now by many upon consideration of its colour site and vessels resolv'd to be a colature wherein the more black and feculent juice is sever'd from the blood and being there reserved it becomes a ferment to the scarleâ— liquor even as a small parcel of dough reserv'd in a â—aline condiment grows acid and so arrives to the dignity of a levain or ferment to the new farinaceous mass The principles which in this bowell are supposed to be regent are salino terrestrial which by over long abode attain fluidity and so become acetous like Spirit of Vitrioll Nitre and of other saline concretes and that which renders this the more probable are the sowre belchings of hypochondriack persons the whiteness of their tongues the soreness of their throats the excess of their appetite and the emaciating of their bodies all which seem to proceed from a preternatural acidity and vice versa when the Spleen hath lost its ferment then the blood grows too insipid as appears in Cachexys Ascites Tympanites c. These things premised 't will be no difficulty to prove that the blood is fermented by the Spleen 't is but very lately that I added Spirit of Vitrioll to a small quantity of the recent blood of a Patient which caus'd a visible fermentation and such a coagulation that it became almost of the colour and consistence of our table Mustard only there remain'd some perfect black parts but no red ones from whence I conjecture that 't is an acid humour which causes such a black sâ—diment in the urine of many hypochondriack persons and that the same humour it is that coagulates the blood often if not alwayes and renders it so unapt for circulation wherefore by the way I would offer it to your consideration whether that sort of Scorbute and Melancholy which is rooted in blood more than sufficiently hot florid and fluid as oft-times they are can ascribe its origination to a meer acidity or to fluid Salts and consequently whether it be not a misapplication of the nitrosulphurous Plants which renders them of late suspected of impertinency for to what end should these Plants be given to those persons whose blood exceeds with salt and sulphur already yet in the colder more chachectical Sorts of Scurvy and Melancholy nothing possibly may be found more proper for 't is well known that fixed salts and fluid salts or which is the same thing acid spirits do highly ferment and cause a considerable heat as lately discover'd it self to me in the preparation of Tartarus Vitriolatus whence I further conjecture that those preparations of Chalybs Corall and other saline concretes which rob them of their salts or which is the same thing that glut them with acidities so plentifully as to leave no capacity to receive more acids do spil them eo nomine of their fermenting vertue But lest I should seem to transgress whilst I intend searcely to digress I return to remind you that you have a third ferment which in these Abstinents is presumeable to be highly useful for several of them not to say all were Spleneticks before they were Abstinents Fourthly 'T is probable that the seminal humours in these Virgins may by a long abode in their vessels grow acid and thereby supply the blood with a more than ordinary ferment Here are two things supposed the first is that the seed is impregnated with salt and that is prov'd by the many arguments of the Philosophical Dr. Ente the other is that the seed by its principles may elaborate the blood this is evident in females whose seed being grown fecundate and vegete it so levains the blood that except it purge 〈◊〉 by menstrual terms it exposes to innumerable diseases but much more manifest in men by the â—ruption of their Beards the greatning of their voice the heating of their blood esseminate desires c. These things being evidently so 't will much strengthen our Hypothesis to observe that most of these Damosels fall to this abstinence between the age of fourteen and twenty years when the seed hath so fermented the blood that various distempers will probably ensue without due evacuations except in our case wherein through the defect of fermenting food we are enabled to bear the excess of these so much the better Fifthy There are several other innate ferments placed by nature in humane bodies as the Learned testifie as that ascrib'd by Dr. Willis to the brain for the freeing the spirits from the entanlemenâ—s of other principles to which they were married whilst they abode in the blood that so the brains distillaâ—ion might proceed the more prosperously likewise that in the reins which is like Runnet to Milk to precipitate the serosities that the ureters may exterminate them as useless burdensome excrements There are many more assign'd yea more than can be numbred if Dr. Willis's Doctrine be true of a fermentation through the habit of the body caused by the concurrence of arterial blood and nervous juice but these I lightly pass over because I conceive they are not immediately intended for the elaborating of the bloody mass yet I may not forget them because working upon the blood 't is not to be doubted but the veins derive somewhat of their vertue with the retrieved