be alike is joyned to these The natural Spirit is made when the more pure or aerial part of nourishment turns by concoction into thin blood like a vapour This takes force from the imbred spirit in the Liver and goes to the Heart by the hollow vein with the rest of the blood then by heat being more refined it turns to a sort of air and becomes a vital spirit which spread through the whole body by the arteries gives life part of this carried by the arteries of the neck into the net-work of the brain and so into the ventricles increaseth by the air received at the nose and by force of the spirit imbred in the brain becomes animal and being sent to the whole body gives sense and motion The spirit we shall speak of differs much from these and is the fourth spirit in our bodies of the same nature with wind and it is so called It is gross and not so aery or thin as the other You may best know the nature of it if you consider the air in a South or North wind The windy spirit in us is like the South wind and the natural is like the North. Let us leave the innate or imbred spirits which are well described by others and speak of the flatuous or windy spirit CHAP. II. Of the Analogy or Proportion between the flatuous Spirit and Wind or the Wind in Man and in the Earth THere are two things that chiefly blow up our bodies and prepare them for diseases diet and the air Food though at first unlike is at length made like us and turned into the substance of the body Therefore by long use the body will be of the same nature For all Diet though well concocted keeps it in a natural and genuine condition therefore Lettice and other cold things though they be overcome by concoction yet cool the stomach and whole body and produce cold blood So Wine and Garlick produce hot blood Fish Cheese and salt Meats gross blood By which it is clear that not only the spirits and humours by which we are preserved are changed but the constitution of the whole body Therefore a cool diet prepares the body to breed wind by oppressing the native heat Also too much of the best meats and drinks such as burdens Nature cannot be well concocted or turned into good blood but many crudities will be which will cause obstructions and rottenness or corruption by which the natural heat is suffocated as the wiek of a candle by too much grease This crudity and abundance of humours is gathered in all chiefly the Northern Inhabitants these as if it were too low a thing to slay with a sword or hang with a halter or fight publickly kill themselves with kindness they contend in drinking healths and riot night and day and add new surfeits to the former and leave not off till they vomit what they take in or are ready to burst forgetting the saying That gluttony and drunkenness kill more then the sword When too much food is taken it causeth a disease It is no wonder if such have many excrements and wind which for their abundance are not easily voided Also the Country and air is of much force For a hot Country as the Summer inflames the spirits dries the humours and increaseth Choler which causeth most acute diseases But a cold and moist air as it is in the North is like the Winter stupifies the spirits stops the Pores and burdens the body with many superfluous humours and oppresseth the native heat Hence the concoction is weakned and there are crudities and fluctuations of food in the stomach distillations chronick diseases stones worms wind and the like These breed in Man the little world as in the great unto which Aristotle compares him For as in the great world there are four Elements Fire Air Water Earth so there are the same in the little and as in all those Elements are divers substances bred as in the earth stones and trees in the water divers Creatures in the air thunder lightning rain so in man there are bred bones as stones and worms and lice as living Creatures and distillations as rain and wind or a flatus like the wind in the earth To be short the image of the Universe is clear in man For God when in six days he had wonderfully made the world and set all things in order so that nothing seemed to be wanting made man as the abridgment of all the rest to extol his Divine power and wisdom and admire his works Moreover there is nothing in Heaven or Earth the like whereunto may not be found in man if you diligently search and consider the Soul is his God the understanding and will are his angelical Spirits heat cold moisture and driness answer to the outward Elements In the heat appear divers flashes and fiery representations Frenzies Inflammations Erysipelas Feavers In the moisture are distillations and Nodes that come from thence like hail also the humours ebbe and flow in the veins and arteries But the earthy Element of this little world is most like the great in which are stones which our bones do resemble and Ovid calls the stones the bones of our great mother Earth As the Plants Corn and Trees are in the Earth so are the hairs in man As Galen saith hairs grow as Plants For as some grow by the art of the Husbandman others by natural causes only so in animals the head is like a Wheat or Barley-field and the hair in other parts is like other plants in drier ground What shall I say of the Earthquake when many exhalations are bred in the bowels of the Earth by force of the Sun and Stars from a moisture that is sunk into the Earth and from the matter of the Earth when they cannot get forth by reason of the Earths closure or the grossness of the wind there must needs be an Earthquake in part So when flatuous spirits or wind is shut up in the cavity of the body and strives to get out there is great trembling as Langius saith if we may confer great things with small as wind shut up in the bowels of the Earth makes it tremble when it strives to get out so a flatulent air or wind being kept in by the covers of the Muscles and other parts that may be stretched shakes them till it breaks through the Membrane that covers them the vulgar ignorant of this suppose this to be the soul or life-blood While it goes forth without doing hurt at the Pores there is no trembling but if they be stopt it hunts about and gets into cavities and strives to break through so the wind striving to get out shakes the body There is another reason of this trembling The wind shut up in the cavities being beaten back by the heat of the bowels and natural motion grows hot by reason of the want of freedom and so thinner This insinuates it self into any part even the
parts and what evils it causeth we shall now shew what Symptoms it produceth in the habit of the body For it is thin and not only fills vacuity but dissolves continuity tears the membranes in themselves and from the bones and swiftly strikes like a dart upon any part causing great pain Sometimes like cold air it affects the sensible nervous parts without great pain but this is little and very thin and easily vanisheth by the natural heat and Fomentations But it is harder to be discussed when it gets under the skin or membranes of the bones being thicker and more and swells them to a windy Impostume Galen distinguisheth this from Oedema which is from water and yields to the finger and pits deep But an inflation is from wind either under the skin or membranes of the bones or under the Muscles This pits not with the finger but sounds like a drum with a fillip Sometimes it causeth no tumour but lying under the skin through which it cannot breathe being thick it only beateth this the Vulgar call the life And Langius in an Epistle wittily shews the arrogancy and ignorance of some Chirurgions that when they see the Muscles of the Temples Forehead Cheeks or Jaws tremble by wind in the skin and to swell they say there is the soul or life as in a prison also without purging which is less dangerous then bleeding they let blood and beholding the blood to tremble in the Porringer by reason of wind they fear that life is gone forth with the blood and therefore they make the patient drink it off hot Silly fellows that know not that air feeds the vital and animal spirits gets not only into the Arteries of the Brain Lungs and Heart but into all parts by inspiration and the pores and is mixed with the blood by the Anastomosis of the Arteries with the Veins and wind will breed from clammy humours not only in the Muscles and all parts that may be stretched as the Stomach Guts Liver Spleen Midriff and Womb in teeming women which move the womb so that they think the Child moveth And it causeth a trembling not only in the Muscles and other members but chiefly in the Heart And as wind shut up in the bowels of the Earth shakes as it is ready to get forth so wind in the body being comprehended in the muscles or other stretchable parts shakes them till it gets forth Thus Langius and Galen lib. 2. de Art curat ad Glauc confirms him saying that that sort of wind which is gross sometimes lyes under the membranes of the bones sometimes under the Peritonaeum sometimes in the guts and belly sometimes under the membranes about the muscles and the membranous tendons and the spaces of the muscles and other parts Therefore the force of wind is wonderful that like Thunder passeth through insensible passages into private places even into the bones and marrow and causeth pain but being between the bone and the Periostium it teareth them asunder with great pain Hence many complain of pain of the Shins by fits when there is no distemper external neither tumour nor pain when it is pressed except there be much gathered So much of the Symptoms now we shall speak of the Prognosticks of Wind. CHAP. XI Of the Prognosticks of Wind. ALL diseases of wind in any part are hard to be cured if it cannot get forth the thicker and more close it is the longer it remains and causeth worse Symptoms When it separates the parts it causeth pain and pain causeth flux of humours and the humour getting into the crannies of the part stretched causeth a tumour the tumour distends the skin and membranes and contracts them hence the blood being not cooled comes corruption and increase of preternatural heat If this tumour be hard and yield red and beating it is an inflammation if it be white yielding to touch and pit it is an Oedema if it be white yielding and transparent it is an inflation Sometimes wind makes a Dropsie as Hippocrates lib. de Flatibus saith wind gets through the flesh and makes thin the pores and then follows moisture to which the wind before had made a passage and the body is moistned the flesh melts and the humours fall down to the Legs and then comes a Dropsie They in whom wind hath long remained are subject to all these diseases as the Aphorism saith They who have pains about the Navel and Loyns that will not away with Physick or other ways will have a dry Dropsie This wind is not discussed by medicines or other things by reason of the habitual distemper of the part which persevering causeth a Tympany the worst of Dropsies I never knew it cured when confirmed If then it be so dangerous because the wind will yield to no remedies by reason of the cause that feeds it Hippocrates Prognost lib. 1. said well it is very healthful for wind to pass forth without noise but it is better to break with noise then stay and move about and cause pain If any from modesty when they are sound will rather dye then fart let them know that they dote or must endure pain If one fart willingly it signifies no ill but only it were better to be voided without noise For a noise shews much wind or straitness of the vessels but that noise which is heard in new diseases in the Hypochondria pains or swellings is not bad Hippocrates lib. 2. Prognost saith new pains and swellings in the Hypochondria without inflammation are dissolved by noise chiefly if there be stools and urine and if the wind goes not forth it is good that it goes downward These tumours being only of wind are dissolved by their rumbling it shews wind joyned with a humour and sign fies good that is that the wind will go forth with the humour it is mixed with or if not that it will go downward and the pain and tumour will cease And Hippocrates Aph. 73. lib 4. saith they who have stretched Hypochondria with rumbling and after that a pain in the Loyns will have a moist belly or loosness except they fart or piss much The Hypochondria rumbles and swells from wind alone or mixed with humours and if it alone breaks forth upward or downward with the humour it is without danger and the pain and tumour suddenly depart For the Liver and Spleen lying in the Hypochondria if they be much pained it is from strong inflammation or wind if from wind a Fever coming removes the pain As Hippocrates Aph. 52. lib. 7. saith they whose Liver is much pained are cured by a Fever for the heat of it doth discuss the wind Now a Fever doth not follow an inflammation but comes with it nor doth it take off pain but increase it It appears that the heat of a Fever discusseth wind because they in the Jaundice seldom have fits of wind because they are hot of constitution as Hippocrates Aph. 78. lib. 5. saith they in the Jaundice are not
For finding no passage out it stretcheth them vehemently and tears them from the bone This distemper is known from others for there is neither heat nor heaviness except there be flagm there but only a stretching with noise or ringing Also it is of much concernment if it be much or little thick or thin move quickly or slowly For if it be much thick and move quick it will be perceived like swift flowing water or like a drum or such an instrument as makes a shrill noise with a large blast of wind If it be little or thick and move quick it is like the breaking and falling of a tree or an house or a conduit If it be much but thin and move quick it causeth jingling or ringing or ringing or like the whistling of wind in at the cranny of a door If it be much gross and move not quickly it causeth rumbling If it be little thick and move slowly it causeth a whistling or Susurrus whispering When it is much thin and moves slowly it causeth hissing They that have it are commonly dull both in the inward and outward senses chiefly in the hearing by reason of the grossness of the spirits impurity and coldness and the pain is not constant but by fits Also wind gets into the roots of the Teeth and stretcheth their Nerves or the Membrane of the Cheek-bone and causeth wonderful pain almost not to be asswaged It is easily known for it is not constant nor alike all the fit as when humours logde there but it is by fits worse and hath a quick motion like a dart Though as Galen saith the Lungs feel no pain yet being stretched there is pain felt in the breast and back from the membrane that compasseth them which hangs from breast to back by fibres As often then as wind stretcheth this membrane by its abundance or quick motion there wil be a pain in the breast or back and which is worse it sometimes breaks the veins and causeth a flux of blood and so a consumption though seldom Wind often causeth a bastard Pleurisie and sometimes difficult to be cured as when it is between the skin and the ribs or between the membranes under the ribs and pulls them from the parts they cleave to This stops the breath and keeps it from large and free passage because the side and the breast are stirred up to move in breathing Sometimes from pain it causeth a dry Cough and a Feaver and it resembles a true Pleurisie which is from a Phlegmon and many ignorant Physitians that are content with a few signs and such as shew not the disease are deceived thereby and cause dangerous Symptoms by false directions But this Pleurisie differs far from a true and to shew the signs of a true is not to our purpose but the Pleurisie of wind is with a wandring pain not long in the same place except it be a very gross and cloudy vapour It is milder by heat and fomentations and is dispersed it comes from too much cold drink or milk chiefly a great draught after exercise from cold and wet feet or other windy causes as we shewed before Also palpitation of the Heart is from wind when it gets into the Pericardium through invisible passages and cannot get out it tormenteth by a vehement Systole and Diastole contraction and dilatation so that when it extends the heart it intercepts the motion of the Artery We shall know when this is from wind and not from a humour For the humour will be much or little thick or thin That which is much and thick cannot get through the thick membrane and be dissolved into air through the habit of the body If it be much and thin though it may at length be dissolved and dryed up yet it requires longer abode it cannot quickly come and go be violent and cease this is a plain sign that then the palpitation of the Heart is from a windy substance But if it were little and thin it would easily vanish and not make that kind of palpitation Therefore it is probable that there is a thick substance or a cloudy wind which the heart labours to shake off because it oppresseth the vital faculty and by its heat and continual motion extenuates the thickness and so disperseth it and then the palpitation ceaseth which comes from surfeits idleness bashfulness or too much or sudden fear as the evident causes But the palpitation which is from humours contained in the Pericardium is different For it is perpetual seldom intermitting but in time of rest it grows worse from motion and continues often for many years even till death Fernelius saith that sometimes it hath broken the adjacent ribs and put them out of their place and dilated the Artery outward as big as the fist The other from wind is troublesom but comes by fits and is not so dangerous There are no oftner or greater Symptoms from wind then those that trouble the stomach and gut Colon the first is called Inflation the second the Colick from the part affected Inflation is from a fault from the retentive and embracing faculty of the stomach For the goodness of the stomach consists in the time of the embracing of the food being equal with the time of concoction and when it so binds up the food that there is no empty space between it and the meat But quick evacuation and corruption of meat in the lower belly follow an unfit time of retention and a weak retention causeth inflations These torment the stomach and the pain descends to the back For the stomach lies under the Midriff and begins at the Malum Punicum or Pomegranate and so tends to the left side for the upper part bends chiefly thither but the lower part bends more to the right side The hinder part lyes upon the Back-bone to which it is bound cleaving as far as the first Spondil of the Loyns The mouth of it is united not to the Back-bone but to the Diaphragma Liver Heart Spleen Guts and other parts by Membranes Nerves Arteries and Veins Hence when the stomach is stretcht with wind those parts are pained that are joyned to the stretched part of the stomach Therefore when the back parts are stretched by wind there is chiefly pain in the Loyns and Kidneys as if it were the Stone which deceives not only the vulgar but the learned sometimes so that they think them to have the stone which are stretched with wind in the stomach But this is chiefly in such as have the Colick as shall be proved When the upper part of the stomach is extended there is pain over the breast chiefly on the left side When the lower parts are stretched the Liver is sometimes pained or the other side If the mouth of the stomach be stretched the Gullet hath a Convulsion as if it were contracted with hands so that they say it is like a stick fixed and they can scarce swallow For as Galen Lib. 6. Aph. 39. saith
to the finger and the spleen is pricked and extended but without heaviness and it comes sooner When vulgar Physitians understand not these two tumours of both Liver and Spleen how blindly do they go to work with thousands of Juleps and they protract the cure that they may be largely rewarded and when they have done more hurt then good they affirm it to be a Schirrus and from Galen incurable But they are very ignorant for this cloudy wind fixed on the bowel in time by the natural heat somentations fasting an extenuating and hot diet given by women and Empericks being discussed the humour vanisheth and the pain also and the foolish Doctors contemned I exhort therefore the ingenious that love their honour and the truth to search narrowly and learn to know Symptoms from those of other diseases It is hard but excellent For many Patients as ready to dye for pain cry out only from wind which if corrupted and come from a putrid and venomous matter and run through the members with intolerable pain needs an exact Artist to know the wind and the matter producing it and distinguish the disease from others To this belongs the Tympany Dropsie when wind gets into the membranes of the belly with pain and so into the spaces Hippocrates Aph. 2. Sect. 4. speaks of this thus They that have pain about the Navel and Loyns that will not be cured by medicines will have a dry Dropsie There are three sorts of Dropsies Anasarca Ascites and Tympanides which Hippocrates calls the dry Dropsie Anasarca is a preternatural increase of the bulk of the body here the feet swell first at night chiefly after exercise or when they have long hung down they pit with the finger the body is all soft loose and pale weak and tired with the least pains it is like the Green-sickness in women only the Dropsie swells the body but in the other there is paleness and trembling of the heart in motion and shortness of wind going up stairs and the body is heavy and sluggish The cause is the same in both too much cooling of the Liver and Veins The Liver cooled the sanguification is hurt then comes crude and watry blood which taken into the hollow vein goes over all the body and there is Anasarca and if the water from the Liver stretch the skin without there will be bladders If these break the water gets into that part of the Peritonaeum which is by the lower belly and then there is the second kind of Dropsie called Ascites With this by degrees the belly is filled and it swells unmeasurably the skin being loosned and the rest of the body pines away If the body or the belly be turned the water makes a noise But in a Tympany there is no fluctuation of water but the sound of a drum when you strike or fillip the belly with your finger For Galen aph 12. sect 4. saith in these the air is beaten which is contained by the skin as in this kind of disease the wind is struck by the skin which is below Cold of the bowels and veins is cause of all these Dropsies The Ascites or watry Dropsie is from more cold the Tympany from less for water cannot be turned to wind without heat Great thirst follows all chiefly Ascites and Tympany the first because the water is salt and putrefied that is detained and the other because there is seldom wind alone in the belly without water which putrefies also the wind takes away the moisture of the stomach and then it is dry and desires drink This is thirst the desire of moist and cold or both In externals we see that though the Earth be very wet with rain yet when wind comes it dryes it wonderfully in a short time and consumes the moisture The same is done in the body for one in a Tympany hath a thirst beyond Tantalus the more he drinks the more he may and to satisfie the enemy in his bowels he destroys himself with much drink Also they in the Colick thirst from the same cause Also wind swells the Cods and the Womb it gets by invisible passages into the cavity of them or after Child-birth by the Orifice of the womb or after bathing or fomenting or it breeds there from some other cause and there is straitned and so it stretcheth the womb If the stretching be in the upper part of the womb by force of the wind sent thither it ascends and goes to the Midriff and stomach and lyes like a ball there and oppresseth it Hence it is often driven down by the hands or fists or by other solid bodies into its proper place But if either side of the womb be distended or stretcht more then the rest it gets by a Convulsion into the right or left Croyn the Pecten and the lower belly are blown up and pained sometimes a noise is heard all over the body there is belching and swelling of the Loyns and pain in the Reins and Hips and when the belly is smitten with the fingers there is a sound like a drum and the wind breaks forth at the mouth of the womb Soranus said this was called a flatuous cold As wind gets into the womb of a woman so it gets into the Cods of a man with a disease or without and is a disease by it self I have seen in a Tympany the Cods of a man swollen as big as a Hogs bladder For the wind which at first was only in the membranes of the Abdomen and Peritonaeum being now increased and requiring great space breaks them and gets into the Cods and fills also the whole body Wind also extends the Cods without a disease in man and chiefly new born children and makes the Hernia called Pneumatocele or windy Rupture Sometimes it gets within the common membrane of the stones and puffs up all the Cods alike but when it gets between the tunicles of either stone called Erythroides and Dartos then one side of the Cod is only tumified This tumour is transparent and not heavy as that of You may try it in the dark with a Wax-candle held on the part opposite to your view Priapismus a Symptom of the Yard hath two causes one is the fulness of the Arteries of the Privities the other is wind bred in the fistulous Nerve This fills the Nerve so that it swells and makes the Yard stand without a venereous desire Galen meth med 12. saith there is another kind of Priapism when the Yard extends against desire For the Nerve that makes the proper substance of the Yard being hollow and filled with wind causeth it So Priapism is a permanent enlargement of the Yard in length and thickness without desire of Venery and wind is the cause as appears by its quick rise and sudden fall which no humour could make But Palpitation goes before this Priapism of wind but not before that which is from the dilatation of the Artery We have shewed how wind fills the internal
drink and from all things mentioned in the Chapter of prevention Keep the Belly loose by Clysters or Suppositories Take Marsh-mallow roots two ounees the five Emollients each a handful Aniseeds an ounce Chamomil flowers a pugil Agarick Senna each four drams boil them to a pint strained add Diacatholicon red Sugar each an ounce Hiera with Honey half an ounce Oyl of Chamomil Dill each two ounces Salt a dram make a Clyster Or make a Suppository of boiled Honey and a scruple of Hiera simple or for the tender sort make one of the Yolk of an Egg and Salt a Candles end a Fig turned inside outward or the like All know I suppose that little food is to be used not too moist or windy of good juyce and easie concoction chiefly roasted with Hysop Fennel Balm Borage Cloves and other hot and dry Cordials Some object against bleeding that it weakens the vital strength which is weak before nor can the disease be cured by it being not in the blood but I answer with Galen lib. de loc affect 5. that bleeding is a wonderful help in all Palpitations And he saith that this palpitation comes often suddenly upon young and old without any manifest accident and bleeding doth always good to such and cures them if they use an extenuating diet afterwards For bleeding doth good more by revulsion of humours from the Heart then weak and attracting by its motion then by any other way in regard there is then a cold distemper and the wind is cold Open therefore the liver-Liver-vein in the right Arm and bleed by degrees for revulsion except there be any hindrance from age strength or the like Then use extenuating Diet and cutting Medicines that expel wind to correct the cold distemper of the Heart and strengthen it and consume flegm that breeds wind and stir up natural heat and restore the animal and natural actions Let Medicines be hot and such as strengthen the vitals as Diacinamomum Diacalaminthum Dianisum Aromaticum rosatum Diamoschu dulce and amarum Mithridate Treacle with Wine or in Electuaries As Take Citron peels candied an ounce and half Conserve of Borage flowers an ounce Aromaticum rosatum a dram Diamoschu dulce Diacalaminth each two scruples Citron and Melon seeds blanched each half a dram red Coral and Coriander seeds each a scruple with Syrup of Borage make an Electuary give as much as a Walnut in Wine three hours before meat Or make these Lozenges Take Aromaticum rosatum Electuary of Bay-berries each half a dram Cardamoms Citron seeds and red Coral each half a scruple Diacyminum a scruple make Lozenges with Sugar dissolved in Balm water of a dram weight give one three hours before meat and another at bed-time with four ounces of Wine or this Hippocras Take white Sugar four ounces Cinnamon three drams Ginger half a dram Electuary of Bay-berries and grains each two scruples strong Wine two pints Filter it or give every day four hours before meat half a dram of Treacle with Wine wherein Mace and Cinnamon are boiled Anoint the Heart or make an Epithem of Oyl of Spike with Amber and Musk or with Wine in which Balm Rosemary Cummin Bay-berries were boiled with Oyl of sweet Almonds and Cloves powdered Nutmeg and Cinnamon This is for the richer sort Take water of Balm and Citron flowers each half a pint Sack three ounces Mace Cloves Nutmegs each a dram Diambra four scruples Citron and Basil seed each two drams Saffron a scruple make an Epithem apply it hot before meat Or use this Bag. Take Rosemary flowers Borage and Chamomil flowers each a pugil Citron seeds Wood Aloes Cinnamon each a dram Cloves Cubebs Cardamoms each half a dram Saffron a scruple Beat them gross and make a quilted Bag sprinkle it with Sack and apply it to the Heart Thus must you cure a palpitation only from wind without a cause that feeds it If there be gross flegm that breeds the wind first prepare thus Take Balm Borage Bettony Calamints Rosemary each half an handful Stoechas Peach flowers each a pugil Aniseeds Cardamoms each two drams Raisons stoned a pugil Bruise them and steep them twelve hours in Rhenish Wine and Balm-water each half a pint in a glass then boil them in Balneo Mariae three hours stopping the glass Clarifie it and add Syrup of Citron peels and Bysants each two ounces cordial Species a dram give it for four mornings Then purge thus Take Agarick a dram and half Ginger half a dram Infuse them twelve hours in the decoction of Balm Dodder Calamints and Hysop then give it three or four boils and strain it add to four ounces an ounce of Syrup of Stoechas Elect. Indi maj Benedicta laxativa each two drams give it at five in the morning If the matter be so clammy and thick that these will not do prepare it four days longer with such as do more extenuate and cut as with Oxymels Syrup of the five Roots water of Balm Scabious Hysop or with the Decoction of Organ Calamints Hysop Pennyroyal Bettony Rosemary or give with the Syrups two scruples of Treacle or Mithridate or a dram of Dianisum or Diacalamints and then purge against thus Take Turbith a dram Diagredium two grains Ginger half a dram Sugar two drams Powder them give it with Chicken-broth in the morning after these preparatives and purges give the former strengtheners If the wind that causeth palpitation come from a melancholy humour as in the Hypochondriack Melancholy prepare it with Syrup of Fumitory Apples juyce of Borage Epithymum or of Citron peels in the Decoction of Fumitory Pennyroyal Borage Dodder tops of Hops Wormwood roots of Polypody and Bugloss and purge with confection of Hamec Diasena and Diacatholicon or with the Syrup of John Montanus that is very excellent which is here described Take of all the Myrobalans each half an ounce Polypody Senna Epithymum each an ounce Liquorish Cloves seeds of Citrons each two drams black Hellebore half an ounce Bruise and steep the Myrobalans twenty four hours in seven pints of Fumitory water or in seven pints of the juyce then add the rest and boil them to half strain and divide it into six parts and add to each of Syrup of Fumitory an ounce and half Syrup of Citron peels half an ounce so that there be six ounces of the Decoction and two of Syrups This is Montanus his Apozem against Melancholy Give the other things mentioned Electuaries and Lozenges and Epithems in the order before mentioned CHAP. XIX Of the Cure of the puffing of the Stomach THe inflation of the stomach is a preternatural extension of the Membranes of the stomach by wind with pain In this the proper action of the stomach is frustrated which is concoction in regard the faculty of embracing the food doth not every where compass it by reason of weakness but there is a vacuity between the stomach and the meat This pain is sometimes before meat most sometimes after Before meat because
it admits no farther industry therefore the Ages following and ours according to the ingenuity of the best in the time did refine and digest into order those parts of Physick that seemed imperfect They cut off what was superfluous and supplied what was defective and did all with such industry that the Art seemed to have a new face For no part of Physick though obscure and hard can now be concealed For famous men have not ceased to study the Heavens and Stars with their motions and the Nature of the Elements and to search into the bowels of the Earth and to find out by great labour the force of Herbs and all Plants and to know all sorts of living Creatures nay to search into the bowels of Mankind by a kind of cruelty that they might be preserved against the storms of so many malignant Causes This is the reason why we bestow our labour and study for the Common Good in writing this Book and others and in perusing Authors out of which we have gathered this Treatise of Wind that troubles the Body of Man Men are of divers ingenuities and every one follows that which his Nature and heat of Spirit draws him unto Some follow Musick and the Mathematicks others Morality others Religion without any respect to other Sciences Some in obedience to their God Belly follow head-long after lust and spend more time and pains in pleasure and luxury then in honesty and lay up treasure by any means good or bad to maintain their lusts These vain Wretches having nothing but a body which shews their manhood pass away and their memory rots But such whose Souls dwell more nobly in them and think of the adorning of their Divine part lose no time for meditation that they may declare things more clearly to Posterity and be famous to Eternity Of this sort there are many in our Age chiefly Physitians who have so laboured to purge and adorn their Science that no Age hath done more For no Science is so absolute in all things but there is something new that the Ancients did not take notice of or leave unfinished For humane industry is fed by meditation and grows hot by an unwearied force And a generous Soul submits his private studies to the Judgment of the Learned and grows more studious afterwards For if his works are approved by them he is more inflamed to go forward if not he labours to recover his honour and to hit that the second time which he missed at the first Fall how it will an ingenious generous Spirit loseth nothing but gets much This is the cause why we have taken in hand to clear that part of Physick which treats of Wind and is of great consequence to mankind that we may not live in silence as if born for our selves And the rather because there is no disease more usual and vexatious chiefly in the North and less understood by Physitians though indifferently learned then those of Wind. And there is no part of Physick more neglected by Authors for none hath written exactly of Wind but Hippocrates and he hath written so that little benefit is to be gotten thereby We confess the reverend old Man had a wonderful Spirit in shewing the Cause of every Disease But he useth Arguments far fetcht and such as teach rather the Wit of their Author then the knowledge or Cure of the Diseases that come from them And he handles but slightly the breeding of Wind from meat drink of flegm He only speaks of the force of the Air breathed in Nor is it a wonder For his Age was very temperate and no ways given to Luxury Also the Country he lived in chiefly Cous was a temperate Island and did not breed these torments from Wind. But our Age from Gluttony and Drunkenness affords few that are not tormented with Wind. Therefore we shall provide that such as are troubled therewith may be cured and that by bad diet they do not relapse and be again troubled therewith And we shall leave Hippocrates who wrote on this subject more learnedly then profitably and discover for the Common Good those Principles that we know by Experience to be profitable Farewel W. R. A Short TREATISE Concerning Wind in Mans Body CHAP. I. That Wind is a Spirit and of the Division of Spirits I Suppose none doth question but that that substance whether it be air wind or blast which is strong to be heard or felt though not to be seen is called a Spirit For so Hippocrates calls them in his Book of Winds And Galen saith they are spirits Epid. 1. Com. 3. And in his Book of the difficulty of breathing and differences of breathing and in his Prognosticks and that a belch is a kind of spirit and doth after a sort communicate with the spirits of breathing Thus it appears by these sayings of Galen that wind is a spirit now there are differences of spirits therefore I shall shew the nature of all spirits and begin from the chief to the meanest Spirits are either within or without our bodies They without are of three sorts There is the spirit of the living God and of universal Nature and of the Soul The spirit of God shews his hidden Majesty and Power and goes through all things and is every where comprehending all things It hath the minds and souls of all in its power and can carry them where it pleaseth The spirit of Nature is that which all the Philosophers and Poets so commend Plato calls it the soul of the world Galen calls it a mind brought hither from above Aristotle Lib. de mund ad Alex. sets it forth more plainly by this definition saying this spirit is an animate substance that generateth in Plants and living Creatures belonging to all being largely extended it contains all rejoyceth all carrying the vital soul of the world with it and Nature it self and making all things live that it gets into Also there is a spirit under the form of every mortal and concrete thing which knits it to its thick body being of a mean condition between both it joyns things different being like unto both and this spirit is governed and preserved by the other which is the universal spirit of all Nature To these three differences of spirits Arist Lib. de mund adds a fourth saying that wind ariseth from a dry exhalation when it is cast off by cold so that it spreads abroad it self so that wind is only much air stirring about and forced and this is called a spirit also For air is strong though not visible but known by its effects and our apprehensions and Hippocrates in his Book of Wind saith that all that is between Heaven and Earth is full of spirits Also the spirits in the body are comprehended in their several members for they are natural vital or animal All these are called by the name of innate or imbred spirits wind or the flatulent spirit that the great and little world Man might