cure than one in the wind-pipe and that in the vessels of the Lungs worse than it but an Ulcer in the substance of the Lungs is the most deplorable of any which the University of Physicians declare absolutely incurable though Hippocrates seems to assert some curable namely in whom the seven forementioned conditions are deprehended Which sentiment we find likewise confirm'd by the experience of several reputed Authours Cardan in his Treatise de Cur. Admirand No. 2. 4. 5. 6. 7. 10. recites many Consumptives by his care and skill perfectly restored among which number were several of the second and third degree but I doubt he quack't a little sometimes however Erastus exceeds him in asserting cures much more incredible Saith he in his Disp. Paracels part 1. pag. 210. I 'le tell you some thing that 's hard to be believed God hath restored some Consumptives that made use of my help who it was clearly apparent scarce beheld the half of their Lungs And in another place he vaunts to have cured many Consumptives in the beginning and some that were absolutely desperate Ingrassias in Consil. pro fist pect Franc. Arcaeus de febr cap. 8. Valleriola lib. 2. Observ. 3. lib. 3. Obs. 6. lib. 5. Obs. 5. 6. Haelidaeus lib. 3. Cons. 7. Beniven de Abd. c. 44. Forest. lib. 16. Obs. 58. Crato Cons. 152. Poterius cent 3. cap. 19 20 21. and among the Ancients Avicen lib. 3. Sen. 10. Tract 5. cap. 5. Rases 4. cont Valesc de taranta lib. 3. cap. 2. Abynzoar lib. 1. Theysir tract 11. cap. 2. Mesues cap. de Phthisi besides many others do bring in perfect cures of Consumptives of all degrees but questionless performed with great difficulty because of the continual motion and coughing of the Lungs thereby taring the Ulcer wider and their remote distance and at last the Ulcer is only covered with a limber callus that easily falls off upon any commotion of body cough or cold taken in the breast and so forceth patients into an incurable state An Hereditary Consumption likewise one that 's engendred by malign arsenical fumes under ground whereunto those that dig in Mines and Coal pits are much subjected are incapable of any sort of cure A spitting of blood that happens upon the bursting of a Lung-Vein unless it be stopped or conglutinated in three or four dayes at farthest either occasions a Phlegmone or inflammation of the Lungs which suppurating turns to an incurable Ulcer and a Proper Consumption or by evacuating an insupportable measure of blood kills the Patient by inducing a Syncope Swoun or suffocates him by coagulating in the Lung-pipes An Ulcer in the left lobes is more perilous than in the right because it 's nearer to the heart The same reason makes a suppuration contained on the right side of the Mediastinum more dangerous than on the left A Consumption ensuing upon a spitting of blood is of quicker termination than one that 's occasioned by an Ulcerous disposition of the Lungs and fomented by salin distillations from the brain which may be protracted to some years Avicen and Erotian write of a Woman that was Consumptive three and twenty years together Iul. Alexandrinus and Mat. de Grad cap. 54. com in 9. lib. Rasis speak of another woman that lived Consumptive eight and twenty years Forestus knew another woman that strove eight years with a Consumption Neither is this case very rare in this City there being many I can attest of that have been lingring for many years though affected with a Chronical cough difficulty of respiration and an extreme lean habit of body The reason of this prorogation is imputed to a certain absorbing salin distillation which being imbibed by the Lungs is not so corrosive as to gnaw Ulcers into the Lungs but doth only absorb their nutriment and insensibly diminish their Parenchyma whereunto the whole body sympathizing is also insensibly emaciated But that which is far rarer is that Ulcerous Consumptions of the Lungs should extend to so long space as Arculanus reports of two that spitted matter four years together We have reserved this insertion touching the Prognosticks of this Disease by the Urin for the Epilogue of the Chapter which usually is various throughout the whole course of the Disease in the first degree it's thick and turbid with a pretty deal of setling at the second it appears thin and obscure without any sediment or very little and of a pale straw colour and a greenish circle a top though in some I have observed it bloody and obscure like water where raw flesh hath been washed in in others it 's thin and blackish At last it 's evacuated clear like water and in a small quantity yet this is not Universal CHAP. XXXIII The Therapeutick for Consumptions IT 's a double misery to be pursued by a lingring Disease whose nature and cause are disguised under a cloud of various symptoms which if otherwise appeared in a more visible dress would it self betray what remedies were most likely to remove it since therefore Consumptions assault us in that obscure manner I have engaged my study and industry to procure you in the preceding discourse a most ample Narrative of that malady comprizing the total of all observations thereunto relating that so that intestine enemy being discovered might with more certainty be aggressed according to the implicit meaning of that trite saying a Disease once known is half cured So that the greater pains I have taken in the speculative will very much alleviate me in describing the Practick or Therapeutick whose office is distributed into three parts viz. the Conservative Preservative and Curative The Conservative part in this Treatise is chiefly concerned in preserving a healthful body in the same state against all external causes that may dispose or force it into a Consumption Such are the six non naturals viz. a Consumptive Air and emaciating Dyet Motion and Rest the Excretions and Retentions Sleep and Restlesseness and the Passions of the mind If you find your self obliged to live in a Consumptive Air as this of London make choice of the more open high dry and gravelly part of it where the houses are built East and West shunning those close low nasty dirty and stinking Allies and Lanes near the Thames side where the Air being damp and replenish'd with putrid and stinking vapours is pen'd up and obstructed from being ventilated by the winds or its one free motion 2. Once a day at least take a walk in the Fields to refresh your self with the open Air which inspired fresh doth exceedingly recreate the Lungs Heart and the Vital spirits and through its tenuity opens the Lung-pipes and purges them from all those thick sooty steems Moreover opens all the pores of the body and gives vent to those excrementious evaporations 3. Retreat some times into the Country for a day three or four to feast your Lungs with that pure clear air and to purge them from the smoak of London
register of Consumptions will be much enlarged Now so it is that the common intendment states a proper Consumption a dissolution or corruption of the Balsamick principles and consequently if differencing perfect Consumptions by the variety of their causes and seats of those said causes we must infer many more as an Hypochondriack Amorous Ulcerous Cancerous Renal Dorsal and many other sorts of Consumptions before commented upon If probably I have not proposed resolves to these Queries that are enough seasoned for every Readers palat I must beg his excuse upon pretence it 's but the first rough draft which upon a second attempt may be rendred better polish't However such as they be they 'l prove a more luminous and soveraign Directory for the Conservative Preservative and Curative part of a Consumption than any hitherto offer'd to view CHAP. XXVII Of some less frequent and rarer causes of a Pulmonique and other sorts of Consumptions TO decline confusion of causes we have reserved these being of a more rare emergency for a particular remarque This distinction of Consumptions is universally observed that some are moist others dry A moist Consumption receives its nomenclature name from a moist sputation spitting or expectoration that attends it a dry one is known by its dry Cough This latter besides the ordinary praecited causes is sometimes occasioned by various accidents of the Heart as Wounds Ulcers Bones Stones and Worms that are bred in it and particularly by a Marcour or a Hectick of the Heart which together with the Lungs as Melangthon witnesses lib. 1 de Anima were found to be as dry as a Baked Pear in the expired body of Casimir Marquéss of Brandenburgh Thus likewise Telesius reports the heart and consequently the Lungs of a noble Roman dryed away by an immoderate heat to nothing but the skin Fernelius in his Pathol. lib. 5. cap. 12. tells us of one that dyed Consumptive whose heart was afterwards discovered to be corroded into three large Ulcers the steems of whose matter must needs have infected the Lungs Bauhinus among his observations registers this following that he dissected a Corps wherein he found the Lungs consumed the capacity of the breast to be full of putrid and concreased blood the Pericardium a skin wherein the heart lyes inclosed as in a bag to contain above a quart of white matter pus and the heart extremely extenuated and consumed about the surface The symptoms that molested the party were a Cough a pain in his Breast difficulty of respiration and an Hectick Feaver The Pericardium is likewise summon'd by Petr. Salius de our Morb. c. 7. for an apparent cause of a Tabes or Marcour if anywise affected as suppose inflammed or pustulated This may seem strange that an ignoble part should bring the whole body in danger but then considering its near situation to the heart the cause is obvious enough whence to derive its Consumptive symptoms Some might rather imagine that the drying up of the waterish humours contained in the Pericardium supposed by most modern Anatomists to be distined for to moisten and cool the heart may now and then impell a man into a Consumption for want of which water the heart dryes away and shrinks whereunto the other parts are obliged to sympathize But in my opinion it 's questionable whether any such waterish liquor be floating in the Pericardium whilst a man is yet living for in Beasts as Dogs or Cats whose breast hath been pierced alive to discover whether the said Membrane the heart is wrapt up in be moistned with that kind of serosity no such thing was deprehended in whom notwithstanding there appeared the same necessity for a cooler as in men whose languishing heart probably whilst a dying may seem faintly to sweat such kind of moist drops into its bag 2. There have been some that were born destitute of a Pericardium witness Columbus lib. 15. Anat. where he recites the Anatomy of a Scholar at Rome whom he found wanting of a Pericardium so Galen lib. 7. cap. 13. Administ Anat. doth likewise instance a Boy whose heart lay visible because the breast bone was part cut out and the Pericardium partly putrefyed A dry Consumption may likewise chance upon a Vomica or a tumor of humours turn'd into matter and inclosed in a bag whereby Authors would have it differenced from an Apostem in the Lungs which before it breaks causes a stertour or noise in the Throat in breathing and a very troublesome Asthma A Pulmonique Consumption doth sometimes happen upon a Varix or vein swelled in the Lungs which in length of time doth burst whence an effusion of blood and soon after a congestion of purulent matter Hippocrates in coac praed makes mention of a kind of suppuration that survenes Lethargies which doth commonly terminate into a Consumption viz. quicunque vero servantur ex Lethargicis ut plurimum suppurati fiunt those that recover of a Lethargy for the most part become suppurated But lib. 1. de Morb. he relates five kinds of Pectoral suppurations more that tend to the same period unless according to 15. Aphor. lib. 5. they expectorate the matter in 40. dayes viz. First there is a suppuration of fleam distilling from the head into the hallow of the breast The second follows a Pleurisie not expectorated The third happens upon the bursting of a vein in the breast The fourth upon a Phlegmatique Pleurisie The fifth succeeds a varix in the breast bursted or sweating out per Diapedesin blood But those that are curious to be further satisfied touching the manner of Pectoral or Pulmonique suppurations let them peruse Hipp. lib. 1. de Morb. where he doth most incomparably illustrate that subject Here may be questioned Whether Phleam according to Hippocrates his dictate is suppurable or disposed to be converted into matter Pure Phleam certainly is not but being mixed with other humours is experienced to be suppurable Hippocrates lib. de Glandul describes a Sciatique Consumption Tabes coxendica Alius morbus oritur ex desluxione capit is per venas in Spinalem Medullam inde autem in Sacrum os impetum facit in coxendicum acetabula sive juncturas deponit si tabem fecerit homo marceseit atque hoc modo contabescit vivere non expetit i. e. Another Disease takes its beginning from a defluxion of the head through the Veins into the Marrow of the Back thence forceth to the os sacrum and expels to wit the distilled humour into the Hip joynts The Lungs do sometimes though very rarely grow fast to the Pleura the skin that lines the breast within whence such as are detained with that accident are Lung-grown The symptoms attending are a heavy pain in the breast a difficulty of respiration breathing faintness c. which continuing do advance their subjects to a Consumption This sort of Consumption might be annumerated to an Asthmatick Consumption as Mercatus and others are pleased to term it since the symptoms appear
sensible falling of the countenance whence it 's a common objection when Maids do suddenly grow thin-jawed and hallow-eyed they are certainly in Love Neither is there cause wanting for so subitous sudden an alteration where there is such a lingring sighthing sobbing and looking after the return of the absent object the thoughts so fix'd that they are imployed upon nothing but the past Vision the mind all that while so disturbed and perplex'd with hopes doubts fears possibilities and improbabilities that the heart strikes five hundred sorts of Pulses in an hour and hunted into such continual palpitations through anxiety oppression and distraction that as the saying is fain would it break if it could By means of all which alterations violent motions frights fears and other passions the Animal spirits of the brain and Vital of the heart spirits suffer such losses and dispersions that we see its ordinary for young Wenches to be reduced to faintings sownings and extreme weaknesses to the admiration of their parents whence such subitous and effrayable frightful symptoms should source take their rise Galen among the rest of his remarques lib. de pracogn ad Posthum cap. 6. tells us of a Woman patient of his whom he found very weak in bed continually tossing and tumbling from one side to the other and totally deprived of her rest No extern or intern cause could he discover of this malady neither would she contribut any thing of her own confession though he oft required it of her which kind of mute dumb deportment gave him suspicion of some melancholy or love business the woman was troubled with however he repeated his visits the second and third time though with as little satisfaction as before but at last it happened one came to visit her and told her she had been at the Theater where she had seen Pylades one of the Players dance whereupon Galen observed her to change her countenance and immediately feeling her pulse found it to beat very various and disturbed a sign of some trouble of the mind and so perceiving the same disturbance of her pulse as oft as Pylades was discoursed of was confirm'd in his opinion that all those symptoms were a product effect of her love Aretaeus lib. 3. cap. 3. instances likewise a young man involved in the same passion and surprized with the worst of symptoms And beyond all this Valer. Max. lib. 5. cap. 7. records Antiochus the only Son of the King Seleucus deeply fallen in love with Stratonica his Mother-in-law who piously dissembling his burning passion praecipitated himself into a most dangerous Consumption the cause whereof his Physitian Erasistratus could in no-ways descry before such time as Stratonica entring the room moved a blushy colour in his face and rendred his aspect vivacious lively but deserting him he soon relapsed to the same paleness and languor faintness which ebbing and flowing of his countenance with the uncertainty of his pulse certifyed Erasistratus of some love wound his Mother had struck upon his heart and declaring this accident to the King his Father almost cast down with grief for his Son now ee'n strucken with his last fate he soon yeilded his dearest wife for a remedy to Antiochus considering it was chance striving with his unparallel'd modesty and bashfulness had reduced him to that extremity Hippocrates shewed himself no less skilful in discerning the discriminous dangerous state of Perdiccas King of Macedonia occasioned by the doting love he harbour'd in his breast for Phila one of his Fathers Concubines whose presence at any time excited a great alteration of his pulse But these passages that resent so much of natures impressions do in no wise merit to be admired at when brutish dotings prove so efficacious in impelling bodies into a marcour extreme leanness as Historians verifie of a rich Athonian and indifferently descended who spying a marble Statue erected in a publick place of Athens and very curiously wrought grew so passionate upon it that he spent whole nights in imbracing it at last desirous to impropriate this object to himself wooed the Senat to part with it offering to lay down a treble value but they censuring it impious to make Merchandize of what belonged to the publick denyed his importune request whereupon he increased in fondness and bestowed a Golden Crown upon it Cloathing it also with rich and costly Apparel adored and oft prostrated himself before it which the Senat judging indecent forbad him making any more addresses to their Statue The young Athenian finding himself deprived of his joy and delight fell into a Consumption and before that could limit the course of his life he cut his own throat This passion was not so ridiculous but it was exceeded by the King Xerxes whom many Authours affirm to have been strangely inamoured upon an Oak which he would oft hug and kiss as if it had been some pretty Woman Many more modern instances we could produce to illustrate the force of this sort of passion upon bodies which we refer to another place These commotions of the mind and body do after a short continuance menace threaten a Consumption by oppressing the heart and its vital spirits with such throngs of blood and spirits that are impelled and propt into its Ventricles small hollow rooms within the heart whereby the heart is choak'd and obstructed in its pulsation beating and consequently hindred from transmitting vital blood to the parts which for want thereof must necessarily wither and dry away moreover in that case the blood grows thick and muddy for want of motion and so acquires an ill quality and causes obstructions as we have expressed in the preceding Chapter besides the spirits growing dull and stupid do not perform their office in drawing the blood to the several parts which must necessarily add very much to the wasting of the body Lastly if those love frights prove very violent the blood and spirits returning in great streams to the heart may not only suddenly choak it but also extinguish its Innate spirits and so that doting passion happens to terminate end into a mortal Syncope swoun thus Euryalus a Knight belonging to the Emperour Sigismund taking leave of his Mistriss Lucretia of Siena praecipitated her into such a Love fit that within a few hours after she Ghosted which course Euryalus was like to have steered upon the news of that sad accident had his passion not been diverted by some recreation his friends gave him The like fate befell a Dutch Gentlewoman upon the sudden death of her Puppy dog which she doted upon beyond imagination as the Scene afterwards attested But young blossom'd Girls seem to be troubled with another Divil within 'em to augment increase the fire of their doting hell and that 's their Mother which must ever and anon be a fuming up to their throats upon the least disturbance of their Amours love as I have oft been a Spectator of several that fell into most terrible fits of the Mother five
disgrace of being deposed of all his Offices and Dignities Fates not much differing from this befell also Cardinal Woolsey and many other Grandees upon the like occasions In fine it 's a common observation among the Spanish Polititians that the surest Stratagem to be quite rid of a Statesman that stands in the way and besides to avoid popular clamours and censures is to depose him of all his dignities and imprison him where without question the apprehension of his disgrace or the pernicious air of a Prison will soon set a period to the course of his days or at least put him upon some revengeful attempt whereby he may be rendred a riper object for a publick Scene This by the way to illustrate to you the danger of a pain in the Soul and the near sympathy there is between her and the body Touching the manner of causality whereby grief effects such fierce symptoms viz. a sudden Death and a lingring Consumption may be collected out of the preceding discourse upon an Amorous Consumption to wit the former is caused through a full and sudden irruption breaking in of thick Melancholique blood into the Ventricles narrow rooms of the heart thereby choaking the vital spirits and putting a stop to the hearts pulsation which if intermitted but three or four Pulses portends a certain death The latter is atchieved by a gradual suppression of the vital spirits through heavy tartarous dreggish blood which namely the spirits defecting must necessarily cause an extinction of the innate heat and spirits for whose nutrition they are designed and so consequently a perfect Consumption must be the ultimate issue Add hereto the restlesness and intermission from sleep grieved persons are molested with whereby the blood is much dryed the spirits consumed and melancholy increased Moreover as melancholick blood doth so much suppress the vital spirits so it 's very unapt for ministring matter for new spirits or being converted into flesh because of its grosseness and crudity Neither doth that blood continue long so as I said before but acquires an acrimony whereby it 's much intended heightned in its devouring and consuming quality CHAP. X. Of a Studious Consumption MOderate labour of the body is universally experienced to conduce to the preservation of health and curing many initial beginning Diseases but on the contrary the toyle of the mind to destroy health and generate Maladies by attracting the spirits out of the entire body from their task of Concoction Distribution and Excretion to the brain whither they carry along with them clouds of vapours and excrementitious humours of the whole thereby excessively annoying the brain and its faculties impelling it into various Diseases as Catarrhs defluxions of humours stupors numness imminution lessening of the memory and imagination impairs of the external senses as dulness of hearing or seeing imbecillity weakness in stirring or walking c. Likewise the other parts of the body being deprived of their spirits sustain very considerable damages as the Stomach happeneth to be weakned in its Concoction whence crudities and loss of appetit the Spleen and Liver in their Offices of defaecation whence vitious melancholick dreggish sulphurous blood and obstructions of the Bowels and Vessels the Heart in its distributing the blood to all the parts of the body and strength of pulsation whence an Atrophia or want of nutriment in the parts the immediate cause of a Studious Fastard Consumption Add hereto a sedentary sitting life appropriate to all Students crushing the bowels and for want of stirring the body suffers the spirits to lye dormant and dull whence costiveness dispersing malign putrid fumes out of the Guts and Mesentery a thick double skin that tyes the Guts together into all parts of the body occasioning head-ach flushing of the blood to the head feavers loss of appetit and disturbance of Concoction It is beyond imagination to conceive the sudden destructive effects of a Studious life some eight or ten years since there dyed at Abington one Pendarves an incomparable hard Student and Minister of that Town who being dissected his Lungs were found to be withered and dryed up into an exact resemblance of an ordinary Spunge in point of substance and bigness The like Emblems we find frequently in Universities where Scholars daily drop away of Consumptions Neither is it an extraordinary observation to see Consumptions in the Faces of hundreds of the late Preaching Divines witness else their thin Jaws and number of Caps CHAP. XI Of an Apostematick Consumption APostems although internal do rarely cause Consumptions before they break unless seated amongst the Glandules in the Mesentery where I have observed them to occasion a very discernable extenuation which Symptom seems very strange in that case since a Physician can scarce find any sensible cause of so visible an evil the principal intrails giving no sign of the least distemper and the appetit consisting as formerly In such a case many would impute the foresaid Consumption to obstructions no other cause disease or part appearing suspicious for a deep latent Apostem in the Mesentery if of no great mole bigness cannot be sensibly discovered but by conjecture only since the touch cannot penetrate so deep as to reach it because of its deep situation neither can the relation be expected from the Patient because the part affected is inseusible In the Hospital at Leiden some twelve or fourteen years ago I observed the like accident in a boy who perceiving his flesh to shrink every day more and more although without the least sense of any disease that should cause it applyed himself to a Physician of the Town where he then lived who imputed the cause of his Consumption to obstructions of the Liver and Spleen a trodden Sanctuary for hidden diseases and prescribed him a Deoppilative opening and Purgative Apozem not questioning his Cure The youth finding no benefit doubted his Doctor had mistaken the Disease upon this resolves to go to the University to see what the Professors could make of it who all cryed out against Hypochondriack Obstructions except Prof. Lindanus who conjectured it might be some hidden abscess in the Mesentery which breaking some few days after was discovered to be an Apostem of the Mesentery by the evacuation of the matter by stool How an Apostem in the Mesentery breaking causes a Consumption of the parts is apparent viz. by immitting purulent fumes into the Arteries and Veins corrupting and affecting the blood with a malign quality which proving very offensive to the parts in subverting and poysoning their innate temperature is rejected by 'em whereby they are forced to wither for want of nutriment The said purulent vapours crowding into the substances of the principal and sub-principal parts viz. the Heart Brain Spleen and Liver do likewise so infect poison and destroy their Innate temperaments that they immediately begin to languish in their offices to the great prejudice of all the body But it 's not so manifest by what means an Apostem
man viz. ordinary Gut Worms Lumbrici sive vermes teretes of a long and slender shape like ordinary Earth Worms being generated out of a slimy matter colliquated from the Mesaraick Glandules and adhering to the intern tumicks skins of the thin Guts which as soon as vivifyed grown live through a vital spirit inclosed within that slimy matter as it were in a bag and so shaped into Worms loosen and slide off from the intern tunick coat of the Guts and frequently creep into the Stomach for nutriment being attracted thither by the sweet chyle the white juice of the Stomach whence they are called Stomach or Maw-worms These being most usually engender'd in Children do commonly cause them to look hollow-eyed with a lived of a lead Colour Circle about the under eye-lids sharp nosed thin jawed and incommoded with a slimy mattery Cough stink of Breath and an Erratick Feaver all Symptoms very near a kin to those of a True Consumption and if not prevented in time render their Subjects incurable The cause of the foresaid extenuation of body and hollow-look is imputed to the defect of nutriment arriving through the chyle's the white juice of the Stomach being absorbed by the Worms and the bloods vitiation alteration by malign putrid vapors smoaking throughout the Vessels out of a putrefyed slime of the Guts and so consequently rendred unapt of being apposed joyned to the parts The said putrid vapors through exciting a Feaver do colliquate the Phlegmatick humours of the body and brain which transuding sweating through or distilling to the Lungs cause their mattery Cough The stink of breath is caused through steems rising from the corrupted chyle of the Stomach There is a second sort of Worms commonly resembled to a Womans hair-lace or fillet thence called Taenia or Tinea generated likewise in the Guts The shape of these Worms is flat small and round like to Gourd Seeds which being link'd together to the breadth and length of an ordinary hair-lace seem to be united into one intire Worm which sometime is found to be of an incredible length it may be of five or six yards as Tulpius records in his observations Iacobus Oethaeus lib. Observ. Med. attests to have seen three Worms evacuated by a Woman the longest whereof did equal Eighteen yards Alexander Camerarius recites one of twenty yards long Platerus reports a view of several Worms that were at least forty foot long The breadth of this Verment is sometime an inch othertimes half an inch broad It appears usually of an Ash colour mark'd with black spots or cross lines going a thwart dividing it into thousands of small bodies like Gourds Motion it hath none so that it can scarce be termed a moving creature neither doth it live because it doth not increase internally like living creatures but by apposition So that it 's called a Worm only from it's external shape and appearance the head is small and long and the tail short Persons thus vermifyed troubled with Worms seldome go to stool without avoiding a great quantity of those verminous wormy seeds and are oft incommoded with gnawing griping pains round about the Navil oftimes extending to the Hip-bone which gnawing pains are apt to increase upon the least emptiness of Stomach so that the patient is ever obliged to fill his Gut with an immoderate proportion of food not only for to nourish his body but also to appease that ravenous Verment which notwithstanding doth defraude the body of its nutriment and infects the spirits with malign steems which in some space of time must necessarily produce a very sensible extenuation of the parts The material cause of this Worm is a vitious slimy chyle adured by a strong heat that dryes it up into such numerous bodies Ascarides are a small sort of Worms like Magots bred in the intestinum rectum or Gut of the Fundament exciting an incommodious itching of the Fundament with frequent desires of going to Stool They are usually discovered by the excrements being perfused with them This sort of verment immitting putrid fumes into the Vessels doth sometimes cause faints and Convulsion Fits as Iessenus witnesses to have seen such accidents in several They may also by the same malign smoaks occasion a decay of the parts though more rarely than Maw-worms or a Tinea These Ascarides do now and then creep into the Thighs and other parts Worms are likewise generated in most other parts of the body though very infrequently Bauhinus if I mistake not speaks of a Worm generated in one of the Ventricles of the Heart the patient dying of a Consumption Hollerius reports a Worm discovered in a mans Brain Duretus remarks another generated in the Kidneys and evacuated by Urin. Several make mention of Worms engendred in the Lungs Liver Spleen c. all perducing their subjects into Consumptions CHAP. XVIII Of a Pockie Consumption THe ordinary back dore the Pox goeth out at when it commits its subject to the custody of its first Mother Earth is a Pockie Consumption occasioned through the dispersion of virulent steems out of the hearth of those Phagedenick Ulcers by immanous outragious arthritick of the joynts pains and continual vigilies intermission from sleep But since I have discoursed of this in my Venereal discovery fol. 167. and 168. I shall insist no farther upon it CHAP. XIX Of a Bewitched Consumption I Shall not here undertake the task of discussing the possibility of fascinous bewitch'd Diseases farther than refer your censures to such experimental instances as are produced for it But whether those experimental remarques may be credited and if so whether to be imputed to Witch-craft therein lyes the point of controversie Now these three Specifick notes will easily resolve the query 1. The Symptoms of Witchcraft must transcend the dependance on natural causes as Vomiting Pins pieces of Nails c. 2. There must be several credible witness that assert the sight of those supernatural Symptoms 3. The said Symptoms as they are supernatural so they must be only curable by supernatural means namely by Devout Prayers or Diabolical imprecations cursings and exorcisms by the same or other Witches Several there have been that attested the sight of persons that vomited Pins Hair Pieces of Nails Feathers c. these certainly are supernatural Symptoms if true but those witnesses being such as their testimonies might well be doubted of infer no conclusion 3. it 's certain some there have been that have vomited up the foresaid bodies but they were such as to get mony from the Spectators had swallowed up thick short blunt Pins or Feathers and vomited them up again voluntarily as having a power to force themselves a vomiting at their pleasures by straining or by other means in taking Vomitories privately These two Symptoms are generally asserted fascinous bewitcht viz. 1. A Lingring Consumption without a sensible internal or external cause and yielding to no kind of Physical Cure 2. Effrayable and supervulgar Convulsion Fits distorting the patients Neck and
of immoderate evacuation of Sperm viz. by over-frequent converses with Women and by a Running of the Reins CHAP. XXI Of a Consumption of the Kidneys THe bare words of a Consumption of the Kidneys do plainly declare their proper intendment and therefore shall spare my pains of proposing a Description that which falls most in consideration is the causes thereof which may be conceived to work that Symptom various ways viz. by starving of the Kidneys by colliquation melting by devoration or corrosion gnawing of their substance or by dissolving of their fundamental mixture In reference to the first they may be starved through obstruction of the Emulgent Vessels that should transport their nutriment to them or through a compression and coarctation shrinking of their substrance by reason of some compressing tumour within their slesh as a Scirrus Oedema or an Apostem or quantity of Gravel generated within their Parenchyma substance or from a compressing cause from without yet within their capacity or Pelvis as a Stone c. 2. The humours and Fat of the Kidneys are apt to be colliquated melted through a great heat from within as an Ardent burning colliquative melting Feaver or an inflammation of their flesh or through an excessive heat from without as through over-riding running going sitting with the back against a Fire or against the hot Sun 3. Mordicant excrementitions Gall and Armoniack tartar ablegated sent thither with the Urine do inflame corrode and Ulcerate their flesh whereby it 's converted into matter or Gravel and Stone generated within their capacity do oft grind away their flesh and effuse their blood apparent in a Sanguine Emiction making water 4. Sometimes a malign humour insinuates into their substance causing an immediate dissolution of their Balsamick principles which happens now and then in malign Feavers and by taking of poisons as Cantharides the Herb Dipsacus c. Through these kinds of Consumptions the Kidneys have been observed some to be eaten away by an Ulcer to the ambient cirrounding Skin others to be dryed into a friable brittle substance Each sort of these Consumptions is detected by its proper Signs viz. a colliquative Consumption by a great heat in the upper part of the Loins a high coloured Urin with a number of small streeks of fat swimming a top in the form of a Cobweb An Ulcer of the Kidneys is known by a grating pain in the Loins and excretion of matter descending to the bottom of the Urinal The other sorts are likewise distinguish'd by particular signs CHAP. XXII Of a Consumption of the Lungs A Consumption of the Lungs may import two significations the one a considerable wasting of the Lungs themselves the other their occasioning the intire body to consume without any great loss of their own substance We shall relate our discourse to both Reflecting upon the particular substance of the Lungs their situation and connexion fastning we shall discover them to be very much exposed to extern and intern injuries and no less capable of injuring the Noble parts whereby the whole by reason of its absolute dependance on them must likewise receive a great prejudice Anatomy exhibits the Lungs to be of a laxe porous light or spungy texture of substance which wise Nature hath so formed for to answer her scope in a continual motion of inspiring and expiring the Air whereunto a weighty body would otherwise prove very disobedient and unless porous and pervious full of holes like to a Spunge unfit to imbibe and transcolate strain the Air for in effect the office of the Lungs is only to serve the heart in the capacity of Aereal strainers to strain the air and seperate it from gross or other offensive inherents it may carry with it Wherefore since the Lungs by reason of their office are obliged to a perpetual commerce with the Air which is subject to momentary alterations now cold hot dry or moist then thick thin foggy rymy stinking poisonous they must necessarily lye open to great yea irreparable dammages especially where their bodies are so unapt to resist or sustain them because of their thin and lacerable easily to be tared composure To these inspirable hurts we may annumerate those they sustain from their expiration of all sort of noxious offensive and fuliginous sooty steems and stinking putrid breaths and besides all that being constantly imployed in motion without acquiring a moments rest Their situation is within the breast hung perpendicular under the Brain and near to the heart whose wings they represent whereunto they are connected by the Arteria Venosa and Vena Arteriosa by means of which situation they are exposed to receive all the droppings from the Brain whence Coughs Ptisicks Ulcers besides the ill humours the Vena Arteriosa conveighs thither which together with those distillations from the Brain finding them a very fit Cistern because of their Sponginess do oft force them into such a swelling as may justly be termed a Dropsie of the Lungs Next considering their coherence with the heart are thereby rendred more capable of doing the greatest mischiefs By the precedence you may now observe how facil it is to drop into a Consumption of the Lungs a Disease that is so fatal to Londons Inhabitants and no wonder but a greater wonder any can steal away into their Graves without a Consumption considering the pernicious air of the City the weaknesses of Lungs people inherit from their Parents and their exposal to those injuries we have just now instanced CHAP. XXIII Of the kinds of Pulmonique Consumptions A Consumption of the Lungs is either without or with an Ulceration That without arrives through a Scirrosity Apostem Putrefaction of humours within its pores or a Crude tubercle a small hard swelling 1. The Lungs oft imbibing Phlegmatique and Melancholique humours that are distilled from the Brain or conveighed thither through its pores and chanals are now and then deprehended Scirrous of a stony hardness by dissipation dispersion of the subtiler parts and lapidification conversion into a stony substance of the grosser that remain or they may be left indurated hardned through the gross reliques of a Peripneumonia or inflammation of the Lungs 2. By Disfection of expired Pulmonicks diseased in their Lungs their Lungs have oft appeared full of small hard Imposthums 3. Excrementitious humours such as are expectorated by a Cough after a Cold or in an Asthma Ptisick Peripneumonia or Pleurisie are very apt to putrefie and corrupt in the Lungs as appears by the stinking breath of such that are so indisposed whereby their accessory nutriment being vitiated rendred faulty and rejected by the Lungs they are occasioned to wast 4. A Crude Tubercle obstructing the inspiration of fresh air and expiration of the fuliginous steems of the heart doth thereby extremely inflame and dry the Lungs the continuation whereof doth at last reduce them to an absolute withering How these kinds of Consumptions propagate their evil to the whole body may easily be collected from
whether it may be supposed to be sublimed from the Stomach by distillation or through the Vena arteriosa If either way why should it pass through the principal parts as the Heart or the Brain without annoying either which seem of a more tender disposition than the Lungs that are hardned with the weather or extern air they inspire 4. It 's wonder Authors never summon'd blew gall for the cause of Consumptions which the expectorated spit out by Cough matter oft appears tincted with and beyond that the Lungs of expired Consumptives do not seldome appear full of those blew kind of Spots which instance together with the eruption of blew spots exant hemata livida in malign Feaver are a certain attest of blew gall This the Institutists have so little noted that they never thought of putting it in their Institutes However not questioning whether Green Blew or Black be the mischief supposing it to be any of them and situated near or about the Stomach why should it prove more Anarrhopous flowing upwards so as to attaque the Lungs than Catarrhapous flowing downwards as it doth in a Dysentery bloody flux pains of the Haemorrhoids inflammation of any of the lower parts Diabetes a continual pissing or a hot Dysury difficulty of making water 5. In what part of the body is the true spring or source where this corrosive choler is engendred 6. Whether a Pulmonique Consumption never happeneth but upon spitting or coughing up blood 7. By what power or quality doth fleam stagnating in the Lungs cause a Consumption 8. Whether that consuming fleam is harbour'd in the Pipes or substance of the Lungs within their Pores 9. Whether the foreinstanced fleam distils from the head or be imported through the Vessels 10. Whether an Hectick Feaver be a cause of a Consumption or a symptom of the cause of a Consumption or symptom of the Consumption it self 11. Whether a Pulmonique Consumption cannot happen without the concomitance of an Hectick Feaver 12. Whether there be no other sort of true perfect or proper Consumptions than a Pulmonique of the Lungs Consumption These and many other problems being passed by not only for stating of them but resolving do impeach Physicians of their sloth and absolute insufficiency of curing Consumptions which unless determined is a pregnant testimony they manage their office in that Disease with as little Skill as Conscience Neither is the reader to behave himself so strict and precise as to be contented with no less clear a solution than a demonstration our notions in Physick being of that scantness as seldom reach beyond a rational conjecture which if I ingaged to remonstrate here in this Chapter should in order of discourse be obliged to make use of the terms and principles inserted in this and the preceeding Chapter and that with the same disadvantage other assertions have hitherto so obscurely been proved Wherefore I shall refer you to the next ensuing Chapter where I do expect a grain's or two allowance which all men have granted them in attempting a solution of doubts by themselves stated CHAP. XXVI Of a more apparent cause of a Pulmonique Consumption THe passage to this abstuse hidden speculation is like a Labyrinth maze divided into several stops turnings or windings where at each division we must halt to advise what way lyes most direct whither we are design'd for the truth of causes steps so lightly through mens imaginations that they must use great subtility to track its vestiges footsteps which we find now adayes so obliterated blotted out with their course searches that it seems almost barricado'd from any intellectual approach In pursuit of this precept wee 'l advert you of several stops or windings being necessary positions whose light will lead you to that so obscure cause of a Consumption of the Lungs Thesis 1. Symptoms impressed by corrosion point at corrosive bodies for their causes In Pulmonique Consumptions the preternatural concomitants attendants viz. an universal heat of the body an Hectick Feaver a torminous diarrhé griping looseness acre sharp and hot distillations c. have all a stamp of a Corrosive gnawing quality and consequently are introduced by a corrosive humour Thesis 2. There are but two sorts of corrosive humours engendred within the body of man namely Choler and Melancholy And between these the impute of a Consumptive cause will lye Touching Fleam and that they single for pure blood neither can be imagined participant of acrimony but rather demulcers and qualifyers of it Which of the two abovementioned corrosives is the chief actor here the following positions will resolve you Thesis 3. Choler is the lightest and most inflammable part of the blood Whence namely from its inflammability it s resembled to and called a Sulphur This position informs us of a vulgar errour terming the gall bitter as their proverb more peremptorily implyes it 's as bitter as Gall whereas in effect there 's nothing gustable sweeter for what is most inflammable must be most unctuous fat and oyly nothing being apter to take flame than Oyl Fat Butter and other unctuous bodies and what is most oyly and unctuous must needs partake of a sweet savour namely of a fat sweetness which Physicians term Pingue dulce or a fat sweet and of that gust is the Gall or Choler being the flower and butter of the Blood This appears more evident in milk which is nothing but blood turned white by being diluted water'd with a greater quantity of Serum or whey that is a certain waterish liquor floating in the Vessels in the Glandules Kernels of the breast now milk being charned in a Tub vomits up it's butter which is that light and inflammable part reduced to its native colour and above termed Gall. Thesis 4. Choler is in it self resistent of having any kind of bitterness extracted or produced out of it no not by any kind of inflammation If any force will impress such a bitterness as is thought to be in choler it must be by adustion burning or putting it into a flame which is so far from admitting an Empyreume burning or conceiving any bitter ashes that consisting of a pure oyly nature when set in flame it burns clear away without leaving any cindars or adust matter to attest its latent hidden bitterness as doth more plainly appear in Butter Tallow or Oyl burning away in a Lamp without leaving any thing bitter behind them Thesis 5. What amaritude bitterness or acrimony sharpness is deprehended in Choler it acquires from a commixture of Melancholy or extern malign bodies imported with the air This Thesis is a necessary consequence of the next preceding for if gall cannot be rendred acrimonious sharp or bitter of it self nor by inflammation than necessarily whatever acrimony or amaritude at any time redounds in it must be derived from the admixture of another sharp bitter substance which among the humours can be no other than Melancholy Phlegm and pure blood being reputed allayers of acrimony and upon that
account Avicen countermands letting blood in cholerick bodies because he esteems the blood which he chiefly here intends pure blood and Phlegm a fraenum bilis or a bridle of the Gall obtunding dulling its acrimony and fierceness Thesis 6. Choler being set in fire and acting upon Melancholy or rather calcining it into small acuated sharp pointed minimal bodies is by their incorporation with it self rendred acrimonious and bitter whence I conclude Choler accidentaly bitter and acrimonious but not in it self This bitterness and acrimony varies in intenseness and remisness according to the degree of calcination of Melancholy and proportion of Choler it is admixt to Thesis 7. Choler by the premisses is evidenced of being capable only of flaming and kindling a Feaver in the body and consequently Melancholy calcined by the flames of Choler must remain the sole cause of acrimony and corrosion and inclusively of occasioning Ulcers both within and without the body Thesis 8. The heart beating vigorously and strong doth together with its Sulphurous flames expell the foresaid calcined melancholy to the circumference especially if the said humour be but diluted water'd with the serosity waterish liquor of the blood Neither is this sole vital faculty sufficient to exterminate turn out noxious humours to the periphery or outward parts unless the animal faculty be concurrent with it to supply the Fibres with Animal Spirits which do not only render them strong to expel but sensible of feeling the least sting of any offensive humour whence they are immediately prick'd or spurred to contract themselves and by means of that contraction to expell If on the contrary the heart beats weak and the animal faculty be found faintish the foresaid acrimonious humour remains within and causes internal erosions Moreover notwithstanding the strength of both faculties the humours expelled to the circumference are apt now and then to regurgitate flow back by reason of obstructions in the capillar very small like hairs veins terminating in the extremeties Hitherto we have discoursed of the same causes how they happen to engender several Diseases though in the same bodies but at different times That which falls next in consideration is an answer to the fourth Query of the Chapter preceding viz. Why the same corrosive humour should sometimes prove Anarrhopous flowing upwards and generate Diseases in the upper parts and otherwhiles Catarrhopous flowing downwards impressing maladies upon the lower The occasion of the various diversion of the foresaid humour is situate partly in the disposition of the part Mandant the strength and weakness of the vital and animal faculty the parts transmitting or giving passage the disposition of the part recipient receiving and the qualification of the humour transmitted The part Mandant sending or expelling is here chiefly intended for the place where this acrimonous humour is generated and harth or spring whence it sourceth and crupts The place is where the acrimonious nourishing humours are primarly first concocted or receive the form of humours and where they are afterwards further wrought purifyed and clarifyed This assertion probably will accuse many parts more than what ordinarily Physicians have their eye upon The Stomach is a part that primarly digests and converts Victuals transmitted thither into a whitish or cineritious like ashes humour called the Chyle which if it be not exactly dissolved into an even thorough melted juice must necessarily abound with thick and gross admixtures Now it 's a current saying among us that the fault of the first concoction or digesture is not amended in the second vitium primae coctionis non corrigitur in secunda wherefore the chyle being transmitted crude and gross into the Vessels and arriving in the Spleen and Liver sticks in the capillar veins and keeps in the heat or hot steems that should arise out of their Parenchymae or fleshy substance to ferment attenuate and defaecate clarify the blood The heat of those entrails being thus inclosed and pend up redoubles and gradually after it hath extremely dryed and scorched burns and calcines them into a kind of fixt Salt which according to the nature of the Victuals whence they received their constitution and the intension of heat proves a Nitrous Vitriolat or Armoniack Salt The Spleen in this case is found to contain a Mine more frequently producing an Armoniack and Vitriolat Salt with a small admixture of a coagulated Sulphur The Liver is the more fertil parturient of Nitrous and sometimes of a Vitriolat and Armoniack tartar but with so copious a commixture of coagulated thickned choler or Sulphur that it ought rather to be named a Cinnabrin or Aeruginous Sulphur from the greater proportion of Sulphur to a far smaller of Salt The heart we conceive to be the sole mine of Arsenical Sulphur whose pernicious steems insulting upon the Vital Spirits produce malign and spotted Feavers The Stomach is likewise oft stuff'd between its tunicks coats and in the smaller branches of Vessels that are inserted into its body with the dregs of obstructive crude chyle whereout such Salts and Sulphurs are calcined and extracted as in acrimony and corrosion prove no wise inferiour to those engendred in the Spleen or Liver since produced with so intense a heat as is required for the first solution of the hardest food and probably a stronger heat being raised to a higher pitch by obstructions and the ebullition of some of those acrimonious bodies already engendred That the Stomach is so common a spring of Consumptive sublimations and distillations needs no other proof than the sense of the Patient attesting a great clog and oppression at his Stomach oft crying out if that were removed he should be well besides his nauseousness vomiting and difficulty of digesture he finds his gullet all along very sore rough and stuffed with humours subliming upwards which sometimes may not reach so high as his brain but are imbibed by the tonsils and other Glanduls about the Throat where in like manner aforesaid they are dissolved into an oyl and so distill between the Membranes of the Aspera arteria into the Lungs To this the remedies argumentum à juvantibus add an unquestionable verdit Vomitives being twice or thrice exhibited in the beginning or augment do oft eradicate the mineral cause of a Consumption Likewise Lohocks and Syrups that are so usually prescribed do immediately seem to abate and demulce the hoarseness and violence of a Cough by mollifying the ruggedness of the intern tunick of the Gullet and thickning or rendring the matter of the Cough that ascends upwards between the tunicks of the foresaid Oesophogus more glib or slippery So that we must not imagine that Syrups or other expectoratives do ad-advantage in Coughs by slipping down between the Epiglottis for as I instanced before that must necessarily occasion a greater Cough and difficulty of respiration Neither is' t probable they circulate about to the heart and Vena arteriosa to arrive to the Lungs for before that time their sweetness whereby they are
supposed to lenifye a Cough and other vertues would be obtused and altered into other qualities or if we should admit that supposal they could not be thought to auxiliate the Cough in so short a space as they do Having now given you a divertisement in declaring the parts Mandant we are to proceed in illustrating whence the said salin and sulphurous productions receive their direction or first motion that renders them Anarrhopous not passing by to indigitate point at the parts Transmittent Wee 'l suppose the Spleen the chiefer of the two harths or parts Mandant and principally obstructed in its lower parts and Splenick branch whence a potent heat breaking forth causes the Orgasmus a swelling fermentation to boyle or tend upwards or rather sublimes the forementioned calcined Salts through the Arteries up into the right Ventricle of the Heart where having passed another reverberation are propelled into the Lungs through the Vena arteriosa Moreover we must likewise allow a small commixture of Sulphur to the Salts which doth not only contribute a force to the calcination but a facility to the sublimation This fixt Vitriolat or sometimes Armoniack Salt being impelled into the pores of the Spungy flesh of the Lungs meets there with a serosity or waterish kind of moisture dissolving it immediately into an Oleum per Deliquium an oyly liquor like other calcined Salts are apt to do when they arrive to any waterish moisture as being put in a Cellar or placed over warm water The salt now turned into a corrosive liquor or oyl is rendred capable of penetrating piercing into the smallest and deepest pores of the Lungs whose flesh it soon dilacerates tares and gnaws into an Ulcer and not only so but being indued with a quality all other calcined Salts are as you may experience by holding Allom or Salt-peter in your mouth of attracting and raising fleam and moisture out of the Lungs and other parts adjacent doth continually incite the Lungs to avoid great quantities of spittle sleam and other sharp stinking matter by Cough Lastly the Stomach as it first sowed the Seeds of this evil so it continues likewise to foment them and act the part of another chief Mandant and in some it 's found to be sole and principal which as I expressed before being stuffed in its tunicks obstructed in the inserted Vessels and clogged round about with a weight of acrimonious humours doth likewise glow with a strong heat whereby the said salin accumulations gatherings or heaps are sublimed according to the length and direction of the intern and extern membranes of the Oesophagus or gullet to the brain by whose waterish moisture it 's likewise dissolved into an oleum per Deliquium or liquor like oyl which through its attractiing and raising of liquor doth overwhelm the brain with sleam and moisture whence because of its weight and pricking it 's continually praecipitated into the Lungs viz. according to the direction and longitude of the membranes down into the aspera arteria wind-pipe that is between its membranes not through the epyglott is the grisly cover of the wind-pipe for that would immediately set the patient a Coughing Thus a ferin Catarrh happens which through its corrosive gnawing quality oft Ulcerates the Lungs especially if seconded by those Salin sublimations from the Spleen Neither is the Liver alwayes excusable now and then transmitting a cinabrin Sulphur through the Vena cava to the Brain or Heart and thence to the Lungs being likewise generated by a reduplicated heat occasioned through the obstructions of its Capillars small veins like hairs and branches that tend to the Gall Bladder So that hereby the Spleen more frequently and principally next the Stomach then the Liver do demonstratively appear to the parts Mandant the Brain Heart Thymus Glandules of the Gullet and Tonsils the parts transmitting or only giving passage to the humours forced up thither from other parts Here you may take notice of a grand errour among Practitioners opinionating the Brain the chief part Mandant when distempered with a cold humorous intemperament and distilling into the Lungs and of this finister sentiment are they so confidently possessed that they bend all their prescripts and devises to dry up this fountain of Rheum to which purpose Crato's Amber Pils Fonseca's Decoction of Sanders Erastus his Dyet Drink of Guaiacum and Salsa absorbing Emplasters to be applyed to the head Fontanels Issues Venâ—oses Cupping-glasses Vesicatories Emplasters to draw Blasters and Phlebotomy opening a Vein are all summoned in as Herculean auxiliaries helps to dry the Brain but rather the purse Another opinion they are very fond of is that the internal part of the Aspera arteria wind-pipe is the part transmittent an absurdity every drop that goes down the wrong way will confute What other ridiculous tenents they foment touching Catarrhs were a shame to recite to such as know better things How the Vital and Animal faculties prove accidental occasions of this evil through their faintness whereby they are incapacitated of propelling those noxious offensive sublimates downwards is apodictically expressed in the beginning of the eight Thesis position and therefore wee 'l supersede the needless pains of a repetition only wee 'l add the positive concurrence of the Animal and Vital Spirits in directing and derivating drawing the foresaid sublimates to the heart and brain namely encountring with each annoying and pernicious effumations smoaks are compelled to a retreat to their Spring head whither they do likewise conduct those Salin steems along with them The Recipient part is the Lungs who are partly passive in being forced to receive and partly active in attracting such corrosive Salts Their situation and connexion obliges them to receive the precipitates from the Brain Heart and Stomach their acts of expiration breathing out attract potently from the Veins Arteries and other parts as appears in those fuliginous sooty smoaks and putrid steems they expire What doth further dispose them to a necessity of receiving those salts and other malign humours a repeated Survey of Chap. 22. will aboundantly satisfie you The qualification requisite in the humour transmitted viz. the destilled liquor may easily be deduced from the premisses namely a degree of acrimony wrought into a tartarous humour by calcination reaching at least to the ascent of a Vitriolat if not an Armoniack Salt By the way take this for none of the least important remarques that this liquor that 's produced out of the solution of a Vitriolat Salt sublimed to the Brain if accidently it should penetrate into the concave of the Nerves as it would easily do since consisting of a sharp salin thin insinuating substance were it not diverted by being precipitated into distillations it ordinarily causes Convulsions and Epilepsies the Falling Sickness The Second Third and Fifth Problems being all resolved in the contents of the solution of this fourth wee 'l step over to the sixth Whether a Pulmonique Consumption never happeneth but upon spitting or coughing up blood
Back in a manner that it 's a Thousand wonders they are not broken or dislocated turning their eyes e'en round within their heads deluding their Phansies with strange frightful visions speaking strange languages c. an emblem of the first we have in the relation of King Iames the 4. or 5. of Scotland who falling away in his flesh more and more every day without the precedence of any Procatarctick cause that should occasion it as Melancholy ill Dyet c. and notwithstanding the helps of Physick against any intern cause or Disease that might be rationally conjectured at last was suddenly cured by decharming the Witchcraft that that had long been suspected and at length discovered in Danemark which was an Image of Wax exactly resembling the said King whereby it was also known and pierced through in several parts of the body with pins and particularly in those parts where the the King felt his pains which as they were taken out of such parts so his pains ceased likewise at the same instant in the same parts and being all drawn out felt himself intirely cured and suddenly grew fat again In reference to the decision of this instance there can be only this objected that had the King taken no Physick his Disease might more probably have been suspected fascinous but since he had made use of the best Medical helps the Art of man could afford which continued for a long space do oft at last perform marvailous cures the Kings subitous recovery ought rather to be attributed to the Skill of his Physicians Likewise Children are very apt to fall suddenly into a wasting of their flesh which happening as the other instance without any visible cause is frequently termed a Bewitch'd Disease but questionless that Symptom must depend upon some obstruction of the Entrails or Verminous disposition of body and therefore a meet hallucination errour of the Vulgar The second particular is exemplifyed in Hysterick troubled with Fits of the Mother Women especially Maids the rarity of whose Symptoms doth oft strike such an attonement into Spectators that they confidently report them possessed with the Devil In the year 1661. there lived one Mary Waite of the Society of Free-willing Baptists at Horly in the County of Oxon who was frequently troubled with miserable gripes in her Guts pinchings at her heart choaking at her throat suppression of her breath blows on her head ejaculations from her seat and sometimes off of the Horses back whereon she rid now and then was struck dumb deaf and blind oft entertained with Angelick Visions and reduced to a very low ebb of Strength c. all which extravagant Symptoms her Visiters were pleased to term Sufferings and Buffetings of Satan and accordingly to the intent of turning this evil one out of possession they spent near upon a Twelvemonth with her in Prayer but to little purpose until such time that one of her Visions revealed to her that she should feed upon bread and water boild to a Panada and drink nothing but Spring water whereby she soon grew rid of her Devil and intirely recovered Now observe to this day cannot that people be perswaded but that the foresaid Mary was possessed with the Devil and ascribe her deliverance to their implorations prayers so that judging the nature of the Disease by the remedy à juvantibus if we believe she was delivered from those Fits by Prayers of the Godly we cannot deny the Disease to be Diabolical of the Devil But since the case appears quite in another dress to the eye of a Physician who can soon produce parallel Symptoms if not worse issuing from ordinary Diseases we may justly doubt of the rise of this It 's not rare to see young Amorous Girls through the fury of an Hysterick Fit of the Mother Paroxysme cast into a Trance for an hour or two and all that while under a resemblance to the features of death and possibly diverted with some merry Phansies or rare Visions of their Sweet-hearts or of Kings Princes c. and it may be some a Courting or Embracing of them which makes 'em now and then burst out into a strange Fit of laughing to the amazement of their Visiters Others again of a more zealous frame during their Trance seem to converse with nothing but Angels or Devils as this foresaid Mary who according to the Narrative seems to have had several interviews and discourses with Angels and Devils the contents whereof she afterwards recited to her Brethren who faithfully recorded them upon Parchment as some new Revelations But those of a more trist sad and melancholique composure their Hysterick Trances proving Tragick perspectives to them perhaps of beholding the murder or execution of some of their dearest Relations or those they bear an affection to are incident into sudden cryes and howling tears And lastly the Fits of others seems most Energick in their tongues in occasioning them to speak strange Languages and Sentences like Oracles to which latter some of this age have given an equal credit with that of the Ancients to the Oracles of Delph It 's inserted in Histories that a Maid of Liege whilest detained with one of her Uterin Passions expressed her self very fluently in the Greek Tongue although when released of her Fit she was utterly ignorant of the said Language Another Italian Lass Peter Messias 〈◊〉 Camerarius makes mention of in his Ho◠Succ. who proving Phrentick through the extremity of a Feaver spake very good French without ever having been known to be experienced in that Tongue But to return to Mary wherein I do willingly retard my self somewhat the longer since a◠intire tract has been published by her Brethren to delude the world with their miraculous casting out of a Devil which all the while proved to be no other than an Hysterick Passion and if that may be termed Devil then many an Hysterick Woman has a Devil more in her than she had before To render the point more clear 〈◊〉 choaking in her Throat griping and pinching of the heart Cardiaca passio he◠trancing imaginary beating of her head which is no other than a sudden Convulsion of the Dura mater her being cast off her Seat or Horses back an effect of a strong Convulsion violently and swiftly retracting all the Muscels of the body one way which must needs be forcible enough to cast the body to a great distance for a man voluntarily can cast his body a great way by leaping through the natural impulse of some of his Muscels much more when they are all violently moved one way by a strong Convulsive motion her strange visions and imaginations c. are all genuine Symptoms of an Hysterick Passion or Fit of the Mother fuming up in malign and poisonous clowds to her Guts and there causing a griping thence to the mouth of the Stomach and there occasions that seeming pinching at her heart thence to her Heart where it caused a Deliquium fainting and Syncope sowning so
up to the Lungs whence her choaking and thence to the Brain the occasion of all her depravate false visions or sometimes those venomous fumes might directly have tended to the brain and spring of the seven pair of Nerves thence down the back where they may impell all the Nerves and Muscels into a Convulsion Add hereto her cure by Panada and drinking of Spring water argumentum à juvantibus singularly conducing to the repelling of those uterin fumes smoaks of the Mother and coarctating shrinking the passages whereby the said fumes must necessarily be intercepted and in time absolutely cure her However this one Symptom seems the strangest of all that as she rid on Horseback she saw the Devil twice making to her in the shape of a black Angel As to this I am very apt to believe her and the manner thus her Imagination being depraved with those black Hysterick smoaks and accustomed to receive an impression of a Devil from those black clouds forming themselves into such a shape within the Cells of the Brain possibly just at the termination of the Optick nerves the Sinews of the sight they might easily return to the same shape and impression besides those clouds so shaped might as wel make an impression upon the roots of the Optick Nerves within which continuated to the eye especially if hebetated rendred dull or dozed cause the same perception as a wind within the head when the brain is distemper'd by a cold beating against the root of the auditory Nerve the finew of the hearing and protracted to the Tympanum a little Skin within the Ear causes the sensation of a noise as if it were heard from without though it is not or in short why should not the Eye be subject to be deceived by an object from within as well as the Ear by an internal noise or the Tongue by a tast from within that it is so is apparent in Phrenticks who do really imagine they see that without which their imagination is affected with within CHAP. XX. Of a Consumption of the Back A Consumption of the Back here implyes little more than a sensible gradual diminution of the strength in the back arriving through a counter-natural proflux flowing of Sperm Seed Common experience is a suffrage vote to Galen's Dictate that a natural and moderate evacuation of Sperm through Venereal Embraces doth greatly conduce to the preservation of health disposes a man to fetch his breath more freely and renders the body light and sprightful and that not only in men but other Animals a Cock hath no sooner pleased a Hen but presently after he Crows a tone that corresponds to singing attesting his mirth spritefulness the reason is because Omne nimium est Naturae inimicum whatever is overmuch is offensive to nature as oppressing the spirits which burden being diminish'd or taken off from them must needs render them more lively and lusty Now the more noble and excellent that is which is abounding the greater damage it imports and therefore blood when abounding causes acute putrid Feavers inflammations of the Bowels that oft inevitably tend to the ruine of the whole but of a far more dangerous importance is an over plenitude of the Spirits as being of a more noble and excellent degree whence it is that a retention of the Seed proves of so calamitous a consequence because of its turgency with spirits in Women we see it effects such effrayable Hysterick Symptoms as appears in the Narrative of Mary Waite as no other Disease can Parallel in men it occasions inflammations of the Testicles or Cods commonly terminating into grangrenes incurable Ulcers a continual melancholick dull heavy posture of body difficulty of respiration breathing palpitation beating of the heart a durable tinning noise and pains in the head and worse then all these a Spermatick seedy Feaver in malignity and putrefaction transcending all others By the way this sort of Feaver is not mentioned by any Authour because it 's comprehended under continual humoral Feavers but certainly for want of observation whose Urins if heedfully perspected appear full of white filaments threds or Spermatick Hairs which Physicians have hitherto erroneously judged adust burn'd hairs expelled from the Kidneys Another most ridiculous though not without great danger Symptom the said Spermatick Plethory or retention of Seed produces in Women is a Madness of the Mother furor uterinus impelling them to all manner of Lascivious looks Bawdy discourses and inticing gestures to such a degree that they oft take up their Coats and beg men to humour them as if they begged for an Alms. Hereto corresponds a Madness of the Father which we find so extravagant in some men that they cannot forbear but must bend all their discourses looks and actions to wantonness neither can this or that in Women be sentenced vice because occasioned by a Disease which the Apostle himself could term no other than Burning whereby we see he compared it to the greatest pain in the world and therefore to prevent the growth of so dangerous an accident he advised all rather to Marry than to Burn. However in these days that Symptom seldom arrives to that height of Madness in Men since they can easily find the way to a Bawdy-house to prevent it yet this doth not exclude but that it s as possible in them as in Women whose chastity worn into them by a strict education rather than by the dictates of their seeble reason diverts them from taking the same course of prevention Neither is this all the mischief of a Spermatick Plethory of times transmitting hot putrid steems of Sperm to the brain which is not strange there being that Sympathy and intercourse between the brain and the natural parts that the least Phancy of a pleasing object puts them into posture which insinuating into its substance engender a Bedlam madness And what makes so many hundreds of Women run Mad but that which they call Love by oft stirring of those inflamed and putrefyed Spermatick fumes which not being vented through their natural passages are preternaturally forced up into the pores of the brain whereby its temperament is subverted and a venene venomous quality subsequent to it depraves the Phansie into a Madness Now had these females not been interrupted with Wooers those parts would have remained dormant and consequently not attracted or generated such a quantity of Sperm which otherwise abounding and being oft stirred with their love visions without evacuation must necessarily putrefie So that we may hence plainly collect the first inconvenience Women fall into through rupture of Love which had hitherto occasioned that plethory and commotion of Sperm must be Fits of the Mother because the Seed being augmented moved and not vented must putrefie and so cause those Fits 2. The next inconvenience is a Bedlam madness mania produced through a stronger passion of Love occasioning a greater Plethory aboundance of Sperm and a stronger commotion which not being vented because of the Womans