I will tell hm what Dr. Harvey sayes upon this point Hâ—rv de Gen. An. Ex. 51. But while I affirme sayes that Oracle the soul to reside first and principally in the blood I would not have any man hastily to conclude from hence that all blood letting is dangerous or hurtful or believe with the vulgar that as much blood so much life is taken away because Holy Writ placeth the life in the blood For daily experience shews that letting Blood is a safe cure for several diseases and the chiefest of universal remedies because the default or superfluity of the blood is the Seminary of most distempers and a seasonable Evacuation of it doth oftenescue men from most desperate maladies and even death it self for look how much blood is according to Art taken away so many years are added to the age Nature her self was our tutor here whom Physitians transcribe For she of her own accord doth many times vanquish the most mortal infirmities by a plentifull and critical evacuation either by the nose haemorrhoids or by menstruous purgations And therefore Young-people who feed high and live idely unlesse about the eighteenth or twentieth year of their age at which time the stock of Bloud increases together with the Bulk of their bodies be disburdned of the load and oppression of their blood either by a spontaneous release at the nose or inferiour parts or by breathing a vein they are dangerously set upon by Fevours Small pox Head-aches and other more grievous Didistempers and Symptoms Alluding to which the Farriers do begin almost all cures of beasts with letting blood This is the opinion of that great Secretary of Nature Nor is it onely his sense but the best Authors do affirm and Riverius for one that in the diseasecalled the Rheumatism which seldome is without a high tincture of the Scorbute blood must be taken away for ten or twelve dayes together Riv. Prax. Med. l. 16. c. 3. every day till the pain vanishes and the strength seems to fail which does not by loss of blood in this disease And in this case I can appeal to my own experience For being called to a person of Quality in August 1665. in Gloucestershire in councell with that Judicious and Learned Physitian Dr. Filding of Gloucester who then lay miserably tormented with a Rheumatism being free from pain in no part of his Body not having the use of any of his Limbs though he where a Person who these many years has been highly Scorbutical we drew from him at least the quantity of 70 â„¥ of blood before we could free him from pain and restore him to his health Platerus makes mention of a Mad-woman Plat. Obs l. 1. p. 80. who was cured by being let blood in several Veins seventy times in one Week I might run through all other diseases and shew the necessity of bleeding which may happen in most of them but because M. N ' s. main Argument is founded upon Sanguification I will endeavour to explain how the Chyle is turn'd into Blood and in what parts of the body chiefly this work is effected So that by discovering the true way of Sanguification his Argument may appear to be ill grounded That the Liver is not the Shop wherein the Blood is made is evident to any man who will examin the generation of Animals for Harv de Gen. Ex 18. p. 63. Ex. 50. p. 153. Ex. 59. p. 207. he shall perceive the Heart beat and Blood perfectly coloured before there appear any rudiments of the Liver so that the Liver is made after the Blood and as it were sticks upon little slender threds and the Parenchyma of it evidently grows out of the mouths of the Arteries through which matter is supplyed to the formation of it so that the Parenchyma of it seems to be nothing else but congealed blood Again the Chyle never goes to the Liver but empties it self into the Subclavial Veins and goes streight away to the right Ventricle of the Heart Now the use and business of the Liver Glisson Anat. Hep. c. 41. is without doubt that which is assigned by the eminently learned D. Glisson that it is made to receive the blood which runs to it by the Porta to separate the Choler from it and then being freed from that to deliver it to the Cava The very Make and Structure of that Bowel argues as much as also the distribution of the Vessels to every part of the Parenchyma for the Porta equally dispenses the blood into all parts of it and the small Capillary threads of the Porus Biliarius are every where dispersed and ready to receive the choler which is brought along mingled with the blood into every part And in like manner the small branches of the Vena Cava are every where interwoven and at hand to carry away the blood when cleansed and freed from the bilious part of it Now the choler is separated from the blood by a certain kind of Percolation For the blood issuing out from the Porta into the Parenchyma or fleshy parts of the Liver finds that substance full of pores or little spaces of divers shapes and figures and proportionable to the shape sise and figuration of the Particles or Atoms of blood and choler whereof those which are suitable to the shape of the parts of choler open into the small pipes of the Porus biliarius those which are answerable to the shape of the Atoms of blood convey it into the little mouths of the Cava These pores or little holes easily let pass those parts of mater which are correspondent to their shape but refuse all of another Figure as we see water will dissolve common salt and imbibe it so long till all the spaces which agree with the shape of it be fill'd and then will receive no more but yet afterwards will receive sugar or salts of another Figure so long till they have fill'd the spaces suitable to their shape The separation of choler in the Liver may not unfitly be explain'd by that which is made in Sieves whereof some are made only to sever Chaff and dust some for Fetches some for Barley others for Oats which according to the shape of the holes let passe or refuse this or the other Grain Having thus explain'd the Anatomy of the Liver I will proceed to discourse of the Nature of Blood it self and the principal Engine which is employed in the making of it and to that end let me trace the passage of the Chyle that we may the better find when and where it is turn'd to blood It is well known to every man who has but in any measure inquired into Physick and Anatomy Willis Descript Nerv that as soon as the meat is dissolv'd by the menstruum of the stomach it is pressed down into the guts and out of them all the way almost to the very Anus the thinner and finer part is forced into the Lacteals out of which it
is delivered into the common Channel of the chyle and being mingled with a whey which comes out of the Lymphaticks it enters the Subclavials out of which it runs mingled with the blood into the great Trunk of the Vena Cava Out of which passing into the right Ventricle of the heart by the motion of that Engin through the Pulmonary Arteries it is flung into the Lungs out of which having there separated some phlegmatick or crude excrements and being impregnated with the nitre of the air which is drawn in by respiration and being in the Lungs as with a Churn or Chocolate-mill more exactly mingled with the blood it hastens by the Pulmonary Vein to the left Ventricle of the heart out of which by the Aorta it is sent to all the parts of the body Thus far the Chyle may be easily traced and truly I know not why it may not having passed the last deflagration in the heart be justly called Blood I will not in this place bring the distinction of the Schools upon the Stage which distinguishes that Liquor which runs in the Veins and Arteries into Three humours and Blood as being now out of doors with all ingenious men and being no otherwise to be applied than as some portion of that Liquor has more often other more seldome or hardly yet at all passed through the heart and there been fired But I in general term all those juices Blood which run in the Veins and Arteries and have the form colour and consistence of that liquor which is vulgarly called so though it consists as certainly all blood does of parts very heterogeneous and I think the Chyle it self which comes very white and dilute into the Subclavials when it has undergone the fermentation in the left Ventricle of the heart may without impropriety be justly termed blood For though I do acknowledge that this juice before it arrive to perfection does undergo several fermentations and separations in divers parts of the body as for example in the Liver the choler is separated in the Kidneys the whey in the habit of the body several excrements are refused which can probably be no other wise blown off than by transpiration And though a fermentation in the Spleen Testicles Uterus and other parts be requisite to give a vigour life and height to the blood yet I take the Heart to be the chief Shop where it is first made and where it receives it's life motion and tincture In the heart as to our purpose three things are chiefly to be considered 1. The Ventricles or Chambers of it 2. The Parenchyma or Walls and 3. The Mechanick Spirits as Severinus Danus calls them which lodge and reside in the inscrutable recesses of the Parenchyma These Spirits may be justly called the Artificers or Labourers of blood and life to these we owe all Action Heat Motion Colour and what not These first working in the punctum saliens or vesicula pulsans with a wonderful skill and unexpressable art draw the lines proportions of an animal shape all the Springs wheels pullies and whatever Engine is necessary for life and after they have drawn the whole Fabrick in the small with an innate prudence and indefatigable industry they extend every line to the due Proportion and build up the Fabrick according to the design'd dimensions and afterwards are no less careful in keeping the body in continual Repair than they were at first in Building of it In the next place the Ventricles or Chambers of the heart being inclosed with their Parenchyma as with strong Walls do at the very first sight from their mechanical Structure sufficiently appear to us to be made for Laboratories for the Blood Hogeland well observes Hog p. 81. That upon the Bloods rushing into the Heart the like boyling and rarefaction is caused as when Spirit of Nitre is poured upon butter of Antimony Des Cartes and the best Philosophers and Physitians are much of the same Opinion This Fermentation seems to be caused by the Mechanical Spirits or Seminal Salts or if you please Ferment of the Heart which ferments with the active principles of the Blood and Chyle and produces heat flame motion and a change of colour the ordinary effects of Fermentation as it is well known to Chymists In the act of Generation the Seed or resolv'd Salt being cast by the Male into the Womb in the Conception frames the Heart and by the heat either of incubation or the cherishing warmth of the Womb is excited and gently falls a fermenting and at length boyling more violently breaks into a flame which is perpetually kept a foot by a new supply of Chyle the old stock of Blood after some Deflagrations being left poor and unfit to maintain the Fire That the Chyle in this Deflagration receives its Tincture or Scarlet-die is more than probable Ent. Apol. p. 141. The Learned Doctor Ent deduces the variety of Colours from the diversity of Seminal Salts and certainly with very good Reason For since Colour is nothing else than a certain perception of a motion or stroak of Light reflected from the Surface of a Body and striking upon the tunica retinae of the Eye and that the Superficies of every Body is made up of numberless Particles of matter variously disposed among themselves it follows That if upon the Fermentation of Bodies the site and position of parts be so changed and transposed that they return not again to the same order wherein they were first placed the Superficies must be altered and then the reflection as also the stroak of light must be different and except it prove diaphanous the Body must appear of a new colour Thus we see Water much agitated at Mills and Chataracts looks white The blew tincture of Violets having some drops of Spirit of Vitriol poured on it turns Purple and immediately by adding some few drops of Spirit of Harts-horn the Purple colour is turn'd into Green Doctor Willis Willis de Ferment cap. 11. and other Learned Authors have many pleasant instances of the alteration of colours by mingling Liquors which ferment with one and the other That the Chyle is turn'd red in the Heart after this manner I am very apt to believe and that the innate Salt or Ferment of the Heart by fermenting with the Chyle which abounds with volatil Salt and Sulphur produces this admirable tincture I have observ'd as yet but two wayes of producing a red colour in Bodies either by the action of heat upon them or else by the addition of Salts by heat white and pale colours are often changed into red and that especially in Bodies which are not very fluid and which admit of only a slow and leisurely Fermentation Thus Quinces by long boyling contract a Redness Fruit by baking in an Oven grows Redder than Raw and Bricks by Heat acquire a red colour Nay the Learned Doctor Glisson affirms That in the hot Months of Summer Glisson Anat. Hep. Blood
pag. 40 All the Symptoms of that Disease easily deriv'd from thence pag. 40 41 Men fall into the Scurvy after Fevers by reason of the wasting of the volatil Salt of the blood in them pag. 41 The Vrin of healthy and young men abounds much more with volatil Salt than that of aged and sickly persons pag. 41 The Air in the Northern Countries abounds with fixed Salt and disposes the blood to the Scurvy pag. 41 42 Respiration necessary to life for the drawing in of Nitre to keep afâ—ot the Fermentation of the Heart pag. 42 There is a great difference in Nitres pag. 43 The Specificks for the Scurvy perform their effects by their volatil Salts ib. Why it is increased in the Bills of Mortality pag. 44 The Rickets a new Disease ib. The Reason of its first breaking forth in England pag. 45 Not altered since pag. 45 Not akin to the Pox and Scurvy ib. The Reason of the increase of the Consumption in the Bills of Mortality pag. 45 46 The stopping of the Stomack the same with the Asthma ib. The Rising of the Lights the same with the Suffocatio uterina ib. Men as well as Women subject to the Disease call'd the Hysterical Passion pag. 48 Why Women are more frequently troubled with Fits than Men. pag. 49 The Hysterical Passion described pag. 49 50 The Causes of this Disease and its Symptoms according to the Ancients pag. 51 They are rejected pag. 51 52 The Causes assigned by Dr. Highmore pag. 52 53 Reasons why they are insufficient pag. 53 54 55 56 The animal Constitution is primarily affected in this Disease ib. The motion of the Heart is caused by the animal Spirits pag. 57 An Experiment to prove it pag. 57 58 The Hysterical Symptoms are Convulsive motions pag. 58 The Nature of the Seed pag. 59 A nitrosulphureous Spirit the Author of all Generations pag. 59 60 61 How the Seed is made in Men and other Creatures out of the Blood pag. 61 62 How the Seed may cause the Hysterical Passion pag. 62 63 64 How a defect in the uterine Ferment may cause Hysterical Fits pag. 64 65 A suppression of the Menses often causes them ib. Ill Humors flung upon the Brain and nervous parts will cause them ib. Some other causes of them pag. 66 The Cause of the Rising of the Mother pag. 67 68 CHAP. III. THe Pox and Scurvy cannot alter all Diseases from their ancient state and condition pag. 70 The Pox and Scurvy not infectious at a distance pag. 71 Blood-letting in Agnes and Fevers in the Northern Countries is justified pag. 72 Dr. Harvy 's Opinion of it pag. 72 73 In the Rheumatism Blood must be taken away ten or twelve days together pag. 74 A mad Woman cur'd by being let blood seventy times in one Week ib. The Liver is not the shop where blood is made pag. 75 The use of it is to separate Choler and how that is perform'd pag. 75 76 77 How the Chyle is turn'd into blood pag. 77 78 The Heart the chief shop where the Chyle is turn'd into blood pag. 79 80 The innate Spirits Salts or Ferments of the Heart are the makers of blood pag. 80 The Fermentation of the blood in the Heart compar'd to the Ebullition which is caus'd when Spirit of Nitre is poured upon Butter of Antimony pag. 81 Of Colour pag. 81 82 How Colours are produced ib. New Colours are produced by mingling things which ferment with one another ib. Two wayes of producing a red Colour in Bodies by the action of Heat upon them or by the addition of Salts pag. 83 84 Phlebotomy is very necessary in many Sâ—orbutick Affects pag. 84 85 How purging Medicins perform their effects pag. 85 86 The Pox and Scurvy are not communicable at a distance and without Corporal Contact pag. 87 Whatever infects or poysons by immediate Contact must not necessarily work the same effect at a distance ib. Instances to prove this Assertion pag. 87 88 A Plague in Moravia which only infected those persons who were Cupped and Scarrified pag. 88 A strange Poyson us'd by the Huntsmen in Spain made of the juyce of White Hellebore pag. 89 90 An account of the Original and spreading of the Pox out of Guicciardin pag. 91 92 93 That the Pox infects not at a distance is argued from the Cure of it pag. 94 That the Scurvy infects not at a distance is argued from the Nature and Formality of it pag. 95 96 CHAP. IV. THe Pox and Scurvy are not complicated with all Diseases pag. 98 69 The Pestilence is not from a Complication with the French Ferment more frequent and violent now than in former Ages pag. 99 100 Instances of many depopulating Plagues in former Ages pag. 100 101 CHAP. V. WOrms are not more frequently appearing in Fevers and all manner of Diseases in these days than former pag. 105 As strange Cases of Worms observed by the Ancient as Modern Writers pag. 106 Worms generated in Children in the Womb observed by Hippocrates ib. In the Seed by Plutarch ib. In the Lungs and treated of as one cause of a Cough by Alsaravius pag. 106 107 The Drancucula of the Grecians and Vena Civili◠〈◊〉 Medena of the Arabians what kind â—â—â—â—sease pag. 107 108 Animals generated under the Skin observ'd by Aristotle ib. The Lady Penruddock kill'd by that Disease pag. 109 Worms ingendred in Metals Stones Fire and Snow the Bladder of Gall Vinegar pag. 111 Worms bred in all sorts of Animals not subject to the Pox and Scurvy pag. 112 Worms bred in Mill-stones pag. 113 A live Toad found in the Center of a huge stone ib. The Cause of the Production of Insects in Mans body pag. 114 Why they often accompany putrid Fevers pag. 114 115 Why Children are usually troubled with them at the time of their breeding Teeth ib. Insects produc'd by their seminal Salts pag. 116 A Disease in Germany and Hungary which the Polonians called Stony Robac and the Germans Hauptwurn pag. 117 The Seminalities of Insects may be conveyed into our Blood in our meat drink and air pag. 118 The manner of infection from the Plague is better made out by the figure and motion of Atoms than by Kirchers animated Effluxes pag. 119 120 Kirchers notion not conduciâ—â—e to the practise of Physick pag. 120 An account of the Plague given by Gassendus pag. 122 123 The comparison of Runnets coagulatiâ—â— Milk servâ—â— very well to explain how the Pestiâ—â—â—â— infects tâ— Blood and Air pag. 12â— The spots in the Plague are quar'd flakes of Blood pag. 124 CHAP. VI. MAny Maxims in Physick will remain truth the Worlds end They are grounded upon Experience and were in use long before the notions of Causes were invented pag. 127 Doctor Willis his opinion as to this point pag. 127 128 What Medicins are to be accounted Secrets pag. 129 Medicins the products of Chance not Invention pag. 130 131 132 CHAP. VII VVOrds imposed by the first Inventers of the Art
IMPRIMATVR Tho. Tomkyns R. R mo in Christo Patri ac Domino Domino Gilberto divinâ Providentiâ Archiepiscopo Cantuariensi à sacris domesticis THE CHYMICAL GALENIST A TREATISE WHEREIN The Practise of the Ancients is reconcil'd to the new Discoveries in the Theory of Physick Shewing That many of their Rules Methods and Medicins are useful for the Curing of Diseases in this Age and in the Northern parts of the World In which are some Reflections upon a Book Intituled MEDELA MEDICINAE By George Castle Dr. of Physick lately Fellow of All-souls Colledge in Oxon. Navim agere ignarus navis timet abrotanum aegro Non audet nisi qui didicit dare quod medicorum est Promittunt Medici tractant fabrilia fabri Horat. l. 2. Epist 1. London Printed by Sarah Griffin for Henry Twyford in Vine Court middle Temple and Timothy Twyford at Inner Temple Gate 1667. TO My Honoured and Learned FRIEND Dr. THOMAS MILLINGION Fellow of ALL-SOVLS Colledge IN OXON SIR THese Papers some sheets of which I two years since took the freedom to shew you had within some few Weeks after your sight of them waited upon you in this dress into which now the Printer has put them if the Plague had not disappointed my intentions which coming to the Town where I liv'd forc'd me from my House and Studies having not I confesse courage enough to expose my self and Family to the mercy of so dismall a Disease against which flight is the onely infallible preservative My occasions since have been so many and pressing that I have had little leisure to collect my scatter'd Papers and therefore I must intreat your pardon as well for the slow performance of my promise as for whatever else you shall meet with in the Treatise which may stand in need of it My design is to shew that though the Physiology and Pathology of Physick ought to be modelled according to the new Discoveries in Anatomy and the Democritical and Chymical Principles yet that many of the Rules Methods and Medicines which more immediately respect the useful and practical part are still to be retained and that they are rather more reconcileable to the Modern than they were to the Ancient Hypotheses For the practical part of Physick being grounded upon Experience does not so much depend upon the notional that this being overthrown the other must necessarily fall to the ground The fancies and reasonings of Philosophers and Physitians were built upon the practise and signifie not much more to the Fundamentals of the Art of Physick than pinnacles to the body and foundation of a Building which though they be blown down may stand unshaken Much of the Therapeutick part of Physick is like Dialls and Almanacks which agree as well with that of Copernicus as Ptolemy's Hypothesis For as the Ancients made a true use of the light and heat of the Sun in distinguishing and measuring Times and Seasons and managing of their Husbandry though probably they err'd in their Notion of his motion round the Earth so did Physitians no lesse happily imploy Apollo's Art in the curing of Diseases though they were ignorant of the true motion of the Blood and of the Sun of the Microcosm the Heart It is I know objected To what end have been all these new Discoveries in Physick and to what purpose is a farther Inquiry if the practise be not altered by them But to this Objection it may be easily answered that though many of the Rules Methods and Medicins of the Ancients be still in force and must be made use of in the curing of Diseases yet when we consider that in this Art there must be much left to the judgment and discretion of the Physitian as to understanding of the Disease the Complications and the applying of the Methods and Remedies seasonably to mens particular Constitutions it will appear that an Artist who proceeds from true principles is as much to be prefer'd before a bare practitioner as a good Architect before a common Bricklayer or Mason who though by his practice he has learnt to build a Wall or a stack of Chimneys will be necessarily at a losse in designing a great and regular Fabrick It is I confesse an absurd temper to be so morose so addicted to authority and antiquity as to shut our eyes lest they should discern a new Truth and rather disbelieve our own Senses than the Writings of Hippocrates and Galen But on the other hand the humor is no lesse ridiculous to put on the same levity in matters of Philosophy and Physick as we do in Clothes to like nothing which is not of a new fashion to have a greater esteem for Error and Nonsense in a modish Garb than Truth and Wisdom in an old-fashioned Dress Though we see farther than the Ancients did we must acknowledge that we stand upon their Shoulders and if we will be ingenuous that we are the Dwarfs and they the Giants We need not I think in our age apprehend any danger to Physick from an over-fondness of Antiquity The growing evil is the other Extream a fancy of rejecting the wisdome of the Ancients for the follies and whimsies of some phantastical Pseudo-chymists which is like the Americans to barter Gold and Silver for Beads and Glass Sir Our Nation is of late grown as fond of Enthusiasts in Physick as they were of those in Divinity and Ignorance amongst some men is become as necessary a qualification for the practise of Physick as it us'd to be for Preaching I cannot believe that the delight which the Vulgar ray and some Wise men take in being cheated by Mountebanks proceeds from any principle in Nature which inclines them to it But rather think it to be caus'd from Impostours being more industrious in deluding the World than the true Artists in undeceiving it There has of late been one of them wondrous busie in possessing the rabble to whose capacity his Discourse is suited against the learned Physitians of the Colledge of London and all others who have been bred up and taken degrees in Vniversities He puts them into his own Bears skin and then baits them He would make the World believe that they are a company of narrow streight-lac'd men who onely confine themselves to Books and never study Nature and that they stifle and suppress all occasions of improving their Art I do not wonder that they meet with so ill usage at his hands whose business and profession it has been for above twenty years to libel almost all sacred and honourable persons of this Nation I have in this Treatise endeavored to vindicate them from his false aspersions by shewing them to have been Authors of the New Improvements and Discoveries in Physick and the great Promoters of Experimental Philosophy By the way I have thought it not improper to make some reflections upon the Book of this bold and impertinent invader of Physick and plausible vender of very popular non-sense The truth is both
and contagion of the place with which the Romans being altogether unacquainted knew not what else to assign for the cause of this Distemper except the drinking of the water the impurity of which I confess might possibly concur in corrupting of the Blood and producing the Scurvy That the Scurvy was anciently Endemial to the more Northern parts of the World and consequently of no new upstart Original may be farther argued from the very nature and formality of that Disease and the common general cause which produces it That the Scurvy consists in the Bloods being degenerated from its spirituous Balsamick and volatilized condition into a salt sharp and austere Liquor wherein the volatil Spirits are either evapotated or deprest and the gross Salts either being disjoin'd from the rest of the Principles run together and are said to be in the state of Fluidity or continuing only their Combination with the earthy parts of the Blood render it wholly fixed and unactive in which states it becomes either sharp and eager like Vineger or dead and flat Sâ—nnert 〈◊〉 l. 3 â— 5 Sâ—ct 2. c. 2 like decayed Drinks is the Opinion of Sennertus and Dr. Willis de Feb. c. 1. Willis those Learned Authors And indeed I do not find that any Hypothesis gives so satisfactory an account of the Phaenomena and Symptoms of that Disease as this by them assigned for if we run through the affections of the animal the vital and the natural Faculties from whence Eugalenus and other Writers have drawn all their Diâ—gnosticks we shall find they may be all very naturally derived from the Saline Dyscrasie of the mass of Blood whereby it is rendered unfit to separate the heterogeneous Particles both of the alimentary juyce which is perpetually supplied from the stomack and of the Air drawn in by the Lungs which though it furnish the Blood with a Nitre most necessary to life yet oftentimes it comes impregnated with Atoms very destructive to the Being of Man which if they be not seasonably exterminated and separated by the active and volatil spirits of the Blood in time easily corrupt and destroy the temper and mixture of that Liquor Hence disorderly Fermentations Obstructions Spontaneous Weariness Difficulties of Breathing Varieties of Pains Defects in Motion Palpitations Giddiness Paralytical Affects Spots Scurfs and many more Distempers reckoned up in Eugalenus and other Writers which of necessity must afflict the body of man when the blood is once become unfit to maintain a regular flame in the heart and duly to supply the nervous parts with a soft juyce and well rectified animal spirit Wherefore I make little question but that even in the time when Julius Caesar invaded this Island a man who had been long sick of a Quartan or tedious Feaver especially towards the Sea-Coasts must in time have grown Scorbutical For in long sickness the volatil Salt of the blood is much wasted as appears from Mr. Boyle's Observation in his Essay of the Unsuccessfulness of Experiments That Chymists assure him Mr. Boyle's Ph. Essayes who have occasion to distill it in great quantity that they find a notable Disparity betwixt Vrines that of healthy and young men abounding much more with volatil Salt than that of sickly and aged persons And though in Spain Italy and other warm Countries men do not after tedious Feavers and Quartans notwithstanding the volatil Salt of their blood must be allowed to be confiderably wasted usually fall into the Scurvy yet the Air in these Northern parts of the World Gâ—ssâ—nd Epicur Philos Metcor abounding with fixed Salt to which Gassendus ascribes the freezing and â—ongealing virtue of the Wind is apt to dispose and alter the blood into the same temper if it be not furnished with a sufficient quantity of volatil Salt to maintain its own Liquor from too much fixation and to subdue and volatilize those Salts of the Ambient Air which the Lungs perpetually draws in andmingles with the mass of blood For that Respiration is necessary to life not upon the score of cooling the blood and Heart since then Fishes might live in water which is colder without Air which yet many of them cannot do but for the drawing in of Nitre to keep afoot the fermentation of the Heart Ent. Apol. pro Circ p. 98. is the Opinion of the Learned Doctor Ent and other sound Philosophers And Fernelius is inclinable to that Opinion Fernel de Calore innat p. 4. c. 2. where he sayes Si nulla in nobis esset tenuis spirituosa substantia vix ulla profecto nos ad inspirandum necessitas impelleret Now if this be true as is most probable I suppose the Air in the Countries which are infested with the Scurvy to afford a Nitre to the blood less pure and volatil and more infected with adventitious Salts than that which is breathed in Countries free from that Distemper That there is this difference in Nitres Mr. Boyle observes Mr. Boyle's Phi. Essayes and that the Salt-Peter of East-India is much to be preferred before that of Europe and that Barbary Niter before it is refin'd abounds very much with an adventitious Salt which tastes much like Sea-Salt From which difference of Niters in the Air I conclude That the firing of the blood in the Heart and the fermentation of it afterwards in the Vessels may be so diversified as to cause all the Symptoms observable in the Scurvy It is farther to be Noted That the chief Specificks used in the cure of this Disease are such which perform their effect by the volatil Salt with which they abound and with which they impregnate the flat and languishing blood such are generally all things which strike the Tongue and Nose with a quick smart and brisk taste and smell which though they for the present give relief and change the habit of the body to the better yet do they seldom make so perfect a cure but that upon the intermission of the use of them the Air by its ill Impressions reduces in short time the blood to the Scorbutick or Saline Dyscrasie from which it is no longer able to defend its self than it is inspired with the nimble and volatil Salts of those anti-Scorbutick Remedies The general cause then of this Endemial Disease the Scurvy being the constitution of the Air is peculiar to the Northern parts of the World and there appearing no reason why we should believe that to be altered for the worse in our times from what it was in former I shall be apt to conclude That it alwayes had the same effects upon the bodies of those men who breathed it and that anciently as well as in our times it produced the Scurvy in those Bodies which through Errors in Dyet want of Exercise or antecedent Diseases it found disposed to receive it As to the increase of it of late in the Bills of Mortality as that ingenious person Mr. Grant has observed I suppose since the Scurvy
has been familiarly taken notice of and discoursed by the Physitians which has not been long the name has from them been deriv'd down to the Nurse-keepers and Searchers and is grown so common in their mouths that Diseases which either they understand not or have a mind to conceal are now often given in under the name of the Scurvy The Rickets is I think very rightly supposed by the Learned Doctor Glisson to be a Disease wholly new and to have had for one of its chief its procatactick Causes the Peace Security and Plenty which the Nobility and Gentry of this Nation had long enjoyed immediately before the first breaking forth of it Glisson de Rachid p◠241. From whence they had addicted themselves to a more soft delicate and debauched way of living and by that means contracted a constitution of body more effeminate flabby and unfirm than their Ancestors who by continual Toils Wars Dangers and other Manly Exercises not only preserved their own strength of body and generosity of mind but also deriv'd it entire to their Children But I do not find that it is observed by any able Physitian That the face and appearance of it is in the least altered from that in which it discovered its self at its first eruption neither is it entered into any stricter complication with the Pox and Scurvy than formerly Glisson de Rachid c. 20. These being Diseases as Doctor Glisson himself tells us very little a-kin and only by accident sometimes meeting in the same body For the increase of the Consumption in the Bills of Mortality Mr. Grant himself gives so sufficient a Reason that we need go no farther to enquire the cause of it nor to ascribe it to the alteration in the nature of that Disease since he affirms That almost all who dye of the French Disease are put into the Bills of Mortality under the name of Consumption For upon enquiry he sayes he found That all mentioned to dye of the French Pox were returned by the Clerk of St. Giles 's and St. Martins in the Fields dead of the Consumption from whence he concludes Grant Bills Mortal c. 3. That only hated persons and such whose very Noses were eaten off were reported by the Searchers to have dyed of this Malady The Stopping of the Stomack I can imagine to be nothing else but the Disease which Physitians call Asthma or Dyspnaea because I find not the least mention of this very frequent Malady in the Weekly Bills and that I observe there is nothing more usual with the Vulgar in their complaints to Physitians than to assign those Distempers to their stomacks which properly belong to their Lungs The Rising of the Lights is I think truly enough believed by M. N. to be that frequent Symptom which is vulgarly called Suffocatio uterina or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And I am not of Opinion that that Suffocation is only the proper affect of Women and that solely it is caused from the disturbance of the Womb For I have seen some men very much troubled with a rising up in their Throats and especially in Hypocondriacal Distempers no less apprehensive of being choaked than Hysterical Wo It is worth the taking notice of in this place that the Author of Medela who everywhere else inveighs so bitterly against the Aristotelean and Galenick Philosophy when he pretends to give some account of the reasons and causes of these Symptoms for want of truer apprehensions of his own shelters himself under the very weakest and most exploded part of that Philosophy And flies to the pitiful and jejune notions of Vapors raised in the Lower-belly especially about the Spleen in the stomack and about the Midrif and in the Cavity of the Omentum which must needs whilst they continue there hinder the free motion of the Midrif And a little farther that there may be no scruple left of his Ignorance in Anatomy he acquaints us with the playing of the Scorbutick malignant Vapors through the Veins and Arteries to the Lungs and by communication thence to the heart Which Opinion is so contrary to the Doctrine of Circulation that there is scarce a Butcher who is not able better to inform him and he may learn at every Shambles for 't is not fit he should prophane a Theatre that not one drop of blood enters the Lungs before it has passed the right Ventricle of the heart And now by reason this is a Subject very well worthy of a more accurate Disquisition and the Account which M. N. has pretended to give seems very lame and unsatisfactory I will beg leave to digress and offer some apprehensions which I have concerning the Hysterical Passion and other Distempers which seem to come very near it and agree in many of the Symptoms and Accidents A Digression concerning the Hysterical Passion THough the Disease called Hysterica Passio be by almost all Authors treated of as only peculiar to Women and proceeding only from the distemperature of the Womb yet as I have before observed it may upon grounds drawn from Reason and Experience be very truly affirmed That Men also are liable to most of the Symptoms of it and that even in Women they are often caused when the Womb is not in the least concern'd in the guilt And the reason why this Sex is more frequently than that other afflicted with this Malady may very well be ascribed to their more delicate constitution and soft texture of their nervous parts whereby they become more liable to convulsive motions and upon the vellicating and twitching of any one part endued with exquisite sense to have Convulsions communicated to the whole nervous System from whence the whole frame of the Body is put into disorder as we see Clocks and Watches whose Springs and Wheels are contriv'd with too subtil and nice workmanship are oftner in fault than those of more plain work For the better understanding of the Nature of this Disease and of the Causes from whence all the Symptoms do flow it will not be improper to give those Descriptions of it which are delivered by Authors and of the Accidents which in some particular persons have occurr'd to my own observation The Paroxysms or Fits of this Disease in some move regularly and return at certain set-times in others are uncertain and wandring Some persons they invade in an instant in others they give notice and warning by certain signs which forerun the Fit and are a Prologue to the Tragedy As a dulness of Spirits Laziness Faintness Paleness of Face Sadness of Countenance The Parties press their Belly with their hands and perceive something to rise up to their apprehensions as big as a Cannon-Bullet their Legs fail them and tremble they find something rise up to their Throat ready to choke them Then they grow drowsie lose their understanding some laugh others weep some do both Besides they find a gnawing pain at the mouth of their Stomack a loathing of Meat
a pain and Swelling of their Belly a rumbling in their Sides under the Ribs They have a weak Pulse a trembling at the Heart a pain in the Head a redness in their Lips Face and Eyes which are sometimes distorted sometimes so fast shut that they can hardly be opened And being now high in the Fit they are ready to be strangled are deprived of Voice Sense and Motion except such as is Convulsive some cry out with a despairing Voice and presently fall down for dead their Pulse is then very weak and sometimes none to be felt When the Fit is going off their Cheeks redden they recover their Senses their Eyes with a very dull and heavy Aspect are opened and at length fetching deep sighs and sometimes pouring forth showres of tears they come to themselves This is the Picture of that dismal Disease which most frequently afflicts poor miserable Women though Men are not exempted from it In some all or most of these Symptoms meet in others only the strangling or danger of being choked with some other Accidents are observable But generally the Fits are so terrible and amazing to them who consider not the reasons of these affections that by the Vulgar the persons subject to them are believed to be bewitched or possessed by the Devil The ancient Physitians do with one consent deliver That Seed and menstruous Blood corrupted in the Womb and Genital Parts do send forth malignant Vapors which with violence carry up the Womb against the Diaphragm and Organs of 〈◊〉 spiration and thereby suddenly stop the motion of the Heart and Lungs and from this impetuous motion of the Womb they suppose to be caus'd that sense of a Globe rising upward in the Belly But they who have so much insight in Anatomy as to know That the Womb is immoveably fixed to its place by Ligaments and that in Virgins it is usually not much bigger than a Walnut and do consider that in Women with Child the Womb presses upon the very stomack and yet never causes these Accidents And that oftentimes in Dropsies of the Womb that part is extended to a vast bigness and is full of putrid Humors and yet none of these Suffocations or other Accidents are caused They I say who consider this cannot allow that these stupendious Symptoms can be produced by that cause The Learned Doctor Highmore in his Exercitation upon the Hysterical Passion having examined all the Hypotheses invented either by the ancient or modern Physitians Highm de Passion Hystericâ to solve the Phaenomena of this Distemper and finding them all very insufficient to give a satisfactory Account delivers most ingenuously his own Opinion and supposes all the Symptoms to be caused by an overstuffing of the Ventricles of the Heart and Vessels of the Lungs with thin servous and fermenting blood which does so distend and fill them that the Lungs are thereby rendred unfit to comply with the motion of the Diaphragm and Chest and the Heart disabled to discharge its self by its Pulses of the burden which oppresses it though it attempts to rescue its self by more frequent pulsations and from hence necessarily to follow first A difficulty of Breathing and then a Suffocation which that Nature may avoid she calls to her Succor the Animal Faculty which lest she perish together with the Vital pours forth the whole force and strength of her spirits though in so much disorder that by their confused Sallies those irregular motions are caused in the Body which men call Convulsive This is the account according to my best apprehension of his meaning of the descriptive Definition which that excellent person gives of this Disease And I am so much of his Opinion as to believe That very often a Dyscrasie or Distemper of the Blood and probably of the Serum or Whey of it is one cause of this Distemper But I beg his pardon if I am apt to believe That even then when these Fits are caused from a Serous Dyscrasie in the Blood they are rather to be attributed to the Impurities and sharp Salts which are either cast off upon the Brain and from thence distributed through the Nerves into remote parts of the Body or else upon some of the Bowels where those pungent juices pricking and vellicating the extremities of the Nerves cause the original and whole system to participate of their disorders than to the Bloods stuffing and distending the Vessels of the Lungs and Heart For besides that there are many Women Cachectical and Hydropical whose Vessels are filled with little else but waterish Blood and Whey who are notwithstanding very free from Fits of the Mother It is often observed that Women of a ruddy Complexion who have a brisk and lively heat in their Blood and that rich with spirits which purges its self every Month in its constant periods are oft-ten miserably afflicted with Hysterical Paroxysms For they are not seldom such as have an excellent good appetite and digest their meat well whose Lungs are not flabby weak or disposed to a Consumption and whose Blood when it is let out of their Veins and setled is observed to be thick and full of Fibers all which are Qualifications quite contrary to those which are required by Dr. Highmore's Hypothesis if I mistake him not to render a person liable to Hysterical Passions Moreover in my Opinion crude and waterish Blood is altogether unfit to be set so impetuously on fire as to cause so extravagant a Fermentation in the Ventricles of the Heart that by overstretching the Lungs they should be unable to disburden themselves of the Blood For we find that Cachectical and Hydropical persons and Maids in the Green-Sickness are troubled with a shortness of Breath upon Exercise and walking up steep Places or Stairs which undoubtedly is caused for that the Blood of such persons being thin and waterish and wanting its due proportion of the sulphureous and inflammable part does not afford a sufficient quantity of vital Oyl to the Lamp of the Heart and therefore when upon exercise and motion there is a greater quantity of Blood than ordinarily sent into the Heart that being not well rarified and fired in the right Ventricle passes not so swiftly through the Lungs to theleft as it ought to make room for that which is to succeed so that at the same time the Lungs and Heart are overburdened upon which a difficulty of Breathing a beating and throbbing at the Heart must necessarily ensue Besides in Feavers where the Blood is most of all rarified and fermented except the matter of the Disease be cast upon the Brain Hysterical Symptoms do not constantly happen and yet the sulphurious part of the Blood fired is much more apt to fill and distend the Chambers of the Heart and Vessels of the Lungs than the Whey It is farther observable That Women who have their Courses too frequently and vent by the Womb overgreat quantities of Blood are often troubled with
Hysterical Fits and some even after so large Haemorrhages that there has been more Reason to believe they had not Blood enough left to maintain the Circulation than to suspect the Lungs and Heart could be oppressed with it Riverius has an Observation of a Maid River Ob cent 1. ob 94. who having her menstruous Flux in so violent a manner that in the space of two hours she voided four or five Pints of Blood fell into so terrible a Fit of the Mother that she lay without speech as one dead and yet had her eyes open and shewed with her hand that she was strangled These and other Reasons seem to argue That the Animal Constitution I use Dr. Glysson's word is primarily affected in this Disease Glisson de Râ—chid p. 19. and the heart and lungs only secondarily and by consent and that the disorders of the vital parts as well as the rest of Hysterical Symptons are meerly convulsive motions Consonant to this Dr. Willis in his most admirable Treatise of the Brain Nerves gives an excellent account how the Lungs come to be affected in Hysterical and Hypochondriacal Paroxysms in these words Si quando nervos pneumonicos à causa morbifica affectiones Spasmodicae afflixerint ita ut motibus inordinatis convulsi arterias venas quas amplectuntur perperam constringant aut huc illuc contrahant propterea Sanguis aut pulmonibus nimis exulans eos flaccescere ac in se concidere facit adeo ut aerem copiose attrahentes ipsum haud facile reddant vel quod crebrius usu venit Sanguis intra pulmones detentus ibidemque stagnans eos infercit ac diu rigidos tenet ut aerem inspirare nequeant Vtriusque generis Symptomata in affectibus Hystericis quibusdam Hypochondriacis passim contingunt Quinimo interdum ipsa Bronchia pari nervorum Spasmo convelluntur ac in motu suo praepediuntur quo minus debito modo aerem inspirent exspirentque prout in paroxysmis Asthmaticis cernitur cujusmodi affectus saepenumero a nervorum vitio sine insita quavis pulmonum dyserasia producuntur Willis Nervorum Descrip c. 24. In the same Chapter he acquaints us how the affections and motions of the Heart are produced by the influence of the Animal Spirits through the intercostal and eighth pare of Nerves and that the tremblings and disorderly vibrations of the Heart which evidently differ from its pulsifick motions are caused from the violent Succussions and Convulsions of the Pericardium To evince the necessity of the influx of the Animal Spirits to maintain the motion of the Heart he tells us That he had often made this Experiment in Dogs when they were alive Having opened the Skin about the Neck he tyed both the Trunks of the Par Vagum with very strict Ligatures upon which the Dog seem'd to be stun'd lost wholly his voyce and fell into Convulsions about the Hypochondria with a great trembling at his heart But these presently ceasing he lay as if he were just a dying without any life or vigor in his countenance scarce being able to move any part and refusing all meat that was offered him Notwithstanding he dyed not in several dayes till he was quite starv'd though the Nerves were both cut asunder The Heart receiving by the recurrent and intercostal Nerves a sufficient though weak supply of Spirits to maintain a faint motion and a Circulation enough to keep the Dog alive Having hitherto prov'd That the Animal Constitution is primarily affected in the Hysterical Passion it will follow that theremay be assigned as many causes of this Distemper as we can imagine able either notably to vellicate the Extremities of the Nervs affect them so strongly as to draw into consent the whole System or else to put the Animal Spirits in the Brain into so great a confusion and disorder as to disturb their constant and regular irradiation and influx into the bowels and other parts of the body Or whatever causes are apt to render the nervous Juyce which is the Vehicle of the Spirits sharp and pungent and apt to irritate and provoke the Fibers in its passage The Ancients reckon the Seed retained in the genital parts in too great a quantity as one of the principal causes of these affections and that we may the better understand how that is able to put the Animal Spirits and Nerves into disorderly motions it will not be impertinent to consider the nature of it The Seed or Geniture seems to consist of Salt Sulphur and a great quantity of Spirit for these active principles are only able to perform that wonderful work of Generation in that secret shop of Nature the Womb. It may be proved by sundry Experiments That a nitro-sulphureous spirit is the Author of all Generations as well in Vegetables as Animals The Account which that eminently learned person D. Ent gives of the production of things in his Apology for the Circulation against Parisanus is very much to this purpose Eat Apol. Terra Aqua sayes he materies sunt rerum naturalium in quibus seu uteris diversa rerum gignendarum semina sive spiritus delitescunt quorum virtutes in salibus potissimum nidulantur Per calorem solis humores tenues variis salibus impraegnati ascendunt aeremque nostratem constituunt denuoque in elementa unde evecta erant relabuntur Quinetiam interdum majore copia roris forma decidunt cujus opera Terra Aqua spontaneos suos foetus producunt Indicium hujus rei est quod si aqua calida terram perfuderis namque eo modo sal omnis educitur nihil postea in ea nascitur neque vermiculi neque lapilli nec gramen imo nec semina quidem ei commissa licet soli haec terra exponatur aqua stillatitia irroretur nihil inquam inde progignitur donec per aliquod temporis spatium sub dio posita novo rore sive sale vivifico impraegnetur Hic ros super arborum frondes incidens varia insectorum genera producit Hic in mediano plantarum cortice potissimum stabulatur per quem plantae vivunt unde debito tempore frondes flores fructus producuntur ac propterea illo ipso in pertinacibus viscerum obstructionibus reserandis utimur In quo si Brosseus recte computum iniit vigecuplo plus hujus salis quam in ulla alia arboris parte reperitur Imo sunt qui affirmant ab ipsis plantarum salibus terrae commissis easdem denuo plantas repullulare Hinc constat idem etiam animalibus contingere hominumque semen de natura salis participare quod probatur his rationibus 1. Semen diutius retentum copia adauctum titillationem excitat id autem sali contingere in prurigine videre est 2. Semen in humido liquescit quod sali proprium est 3. Acidum olet 4. Hinc fit ut nimio coitu capilli qui tali sale abundant defluant Ossa eo
is often found in those Animals whom we account bloodless as Oysters and the like by reason of the heat which excites the fermenting Salâ—s which lay intangled and as it were asleep in the more slimy and unactive parts of those Animals and possibly the reason why Snails and such other Creatures are not endued with Blood is because the Ferment of their Heart lies idle all the Winter The other way of producing a red colour is by addition of a salt Menstruum Dr. Ent. Thus Juleps are colour'd red with Spirit oâ— Vitriol Infusions of Senna with Oyl of Tartar And Berigardus tells us He had a Chymical liquor into which if he put but a little piece of a certain Salt Berig Cinc. Vn p. 9. the Liquor would turn from being white and cold to be so red and hot that he could not endure to hold the Bottle After the same manner the milky juyce of the Chyle is most probably turned into Blood for meeting with the Salt or Ferment of the Heart it is turned from white to red and boils no less than the Chymists Liquor Having thus endeavoured to explain the manner of Sanguification and having deduced it chiefly from the firing of the Chyle in the Heart I do not find but that upon this Hypothesis agreeable to the experience of the World even in many Scorbutick Affects Phlebotomy may be most necessary but especially as in some persons where the Scorbutick Ferment is as I may call it a Stum to the Blood as I have found it in many especially in a Woman in Berkshire above 50 years of Age who every Fortnight or three Weeks has her Courses in so violent and large a manner that except the Flux be by seasonable bleeding often moderated she is continually in danger of bleeding to death Nay even in other cases of the Scurvy where by the adustness and sharpness of the Blood the Chyle is perpetually corrupted and depraved by seasonable bleeding the Blood is ventilated and enabled there being more room for the mass to ferment in to cast off many of its faeculent Salts by Urine and Transpiration and the Chyle the vitious fermentation of Scorbutick Salts being by breathing a vein somewhat allayed comes more sincere and less perverted to the heart I come in the next place to his Exceptions against Purgation in the Scurvy Mâ—â— Md. P. 88. By the Pills Electuaries Powders and Infusions reputed Classical and Authentick which he tells us work by offensive irritation of Nature rather than an amicable Clâ—se with her What his amicable Close with Nature is I understand not except he has explain'd himself in his cleanly Discourse of the French Disease But as to Purgation any man who shall seriously consider how Medicins purgative perform their effects shall find all those which are properly call'd so work either by a vellication of the Fibres of the Guts and Bowels or by exciting a Fermentation in the Blood or both wayes Those which work by irritating of the Fibres cause the Guts to thrust down their Excrements and by contracting themselves to expell â—em forth of the Body Those Purgatives which by the Lactials and possibly by the ends of the Meseraicks pierce into the mass of Blood work their effect by fermenting the juyces of the Body and stimulating the fibrous parts in the most inward recesses of the Bowels by which often the Morbifick matter is exterminated into the Guts as Barm in the fermentation of Liquors is separated and forced out of the Barrel Now as the Medicins differ in their Natures so I suppose may a different Fermentation be excited in the Blood and likewise a different Excrement or Barm be vented and wrought off upon which I suppose the whole business of elective Purgation to depend and whatever his Specificks be which he so much magnifies they must necessarily perform their business by one or other of these wayes except without Canting he can demonstrate a more reasonable In his Discourse of Contagion and of the Infection of the French Disease and Scurvy at a distance the Author of Medela as everywhere else discovers as much want of Civility as Philosophy and treats the learned Fernelius and the most acute and judicious Philosopher Sennertus with â— more respect than he does the Colledge of London and Universities and after he has made bold with several pieces of this Learned Author to patch up a Chapter he gives him the Lye tells him That he 's gross P. 128.130 and that it matters not what his or other Physitians phansie is touching a particular Disease And all this is because that these Learned men do not contrary to their observation and experience allow those Diseases to be communicable at a distance and without corporal contact in which though their own experience and observation be of abundantly more weight than his ill digested ratiocinations yet will it not be impertinent to shew that though these Diseases are very deservedly accounted Contagious or Infectious and that Contagion is caused by the insinuating of the Emanations of smal bodies from the morbifick matter into the Blood and Juyces of the persons infected and that from all Bodies do continually flow streams of Atoms yet does it not in the least follow that whatever infects or poysons by immediate Contact will also work the same effect at a distance Thus we see the poyson of a mad Dog insects not by the Effluvia from his Body but either by bite the touch of the some or his blood The Tarantula communicates venom by his bite the Scorpion by the sting and the like may be said of almost all poysons nay some require as in Bees Wasps Hornets and the like that the venom be conveyed by the sting through the very skin into the blood without which it may be questioned whether barely thrown upon the skin it would produce the effects of poyson And we evidently find that these Creatures poyson not by any effluxes from them but when the venom is closely applied to the Body and by Contact communicated to the Blood Consonant to this is an instance in an Epistle of Crato to Thomas Jordanus Crat. Epist Med. l. 2. of a kind of Plague in Moravia which only infected those persons who were bled with Cupping-glasses and that it seized upon them in that place where the skin was scarrified and the Cupping-glass fastned and that way the venom got into the whole mass of Blood and insinuated it self into the nervous parts And discoursing of the reason of this Disease he makes mention of a relation of the Emperor Ferdinand concerning a poyson used in Spain made of the juice of White Hellebore with which the Huntsmen of Spain use to poyson their Arrows and with them kill Deer and other wild Beasts In the beginning of Summer sayes the Author they who prepare this poyson press out the juice from the whole Plant expose it to the heat of the Sun till it be prepar'd and then
the Guts which mingling with the Bile serves there to ferment the Aliment The faeces in such persons are most commonly very black by reason of the vitriolick acidity which mingled with the Salts of the meat produces that colour as we see Ink is made by the mixture of the Salts of Galls and Vitriol Their Urine is generally very highly coloured like a strong Lie for that much of the Salt being not sufficiently volatilised and breath'd out through the Pores is sent down in the Serum through the urinary Passages When the Urine comes away thin and white it is for the most part the certain forerunner of a Fit for that either the saline parts are carried up to the head and flung upon the Nerves or because the fixed and fluid Salts meeting together encounter and ferment with one another and coagulating together are not dissolved in the Whey of the Blood and so that runs through the Kidneys clear and without any tincture from the Salts As to the Vital Faculty they find often about their breast a great oppression straitness and difficulty of breathing and sometimes fall into Asthmatical Paroxysms Moreover they complain of a trembling and palpitation of the heart of a great weight and oppression at it so that they every minute apprehend they are a dying All which Symptoms proceed partly from the sharpness of the nervous juyce which grates and vellicates the Nerves and is apt to stagnate in them and partly from the Blood which is not well and regularly fired in the heart In relation to the Animal Faculty there are very few Symptoms in this Disease which do not owe their original either to the brain or the nervous parts or else to the nervous juyce From hence proceed acute and wandring pains about the Mediastin and Shoulders and sometimes such as imitate the colick and nephritick Passions From hence are often Apoplexies Epilepsies Palsies Giddiness Watchings unquiet Sleeps and many other Symptoms which are caused from the disorder of the Animal Faculty Now the head and nervous parts are two several ways affected from the distemper of the Spleen 1. From the Blood made sowre andcager by the Spleen a Liquor is distributed to the brain and nervous parts infected with the same harsh and ungrateful quality which perpetually grates and provokes those tender and sensible parts 2. The second way by which the brain is affected from the Spleen is when the extremities of the Nerves which are distributed throughout that part are pricked twitched and vellicated by sharp juyces which are lodged in that Bowel from whence Convulsions are communicated to the brain and nervous System by which means the Spirits are put into disorder and confusion in their very fountain and original and being tumultuously darted into the branches of the Nerves do sometimes in one part sometimes in another cause violent and convulsive motions There is a story in Tulpius of a man whose Spleen was fill'd with so sharp and pungent a Liquor that if the part were only pressed by the hand his Brain and whole nervous System were presently drawn into consent Lien in eo sayes that Author a turgido atrae bilis fermento jam tumidus diffudit illico ex se vapores cerebro tam inimicos ut juvenis protinus concideret in gravissimos morbi comitialis insultus Nam pressa vel solo digito regione lienis contrahebantur illico omnes nervi sequebatur confestim miserabilis totius corporis concussio It is now high time to return to M. N. and to tell him That he very unreasonably vents his Gall upon the Physitians for treating of bilious or cholerick Complexions and Diseases For though according to Helmont and Sylvius Bile may be very useful in some parts of the body yet in respect of others it may be an Excrement and though it may serve for a useful Ferment in the Guts yet too great a quantity of it in the Blood may cause a Disease and indicate an Evacuation Consonant to this is what Dr. Willis sayes in his Book De Feb. Willis de Feb. c. 1. Quando pars Sulphurea evehiâ—â—r ac in cruore nimis luxuriat ejus Crasin a dehito statu pervertit ut exinde Sanguis vel deprâ—â—â—atus seu biliosior factus Succum alibilâ—m non rite coquat vel in tatum accensus aestus atque ardores quales in 〈◊〉 continua oriuntar concepiat And this 〈◊〉 Person in the same Treatise tells us That the reason why Vomits do often cure internâ—rtent Fevers â—oillis â—â— Feb. c. 3 is because they pump up thâ— Choler out of the Bladder and Vessels of Gall and by emplying of them make room for the bilious Humor or the Particles of adust Salt and Sulphur which are too plentifully mingled with the Blood to be separated into those Receptacles And now as to Chymistry to which the Author of Medela so much pretends I must with some Compassion take notice That he has burnt his Fingers as unhappâ—ly in the Furnaces as he before cut them with the Dissecting Knives For after all his bragging of his Secrets of being one of the Adepti and his Sagacity in penetrating Helmont he has poor man most unluckily confessed himself to be grosly ignorant of the very Principles of Chymistry in affirming That the Sulphur is lighter Med. p. 272. and more Aethereal than the Spirit If the Gentleman would have vouchsafed to have consulted Dr. Willis whom he quotes every where when he mistakes him for his advantage would have learnt from him That Spiritus sunt substantia maxime subtilis Willis de Feb. c. 2. aetherea divinioris aurae particula and that Sulphur est principium consistentiae paulo crassioris quam Spiritus post ipsum maxime activum Cum enim soluta mixti compage Spiritus primo erumpunt particulae Sulphureae statim subsequi nituntur Here Dr. Willis tells him That the Spirit is the most light and subtil Substance that the Sulphur is a grosser Principle and I dare challenge him to produce any good Chymical Author who ever affirmed Sulphur to be lighter and more Aethereal than Spirit and if he do I will assure him That I will disbelieve what now by this instance I am confirm'd in and received from a very good hand To wit That after he had published his Medela Medicinae he was discovered by some Physitians into whose Company to see a Course in Chymistry he had slightly crept not to understand so much of that Art as amounted to the making of flower of brimstone A very fit person to undertake the demolishing the old and the laying of new Fundamentals in the profession of Physick CHAP. VIII I Have in the foregoing Chapters prov'd that many of the Methods Medicines and Terms of the Ancients are to be retained and that many of their Notions about Pharmacy will as well suit with the Modern as they did with Ancient suppositions The businesse of this Chapter is to shew that
continual Feaver from the burning of the Blood and Alimentary juice much adust matter is mingled with the Blood which when it amounts to so great a quantity as to oppress that active Liquor Nature as soon as there is the least respite from burning by degrees subdues then separates and at last endeavours to exterminate out of the Body the morbifick matter Wherefore as the fits of Intermittent Feavers invade at set times and at the distance of a certain number of hours so critical motions observe either the fourth or seventh day by reason that in such a space of time the fired Blood has done burning and being overcharged with adust matter or ashes Nature by the offensive irritation of it is provoked to a Crisis And continues that learned Author if the matter can be easily separated from the Blood and that the pores of the skin be sufficiently free and open the adust matter is together with the serous part of the Blood thrust out of the Body by sweat and this is much the best way of Crisis for if it succeed aright very often at once in one single conflict it puts an end to the Disease without any danger of a Relapse The Crisis next best to this is that which is perform'd by an Haemorrhage For the adust matter moving about with the Blood is if it cannot be vented by sweat transferred upon one part or other as far distant as may be from the heart and not seldome violently hurried up to the head from whence if the passages be open into the Nostrils the morbifick matter bursts forth together with the Blood but if it finds no passage it remains fix'd upon the Brain and there ensues a Phrensie Delirium or some other dangerous Distemper of that part There are likewise other wayes of a Crisis by which nature endeavours to expell the febril matter not entirely all at once but by degrees and by sundry attempts some part at one time and some at another sometimes by Urine sometimes by Vomit or Stool by Spots Pimples Botches and the like but what way soever she takes it is requisite if we expect any happy event that the burning of the Blood be over that the adust matter be concocted and rendred fit to be separated He goes on and tells us that the state of the Disease is of one kind and Simple and alwayes after the same manner but with a very different variety of Symptoms and with a tendency to Events which are very divers But notwithstanding this it is requisite that a prudent Physitian be able to pass his prognostick in what time the Disease will come to the state and what issue it may be like to have If the Fever from the beginning be vehement and of a sudden fires the whole mass of blood if with fierce Symptoms it constantly and equally continue burning without any remission most commonly within four days there will have been so great a deflagration of the blood that the adust matter which is to provoke the Crisis will arrive at its due fulness and turgescency But if the beginning be more mild and slow and the burning of the blood often interrupted the Fever will not come to its heighth before the seventh day But if the beginning be yet more sluggish and remiss the state of the Disease uses not to happen before the Eleventh or Fourteenth day Now although a perfect Crists happen not sometimes before the Fourteenth Seventeenth or perhaps the Twentieth day because before that time all the requisite conditions to the perfect judgment of the Disease do not concur yet in the mean time some slight skirmishes happen by which the adust matter growing to a fulness is by degrees something emptied till Nature can be in a condition to attempt the discussing of the whole But forasmuch as during the burning of the blood continually within the space of four days great store of adust matter is increased within the Vessels Nature except she be by some accident disturb'd is every fourth day provoked by the fulness of the matter to free her self from her burden Wherefore most commonly on the Fourth Seventh Eleventh and Fourteenth days not from the influence of the Planets but from a necessity in Nature some Critical motions use to happen This account of Critical days and the reasons of them I have taken out of Dr. Willis his Book De Febribus and the rather that I may do him right in relation to his judgment of the Doctrine of Critical days since M. N. by quoting three or four words out of him without taking any notice of the rest of his Discourse would fain slighly insinuate that this learned man is of his opinion but he has not only sufficiently declared himself to the contrary in the places by me already quoted but elsewhere in his Pharmaceutick directions And now let any man judge whether the Doctrine of Critical days be to be cashier'd as of no use in Physick when certainly the poor Patient who in a Fever commits himself to a Physitian ignorant of the times and motions of the Disease runs the same hazard with a ship expos'd to the Ocean without a Pilot which is by the same Sails which well managed would have carried it into a safe Harbor driven upon a Rock and hastned to its Ruine For though it be granted That Fevers are oftentimes extinguished in the beginning by seasonable bleeding vomiting or gentle purging as occasion shall require yet by M. N's favour will they not always yield to these Methods much less to â—â—s Charms though he vainly brag That without bleeding and yet allowing of Wine he will either extinguish a Fever by the Seventh day or be able to pronounce what will become of the Patient The latter of which I do not question buâ—â—â—e may do since by his method he may determine of him as certainly as King James did of the Southsayer who had prophesied of His death when the King prov'd the better Prophet by foretelling the day whereon the Wizard should be hang'd M. N's Medicins being no less fallible than the Halter In the next place M. N. picks a quarrel with the Ancients about their Doctrine of Pulses Me. Med. p. 330. which he says let us regulate as well as we can 't is fit he should tell the World there is little certainty of judgment to be made by them of a Patients case Now since he is resolved to cavil with the Ancients for leaving to us too elaborate and acurate a Doctrine of the Pulse he must give me leave to tell him That if they Treat too nicely of the matter he handles it much too loosely and slovenly For certainly there is no Physitian who has been accustomed to handle the Pulse of sick men and has not his fingers constantly benum'd but has discern'd in the beating of the Arteries not only the absolute but likewise the respective differences of Motions or Pulses And as a vehement and a weak a great and