Hearts Motion it may excellently appear how fitly it is compared by our Learned Doctor in the 27 P. of Philand second Letter to the ascension of Water in Pumps The true Cause of which Phoenomenon adscribed to the Ancients to a Fug◠vacus being only this That by the retraction of the Embolus or Sucket the place which it deserts is left void or at least the Air therein contained is noways proportionable to the external and so not able to resist its pressure In the mean time the Air having no access to the Cavity of the Pump does necessarly gravitat upon the Water in which it stands whereby it is forced to ascend in the Pump in which by the retraction of the Sucker it meets with no opposition till such a height as is able and beyond which it will by no means go to keep an Equilibrium with an equal Column of the external Air which hath the same superfice wherein the Pump stands for its Basis and the Atmosphaere for its height In a word there needs no more to make Water ascend in Pumps save to free it from the Impediment if found by the Suckers leaning upon it How bravely this grees with the Hearts 〈…〉 ation Doctor Brown himself may be Judge However it quadrates as well as the most of his Simile's And now while I 'm yet upon his Theory it may be a fit time to give a Specimen of his exactness in Anatomy Physiologie and Chymistry To begin then with Anatomy his great Skill herein is excellently shewn P. 178 where he pretends to give a Reason why hurtful to lye with the Head low Which is that then the grosser Blood does ascend whereas it being higher the more spiritous only gets up while the more crass seceeds at the N. B. Axillary branches Excellent indeed From whom I wonder did D. Brown learn but that whatever enters the Branches of Arteries is carried foreward to their end yea how can it otherways be seing continually by the help of their second Coat which is tendinous they are constringed and so at every place and in every moment give a new Impetus to the contained Blood But yet better Anatomy for ay till D. Brown did write we have been in a general Error when we used to say That the subclavial Arteries after they had demitted from themselves three superiour Intercostals the Mammariae Vertibrales Cervicales Musculae did go out of the Thorax or Trunck and tend to the Artus or Arms where they got the new Name of Axillares But now D. Brown hath discovered our Ignorance by shewing that they have their arise from the Carotides otherways it were Folly and Nonsense to say that the grosser Blood seceeds by them for except they arise from the Carotides how shall it enter them Had the Doctor said instead of the Axiliars that it seceeds to the Larynx and Pharynx they indeed receiving a share of that Blood which tends to the Head he might have concealed his Ignorance though not given any great proof of his Knowledge For so far is it from being true what the Doctor says That the great Artery is not at all according to the Ancients divided into the Trunck ascending and descending but rather according to the Learned and Excellent Anatomist D. Highmore it is immediatly upon its egrefs from the left Ventricle of the Heart divided into the two subclavial Branches Nevertheless it is not all true what he alledgeth when he affirmeth that from the right Subclavial both the Carotides do arise For frequent Experience hath taught me and no doubt will also do any who will be at the pains to try it that from the right Subclavial does only arise the right Carotis and the left which to my knowledge was never noticed by any comes neither from the right Subclavial nor yet from the left but is a third Branch arising from the Heart it self and hath no communication with any of the Subclavials but far less with the Axillary Branches I know the Doctor hath this from Des Cartes but really it is too well known that this great Wit and subtile Man was none of the best Anatomists and perhaps it was his greatest Fault to assert things he thought consonant to Reason never much careing or considering how they might be favoured by Experience nevertheless the Doctor when citing him should have known to discover his Error Good Physiology is still the Companion of accurate Anatomy as is also to be seen in the Doctors New and Ingenious Hypothessis of Chylification which P. 131. is most dextrously explained by a Grinding and attenuating the Aliments their parts one against another by the contraction of the Ventricle whereby it seems the Doctor would grate them to Chyle But I would willingly know if ever he or any Man else observed a solid Body turned into a Fluid except it were Ice Butter and and such like which have been Fluid before by meet attrition When ever the Doctor affoords me one instance for that of a Plume looks likeer expression as Attrition then and never till then I 'le grant his whole Hypothesis Moreover for what end is all that Apparatus of Glands in the Stomach and why do Physicians advise the swallowing of the Spitle with large drinking at Meat as great helps to the digestion if it happen by meer Attrition For certainly the harder any thing is it is so much the sitter for Grinding or else the Authors Idea thereof must be quite different from the Vulgar And really what is brought from the Ingenious Papins Digester does rather refute as confirm what it is brought for The Gelly being produced not by the Bones mutual Attrition but by the Waters dissolving and extracting Yea if I remembor right it being now a good time since I read that Book and not being at Home I cannot consult it the Ingenious Author himself calls it Extraction which all the World knows is quite different from Attrition Of the same kind is that account of Sanguification which in the 18◠Page of his V. S. he is pleased to communicate with us We are indeed extreamly obliged to him at least for his good Intentions for labouring in a few Lines to accomodate that Difference which hath caused almost bloody Contests for so many Ages I cannot enough admire the Policy of the Doctor who prudently knowing most Debates to be about Words conceals these invidious Terms of Organical and Similar Functions they having given occasion to no small strife Whilst some with the Ancients plead hard for the former others after Glisson cry as loud for the latter However albeit our Author hath not been so ingenuous as to confess it the Aetiology he gives makes it purely Organical only what some adscribed to the Heart others to the Liver the Doctor attributes allennerly to the Lungs But pray what does the Duty in the Foetus where during Nine Months the Lungs lye intirely idle For I doubt nothing but the Doctor knows the Foramenovale which
be understood yet if I be not deceived he endeavours to evince a thickness of Blood in Continual Fevers Leaving this I go to things more serious where it seems to me not improbable that one of the fundamental Errors into which the Doctor himself hath slipped is that which I have noticed before viz. The drawing of universal Conclusions from particular Propositions For by what I can learn from this Description it being indeed very hard at least for me to draw any thing therefrom he would gladly perswade us that Obstructions and only they are the Antecedent and for what I can see the Conjunct to Cause of Fevers The contrary of which not only innumerable Authors with infinite Examples have evinced But I my self have shewn above that there can be and frequently are other Three besides many moe by me over looked This is indeed a Rock upon which many excellent Men have split therefore to be pardoned in our Author and to disswade him therefrom to the Observation I gave before I shall now join other Two And First There was nothing more ordinary as upon the seeing Acids coagulate to assert that wherever Coagulation hapned there must of necessity exist an Acid While yet after Experience did teach us that Alcalies can crudle Milk and Spirit of Wine coagulate Humane Blood In the like manner Practitioners having found the good success of Acids at some occasions for they do it not always as Poterius observes in quickning the Digestion precariously they conclude an Acid Humor the principal Agent in Chylification Yea as Moebius observes it was received with so general Applause and Consent that it became almost Heresie to call it in question Albeit later Anatomists have not only demonstrate that Alcalies and Urinous Bodies may have the same yea greater Effect but have intirely banished the famed Acid its fictitious Office To shut up all it is this that hath given occasion to a great many Errors in Physick as well as Philosophy viz. That Phoenomena peculiar to this or the other subject have been generally applied to all kinds and so from particular Experiments and Observations we have formed universal Hypotheses Secondly I cannot conceive how Obstructions can be either so efficacious or so frequent as the Doctor insinuates I shall not make use of the ordinary Objection which nevertheless of no small force That there can be no Obstruction without a subsequent Tumor However I wish the Doctor had told us in which of the Vessels I mean Arteries or Veins these Obstructions fall out For first it is to me unconceivable how they can be in the Arteries seing nothing enters them that hath not first run through the small milky Vessels from thence to the Ductus Thoracicus which empties it self in the subclavial Vein and that again by the Vena Cava into the right Ventricle of the Heart out of which it is conveyed to the Lungs by the Pulmonal Artery and from thence to the Hearts left Ventricle by the Vein of the same Name from which as from a Fountain it is dispensed to the whole Body by the great Artery and its Branches All which being considered may not I reasonably argue That surely whatsomever hath passed these small Lymphaticks commonly called the milky Vessels and the capillary Branches of the Pulmonal Vein will never stick in any part of the great Artery especially when its strong and frequent Vibrations do afford great assistance to this its Motion Yea without stopping the Course of the Blood in the whole Branch it is altogether impossible that any Obstruction can happen in the minutest Artery The same Difficulties if not greater will meet us in the Veins which are the other kind of Vessels For if we consider their Figure we find it a Cone inverted now no Man of Sense will alledge that what hath entered the small end of a Cone as the Blood does in the Veins will stop in the great Ergo the Doctor 's Obstructions must be denied Several other Observations might safely be made on this Paradoxical as he himself P. 109 justly calls it Hypothesis But I shall detain the Reader no longer Only I cannot omit that in the beginning of the 8 Sect. he perswades himself that the rapid Circulaâ—ion of the Blood is wholly overturned and yet P. 105 where he is giving that which he would have us digest for a New Scheme of Fevers he boldly and as I think contradictorly affirms the Heart to redouble its Pulsations Which how it can happen ingenuously I nor I suppose none else can conceive Yea it is clearly repugnant to Reason and the Circulation Nevertheless I see by the 27 P of Philanders second Letter that the Doctor will needs defend it What D. Black or any who carries that Name may have said against it I am wholly ignorant these Books having never come to my Hands But what I shall do shall be only this to give a brief Account of the Hearts Motion and its Cause and so leave the Doctor and others to judge how reconcilable these Two are For the Heart to double its Pulsations and yet not to accelerate the Bloods Circulation The Blood that enters the right and left Ventricles of the Heart from the Vena Cava but especially Pulmoners does stimulate its Fibers By which stipulation the Animal Spirits are brought from the Brain by the Eight or wandring pair of Nerves and being deposed in its lax Fibers do contract the samen and straiten its Ventricles with so great a force that whatever is contained therein is expelled and thrust into the Arteries in this its Systole by which they are distended and acquire a Diastole After which the same Fibers are laxed and these of the Auricles contracted whereby the Blood these Auricles had immediatly received from the Veins is dismissed to the Heart which now by the Relaxation of its Fibers is in the Diastole Which Blood does a new stimulate as formerly and so procures to the Heart a new Systole under which the Blood is again thrust forth into the Arteries and occasioneth in them a Diastole or Beating So that the Arteries will never be distended except the Blood be admitted for they can be the cause of their own Systole but never of their Diastole Now how can a Man averr that the Heart can double its Pulsations and yet not render the Circulation more rapid Seing except it emit what Blood it had received in its last Diastole it can never obtain a new Systole The Systole being nothing save the contraction of the Fibers and expulsion of that Blood it had received in the former Diastole In a word it is as impossible for the Heart to be contracted in the Systole without expelling the contained Blood which must of necessity go into the Arteries and cause their Dilatation as it would be for the Doctor to press together the two sides of a Bladder filled with Water without expelling the contained Liquor By which brief and true Account of the
are either Heterogeneous Bodies mixed with the Blood which by stimulating the Ventricles of the Heart the interiour Coats of the Vessels and muscular Fibers of the Parts cause frequent Contraction and consequently swiftness of Motion or inciding and volatile Medicaments which partly attenuating and inciding the Mass of Blood partly amplifying and inlarging the Pores and Passages produce the same effect with the former When I speak here of intending the circular Motion I mean only that of the Arteries for both Reason and Experience teach us that the acceleration of the returning Motion by the Veins would rather prove a hinderance as a help to this as well as to all other Secretions First It is clear from Reason for if the Blood were as readily taken up by the Capillary Veins as its is brought in by the Arteries it must necessarly return again to the Heart from whence it came Whereas admittance being denied by the Veins it seeks another way or passage which is that of Secretion Neither does Experience deny its assent to this perpetual Truth For if you will tye the social Vein of any Artery by which Blood is carried to the secerning Organ v. g. the Vena emulgens you shall quickly observe the Secretion to be far more copious than when the regressive Motion was allowed So that I may reasonably affirm The slowness of the refluent Motion of the Blood by the Veins to be none of the least among the efficient Causes of Secretion And this much for the First Secondly I come to give some Reasons why in the Cure of Continual Fevers Physicians of all Ages have adopted and practised this Method of Sweating As also why we at this day especially while D. Brown offers a Surer and Better do imitate them in that which to speak in his Language is pernicious and destructive to Mankind Indeed if without Reasons and these weighty ones too we should do that which according to the V. S can be nothing but horrid Murder and devilish Malice In stead of being Cherished Honoured and Entertained as in all Ages and among all civilized People Physicians have been we ought to be taken and Hanged for Villains and publick Murderers But if I can prove our Method to be right which I 'le endeavour now and his to be wrong which is to be done hereafter when discoursing of Purging Then let him judge upon whom the Punishment ought to be inflicted It were easy to accumulate Arguments in Favours of Diaphoreticks but I shall satisfy my self and I hope my Reader to with the following three Let us then First According to the seventh Axiome consider the motion of Nature I mean the course it takes when left to its self as in many mean and Indigent People it ordinarly is And this is continually to seek its own Relief by Sweating so that not one Fever of a hundred and that of all sorts is Cured another way Is there any Country Clown so foolish but in a Fever he 'll cry for a Sweat and if either by Art or Nature he can procure it he will promise himself speedy Relief and certain safety Now this being granted the Dr. himself not darring deny it should not the Physicitians who have taken to themselves that modest Denomination of Natur 's Servants and whose duty it is to assist her when doing right and to Correct her when doing wrong as by all she is looked upon to do when endeavouring to ease her self by Seige in a Fever except perhaps once in a hundred times when it comes critically should not they I say imitate her in Curing Fevers by Diaphoreticks the ordinary yea I I may say the only way by which she removes that Distemper yea certainly they should and that according to good Old Hippocrats excellent Aphorisme Whethersoever Nature enclineth to go thither lead her and it conduceth Besides this it becomes us Secondly to consider the Seat of the Morbifick matter in Fevers which none will deny to be in the Arteries veins Likeways the conformation of these Vessels deserves our attention Their Roots being in the Heart while their Branches tend to all parts of the Body that I may shun all occasions of Objections I know that properly speaking the Origine of the Veins is in the parts and they terminate with one Root in the Heart Now let us consider by what way that which is contained in these Vessels may be best and easiliest expelled Surely any Man of sense and Reason will freely confess by their Extremities or ends of Anastomoses or Inosculations I have said what I thought necessary before which acknowledged we can not but also grant that whatsomever part of the Body manyest of these Extremitieâ— run to or where most of the Arteries end in there will be the readiesâ— and most natural way providing iâ— be as patent as others to discharge whatsomever is contained therein But most of these Extremities do terminate by far in the habit and that this way is as patent as any other insensible Transpiration which by the Doctors own concession exceeds all other Evacuations of the Body no less as three times does clearly evince Therefore from these premises I may lawfully conclude the habit to be the readiest and best way to expell whatsomever is contained Heterogeneous in the Blood It was not unadvisedly that I said where most Arteries end there will be the readiest way to expell the Morbifick matter For whosoever is not altogether ignorant of Anatomy will easily allow that whatever once enters the Veins can never be eliminate till such time as it again run through the Arteries At their small end it cannot be seing what once enters there can by no means return First because of their valves Secondly Because of the tonick motion of the parts And Thirdly because of the continual Influx of the Arterial Blood And as it cannot happen at their small ends arising from the parts so far less can it be at the great end which terminats in the Heart Nothing entring its Ventricles in the Diastole but what is again thrust out into the Pulmonal and great Artery in the Systole from all which it is clear that neither Secretion nor Excretion can be of the Venal Blood Yet here I 'll present the Doctor with a stronger argument for Purging in Fevers as his whole Book hath done to his Readers And it is this being I assert what no Physician if he be not destitute of Anatomy and Physiology the want of which bring inexpressible Damage to Physick will deny that wherever Arteries end and depositate what is in them contained there must needs happen the Expulsion of the Morbisick matter But the Arteries some of them at least end in the intestines Ergo there in these intestinal Glands must happen the secretion of the Morbifick matter All which I grant and acknowledge yea farther confirms by avowing the faces Ani to be not only Excrements of the first but also of the third and second Digestion