A THEORETICAL AND Chiefly Practical TREATISE OF FEVORS Wherein it 's made Evident that the Modern Practice of curing continual Fevors is dangerous and very unsuccessful Hereunto are added several Important Observations and Cures of Malignant Fevors not inserted in the former Impression Written in Latin by Gideon Harvey M. D. Physician in Ordinary to his Majesty Now rendered into English by I. T. and Surveyed by the Author LONDON Printed for William Thackeray at the Angel in Duck-Lane 1674. TO THE Physical Reader I Have long since observed that Physicians did not cure continual Fevors but rather did render them mortal Though if by good fortune any one hath been delivered of a Fevor it is only to be imputed to the strength of nature which if she had not been disturbed by improper means would have disintangled her self from the disease much sooner and with less danger The cause of this so unfortunate practice depends on a false supposition of fermentation whence since they desume erroneous indications the success must necessarily frustrate their expectation I confess I have made use of the term of fermentation in several Treatises and possibly in the illustration of Fevors but to this intent only that I might in some manner be complaisant to the received opinion of the times not in the least imagining the notion thereof necessary or contributing any whit to the knowledge or cure of Fevors Moreover the Reader is to take notice that at present I have not written or acted the part of a Professor in the Chair making a Methodical and Pedantick Lecture on the definition division next the causes then the Diagnostick and afterward the Prognostick signs of Fevors c. But it is my purpose to discourse succinctly of such things as are most necessary for a Practical Physician and of such other cases as I could call to mind since the time when I had seldom less in cure than two hundred Patients that lay sick of Fevors What concerns other theoretical notions and farther observations touching the several kinds of Fevors I shall hereafter propose them in distinct Sections in the mean time farewell Hatton Street near Holborn THE BOOK SELLER TO THE READER TAking my measures from the reception of the Latin Copies I judged I should do the publick service in causing this Treatise to be faithfully translated and that it might be attended with a greater welcom I have obtained the favor from the Author to make a superficial survey of the Translation and to insert the addition of very remarkable and important observations and cures which have rendred the Treatise at least a fourth part bigger than it was before in having procured this I doubt not but that you will easily believe I am your Friend and Servant W. T. A Theoretical and Practical TREATISE OF FEVORS CHAP. I. Of the Nature of Innate Heat IT is usual among Authors to derive the name they intend to impose upon the distempers of parts from the chiefest symptom whence the word Febris or Fevor being taken from fervor i. e. heat or from februa a sort of fiery sacrifices of the Antients or from the verb februo i. e. I cleanse likewise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek a Fevor from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fire seem to be applied to this distemper The word Fevor in English is certainly derived from fervor heat only leaving out the r and therefore ought to be written Fevor and not Fever unless you derive it from the French word fievre by omitting the i. Wherefore what this fervor or heat or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fire signifie will best appear by conferring with them the words Calor warmth and Calidum heat being their opposits from warmth Calor and heat Calidum we have our strength and live but through Fervor a destructive heat and fire we lose our strength and end our days It will much conduce to our purpose I judge to premise the difference of these words Calidum heat denotes a hot essence or substance but Calor warmth signifieth only a quality separable from its subject or hot nature by our thoughts or concept and not really though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 calidum or heat and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Calor warmth are by Hippocrates used in the same sense Neither are you to imagine that in feeling of Pulses of such as are ill of a Fevor it is not the quality of heat but fiery steems bodies really physical do strike your hand and ends of your fingers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fire is by Hippocrates expounded the Innate Heat of man but among the Latines generally a Fevor whence a Fevor may be commodiously defined A fire kindled out of the Innate heat of the body chiefly of the heart but secundarily Wherefore that the heart and its constitutive principle is the part for the most times hurt is evident from the fevorish affection and life the proper action of the heart being immediately opprest from the inordinate pulse a sudden decay of strength and the actions of the whole oeconomy being very considerably and all at once depravated and diminisht The experience of those that have put their finger into the ventricles of the heart the breast being suddenly opened of malefactors who by sentence have had their head cut off and have extracted it again thence very hot doth confirm that the Calidum or heat of the heart is a substance really burning about its chambers and thence diffusing flames through the articles to the circumference If on the other side the destructive nature of a burning heat be objected it 's not material considering the burning or flaming of brimstone or spirit of wine whose purity of flame will not burn those bodies it touches especially when through graduation of the air it may be moderated to any tone of heat or warmth Furthermore I state the Calidum Cordis or heat of the heart to be a Bitumen really ethereal and vital most exactly defecated or refined dispersing every where its most subtile and pure flames and feeding on the most pure and flowring particles of the blood But since it 's difficult to gain an universal assent that the nature of blood excercising so slender a commerce with the air and limited within the narrow bounds of the heart and arteries should be convertible into a flame and a perpetual warmth it may be rendred obvious by this only instance Namely almost all subterraneous waters that partake of a continual heat as the water of Aix la Chapelle Bathe and of other hot Baths since they source out of the deepest and most remote bosoms of the earth just in the same manner doth the indesatigable soring of vegetative or living blood leap very hot out of the bosom of the heart into the arteries like rivulets and certainly that which by natural Philosophers is asserted to be the cause of heat in those waters may easily be imposed upon me to believe the same to be the cause of heat in the blood
namely a Bitumen but not Sulphur being immediately extinguisht by water nor calx viva or lime there being no such fury of heat discoverable in the caverns of the earth as is requisite for its generation Wherefore in Bitumen only may be found a heat that is constant and scarce to be extinguisht for by water it 's apt to be kindled into a higher flame and to be nourisht by oyl and oylie bodies It is then in the heart where nature hath placed an abounding fountain of vital Bitumen on the purity and continuity of whose flame lise it self doth depend Neither must it be asserted that so great a proportion of this doth flow from the heart as to suffice to protract the life of it and of the whole structure for so many years but that it doth daily attract a bituminous nutriment from the streaming blood which being kindled into vital flames is by means of the pulse distributed into the rest of the small chanels of the body It must also be observed that all what we eat or drink the chyle and the blood do contain a certain proportion of Bitumen and as much hereof as there is abounding in them so much they are capable of being serviceable to the heart At present must be explained what and of what quality this Bitumen is namely a body grown out of a sulphureous oyl and a Colophony into a thick liquable and inflamable substance Such by distillation it 's also discovered to be in the analytick parts of the blood of a living creature to wit an oyl swimming a top the phlegm and a colophony with a part of fixed salt setled in the body of the glass-gourd withall a volatil salt passing the Alembick with the oyl which later namely the volatil salt it is that adds to the whole mixt body all its strength and power not unlike Gunpowder whose Nitro-salin particles being rendred volatil through virtue of the fire do assume so great a force that they strike any object whatsoever with the greatest alteration and the smartest blow imaginable when in the mean while the brimstone and the charcoal-dust only supply the place of a soporous matter From what hath been said the manner of the pulses may commodiously be extracted only conceiving that the Bitumen of the heart burning until the period of life and pour'd from the ascending vena cava into the left ventricle doth kindle the blood into a flame by vertue whereof the nitro-salin salt being blown into most volatile forcible particles is like Lightning or Gun-powder discharged out of a Gun propelled as it were by an elastick force into the Great and other Arteries CHAP. II. Concerning the differences of Pulses and their causes TO describe the difference and variety of the Waters of the Sea would prove a task less difficult than that of the pulsations of the Heart and Arteries which are subject to be altered by every passion wind and disease though Galen indeed counted them as if he had blown them out at his fingers ends among which notwithstanding scarce every third difference can be distinguisht by the feeling of a Spider Wherefore I shall only discourse of such which every one may almost discern in Fevors In the Pulse I use to mind first the strength or force next the swiftness of motion and thirdly the equality From the strength a pulse is called strong or weak hereunto are accounted a great pulse to wit full and strong and small namely empty and weak the causes of the strength of the pulse I state to be the abundance of volatil salt being vigorously and smartly discharged through the pulse of the blood and the strength of the fibres being well nourisht with the moisture of the brain On the contrary the defect of salt and emptiness of the fibres cause a weak pulse Here it 's worthy of your observance that the pulse in some sevorish Patients is found much stronger than it was in their state of health and what is more in some who were reduced to so low an ebb of strength that they were scarce able to keep death a day from their door I remember their pulse would beat the tops of ones fingers smartly which notwithstanding in my opinion ought not to be called a strong pulse but violent for the vital faculty being irritated by a corroding and reverberated kind of salt is forced into those violent pulsations whence falling at last into a very in all and most quick pulse is immediately attended with an Asphyxia or ceasing of pulsation It is an easie business to distinguish a violent pulse from a strong the former doth come full to the fingers the later empty Secondly I have oft met with a weak pulse in such as lay sick of Fevors that they seemed not to be able to hold out two days which notwithstanding have for a fortnight or twenty days strove very successfully with the disease This pulse proceeds from a thick and moist blood which by a continuated rarefaction and reiterated circulation being advanced to a higher degree of concoction doth revive the vital faculty whilst in the mean time there hath been sustained no great loss of volatil salt in those weak pulsations I have many times taken notice of this case in women that lay sick of Fevors wherefore it is warily pronounced by Hippocrates Aphor. 19. lib. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. The predictions of life and death in acute Fevors are not always certain and without doubt That we may avoid being mistaken we are to distinguish a pulse that 's really weak is empty and small and for the most part inequal in motion and weakness neither did it differ much from that degree since the beginning Under the motion of pulsation I take a slow and swift pulse likewise a thick and rare pulse A slow pulse is known by moving slowly from the systole or a contraction of the pulse to the diastole or a widening or dilatation of the pulse and again from the diastole to the systole A quick pulse is known by its quick pace from the systole to the diastole and so reciprocally A thick pulse to me is which is perceived by the finger by its frequent beatings or retreats a rare pulse contrariwise Here may be noted in my apprehension a pulse can scarce be discovered slow and thick at once when a slow pulse necessarily doth not return frequently or thick because it 's slow but according to the common maxim a thick and slow pulse may happen together because it is called thick in respect of the interval or rest between the systole and diastole namely which returns in a short space of time but a pulse may move slow from the systole to the diastole so that there is but a small interval between before it returns from the diastole to the systole and thence it 's termed thick But taking the matter into farther consideration there is scarce any such pulse as a thick or frequent one according
inferred a disease since the blood also because it 's a fluent matter cannot justly deserve the name of a part but a cause of a disease or the vehicle of it Thirdly The bones cartilages and ligaments are not sensible of heat neither are they subject to receive any putrid heat because in a Fevor they are seldom or never observed to be taken with a putrefaction or rottenness how can then a Fevor be termed a preternatural heat of all the parts Likewise Fourthly Why ought the name of Fevor to be attributed to a fevorish heat more than to a shaking or fevorish coldness in the beginning of a paroxysm of a Fevor both the former and the later flowing equally as symptoms from a Fevor Fifthly An universal heat is erroneously ascribed to a Fevor for in a lipyrious Fevor a torrid heat doth torment the internal parts though the externals are cold moreover it oft happens that the hands and feet are stiff of cold and the entrails do in a manner glow with a burning heat Furthermore it may be observed that a Fevor doth sometimes only haunt one single part as the foot or hand Neither have I forgotten a certain Fevor whose heat extended no further than the head and face Hereunto add that those particular Fevors are not only inferred to be such because of the preternatural heat but also by reason of the preceeding cold shaking and ulcerous lassitude Sixthly those that swell so much with the Doctrine of Fermentation they do not altogether affirm that it is a preternatural heat that constitutes a Fevor since the forementioned heat doth take its rise from a heap of influent spirits striving to expel humours and such small bodies as are annoying which heat ought therefore rather to be judged natural than against nature In the second position we maintain that the heat that attends a Fevor is not always kindled in the heart as if the primar hearth were there which assertion is proved from the kinds of symptomatick Fevors for the Fevor that surprises a wounded patient or one that 's detained with an inflamation of an entrail as the Spleen Liver or Kidney certainly it 's not first kindled in the heart but in the part affected whence afterwards it 's dispersed throughout the whole structure Secondly If the heart were the only brand of fevorish heat the blood that passeth through its ventricles should retain a mark of being burnt and undergo some change of tincture when on the contrary thousands that have been bleeded in Fevors their blood that was extracted hath appeared to the eye to be of a pure scarlet and florid until the fourth and oft until the sixth and eighth day In the next paragraph I have thought fit to please my self with the examination of the vulgar opinion concerning the common seat of continual putrid Fevors intimating it to be the blood seething in the vessels and stained with putrefaction but how grosly this rabble of Physicians is mistaken may be extracted from what shall be proposed First If the sprout of a continual Fevor were ingraffed on the blood it would not be so refractory to cure but consisting of fluid and moveable elements by means of alteratives purgers diaphoreticks and emptying the vessels by opening a vein might in a short time be reduced to its former purity and temperament moreover through one nights seething of the blood nature doth oft expel those thin little bodies that float in it and the grosser it casts forth into pustules botches and other such tumors Secondly I cannot grant that what is stirred by motion and continual flowing as the blood is that it is easily taken with putrefaction for being full of vital spirits and living heat it 's held in a continual motion Thirdly Until the third fourth sixth eighth or tenth day computing from the beginning of the distemper according to the degree of the height of the Fevor the blood at the first phlebotomy is extracted pure and florid as I have observed in hundreds whence it 's evident that the primar matter of putrefaction and the seat thereof is erroneously placed in the blood though afterwards passing the entrails it be stained with a malignant quality loading it self thence with hot Miasms and Salts Fourthly pure phlegm or veiny gelly being watered with an immoderate quantity of a pale green and blew lymph or whey since it makes two thirds of the blood in the veins of those that are troubled with the Dropsie Green-sickness and other kinds of diseases why is not that blood which is so heterogeneous and so far remote from a temperature moisture abounding and the plurality of particles breeding putrefaction always forced into a fevorish heat And on the contrary why are hot and dry temperaments where choler is abounding constantly so inclinable to putrid Fevors whereas dryness doth so particularly resist putrefaction Summarily the blood according as I have asserted in the premises since upon no pretence it 's to be accounted among the parts of the body doth utterly exclude it self being capable to be a seat place or part affected If peradventure you doubt that I have hitherto receeded from the path of the received doctrine stating the heart or other entrail the seat in Fevors you have the liberty to take it from the fountain what is to be concluded concerning the matter Avicen fen 1. lib. 4. tract 2. cap. 43. dictates thus Dicamus quod Febris sanguinis est Febris putredinis Febris calefactionis ebullitionis that is Let us say that a Fevor of the blood is a Fevor of putrefaction and a Fevor of heat and ebullition Here is to be noted that the blood is inferred the subject matter and seat of a putrid Fevor Also Galen lib. 2. de Cris. cap. 12. Manentibus igitur in venis humoribus continuae ex ipsis Febres generantur that is The humors remaining in the veins continual Fevors are engendred out of them Likewise Aetius tetrab 2. Serm. 2. cap. 74. Putrescentes igitur humores aut intra vasa arctati continuas nunquam intermittentes usque ad perfectam morbi solutionem Febris efficiunt that is Wherefore humours putrefying or streightned within the vessels do cause continual Fevors and never intermitting until the perfect solution of the disease Here by the way observe though according to Galen Fevors are seated in the veins by their name Arteries are also described as lib. 1. de Crisib cap. 7. it 's by him more largely expressed Febres omnes sunt passiones venarum itaque in Febribus omnibus quoniam venosi sunt generis passiones nam arterias in hoc genere comprehendimus ad urinas praecipue attendere oportet the English is All Fevors are passions of the veins wherefore in all Fevors because they are passions of the veiny gender for we comprehend the arteries also in this gender we ought chiefly to heed the Urins On the other side they have destined the seat of intermittent Fevors to be without the vessels
commended for oppugning this Epidemick venom with all their force ought to be preferred What concerns Spirits of Hartshorn you would stand in a doubt whether they be more prevalent in their pernicious qualities or in their ungrateful tast This latter is taken notice of by all that have had the occasion of tasting them the former is very amply asserted from the complaints of those that have used them for they are no sooner past the throat but have caused a furious burning in the stomach and entrails raised the fermentation to the highest pitch put the whole structure into a fire and destroyed the spirits and strength of nature All these evils do proceed from an impure and venomous sulphur that is latent in the spirits of Harts-born and corroding fiery volatil salt that is united with the foresaid sulphur Notwithstanding though the aforesaid spirits are so virulent and deleterious they are not quite to be rejected for experience and authority do witness that the most mortal venoms namely Antimony Quicksilver Arsenick c. do contain within their bowels an alexipharmacal vertue which is very powerful in expelling of venom and other subtil malignitles Wherefore if the spirits of Hartshorn by a particular preparation are purged of that virulent sulphur and the force of its corrosive salts extinguisht there will be remaining only a pure cordial sulphur and a most subtil volatil salt which by their close union and coalescence do not only contribute strength to the vital spirits but with an united force first extinguish the malignant miasms and afterwards expel them These spirits do not burn and inflame like others but consist of a pure ethereal and most penetrating body and are famed not for intending the fermentation but rendring it apt and easie whereon the efficacy of the cure doth chiefly depend The fame of Lapis Contrajerva against putrid and malignant Fevors is spread among most people but how deservedly let those judge that have made trial of it The Contrajerva roots which are the base of the composition besides dregs and a mealy thickness contain neither volatil not fixt salt that is effectual nor any quality that may be discovered by scent or tast but on the other hand it is inferred from many experiments though the root hath been given in a double dose to those that lay sick in fevors that it scarce did a pins worth of good The Virginian root doth potently heat and kindle the Bitumen of the humours so that it doth not effect so much good by its diaphoretick vertue as it doth harm by its caustick quality Cochenil grains do recreate the sight by its colour but not at all the vital spirits by its cordial vertue Priests do swear on the words of the Gospel but some Physitians swear more religiously on the stupendious vertues of Extractum Cardiacum described above But whence such great vertues should proceed may be lawfully inquired into Certainly in all extracts the most active particles do together with the Menstruum that is evaporated fly away into the air a gross dreg that is without any soul in it remaining in the bottom and constituting the body of the extract pray tell me are there not wonderful faculties for suppressing malignant Fevors hidden in the bowels of such a kind of Extract Moreover since Narcoticks are the chiefest parts of it the vital spirits being now ingaged at the deepest and somewhat giving way are not to be quite cast down and overthrown by such Narcoticks or their strength to be settered by them Wherefore those things are to be given with a great deal of caution and scruple especially to such as lye languishing to avoid the throwing them into a sleeping bottomless pit as most may remember hath happened to many Others endeavour to relieve cast down Nature with pretious fragments Bezoar stone Pearl Coral and shelly medicines as if they would redeem her for a certain price from a deplorable state but to no purpose for these premised stones since they do chiefly consist of a ponderous earth though pure and transparent being taken inwardly through their weight sink to the bottom of the stomach which for that reason they do extreamly burden and oppress and occasion obstructions round about Under what notion they refresh the heart and vital spirits and oppugn the malignity hath not been my luck hitherto to discover it 's true through their splendor and rayes they recreate the optick and likewise sympathetically the other animal spirits but do not in the least strengthen but by dispersing the sight rather weaken them When they are reduced into powder they contain nothing that is volatil nor any fixt salt that may be advantageous for the liquor that floats in the stomach to extract unless they are calcined before If you instance that the acid liquor of the stomach which goeth by the name of a Ferment doth extract the tincture out of them that contains all their energy and entire faculties take for answer that 1. At the time of a Fevor the stomach is quite deprived of that acid humour 2. The tincture of almost all stones are not real tinctures but alterations and concoctions of the Menstruum proceeding from the matter that is to be extracted which notwithstanding doth not communicate the least thing to it since after the extraction is made if it be weighed in a scale there is not a grain of its weight lessened Moreover what concerns the Bezoar stone I have known seventeen grains of it given to a Vintners child that was scarce two years old without the least operation or alteration following upon it Some that were grown up who had taken half a dram of it found no kind of alteration but an oppression and weight at their stomach besides I pass by that the greater part of those stones is fictitious and counterfeit At the conclusion of this chapter there remains something to be said concerning the use of Epispasticks According as they are usually applyed by Physitians now a days their greatest benefit is that a few namely such as lay ill of Fevors having undergone the punishment of Vesicatories had recovered their former health and many that had received the same kind of punishment were dead At present ought to be inquired into the matter of fact whether those few ought rather to bless Vesicatories for their recovery than many others to curse them for being the occasion of their death The case is to be decided by the consequence a few that have used Vesicatories have escaped many that have used Vesicatories have perisht it may then probably be concluded that the use of Vesicatories is pernicious and mortal But let us take the reason of the thing into consideration for the most part that small number that have escaped from a continual Fevor after the concoction was past which through occasion of their lowness of strength was not discovered have had Vesicatories applied which by reason of the concoction and separation have drawn forth a great
the same manner if you pour some drops of those forementioned volatil liquors into a small quantity of blood though crude and phlegmatick you will digest it into laudable blood and preserve it warm and slorid but upon dropping some oyl of Vitriol into it it turns immediately into a curd the serum or whey is depressed downwards and assumes a purple red colour Spirit of Nitre doth pervert the redness into a whitish or ash colour but doth not precipitate the whey suffering it to swim a top Upon the further pursuit of the matter I dropt a drop into a large proportion of blood almost coagulated whereby almost in a moment the tye of the coagulative particles was dissolved and indued with a shining lustre not at all inferiour to the best digested blood Neither doth it only from this external use deserve to be termed so admirable but that in a short time being used inwardly as I have oft made trial it hath singularly digested the crude blood of Asthmaticks Scorbuticks and of worfer habits A consistency between thick and thin signifies a vigour of concoction chiefly to be ascribed to the volatil salt living in the vital Bitumen The causes of the thinness or tenuity of urine in those that are sick of a Fevor are the scarcity of volatil and sixt salts not being separated from the torrent floating through the great vessels also the drying away of the mucilage of the blood through the heat or its dissipation through the pores The thickness of urine is occasioned by the whey or serum imbibing too great a quantity of salt and thick mucilage Touching the matter of the hypostasis or settlement of the urine there hath hitherto but little certainly been stated among Authors though most are of opinion it proceeds from the superfluous humour of the third concoction To me the sediment appears to be a mucilage partly imbibed by the serum or whey within the vessels partly deterged from the slimy substance of the intern tunick of the ureters and bladder wherewith they are liquored to prevent their most exquisite sense be not hurt by the urine that flows by This mucilage if you examine the Chamber-pot shall be found to be a glutinous thick and slippery slime moreover that it 's dissolvable by heat and apt to be thickned by cold like phlegm may be observed in turbid urines which as long as they continue warm after they are made are clear and perspicuous but a little after growing cold are turned into turbid and dark being deprived of the energy of the particles of hot volatil salts that dissolved the slime for if you do but hold the urinal a moment to the heat of the fire or hold it in warm water they will resume their former shape of clearness Bubbles that oft swim a top the surface I judge ought not to be imputed to a slatuous but lixivious constitution of urine for ashes soap and other lixivious things being dissolved in water render it subject to turn frothy and bubbly with the least stirring The colour consistency and contents are chief universals whence a Physician may extract what preternaturals lye hidden in the body The colour discovers the active qualities of the salts the consistency the state of the serum or whey and the contents the quantity of the foresaid salts and other excrements that had performed their office a further and particular explication of all these relating to the kinds of Fevors shall be reserved to the sequel of the book Lastly it is to be noted that in the contents are included the enaeorema and hypostasis CHAP. IV. Concerning the true and Spurious Essence of a Fevor IN the first Chapter we had hinted at the definition of a Fevor what concerns its explication we have partly referred hither That a Fevor is a derivative from the nature of fire is abundantly suggested from its destructive manner of acting most fierce heat the tongue and roof of the mouth being crusted with a black smoak likewise from other symptoms thence proceeding as thirst dryness and roughness of the skin and inflammation of several parts Here the Reader is to assume that the vital Bitumen of the heart and the whole body being kindled into a fire is the disease or Fevor or rather that the fiery distemper of the heart and the whole body or part is the disease but not the preternatural heat being that's rather to be counted a symptom immediately flowing from the disease in no wise differing from the manner the heat emanates from the fire Wherefore the definition which is extant among Academick Authors as Fernelius Sennertus and others ought justly to be rejected To wit A Fevor is a heat against nature kindled in the heart and from thence by means of the spirits and blood diffused throughout the whole body and doing hurt to all the natural actions The objections against this definition I offer you in these positions First I assert that the essence of a Fevor doth in no wise consist in an universal heat nor secondly that the heat which attends a Fevor doth not altogether arise from sparks glittering in the heart The argument that confirms the former is taken from the genus of a Fevor which is stated a disease but a disease is said to be the constitution of a part hurt or injured which kind of saying doth not at all agree with a preternatural heat that depends on the burning fixt Bitumen of a part or oft on miasms or steems blown from the heart the receptacle of the fire to all or most parts of the body but those torrid miasms are not to be taken for the disease but causes that in process of time through their heat may occasion a disease Here may be offered a probable objection that a Fevor is the kindling or heat of the influent spirits of each single or more parts whose hurt is to be imputed immediately to the heat of the spirits whence a Fevor may justly be judged a heat Hereunto must be replied that the name of a part of the body can in no wise be given to the spirits because they flow continually neither are they in any manner permanent but are assigned for the animation and nutrition of the parts and for that reason their distemper ought not to be taken for a disease if notwithstanding the subversion of the temperament of a part should flow from a tumult of the influent spirits and that thence they should be incapable of performing their offices nevertheless because it 's a mediate affection and to be derived from the burning of the spirits it 's not to be taken for a disease but a cause Secondly If from the general opinion you have a mind to instance that the putrid heat of all the parts of the body is a Fevor to wit a continual putrid one supposing likewise that the said heat is risen out of the blood only being through its means conveyed to the sanguin parts I answer it ought not be
as appears here and there by the writings of Galen and Avicen Notwithstanding I can scarce apprehend the foundation of these seats wherefore I desire to be satisfied in this doubt whether continual Fevors are said to bud forth in the veins because the blood that leaps out upon phlebotomy doth appear hot to the touch and shews deep red being mixt with a blew milky or yellowish whey But this blood is not different from any other that 's extracted in an intermittent Fevor or any other disease And whether the difference of seats is expounded to be such because the blood within the vessels having an immediate commerce with the heart is capable to foment a strong heat whereas entrails that are more remote from the heart do only by fits profuse those putrid and fevorish steems and under that shape do occasion an intermittent heat Certainly not Moreover the entrails being tyed to the vessels are not less commodiously situated by means of these small chanels that tend directly to the heart to foment a fevorish heat than if the cause were engendred within the foresaid vessels or whether because the vessels are of a just capacity wherein they may receive such a quantity of fevorish matter as may suffice to nourish a Fevor without intermission whereas the entrails are stated to be streight and not provided with a hollowness to retain matter enough On the other hand the entrails according to what the thing requires ought to ingurgitate a larger quantity of matter which might suffice to protract an intermittent Fevor to some months and years as doth oft happen But to touch the knot of the difficulty the cause of the continuation intermission remission and intention of Fevors is not to be imputed so much to the quantity as the quality of the fevorish matter as hereafter shall be treated more at large In the precited definition the heart is idly stated the part primarily affected for thence would follow that the greater part of Fevors should be mortal because the composure of its temperament being once subverted is not easily restored Secondly Suppose an inflammation of the Liver or other entrail attended with a Fevor which do you think the part primarily affected the Heart or Liver CHAP. V. Concerning the fopperies of Fermentation ALmost every Barber and Plaster-spreader have got the knack to buzze every patient in the ear the song of fermentation and know how to fit the tone of it to every disease but chiefly to a Fevor illustrating the exposition thereof with this commentary that the blood fermenteth and the humors are in a fermentation likewise the ferment of the Heart Spleen Liver and it may be of the Fundament too if they go not orderly to stool is depravated moreover if a Corn of the Toe doth but ake the distempered ferment is the cause of it Summarily fitting the word ferment to every disease cause and symptom they conceive the case to be very well handled and thence tell the Patient they will expel the disease by correcting the serment and so as if they had done their business mighty well they send the Patient home swelled with hopes Concerning this abstruse Philosophy borrowed from certain theorems of the Wine-press and chymical notions Anthonius Guntherus Theobaldius Hoghelandius Felicianus Betera Conringius Martinus Kirger and others have prosessedly treated whose Treatises if you peruse you will find the word fermentation to serve in divers significations the one in a large sense gives the description of it not at all different from Peripatetical mixtion excepting that this performs its task by qualities the other by action and reaction But fermentation in a narrower signification as it relates to fluids is stated an effervescency of any liquor tending to concoction At present we will examine whether a Fevor be a fermentation or effervescency of the blood To the resolving of this we must resume from what hath been said in the foregoing Chapter that a Fevor as it is a disease of the body doth necessarily inhere in a part as its subject and foundation but the blood cannot perform the office of a part therefore neither a Fevor or fermentation can be properly attributed to it Secondly Neither can the blood fermenting be probably conceived to be the continent cause of a Fevor because its fluid mixture is absorbed in a few days whereas a Fevor is protracted to some weeks Suppose a fevorish Patient to contain four and twenty pints of blood in his vessels whereof a quarter of a pint is consumed every day by abstinence and dissipated away through the pores into vapors and some days a whole pint or at least three quarters are drawn off by phlebotomy for it 's very familiar amongst the French the first and second opening of a vein to extract a whole pint of blood and every bleeding afterward which is commonly every other day to take away two Porringers containing three ounces a piece by this computation the whole mass should be drawn off in two weeks or less and consequently the fermentation must be quieted and stopt and the Fevor expelled But on the contrary if you should extract blood forty times as I have oft observed in France they have done the height of the heat will not be half a degree abated but rather augmented Who would then maintain the blood boiling through fermentation to be the cause of a Fevor However this experiment is observed to be true if you take off the third part of any liquor that is a fermenting whether of Wine Beer or any other mixture it will immediately be taken off from working but ofttimes the blood is tapt off to the half and sometimes to the last fourth part without the least quieting of the fermentation if I may call it so Possibly you reply that according as the vessels are emptied by bleeding sweating and other torments they swell up again by the food and drink that 's daily taken On the contrary there is a thin Diet ordered to such as are in a Fevor neither do most in the whole course of a Fevor allow their stomach so much as whereout the sanguifick faculty may engender a pound of blood add hereunto that their appetite for fourteen or twenty days is quite dejected But you reply that they take as much food as answers what is consumed to this I return that the blood which is daily ingendred and newly admitted into the vessels either it 's pure or stained if the former then it ought to dilute and temperate the fermenting mass which it doth in no manner do if the later it is not to be doubted but that it hath contracted its stain from the concocting and depurating entrails whence follows that the primar and principal cause is not to be attributed to the blood but the entrails Thirdly It 's confirmed by experience that fermentation doth happen to any mixt liquor and soft compositions as paste or dow electuaries and others which is observed to be a mild working of