by devouring and consuming of the radical moisture whence it would follow That the heart is the Torch of a consuming fire But notwithstanding seeing the substance of the Heart and Pericardium or case of the Heart and also of the Bloud is not fit for fire They have been forced to confesse that fire not to be fire and that heat not to be fiery yet devouring but they have said It is sufficient for them to have described the Fewelor Torch or Beginning of heat Metaphorically As if nature should admit of Metaphors For first of all I remember that some swooning Virgins were beref't of Pulse and breathing so far as was conjectured by humane judgement and so for some hours were bewayled among the dead yet that they revived and being married afterwards to have lived without sicknesse and to have brought forth five or six times For they were cold as Ice assoon as their Pulse had failed from whence I began to be doubtful whether the Pulse were not made rather for the effecting of Heats sake than through the occasion of fetching in cold whence I began to account the final causes of Pulses to be frivolous and so also I suspected the presaging part of healing to be weakened And that I thus prove For there is Hedge or Partition between both bosomes of the Heart in it self as long as life remains So Porie That by the attraction of the ears of the Heart for on both sides it is reckoned to be eared by way of proportionable Resemblance because it hath as it were Bellows the Veinie Bloud doth passe from the hollow Vein forming the right bosom of the Heart by its passage and wanders into the left bosom not likewise from hence to the right bosome Because the pores in the hedge or partition it self are triangular whose Cone or sharp point ending in the left bosom is the more easily encompassed or pressed together but the Base of that Triangle in the right bosom never but by death But the bloud of the left bosom is now arteriall and is the bloud of a true name being diverse from the bloud it self as being yet in the hollow vein in colour and subtility or fineness Wherefore I must needs not without cause have found out a new or fourth digestion in the left stomach of the heart For no otherwise than as the bloud of the veins differs from the cream and chyle so also doth the bloud of the Arteries differ from the thick bloud of the veins although by a neerer kinne and cloathing of the Heavens they have after a sort returned into one Family Yet in that is the specificall difference of both that the arterial bloud is informed by the immortall Soul in the left bosom but the venall bloud not and that it is illustrated onely by the light of the sensitive form participatively but not informatively For the other digestions do require rest But the fourth is perfected by an uncessant continuation of motion Not indeed that the very motion of the heart is the formall transchangeative cause but onely that it concurs dispositively Indeed in the left bosom of the heart as it were in a stomach doth a singular most vitall and lightsom Ferment dwell which is a sufficient cause of the venall bloud its being transchanged into arterial bloud even as it is chief in the transmutation of arteriall bloud into vitall Spirit Because all venal bloud doth naturally tend into its own end which is nourishment yet at last it is dispersed and vanisheth away into a vapour or into a Gas unless it be stayed by the Coagulum or co-thickning of growth But the arterial bloud hath for its aim not indeed that it may incline into a smoakiness or excrement For if that thing come to passe it happeneth to it from a Disease and by accident After another manner the proper object of the arterial bloud is to be brought over into vitall Spirit which if afterwards it doth also vanish let this be unto it besides its intent Seeing that every Being doth naturally desire to remain For the vitall Spirit is a light originally dwelling in the Ferment of the left bosom which enlightneth new Spirits bred by the arterial bloud to wit for which continuation of light the Arterie is lifted up For thus the Spirits are made the partakers of life and the executers thereof even as also the Vulcans of continued heat Therefore the life of man is a formall light and almost also the lightsom or clear sensitive Soul it self and so death doth forthwith follow the blowing out of this Because the immortall minde is involved in the sensitive Soul which after death slies away this other perishing But far be it that that vitall light be called fiery burning and destroying the radicall moysture and that by the continuall plenty of the smoakie vapours hereof it should defile the heart and Arteries But it is a formall light even as I have said before concerning Forms for neither shall he ever otherwise describe the in-most essence of life who had seen the formall lives of things even in an Extasie Because words are wanting and names whereby these may be shewen or called as it were by an Etymologie from a former cause And although God had shewen to any one the essence of life in a composed Body yet he will never give his own honour of teaching it unto any Creature Seeing life in the abstract is the incomprehensible God himself For so by little and little the meat and drink ascends into the Chyle or juyce of the stomach into the juyce of the mesentery or Crow into venal bloud and at length by arteriall bloud unto a most thin Skie or Air the vitall Spirit and the prop of the Soul which exchanging doth presuppose a motion of the heart For neither is it sufficient that the Ferment be effective efficiently that the arterial bloud be quickened and turned into Spirit and it to dwell in the left bosom of the heart unless a pulsative motion doth concur which is likened to the motion whereby sowrish milk or cream by a true transmutation is changed into Butter For by the motion is made an extenuating not indeed of the soure but of the salt arterial bloud neither therefore is it turned into a fat or butter but into vitall Spirit of the nature of a Salt and so of a Balsam For so the arteriall bloud is by motion heat and the Ferment changed into an Aiery or Skyie off-spring the immediate Inne of a vitall light Wherefore the Bloud VVater and Spirit are one and the same For if that light be in the Spirit but this be carried thorow the Arteries into the whole Body also that light ought to be on every side continuall to it self seeing it is the property of light else to be extinguished Therefore the Arteries ought to remain open so indeed that they do never remain long pressed together wherefore it was also meet that the pulse should dilate the same nor
also that That Oyls and Emplasters are the true food of wounds so that a wound is truly nourished by them and that the corrupt matter is the excrement of that nourishment Therefore the sour salt of the Cream seeing it is destitute of an object and the which seeing it wandreth through the action of a dissolver into a fixed salt as I have taught before concerning volatile spirits it is suitably exchanged into the volatile salt of Urine And that not by the action or re-action of sournesse on a certain object but by a true fermental transforming for the Spirit of life it self is of the nature of a volatile salt and of that which is salt And so even from hence alone the vital action of the Gaul is proved For Sea salt being oft eaten doth remain almost whole in the excrements Which thing the Boylers of Salt-peter do experience against their wills For they are constrained to seperate salt out of the dung of Jakeses being sometimes eaten up by the Salt-peter through a repeated boyling and coagulation of cooling For the Sea salt being coagulated doth stick fast to the spondils or chinks of the vessels being nothing changed from it self long ago eaten And that before the Salt-peter hath obtained a sufficient drying up of its own coagulation And therefore from hence it is known that Sea-salt is more readily coagulated than Salt-peter Therefore humane excrements are lesse fit for Salt-peter than otherwise those of Goats Sheep and Herds Yet as much of that Sea-salt as is subdued by the ferment of the stomack so much also is sour and volatile Consequently also although any one do use no salt his Urine should not therefore want salt because it is that which is a new creature and a new product out of the sour of the Cream The Salt of the Urine therefore hath not its like in the whole Systeme of nature For not that of the Sea Fountain Rock Gemme not Nitre not that of Salt-peter Alume or Borace Lastly not of any of natural things as neither the Salt of the Urine of flocks or herd with which although it may agree in the manner of making yet the salt of mans Urine disagreeth from them throughout the general and particular kinds no lesse than dungs do vary throughout the species of Bruits although bruits are fed with common fodder to wit by reason of the diversities of an Archeus and Ferment Therefore of meats and drinks not sour or salt is made a salt sour and at length a salt Salt and it is easier for a thing of a sour salt to be made Salt than of not Salt to be made sour salt I remember that I have seen a Chymist who every yeer did fill a Hogs-head of Vinegar to two third parts with water of the River Rhoan he exposed it to the heats of the Sun and so he transchanged the water in it self without savour into true Vinegar a ferment being conceived out of the Hogs-head This I say he was thus wont to do by reason of the singular property of that Vinegar For truly out of the Vinegar of Wine the weaker part doth alwayes drop or still first but the more pure part a little before the end riseth up with the dregs but this Vinegar made of meer water as it wants dregs so it alwayes doth minister an equall distillation from the Beginning even to the end Wherefore as the ferment of a vessel doth by its odour alone change Water into Vinegar So indeed by the fermental odour of the Spleen breathed into the stomack meats are made a sour Cream which afterwards is turned into a urinous salt yea and into a vital one Because the Schools never dreamed of these things neither had their followers read them in the labours or night watches of their Predecessors therefore they have been ignorant of the use of parts and ferments and the celebrations or solemnities of transmutations but they have introduced both the Cholers into the masse of the bloud Lastly They have not known the Contents and be-tokenings of the Urine Therefore the third Digestion is made by the President-ferment of the Liver which is by the blind odour of a Gas doth begin Sanguification in its own stomack of the Mesentery and at length perfecteth it in the hollow Vein Furthermore The fourth Digestion is compleated in the Heart and Artery thereof in which elaboration the red and more gross blood of the the hollow Vein is elaborated made yellower and plainly volatile For the heart is said to be eared on both sides and hath at its left bosom one onely beating Artery inserted in a great Trunk fit for it that by a double rowing it may the more strongly draw the fenced venal bloud which is between both bosoms in the middle of the heart Refer thou hither what I have above noted concerning the porosity of the hedge or partition which distinguisheth the bosoms of the heart and why the Arterial bloud doth not return from the left bosome into the right but only the spirit of life as it were through a thin sive Therefore the venal bloud of the Liver differs from the arterial bloud by the fourth digestion manifested by the colour and consistence of the matter digested But the fifth Digestion doth transchange the Arterial blood into the vital spirit of an Archeus of which I have discoursed under the Blas of man as also under The Spirit of Life I could not satisfie my self that in the venal bloud of the Liver there was any spirit although it hath gotten a degree of its perfection after that it hath overcome or exceeded the Mesentery But that venal blood alwayes seemed to me as it were a certain Masse of Mummie and the matter Ex qua or whereof But not as yet to be accounted for perfect vital blood For if the blood of the hollow vein had begged a spirit from the Liver the right ear of the heart had been in vain which works uncessantly for no other end than that some spirit may be drawn from the left bosom thorow the fence of the heart that the blood in the hollow vein nigh the heart may begin to be quickned by the participation of that spirit But seeing from the left sides there is an ear and especially the notable Trunk of an Artery hence also the â—â—cking is stronger from the left bosom And from hence by consequence also little of the vital Spirit is communicated to the venal blood For truly the blood of the Liver is alwayes throughout its whole moist with too much liquor whereof it ought to be deprived before that it be made a fruitful and worthy support of spirit neither finally hath the Liver had a fit hollowness in it self for the framing of spirit Wherefore as I have intellectually seen throughout the whole Scene of Generation one onely Framer and Ruler of the spirits of life in the seed So also I admit of one onely spirit of the vital family-government For the venal
Mathematical if six do notably hurt three cannot but hurt although not so sensibly But it is not permitted him to hurt nature who ought to heal and restore the same if nature her self ought to be the Physitianesse to her self and by so much the more prosperous by how much the more strong For it is sufficient for a Physitian that the sick doth otherwise decay through the disease with hungers lack of appetites disquietnesses pains anguishes watchings sweats and with an unexcusable weakness Neither therefore ought a faithful helper to add weakness unto weakness It is a deceitful succour which the cutting of a vein brings and the remedy thereof is so uncertain that no Physitian hath hitherto dared to promise a future cure from thence Every Artificer doth what he promiseth For a Statuary undoubtedly prepares an Image and a Shoomaker shooes But the Physitian alone dares to promise nothing from his Art because he is supported with uncertain foundations being only by accident now and then and painfully profitable Because however thou shalt interpret the matter that is full of ignorance which would cure by procured weakness For by a sudden emptying out of the blood made by heaps nature for the most part neglects the expulsion of her enemy which expulsion notwithstanding I have demonstrated to contain the whole Tragedy of Fevers and Nature Besides it is confessed That the matter of a Fever doth not consist in a vein above the heart and by consequence that neither doth the cutting of a vein any way exhaust the occasional matter or effectively cure by a direct intention of healing Again If blood be to be let forth for a more easie transpiration of the Arteries That al leastwise shall be in vain in the beginnings and increases of Fevers whenas the heat is not yet vigorous And seeing that blood is not to be let out in the state as neither in the declining thereof Therefore never But that not in their state or height it is proved because a Crisis or judicial sign is hindered seeing Nature as they write being very greatly letted or cumbred strives with the disease and being for the most part the Conqueresse doth then least of all endure the loss of strength and a calling away from the Duel But if nature be conquered in the state of the Fever what other thing shall the cutting of a vein then be besides meer Murder If therefore it is not convenient to open a vein in the height of Fevers while as there is the greatest heat perplexity and a most especial breathing of the arteries is required Surely much less shall it be convenient in their beginnings and increases especially because presently after the first days the fear of a Plethora or too much fulness departs and so there is a sufficiently easie Transpiration of the Arteries But that diseases in their declining do neither require nor endure the cutting of a vein it is so cleer and testified by the voice of all That none ever attemps the cutting of a vein at the declining of a Disease Let us consider further That in Fevers the blood in the veins is either good or evil or neutral If it be good it shall be good to have the good detained because it addeth to the strength For as I have shewn elsewhere the fear of a Plethora if there were any hath ceased even presently after the beginning But for that they will have good blood to be let out for cooling and discussing of putrefaction Truly both of them hath already been sufficiently taken away and the imaginary good which they suppose brings a real and necessary loss of the strength or faculties But moreover the Schools teach That the cutting of a vein is not commanded in a Fever by reason of the goodness of the blood the which indeed they suppose to be evil and putrefaction But I have sufficiently taught That corrupted blood is not afforded in the veins as long as we live and by consequence that this scope of the Schools in cutting of a vein falls to the ground It behooves thererefore that they demonstrate unto me a naughtiness of the blood which may be without the corruption of the same And then that that blood is detained in a vein from the heart unto the hand if they will have the cutting of a vein to be confirmed in as much as it is such or as to revulsion Let them teach I say That bad blood is not in the first shops and that blood being drawn out through the vein of the elbow worse blood is not drawn to the heart where the vena cava or hollow vein makes the right bosome of the heart Let them likewise instruct me that the upper veines being emptyed there is not a greater liberty and impunity whereby the hurtfull and feverish matter may reach unto the heart than before So that instead of a discussing of the putrefaction which in the truth of the matter I have proved to be none a free passage of putrified ayr unto the heart is not rather occasioned whither indeed the vacuity of the emptied veines attracteth the bloud from beneath Let them shew I say by what reason an afflux of bloud and diminishment of the strength through the Elbow may hinder putrefaction or may import a Correction and renewing of that which is putrified Let them also explain themselves what they will have meant that cutting of a vein should be made whereby the Arteries may the more freely breath since putrefaction if there were any possible to be in the veines doth not affect the arterial bloud the Buttery of whole Nature And moreover Let them prove that the good bloud being diminished and the strength proportionally that there is a greater power in the impure bloud that is left and which is defiled by corruption as they suppose of preserving it self from putrefaction hanging over its head Let them likewise teach contrary to the sacred Text That the Life and Soul are rather and more willingly in the remaining defiled bloud than in the more pure bloud which was taken away by the cutting of a vein Otherwise regularly the drawing out of good bloud includes an increased proportion and unbridled liberty of the bad bloud remaining What if at length in a Fever and in the veines there be bad bloud and they say it is good as a sign or effect which in the letting out of bloud flowes forth as evil and they think that so much bad bloud at least is taken away First let them prove the bloud which they account hurtfull to be truly hurtfull even as I have already before proved it to be harmlesse And then let them teach that by such an hasty and full emission of bad bloud nothing that is of prejudice is taken from the strength and that the remaining bloud being defiled and the Faculties being now diminished the emptying out of bloud that is made shall be for a cause why a putrifying of the remaining bloud is the less
to be a Bird a thousand dispositions do succeed each other in the way and all of them to be external and accidentary to the Seed neither that in the mean time it ceaseth to hasten to the aims of its appointment For the figure of the yolk of the Egge together with accidentary dispositions succeeding each other do passe over it indeed yet there is not a new generation of the form of that puttified Egge present at every disposure of the putrifaction Indeed one onely vitall form of the Chick being excepted there comes to it no other which by degrees is stirred up by foregoing dispositions and at length the ripeness of dispositions being attained floweth into it For neither when the Bird dyeth is there a certain essential form and generation of the dead Carcase Because all generation in nature is enclosed in an essential form which a dead Carcase wanteth even as also a seed and an Archeus the Governour as shall be shewed in its place Even as the essence begins him with the Vulcan of the Seed and the same essence continues with the product or thing generated so the same product failing the same essence perisheth But the essence perishing the form the Governour or President thereof also goes to ruine For the Vulcan or Master-Workman forsaking the body the flesh heart veins c. do begin to putrifie for that they are now deprived of the vital Balsam their leader For under life the flesh and the bone c. were distinguished In its particular kinde and proper form the flesh was flesh and was formally severed from the bone in which form in the dead Carcase they do forthwith appear And so through death no form or essential thingliness comes upon the dead Carcase in the whole or in any particular parts Onely that which was vitall is seperated Therefore let it be an erroneous thing That the corruption of one thing is the generation of another Because the corruption of life happens onely through the quenching of the vitall Balsam or form therefore without a new generation of a Creature Therefore no privation happens in things that have life and so neither can privation there have the force of a Principle Seeing that from the seed even unto the vitall being there is but one progress promotion and ripeness about the end whereof the form is given Therefore also generation doth reciprocally or cursarily happen without any corruption as often as the matter being now brought to the ripeness of its appointment by the seminal Vulcan hath obtained a form coming to it from elsewhere Yea that Vulcan through the departure of life departs flies away and vanisheth without any corrupting of it self no otherwise than as light perisheth without the corrupting of it self Indeed life vanisheth after the manner of light perishing And the Vulcan seeing it is a certain vitall Air fleeth away Both of them without the corruption of themselves and the body which is deprived of life properly for that very cause is not corrupted although through the failing of the vitall Balsam corruption doth soon succeed Which thing sufficiently appeareth in Mummies and also in Vegetables which being dry and deprived of life are kept for uses yea they do very often drive away all corruption So far of is it that their life perishing for that very cause they should be corrupted Therefore death in things that have life is not the corruption of their own life as neither of that which lives but the extinguishing of life And although in some things the corruption of the body may follow truly that is to life and the body by accident which thing is manifest For truly dead Carcases are preserved from corruption by art Therefore now Aristotle confounds privation with corruption and doth not distinguish his own Principle non ens or a non-being from the Being corruption Lastly the forms of things are not subject to corruption and therefore neither are they corrupted but annihilated or brought to nothing Wherefore neither can the withdrawing or the extinguishing of the form include any corruption on behalf of the form Furthermore I have hated Metaphors or figurative Translations of words from their proper signification to another in the History of nature and Family of essential things because they are those things which have introduced the errours of the Schooles brawls of disputing and religious Worship given to Aristotle But besides if Aristotle be unskilful in nature and ignorant of all natural Philosphy truly Galen hath hitherto every where manifested a greater ignorance For first of all I will make it manifest that there is not a quaternary or a fourfold kinde of Elements nor a congress or conjunction of these for bodies which are believed to be mixt much less a strife or fighting of qualities or Complexions or for the Causes of Diseases And so that neither doth the Treatise of the Elements properly belong to Medicine Truly I finde Galen diligent in opinions and a boasting Writer without judgement or discretion For neither hath he better perceived of Nature Diseases Causes and defects than of the decrees of Hipocrates and Plato For I profess I have twice read over those Volumes of Galen with attention but I have found the poverty and undistinct ignorance of Galen to fight with his rashness For truly those Books do touch at nothing lesse than the Doctrine of Hipocrates or Plato Neither also hath Hipocrates any thing common with Plato And so that I have not found any one who hath judged them worthy of a Commentary as neither to have been written concerning the preserving of health This one thing is alway to be found in Galen that the names of Authours being suppressed he hath willingly snatched the Inventions of others to himself a man wholly scanty or very poor in judgement as oft as he hath expressed the conceptions of his own judgement I ought to declare these things concerning the two Standard-Defenders of natural Philosophy that the Schooles may abstain from worshipping these Masters CHAP. VIII The Elements 1. The Doctrine of the Elements in healing is wholly impertinent and so that in Galen such a heap of those Books is ridiculous 2. The vain opinions of the Schooles concerning the Elements 3. The true beginnings of naturall Science are delivered 4. Six conclusions out of the holy Scriptures 5. That there are onely three Elements 6. The Content of the Heavens 7. That there are two first-born Elements 8. That Fire is not an Element 9. The Errour of Paracelsus touching the matter of the Heaven 10. A Quaternary of Elements for the mixtures of Bodies and for Diseases falls to the ground 11. A Proposition that all things which are believed to be mixt are materially of water onely with a mechanicall or handicraft demonstration 12. What the Elementall and Virgin Earth is 13. From whence the two Elements may be called the first-born 14. An objection from artificial things 15. The force of the artificial fire of Hell 16. Another
At length the one onely Fountain and Spring of waters which thou hadst placed in the heart and top of the Earth is afterwards spread abroad into a thousand veins which did almost every where pierce thorow the Globe of the earth to far better uses And moreover thou hast also dashed the Sea almost into every Creek of the earth that there might be the greater fellowship of Mortalls thereby Therefore if thy punishment be blessed and happy what shall the free gifts of thy blessings be Oh Lord keep us for the exceeding greatness of thy goodness within that number who shall praise thy great and mighty deeds for ever in the sanctifying of thy name But although that one onely Fountain now ceased neither Lands being now rent asunder one alone was not enough yet perhaps the same entrance of waters remained Because in the sweet Sea between Roest and Loefelt according to the Table of Gothland a Gulf of waters is described by Olaus whereinto Ships Marriners being not aware and their endeavours being in vain are supt up For indeed it is the mouth into which the waters of that Ocean do fall and by one onely passage were before the Floud carried thence unto the aforesaid Fountain But afterwards that passage like the hollow vein was diversly distributed and hedged in by a Rock by some thousands of veins ending upon the face of the Quellem from which afterwards the waters being drunk up do hasten from far unto their appointed offices Moreover that Whirle-poole or Gulf if it ought to be any where and Olaus be a true Writer or if not at leastwise it is fitly in the Sea as well for the sweetness of the Sea as for the long and round figure of the World by me straightway to be proved In the next place if one onely Fountain were for the moystening of the Earth the aforesaid Whirle-poole shall be sufficient especially because the bottom of the Sea hath the Sand Quellem longly and largely laying open which would be sufficient for the drinking up the water And the rather because the Sea doth sometimes wash upon and rince the earth on every side and thorow many middle spaces Therefore the Sea being supt up in the said Whirle-poole it is by little and little brought thorow stony Channels and hence by lesser pipes thorow a great part of the earth Notwithstanding they are scarce over whelmed beneath the Soil Keyberch but as often as the veins of the Whirle-poole do cut or touch at the Quellem rising up thorow middle places and rushing forth into a Fountain indeed the sweet veins do perish and veins of Sea-Salt are produced Otherwise the briny Liquor if there be also any in the Gothick Sea doth through the lively Archeus of the Earth lose by degrees the nature of Salts or if the Ferments of Salts in places do any where exist those very waters do put on the seeds as well of divers Salts as of Stones and Mettalls and are changed into the same fruits For so neat gemme nitre aluminous vitriolated Sea Salts do grow of the water they as it were promising the first birth of the water to themselves And then from hence they do decline or decay into Bur or the first off-spring of Mineralls and degenerate by the guidance of the seeds So some fruits of the water do stop up the passages of their own Fountain and by their last ripeness do attain the perfection of that Minerall whose appointments the seeds did bear before them which were entertained in the Ferments of places Moreover as that Northern Whirlepoole or Gulf doth also sup up Fishes within it so it sups up the same exceeding small ones the greater being detained within the Channels Where oft-times they are either made Rockie or wax filthy through putrifying or also are seasoned with the Balsam of the soils as also that Fishes are oft-times found digged up which the Husband-man and others being amazed at do think they were born in undue places and without a seed Furthermore whether the Conduits have received the water or at length have drunk up that Quellem the waters are at least there endowed with a lively and seminall property For no otherwise than as a vein even in a dead Carease preserveth the bloud contained in it from coagulating or curdling which is a corruption of the first degree truly by a stronger Reason that right agrees to the veins of the earth which is not yet dead Therefore the water is supt and drawn within the lively soil of the Earth whence it having gotten a common life Come let us worship the King by whom all things live it knoweth not the Scituations of places it easily ascendeth unto the tops of Mountains without trouble together with the Quellem that it may from thence send forth fountains without ceasing VVhich things surely being unknown to the Schooles they have left that place of the wise man Coheleth or the Preacher scanty or barren where he saith all Rivers hasten towards the Sea the which notwithstanding doth not therefore re-gorgethem again For truly Rivers do return to the place from whence they came forth that they may flowagain Which words have been corrupted heretofore with divers modellings or qualifications Because springs in the tops of Mountains were not seen to proceed from the Sea whither they at length do rush Therefore Springs have been hitherto falsely judged by the Schooles to take their Beginnings and Causes from Air condensed or co-thickned by the force of cold between the hollow places of Mountains ready to fall upon each other The which I in a little Book concerning the Fountains of the Spaw printed in the year 1624 at Leidon have shewne that they have themselves after the manner now delivered in this place Therefore the true originall of true Springs being manifested it hitherto remains unknown to the Schooles The Scripture-Text entire and cleared But seeing the same Law course and re-course of waters from the Quellem into Fountains and at length from Fountains into the Sea was kept no lesse in dayes wherein it hath not rained for three years and more than when the whole year doth almost wax barren with a continual showre we must know that it is sumcient for the Earth that it doth not send forth such bountiful Springs through its Water-pipes and steep-running Brooks as by the common besprinkling of Dew and Rain Moreover before I shall come to the unchangeable substance of the water wherein the Schooles do promise that Air is easily changed into water and this likewise into it I will first clear up another Paradox To wit that the Globe being composed of Earth and Water is indeed round from the East thorow the West into the East yet not from the North into the South but long and round or of the figure of an Egge Which thing in the first place hath much deceived Saylors Because the Waters do slide with a more swift course from North to South than otherwise
so to be pressed together that the whole Arterie should wholly rush or fall down on it self perhaps therefore it is not unjustly cloathed with a double and harder coat For the discontinuance of that light is the cause that in one moment every chief faculty of the Brain in those that are hanged doth perish But not that the Spirit had so quickly vanished from the Brain Again if a pulsative motion should not be made a deadly cold would straightway arise and we should be more cold than a Frog So that although many things do live in the Winter time without breathing under the Clay yet not without a pulse Also the Ferment of the left bosome doth transchange its own arterial bloud not without a slow delay and would send it thorow the Body every way too slowly and therefore it should not satisfie the importunate necessities of the Spirits For let us feign a Bottle seasoned with an Odour but to be filled with Liquor up to its half For that Liquor shall scarce snatch the Odour of the Bottle but if it be shaken together that Odour also doth presently insinuate it self through the least parts of the Liquor So indeed is the vitall Ferment of the left bosom presently given to the Arterial bloud by the motion of the heart and doth compel it also to a hasty obedience of its own Impression For light is easily kindled by light and therefore also the Arteriall bloud being now quickned it easily snatcheth to it the light of that Sunny Lamp and is brought into a Skyie or Aiery off-spring Therefore the Blas of the heart is the Fewel of the vitall Spirit and consequently of its heat but the Spirit being thus enlivened is the mover of the heart almost neglected in the Schooles Also by consequence that motion is made for a necessary heat in Sunny constituted Animals and for the framing of Spirit in them Therefore I may not believe that the Pulse is appointed for a requisite cooling refreshment of the heart For truly things that have life do not war under the deadly Ensigns of cold neither do they intend or hearken to cold but onely do meditate on vitall things Indeed cold in us is a token because a Companion of death And therefore whatsoever it should attempt in the Fountain of life it should intend a taking away of life as also it should be destructive to our Monarchy so far is it that cold should be for necessity and co-temperaments sake For without a Pulse heat is not over-much kindled but straightway also life remaining heat dies For the Schooles being deceived do thus judge they thinking Elementary fire to be for the composition of Bodies and that fire in its heightned degree without which its fire ceaseth to be fire doth consist in the heart and that indeed Kitchin fire seeing else a ridiculous fire is to be far fetched from the concave of the Moon otherwise it should not by a loosed Bridle slide downwards safe at the pleasure of inferiour Bodies and contrary to its own disposition thorow so many colds of the Air unto the ordinary constitution of Simples And so if the Schooles had instead of radicall heat understood a fire feigned to be under the circle of the Moon they should improperly say that the same doth onely subsist in us as it were the Torch of radicall moysture Seeing else they dream that the fiery Element which they rashly feign doth alike unwisely live without a necessity and consuming of nourishment Therefore the Schooles do understand that there is in the heart a kindled Kitchinary and smoakie fire and that it is hot in a great degree and so that unless it be tempered by a continuall blast of new Air and all the smoakiness raised up by this fire be fanned out there is danger of choaking burning up and enflaming For so false authorities do bring forth false positions and through the ignorance of causes the speculations of healing have perished Truly in my judgement the Schooles ought at least to have remembred that the very blowing of the Bellowes doth not refresh or cool the fire but rather enflame it Neither do I see by what reason the motion of living Creatures may be the cause of their cooling refreshment In the next place I know that fire is in no wise to be joyned to the other Elements being divided by their least parts but that in an instant it is exstinguished I know also that its impossible that fire should be able to exist which is not truly fire and hot in the highest degree And so that if nature should attempt refreshment or cooling by a Pulse its endeavour should be foolish vain and impossible Whence a horrible thing followes that God in the ends proposed to himself hath actually erred Therefore let the Schooles repent But besides there ought to be a speedy transmutation of venall bloud into arteriall bloud and of this into vitall Spirit least that after faintings and tremblings of the heart under which are made most speedy divisions and scatterings of those Spirits so that the little pits of the small Pox or measills before not to be beheld do straightway appear as it were a necessitated death do invade Therefore aid was not to be fetched from far and to be deferred which his speedily required Indeed this is the reason why in a Fever the Pulse is swifter but not an expelling of smoakiness nor a greediness of cooling refreshment For truly let a Thorn be put in the loose or fleshy top of the finger there is presently a hard strong and more swift pulse but afterwards for the increase of the Pulse there is every where presently an increase of heat but not of cold and indeed as well before as without the births of smoakie vapours And then at the beginnings of intermitting Fevers after some houres and as long as the cold is delayed the Pulse is little slow deep or depressed yet putrefaction is kindled if the Schooles have spoken truth and therefore also the present smoakie vapour in the Schooles is the cause of the fit and they do thirst greatly in their cold and vomit up yellow choler Therefore also there ought to be a most frequent pressing together of the Pulse and the whole Pulse to be most exceeding swift Especially because many dying in those Fevers do perish in the cold a little before the Feverish fit through a great want of the Spirits and being as it were choaked But in troublesome heats also in an Erisipelas the burning Coal or Fever the Persick fire c. the vitall Spirit being incensed and as it were provoked to anger by the diseasifying cause waxeth exceeding hot as appeareth in the aforesaid locall also burning Inflammations whereas otherwise a temperate lightsome kindling doth on every side shine forth under a vitall Harmony yea that a little before death or sounding the horny membrane of the Eye is seen to be deprived of light the fire being not before in a burning
rage Furthermore the transmutation of the Arterial bloud into Spirit which is begun in the heart is ripened in the current of the Arteries or stomach of the heart Neither therefore is it a wonder that in the Spleen abounding with so many Arteries a Ferment and the first motions of the heart are established instead of a stomach the mentall and sensitive Souls being indeed Saturns Kingdoms For the digestion of the heart is with a full transmutation of the arteriall Bloud into Spirit without a dreg and smoakiness Because it is that which neither containeth filths nor admits of diversities of kinde neither doth the Spirit the Son of heat degenerate by reason of heat Indeed it is the immediate operation of the sensitive Soul alwayes univocall or single like to it self and to life for the life that is uttered by vitall motions Therefore the chief aims of the Pulses are 1. A bringing of the venall bloud from the bosom of the hollow vein unto the left womb of the heart 2. An increase of heat 3. A framing of arterial bloud 4. And again a producing of vitall Spirit 5. And then there hath been another ultimate aim of Pulses to wit that the original life residing in the implanted Spirit of the heart may be participated of Therefore I will repeat what I have said elsewhere To wit that some Forms do glister as in Stones and Mineralls but some moreover do shine by an increased light as in Plants but others are also lightsome or full of light as in things soulified And so a vitall lightsomness is granted to the vitall Spirit by a kindling not indeed of fieriness but of enlightning and specificall or differing by its particular kindes So indeed Fishes do not live more unhappily are more straightly and lively and longer moved than hot bruit Beasts The Schooles in the room of those things which I have already demonstrated do suppose the bloud in the Liver to receive the nature of a Spirit which perhaps they therefore call naturall To wit such an Air as is wholly in all juyces of Herbs and from hence at length they will have the vitall Spirit to be immediately bred and made But I do from elsewhere derive the Spirit and from a far more noble race But whether the Schooles or I do more rightly phylosophize let the Reader judge who now drinks down both Doctrines together he being at least mindefull of that which I am straightway to say to wit that sometimes the whole arterial bloud and the nourishable Liquor created from thence or the nearest nourishment of the solid parts are at length dispersed by the transpirative evaporation of the Body without any dregs or remainder of a dead head And therefore that the Reader may from thence think that the arterial bloud is of it self inclined that it may sometimes be made Spirit which is not equally presumed of the vapour of the venall bloud For therefore they have been ignorant that the whole bloud of the Arteries is often turned into a spiritual vapour or vitall Spirit But the venall bloud if it be changed in our Glasses by a gentle luke-warmth into a vapour it leaves a thick substance and at length a Coal in the bottom Therefore the Doctrine of the Schooles is far remote from the knowledge of the Spirits who think the vitall Spirits to be framed of a vapour or watery exhalation for they have neglected in this vapour of the venal bloud how of bread and water and venal bloud prepared thence not indeed a watery exhalation as they think but a Salt and enlightned Spirit is stirred up and its heat not onely made hot but also making hot For no Authour hath hitherto diligently searched into that vitall light whereby the Spirit is enlightned and is after a sort made hot So that the Life Light Form and sensitive Soul are as it were made one thing Again the rotten Doctrine of the Schooles confoundeth the ends of Pulses and breathing To wit that Breathing is made for the nourishment of the vital spirit the life of the fire which they will have to be nourished with aire the cooling refreshment of the heart and expelling of smoaky vapours For they intend or incline to nourish the vitall heat and coolingly to refresh or to diminish it which things how they can agree together let others shew I am willingly ignorant thereof at least in the greatest want of vital spirit and while the increase thereof is chiefly desired then indeed there is the least and slowest elevation of the Arterie And on the other hand while the Spirit aboundeth there is the greatest elevation of the Artery I confesse indeed that breathing is drawn by the bridles of the Will or by the instruments of voluntary motion but the Pulse not so But seeing that a sound breast may satisfie by its breathings the ends of the Pulses the Pulse should not therefore be necessary as long as any one is cold and his breathing doth sufficiently inspire But seeing notwithstanding in the mean time the Pulse doth not therefore pause surely there must needs be one cause or necessity of the Pulses and another cause or necessity of breathing For we percieve the necessities of breathing we also do measure our breathing at our pleasure and some can wholly press it together or suppress it in themselves But why do we not feel the more vitall and no less urgent necessities of the Pulses Chiefly seeing it is the life that is the Original of sensibility which alone indeed doth feel all its own necessity and doth alone exclude us from every act of feeling Wherefore hence I conjecture that there are other necessities unknown to the antients I know indeed that from the Arterial bloud and from the vital spirit there are no dregs filths or superfluities expelled as I shall shew in its place but that smoaky vapours are wanting where there is no adultion but that the venal bloud in the wasting of it self by the voluntary guidance of heat doth produce a Gas as water doth a vapour or exhalation And that that Gas which the Schools do signifie to be the spirit of the Liver or natural spirit of the venal bloud is subsequently of necessity expelled it remains without controversie For otherwise a man being almost killed with cold should the sooner wax hot again if he should for some hours hold his breath understand it if the breath should be drawn for cooling refreshment notwithstanding neither indeed in that state doth he notably stop his breath upon pain of death Also a fish wants Lungs and breathing for the bubbles which do sometimes belch forth are blasts of ventosities of digestion but not breathings But Frogs and Sea-monsters that utter a voice have little Bellows which perform the office of Lungs yet Fishes are not colder than Frogs yea Frogs and Horse-leeches are preserved under the mud all the Winter from corruption and do live without breaching yet not without a Pulse Therefore there is one
Neither is it a wonder because we therefore drink more liberally in Summer but we are more speedily nourished with drink than with meats Therefore the use of the Pulses are 1. That the venal bloud may through the Partition be transported into the least bosom 2. That therein and in its dependent Arteries the spirit of life may be made of the Arterial bloud 3. That of venal blood may be made a yellow arterial blood 4. That it may be informed by the mind of man Indeed the Arteries are the stomack of the heart as the sucking veins are the Kitchin of the Liver 5. That there may be a continuation of the vital Light throughout the whole body 6. The Blas of the Pulses is for the framing of heat but not of cold 7. That the venal bloud being dispersed into the habit of the body for nourishment may be made wholly capable to be breathed thorow the pores without a Post-hume or Future remembrance of a dreg 8. But breathing hath for its aim only this last use of the Pulse At length I also adde this That there is not an Animal spirit in nature Because the change which the vital spirit receives in the Brain is not unto a formal transmutation but is a perfective degree to the appointment of it self Indeed the in-bred spirit doth intend of a vital influx to generate its own like to it self and that in all the particular shops of the senses and giveth to it the seal of its own instrument For so the Optick or Seeing spirit doth not taste yet they do not therefore both differ in the particular kind although in their own offices For in the vitality or liveliness of the heart it is at once quickned by the mind and is made the universal instrument of that life CHAP. XXV Endemicks or things proper to the People of the Countrey where they live 1. The Schools have stated whence it was to be begun 2. That the encompassing air is not breathed into the Arteries 3. It implyeth that the air doth inspire at every turn and that smoakie vapours are expelled 4. The mutual unsufferableness is demonstrated 5. It would thence follow that the artery is not lifted up but that it may fall down 6. The end manner and possibility of air attracted by the pulses should cease 7. That Endemical things are drawn by breathing 8. That vapours are not drawn inward by Ointments 9. It s own generative vertue is wanting to the vital spirit 10. The humane Load-stone of Paracelsus is a fiction 11. That no smoakiness is to be granted in the heart and Arteries 12. That the whole knowledge of the Schools by signs or tokens is polluted 13. The progress of Endemical things IT is not sufficient to say That the Mines of Veins do belch forth the wild Gas of a hurtful Arsenick and a metallick malignity Fens a stinking vapour breachy Rivers and Shores a diseasie mist and a contagion of the soil putrifying by continuance But by coming nearer the suitings of causes do every where give understanding to those that search diligently but neglect to the ignorant or unskilful For without doubt man was to dwell in the air to be thorowly washed round about with the air yea and to be fed and to be subjected to the violent tyranny of its impressions and to the interchangeable courses of its successive changes whereby the air is the continual seperater of the waters Therefore the air is promiscuously drawn thorow the mouth and nostrils into the Lungs in its chiefest part But whether the air and by consequence also an Endemical Being be drawn inward by the encompassing aire through the Arteries the Schools affirm it But I as the first being supported with the much authority of reasons and the great authority of truth have doubted of it By consequence also That Oyntments applyed to the places of Pulses that they may be drawn inward are made vold First of all These Propositions do resist themselves The aire is drawn through the skin into the Arteries And the depression of the Pulses is to drive away smoaky vapours successively raised up by the heart Because if continual smoakinesses are stirred up by continual heat and the heart doth uncessantly labour with the Arteries for the expelling of those Surely there shall be no room nor space of motion for the attraction of the air from without to within For if there be a successive continual and uncessant expulsion of the Pulses from the center of the heart by the Arteries of necessity also the whole Channel of the Arteries shall by a continual thred from the heart even unto the skin be filled with a smoaky vapour of the expulsing of which smoakiness seeing there should be a greater necessity than of attracting air for fire is most speedily extinguished by smoaks but doth not so soon consume the whole through extream want of cooling or refreshment there is no leisure for the attraction of the air And moreover the Pulse being stirred the attracted air and that in the least space of delay should be besmeared being involved in smoakiness so also the aire in the smallest branches of the Arteries that it should rather increase the use of expulsion than satisfie the cooling refreshment of the heart Therefore the supposition of smoaky vapours standing the air is in no wise drawn by the Arteries from without to within and so the Schools do unadvisedly dictate their own and yet do subscribe to each other And moreover it follows from the same supposition that the Artery is not lifted up by it self and primarily but that it is only principally elevated that it may fall down next that by that endeavour it may shake of the fardle and drive away the fear of choaking seeing that should be the chief end of the Pulses but the other which is that of cooling refreshment is in respect of the former a secondary end Again If the Arteries should suck the air inwards to what end I pray should that be done seeing the sucking of the more crude endemical air should rather hurt than profit For not for the cooling refreshment of the heart seeing all the Pulses should scarce allure the smallest thing from the air by the least and utmost mouths of the Arteries which being the more swift in drawing should not straightway afterwards be expulsed by the depression of the Artery yea it should so most speedily in that very moment be co-united with the smoaky vapour and made hot by the Arterial bloud that the heart should not feel in it self any cooling or refreshment thereby Especially seeing the air should not by one only attraction proceed that way from the skin to the heart but by a manifold depression of the Artery coming between it should wax so hot in the way that it should deceive all hope of cooling refreshment Wherefore if the Arteries should allure the air from without the elevation of the Artery should of necessity alwayes far exceed its depression
importunity of a morsel or pertinacy of a draught seeing it can scarce endure that any thing should hang above over it in the throat Although in sick folks and those that have suffered hunger or want its opening doth happen with pain and great anguish because in the same persons that closure of the Orifice doth depend on an inordinacy Therefore the closure of the Pylorus is more obstinate and exact than that of the Orifice Again it is not to be doubted that the motive faculty of either part doth not obey the will and so that it is naturall or diseasie The Pylorus is said in the Schools to be subject to the retentive faculty But certainly it sheweth an absolute power when as the expulsive faculty being against it the digestive failing the attractive loathing and so others being trodden underfoot the Pylorus is oft-times stubborn as well in its closure as I have said above to happen in Fevers as in its opening as in Caeliack passions For vomiting is made while the Pylorus being shut it doth contract it self upwards not indeed by the co-wrinckling of the stomach but by a totall motion of the stomach upwards to the throat and so the Pylorus doth command vomiting and hearkeneth not unto the retentive faculty Seeing therefore the power of the Pylorus is not the Chamber-maid of other faculties nor subjected to fibers but Monarchal and so that the fibers ought to yield obedience to its very pleasure It must needs be that this power is absolutely vital and that it hath a proper motive Blas like the womb independent on the will of man And that so much the more potent a one by how much the Duumvirate of the stomach shall now come to light And although the Pylorus be wearied oft-times by external and occasional causes to wit from Medicines Poysons or Dregs yet its Blas is free unto its self which is implanted in its part or Archeus Wherein notwithstanding I admire a certain power from above like unto the influences of the Stars For the Blas of the Pylorus doth as near as may be express the Blas of a free will for truly an external inciter rushing on it it can nevertheless at pleasure oppose as to shutting or opening that as long as the Pylorus is well in health or able it may be moved for lawful ends or at leastwise those that appear so to it for the straightning or loosening of the passage Yet when a man being inordinate doth transgress against those ends the Pylorus as the Governour or orderer of digestion doth oftentimes constrain the man to expiate his ofence by punishing him But seeing there may be defects in that Blas in some sort as it were an arbitrall one not onely from occasional causes but also in its own motive mad principle so that through fury it doth preposterously open or shut it self freely like the womb Surely it is a wonder that these things with the other beginnings of healing have stood neglected by the Schools Every power and especially the motive doth easily wander abroad being stirred up as well by contingent causes as by a proper beck of madness seeing they are free and as it were independent in the errour of which motive power the Pylorus doth for the most part and easily stumble Even as the womb not being shaken from elsewhere doth rush it self headlong ascend or being furious doth writhe it self on the sides doth alienate straighten enlarge contract the throat weasand yea and the sinews readily serving the will against their office and doth now and then exhibite cruel motions scarce unlike to magical ones as the motive Blas is excentrical in stirring up divers Tragedies of Tempests And these things are diligently to be attended by Physitians that as oft as through occasion of the provoking cause the Pylorus doth wander from its aims he may straightway study a removing of the cause But if the Pylorus be exorbitant through the errour as it were the fury of its own proper Blas let him think that he must fight with excentrical powers and not with matter and least of all that evacuations must be trusted to For we may think that in a temperate state a man having eaten moderately his Pylorus is suitably shut least any thing do drop down out of his chinks and that at length digestion being finished the Pylorus doth open it self Surely neither doth this come to passe from a forreign pricking quality of the Chyle but because the Pylorus is expert of things to be done in the stomach and therefore is to be reckoned the moderator of digestion by whom indeed are the bounds of Government and the Keyes are kept For otherwise if the Pylorus be shut longer than is meer seeing that which was sufficiently digested doth not therefore cease to undergoe a further force of the digestive ferment therefore also it is cocted more than is meet Not indeed that the Chyle is therefore more excellently cocted like Glasse in the Furnace by how much the longer but through too much delay it is alienated and corrupted which afterwards must needs bring forth very many difficulties as well in the stomach as in its own neighbouring parts Notwithstanding if the Pylorus be lesse exactly shut surely the new drink cannot but be together with its former crudities carried into the Bowels about which surely since the digestion of the stomach is not employed a ferment of the Gaul being received it is changed into a strange substance and at length doth procreate divers Infirmities in the veins because the first digestion being omitted it is come to the second For so inspired tremblings and shakings of the hands beatings of the heart faintings sharp Fevers Tumors and joynt-sicknesses do break out So the tartness of Wine being not yet corrected by the first maturity of digestion being a stranger to the veins with the Aqua vitae inbred in it doth cause the proper nourishment of the veins to degenerate with it self and an unnamed and unknown guest doth bring forth unwonted and unknown infirmities Even as for the most part if the Chyle being well ripened doth slide down into the Duodenum and at the same instant new food be injected from above be sure that the Pylorus being well appointed is presently shut the former baggage being not yet plainly dismissed Therefore the detained part of the Chyle is corrupted doth wax sour more than is meet and defileth the new food with a fore-ripe ferment And the whole Chyle is made a forreigner unless that before an exact coction it be banished by the Pylorus which is by exciting divers appetites wringings and Fluxes Therefore the errour of Pylorus whether it be proper or stirred up from inordinacy doth cause many difficulties But that new food sliding in the Pylorus is presently closed it is manifest for else the new and raw food should slide forth together with the Chyle which should appear in the excrement as if it were bred from the affect of the passion
Meats Neither is the membrans of the Stomack so passable that it doth admit of another utterance or passage besides the Throat and the Pylorus for Belching and breaking Wind the which notwithstanding are far more thin than vapours Why therefore the Legs being moved by ascending should so many Smoakinesses be made which do reach the Heart Do require a difficulty of Breathing And the which else by a more swift steep motion do not arise For if they by chance are formed in the veins and arteries or without the same yet it do not as yet from thence appear why a slower ascent and motion may bring forth more Smoaks in the vessels than a swift motion of the same Muscles in descending But if the aforesaid Smoaks be bred without the Vessels now besides the absurdity before rehearsed likewise by what way shall Smoakinesses so suddenly proceed from thence unto the Heart and Lungs Seeing otherwise if one that is not Asthmatical swiftly running should have any Smoaks they should together with the sweat sooner exhale out thorow the skin than they should desire the inward parts by a retrograde motion Wherefore there is another cause for the sake whereof the Breast is strained the heart beateth the jaws wax dry although the Mouth being shut they do breath with difficulty only through the Nostrils but the Tongue is froathy about the Teeth and the Cheek do fall indeed by the same cause all that are in good health in their Lungs are distinguished and are free from every Cough and Asthma one whereof nevertheless is preferred before the other in a wise and longer running without difficulty of breathing Therefore our man of sixty years old doth more difficulty climbe Hâ—lly places and after meat most difficulty and as oft â—he pants for breath his knees wax feeble Shall therefore meat and Drink make Smoaks whereby the strength of the Knees doth decay If this be true But then that shall happen also to those that are not Asthmatical who notwithstanding having taken no Meat are the stronger But they will say the Stomack being filled a vacuum or emptiness is diminished in the Breast Rightly spoken But this is to have gone back from a Smoak and to have fled unto the anguishs of place Why therefore likwise do not all breath with difficulty after Meat in a modeeate a scending if the region of the breast be equally diminished in all after meat is taken Is perhaps the region of the Breast extended by descending or walking in a plain A reason indeed is given of a less breathing after Meat than before but it squares not to the question to wit why in climbing with a mean Pace any one doth pant for Breath who by any the more fwift motion through a plain way is not short-winded But inasmuch as that doth more vex one after Meat it is rightly argued from an unequal straightness of place but the Lungs are not pressed together by a Stomack moderately filled that they may thereby become difficult in breathing For else why after making water and going to stool also after breaking Winds is this man of sixty years old equally panting for breath and short-winded in a climbing motion Indeed being fasting and more strongly after feeding he feels in moving upwards as it were a girdle in his Ribs a beating pulse and interruptingly happening on him But nevertheless he breaths in a long breath at pleasure without hinderance that is he hath his Lungs open and free although breathing with difficulty and his spittings are freequent and froathy but throughout all a cold season much Spitting with expulsion by reaching most like unto Gumme Dragon dissolued but besides he Coughs very Seldome Truly as I have not had any thing as to cleernesses for the knowledge of diseases from predecessours I at first considered that all Asthmatical persons do undergo some vice of the Lungs an external obtructer being there grown together or an internal one to wit which is co-thickned in the outward Mouths of the rough artery whereby they breath into the breast But forthwith neither of them pleased me because the Asthma doth suddenly invade some persons and forsakes theâ— without any notable Spitting Also the aforesaid man of sixty years old doth swiftly and freely draw a long Breath without hinderance Yea he sitting and that in the Smoak doth no less freely Breath than indeed any healthy Person I considered therefore whether perhaps the Muscles of the Legs being the more deeply contracted and elevated by ascending and the which otherwise walking in a plain or steep ground do as it were hang down the belly of the Muscle being in the mean time Globy in ascending and pressing its artery together might contain a nearer cause of difficult breathing Do therefore in this motion the Muscles hinder the Arteries and also the Pulse of the same by successive turns that hence the ascending may be with a more difficult Breathing Next I considered whether in ascending the breath be a little longer retained than otherwise in a plain or steep Motion Indeed every one doth more press his breath together while he intends to moove any thing the more strongly Thirdly I considered that in ascending the breath is interrupted almost at every pace no otherwise than at if any one should at every pace say Ha Ha whereas otherwise in a steep or plain motion there is one only and continual Ha not interrupted by rest I doubted also whether the Lungs do labour with a passion of its own and the Bowel be in a climbing motion intent not to expel smoakinesses how great a conceived errour soever it may overcome I also beheld or considered that any one doth more easily walk seven hours space than stand five Because in standing the Muscle of both Knee-pans is continually bent on both sides which in going rejoyceth in a coursary rest But he that goeth doth more difficultly breath than he that standeth because many Muscles do successively labour in going but in standing although they are bent yet they are not moved Whence I learned that a cheerful motion of many Muscles doth make one to breath the more difficultly Lastly although every one of these considerations should have some weight in them yet all being connexed in one they could not yet satisfie the question proposed To wit why a slower ascending motion doth cause difficulty of breathing but not a swifter descending one Wherefore I have added to these things that in a moving upwards how slow soever the straight Muscles of the neather belly do stretch themselves that they suffrnot the belly to be sufficiently lifted up Truly the Breast and Ribs are indeed in difficult Breathing more largly stretched out but as I have taught concerning Catarrhs the motion of the Ribs is not primary and principal for Breathing but only an asistant while the principal one is not sufficient Therefore the Belly not being sufficiently extended a difficulty of Breathing is presently hastened to wit it being willing to
into the breast thorow the Lungs and so also that this is quiet Which thing is alike manifestly obvious by the expectoratings of the Pleurisie Because those spittles which were first hunted out and putrified in the ribs and hollow of the breast are cast away by cough It behoveth therefore the membrane of the Lungs to be very wide which may suffice for the sending thorow of venal blood and corrupt snotty matter These things the Schools see know confess and write yet they deny that the breath is blown away out of the Lungs into the breast but that the Lungs themselves are of necessity stirred like a pair of bellows They grant indeed that the Lungs have pores through which the venal blood and corrupt snotty matter are in a Pleurisie supt up yet they will not have the Air to be transmitted through the same pores into the breast but they alike stifly command the Lungs themselves to be driven like a pair of bellows Neither is it a wonder Because they meditate that they are nothing but dead carcasses as well made as to be made in whom the pores of that membrane are shut by death For the same thing also happens to the optick Nerves the thorny marrow the partition of the heart and little mouths of the veins at the bowels The lungs of bruit beasts swims upon the waters wherein they are boyled whole but being cut in pieces it settles or sinks because the rough Artery is filled with Air. Whither it is added by way of impertinency if the boyling water hath not access while it seeths how shall a Cattarhe obtain passage thither The same thing by mechanical operation H. Blow thy breath out of thy breast as much as thou canst measure the circumference of thy ribs with a thread then again breath in the Air as much as thou canst and again measure thou shalt find by a square that more Air was attracted than to the bigness of the Lungs of a man By how much more because a great part of the breath doth deceive this measure To wit as much as the Midriffe shall bend the stomack downwards I. Therefore make tryal again Draw to thee thy breath as much as thou canst and breath it into a bladder and thou shalt find the same thing as before and the inspired Air to exceed the greatness of the whole Lungs K. In the mean time remember that after every exspiring or breathing out the pipes of the rough Artery have as yet remained open with their rings and to be as yet filled with Air as before There is no doubt but that the breast and belly doth swell up with in-breathed Air but if therefore the Lungs may be extended the which in no wise they are yet at least wise there should not be room for placing the in-breathed Air by almost the tenth-fold so much as the breast is extended Therefore the motion of the breast doth not prove a necessary motion of the Lungs L. But if the Lungs should fill up the whole hollow of the breast which it manifestly doth not it were consonant to reason that the elevating of the ribs might extend the Lungs but seeing Air doth not sustain an enlarging and pressing together as is wont to be said therefore the elevating of the ribs should not draw an equal or suitable quantity of Air. Yea seeing that attraction should as yet be violent to wit for fear of a vacuum which is adverse to a natural and vital motion it also follows that the motion of the ribs was not appointed to extend the Lungs And seeing the Lungs hath not any principle of its own motion in it self nor else where unless from the motion of the ribs according to the Schools It follows also that the Lungs are moved by no mover but that they are plainly alwayes at rest M. For what is a greater folly than to confess that all the small branches of the rough Artery are opened by a co-weaving of gristle-rings and yet to teach that all the same little branches new Air being moreover attracted are alwayes enlarged divided and pressed together N. At length the Schools teach that the Diaphragma or Midriffe is sufficient for our ordinary use of breathing yet they substitute or appoint the muscles between the ribs in the office thereof Then besides there is a frequent belching out of the stomack which doth express the odours drawn into the Lungs Therefore the Lungs and the Midriffe are members capable of breathing them thorow Surely it is to be bewailed that such pains hath been taken in the Schools about such hurtful negligences and childish mockeries For truly if in laying with thy face upward thou shalt place one hand upon the bottom of thy belly but the other upon thy ribs but shalt draw a moderate or unconstrained breath thou shalt then easily feel that the muscles of the bottom of thy belly only have operated O. To wit thy belly being lifted up that thy Diaphragma was drawn downward and consequently that so much of the hollow of the bottom of thy belly was enlarged as the plain which is loose in it self or the Diameter of thy Midriffe is less in the Semicircle of it self being drawn downward and by so much the more ample by how much also the loosness of the plain of thy Diaphragma is easie to be drawn Yea if thou shalt compass thy ribs with a strait girdle and shalt draw thy aforesaid breath thou shalt feel thy belly to be lifted up and pressed down thy ribs being wholly unmoved And by consequence that the Lungs although it were otherwise moveable which it is not yet that it can thus rest for a whole day P. But in a sigh gaping sneesing and strong breathing with difficulty but not before the muscles between the ribs are felt also to perform the office of a Vicarship and help For the Semicircles of a rib are hanging down on the forepart all which the muscles between the ribs do every one draw upwards unto them Q. For this cause also they are made bigger by lifting up as they are then made rounder and so do enlarge the hollowness of the breast R. For so those that breath forth only with a straight neck do bring their shoulder-blades and shoulders for a help of the blast do press both their hands on their seats to elevate their shoulders that the hollow of their breast may be increased and their Midriffe hang over downward with the bigger bunch The Wife of a Senatour in bringing forth off-spring or travelling with a Child for she brought forth with her buttocks foreward break and tear her Pleura between the seventh and eighth rib without feeling for the greater pain obscureth the less an Aposteme c. Presently after the time of her delivery she felt that as oft as she pressed her breath together in singing or giving suck if she had stript her breast a great flatulent tumour presently bloomed up which would give place unto a finger pressing
the scope of pain Because they are onely abstracted Names and for the most part not in the least point conteining the cause thereof even as I have demonstrated in the Treatise concerning Diseasifying Causes as it were in the combating place of exercise For in the Urine-pipes for an Example in the tearms of the Disease of the Stone there is no necessity dependency of Dominion Clients-ship Usurpation Possession Custome and no community of the Pipes and Excrements with the bowels or stomach For if when the left side of the Throat is in pain not so much as the right side thereof in such an angiport or narrow passage be now and then afflicted why shall we not deservedly suspect the nearness and dependency of parts which are unlike and differing in the Ordination of their Offices and Scituation It is therefore sufficient hitherto that all pain the author of a Convulsion or Contracture presupposeth a hatefull Guest For there are also unpainfull Contractures as before concerning the Cod and the which draw their original not so much from pain as from meer trouble But painfull Convulsions are made from Hostile Causes For so Those things cause paine which smite the Spirit called for the Soul Sensitive with sharpness brackishness or degrees of heat or cold But the most intense pain is from fire and then from Alcalies and corroding things because they are the nearest to fire after that from austere or harsh brackish and four things because they are the nearest to Contracture Presently after from salt things then next from sharp things and lastly from some bitter things But from poysons as such cruel pain ariseth the which in the Plague is ordinary and because so great pain oft-times ariseth without sharpness a Truth is denoted To wit That pain issues from the judgement of the Sensitive Soul For Corrosives since they gnaw the sensitive Soul it self they wast the parts themselves like fire But Alume Vitriol Aqua Fortes's next the juyce of unâ—ipe Grapes and also any sharp things as they do by themselves crisp and pull together the Fibers of the Organs therefore such Excrements are Convulsory and painfull There are also Alcalies which sleepifie paines To wit in Cases where they break the greatest sharpnesses of Putrefactions For under the Dog-star while as Fleshes threaten corruption at hand the Broaths of fleshes are made sharp with an ungratefull savour whence in the Gout Colick and gnawing and putrifying Ulcers I conceived paines to proceed at first from a sharpness Likewise the sensitive Soul at first feeles pain the which being at length accustomed waxeth the less wroth even so as an accustomed Horse refuseth Sâ—urs For Nature in her self is wholly furious and Sumptomatical and being by degrees accustomed to paines waxeth mild Wherefore Self-love and Revenge are before or more antient than sense or feeling because they are intimately in Seeds in the bosome of Nature before Sense For the Characters or Images of anger agony fear revenge and sorrow do bring forth Convulsions like to those their own Idea's For from the knowledge whereby a Mouse abhors a Cat not before seen the Spirit being provoked is stirred up into anger fear c. The which by its own Idea uttereth its fury on the members as it were by a Brand. 1. The hand waxeth cold because the heat there cherished by the Life is extinguished by cold but not that the vital Spirit retires inward as having left the arterial bloud whch it had married and much less that heat as a naked quality passeth departeth and returneth inward as it were in a Comedy 2. The heat being now diminished cold also persisting the cold waxeth strong and then Sense in the hand is stupified For the sensitive abstracted Spirits are pressed together To wit those which are in the sinewes but not those which are in the Arteries because the Spirit hath the more firmly married the arterial Bloud and it is the property of the Veines even after death to preserve the Bloud from Con-cretion or Coagulation For the vital Spirit is sustained from behind by the fewel or cherishing warmth of the heart as much as may be and therefore in that stupefaction Life is as yet deteined 3. Motion languisheth in the Hand because the Spirits being grown together in the flesh seeing they are not sufficiently nourished from behind by the heart they by degrees perish and by degrees are altered 4. And then together with the perishing of Motion Sense also is extinguished To wit while the Bloud being chased out of the Veines threatens a clotting Life as yet remaining 5. And so at length the joynts are by cold totally deprived of Life To wit when as the venal bloud hath now departed into Clots and dyed Therefore in the third and fourth degree aforesaid pain springs up in the Hand being heated For as the Heart inspires a new sensitive Spirit from behind the which while it takes notice of death to be readily at hand it being as it were enraged in the same place presently frames the Idea of its own indignation and so puts off its native sweetness or Complacency Even as in the Treatise concerning diseasie Idea's in the work concerning the Rise or Original of Medicine I will more clearly demonstrate So the sensitive Spirit which was not trampled on by cold but repulsed by pressing together in its return stirs up another Idea of its own indignation and another pain as it were like that of the pricking of a pin Let the Reader in the mean time pardon me in that I ought to borrow the Name of an Icy or freezing Poyson without the necessity of fore-going Cold For I call not that an Icy poyson as if it were made cold as I have already spoken concerning the stupefying astonishment of the Hands but I call it a cooling and also a stupefying poyson and that which takes away sense and motion Therefore the similitude of the Name draws its Original not from the Root but from the Effect And last of all in this By-work for a Conclusion of this Work and Sensation Let us meditate at least of the Remedies of Physitians in the Apoplexy in astonishment or beâ—ummedness giddiness of the Head in the Catalepsie Catochus Coma Convulsions plucking of the Eyelids Eyes Tongue and Lips For thou shalt find that presently cutting of a vein and a Clyster are prescribed They doubting in the mean time Whether the dung of the Fundament may pluck the Tongue and Lips in the mouth may likewise stamp drowsinesses and astonishment in the sick As it hath brought forth blockishnesses and neglect in the Physitian Or indeed whether these arise from the venal bloud therefore they are presently intent upon both at once And then on the day following they administer purging things And thirdly as being full of uncertainty after Rubbings they provoke Sweats For their Succours are universal because others are wanting and they are ignorant of such And therefore their total usual Medicines are general
the dayes of Galen wherein surely I am amazed at the great sluggishness of wits as to a diligent search they assenting unto false principles lest the right of disputing against denyers should be forestalled from them I will therefore no longer speak to Galen but unto the Schooles I wish therefore that they may explain to me by what Conducter manner and passage a putrified humour may at every fit come from the shops of the humours unto the utmost parts of the veines which are terminated into the habit of the Body or into the flesh and skin For if it were putrified before it came unto the slender and utmost extremities of the veines why is one alone to wit Choler or Phlegm separated from its three fellowes that as a banished humour it may putrifie far from its own Cottages Or who is that silly Separater which plucks the harmless humour from its own composed body for so absurd ends Why therefore the same Separater remaining for Life doth not the same Fever continue for Life What School-master admonisheth this Separater of his Errour that he may seasonably repent At leastwise if the utmost parts of the veines do not corrupt that putrified humour the veines themselves shall be more putrified and so they shall labour with an unexcusable Gangreen But if the Cause which calleth the guiltless humour unto it self subsisteth in the very extremities of the veines that it may putrifie the same in its own possession Yet by a greater breviary it should execute that in the Bloud nigh to it self over which it hath a stronger Right and from whence it hath as well a liberty to separate Choler or phlegm as the same thing is otherwise proper unto a solutive Medicine Again If it listeth it to have prepared a putrified humour out of the nigh bloud it shall in vain expect an agreeable quantity of Choler for full two dayes space But if that humour shall putrifie before it could reach to the utmost parts of the veines then the Schooles contradict themselves and the seat of intermitting Fevers shall not be in the habit of the Body but in the first shops of the Humours In the next place If at one onely turn of a fit the whole putrified humour be dispersed out of the veines into the habit of the Body even for the consumption of it self why at least shall that Separater or Driver seeing nothing is moved by it self which is not vital be less generous in the Bowels than he that is placed in the utmost parts of the veins At length for what end of Doatage shall there be this passage of the putrified Humour from the Mesentery through the Liver and Heart even unto the extremities of the veines It is a matter full of danger and it is to be feared but that by its frequent passage it may soon defile the whole blood with its corruptions and deadly gore For let it either be a great lye of Galen or humane nature voluntarily meditates of its own ruine And by this meanes the necessity of Revulsion boasted of by cutting of a veine falls to the ground For truly the putrified humour is by the voluntary force of intermitting Fevers at set hours Revulsed or pulled back from the Nest of its Generation Yea it issues of its own accord unto the utmost parts of the veines unless perhaps that Revulsion be accounted dangerous which wholly ought to be made by the Heart through the hollow vein as well in intermitting Fevers as by the cutting of a vein And then either the feverish matter is at every fit wholly drawn out of the Nest of its nativity or not wholly if totally there shall be no cause of return if not totally it is exhausted Why shall a new humour which putrifies at every future fit no more move an Aguish fit by its putrefaction than by its expulsion For truly there is greater labour and pain while corrupt pus is in making that when the pus is made Why in that case shall not the seat of Fevers be rather in the place of putrefaction than in places through which it passeth while it is expelled Why I say the appetite returning Thirst and Watchings being absent To wit in the resting dayes of intermitting Fevers shall Choler or phlegm putrifie in the Bowels And why doth not the putrefaction thereof disturb the Family administration of the shops of the Humours Why shall black Choler which should be made on the second day of the week putrifie in two dayes space into a ripe putrifaction and that which should be made on the followng day putrifie as much in one onely day as the former putrified in two dayes If that which was joyned of them both causeth the fit of a Quartane on the fourth day of the week Why doth not that which is made on the second day stir up its own fit on the fourth day and that which is made on the third day not likewise stir up its own Tumult on the fifth day And consequently if any be made on the fourth day of the week why doth it not frame a fit on the sixth day The shoulders of Physitians are lifted up their Browes are bent and hidden properties are accused while as they are constrained to answer unto things known by Sense by believed and supposed madnesses Why at length in the rigours or shaking fits of a Tertian will they have that which is vomited up about their Beginnings to be Gaul and say that Nature bends that same way if on the contrary the guidance of Nature doth in the same interval of time proceed from the Center unto the utmost parts of the Veines because Nature doth not at one onely instant stir up two opposite motions within and without especially from the cause of one Excrement which is accounted the Gawl Why doth not that vomiting take away as much from the sharpness of the fit as there is a plentifull expulsion of that excrement which they suppose to be the very matter of a Tertian But if in a Tertian a residing Choler remaineth in its own shops after the fit why doth it rather putrifie new Choler than the humours radically annexed to it self After what manner do bitter Vomiting Thirst and so great Tokens of hurts molest the stomach while as most of the Balast of the malady shall passe over unto the extream parts of the veines that it may provoke Rigours But those who carry the marks of a Cautery do see that two dayes after Fevers a spare quantity of or no excrements are wiped off the which surely should be many if so many feverish filths should at every fit slide unto the utmost parts of the veines and habit of the Body The Schooles triumph in the Causes of Rigour they being as prettily feigned as blockishly believed But why doth Galen give more heed unto the quantity of an humour than to the ready obedience of the same Should not Choler although lesse in quantity by reason of its heat and
oft-times seem presently to be eased and also to be cured yet cutting of a vein cannot but be disallowed seeing that Feverish persons are more successfully cured without the same For however at the first or repeated cuttings of a vein the cruelty of Fevers shall oft-times slacken Surely that doth no otherwise happen than because the Archeus much abhorreth a sudden emptying of the strength and an undue cooling and so neglects to expell the Feverish matter and to perform his office But they who seem to be cured by blood-letting surely they suffer a relapse at least they obtain a more lingering and less firm health which Assertion the Turks do prove and a great part of the world who with me are ignotant of the opening of a vein because it is that which God is no where read to have instituted or approved of yea not so much as to have made mention thereof But as to what belongs unto the first scope of a co-betokeming sign which is called Cooling Truly the letting out of the blood cooleth by no other title than as it filcheth from the vital heat But not that it obtains a coolifying and positive power In which respect at least such a cooling ought to be hurtful Why I pray in a Hectick Fever do they not open a vein Doth not that Fever want cooling or doth it cease to be a Fever But blood is wanting in Hecttick Fevers wherefore through defect of blood and strength there is an easie Judgement of hurt brought by Phlebotomy which otherwise the more strong faculties do cover In the year 1641. Novemb. 8. the body of Prince Ferdinand brother to the King of Spain and Cardinal of â—oledo was dissected who being molested with a Tertian ague for 89 dayes dyed at 32. years of age For his heart liver and lungs being lifted up and so the veins and arteries being dissected scarce a spoonful of blood flowed into the hollow of his breast Indeed he shewed a liver plainly bloodless but a heart flaggy like a purse For but two dayes before his death he had eaten more if it had been granted unto him He was indeed by the cuttings of a vein purges and leeches so exhausted as I have said yet the Tertian ceased not to observe the order of its intention and remission What therefore hath so great an evacuation of blood profited or what hath that cooling plainly done unless that those evacuaters were vain which could not take away so much as a point of the Fevers Is that the method of healing which makes a Physitian whom the Almighty hath created and commanded to be honoured by reason of the necessity of him If that method knows not how to cure a Tertian ague in a young man to what end shall it conduce Is that the art whereof the infirm and unhealthy person stands in need I wish and wish again that that good Prince had not made use of it who when the returning from Cortracum was saluted by the Senate of Bruxells recovering from the agony of death by reason of the diminishments of his blood and strength then walked in good health about his Chamber Physitians therefore abhor to expose their feverish persons to the encountring of cold things to wit whereby they might presently and abundantly experience the vertue of cooling things by a manifest token because they put not much trust in their own rules of Heats and Coolers For since it is already manifest that the whole heat in a Fever is that of the very vital spirit it self it follows also that the cooling which is made by cutting of a vein is meerly that of the vital spirit and together also an exhausting of the blood and an impoverishment thereof For if a Fever be to be cured as a distemper by cutting of a vein as a cooling remedy Alas the contrary is manifest by the exhausting of all the blood out of the Prince the Infanto of Spain In whom as yet but the day before his death the Tertian Ague kept its fits â—o great cooling not hindering it and if others intens a curing even in a Quotidian only by cold which they writ to be kindled of putrified Phlegm at leastwise that cooling should be far more easily obtained by exposing the sick half naked unto the blowing of the North or West wind or by hanging him up in water or a deep well until he should testifie that he were sufficiently cooled For so they should prefently and abundantly perfect a cure if their conscious ignorance did not within condemn their own feverish essence of heat Therefore a Fever is not a naked Tempest of heat but an occasional vitiated matter is present for the expelling whereof the Archeus being as it were wroth doth by accident inflame himself The which as long as it shall be neglected in the Schools the curings of Fevers will be rash destructive and conjâ—ctural therefore none shall owe any thing worthy of giving thanks unto Physitians seeing they are cured by the voluntary goodness of nature and I wish they were not put back by Physitians But unto the argument of curing by sudden cold the Schools will answer that there is a perilous departure from one extream unto another By which excuse of their ignorance they stop the mouth of the people as if they spake something worthy of credit not taking notice that they therein contradict themselves while as they praise and prefer the cutting of a vein before laxative medicines chiefly for that end because it presently and abundantly succours by cooling and therefore they have given it the surname of a speedy and universal succour For they constrain their own impotency founded in ignorance unto the will of a Maxim badly understood and worse applied For truly it is not be doubted but that it is lawful presently to cut the halter of him that is hanged that he who was deprived of air may enjoy it as soon as may be Likewise that it is lawful presently to place him that is drowned in a steep scituation that he may cast back the water out of his lungs That it is lawful I say to draw any one presently to the bank and that it is lawful presently to free a wound from its indisposition and to close it with a scar For so very many wounds are closed in one only day because a solution of that which held together wants nothing besides a re-uniting of it self That it is lawful presently to repose a broken or diplaced bone Likewise that it is lawful in the Falling Sickness Swooning Fainting Cramp to recall the weak as soon as one can presently to loosen the detainments of excrements and presently to stop the excessive flux of womens issues For neither must we think that nature rejoyceth in her own destruction and that from an healthy state she indeed le ts in sudden death but refuseth a remedy which may suddenly repell a disease otherwise she should not do that which in things possible is most exceeding
good to be done as neither should every thing desire to be and be preserved In Science Mathematical indeed it is determined as impossible to proceed from extream to extream without a mean and that Medium wholly denyes all interruption the which if we shall grant in natural things with a certain latitude we shall as yet be accounted to have done it out of hand and that in the best manner And so that neither is it lawful to wrest that of Science Máthematical unto curings I confess indeed that it is not lawful to draw out a dropfie abundantly by an incision of the Navil at one only turn as neither to allure forth all the corrupt pus out of a great Aposteme nor to bring one that is frozen by reason of cold immediately to the Chimney nor abundantly to nourish him that is almost dead with hunger Yet surely a slow and necessary progress of Mediocrity as such or a proceeding from one extream unto another doth not conclude that thing as if nature were averse unto a speedy help Since this betokening is natural nearly allyed pithy and intimately proper unto her self But those things are forbidden because a faintness of the strength depending thereupon would not bear those speedy motions The Schools therefore by a faulty argument of the cause as not of the cause drive the sick from a sudden aid which they have not that they may vail their ignorance among the vulgar with a certain Maxim being badly directed For as often as a Cure can be had without the loss of strength for the faculties do always obtain a chiefdome in indications by how much the more speedily that is done it is also snatched with the greater Jubily or joy of nature Even as also in Fevers I have with a profitable admiration observed it to be done with much delight Therefore in the terms proposed if a Fever be a meer heat besides nature and all curing ought to be perfected by contrary subduers Therefore it requires a cooling besides nature to wit that contraries may stand under the same general kind That is every Fever should of necessity be cured by much cold of the encompassing air especially because the cold of the encompassing air collects the faculties but doth not disperse them But the consequence is false Therefore also the Antecedent Therefore the Schools do not intend by cutting of a vein the cooling or heat but chiefly a taking away of the blood it self and a mitigation of accidents which follows the weakened powers or they primarily intend a diminishment of the strength and blood It being that which with a large false paint they call a more free breathing of the Arteries But I do alwayes greatly esteem of an indication which concerns a preserving of the strength and which is opposite unto any emptying of the veins whatsoever because the strength or powers being diminished and prostrated the Disease cannot neither be put to flight neither doth any thing remain to be done by the Physitian Therefore Hippocrates decreeth That Natures themselves are the Physitianesses of Diseases because the indication or betokening sign which is drawn from a preserving of the faculties governs the whole scope of curing As therefore Reason perswades that the strength is to be preserved so also the blood because this containeth that Hippocrates indeed in a Plethora of great Wrestlers or Champions hath commanded blood to be presently and heapingly let out and that saying the Schools do every were thunder out in the behalf of the cutting of a vein But that is ridiculously alledged for the curing of Diseases and Fevers For he bad not that thing to be done for fear of a Plethora however their veins may sufficiently abound with blood but only lest the vessels being filled they should burst and cleave asunder in the exercises of strength otherwise what interposeth as common between healthy Champions and the curing of Fevers For there is no fear of a Plethora in him that hath a Fever neither that a vein should be broken through exercises and moreover we must note that the emptyings of the blood are on this wise That the exhausting of the strength or faculties which is made by carnal lust is unrepairable because it takes away from the in-bred spirit of the heart But the exhausting which is made by the cuttings of a vein is nigh to this because it readily filcheth away the inflowing Archeus and that abundantly But a Disease although it also directly oppose the strength yet because it doth not effect that thing abundantly but by degrees therefore it rather shakes and wears out the strength than that it truly exhausteth it Therefore the restoring of the faculties which are worn or battered by a Disease is more easie than that of those which are exhausted by cutting of a vein For they who in Diseases are weakened by the cutting of a vein are for the most part destitute of a Crisis and if they do revive from the disease they recover by little and little and being subject to be sick with many anguishes in a long course of dayes and not without the fear of Relapses But they who lay by it with a Disease without cutting of a vein are easily restored and recovering they soon attain unto their former state But if they being destitute of remedies shall also sometimes come unto an extremity yet Nature attempts a Crisis and refresheth them because their strength although it was sore shaken by the Disease yet it perished not as not being abundantly exhausted by the lettings out of blood Wherefore a Physitian is out of conscience and in charity bound to heal not by a sudden lavishment of the faculties as neither by dangers following from thence nor also by a necessary abbreviation of life according to the Psalm My spirit shall be lessened therefore my days shall be shortened And seeing that according to the Holy Scriptures the life glistens in the blood however plentifully thou shalt dismiss this thou shalt not let it forth but with the prejudice of life For the perpetual intent of nature in curing of Fevers is by sweats And therefore the fits are for the most part ended by sweats But the cutting of a vein is Diametrically opposed unto this intention For truly this pulls the blood inwards for to replenish the vessels that were emptied of blood hut the motion of nature that is requisite for the curing of Fevers proceeds from the Center to without from the noble parts and bowels unto the skin But that the cutting of a vein doth of necessity weaken although the more strong and plethorick persons may seem to experience and witness that thing to be otherwise If the sacred Text which admonisheth us That the life inhabiteth in the blood hath not sufficient weight in it at leastwise that shall be made manifest if thou shalt offend in a more liberal emission of blood For the strength and sick person do presently faint ot go to ruine Therefore in Science
be drawn from a more ignoble part unto a more noble one For the more crude and dreggish bloud is in the Meseraick veins but the more refined bloud is that which hath the more nearly approached unto the Court of the Heart For otherwise Nature as undiscreet had placed the chief Weapons of Parricide nigh the Fountain of Life Seeing therefore the matter of a Fever floats not in the veins nor sits nigh the Heart Fat be it to believe that that is fetch'd out or moved from its place by the cuttings of a vein however divers coloured blood be sometimes wiped out by the repeated emissions of bloud It is therefore a cruel Remedy if unto the place of the bloud let forth other bloud shall come from remote parts For so the contagion of one place should be dispersed into the whole body and unto the more noble parts and otherwise there is an easie co-defilement in things or parts that have a co-resemblance Lastly if the Errours of the Heathens being once renounced Modern Physitians would have respect unto the Life of their Neighbour verily they should know that the devices of Revulsion are vain that it is a pernicious wasting of the Treasure of bloud and strength that no hurt doth insult from the bloud within the veins but onely from hostile and forreign excrements that God also hath made sufficient Emunctories or avoyding places of any filths whatsoever neither that there is need of a renting of the veins for a victory over Fevers CHAP. V. Purging is Examined 1. The first confession of the Schooles concerning their purging Medicines 2. The deceits of Corrections 3. Another confession 4. A third 5. Shamefull excuses 6. A fourth confession 7. A frequent History 8. Deceit in the name 9. It is explained what it is for a laxative medicine to be given while the humours do swell or are disturbed and how full of deceit it is 10. A History of the repentance of the Author 11. A conclusion drawn from thence 12. Nine remarkable things for the destruction of the Schools 13. A History of a certain chief man 14. A fifth confession 15. An examination of the aforesaid particulars 16. A sixth confession 17. Vain and foul privy shifts 18. Weapons retorted from a seventh confession 19. An argument of poyson from stink 20. A mechanical proof 21. The same out of Galen 22. A proof from the effect 23. The Schooles oppose their own Theoremes 24. The suppositions of the Schooles being granted none could dye of a Fever and it should be false that purging things are not to be given in the beginning of Fevers 25. That this Aphorisme includes a deceit and an unadvisednesse of Hippocrates 26. Coction in Diseases is the abuse of a Name THE Schooles acknowledge that their Purgers even unto Agarick have need of Correction because they enforce Nature And I wish those Corrections were not sluggish nor blockish and that they did rather serve for obtaining the innocency of a Medicine than for a gelding thereof For truly a gelding of the Faculties in a Medicine includes a deceit To wit least the sick should understand that a poyson subsisteth therein For the Tamed Remedies of the shops are like an Houshold Wolf who when an occasion is given him while he is trusted in returns unto the wonted cruelty of his own Nature For from hence neither dare they to call their corrected purging Medicines by their proper Etymologie To wit They vail Scammony with the name of Diagridium as also they mask Coloquintida with the name of Alhandal In the next place Laxative Compounds in Dispensatories war under the dissembled Title of a Captain or Leader In the mean time They cannot deny but that in every solutive Scammony and Coloquintida are the two pillars whereby the whole Edifice of Purging is supported and the which being dashed in pieces all of whatsoever was superstructed thereon falls to the ground Next The more mild Solutives as Manna Cassia Senna Rhubarb c. have given up their names unto those two Standard-defending Leaders The Schooles confess I say That a laxative Medicine being administred it is no longer in the power of the Physitian and so they hereby defame their Laxatives and therefore put them behind Phlebotomy For if a laxative Medicine shall commit any the more cruel thing They accuse either the Dose or the Correction or the fluid nature of the sick or the Apothecary or his Wife least otherwise the name should perish from a Solutive Medicine Yet in the mean time will they nill they they confess that all Solutives do enclose in them a consuming poyson and they in the Proverb call Aloes alone harmlesse But the others are to be administred with an additament Correction and Circumspection as neither rashly nor force-timely For of late a judicious man of the privy Councel of Brabant that he might preserve his health had taken a usual Pill of washed Aloes To wit gelded or Corrected wherof while he found not the effect he declares it to a Physitian passing by who blames the sluggishnesse of the Aloes and so turns picron or bitter into pigrum or slow I will prescribe saith he corrected pils of greater vertue The which being taken he miserably perished because it was in vain endeavoured by him for a whole week that he might restrain the unbridled effect of the Laxative Remedy For he that he might free himself from a future Disease perished by the deceit of the Physitian and left eleven Children From whence it is first manifest That it is as well free for a loosening Medicine to Tyrannize on him that is in good health as otherwise on a sick person To wit it is lawfull under the name of a Physitian and deceit of a purging Medicine to prey even upon the life of Princes without punishment Because the earth covers the cruel ignorance of Physitians A Purgation or purifying is indeed a Specious Title but full of deceit And I wish that the purgatory of the Physitian were able to expiace Diseases I wish in as much as this is not done that the sick would not expect a purgatory Medicine from the Hand of Physitians Surely it is a thing most worthy of lamentation what they say That a Laxative Medicine being administred before the Coction of a Disease the same humours indeed are drawn forth for they will have loosening things to draw out one humour and not another by Selection or Choyce which otherwise after the aforesaid Concoction of the Disease is notwithstanding unprofitable yea and hurtfull Neither yet do they from thence hitherto learn That the humours brought forth by Laxative things are not Humours nor offensive ones for otherwise at both stations of the Disease and from the things supposed by one onely Laxative they ought of necessity equally to profit if they detract from the same offensive matter but a meer putrefaction and a meer Liquor corruptively dissolved through the poyson of the Laxatives And by so much the more
words in the confession of Physitians 9. An argument against black Choler in the Spleen and the privy shifts of Physitians 10. The true reason whence the Spleen waxeth hard about the end of a Quartane Ague and the errour of the Schooles is discovered 11. Some remarkable things in a Quartane 12. The manner of be-drunkenning and the Organs thereof 13. A notable thing concerning a Vegetable Spirit of VVine out of Juniper-berries 14. VVhy VVines are ordinarily gratefull to Mortals 15. After what manner the Arteries draw their Remedles 16. An impediment in abstracted Oyles which is not in the Salts of the same 17. The manner of making of the Cardiack or Heart-passion which they also call the Royal Passion 18. Divers Chronical Diseases are from the Stomach 19. The ignorance and sincerity of the age of Hippocrates 20. There is no Seat for a Quartane left in the Schooles 21. A few remarkable things concerning Madnesses are declared 22. The Seat of foolish Madnesses SUrely I have demonstrated in an entire Treatise that there never were Humours in Nature which the Schooles of Medicine presuppose for the Foundation of their Art and that Treatise should profesly have respect hitherto unless it had been erelong to be repeated in a work of other Diseases Because they have every where named all Diseases by those Humours But it shall be sufficient in this place to have demonstrated by the way That Fevers do in no wise owe their original unto those Humours whether they are entire or putrified ones Now I will speak something concerning a Quartane Ague but not that it differs from its Cousin-German Fevers in its matter and efficient cause or is cured otherwise than after one and the same manner and by the same meanes whereby other Fevers are overcome but because a Quartane hath never been vanquished by the broken forces of the Schooles and so it hath made mocks at the Commentaries of Physitians and their vain Speeches concerning black Choler concerning the Spleen as the sink of black and burnt Choler and of loosening Medicines bringing forth black Choler by a Choyce A Quartane Ague therefore hath long since exposed the Doctrine of the Universities and the promises of these unto Laughter as being vain Trifles and wan Fables without strength For truly a desperate curing by Arts hath made manifest the feeble help of Medicines the vain promises of Dispensatories and the undoubted ignorance of the causes of Fevers Good God! it is now manifest that Physitians cannot onely not cure the Leprosie Gout Palsey Asthma Stone Falling-sicknesse and other Diseases conteined under the large Catalogue of uncurable ones which are never cured of their own accord but they have not known how to take away so much as a Quartane Ague which patiently expects and deludes every endeavour of Physitians The which notwithstanding Nature cures by her own power to the disgrace of the Schooles For they who attempt their Cures onely by the cuttings of a vein Sarrifyings Leeches Vesicatories and purgings of the Belly and so by diminishments of the Body and Strength and stick wholly in Heathenish Doctrines are even excluded by Nature from the true knowledge of Causes and Remedies Because first of all None of their Medicines reacheth unto the Seat of a Quartane but it first paying Tribute through the Toles or Customes of every Digestion is stript of every Faculty requisite unto so great a malady For neither ought I to draw out that thing from elsewhere or to prove it by many Arguments Be it sufficient That the Succours of Physitians have been hitherto unprosperous For they purge and cut a vein and then they leave the rest to be boren by Nature And in the mean time they certainly know that they shall profit nothing by Remedies of that sort nor that they ever have profited thereby I wish at least that they had not done hurt They ought therefore to confess that Remedies and also all the suppositions of Art faileth them in this Disease Yea neither that the wonted privy evasion of uncurableness in other Diseases is of value unto them For all the powers of the Universities being conjoyned cannot perform so much as Nature can and doth do without them of her own free accord But moreover The same shamefulnesse of ignorance and every way impotency which a Quartane hath discovered in the Schooles They should be compelled to confesse in the other curings of Fevers also if those did not hasten to an end of their own accord Wherefore I now conjecture That the out-law a Quartane in the Age that is forthwith to come shall distinguish false Physitians from true ones whom the Almighty hath Chosen Created and Commanded to be Honoured The Schools therefore define a Quartane according to the account of other Fevers by a heat kindled besides nature first in the heart from the humour of black Choler being putrified and diffused by the utmost small brances of the veins into the habit of the body The seat of which putrified Choler they nevertheless acknowledge to be in the Spleen I importunately crave at your hands I beseech you let the profession of Medicine tell me what harmony they can ever utter from so great dumness And whether it be not to have blinded the minds as well of the sick as of young beginners with prattle Let them explain why that heat is not first kindled in the Spleen where the cause or humour sitteth which by its putrefaction as they say is the cause of an unnatural heat even as while a Thorn being thrust into the finger sticking fast therein the finger it self first rageth with heat and that long before the putrefaction of inflammation Why is a Quartane so stubborn if at every fit nature opens a passage for it self whereby it may disperse the putrified black Choler thorow the veins into the habit of the body even in the very rigour of cold and straightness of the veins After what manner shall the same black Choler in number be as yet putrified after a year and an halfs space and afford an hard Spleen if at every fit it be dispersed into the habit of the body How if it was from the beginning in the Spleen with so daily a fornication of putrified matter hath it not long since putrified the Spleen The which especially is accounted by the Schools to be nothing but a sink of the worst excrement After what manner doth a Quartane after so many moneths retire as better of its own accord to the disgrace of Physitians while as notwithstanding it shall of necessity be more dry gross and shall more putrifie than at its first fits Again What humour which from its rise is evil and putrified can be at length digested Doth nature become foolish that she at length after a divorce and a year an a halfs time begins to digest the humour which in the beginning she had refused to digest it being already before of necessity plainly putrified What reason is there of the
in separating And so seeing both Cholers accuse of a necessary access in a just temperament as they call it these could never be made fit for nourishment Since moreover we are daily nourished by the same things whereof we consist to wit of a temperate and lively seed refusing both Cholers And there shall be the like reason for both Cholers which there is of Phlegm That if this be perfected into the blood within the veins Choler shall no less be made blood in the Arteries For if Phlegm be changed into blood out of a natural proper and requisite shop much more shall yellow Choller be fit that in the heart it may degenerate into the more yellow blood of the Artery and into the spirit of life and the heart shall be the restorative shop of a gawly excrement But alas how miserable an Argument is it while as the blood let out of the veins disposeth it self to corruption sometimes two three or more liquors are seen therefore there are as many constitutive Humours of us For blood is wholly changed into milk and then after its corruption it hath only three subordinate parts to wit Whey Cheese and Butter nor ever more For sometimes it is totally coagulated in the Dug into a hard swelling in the form of Cheese now and then it wholly passeth over into a white yellow somewhat green c. corrupt Pus Sometimes into a pricking gnawing watery liquor as in the Disease called Choler Ulcers c. Elsewhere also it totally departs into a salt Wheyish liquor as in the Dropsie and many Hydragogal or water-extracting Medicines Oft-times also it waxeth wholly black like pitch as in blood that is chased out of the veins in a Gangreen c. but frequently into an ashie and stinking clay of slime as in Fluxes At another time also it wholly passing over into a yellow poyson shews or spreads forth the Jaundise in which manner also it boasts it self in those that are bitten with a Serpent Elsewhere also the blood is without the separation of an Heterogeneal matter wholly changed into sores issuing forth matter like honey called Melicerides into swellings of the Neck or Arm-holes conteining a matter in them like Pulse c. And in the Pâ—ssing-Evil the blood is totally changed into a milky liquor Even as under a Tabes or Consumption of the Lungs it wholly passeth into a yellowish spittle Are therefore perhaps as many Humours to be constituted in the blood as there are beheld degenerations thereof And shall there be as many Liquors in Rain-water as there are things growing out of the Earth For the blood is in us like unto water neither had it need of divers seeds in the Liver that it may be one only equally nourishable Humour But in the last Kitchins it attaineth its own requisite diversities whereby it performeth the office of nourishing And so it should in its beginning in vain exceed in divers seeds and diversities of kind the which at length ought totally to be Homogeneally reduced into one only glewie white and transparent nourishable Sperm or Seed for the support of the similar parts or to remain red for the flesh of the Muscles and substance of the bowels Wherefore I stedfastly deny That the blood as long as it liveth or is detained in the veins although after the death of a man is coagulated and by consequence that it bath integral unlike parts with any Heterogeniety of it self But that all diversity in the blood is made only by the death or destruction of the same Therefore the diversity of Humours is the daughter only of death but not of life Neither is that of concernment that Excrements do now and then occur in the body which dissemble the countenance of blood To wit from whence they are made by degeneration For Urine is no longer wine even as neither are corrupt Pus or Snivel or spittles as yet parts of the blood Because Excrements are no longer that which they were before their corruption Because every thing assumes its Essence and name from the bound of transmutation For what doth it prove if blood by Phlebotomy separates water or other soils in time of its corruption if the same water be thereupon neither Gaul nor Choler nor bitter and wants the properties of Gaul Or what a rash belief is that Water swims on dead blood Therefore it it is gauly Choler which under a false taste dissembles the bitterness of Choler For that Water swimming on the blood is not an entire part thereof nor of its Essence or Contents or more near akin to the Blood than a Chariot in respect of a man sitting therein It is therefore to be grieved at that for so many ages none hath ever tasted down that water but that they all have engraven their names on the trifles of their Ancestors that I say under a shew of healing the Schools have delivered the destructions of the sick under false Principles For truly Humours are destructive Ignorances sluggishnesses and shamefulnesses introduced by the Father of lies and celebrated by the loose credulity of his followers For although the bottom of the blood doth sometimes look the less red it shall not therefore be black Choler Even as neither is the sediment of the Urine Phlegm But while the life of the blood departed it s no wonder if all particular things which were kept in the unity of life do re-take the material conditions whereto they are obliged For the variety of soils in liquid bodies depends on a preheminency of weights Because they have a latitude in weight which after death become Heterogeneal or of a different hind and by degrees do hasten into a disorder of confusion For will a man that is of a sound judgement believe that Wine Ale and the juyces of herbs do lay aside their own black Choler at the bottom together with their sediment For what hath black Choler common with the heterogeneal substance of a sediment But as to the Colour every Aethiopian hath his Blood almost black but for the most part without whey yet none of them is Melancholy but all wrathful For the blood which by the encompassing air is presently cooled in the Basin waxeth more red than that which being sunk unto the bottom hath the longer continued lukewarm For this also is ordinary that any blood being chased out of the veins presently waxeth black in the body For whatsoever things do readily putrifie do easily admit of the companions of putrefaction and that part of blood doth sooner putrifie which hath the longer continued warm after its death Therefore neither is it a wonder that the part of the lower ground thereof becomes more intensly black But that black blood is not a separation of weight in the Blood and much less black Choler I have separated nine ounces of fresh Blood and that as yet liquide into Porâ—ingers One whereof I exposed to swim in cold water but the other part being equal to the former
incorporeal Gas which is therefore straightway comixable with our Archeus Therefore that Gas refresheth those that are affected in their womb with its smell but not the oyl not the tincture milk or floure of Sulphur But after what sort thou mayest know that Gas of Sulphur to be distinct from the watery vapour thereof kindle a sulphurated torch or candle in a glass bottle thou shalt forthwith see the whole bottle to be filled with a white fume and at length the flame to be stifled by the fume Afterwards keep thou the bottle most exactly stopt with a cork and thou shalt see a sulphur to be affixed unto the sides of the vessel and in the superficies of the water if there were any in the bottom But if indeed after some daies thou shalt put the same enflamed torch or bottle into the neck of the candle the flame is forthwith extinguished by reason of the condensable Gas of the Sulphur no otherwise than as the odour of an Hogshead putrified through continuance stifles the flame of a sulphurated candle But Hippocrates perfumed all the wine which he gave in the plague after this manner He perfumed the pot or cup of a narrow neck with a candle of burning sulphur he powred in wine to the filling of the pot a third part full and stirred the pot being exactly shut by shaking it a good while together upwards and downwards until the wine had drunk up all the Gas of the sulphur into it self For medicines to be hung on the body and Amulets or preservative Pomanders had not yet been made known But he supplyed external medicines that take away weariness or faintness in the room thereof by anointing the body with Greek Wine wherein he had boiled the most fine powder of Sulphur But he besprinkled the same fine powder being dryed in the Sun on those that were in a sweat and commanded it to be applyed with rubbings But the Pest since it never wants a Fever and that the Grecans saw the remedies of Hippocrates they began first to call the Pest and then every Fever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a fire Not indeed by reason of a remarkable and necessary burning heat of Fevers although it so pleased Galen For truly they called the beginning cold rigours and horrours Pyâ— or a fire as well as a burning Causon For Hippâ—crates lightly ground Sulphur with water on a Grind-stone and being again dried he kept it for his uses But he gave twenty four grains of Sulphur with salted and hot wine that he might provoke sweats But he first made the salt to crack in a glassen pot and presently afterwards he melted it by increasing the fire for else salt containeth in it excrementitious filths which at the first cracking fly away the salt cleaving asunder and leaping a little These Spirits do easily putrifie through continuance and subject the salt to a fear of contagion for they are very forraign to the salt the which although they fled away a good while before the fusion of the salt yet he made a melting of the salt that whatsoever forreign thing was contained in the salt might be consumed by the fire For indeed he saw that presently after the invasion of the Pest the appetite was prostrated and then also that fermentally putrified and burntish impurities grew in the stomach from whence arose the headach vomitings loathings doatage the drowsie evil c. which would hinder the cure of the plague Therefore he took the common balsam of the salt of fleshes which might overthrow the fermental putrified poyson and putrefactions by cleansing them away together with a conâ—â—â—ing of the strength and he gave the wine being salted hot but not luke-warm 〈…〉 restrain the loathings of the stomach and mightily provoke sweats and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sulphur that it might kill the plague as it were with its odour because salt cleanâ—â—â—h preserveth from corruption and Sulphur restrains poyson But he prescribed this sweat for three daies space at least yet oft-times he extended it unto a weeks space but they did sweat twice every day and at every turâ— for the sixth part of a day if they were able on the first daies more and on the after succeeding daies less For in time of sweating he took away all drink but the term of sweating being finished he fed them with Barley-Cream and for drink they had Greek Wine pitcht wherein were a few grains of the aforesaid salt and Sulphur But he laid the leaves of Assara Bacca being steeped in vinegar upon the Bubo unto the soals of the feet and palms of the hands which after every twelve hours he commanded to be buried because they stink greatly It came to pass afterwards that Greece be sprinkled their grapes divers times with the Brine of the Sea before they were carried to the Press For Hippocrates perswaded that thing that so together with it Inâ—ects might be driven from the grapes Hence it is that the Wines of Greece are salted even unto this day the reason of this use being unknown Unto great Buboes in the groyn and marks he applyed hot Towels tinged in rich wine wherein as I have said he had boiled Sulphur Furthermore he reserved a secret to himself through the sight whereof he attained to himself divine honours But it was the flesh of a Viper or or Snake which he cleansed for the utmost part of the tail and the head being cut off he stript off their skin casting away the bowels together with the gawl he reserved only the Heart and Liver but he drew out all their blood with the vein running down the back-bone But he boiled not their flesh after the manner wherein it is put into Triacle but he exactly bruised the same together with the bones and aforesaid bowels and dryed them in a warm Oven until they could be powdered which powder he sprinkled on hony being sufficiently clarified and boiled until he knew that fleshes in boiling had laid aside their virtue as well in the broath as in the vapours But he added unto this Electuary the Spice of his Country for to cloak the secret and therefore neither was it made manifest by the Angel But the cure contains a mystery that as Death crept in by the Serpent it self also ought to be vindicated by the death of the Serpent For Adam being skilful in the properties of all Beasts was not ignorant also that the Serpent was more crafty than the other living Creatures and that the aforesaid balsam the remedy of death lay hid in the Serpent Wherefore the Spirit of Darkness could not more safely deceive our first parents than under the Serpents skin For perhaps they hoped that they should escape the death sorely threatned by God by the aid of the Serpent Hippocrates used also wine that was pitched Wherefore it is worthy our consideration that Spain is seldom afflicted with the plague not because sins or filths are wanting where there are almost no Jakes's It s a
able to proceed and whether they hope that bloud being at sometime after what manner soever once putrified in the veines there is aforded in Nature a going back or return To wit from such a privation For let them shew that it is not a contradiction that it is proper to a Fever to defile the bloud it self and for this property to be taken away by the effect to wit by a removal of that which is putrified For if the more impure bloud be at first drawn out of the vein and they repeatingly open a vein in the mean time they prostrate and disturb the Faculties hence also they take away the hope of a Crisis what if then the more red bloud shall flow forth Surely they cry out as if the whole Troop of the Malady were taken away at the first turn and as if the Seat of Fevers had been extended onely from the Heart unto the Elbow but that the good bloud resided about the Liver But I have alwayes discerned evacuations of the last excrements to be fearfull in the Dropsie and therefore much more in a naked snatching away of the bloud which withdrawes in a direct passage the vital spirits from the Heart through the Wound whether that bloud be accounted bad or good or neutral First of all I have proved that as well those things offend in begging of the principle which are supposed concerning a putrified continual and burning Fever as those which are supposed concerning the emissions of putrified bloud Wherefore in speaking according to Numbers I have alwayes found Succours that are made for the snatching away of the strength to be full of deceit as that for a very little ease the Faculties the Porters of Diseases are weakened For even so as drink at the beginning of Fevers seemeth to comfort Thirst for a little space but who is so mad that he would then drink if he knew that the drink would filch away his necessary powers Therefore the ayd of cooling by cutting of a vein is unfaithfull deceitfull and momentany At length concerning neutral bloud which in respect of cutting of a vein is neither good nor evil it is not worth ones labour to speak any thing seeing that which is denyed under a disjoyning may also be denyed copulatively For whether that be neutral bloud which consisteth of a co-mixture of the good with that which is depraved by supposing that to be depraved which is not or that wherein a neutral alteration is introduced for both events the particulars aforesaid do satisfie Lastly That I may cut off the hope that is in Revulsion and so equally take away all co-indications as the wretched privy shifts of obstinacy It is a mad ayd to have cut a vein for this end they for the most part require a plenteous one whether in Fevers or next in the Menstrues for Revulsion because a Feverish matter swims not in the bloud or floats in the veins as a Fish doth in the water but it adheres or sticks fast within to the vessel even as in its own place concerning the occasionall matter I will declare But for the Menstrues in like manner because a separation thereof is made from the whole and that not but by a separating hand of the Archeus But Bloud-letting separates nothing of the separable things because it acts without a foreknowledge of the end and so without choyce But presently after the vessel is opened the more nigh and harmless bloud alway flowes forth the which because other afterwards followes by a continual thred for fear of a vacuum therefore the Menstrues otherwise by the endeavour of Nature collected about the Womb are by cutting of a vein drawn away from thence and go back into the whole Body But if Phlebotomy shall sometimes well succeed in a Woman that is plethorick and full of juyce yet surely in many others it hath given a miserable overthrow For if the Menstrues should offend onely in its quantity while as it is now collected and separated in the veins about the Womb I shall willingly admit of an individual betokening of Phlebotomy and onely in the Case supposed But the Menstrues if it shall flow in a well-constituted Womb it abundantly satisfies its own ends and in this respect Revulsion is in vain although the Supposition supposeth it to be even an impossible thing For Bloud-letting is nothing but a meer and undistinct emptying out of the bloud But the veins being emptyed they out of hand recall unto themselves any kind of bloud whatsoever from on every side Because as they are the greedy sheaths of bloud so also are they impatient of Vacuity or emptiness And therefore the veins that are emptyed do allure the Menstrues designed for utterance That is being in this respect once enrouled by Nature in the Catalogue of Excrements But Derivation because it is a sparing effusion of bloud so it be made out of veines convenient it hath often profited in many locall Diseases and so in Fevers it is impertinent But they urge that the cutting of a vein is so necessary in a Pleurisie that it is enjoyned under a Capital punishment For truly they say that unlesse the bloud flowing together unto the Ribs be pulleâ— back by the effusion of much bloud there is danger least the Pleurisie do soon kill the man by choaking of him Surely I let out the bloud of no person that hath a Pleurisie and such a cure is safe certain profitable and sound None of them perisheth whereas in the mean time under Phlebotomy many do at length perish with a long or lingring Consumption and experience a Relapse every Year For according to Galen Whosoever they be that are not perfectly cured on the fortieth day become Consumptious But I perfectly cure them within few dayes neither do they feel a Relapse Neither indeed have I alone my secrets for this purpose But moreover I have seen a Country man curing all Pleuritical persons at the third draught For he used the dung of an Horse for a man and of a Nag for a woman which he dissolved in Ale and gave the expressed strayning to drink Such indeed is the ignorance of Physitians and so great the obstinacy of the Schooles That God gives knowledge to Rusticks and Little ones which he denyes to those that are blown up with Heathenish Learning We must now see if there be any use of Revulsion in Fevers For indeed since the work of Revulsion is not primarily any other thing than the cutting of a vein whereunto the succeeding bloud is by accident hoped to come and that by the benefit of that thing it should not flow unto the place affected Upon this Position it followes That by such an Euacuation the offensive Feverish bloud so I connivingly speak shall be drawn as dispersed into the veines which otherwise lurking in its own Nest far from the Heart could not so cruelly communicate the Ferment of its own hurt unto the Heart which is to say that it should