those things which are not agreeable to nature To what things besides nature But the things which are called Natural may be reduced to seven heads besides which there comes into their fellowship those which we term Annexed The seven principal heads of things Natural are Elements Temperaments Humors Parts or members Faculties Actions Spirits To these are annexed as somewhat near Age Sex Colour Cmpoosure Time or season Region Vocation of life CHAP. IV. Of Elements AN Element by the definition which is commonly received amongst Physitians is the least and most simple portion of that thing which it composeth or What an Element is that my speech may be the more plain The four first and simple bodies are called Elements Fire Air Water and Earth which accommodate and subject themselves as matter to the promiscuous generation of all things which the Heavens engirt whether you understand things perfectly or unperfectly mixed Such Elements are only to be conceived in your mind Elements are understood by reason not by sense being it is not granted to any external sense to handle them in their pure and absolute nature Which was the cause that Hippocrates expressed them not by the names of substances but of proper qualities saying Hot Cold Moist Dry because some one of these qualities is inherent in every Element as his proper and essential form not only according to the excess of latitude but also of the active faculty Why Hipp. expressed the Elements by these names of Qualities to which is adjoined another simple quality and by that reason principal but which notwithstanding attains not to the highest degree of his kind as you may understand by Galen in his first Book of Elements So for example sake in the Air we observe two qualities Heat and Moisture both principal and not remitted by the commixture of any contrary quality Two principal qualities are in each Element for otherwise they were not simple Therefore thou maist say What hinders that the principal effects of heat shew not themselves as well in the Air as in the Fire Because as we said before although the Air have as great a heat according to his nature extent and degree no otherwise than Fire hath yet it is not so great in its active quality Why the Air heats not so vehemently as the Fire The reason is because that the calfactory force in the Air is hindered and dulled by society of his companion and adjoined quality that is Humidity which abateth the force of heat as on the contrary driness quickneth it The Elements therefore are endewed with qualities Names of the substances Fire Air Water Earth is Hot and dry Moist and hot Cold and moist Cold and dry Names of the qualities These four Elements in the composition of natural bodies How the Elements may be understood to be mixed in compound bodies retain the qualities they formerly had but that by their mixture and meeting together of contraries they are somewhat tempered and abated But the Elements are so mutually mixed one with another and all with all that no simple part may be found no more then in a mass of the Emplaister Diacalcitheos you can shew any Axungia oil or Litharge by it self all things are so confused and united by the power of heat mixing the smallest particulars with the smallest and the whole with the whole in all parts You may know and perceive this concretion of the four Elementary substances in one compound body by the power of mixture in their dissolution by burning a pile or heap of green wood For the flame expresses the Fire the smoak the Air the moisture that sweats out at the ends Why of the first qualities two are active and two passive the Water and the ashes the Earth You may easily perceive by this example so familiar and obvious to the senses what dissolution is which is succeeded by the decay of the compound body on the contrary you may know that the coagmentation or uniting and joyning into one of the first mixed bodies is such that there is no part sincere or without mixture For if the heat which is predominant in the fire should remain in the mixture in its perfect vigor it would consume the rest by its pernicious neighbourhood the like may be said of Coldness Moisture and Driness although of these qualities two have the title of Active that is Heat and Coldness because they are the more powerful the other two Passive because they may seem more dull and slow being compared to the former The temperaments of all sublunary bodies arise from the commixture of these substances and elementary qualities which hath been the principal cause that moved me to treat of the Elements But I leave the force and effects of the Elementary qualities to some higher contemplation content to have noted this that of these first qualities so called because they are primarily and naturally in the four first bodies others arise and proceed which are therefore called the second qualities as of many these Heaviness Why the first qualities are so called Lightness variously distributed by the four Elements as the Heat or Coldness Moistness or Driness have more power over them For of the Elements two are called light because they naturally affect to move upwards the other two heavie What the second qualities are by reason they are carryed downward by their own weight So we think the fire the lightest because it holds the highest place of this lower world the Air which is next to it in site we account light for the water which lies next to the Air we judg heavie What Elements light what heavy and the earth the center of the rest we judg to be the heaviest of them all Hereupon it is that light bodies and the light parts in bodies have most of the lighter Elements as on the contrary heavie bodies have more of the heavier This is a brief descripion of the Elements of this frail world which are only to be discerned by the understanding to which I think good to adjoin another description of other Elements as it were arising or flowing from the commixture of the first For besides these there are said to be Elements of generation and Elements of mans body Which as they are more corporal so also are they more manifest to the sense By which reason Hippocrates being moved in his Book de Natura humana after he had described the Nature of Hot Cold Moist and Dry What the Elements of generation are he comes to take notice of these by the order of composition Wherefore the Elements of our generation as also of all creatures which have blood What the Elements of mâ—xt bodies are seed and menstruous blood But the Elements of our bodies are the solid and similar parts arising from those Elements of generation Of this kind are bones membranes ligaments veins arter es and many others manifest to the eys
which we will describe at large in our Treatise of Anatomie CPAP. V. Of Temperaments What a Temperament is A Temperament is defined a proportionable mixture of hot cold moist and dry or It is a concord of the first disagreeing faculties That harmony springs from the mixture of the four first bodies of the world This whether Temperament or Concord is given to Plants and brute Beasts for the beginning of their life and so consequently for their life and form But as Plants are inferiour in order and dignity to beasts so their * Anima What the life performs in Plants life is more base and infirm for they have only a growing faculty by which they may draw an Alimentary juyce from the earth as from their Mothers breasts to preserve them and their life by which they may grow to a certain bigness and lastly by which they may bring forth their like for the perpetual continuance of their kind But the * Anima What in beasts Mans soul comes from above life of beasts have to the three former the gift of sense annexed by benefit whereof as by a certain inward knowledge they shun those things that are hurtful and follow those which profit them and by the power of their will they move themselves whither they please But the soul of man far more perfect and noble than the rest ariseth not from that earthly mixture and temper of the Elements but acknowledgeth and hath a far more divine off-spring as we shall teach hereafter The manifold division of a Temperament They divide a Temperament at the first division into two kinds as one a temperate another an untemperate The untemperate is of two sorts The one wholly vicious which hath altogether exceeded the bounds of mediocrity The other which hath somwhat strayed from the mediocrity of temper A Temperament ad Pondus but notwithstanding is yet contained within the limits of health as that which brings no such evident harm to the actions but that it somewhat hinders them so that they cannot so well and perfectly perform their duties But the vicious Temperament doth three manner of wayes corrupt the functions either by weakning depraving or abolishing them For so Stupor or astonishment diminisheth and sloweth the quickness of motion Convulsion depraves it Ad pondus vel ad justitiam the Palsie abolisheth it and taketh it away The temperate Temperament is also divided into two kinds which is either to equality of weight or justice It is called a Temperature to weight which ariseth from the equal force of exactly concurring qualities and as placed in a perfect ballance draws down neither to this nor that part They think the example of this Temperament to appear in the inner skin of the fingers ends of a man tempered to Justice For seeing the most exquisite touch resides there they ought to be free from all excess of contrariety for otherwise being corrupted by too much heat or cold moisture or driness they could give no certain judgment of the tangible qualities For which thing Nature hath excellently provided in the fabrick and coagmentation of the parts of which the skin consists For it is composed of hot and moist flesh and therefore soft and of a tendon and nerve cold and dry and therefore hard which are not only equally fitted and conjoyned but wholly confused and mixed together by which it comes that removed from all extreames of opposition it is placed in the midst as a rule to judg of all the excesses that happen to the touch So it was fit the eye which was to be the instrument of sight should be tinctured with no certain colour that it might be the less deceived in the judgment of colours So it was convenient the Hearing should not be troubled with any distinct sound whereby it might more certainly judg of equal and unequal sounds not distinguished by a ratable proportion neither was it fit the tongue should have any certain taste lest the access of that taste should deceive it in knowing and judging of so many different tastes A Temperament ad justitiam The temperature tempered to justice is that which although it is a little absent from the exact and severe parility of mixed qualities yet hath that equality which doth fully and abundantly suffice for to perform all the functions fitly and perfectly which nature doth require wherefore we can judg no otherwise of it than by the integrity of the Actions For hence it took its name for as distributive Justice equally gives to every one rewards or punishment according to their deserts so Nature having regard to all the parts of the body gives them all that temper which may suffice to perform those duties for which they are ordained Let us for an example consider a Bone no man doubts but that like as the other similar parts of the body The Temperament of a bone proceeds from the mixture of the four Elements but nevertheless nature weighing the use of it and ordaining it to support the rest of the body would have more of the terrene and dry Element infused into it that it might be the stronger and firmer to sustein weight But a Ligament seeing it was made for other uses hath less of that earthly driness than the bone but more than the flesh altogether fitted to its nature So it hath seemed good to nature to endue all the parts of the body not only with an equal portion but also proportion of Elements and qualities we call that a Temperament to justice and we say that it is in Plants brute Beasts and all natural bodies which enjoy that temper and mediocrity which may be agreeable to their nature Hereupon by comparison arise eight kinds of intemperate tempers As Four simple Hot temperate in Driness and Moisture The kindes of untemperate tempers Cold temperate in Driness and Moisture Moist temperate in Heat and Cold. Dry temperate in Heat and Cold. Four compounds Hot and Moist Hot and Dry Cold and Moist Cold and Dry. But these Temperaments are either of the whole Body or of some part thereof And that either Principal as the Brain the Heart the Liver the Stones Or Of the rest of the parts composed of other which have no principality in the body Again such Temperaments are either healthful which suffice perfectly to perform their actions or unhealthful which manifestly hurt them the signes whereof may be read described by Galen And you must observe that when we say the body or any part of it is hot Lib 2. de Temper in Arte medica we understand more hot than is fit for one of that kind which is tempered to justice as when we say a man hath a hot liver we mean his liver is hotter than a man justly tempered should have for all other tempers whether of the whole body or any of the parts thereof are to be referred to this and in the cure of diseases
troublesome harsh touchy froward crabby and often complaining untill at the length deprived of all their senses tongue feet and understanding they doting return again to childishness as from the staff to the start And thus much of the Temperaments of ages The tempers of the seasons of the year But now in like manner we will explain the Temperatures of the seasons of the year which are four the Spring Summer Autumn Winter The Spring continues almost from the twelfth or thirteenth day of March to the midst of May Hippocrates seemeth to make it hot and moist which opinion seemeth not to have sprung from the thing it self but from an inveterate error of the ancient Philosophers who would fit the Temperaments of the four seasons of the year as answering in proportion to the temperatures of the four ages How the spring is temperate For if the matter come to a just tryal all men will say the Spring is temperate as that which is in the midst of the excess of heat cold moisture and dryness not only by comparison because it is hotter than Winter and colder than Summer but because it hath that quality of its own proper nature Wherefore it is said of Hippocrates Aphoâ— 9 â—â—ct 3 The Spring is most wholesome and least deadly if so be that it keep its native temper from which if it decline or succeed a former untemperate season as Autumn or Winter Aphor. 20. sect 3. it will give occasion to many diseases described by Hippocrates not that it breeds them but because it brings them to sight which before lay hid in the body Summer is comprehended in the space almost four months it is of a hot and dry temper a breeder of such diseases as proceed from choler because that humour at this time is heaped up in many bodies by adustion of blood bred in the Spring but all such diseases do speedily run their course The beginning of Autumn Autumn unequal is from the time the Sun enters into Libra and endures the like space of time as the Spring But when it is dry it hath great inequality of heat and cold for the morning and evenings being very cold the noondays on the contrary are exceeding hot Wherefore many diseases are in Autumn and them long and deadly especially if they incline towards Winter because all daily and soddain changes to heat and cold are dangerous The Winter possesses the remnant of the year and is cold and moist it increases natural heat stirs up the appetite and augments Phlegm How Winter encreases the native heat It encreases heat by Antiperistasis or contrariety of the encompassing air which being then cold prohibits the breathing out of heat whereby it happens that the heat being driven in and hindered from dissipation is strengthened by co-uniting its forces But it augments Phlegm for that men are more greedy the Appetite being encreased by the strengthened heat from whence proceeds much crudity and a large store of diseases especially Chronick or Long which spread and encrease rather in this Winter-season than in any other part of the year To this discourse of the temper of the seasons of the years is to be revoked the variety of tempers which happens every day which certainly is not to be neglected that there may be place of election Aphor 4. sect 3. especially if nothing urge For hither belongs that saying of Hippocrates When in the same day it is one while hot another cold Autumnal diseases are to be expected Therefore an Indication taken from hence is of great consequence to the judgment of diseases for if it agree with the disease the disease is made more contumacious and difficult to cure Whereupon the Patient and Physitian will have much trouble but if on the contrary it reclaim and dissent the health of the Patient is sooner to be expected Neither is it a thing of less consequence to know the customs and habits of the Places and Countreys in which we live as also the inclination of the Heavens and temperature of the Air. But let us leave these things to be considered by Natural Philosophers that we may deliver our judgment of the temperaments of Humors Blood The temperaments of Humors as that which answers to the Air in proportion is of a hot and moist nature or rather temperate as Galen testifies for saith he it is certain and sure that the Blood is neither hot nor moist but temperate as in its first composure none of the four first Qualities exceeds other by any manifest excess as he repeats it upon the 39th Sentence Phlegm as that which is of a waterish nature Lib. de natura humana ad Sent. 36. sect 1. is cold and moist no otherwise than Choler being of a fiery temper is hot and dry But Melancholy assimilated to earth is cold and dry The temperature of the Blood This which we have spoken in general of Phlegm and Melancholy is not alwayes true in every kind of the said Humors For salt Phlegm is of a hot and dry temperature as also all kinds of Melancholy which have arose or sprung by adustion from the native and alimentary as we will teach in the following Chapter Fpom whence we judg of the temperature of Medicines Now the temperaments of Medicines have not the same form of judgment as those things which we have before spoken of as not from the Elementary quality which conquering in the contention and mixture obtains the dominion but plainly from the effects which taken or applyed they imprint in a temperate body For so we pronounce those things hot cold moist or dry which produce the effects of Heat Coldness Moisture or Dryness But we will defer the larger explication of these things to that place where we have peculiarly appointed to treat of Medicines where we will not simply enquire whether they be hot or cold but what degree of heat and cold or the like other quality In which same place we will touch the temperature and all the nature of Tastes because the certainest judgment of Medicines is drawn from their tastes Hitherto of Temperaments now we must speak of Humors whose use in Physical speculation is no less than that of Temperaments CHAP. VI. Of Humors TO know the nature of Humors is a thing not only necessary for Physitians The knowledg of the Humor is necessary but also for Chirurgeons because there is no disease with matter which ariseth not from some one or the mixture of more Humors Which thing Hippocrates understanding writ every Creature to be either sick or well according to the condition of the Humors in the body Lib. De Natura Humana And certainly all putrid feavers proceed from the putrefaction of Humors Neither do any acknowledg any other original or distinction of the differences of Abscesses or Tumors neither do ulcerated broken or otherwise wounded members hope for the restauration of continuity from other
than from the sweet falling down of Humors to the wounded part Which is the cause that often in the cure of these affects the Physitians are necessarily busied in tempering the blood that is bringing to a mediocrity the four Humors composing the mass of blood if they at any time offend in quantity or quality For whether if any thing abound or digress from the wonted temper in any excess of heat cold viscosity grosness thinness or any such like quality none of the accustomed functions will be well performed The helps of Health For which cause those chief helps to preserve and restore health have been divinely invented Phlebotomie or blood-letting which amends the quantity of too much bloud and Purging which corrects and draws away the vicious quality But now let us begin to speak of the Humors taking our beginning from the Definition An Humor is called by Physitians what thing soeuer is liquid and flowing in the body of living Creatures endued with Blood and that is either natural or against nature What an Humor is The natural is so called because it is fit to defend preserve and sustain the life of a Creature The manifold division of Humors Quite different is the nature and reason of that which is against nature Again the former is either Alimentary or Excrementitious The Alimentary which is fit to nourish the body is that Humor which is contained in the veins and arteries of a man which is temperate and perfectly well and which is understood by the general name of blood which is let out at the opening of a vein For Blood otherwise taken is an Humor of a certain kind distinguished by heat and warmness from the other Humors comprehended together with it in the whole mass of the blood Which thing that it may the better be understood I have thought good in this place to declare the generation of Blood by the efficient and material causes All things which we eat or drink are the materials of Blood The material and efficient causes of blood which things drawn into the bottom of the Ventricle by its attractive force and there detained are turned by the force of concoction implanted in it into a substance like to Almond-butter Which thing although it appear one and like it self yet it consists of parts of a different nature which not only the variety of meats but one and the same meats yields of it self We term this Chylus What the Chylus is when it is perfectly concocted in the stomach But the * Vena porta Gate-vein receives it driven from thence into the small Guts and sucked in by the Meseraick-veins and now having gotten a little rudiment of change in the way carries it to the Liver where by the Blood-making faculty which is proper and natural to this part it acquires the absolute and perfect form of Blood But with that Blood Where the Blood is perfected at one and the same time and action all the Humors are made whether alimentary or excrementitious Therefore the Blood that it may perform its Office that is the faculty of nutrition must necessarily be purged and cleansed from the two excrementitious Humors of which the bladder of Gall draws one which we call yellow Choler and the Spleen the other which we term Melancholy These two Humors are natural but not alimentary or nourishing but of another use in the body as afterwards we will shew more at large The Blood freed from these two kinds of Excrements is sent by the veins and arteries into all parts of the body for their nourishment Which although then it seem to be of one simple nature The receptacles of Choler and Melancholy Four unlike Humors in the Blood yet notwithstanding it is truly such that four different and unlike substances may be observed in it as Blood properly so named Phlegm Choler and Melancholy not only distinct in colour but also in taste effects and qualities For as Galen notes in his Book de Natura humana Melancholy is acide or sour Choler bitter Blood sweet Phlegm unsavoury But you may know the variety of their effects both by the different temper of the nourished parts as also by the various condition of the diseases springing from thence For therefore such substances ought to be tempered and mixed amongst themselves in a certain proportion which remaining health remains but violated diseases follow For all acknowledg A comparison of Blood and new Wine that an Oedema is caused by Phlegmatick a Scirrhus by Melancholick an Erysipelas by Cholerick and a Phlegmone by pure and laudable blood Galen teaches by a familiar example of new wine presently taken from the Press that these four substances are contained in that one mass and mixture of the blood In which every one observes four distinct Essences for the flower of the wine working up swims at the top the dregs fall down to the bottom but the crude and watery moisture mixed together with the sweet and vinous liquor is every where diffused through the body of the wine the flower of the wine represents Choler which bubbling up on the superficies of blood as it concretes and grows cold shineth with a golden colour the dregs Melancholy which by reason of its heaviness ever sinketh downward as it were the mud of the blood the crude and watery portion Phlegm for as that crude humor except it be rebellious in quantity Phlegm is Blood half concocted or stubborn by its quality there is hope it may be changed into Wine by the natural heat of the Wine so Phlegm which is blood half concocted may by the force of native heat be changed into good and laudable blood Which is the cause that nature decreed or ordained no peculiar place Why it hath no proper receptacle as to the other two humors whereby it might be severed from the blood But the true and perfect liquor of the wine represents the pure blood which is the more laudable and perfect portion of both humors of the confused mass It may easily appear by the following Scheme of what kind they all are and also what the distinction of these four Humors may be  NATURE CONSISTENCE COLOUR TASTE USE Blood is Of Nature airy hot and moist or rather temperate Of indifferent consistence neither too thick nor too thin Of Colour red rosie or crimson Of Taste sweet Of such use that it chiefly serves for the nourishment of the fleshy parts and carryed by the vessels imparts heat to the whole body Phlegm is Of Nature watery cold and moist Of Consistence liquid Of Colour white Of Taste sweet or rather unsavory for we commend that water which is unsavory Fit to nourish the brain and all the other cold and moist parts to temper the heat of the blood and by its slipperiness to help the motion of the joynts Choler is Of Nature fiery hot and dry Of Consistence thin Of Colour yellow or
The present state of the Air one while for some small time is like the Spring that is temperate otherwhiles like the Summer Aphor. 4. sect 2. The force of the Winds that is hot and dry otherwhiles like the Winter that is cold and moist and sometimes like the Autumn which is unequal and this last constitution of the Air is the cause of many diseases When upon the same day it is one while hot another cold we must expect Autumnal diseases These tempers and varieties of constitutions of the Air are chiefly and principally stirred up by the winds as which being diffused over all the Air shew no small force by their sudden change Wherefore we will briefly touch their natures That which blows from the East is the East-wind and is of a hot and dry nature and therefore healthful But the Western wind is cold and moist and therefore sickly The South-wind is hot and moist the Author of putrefaction and putrid diseases The North-wind is cold and dry therefore healthy wherefore it is thought if it happen to blow in the Dog-days that it makes the whole year healthful and purges and takes away the seeds of putrefaction if any chance to be in the Air. But this description of the four Winds is then only thought to be true if we consider the Winds in their own proper nature which they borrow from those Regions from which they first proceed For otherwise they affect the Air quite contrary How the winds acquire other â—ies than they naturally have according to the disposition of the places over which they came as Snowie places Sea Lakes Rivers Woods or sandy Plains from whence they may borrow new qualities with which they may afterwards possess the Air and so consequently our bodies The Westwind oâ— it self unwholsome Hence it is we have noted the Western-wind unwholsom and breeding diseases by reason of the proper condition of the Region from whence it came and such that is cold and moist the Gascâ—ins find it truly to their so great harm that it seldom blows with them but it brings some manifest and great harm What force stars have upon the Air. either to their bodies or fruits of the earth And yet the Greeks and Latins are wont to commend it for healthfulness more than the rest But also the rising and setting of some more eminent Stars do often cause such cold winds that the whole Air is cooled or infected with some other malign quality For vapors and exhalations are often raised by the force of the Stars from whence winds clouds storms whirlwinds lightnings thunders hail snow rain earthquakes inundations and violent raging of the sea have their original The exact contemplation of which things although it be proper to Astronomers Cosmographers and Geographers yet Hippocrates could not omit it but that he must speak something in his book De Aere Aquis where he touches by the way the description of the neighbouring Regions and such as he knew From this force of the Air either hurtful or helping in diseases came that famous observation of Guido of Cauâ—ias That wounds of the head are more difficult to cure at Paris than at Avignion and the plain contrary of wounds of the legs How the air of Paris comes to be ill for wounds of the head and good for those of the leggs for the air of Paris compared to that of Avignion is cold and moist wherefore hurtful and offensive to the wounds of the head On the contrary the same air because it obscures the spirits incrassates the blood condensates the humors and makes them less fit for defluxions makes the wounds of the legs more easie to be healed by reason it hinders the course of humors by whose defluxion the cure is hindred But it is manifest that hot and dry places make a greater dissipation of the natural heat from whence the weakness of the powers by which same reason the Inhabitants of such places do not so well endure blood-letting but more easily suffer purgations though vehement by reason of the contumacy of the humor By what means the air changes our bodies caused by driness To conclude the Air changes the constitutions of our bodies either by its qualities as if it be hotter colder moister or drier or by its matter as if it be grosser or more subtil than is fit or corrupted by exhalations from the earth or by a sudden and unaccustomed alteratâ—on which any man may prove who makes a sudden change out of a quiet air into a stormy and troubled with many winds But because next to the Air nothing is so necessary to nourish mans body as Meat and Drink I will now begin to speak of them both CHAP. XIV Of Meat and Drink THat this our Treatise of Meat and Drink may be more brief and plain I have thought good to part it into these heads as to consider the goodness and illness of both of them their quantity quality custom delight order time and to accommodate them all to the ages and seasons of the year We judge of the goodness and pravity of meats and drinks The goodness of nourishments from the condition of the good or vicious humours or juyce which they beget in us For evil juyce causeth many diseases As on the contrary good juyce drives away all diseases from the body except the fault happen from some other occasion as from quantity or too much excess Wherefore it is principally necessary that those who will preserve their present health and hinder the access of diseases feed upon things of good nourishment and digestion as are good wine the yolks of eggs good milk wheaten bread well baked the flesh of Capons Partridge Thrushes Larks Veal Mutton Kid and such like other which you may find mentioned in the Books which Galen writ De Alimentâ—rum facultatibus where also he examins those which are of evil juyce by their manifest qualities as acrimony bitterness saltness acidity harshness and such like But unless we use a convenient quantity and measure in our meats howsover laudable they be Their quantity we shall never reap these fruits of health we hoped for For they yield matter of diseases by the only excess of their quantity but we may by this know the force of quantity on both parts because often the poisonous quality of meats of ill nourishment doth not hurt by reason they were not taken into the body into a great quantity That measure of quantity is chiefly to be regarded in diseases for as Hippocrates saith If any give meat to one sick of a Feaver The quantity of meats must be esteemed according to the nature of the disease and strength of the Patient he gives strength to the well and increases the disease to the sick especially if he do not use a mean Wherefore it is a thing of no small consequence to know what diseases require a slender and what a large diet
of which thing there is large relation made in the 1 Sect. of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates where he teacheth the sick must feed more largely in the beginning of long diseases whereby they may be enabled to endure the length of the disease and last to the state thereof But in sharp and violent diseases which presently come to their height we must use a slender diet but most slender when the disease is in the height and besides all our consultations in this kind must be referred to the strength of the Patients But those who enjoy their perfect health must use a quantity of meat agreeable to their evacuation and transpiration for men by reason of the strength of their heat and the more copious dissipation of the triple substance have greater appetite than women altogether by the same reason that young people and such as grow need more frequent and plentiful nourishment than old men and also amongst young men of the like age some do rightly require more copious nourishment than othersome that is according to the quantity of their evacuations and custom Certainly for gluttony it is such as may be extended to all but we all should take so much meat and drink that our powers may be refreshed and not oppressed for by the decree of Hippocrates these be the two compendiary ways of preserving health not to be over-filled with meat and to be quick to work and thus much of the quantity of meats Neither must those who are either sound or sick The qualities of meat have less regard to the qualities of their Meats and those are either the first as heating cooling moistening drying or the second attenuating incrassating obstructing opening or some other-like working according to the condition of their nature The manner of our diet is not only to be framed according to these but also to be varied for the present state of such as be in health requires to be preserved by the use of like things As hot and moist nourishment is to be prescribed to children as to those which are hot and moist and cold and dry to old men as to those who are cold and dry if so be that vulgar saying be true that Health delights in the use of like things Old-age is a disease Yet because Old-age how green and new-begun howsoever it be is of it self as it were a disease it seems to be more convenient both to truth and for health that old people should eat meats contrary to their nature that is hot and moist that so we may defer as much as we can the causes of death cold and driness which hasten the destruction of that age For we must resist diseases by the use of their contraries as those things which are contrary to nature For otherwise as much meat as you give to the sick you add so much strength to the disease Aphor. 16. sect 1. And the same is the cause why Hippâ—crates said that a moist diet is convenient for all such as are sick of Feavers because a Feaver is a dry distemperature Therefore we must diligently pry into the nature of the disease that knowing it we may endeavour to abate its fury by the use of contraries But if Custom as they say be another nature the Physitian must have a great care of it The force of Custom both in sound and sick For this sometimes by little little and insensibly changes our natural temperament instead thereof gives us a borrowed temper Wherefore if any would presently or suddenly change a Custom which is sometimes ill into a better truly he will bring more harm than good because all sudden changes according to the opinion of Hippocrates are dangerous Aphor. 91. sect 2. Wherefore if necessity require that we should withdraw any thing from our Custom we must do it by little and little that so nature may by degrees be accustomed to contraries without violence or the disturbance of its usual government For that meat and drink which is somewhat worse but more pleasant and familiar by custom is to be preferred in Hippocrates opinion before better Aphor. 38. sect 2. but less pleasant and accustomed Hence is it that Country-men do very well digest Beef and Bacon which commonly they use but will turn into nidorulent vapors Partridg Capons and other meat of good nourishment sooner than change them into good and laudable Chylus The cause of which thing is not only to be attributed unto the property of their stronger and as it were burning heat but much more to Custom which by a certain kind of familiarity Accustomed meats are more grateful and so by that means more nourishing causeth that meats of hard digestion are easily turnrd into laudable blood For the force of Custom is so great that accustomed Meats are more acceptable whereby it comes to pass that while the stomach delights in them it more straitly embraces them and happily digests them without any trouble of loathing vomiting or heaviness All the contrary meet and happen in the use of Meats which are unpleasant to the taste and stomach For the ventricle abhorring those things makes manifest how it is troubled by its acide and nidorulent belchings loathing nauseousness vomit heaviness pain of the head and trouble of the whole body Wherefore we must diligently enquire what Meats the Patient chiefly delighted in that by offering them his appetite languishing by reason of some great evacuation vomit or the like may be stirred up For it will be better and more readily restored by things acceptable though they be somewhat worse as we noted a little before out of Hippocrates By which words he plainly taught that it is the part of a good and prudent Physitian to subscribe to and please the palat of his Patient The order of eating our meats But seeing that Order is most beautiful in all things it is truly very necessary in eating our Meat for how laudable soever the Meats be in their quantity and quality howsoever familiar by use and grateful by custom yet unless they be eaten in due order they will either trouble or molest the stomach or be ill or slowly and difficultly concocted wherefore we must diligently observe what Meats must be eaten at the first and what at the second course for those Meats which be hard to concoct are not to be eaten before those which are easie of digestion neither dry and astringent things before moistening and loosing We must begin our meals with moist or liquid meat But on the contrary all slippery fat and liquid things and which are quickly changed ought to go before that so the belly may be moistned and then astringent things must follow that the stomach by their help being shut and drawn together may more straitly comprehend the Meat on every side and better perform the Chylification by its proper heat united and joined together For this cause Hippocrates Lib. de victu in
he open not the Scrophulae A note to be observed in opening Scrophulous tumors Natural heat the cause of suppuration before that all the contained humor be fully and perfectly turned into pus or matter otherwise the residue of the humor will remain crude and will scarse in a long time be brought to maturation which precept must be principally observed in the Scrophulae also sometimes in other abscesses which come to suppuration For we must not assoon as any portion of the contained humors appear converted into pus procure and hasten the apertion For that portion of the suppurated humor causes the rest sooner to turn into pus which you may observe in inanimate bodies For fruits which begin to perish and rot unless we presently cut away the putrefying part the residue quickly becomes rotten there is also another reason The native heat is the efficient cause of suppuration it therefore the sore being opened diminished and weakned by reason of the dissipation of the spirits evacuated together with the humor will cause the remaining portion of the humor not to suppurate or that very hardly and with much difficulty Yet if the tumefied part be subject by its own nature to corruption and putrefaction as the fundament if the contained matter be malign or critical it will be far better to hasten the apertion The Chirurgical manner of curing Scrophulae There is also another way of curing the Scrophulae which is performed by the hand For such as are in the neck and have no deep roots by making Incision through the skin are pulled and cut away from those parts with which they were intangled But in the performance of this work we take especial care that we do not violate or hurt with our Instrument the Jugular Veins the Sleepy Arteries or Recurrent Nerves If at any time there be danger of any great efflux of bloud after they are plucked from the skin they must be tyed at their roots by thrusting through a needle and thred and then by binding the thred strait on both sides that so bound they may fall off by themselves by little and little without any danger The remainder of the cure may be performed according to the common rules of Art CHAP. XXIII Of the Feaver which happens upon an oedematous Tumor How an intermitting Quotidian happens upon oedematous tumor The cause of a Quotidian Feaver HAving shewed all the differences of oedematous tumors it remains that we briefly treat of the Symptomatical Feaver which is sometimes seen to happen upon them This therefore retaining the motion of the humor by which it is made is commonly of that kind which they name intermitting Quotidians Now the fit of a Quotidian comes every day and in that repetition continues the space of eighteen hours the residue of the day it hath manifest intermission The primitive causes of this Feaver are the coldness and humidity of the air encompassing us the long use of cold meats and drinks and of all such things as are easily corrupted as Summer-fruits crude fishes and lastly the omission of our accustomed exercise The antecedent causes are a great repletion of humors and these especially phlegmatick The conjunct cause is phlegm putrefying in the habit of the body and first region thereof without the great veins The Signs The signs of this Feaver are drawn from three things as first natural for this Feaver or Ague chiefly seizes upon those which are of a cold and moist temper as Old-men Women Children Eunuchs because they have abundance of phlegm and it invades Old-men by its own nature because their native heat being weak they cannot convert their meats then taken in a small quantity How children come to be subject to Quotidian Feavers into laudable bloud and the substance of the parts But it takes children by accident not of its self and their own nature for children are hot and moist but by reason of their voracity or greediness and their violent inordinate and continual motion after their plentiful feeding they heap up a great quantity of crude humors fit matter for this Feaver whereby it comes to pass that fat children are chiefly troubled with this kind of Feaver because they have the passages of their bodies strait and stopped or because they are subject to Worms they are troubled with pain by corruption of their meat whence ariseth a hot distemper by putrefaction and the elevation of putrid vapors by which the heart being molested is easily taken by this kind of feaver From things not natural the signs of this feaver are thus drawn It chiefly takes one in Winter and the Spring in a cold and moist region in a sedentary and idle life by the use of meats not only cold and moist but also hot and dry if they be devoured in such plenty that they overwhelm the native heat How phlegmatick humors happen to be generated by hot and dry meats For thus Wine although it be by faculty and nature hot and dry yet taken too immoderately it accumulates phlegmatick humors and causes cold diseases Therefore drunkenness gluttony crudity bathes and exercises presently after meat being they draw the meats as yet crude into the body and veins and to conclude all things causing much phlegm in us may beget a Quotidian Feaver But by things contrary to nature because this Feaver usually follows cold diseases the Center Circumference and habit of the body being refrigerated The Symptoms of Quotidians The symptoms of this Feaver are the pain of the mouth of the Stomach because that phlegm is commonly heaped up in this place whence follows a vomiting or casting up of phlegm the face looks pale and the mouth is without any thirst oftentimes in the fit it self because the Stomach flowing with phlegm the watery and thinner portion thereof continually flows up into mouth and tongue by the continuity of the inner coat of the ventricle common to the gullet and mouth The manner of the pulse and heat in a Quotidian It takes one with coldness of the extream parts a small and deep pulse which notwithstanding in the vigour of the fit becomes more strong great full and quick Just after the same manner as the heat of this Feaver at the first touch appears mild gentle moist and vaporous but at the length it is felt more acrid no otherwise than fire kindled in green wood which is small weak and smokie at the first but at the length when the moisture being overcome doth no more hinder its action it burns and flames freely Critical sweats The Urin. The Patients are freed from their fits with small sweats which at the first fits break forth very sparingly but more plentifully when the Crisis is at hand the urin at the first is pale and thick and sometimes thin that is when there is obstruction But when the matter is concoct as in the state it is red if at the beginning of the fit they
they have small store of spirits and native heat both which are dissipated by venery The nineteenth is the so great thickness of their gross and livid blood that if you wash it you may finde a sandy matter therein as some have found by experience by reason of the great adustion and assation thereof The twentieth is the languidness and weakness of the pulse by reason of the oppression of the vitall and pulsifick faculty by a cloud of gross vapors Herewith also their mine sometimes is thick and troubled like the urine of carriage-beasts if the urinary vessels be permeable and free otherwise it is thin if there be obstruction which only suffers that which is thin to flow forth by the urinary passages now the urine is oftentimes of a pale ash-colour and oftimes it smells like as the other excrements do in this disease Verily there are many other signs of the Leprosie as the slowness of the belly by reason of the heat of the liver often belchings by reason that the stomach is troubled by the reflux of a melancholick humor frequent sneezing by reason of the fulness of the brain to these this may be added most frequently Why their faces seem to be greasie that the face and all the skin is unctuous or greasie so that water poured thereon will not in any place adhere thereto I conceive it is by the internal heat dissolving the fat that lies under the skin which therefore alwaies looks as if it were greased or anointed therewith in leprous persons Now of these forementioned signs some are univocal that is which truly and necessarily shew the Leprosie other-some are equivocal or common that is which conduce as well to the knowledge of other diseases as this To conclude that assuredly is a Leprosie which is accompanied with all or certainly the most part of these fore-mentioned signs CHAP. VIII Of Prognostick in the Leprosie and how to provide for such as stand in fear thereof Why the Leprosie is incurable THe leprosie is a disease which passeth to the issue as contagious almost as the Plague scarce cureable at the beginning incureable when as it is confirmed because it is a Cancer of the whole body now if some one Cancer of some one part shall take deep root therein it is judged incureable Furthermore the remedies which to this day have been found out against this disease are judged inferiour and unequal in strength thereto Besides the signs of this disease do not outwardly shew themselves before that the bowels be seized upon possessed and corrupted by the malignity of the humor especially in such as have the white Leprosie sundry of which you may see about Burdeaux and in little Brittain who notwithstanding inwardly burn with so great heat that it will suddenly wrinkle and wither an apple held a short while in their hand as if it had laid for many daies in the sun There is another thing that increaseth the difficulty of this disease which is an equall pravity of the three principal faculties whereby life is preserved The deceitful and terrible visions in the sleep and numness in feeling argue the depravation of the animal faculty now the weakness of the vitall faculty is shewed by the weakness of the puls the obscurity of the hoarse and jarring voice the difficulty of breathing and stinking breath the decay of the natural is manifested by the depravation of the work of the liver in sanguification whence the first and principal cause of this harm ariseth The cure Now because we cannot promise cure to such as have a confirmed Leprosie and that we dare not do it to such as have been troubled therewith but for a short space it remains that we briefly shew how to free such as are ready to fall into so fearful a disease Such therefore must first of all shun all things in diet and course of life whereby the blood and humors may be too vehemently heated The Diet. whereof we have formerly made some mention Let them make choice of meats of good or indifferent juice such as we shall describe in treating of the diet of such as are sick of the plague purging bleeding bathing cupping to evacuate the impurity of the blood and mitigate the heat of the Liver shall be prescribed by some learned Physician Gelding good against the leprosie Valesius de Tarenta much commends gelding in this case neither do I think it can be disliked For men subject to this disease may be effeminated by the amputation of their testicles and so degenerate into a womanish nature and the heat of the liver boiling the blood being extinguished they become cold and moist which temper is directly contrary to the hot and dry distemper of leprous persons besides the leprous being thus deprived of the faculty of generation that contagion of this disease is taken away which spreadeth and is diffused amongst mankind by the propagation of their issue The end of the twentieth Book The ONE and TVVENTIETH BOOK Of Poysons and of the Biting of a mad Dog and the Bitings and Stingings of other venomous Creatures CHAP. I. The cause of writing this treatise of Poysons FIve reasons have principally moved me to undertake to write this Treatise of poysons ac-according to the opinion of the antients The first is that I might instruct the Surgeon what remedies must presently be used to such as are hurt by poysons in the interim whilst greater means may be expected from a Physician The second is that he may know by certain signs and notes such as are Poysoned or hurt by poysonous meats and so make report thereof to the judges or to such as it may concern The third is that those Gentlemen and others who live in the country and far from Cities and store of greater means may learn somthing by my labour by which they may help their friends bitten by an Adder mad Dog or other poysonous creature in so dangerous sudden and unusual a case The fourth is that every one may beware of poysons and know their symptoms when present that being known they may speedily seek for a remedy The fifth is that by this my labour all men may know what my good will is and now well minded I am towards the common-wealth in general and each man in particular to the glory of God I do not here so much arm malicious and wicked persons to hurt as Surgeons to provide to help and defend each mans life against poyson which they did not understand or at least seemed not so to do which taking this my labour in evil part have maliciously interpreted my meaning But now at length that we may come to the matter I will begin at the general division of poysons and then handle each species thereof severally but first let us give this Rule What is to be accounted poyson That poyson is that which either outwardly applied or struck in or inwardly taken into the body hath
power to kill it no otherwise then meat well drest is apt to nourish it For Conciliator writes that the properties of poyson are contrary to nourishments in their whole substance for as nourishment is turned into blood in each part of the body whereto it is applied to nourish by perfect assimilation substituted in the place of that portion which flows away each moment Thus on the contrary poyson turns our bodies into a nature like it self and venenate for as every agent imprints the force and qualities thereof in the subject patient thus poyson by the immoderation of faculties in their whole nature conttary to us changeth our substance into its nature no otherwise then fire turneth chaff in a moment into its own nature and so consumes it Therefore it is truly delivered by the Antients who have diligently pried into the faculties of natural things that it is poyson that may kill men by destroying and corrupting their temper and the composure and conformation of the body Now all poysons are said to proceed either from the corrupt air or from living creatures plants and minerals or by any artificial malignity in distilling The differences of poyson subliming and diversly mixing of poysonous and fuming things Hence arise sundry differences of poysons neither do they all work after the same manner for some corrupt onr nature by the unmeasureableness of the manifest and elementary qualities whereof they consist All poysons have not a peculiar antipathy with the heaâ—r others from a specifick and occult property Hence it is that some kill sooner then other some neither is it true that all of them presently assail the heart but others are naturally at deadly strife with other parts of the body as Cantharides with the bladder the sea-Hare with the lungs the Torpedo with the hands which it stupefieth though the fishers rod be betwixt them Thus of medicines there are some which are apt presently to comfort and strengthen the heart others the brain as stoechas others the stomach as cinnamon Also there are some poysons which work both wayes that is by manifest and occult qualities as Euphorbium for that both by the excessive heat and the whole substance or the discotd of the whole substance with ours corrupts our nature An argument hereof is that Treacle which by its quality is manifestly hot infringeth the force thereof as also of all others of an occult propetry Poysons which work by an occult and specifick property do not therefore do it because they are too immoderately hot cold dry moist but for that they are absolutely such and have that essence from the starrs and celestial influence which is apt to dissolve and destroy the strength of mans body because being taken but even in a small quantity yet are they of so pernicious a qualityâ— that they kill almost in a moment Now poysons do not only kill being taken into the body but some being put or applied outwardly neither do venomous creatures onely harm by their stinging and biting but also by their excrements as spittle blood the touch and breath CHAP. II How poysons being small in quantity may by their only touch cause so great alterations IT seemeth strange to many how it may come to pass that poyson taken or admitted in small quantity may almost in a moment produce so pernicious effects over all the body and all the parts faculties and actions so that being admitted but in a little quantity it swells up the body into a great bigness Neither ought it to seem less strange how Antidotes and Counter-poysons which are opposed to poyson can so suddenly break and weaken the great and pernicious effects thereof being it is not so likely that so small a particle of poyson or Antidote can divide it self into so many Cap. 5. lib. 6. de loc affect and so far severed particles of our body There are some saith Galen who think that some things by touth onely by the power of their quality may alter those things which are next to them and that this appears plainly in the fish Torpedo as that which hath so powerful a quality that it can send it alongst the fishers rod to the hand and so make it become torped or numb But on the contrary Philosophers teach that accidents such as qualities are cannot without their subjects remove and diffuse themselves into other subjects The true reason of the wondrous effects of poysons Therefore Galens other answer is more agreeable to reason that so many and great affects of poysons and remedies arise either from a eertain spirit or subtil humidity not truly for that this spirit and subtil humidity may be dispersed over the whole body and all the parts thereof which it affects but that little which is entred the body as cast in by the stroak of a Spider or the sting of a Scorpion infects and corrupts all the next parts by contagion with the like quality these other that are next to them until from an exceeding small portion of the blood if the stroke shall light into the veins it shall spread over the whole mass of blood or of phlegm if the poyson shall chance to come to the stomach and so the force thereof shall be propagated and diffused over all the humors and bowels The doubt of Antidotes is less for these being taken in greater quantity when they shall come into the stomach warmed by the heat of the place they become hot and send forth vapors which suddenly diffused over the body by the subtility of their substance do by their contrary forces dull and weaken the malignity of the poyson Wherefore you may often see when as Antidotes are given in less quantity then is fit that they are less prevalent neither do they answer to our expectation in overcoming the malignity of the poyson so that ir must necessarily follow thar these must not onely in qualities but also in quantity be superior to poysons CHAP. III. Whether there be any such poysons as will kill at a set time No poysons kill in a set time TO the propounded question whether there may be poysons which within a certain and definite time put case a mouth or year may kill men Theophrastus thus answers of poysons some more speedily perform their parts others more slowly yet may you find no such as will kill in set limits of time according to the will and desire of men For that some kill sooner or later then others they do not this of their own or proper nature as Physicians rightly judg but because the subject upon which they light doth more or less resist or yield to their efficacy H w poysons come to kill sooner or later Experience sheweth the truth hereof for the same sort of poyson in the same weight and measure given to sundry men of different tempers and complexions will kill one in an hour another in six hours or in a day and on the contrary will not
face resolutions of the powers and many other things Hot poisons kill sooner then cold all which are caused hy all sorts of poison Lastly no body will deny but that hot poisons may kill more speedily then cold for that they are more speedily actuated by the native heat CHAP. IX The Effects of poisons from particular venemous things and what Prognosticks may thence be made IT is the opinion of Cornelius Celsus and almost of all the Antients that the bite of every beast hath some virulency but yet some more then other-some They are most virulent that are inflicted by venemous beasts Asps Vipers Watersnakes and all kinds of Serpents Basilisks Lib. 2. cap. 27. The bites of all wilde beasts are virulent Dragons Toads mad Dogs Scorpions Spiders Bees Wasps and the like They are less malign which are of creatures wanting venom as of Horses Apes Cats Dogs not mad and many other things which though of their own nature they are without poison yet in their bites there is something more dolorifick and ill natured then in common wounds inflicted by other occasions I believe that in their slaver or sanies there is something I know not how to term it contrary to our nature The bites of a red-haired man virulent which imprints a malign quality in the ulcer which also you may observe in the tearings and scratchings of such creatures as have sharp claws as Lions and Cats Moreover many affirm that they have found by experience that the bites of men are not altogether without virulency especially of such as are red-haired and freckled chiefly when as they are angred it is probable that the bites of other persons want this malignity seeing that their spittle will cure small ulcerations Wherefore if there shall happen difficultie of cure in a wound caused by a mans biteing which is neither red haired nor freckled neither angry this happens not by means of the spittle nor by any malign quality but by reason of the contusion caused by the bluntness of the teeth not cutting but bruising the part for being not sharp they cannot so easily enter the flesh unless by bruising and tearing after the manner of heavy and blunt strokes and weapons wounds being occasioned by such are more hard to be cured then such as are made by cutting and sharp weapons Contuled wounds harder to heal then such as are cut But of the fore-said bitings of venemous creatures there are few which do not kill in a short space and almost in a moment but principally if the poison be sent into the body by a live creature for in such poison there is much heat also there is therein a greater tenuity which serves as vehicles thereto into what place or part soever of the body they tend the which the poysons taken from dead creatures are defective of Wherefore some of these kill a man in the space of an hour as the poison Asps Basilisks and Toads others not unless in two or three dayes space as of water-Snakes a Spider and Scorpion require more time to kill yet all of them admitted but in the least quantity do in a short space cause great and deadly mutations in the body as if they had breathed in a pestiferous air and with the like violence taint and change in their own nature all the members and bowels by which these same members do in the time of perfect health change laudable meats into their nature and substance The place whereas these poisonous creatures live and the time conduce to the perniciousness of the poyson for such as live in drie mountains and sun-burnt places kill more speedily then such as be in moist and marish grounds also they are more hurtful in winter then in summer and the poyson is more deadly which proceeds from hungry angry and fasting creatures then that which comes from such as are full and quiet as also that which proceeds from young things chiefly when as they are stimulated to venery is more powerful then that which comes from old and decrepit from females worse then from males from such as hve fed upon other venomous things rather then from such as have abstained from them as from snakes which have devoured toads vipers which have fed upon scorpions spiders and Caterpillers Yet the reason of the efficacy of poisons depends from their proper that is their subtil or gross consistence and the greater or less aptness of the affected body to suffer For hot men that have larger and more open veins and arteries yield the poison freer passage to the heart Therefore they which have more cold and strait vessels are longer ete they die of the like poison such as are full are not so soon harmed as those that are fasting for meats besides that by filling the vessels they give not the poison so free passage they also strengthen the heart by the multiplication of spirits so that it more powerfully resists pernicious venom If the poyson work by an occult and specifick property it causeth the cure and prognostick to be diffcult and then must we have recourse to Antidotes Why treacle retunds the force of all simple poysons as these which have their whole substance resist poysons but principally to treacle because there enter into the composition thereof medicines which are hot cold moist and dry whence it is that it retunds and withstands all poysons chiefly such as consist of a simple nature such as these which come from venemous creatures plants and minerals and which are not prepared by the detestable art of empoisoners CHAP. X. What cure must be used to the biteings and stingings of venomous beasts CUre must speedily be used without any delay to the bites and stingings of venemous beasts which may by all means disperse the poyson and keep it from entring into the body for when the principal parts are possessed it boots nothing to use medicines afterwards Therefore the Antients have propounded a double indication to lead us to the finding out of medicines in such a case to wit the evacuation of the virulent and venenate humor and the chang or alteration of the same and the affected body But seeing evacuation is of two sorts to wit universal which is by the inner parts and particular which is by the outward parts Wee must begin at the particular by such to pick medicines as are fit to draw out and retund the venom A double indication in the cure of venemous bites for we must not alwaies begin a cure with generall things as some think especially in external diseases as wounds fractures dislocations venomous bites and punctures Wherefore hereto as speedily as you may you shall apply remedies fit for the bites and punctures of venomous beasts as for example the wounds shall be presently washed with urine with sea-water aqua vitae or wine or vinegar wherein old treacle or mustard shall be dissolved Lotions fit for venemous bites Let such washing be
more hurtful to men and birds as those who are nearer to Heaven CHAP. VI. By using what cautions in Air and diet one may prevent the Plague HAving declared the signs fore-shewing a Pestilence Change of places the surest putrefaction of the Plague now we must shew by what means we may shun the imminent danger thereof and defend our selves from it No prevention seemed more certain to the Antients then most speedily to remove into places far distant from the infected place and to be most slow in their return thither again But those who by reason of their business or employments cannot change their habitation must principally have a care of two things The first is that they strengthen their bodies Two things of chief account for prevention and the principal parts thereof against the daily imminent invasions of the poyson or the pestiserous and venenate Air. The other that they abate the force of it that it may not imprint its virulencie in the body which may be done by correcting the excess of the quality inclining towards it by the opposition of its contrary For if it be hotter then is meet it must be tempered with cooling things if too cold with heating things yet this will not suffice For we ought besides to amend and purge the corruptions of the venenate malignity diffused through it by smells and perfumes resisting the poyson thereof The body will be strengthned and more powerfully resist the insected Air if it want excrementitious humors which may be procured by purging and bleeding Diet for prevention of the Plague and for the rest a convenient diet appointed as shunning much variety of meats and hot and moist things and all such which are easily corrupted in the stomach and cause obstructions such as those things which be made by Comfit-makers we must shun satiety and drunkenness for both of them weaken the powers which are preserved by the moderate use of meats of good juice Let moderate excercises in a clear Air and free from any venomous tainture precede your meals Let the belly have due evacuation either by Nature or Art Let the heart the seat of life and the rest of the bowels be strengthened with Cordials and Antidotes applied and taken as we shall hereafter shew in the form of epithemes Discommodities of a cloudy or foggy Air. ointments emplasters waters pils powders tablets opiates fumigations and such like Make choice of a pure air and free from all pollution and far remote from stinking places for such is most fit to preserve life to recreate and repair the spirits whereas on the contrary a cloudie or mistie Air and such as is infected with gross and stinking vapors dulls the spirits deject the appetite makes the body faint and ill coloured oppresseth the heart and is the breeder of many diseases The Northern winde is healthful because it is cold and drie But on the contrary Why the South winde is pestilent the Southern winde because it is hot and moist weakens the body by sloth or dulness opens the pores and makes them pervious to the pestiferous malignity The Western winde is also unwholsome because it comes near to the nature of a Southern wherefore the windows must be shut up on that side of the house on which they blow but open on the North and East-fide unless it happen that the Plague come from thence Kindle a clear fire in all the lodging Chambers of the house The efficacy of fire against the Plague and perfume the whole house with Aromatick things as Frankincense Myrrh Benzoin Laudanum Styrax Roses Mittle-leaves Lavender Rosemary Sage Savory wilde Time Marjarom Broom Pine-apples pieces of Firt Juniper-berries Cloves Perfumes and let your cloaths be aired in the same There be some who think it a great preservative against the pestilent Air to keep a Goat in their houses because the capacity of the houses filled with a strong sent which the Goat sends forth prohibites the entrance of the venomous Air which same reason hath place also in sweet smells and besides it argues that such as are hungry are apter to take the Plague then those who have eaten moderately for the body is not only strengthened with meat Moderate repletition good for prevention but all the passages thereof are full by the vapors diffused from thence by which otherwise the infected Air would finde a more easie entrance to the heart Yet the common sort of people yield another reason for the Goat which is that one ill sent drives away another as one wedge drives forth another which calleth to my minde that which is recorded by Alexander Benedictus A strange Art to drive away the Plague that there was a Scythian Physician which caused a Plague arising from the infection of the Air to cease by cauâ—â—ng all the Dogs Cats and such like beasts which were in the City to be killed and cast their carcasses up and down the streets that so by the coming of this new putrid vapour as a stranger the former pestiferous infection as an old guest was put out of its lodging The antipathy of poysons with poysons and so the Plague ceased For Poysons have not only an antipathy with their Antidotes but also with some other poysons Whilst the Plague is hot it is good not to stir out of door before the rising of the Sun wherefore we must have patience until he hath cleansed the Air with the comfortable light of his Beams and dispersed all the soggy and nocturnal pollutions which commonly hang in the Air in dirty and especially in low places and Vallies All publick and great meetings and assemblies must be shunned Whether in the Plague-time one must travel by night or by day If the Plague begin in Summer and seem principally to rage being helped forward by the Summers-heat it is best to perform a journey begun or undertaken for necessary affairs rather upon the night-time then on the day because the infection takes force strength and subtility of substance by which it may more easily permeat and enter in by the heat of the Sun but by Night mens bodies are more strong and all things are more gross and dense But you must observe a clean contrary course Why the Moon is to be shunned if the malignity seem to borrow strength and celerity from coldness But you must alwayes eschew the beams of the Moon but especially at the Full for then our bodies are more languid and weak and suller of excrementitious humors Even as trees which for that cause must be cut down in their season of the Moon that is in the decrease thereof After a little gentle walking in your Chamber you must presently use some means that the principal parts may be strengthned by suscitating the heat and spirits and that the passages to them may be filled that so the way may be shut up from the infection coming from without Such as by the use of
we must look upon it as the mark and labour to preserve it by the use of convenient things as much as lies in our power Wherefore because it is very necessary to know the distinction of Temperaments I have thought good in this place briefly to handle the Temperaments of the parts of the Body Ages Seasons of the year Humors and Medicines Therefore the temperaments of the parts of our body are of this nature not only by the judgment of the touch of a mans hand which is justly tempered who is often deceived by flowing heat which What the temperaments of mans body are spread from the heart into all the body imparts a certain kind of heat to all the parts but also by the rule of their reason composure and substance as A Bone is the most dry and cold A Grisle less than it A Ligament less then a Grisle A Tendon is so much dryer and colder than the membrane by how much it in the same temper exceeds a Vein and Artery Then follow the harder Veins for the softer are in a middle temper of dryness and moisture like as the Skin although all both soft and hard are of a cold temper Wherefore all these parts of their own nature are cold and without blood although the Veins and Arteries wax hot by reason of the heat of the blood they contain which notwithstanding also borroweth that heat from the heart as a part most hot and softer than the skin the Liver next followeth the heart in the order of the hotter parts which is farre softer than the skin it self for if according to Galens opinion Ad finem lib. de Temper the heart is somewhat less hard then the skin and that is far harder than the liver as appears by touching them it must necessarily follow that the liver much exceeds the skin in softness I understand the skin simple and separated from the flesh lying under it to which it firmly cleaves The flesh is more moist and hot than the skin by reason of the blood dispersed in it The spinal marrow is colder and moister than the skin but the brain so much exceeds it in moisture as it is exceeded by the fat The lungs are not so moist as the fat and the spleen and kidneys are of the like nature and nevertheless they are all moisture than the skin According to the diversities of ages the temperaments both of the whole body The temperaments of ages and all its parts undergo great mutations for the bones are far harder in old men than in children because our life is as it were a certain progress to dryness which when it comes to the height consequently causeth death What an age is Wherefore in this place we must speak of the Temperaments of Ages when first we shall have defined what an Age is Therefore an Age is defined A space of life in which the constitution of the body of its self and own accord undergoeth manifest changes The whole course of life hath four such Ages The first is Childhood which extends from the birth to the eighteenth year of age and hath a hot and moist temper because it is next to the hot and moist beginnings of life seed and blood Youth followeth this which is prolonged from the eighteenth to the twenty fifth year and is temperate and in the midst of all excesses Mans estate succeedeth Youth which they deny to extend beyond the thirty fifth year of age in its proper temper it is hot and dry whereby it commeth to pass that then the heat is felt more acide and biting which in childhood seemed milde because the progress of the life to dryness Old-age divided into two parts hath much wasted the native humidity Then succeeds Old-age ever divided into two parts the first whereof extends from the thirty fifth to the forty ninth year those of this age are called Old-men but we commonly call them middâ—e ag'd men The latter is as it were divided by Galen into three * Three degrees of the second part of Old-age degrees the first whereof are those who having their strength sound and firm undergo civill affairs and businesses which things those which are in the second degree of Old-age cannot do because of the debility of their now decaying strength but those which are in the last degree are afflicted with most extream weakness and misery and are as much deprived of their senses and understanding as of the strength of their bodies whereof arose this Proverb Old men twice Children Those Old men of the first rank are pleasant and curteous and those we say are beginning to grow Old or in their green Old-age those of the second sort delight in nothing but the boord and bed but old decrepit men of the last order think of nothing else than their graves and monuments Old men have their solid parts dry Their firm and solid parts are of a cold and dry temperature by reason of the decay of the radical moisture which the inbred heat causeth in the continuance of so many years Which thing may happen in a short space by the vehement flame of the same natural heat turned by fevers into a fiery heat But if any to prove Old men moist will object That they cough oft and spit much I will answer him as an old Doctor once said That a pitcher filled with water may pour forth much moisture yet no man will deny but that such a vessel of its own terrene nature and matter is most dry so old men may plainly be affirmed to be moist by reason of their defect of heat and abundance of excrements But this description of ages is not to be taken so strictly as alwayes to be measured by the spaces and distances of years for there are many which by their own misdemeanour seem elder at forty than others do at fifty A comparison of the four ages to the four seasons of the year Lastly the famous Philosopher Pythagoras divided mans life into four ages and by a certain proportion compared the whole course thereof to the four seasons of the year as Childhood to the Spring in which all things grow and sprout out by reason of plenty and abundance of moisture And Youth to the Summer because of the vigor and strength which men enjoy at that age And mans estate or constant age to Autumn for that then after all the dangers of the fore-passed life the gifts of discretion and wit acquire a seasonableness or ripeness like as the fruits of the earth enjoy at that season And lastly he compares Old-age to the sterile and fruitless Winter which can ease and consolate its tediousness by no other means than the use of fruits gathered and stored up before which then are of a cold and troublesome condition But for extreme Old-age which extends to eighty or a hundred years it is so cold and dry that those which arrive at that decrepit age are
doubt of the Natural Spirit It is more gross and dull than the other and inferior to them in the dignity of the Action and the excellency of the use The use thereof is to help the concoction both of the whole body as also of each several part and to carry blood and heat to them Besides those already mentioned Fixed Spirits there are other Spirits fixed and implanted in the similar and prime parts of the body which also are natural and Natives of the same place in which they are seated and placed And because they are also of an airy and fiery nature they are so joyned or rather united to the Native heat that they can no more be sepatated from it than flame from heat wherefore they with these that flow to them are the principal instruments of the Actions which are performed in each several part The radical Moisture And these fixed Spirits have their nourishment and maintenance from the radical and first-bred moisture which is of an airy and oily substance and is as it were the foundation of these Spirits and the inbred heat Therefore without this moisture no man can live a moment But also the chief Instruments of life are these Spirits together with the Native heat Wherefore this radical Moisture being dissipated and wasted which is the seat fodder and nourishment of the Spirits and heat how can they any longer subsist and remain Therefore the consumption of the natural heat followeth the decay of this sweet and substance-making moisture and consequently death Natural death which happens by the dissipating and resolving of natural heat But since then these kinds of Spirits with the natural heat is contained in the substance of each similar part of our body for otherwise it could not persist it must necessarily follow that there be as many kinds of fixed Spirits as of similar parts For because each part hath its proper temper and encrease it hath also its proper Spirit and also it s own proper fixed and implanted heat which here hath its abode as well as its Original Wherefore the Spirit and heat which is seated in the bone is different from that which is impact into the substance of a Nerve Vein or such other similar part because the temper of these parts is different as also the mixture of the Elements from which they first arose and sprung up Neither is this contemplation of Spirits of small account for in these consist all the force and efficacy of our Nature The use and necessity of the Spirits These being by any chance dissipated or wasted we languish neither is health to be hoped for the flour of life withering and decaying by little and little Which thing ought to make us more diligent to defend them against the continual efflux of the threefold substance For if they be decayed there is left no proper indication of curing the disease so that we are often constrained What the remedy for the dissipation of the Spirits all other care laid aside to betake our selves to the restoring and repairing the decayed powers Which is done by meats of good juyce easie to be concocted and distributed good Wines and fragrant smels What the remedy for oppression of the Spirits is But sometimes these Spirits are not dissipated but driven in and returned to their fountains and so both oppress and are opprest whereupon it happens we are often forced to dilate and spread them abroad by binding and rubbing the parts Hitherto we have spoke of those things which are called Natural because we naturally consist of them it remains that we now say somewhat of their Adjuncts and Associates by familiarity of Condition The Adjuncts and Associates to things Natural are Age of which by reason of the similitude of the Argument we were constrained to speak when we handled the Temperatures Sex Colour of which we have already spoken The conformation of the Instrumental parts Time whose force we have also considered Region Order of Diet and condition of Life CHAP. XI Of the Adjuncts of things Natural What sex is SEX is no other thing than the distinction of Male and Female in which this is most observable that for the parts of the body and the site of these parts there is little difference between them The nature of women but the Female is colder than the Male. Wherefore their spermatical parts are more cold soft and moist and all their natural actions less vigorous and more depraved Of Eunuchs The Nature of Eunuchs is to be referred to that of women as who may seem to have degenerated into a womanish nature by deficiency of heat their smooth body and soft and shrill voyce do very much assimilate women Notwithstanding you must consider that there be some Manly women which their manly voice and chin covered with a little hairiness do argue and on the contrary there are some womanizing or womanish men which therefore we term dainty and effeminate Of Hermaphodites The Hermaphrodite is of a doubtful nature and in the middle of both sexes seems to participate of both Male and Female Colour the bewrayer of the Temperament The Colour which is predominant in the habit and superficies of the body and lies next under the skin shews the Temperament of what kind soever it be for as Galen notes in Comment ad Aphor. 2. sect 1. Such a colour appears in us as the contained Humor hath Wherefore if a rosie hew colour the cheeks it is a sign the body abounds with blood and that it is carryed abroad by the plenty of Spirits But if the skin be dyed with a yellow colour it argues Choler is predominant if with a whitish and pallid hue Phlegm with a sable and duskie Melancholy So the colour of the Excrements which are according to Nature is not of the least consideration For thus if an Ulcer being broken send forth white matter it argues the soundness of the part from whence it flows but if sanious or bloody green blackish or of divers colours it shews the weakness of the solid part which could not assimilate by concoction the colour of the excrementitious humor The like reason is of unnatural Tumors For as the colour so the dominion of the Humor causing or accompanying the Swelling commonly is The perfection of the organical parts consists in four things The conformity and integrity of the Organical parts is considered by their figure greatness number situation and mutual connexion We consider the figure when we say almost all the external parts of the body are naturally round not only for shew but for necessity that being smooth and no way cornered they should be less obnoxious to external injuries We speak of Greatness when we say some are large and thick some lank and lean But we consider their Number when we observe some parts to abound some to want or nothing to be defective or wanting We insinuate Site and
a melancholick humor Carbuncles Gangrenes eating-Ulcers Sphacels are caused Of the grosser the eating Herpes of the subtiler the Herpes miliaris is made Watery and flatulent Impostumes the Kings evil knots and all phlegmatick swellings and excrescences The exquisite or perfect Scirrhus hardnesses and all sorts of cancerous Tumors From the condition and nature of the parts which they possess from whence the Ophthalmia that is a Phlegmon of the eyes Parotis a tumor near the ears Faronychia or a Whitlow at the roots of the nails and so of the rest From the efficient causes or rather the manner of doing For some Impostumes are said to be made by defluxions others by congestion those are commonly hot and the other commonly cold as it shall more manifestly appear by the following chapter CHAP. II. Of the general causes of Tumors THere are two General Causes of Impostumes Fluxion and Congestion After what manner tumors against Nature are chiefly made Defluxions are occasioned either by the part sending or receiving the part sending discharges it self of the humors because the expulsive faculty resident in that part is provoked to expel them moved thereto either by the troublesomeness of their quantity or quality The part receiving draws and receives occasion of heat pain weakness whether natural or accidental openness of the passages and lower situation The causes of heat The causes of heat in what part soever it be are commonly three as all immoderate motion under which frictions are also contained external heat either from fire or Sun and the use of acrid meats and medicines Four causes of pain The causes of pain are four the first is a sodain and violent invasion of some untemperate thing by means of the four first qualities the second is solution of continuity by a wound luxation fracture contusion or distension the third is the exquisit sense of the part for you feel no pain in cutting a bone or exposing it to cold or heat the fourth is the attention as it were of the Animal faculty Two causes of weakness for the mind diverted from the actual cause of pain is less troubled or sensible of it A part is weak either by its nature or by some accident by its nature as the Glandules and the Emunctories of the principal parts by accident as if some distemper bitter pain or great defluxion have seized upon it and wearyed it for so the strength is weakned and the passages dilated And the lowness of site yields opportunity for the falling down of humors Two causes of congestion The causes of congestion are two principally as the weakness of the concoctive faculty which resides in the part by which the assimilation into the substance of the part of the nourishment flowing to it is frustrated and the weakness of the expulsive faculty for whilst the part cannot expel superfluities their quantity continually encreases And thus oftentimes cold Impostumes have their original from a gross and tough humor and so are more difficult to cure Lastly all the causes of Impostumes may be reduced to three that is the primitive or external the antecedent or internal and the conjunct or containing as we will hereafter treat more at large CHAP. III. The signes of Impostumes or Tumors in general The principal signs of tumors are drawn from the essence of the part BEfore we undertake the cure of Tumors it is expedient to know their kinds and differences which knowledge must be drawn from their proper signs the same way as in other diseases But because the proper and principal signs of tumors are drawn from the essence of the part they possess we must first know the parts and then consider what their essence and composition are We are taught both by skill in Anatomy and the observation of the depraved function especially when the affected part is one of those which lie hid in the Body for we know whether or no the external parts are affected with a Tumor against Nature by comparing that with his natural which is contrary For comparing the sound part with the diseased we shall easily judge whether it be swollen or no. But because it it not sufficient for a Chirurgeon only to know these general signs which are known even to the vulgar he must attentively observe such as are more proper and neer And these are drawn from the difference of the matter and humors of which the tumors consist Lib. 2. ad Glâ—uc 13. â—nâ—â—ed The proper signs of a sanguin tumor of a phlegmatick of a melancholick of a cholerick The knowledg of tumors by their motion and exacerbation Lib. 2. Ep. â—â—m For this Galen teaches That all differences of Tumors arise from the nature and condition of the matter which flows down and generates the tumor also they are known by such accidents as happen to them as colour heat hardness softness pain tension resistance Wherefore pain heat redness and tension indicate a sanguine humor coldness softness and no great pain phlegm tension hardness the livid colour of the part and a pricking pain by fits melancholy and yellowish and pale colour biting pain without hardness of the part choler And besides Impostumes have their periods and exacerbations following the nature and motion of the humors of which they are generated Wherefore by the motion and fits it will be no difficult matter to know the kind of the humor for as in the Spring so in the morning the blood is in motion as in the Summer so in the midst of the day choler as in Autumn so in the evening Melancholy as in Winter so in the night the exacerbation of phlegm are most predominant For Hipâ—â—crates and Galen teach that the year hath circuits of diseases so that the same proportion of the excess and motion of humors which is in the four seasons of the year is also in the four quarters of each day Impostumes which are curable have four times their beginning encrease state and declination and we must alter our medicines according to the variety of these times We know the beginning by the first swelling of the part The encrease when the swelling pain and other accidents do manifestly encrease and enlarge themselves the state when the foresaid symptoms increase no more but each of them because at their height remain in their state immoveable unless the very matter of the tumor degenerate The beginning of an impostume The encrease The state and change it self into another kind of humor The declination when the swelling pain feaver restlesness are lessened And from hence the Chirurgeon may presage what the end of the tumor may be for tumors are commonly terminated four manner of wayes if so be that the motion of the humors causing them be not intercepted or they without some manifest cause do flow back into the body Therefore first they are terminated by insensible transpiration or resolution secondly by suppuration when the matter is
digested and ripened thirdly by induration when it degenerates into a Scirrhus the thinner part of the humor being dissolved the fourth which is the worst of all by a corruption and Gangrene of the part which is when overcome with violence or the abundance or quality of the humor or both it comes to that distemper that it loses its proper action It is best to terminate a tumor by resolution and the worst by corruption suppuration and induration are between both although that is far better than this The signs of a tumor to be terminated by resolution The signs by which the Chirurgeons may presage that an Impostume may be terminated by resolving are the remission or slacking of the swelling pain pulsation tension heat and all other accidents and the unaccustomed liveliness and itching of the part and hot Impostumes are commonly thus terminated because the hot humor is easily resolved by reason of its subtilty Signs of suppuration are the intension or encrease of pain heat swelling pulsation The signs of suppuration and the Feaver for according to Hippocrates Pain and the Feaver are greater when the matter is suppurating than when it is suppurated The Chirurgeon must be very attentive to know and observe when suppuration is made for the purulent matter oft-times lies hid as Hippocrates saith by reason of the thickness of the part lying above or over it The signs of an Impostume degenerating into a Scirrhous hardness The signs and causes of a tumor terminated in a Scirrhus are the diminution of the tumor and hardness remaining in the part The causes of the hardness not going away with the swelling are the weakness of nature the grosness and toughness of the humor and unskilfulness of the Chirurgeon who by too long using resolving things hath occasioned that the more subtil part of the humor being dissolved the rest of the grosser nature like earthy dregs remains concret in the part For so Potters vessels dryed in the Sun grow hard But the unskilful Chirurgeon may occasion a Scirrhous hardness by another means as by condensating the skin and incrassating the humors by too much use of repercussives The signs of a Gangrene at hand But you may perceive an Impostume to degenerate into a Gangrene thus if the accidents of heat redness pulsation and tension shall be more intense than they are wont to be in suppuration if the pain presently cease without any manifest cause if the part wax lived or black and lastly if it stink But we shall treat of this more at large when we come to treat of the Gangrene and Sphacelus Of disappearance of a tumor and the signs thereof A sodain diminution of the tumor and that without manifest cause is a sign of the matter fallen back and turned into the body again which may be occasioned by the immoderate use of refrigerating things And sometimes much flatulency mixed with the matter although there be no fault in those things which were applyed Feavers and many other malign Symptoms as Swoundings and Convulsion by translation of the matter to the noble parts follow this flowing back of the humor into the body CHAP. IV. Of the Prognostique in Impostumes TUmors arising from a melancholy phlegmatick gross tough or viscous humor Cold tumors require a longer cure ask a longer time for their cure than those which are of bloud or choler And they are more difficultly cured which are of humors not natural than those which are of humors yet contained in the bounds of nature For those humors which are rebellious offend rather in quality than in quantity Tumors made of matter not natural are more difficultly cured and undergo the divers forms of things dissenting from Nature which are joyned by no similitude or affinity with things natural as Suet Poultis Hony the dregs of Oil and Wine yea and of solid bodies as Stone Sand Coal Straws and sometimes of living things as Worms Serpents and the like monsters The tumors which possess the inner parts and noble entrails are more dangerous and deadly is also those which are in the joynts or neer to them And these tumors which seise upon great vessels as veins arteries and nerves for fear of great effusion of blood Hippo. Aph. 8. sect 6. wasting of the spirits and convulsion So Impostumes of a monstrous bigness are often deadly by reason of the great resolution of the spirits caused by their opening Those which degenerate into a Scirrhus are of long continuance and hard to cure as also those which are in hydropick leprous scabby and corrupt bodies for they often turn into malign and ill-conditioned Ulcers CHAP. V. Of the General cure of Tumors against Nature THere be three things to be observed in the cure of Impostumes What must be considered in undertaking the cure of tumors The first is the essence thereof the second the quality of the humor causing the Impostume the third the temper of the part affected The first indication drawn from the essence that is from the greatness or smalness of the tumor varies the manner of curing for the medicines must be increased or diminished according to the greatness of the tumor The second taken from the nature of the humor also changes our counsel for a Phlegmon must be otherwise cured than an Erysipelas and an Oedema than a Scirrhus and a simple tumor otherwise than a compound And also you must cure after another manner a tumor coming of an humor not natural than that which is of a natural humor and otherwise that which is made by congestion than that which is made by defluxion What we must understand by the nature of the part The third Indication is taken from the part in which the tumor resides by the nature of the part we understand its temperature conformation site faculty and function The temperature indicates that some medicines are convenient for the fleshy parts as those which are more moist others for the nervous as more drie for you must apply some things to the eye and others to the throat one sort of things to these parts which by reason of their rarity are easily subject to defluxion another to those parts which by their density are not obnoxious to it But we must have good regard to the site of the part as if it have any connexion with the great vessels and if it be fit to pour forth the matter and humor when it is suppurated What we must understand by the faculty of the part Galen by the name of Faculty understands the use and sense of the part This hath a manifold indication in curing for some parts are principal as the Brain Heart and Liver for their vertue is communicated to the whole body by the Nerves Arteries and Veins Others truly are not principal but yet so necessary that none can live without them as the Stomach Some are endued with a most quick sense as the Eye the
cast up any quantity of phlegm by vomit and that fit be determinated in a plentiful sweat it shews the Feaver will not long last for it argues the strength of nature the yielding and tenuity of the matter flying up and the excretion of the conjunct cause of the Feaver A Quotidian Feaver is commonly long because the phlegmatick humor being cold Why Quotidians are oft-times long Into what diseases a Quartain usually changes and moist by nature is heavy and unapt for motion neither is it without fear of a greater disease because oft-times it changes into a burning or Quartain feaver especially if it be bred of salt Phlegm for saltness hath affinity with bitterness wherefore by adustion it easily degenerates into it so that it need not seem very strange if Salt phlegmby adustion turn into choler or melancholy Those who recover of a Quotidian-feaver have their digestive faculty very weak wherefore they must not be nourished with store of meats nor with such as are hard to digest In a Quotidian the whole body is filled with crude humors whereby it comes to pass that this Feaver oft-times lasts sixty days But have a care you be not deceived and take a double Tertian for a Quotidian How to distinguish a quotidian from a double tertian because it takes the Patient every day as a Quotidian doth Verily it will be very easie to distinguish these Feavers by the kind of the humor and the propriety of the Symptoms and accidents besides Quotidian commonly take one in the evening or the midst of the night as then when our bodies are refrigerated by the coldness of the air caused by the absence of the Sun Wherefore then the cold humors are moved in us which were bridled a little before by the presence and heat of the Sun But on the contrary double Tertians take one about noon The shortness and gentleness of the fit the plentiful sweat breaking forth the matter being concocted causes us to think the Quotidian short and salutary The cure is performed by two means to wit Diet and Pharmacy Diet. Let the Diet be slender and attenuating let the Patient breathe in a clear air moderately hot and dry let his meats be bread well baked Cock or Chicken broths in which have been boiled the roots of Parsley Sorrel and the like Neither at sometimes will the use of hot meats as those which are spiced and salted When the use of spiced and salted meats are fit be unprofitable especially to such as have their stomach and liver much cooled Let him eat Chickens Mutton Partridge and small Birds River-fishes and such as live in Stony-waters fryed or boyled rear Eggs and such like These fruits are also good for him Raisons stewed Prunes Almonds and Dates Let his drink be small white Wine mixed with boyled water Moderate exexercises will be good as also frictions of the whole body sleep taken at a fitting time and proportioned to waking so that the time of sleep fall not upon the time of the fit When sleep is hurtful for then it hurts very much for calling the heat to the inner parts it doubles the raging of the feaverish heat inwardly in the bowels For the the passions of the mind the Patient must be merry and comforted with a hope shortly to recover his health It seems not amiss to some at the coming of the fit to put the feet and legs into hot water in which Chamomil Dill Melilot Marjerom Sage and Rosemary have been boyled The medicines shall be such syrups as are called digestive and aperitive Medicines as Syrup of Wormwood Mints of the five opening roots Oxymel with a decoction of Chamomil Calamint Melilot Dill and the like or with common decoctions The Purgatives shall be Diaphaenicon Electuarium Diacarthami Hiera picra Agarick Turbith of which you shall make Potions with the water of Mints Balm Hyssop Sage Fennel Endive or the like Pillulae aureae are also good These purgatives shall sometimes be given in form of a bole with Sugar as the Physitian being present shall think most fit and agreeable to the nature of the Patient About the state of the disease you must have a care of the Stomach Care must be bad of the Stomach Vomits and principally of the mouth thereof as being the chief seat of Phlegm wherefore it will be good to anoint it every other day with Oil of Chamomil mixed with a little white Wine as also to unlade it by taking a vomit of the juyce of Radish and much Oxymel or with the decoction of the seeds and roots of Asarum and Chamomill and Syrup of Vinegar will be very good especially at the beginning of the fit when Nature and the humors begin to move for an inveterate Quotidian The use of Treacle in an inveterate quotidian though you can cure it by no other remedy nothing is thought to conduce so much as one dram of old Treacle taken with Sugar in form of a Bole or to drink it dissolved in Aqua vitae CHAP. XXIV Of a Scirrhus or an hard tumor proceeding of Melancholy HAving shewed the nature of tumors caused by bloud choler and phlegm it remains we speak of these which are bred of a melancholick humor of these there are said to be four differences The first is of a true and legitimate Scirrhus that is What a true and legitimate Scirrhus is What an illegimate Scirrhus is of an hard tumor endued with little sense and so commonly without pain generated of a natural melancholick humor The second is of an illegitimate Scirrhus that is of an hard tumor insensible and without pain of a Melancholick humor concrete by too much resolving and refrigerating The third is of a cancrous Scirrhus bred by the corruption and adustion of the Melancholick humor The fourth of a phlegmonous Erysipelous or Oedematous Scirrhus caused by Melancholy mixed with some other humor The cause of all these kinds of Tumors is a gross tough and tenacious humor concrete in any part But the generation of such an humor in the body happens either of an ill and irregular diet or of the unnatural affects of the Liver or Spleen as obstruction or by suppression of the Haemorrhoids or Courses The Signs The signs are hardness renitency a blackish colour and a dilation of the veins of the affected part with blackishness by reason of the abundance of the gross humor The illegitimate or bastard Scirrhus which is wholly without pain and sense and also the cancerous admit no cure and the true legitimate scarse yield to any Prognostick Those which are brought to suppuration easily turn into Cancers and Fistula's these tumors though in the beginning they appear little yet in process of time they grow to a great bigness CHAP. XXV Of the cure of a Scirrhus THe Cure of a Scirrhus chiefly consists of three heads First The Physitian shall prescribe a convenient diet that is sober and
will be good in this case if so be that you add hereto so much powder which dryes without acrimony as occasion shall serve I admonished you before to take heed of cold and now again for it is hurtful to all wounds and ulcers but especially to these of the nervous parts hence it is that many dye of small wounds in the winter who might recover of the same wounds though greater in the Summer Aphor. 20. sect 5. For cold according to Hippocrates is nipping to ulcers hardens the skin and hinders them from suppuration extinguisheth natural heat causes blackness cold aguish fits convulsions and distentions What matter usually flows from wounds of the joynts Now divers excrements are cast forth of wounds of the joynts but chiefly albugineous that is resembling the white of an egg and mucous and sometimes a very thin water all which savour of the nature of that humor which nourisheth these parts For to every part there is appropriate for his nourishment and conservation a peculiar balsam which by the wound flows out of the same part as out of the branches of the vine when they are pruned their radical moisture or juyce flows whence also a Callus proceeds in broken bones Now this same mucous and albugineous humor slow and as it were frozen flowing from the wounded joynts shews the cold distemper of the parts which cause pain not to be orecome by medicins only potentially hot Wherefore to correct that Why things actually hot must be applyed to the wounded joynts we must apply things actually hot as beasts and swines bladder half full of a discussing decoction or hot bricks quenched in Wines Such actual heat helps nature to concoct and discuss the superfluous humor impact in the joynts and strengthens them both which are very necessary because the natural heat of the joynts is so infirm that it can scarse actuate the medicin unless it be helped with medicins actually hot Of the site and posture of wounded joynts Neither must the Chirurgeon have the least care of the figure and posture of the part for a vicious posture increases ill symptoms uses to bring to the very part though the wound be cured distortion numness incurable contraction which fault lest he should run into let him observe what I shall now say If the forepart of the shoulder be wounded a great boulster must be under the arm-pit and you must carry your arm in a scarf so that it may bear up the lower part of the arm that so the top of the shoulder may be elevated somewhat higher and that so it may be thereby more speedily and happily agglutinated and consolidated If the lower part be wounded when flesh begins to be generated and the lips of the wound to meet you must bid the Patient to move and stir his armes divers wayes ever and anon for if that be omitted or negligently done when it is cicatrized then it will be more stiffe and less pliable to every motion and yet there is a further danger lest the arm should totally lose its motion If the wound be upon the joynt of the elbow the arm shall be placed and swathed in a middle posture that is which neither too straitly bows it nor holds it too stiffly out for otherwise when it is cicatrized there will be an impediment either in the contraction or extention When the wound is in the wrist or joints of the fingers either externally or internally the hand must be kept half-shut continually moving a ball therein For if the fingers be held straight stretched forth after it is cicatrized they will be unapt to take up or hold any thing which is their proper faculty But if after it is healed it remain half-shut no great inconveniency will follow thereon for so he may use his hand divers wayes to his sword pike bridle and in any thing else If the joints of the Hip be wounded you must so place the Patient that the thigh-bone may be kept in the cavity of the hucklebone and may not part a hairs breadth there-from which shall be done with linnen boulsters and ligatures applyed as is fitting and lying full upon his back When the wound shall begin to cicatrize the Patient shall use to move his thigh every way lest the head of the thigh-bone stick in the cavity of the huckle-bone without motion In a wound of the knee the leg must be placed straight out if the Patient desire not to be lame When the joints of the feet and toes are wounded these parts shall neither be bended in nor out for otherwise he will not be able to go To conclude the site of the foot and leg is quite contrary to that of the arm and hand CHAP. XL. Of the Wounds of the Ligaments Ligaments more dry than Nerves and without sense THe wounds of the Ligaments besides the common manner of curing those of the Nervs have nothing peculiar but that they require more powerful medicins for their agglutination deficcation and consolidating both because the Ligamental parts are harder and dryer and also for that they are void of sense Therefore the foresaid cure of Nerves and Joints may be used for these wounds for the Medicins in both are of the same kind but here they ought to be stronger and more powerfully drying The Theory and cure of all the symptoms which shall happen thereupon have been expressed in the Chapter of curing the Wounds of the nervous parts so that here we shall need to speak nothing of them for there you may find as much as you will Wherefore here let us make an end of wounds and give thanks to God the Author and giver of all good for the happy process of our labours and let us pray that that which remains may be brought to a happy end and secure for the health and safety of good people The End of the Tenth Book The Eleventh BOOK Of Wounds made by GVNSHOT other fiery Engines and all sorts of Weapons THE PREFACE I Have thought good here to premise my opinion of the original encrease and hurt of fiâ—ry Engines for that I hope it will be an ornament and grace to this my whole Treatise as also to intise my Reader as it were with these junckets to our following Banquet so much savouring of Gunpowder For thus it shall be known to all whence Guns had their original and how many habits and shapes they have acquired from poore and obscure beginnings and lastly how hurtful to mankind the use of them is Lib. 2. de invent reâ—um Polydore Virgil writes that a German of obscure birth and condition was the Inventor of this new Engin which we term a Gun being induced thereto by this occasion He kept in a mortar covered with a tyle or slate for some other certain uses a powder which since that time for its chief and new known faculty is nâ—med Gunpowder Now it chanced as he struck fire with a steel and
water you must heat them very hot and so the air which is contained in them will be exceedingly rarified which by putting them presently into water will be condensate a much and so will draw in the water to supply the place ne detur vacuum Then put them into fire and it again ratifying the water into air will make them yield a strong continued and forcible blast The cause of the report and blow of a Cannon Ball-bellows brought out of Germany which are made of brass hollow and round and have a very small hole in them whereby the water is put in and so put to the fire the water by the action thereof is rarified into air and so they send forth wind with a great noise and blow strongly assoon as they grow throughly not You may try the same with Chesnuts which cast whole and undivided into the fire presently fly asunder with a great crack because the watry and innate humidity turned into wind by the force of the fire forcibly breaks his passage forth For the air or wind raised from the water by rarifaction requires a larger place neither can it now be contained in the narro◠〈◊〉 or skins of the Chesnut wherein it was formerly kept Just after the same manner Gunâ—der being fired turns into a far greater proportion of air according to the truth of that Philosophical proposition which saith Of one part of earth there are made ten of water of one of water ten of air and of one of air are made ten of fire Now this fire not possible to be pent in the narrow space of the piece wherein the powder was formerly contained endeavours to force its passage with violence and so casts forth the Bullet lying in the way yet so that it presently vanishes into air and doth not accompany the Bullet to the mark or object which it batters spoils and breaks asunder Yet the Bullet may drive the obvious air with such violence that men are often sooner touched therewith than with the Bullet and dye by having their bones shattered and broken without any hurt on the flesh which covers them which as we formerly noted it hath common with Lightning We find the like in Mines when the powder is once fired it removes and shakes even Mountains of earth In the year of our Lord 1562. A History a quantity of this powder which was not very great taking fire by accident in the Arcenal of Paris caused such a tempest that the whole City shook therewith but it quite overturned divers of the neighbouring houses and shook off the â—yles and broke the windows of those which were further off and to conclude like a storm of Lightning it laid many here and there for dead some lost their sight others their hearing and othersome had their limbs torn asunder as if they had been rent with wild Horses and all this was done by the only agitation of the air into which the fired Gun-powder was turned Just after the same manner as windes pent up in hollow places of the earth which want vents The cause of an Earthquake For in seeking passage forth they vehemently shake the sides of the Earth and raging with a great noise about the cavities they make all the surface thereof to tremble so that by the various agitation one while up another down it over-turns or carries it to another place For thus we have read that Megara and Aegina anciently most famous Cities of Greece were swallowed up and quite over-turned by an Earthquake I omit the great blusterings of the winds striving in the cavities of the earth which represent to such as hear them at some distance the fierce assailing of Cities the bellowing of Bullets the horrid roarings of Lions neither are they much unlike to the roaring reports of Cannons These things being thus premised let us come to the thing we have in hand Amongst things necessary for life there is none causes greater changes in us than the Air which is continually drawn into the Bowels appointed by nature and whether we sleep wake or what else soever we do we continual draw in and breathe it out Through which occasion Hippocrates calls it Divine for that breathing through this mundane Orb it embraces nourishes defends and keeps in quiet peace all things contained therein friendly conspiring with the Stars from whom a divine vertue is infused therein For the air diversly changed and affected by the Stars doth in like manner produce various changes in these lower mundane bodies And hence it is that Philosophers and Physitians do so seriously with us to behold and consider the culture and habit of places and constitution of the air when they treat of preserving of health or curing diseases For in these the great power and dominion of the air is very apparent as you may gather by the four seasons of the year for in Summer the air being hot and dry heats and dryes our bodies but in Winter it produceth in us the effects of Winters qualities that is of cold and moisture yet by such order and providence of nature that although according to the varieties of seasons our bodies may be variously altered yet shall they receive no detriment thereby if so be that the seasons retain their seasonableness from whence if they happen to digress they raise and stir up great perturbations both in our bodies and minds whose malice we can scarse shun because they encompass us on every hand and by the law of Nature enter together with the air into the secret Cabinets of our Bodies both by occult and manifest passages For who is lie How the air becomes hurtful that doth not by experience find both for the commodity and discommodity of his health the various effects of winds wherewith the air is commixt according as they blow from this or that Region or quarter of the world Wherefore seeing that the South-wind is hot and moist the North-wind cold and dry the East-wind clear and fresh the West wind cloudy it is no doubt but that the air which we draw in by inspiration carries together therewith into the Bowels the qualities of that wind which is then prevalent Whence we read in Hippocrates Aphor. 17. sect 3. that changes of times whether they happen by different winds or vicissitude of seasons chiefly bring diseases For Northerly winds do condense and strengthen our Bodies and make them active well coloured and during by resuscitating and vigorating the native heat But Southern winds resolve and moisten our Bodies make us heavy-headed dull the hearing cause giddiness and make the Eyes and Body less agile as the Inhabitants of Nâ—rbon find to their great harm who are otherwise ranked among the most active people of France But if we would make a comparison of the seasons and constitutions of the year by Hippâ—crates decree Droughts are more wholesome and less deadly than Rains I judg for that too much humidity is the mother of
or in swallowing the milke What is to be observed in the milk We may judg of or know the nature and condition of milk by the quantity quality colour savor and taste when the quantity of the milk is so little that it wil not suffice to nourish the infant it cannot be good and laudable for it aâ—gueth some distemperature either of the whole body or at least of the dugs especially a hot and dry distemperature But when it superaboundeth and is more then the infant can spend it exhausteth the juice of the nurses body and when it cannot all be drawn out by the infant it clutteâ—eth and congealeth or corrupteth in the dugs Yet I would rather wish it to abound then to be defective for the superabounding quantity may be pressed out before the childe be set to the breast The laudable consistence of milk That milk that is of a mean consistence between thick and thin is esteemed to be the best For it betokeneth the strength and vigor of the faculty that ingendreth it in the breasts Therefore if one drop of the milk be laid on the nail of ones thumb being first made very clean and fair if the thumb be not moved and it run off the nail it signifieth that it is watery milk but if it sâ—â—ck to the nail although the end of the thumb be bowed downwards it sheweth that it is too gross and thick but if it remain on the nail so long as you hold it upright and fall from it when you hold it a little aside or downwards by little and little it sheweth it is very good milk And that which is exquisitely white is best of all For the milk is no other thing then blood made white Therefore if it be of any other colour it argueth a default in the blood so that if it be brown Why the milk ougâ—t to be very white it betokeneth melancholick blood if it be yellow it signifieth cholerick blood if it be wan and pale it betokeneth phlegmatick blood if it be somewhat red it argueth the weakness of the faculty that engendreth the milk It ought to be sweet fragrant and pleasant in smell for if it strike into the nostrils with a certain sharpness as for the most part the milke of women that have red hair and little freckles on their faces doth it prognosticates a hot and cholerick nature Why a woman that hath red hair or frecles on her face cannot be a good Nurse if with a certain sowerness it portendeth a cold and melancholick nature In taste it ought to be sweet and as it were sugered for the bitter saltish sharp and stiptick is nought And here I cannot but admire the providence of nature which hath caused the blood wherewith the childe should be nourished to be turned into milk which unless it were so who is he that would not turn his face from and abhor so grievous and terrible a spectacle of the childes mouth so imbrued and besmeared with blood what mother or Nurse would not be amazed at every moment with the fear of the blood so often shed out or sucked by the infant for his nourishment Moreover we should want two helps of sustentation that is to say Butter and Cheese Neither ought the childe to be permitted to suck within five or six daies after it is born both for the reason before alledged and also because he hath need of so much time to rest quiet and ease himself after the pains he hath sustained in his birth in the mean season the mother must have her breasts drawn by some maid that drinketh no wine or else she may suck or draw them her self with an artificiall instrument which I will describe hereafter That Nurse that hath born a man childe is to be preferred before another What that Nurse that hath born a man-childe is to be p eferred before another because her milk is the better concocted the heat of the male-childe doubling the mothers heat And moreover the women that are great with childe of a male-childe are better colored and in better strength and better able to do any thing all the time of their greatness which proveth the same and moreover the blood is more laudable and the milk better Furthermore it behoveth the Nurse to be brought on bed or to travail at her just and prefixed or natural time Why she cannot be a good Nurse whoâ—e childe was born befoâ—e the time for when the childe is born before his time of some inward cause it argueth that there is some default lurking and hidden in the body and humors thereof CHAP. XXII What diet the Nurse ought to use and in what situation she ought to place the infant in the Cradle BOth in eating drinking sleeping watching exercising and resting the Nurses diet must be divers according as the nature of the childe both in habit and temperature shall be as for example if the childe be altogether of a more hot blood the Nurse both in feeding and ordering herself ought to follow a cooling diet In general let her eat meats of good juice moderate in quantity and quality let her live in a pure and clear air let her abstain from all spices and all salted and spiced meats and all sharp things wine especially that which is not allayed or mixed with water and carnal copulation with a man let her avoid all perturbations of the minde but anger especially let her use moderate exercise Anger â—reatly hu teth the Nurse The exercise of the arms is best for the Nurse How the childe should be placed in the Cradâ—e unless it be the exercise of her armes and upper parts rather then the leggs and lower parts whereby the greater attraction of the blood that must be turned into milk may be made towards the dugs Let her place her childe so in the Cradle that his head may be higher then all the body that so the excremental humors may be the better sent from the brain unto the passages that are beneath it Let her swathe it so as the neck and all the back-bone may be strait and equal As long as the childe sucketh and is not fed with stronger meat it is better to lay him alway on his back then any other way for the back is as it were the keel in a ship the ground-work and foundation of all the whole body whereon the infant may safely and easily rest But if he lie oâ— the side it were danger left that the bones of the ribs being soft and tender not strong enough and united with stack bands should bow under the weight of the rest and so wax crooked whereby the infant might become crook-backed But when he beginneth to breed teeth and to be fed with more strong meat and also the bones and connexions of them begin to wax more firm and hard he must be laved one while on this side another while on that and now and then also on his
Medicines THe third faculty of medicines depends for the most part upon the first and second faculties sometimes conjoyned otherwhiles separate Also sometimes it follows neither of these fatulties but a certain property and inexplicable quality which is only known by experience Now the operations of this third faculty are to agglutinate to fill with flesh to cicatrize to asswage pain to move or stay the urine milk seed the courses sweats vomits and performe such like operations in or about the body Thus the generation of flesh is produced by the concourse of two faculties that is of drying and cleansing But driness and astriction produce a glutinating and cicatrizing faculty A hot and attenuating faculty causeth sweats moves urine the courses and the like in the body but contrary faculties retard and stop the same To mitigate pain proceeds only from the faculty to wit from heat or a moderately heating faculty to procure rest from cold only or coldness joyned with some moysture But to procure vomit proceeds neither from the first nor second faculty but from a certain occult and essential property which is naturally implanted in Agarick and other nauseous and vomitory medicines CHAP. VI. Of the fourth faculty of Medicines THe fourth faculty of medicines is not of the same condition with those that are formerly mentioned for it depends not upon them or any other manifest or elementary quality The fourth faculty of medicines depends only upon an occult property but on an occult property of the whole substance by means whereof it works rather upon this then that part upon this rather then that humor Wherefore Physicians cannot by any reason finde out this faculty but only by experience as we have said a little before of medicines procuring vomit Hence it is that names are given to those medicines from those parts that they chiefly respect For they are termed Cephalicks which respect the head as Betony Marjarom Sage Rosemary Stachas Pneumonicks which respect the Lungs as Liquorice sweet Almonds Ortis Elecampane Cordials that strengthen the heart as Saffron Cinnamon Citrons but chiefly their rindes Bugloss Coral Ivory Stomachical which respect the stomach and the orifice thereof as Nutmegs Mint Anise Mastick Pepper Ginger Hepaticks which respect the Liver as Wormwood Agrimony Spicknard Succory Sanders Spleneticks which have relation to the spleen as as Time Epithymum broom flowers Cetrach Capers the bark of their roots the bark of Tamarisk Diureticks such as respect the kidnies and urinary passages as the roots of Smallage Asparagus Fennel Butchers broom the four greater cold seeds Turpentine Plantain Saxifrage Arthniticks or such as strengthen the joynts as Cowslips Chamaepytis Elecampane Calamint Hermodactils and the like To this rank may be referred purging medicines which furnished with a specifick property shew their efficacy on one humor more then another humor and that impact more in one part then in another For thus Agrick chiefly draws phlegm from the head and joynts Rubarb draws choler chiefly from the Liver and hurts the kidnies But let us here forbear the consideration of things as not appertaining to Surgery But some medicines of this kinde are furnished with one simple faculty othersome with more and those contrary whereof your taste may give you sufficient notice for Rubarb at the first touch of the tongue is found acrid and hot but when you come to chaw and throughly to taste it you shall finde it to partake of an earthly astriction Therefore because tasts give notice of the faculties of medicines therefore I have thought good to treat of them briefly CHAP. VII Of Tastes TAste as Galen delivers according to Aristotle and Theophrastus Lib 1. simpl is a certain concoction of moisture in driness caused by means of heat which we know or discern by the tongue well tempered and fittingly furnished with spittle and his nerves There are nine differences of tastes for there are three judged hot to wit the acrid bitter and salt three cold the acid austere and acerb three temperate the sweet the oyly or fat and the insipide Differences of tastes Now they are thought so many according to the different degrees of concoction for it appears greater in hot tastes and and as it were a certain assation but less in cold but indifferent and as it were an elixation in things temperate therefore Nature observes this order in the concoction of sapid bodies that are the first the aceâ—b taste should take place then the austere and lastly the acid from these as it were rudiments of concoction arises an insipid then an oylie then a sweet perfectly concocted and temperate This concoction exceeding the bounds of mediocrity there arises a salt taste then a bitter and then an acrid with the highest excess of almost a fiery heat Yet I would be thus understood that all things that are by nature sapid do not alwayes ascend to the height of sweetness by the degrees of acerbity austerity and acidity as though it were of absolute necessity that all things that are sweet should be acerb austere and acid For there are many things found especially in plants and their fruits which when they shall arrive to their perfection and maturity are acid bitter or salt but being yet unâ—ipe and not come to full perfection they have a certain sweetness which afterwards by a furthâ—r digestion or perfection and concoction acquire a bitter austere or acid taste For thus bitterness in Wormwood and Aloes acrimony in Pepper or Pellitory is a perfection of nature as full ripeness and perfect concoction and not an excess of heat in that Species Also acerbity and austerity is a perfection of nature and not a rudiment in Services and Cornelians acidity or tartness is also in verjuice But in very many things it so falls out that the sweet or fatty tastes become so and acquire their perfection by concoction as in Grapes Figs Pears Apples and almost all other such fruits as we usually feed upon Therefore I will now treat of each of them in order first beginning with cold tastes The acerb taste The acerb taste is cold and terrestrial and of a substance absolutely gross being less humid then the austere but much less then the acid It notably cools and dries it condensates binds repels especially from the superficies and it also exasperates this taste resides and may be found in Pomegranat pills Galls Sumach and Cypress nuts The austere The austere is nighest in temper and effects to the acerb but somewhat moister for the acerb absolutely consists in a terrestrial and cold substance Wherefore this increased by a degree of concoction acquires more store either of heat alone or else of moisture alone or else of both together moisture I say and that is either aiery or else watry Therefore if these fruits which before their maturity are acerb have an accession of heat then do they become sweet as you perceive by Chesnuts but if there be an accession of
moysture only and that more gross of acerb they become austere for both the tastes are in the like degree of cold but the austere is the moysture But if to the same frigidity remaining in fruits a certain humidity accrew then is there caused an acid taste But if they have an accession of a watrish moisture and heat they will acquire a sweet taste or else oily if the humidity accrewing with the heat be aiery I have judged it requisite to admonish you hereof that you might know by what means sapid bodies mitigated become sweet of acerb as it were by these interposed degrees of austerity acidity and oilyness as they acquire a various accession of heat and moisture separately or conjunctly Now by all that we have delivered you may gather that all acerb and austere things are cold and dry and as they are cold they repel and hinder defluxions as they are dry and terrestrial they condensate incrassate constipate and straiten the passages yea and they also cicatrize but acerb things performe this far more powerfully as those which are absolutely terrene cold and dry not partaking of moisture or water Now austere things consist as is were in a middle matter that is in a more dilute terrene body as it is apparent in Services unripe Grapes Cornelians Medlars Crabs wilde Pears and all sorts of unripe fruits whence it is termed a crude taste The acid taste The acid taste is of a cold and watrish nature but most subtle by benefit whereof it penetrates and divides almost as powerfully as the acrid It incides or divides attenuates bites cleanses opens obstructions repels and dries For by the means of the deep piercing cold it repels all defluxions and by the drying faculty which is strong even in its watery consistence it stayes and stops all bleedings the haemorhoids and dysenteries The force thereof is chiefly manifest in Vinegar as also in the juice of Citrons Sorrel Cherries Berberies and the like And this is the nature of cold tastes now it is time we speak of such as are temperate The incipid The insipid is unproperly termed a taste as that which is rather a privation of taste it is in some sort cold and of a very watrish and gross nature it inspissates constipates and stupifies This kinde of taste is chiefly manifest in Water and next in Gourds Citruls and many such like things The oily The oily taste is hot humid aiery therefore it humects relaxes mollifies lubricates Of this kinde are oyl butter fat which is not rancid by age nor acrid by nature as that of Lyons and Foxes The sweet The sweet taste is made by a moderate and well concocting heat consisting in a matter more tenuious and hot then the insipid but in somewhat more gross then the oily from which in the first qualities it doth not differ therefore it is of a hot aiery and temperate nature Therefore every sweet thing detergeth levigates concocts ripens relaxes and asswageth pain Examples of this taste may be had in Sugar Hony Manna sweet Almonds Milk and other like Now let us come to hot tastes The salt The salt taste is hot and astringent less earthy then the bitter as that which resides as it were in a middle matter For it proceeds from an earthy driness which is formerly torrified and attenuated by the force of heat in a watery humidity Wherefore that which is salt contracts the pores cuts cleanses digests or rather dries up the humors by the driness thereof without any manifest sence of heat whence it is that it vindicates from putrefaction Under this kinde are contained all sorts of salt as salt peter niter sal Ammoniacum sal gemmae common salt sea-water and such other like The bitter taste is hot earthy and drying for the matter thereof is gross and earthy The bitter which the abounding heat hath torrified and dried up Wherefore bitter things taken inwardly purge and carry away superfluous humors and outwardly applyed they mundifie and deterge ulcers they open the mouths and passages of the veins oft-times by their abstergent faculty whence it is that they move the courses and haemorhoids The principal things endued with this taste are Aloes Gall Wormwood Gentian the lesser Centaury Coloquintida Fumitory Soot and such like The acrid taste is hot of a subtile and fiery nature for it is kindled of a hot subtle The acrid and drie matter neither can it consist in any other Therefore that which is acrid heats pricks or bites the mouth by acrimony it heats and oft-times burns it penetrates opens the passages attenuates attracts and draws forth gross humors evacuates and sends forth urine the courses and sweat besides it oft-times is septick blistering and escharotick and lastly burning and caustick The septick and putrefactive things are Sublimate Chamaelen the juice of Thapsia The vesicatories are Dittander Cantharides Crow-foot Mustard Pellitory of Spain Euphorbium But the caustick and escharotick are Lime Oke-ashes and the like But we know medicines not only by the taste but also by our other senses as touch sight hearing smell And as by the taste so also by these we judge of and try the goodness of medicines and distinguish the true legitimate from the adulterate The touch judges what are hot and cold moist and dry rough and gentle or smooth hard and soft brittle or friable glutinous and viscid drie or slippery We approve of the goodness of medicines by their colour brightness or duskiness whereof the eye is judge for we commend that Senna which is somewhat greenish but dislike the whitish as also we like well of such Cassia as is black both within and without shining and full and not dry and shrunk up Yet the judgment of the first qualities by the colour is deceitful or none at all for such things as are white or the colour of Snow are not therefore cold for sundry of them are hot as Lime Neither are red things to be therefore judged hot for Roses are cool Also medicines are chosen by the smell for such as have a good fresh and natural smell are commonly hot and in their perfect vigor On the contrary things that want smell are for the most part cold and evanid By hearing we distinguish things full from such as are empty thus we chuse Cassia which shaken makes no noise with the grains or seeds rattling in it Hitherto we have explained the first second third and fourth facultie of medicines in general and have shewed how they may be found out now must we more particularly treat of their second and third faculties because by reason of those they chiefly come into use in Surgery Yet let me first briefly shew by what means and arts they may be prepared CHAP. VIII Of the preparation of Medicines TO prepare medicines is nothing else then by Art to make them more commodious for use and composition whereby they are either made More gentle By
Bruising as when medicines are broken by striking and rubbing or grinding in a mortar and that either of Brass Iron Lead Glass Wood Marble and other like Considering the thing which is to be beaten The strength or force wherewith it must be performed The time or space The situation The things to be added The consistence which the thing beaten must be of More strong By searsing whereby we separate the purer and finer from the more impure and gross which is done by sieves and searses made of Wood Parchment Hors-hair Silk Lawn Wherein is to be noted that the same consideration is to be had in searsing as in beating therefore such things as are to be finely powdered must be searsed in a finer searse such as are more gross in a courser More pleasant By dissolving or mollifying which is nothing else but a dissolving of a simple or a compound medicine of a thick or hard consistence either into a mean consistence or a little more liquid or soft which is performed either by heat only for by heat gums and horns are mollified or by liquor as by vinegar water wine juice of Limmons c. More wholsome By desiccation or hardening which is nothing else but the consuming of the superfluous and hurtful moisture and this is performed either by the Sun or by Fire By infusion which is nothing else but the tempering or macerating of a medicine a little beaten or cut in some liquor appropriate and fit for our purpose as in Milke Vineger Water oyl and the like so long as the nature of the medicine requires To Infusion Nutrition may be reduced which is nothing else but as it were a certain accretion of the medicine by being moistened macerated rubbed or ground with some moisture especially with heat By burning that is by consuming the humidity which is in them And that either that they may be the better powdered being otherwise too glutinous or that they may lay aside their gross essence and become of a subtiler temper or that they may put off or partly lose some fiery quality as acrimony Gal. lib. 4. cap. 9. simplicium Or that they may acquire a new colour Now all things are burnt either alone as such things as have a fatty moisture as hairs sweaty wool horns Or else with some combustile matter as sulphur alum salt barly c. More fit for mixture By boyling or elixation which is performed by a humid heat as burning is by a drye and that either that we may increase the weak faculties of such medicines as are boyled by boyling them with such as are stronger or else to weaken such as are too strong or else wholly to dissipate such as are contrary Or that one faculty may arise of sundry things of different faculties being boyled together or for the longer keeping them or bringing them to a certain form or consistence All which are done by Fire or Sun By washing or cleansing whereby the impurity of the medicine is wasted away or cleansed and such things are either hard as metals stones parts of living creatures condensed juices and other like Or soft as Rosins Gums Fat 's Oils And these ought first to be finely beaten that the water may penetrate in all their substance Or to be dissolved and cast into the vessel filled with water and so stirred and then suffered to subside so that the fat may swim aloft And this must be done so long that the water retain nothing thereof in colour smell or taste CHAP. IX Of repelling or repercussive Medicines Astringents are understood by the name of repellers REpelling or repercussive medicines are cold and of gross and earthy parts by which name also astringent medicins are understood because they hinder the falling down of the humors upon the part Repercussives are such either of their nature and of themselves or else by accident being not such of their own nature These which of themselves are such The differences of repercussives are of two kindes for some are watrish and moist without any astrictive faculty which almost wholly proceeds from an earthy essence wherefore that faculty of repelling which they possess they have it wholly from coldness Of this kinde are lettuce purslain sow-thistle ducks-meat kidney-wurt cucumbers melons gourds house-leek mandrake-apples night-shade henbane and the like which cool powerfully and unless they be taken away before the part wax blackish they extinguish the natural heat Othersome are of an earthy essence and therefore astrictive but yet some of these are hot othersome cold Such things as are cold of temper and of an earthy consistence are properly and truly termed repellers Of these some are simple othersome compound the simples are plantain vine-leaves leaves of roses okes brambles cypress berberries sumach all unripe fruits verjuice vineger red wine the juice of sower pomegranats acacia the juice of berberries and quinces hypocistis pomegranat-pils oke-bark the flowers of wilde pomgranats the meal of barly beans panick oats millet orobus mixed with juices in form of a pultis bole-armenick sanguis draconis ceruss litharge terra sigillata sullers-earth chalk marl the load-stone lead corals all marchisites antimony spodium true pomphylix all sorts of earth and other things of the like nature Now compound things are Oleum rosaceum omphacinum mirtillorum papaveris cydoniorum nenupharis unguentum rosatum album rhasis campharatum emplastrum diacalcitheos dissolved in vineger and oil of roses desiccativum rubrum populeon emplastrum nigrum seu tetrapharmacum of Galens description empl contra rupturam de cerusa pro matrice All such cold repercussives are more effectual if they be associated with tenuity of substance Why things of subtil parts are oft-times mixed with repercussives either of themselves or by mixture with some other things for to this purpose we often mix vineger camphire and the like things of subtil parts which repercussives of gross parts that they may serve as vehicles to carry in the repercussive faculty Repercussives of gross parts and hot are wormwood centory gentian agrimony savin coriander mint bay-leaves cardamomes calamus aromaticus aloes spicknard Repellers by accident saffron nutmeg cinnamon amber salt alum coporas sulphur oleum absinthinum mastichinum nardinum costinum ceratum Gal. stomachicum santalinum emplastrum diacalcitheos But such things as repel by accident are bandages compressers linnen-cloths and rowlers of all sorts cases cauteries When and to what parts repercussives must be applyed blood-letting cupping painful frictions in the opposite parts and other such like things as are properly said to make revulsion The use of repercussives is to force back the humor which flows from any other place into the part and thus they mitigate the heat of such inflammation as that defluxion of humors hath caused yea oft-times to asswage and help pain the fever abscess malign ulcers and mortification Such repercussives must alwaies be so opposed to the disease that respect may be had to the temper
empl de Vigo without addition and with addition oxycroceum diacalcitheos dissolved in a digesting oyl to the form of a cerot Araeoticks are profitably used in the increase and state of superficial tumors The use of diaphoreticks But Diaphoreticks are not to be used in the increase of tumors unless some astringent be added lest by their more strong digestion they should draw and increase the defluxion but when the tumors decline they are then only to be used in the parts chiefly where the skin is dense and hard and when the tumor is cold and gross and lying hid deep in the body so that the virtue of medicaments can hardly come thereto but consideration is to be had of the parts to which resolutives are to be applied for you may not apply relaxers or diaphoreticks to the liver spleen stomach or bowels unless you add some astringents of which a great part must be aromaticks To the parts where sence is more dull may be applied the stronger diaphoreticks but those parts whiâ—h are endued with a more exquisite sense as the eye and the nerves to them we must apply weaker When the mâ—tter is gross and cold things cutting and attenuating and then emollient are to be used and so by degrees come to diaphoreticks otherwise that only is resolved which is the most subtil of unprofitable matter the grosser becomming concrete and hardned But if the part be afflicted with a continual defluxion so that there may be danger of a gangrene or sphacel it is not lawful then to make use of resolvers but you must in the place where the humor flows divide the skin by scarification as it is most learnedly noted by Hollerius in that profitable book of his left to posterity whose title is De materia Chirurgica CHAP. XII Of suppuratives What a suppurative medicine is A Suppurative medicine is said to be that which shutting the pores and preventing transpiration by his emplastick consistence increaseth the matter and native heat and therefore turneth the matter cast out of the vessels into pus and sanies It is of nature hot and moist and proportionable to the native heat of the part to which it is applied and of an emplastick consistence that so it may hinder the native heat from being exhaled in which respect it differeth from emollients and malacticks of which we shall speak hereafter There be two kindes of suppuratives Differences of Suppuratives for some do it of themselves and by their proper quality others by accident Those things which by their own strength do bring to suppuration are either simples or compounds Simples are radix liliorum caeâ—a allium malvarum omnium folia semina buglossum acanthus senecio violae pariâ—taria crocus caules ficus passulae mundatae with a decoction of these things farina tritici farina volatâ—lis farina hordei excorticati lolii seminis lini foenugraeci galbanum ammoniacum styrax pirguis ladanum viscum aucupatorum thus pix cera resina colla adeps suillus vitulinus vaccinus capâ—inus butyrum vitellus ovi oesipus humida-stercus suillum columbinum caprinum pueri Compounds are oleum liliorum lumbricorum de croco unguent basilicum emplast diachilon commune magnum de mucilaginibus Suppuratives by accident Those things do suppurate by accident which work it only by the means of an emplastick consistence for so oft-times astringents because they are of earthy and thick parts are found to suppurate such are unguentum de bolo rutritum and such like Such also are those which by their coldness keep the heat in and shut the poâ—es Hence it is that the qualities of sorrel are commended to generate pus for whilst it keepeth the heat within it increaseth his effects to the thickning of the suppurable matter and the overcomming other rebellious qualities We use things ripening in great inflammations whose growth we cannot hinder with repellers or increase with resolvers or discussers CHAP. XIII Of Mollifying things Gal. cap. 7. lib. 5. simp How suppuratives emollients differ THat is defined to be a mollifying medicine which by a stronger heat then that which is proper to suppuratives without any manifest quality of drying or moistening again malaxeth or softeneth hardned bodies wherefore this differs from that which suppurates because that they be hot in the firrst or second degree according to the several temper of the body or part to which it is applied working rather by the quantity of heat then the quality contrariwise that which mollifieth being indued with a greater heat rather worketh by the quality of the heat being otherwise in driness and moisture temperate Although as many things agree together in some respects though of a diverse nature so many emollients are such as are hot in the first degree and drie in the second and third that so they may the better disperse and diffuse that which is congealed by taking away a little of the humidity which is contained within the part affected but not by exhausting it wholly by the violence of heat ordriness for hereon would follow a greater hardness Things mollifying are either simple or compound and these again strong or weak The differences of emollients The weak are Radix liliorum alborum cucumeris agrestis althaeae folia malvae bismalvae liliorum anethi summitates viola branca ursina semen malvae bismalvae lini foenugraeci carici pingues passulae mundatae pedum capitum intestinorum vervecinorum decoctum adeps ex junioribus castratis domesticis foeminis animalibus adeps suillus vitulinus hoedinus caprinus bubulus vulpinus gallinaceus anserinus anatinus olorinus efficaces The weaker are things more gentle as Butyrum lana succida cera pinguis vitellus ovi medulla ex â—ssibus cervina ovilla caprina The compound are oyl wherein are boiled mollifying herbs as Oleum liliorum chamaemelinum amygdalarum dulcium Stronger emollients are Acetum adeps taurinus ursinus cervinus leoninus pardalinus apri equi sevum pinea picea abietina terebinthina ammoniacum bdelium styrax galbanum ladanum propolis opopanax ung de althaea emp. diachylon commune magnum de mucilaginibus ceroneum oxycroceum Joannis de Vigo We use emollients in schirrous tumors of the muscles or in the lips of ulcers Their use in any of the limbs belly glandules bowels by reason of a gross cold and viscous matter either phlegmatick or melancholick Yet those tumors which come of melancholy commonly turn to cancers which are exasperated by mollifying things On the contrary such as proceed from a phlegmatick matter are brought to an equality of consistence by the use of emollients Furthermore there are three things observable in the use of emollients the first is duly to consider how much the affected part differs from his proper and natural temper and proportion that so we may apply an equivalent remedy The second is that we distinguish the natures of the parts Things observable in
linnen-clothes dipped therein A water also distilled of snails gathered in a vine-yard juice of lemmons the flowers of white mullain mixed together in equal proportion with a like quantity of the liquor contained in the bladders of Elm-leaves is very good for the same purpose Also this â„ž micae panis albi lb iv flor fabar rosar alb flor nenuph. lilior ireos an lb ii lactis vaccini lb vi ova nu viii aceti â—pt lb i. distillentur omnia simul in alembico vitrâ—c fiat aqua ad faciei et manuum lotionem Or â„ž olei de tartaro â„¥ iii. mucag. sem psilii â„¥ i. cerus in oleo ros dissolut â„¥ i. ss borac sal gem an Ê’ i. fiat linimentum profacie Or â„ž caponem vivum et caseum ex lacte caprino recenter confectum limon nu iv ovor nu iv cerus lâ—t in aq rosar â„¥ ii boracis â„¥ i ss camph. â„¥ ii aq flor fabar lb iv fiat omnium infusio per xxiv horas postea distillentur in alembico vitreo The marrow of sheeps-bones good to smooth the face There is a most excellent fucus made of the marrow of sheeps-bones which smooths the roughness of the skin beautifies the face now it must be thus extracted Take the bones severed from the flesh by boiling beat them and so boil them in water when they are well boiled take them from the fire and when the water is cold gather the fat that swims upon it and there with anoint your face when as you go to bed and wash it in the morning with the formerly prescribed water How to make Sal ceâ—ussa â„ž salis ceruss Ê’ ii ung citrin vel spermat ceti â„¥ i. malaxentur simul et fiat linimentum addendo olei ovor Ê’ ii The Sal cerussae is thus made grinde Ceruss into very fine powder and infuse lb 1. thereof in a bottle of distilled vineger for four or five daies then filter it then set that you have filtred in a glased earthen vessel over a gentle fire until it concrete into salt just as you do the capitellum in making of cauteries â„ž excrementi lacert ossis saepiae tartari vini albi rasur corn cerv farin oriz. an partes aequales fiat pulvis infundatur in aqua distillata amygdalarum dulcium limacum vinealium flor nenuph. huic addito mellis albi par pondus let them all be incorporated in a marble morter and kept in a glass or silver vessel and at night anoint the face herewith it wonderfully prevails against the redness of the face if after the anointing it you shall cover the face with a linnen cloth moistened in the former described water â„ž sul lim Ê’i argent viv saliv extinct Ê’ii margarit non perforat Ê’i caph Ê’ i ss incorporentur simul in mortario marmoreo cum pistillo ligneo per tres horas ducantur et fricentur reducanturque in tenuissimum pulverem confectus pulvis abluatur aquâ myrti et desiccetur serveturque ad usum adde follorum auri et argenti nu x. When as you would use this powder put into the palm of your hand a little oyl of mastich or of sweet-almonds then presently in that oyl dissolve a little of the described powder and so work it into an ointment wherewith let the face be anointed at bed-time but it is fit first to wash the face with the formerly described waters and again in the morning when you arise How to paint the face When the face is freed from wrinkles and spots then may you paint the cheeks with a rosie and flourishing colour for of the commixture of white and red ariseth a native and beautiful color for this purpose take as much as you shall think fit of brasil and alchunet steep them in alum-water and therewith touch the cheeks and lips and so suffer it to dry in there is also spanish red made for this purpose others rub the mentioned parts with a sheeps-skin died red moreover the friction that is made by the hand only causeth a pleasing redness in the face by drawing thither the blood and spirits GHAP. XLV Of the Gutta Rosacea or a fiery face THis treatise of Fuci puts me in minde to say something in this place of helping the preternatural redness which possesseth the nose and cheeks Why worse in winter then in summar and oft-times all the face besides one while with a tumor otherwhiles without sometimes with pustles and scabs by reason of the admixture of a nitrous and adust humor Practitioners have termed it Gutta rosacca This shews both more and more ugly in winter then in summer because the cold closeth the pores of the skin so that the matter contained thereunder is bent up for want of transpiration whence it becomes acrid and biting so that as it were boiling up it lifts or raiseth the skin into pustles and scabs it is a contumacious disease and oft-times not to be helped by medicine For the general method of curing this disease it is fit that the patient abstain from wine Diet. and from all things in general that by their heat inflame the blood and diffuse it by their vaporous substance he shall shun hot and very cold places and shall procure that his belly may be soluble either by nature or art Let blood first be drawn out of the basilica then from the vena frontis and lastly from the vein of the nose Let leeches be applied to sundry places of the face and cupping-glasses with scarification to the shoulders For particular or proper remedies if the disease be inveterate Remedies the hardness shall first be softned with emollient things then assaulted with the following ointments which shall be used or changed by the Chirurgian as the Physician shall think fit â„ž succi citri â„¥ iii. cerus quantum sufficit ad eum inspissandum An approved ointment argenti vivi cum saliva et sulphure vivo extincti Ê’ ss incorporentur simul et fiat unguentum â„ž boracis Ê’ii farin ciser et fabar an Ê’ i ss caph Ê’i cum melle et succo cepae fiant trochisci when you would use them dissolve them in rose and plantain-water and spread them upon linnen cloths and so apply them on the night-time to the affected parts and so let them oft-times be renewed â„ž unguenti citrini recenter dispensati â„¥ ii sulphuris vivi â„¥ ss cum modico olei sem cucurb et succi limonum fiat unguentum with this let the face be annointed when you go to bed in the morning let it be washed away with rose-water being white by reason of bran infused therein moreover sharp vineger boiled with bran and rose-water and applied as before powerfully takes away the redness of the face â„ž cerus litharg auri sulphuris vivi pulverisati an â„¥ ss ponantur in phiala cum aceto aquae rosarum linnen cloths dipped herein shall be applied to the
pale Of Taste bitter It provoketh the expulsive faculty of the guts attenuates the Phlegm cleaving to them but the Alimentary is fit to nourish the parts of like temper with it Melancholy is Of Nature earthly cold and dry Of Consistence gross and muddy Of Colour blackish Of Taste acide sour or biting Stirs up the Appetite nourishes the Spleen and all the parts of like temper to it as the bones Blood hath its nearest matter from the better portion of the Chylus and being begun to be laboured in the veins at length gets form and perfection in the Liver but it hath its remote matter from meats of good digestion and quality seasonably eaten after moderate exercise but for that one age is better than another and one time of the year more convenient than another For blood is made more copiously in the Spring because that season of the year comes nearest to the temper of the bloud by reason of which the blood is rather to be thought temperate than hot or moist for that Galen makes the Spring temperate and besides at that time blood-letting is performed with the best success Lib. 1. de temp Youth is an age very fit for the generation of blood or by Galens opinion rather that part of life that continues from the 25 to the 35 year of our age Those in whom this Humor hath the dominion are beautified with a fresh and rosie colour gentle and wel-natured pleasant merry and facetious The generation of Phlegm is not by the imbecillity of heat as some of the Ancients thought who were perswaded that Choler was caused by a raging Blood by a moderate and Phlegm and Melancholy by a remiss heat But that opinion is full of manifest error for if it be true that the Chylus is laboured and made into blood in the same part One and the same Heat is the efficient cause of all humors at the same time and by the same fire that is the Liver from whence in the same moment of time should proceed that strong and weak heat seeing the whole mass of the blood different in its four essential parts is perfected and made at the same time and by the same equal temper of the same part action and blood-making faculty therefore from whence have we this variety of Humors From hence for that those meats by which we are nourished enjoy the like condition that our bodies do from the four Elements and the four first Qualities for it is certain and we may often observe In what kind soever they be united or joyned together they retain a certain hot portion imitating the fire another cold the water another dry the earth and lastly another moist like to the air Neither can you name any kind of nourishment how cold soever it be not Lettuce it self in which there is not some fiery force of heat Therefore it is no marvail if one and the same heat working upon the same matter of Chylus varying with so great dissimilitude of substances do by its power produce so unlike humors as from the hot Choler from the cold Phlegm and of the others such as their affinity of temper will permit There is no cause that any one should think that variety of humors to be caused in us The heat of the Sun alone doth melt was and harden clay rather by the diversity of the active heat than wax and a flint placed at the same time and in the same situation of climat and soil this to melt by the heat of the Sun and that scarse to wax warm Therefore that diversity of effects is not to be attributed to the force of the efficient cause that is of Heat which is one and of one kind in all of us but rather to the material cause seeing it is composed of the conflux or meeting together of various substances gives the heat leave to work as it were out of its store which may make and produce from the hotter part thereof Choler and of the colder and more rebellious Phlegm Yet I will not deny but that more Phlegm or Choler may be bred in one and the same body according to the quicker or slower provocation of the heat yet nevertheless it is not consequent that the Original of Choler should be from a more acide and of Phlegm from a more dull heat in the same man Every one of us naturally have a simple heat and of one kind which is the worker of divers operations not of it self seeing it is always the same and like it self but by the different fitness pliableness or resistance of the matter on which it works Wherefore Phlegm is generated in the same moment of time The divers condition of the matter alone is the cause of variety in the fire of the same part by the efficiency of the same heat with the rest of the blood of the more cold liquid crude and watery portion of the Chylus Whereby it comes to pass that it shews an express figure of a certain rude or unperfect blood for which occasion nature hath made it no peculiar receptacle but would have it to run friendly with the blood in the same passages of the veins that any necessity hapning by famin or indigency and in defect of better nourishment it may by a perfecter elaboration quickly assume the form of blood Cold and rude nourishment make this humor to abound principally in Winter and in those which incline to old-age by reason of the similitude which Phlegm hath with that season and age It makes a man drowsie dul fat The effect of Phlegm swollen up and hastneth gray-hairs Choler is as it were a certain heat and fury of humors which generated in the Liver together with the blood is caryed by the veins and arteries through the whole body That of it which abounds is sent partly into the guts and partly into the bladder of the gall or is consumed by transpiration or sweats It is somewhat probable that the arterial blood is made more thin hot quick and pallid than the blood of the Veins by the commixture of this Alimentary Choler This Humor is chiefly bred and expel'd in youth and acid and bitter meats give matter to it but great labours of body and mind give the occasion It maketh a man nimble quick ready for all performance lean and quick to anger and also to concoct meats The effects of Choler The melancholick humor or Melancholy being the grosser portion of the blood is partly sent from the Liver to the Spleen to nourish it and partly carryed by the vessels into the rest of the body and spent in the nourishment of the parts endued with an earthly dryness it is made of meats of gross juyce and by the perturbations of the mind turned to fear and sadness The effects of Melancholy It is augmented in Autumn and in the first and crude Old-age it makes men sad harsh constant froward envious and fearful
which awhile agone was Sanguine may now be Cholerick Melancholick or Phlegmatick not truly by the changing of the blood into such Humors but by the mutation of Diet and the course or vocation of life For none of a Sanguine complexion but will prove Cholerick if he eat hot and dry meats How one may become Cholerick as all like things are cherished and preserved by the use of their like and contraries are destroyed by their contraries and weary his body by violent exercises and continual labors and if there be a suppression of Cholerick excrements which before did freely flow either by nature or art But whosoever feeds upon Meats generating gross blood How Melancholick as Beef Venison Hare old Cheese and all salt Meats he without all doubt sliding from his nature will fall into a Melancholy temper especially if to that manner of diet he shall have a vocation full of cares turmoils miseries strong and much study careful thoughts and fears also if he sit much wanting exercise for so the inward heat as it were defrauded of its nourishment faints and grows dull whereupon gross and drossie humors abound in the body To this also the cold and dry condition of the place in which we live doth conduce and the suppression of the Melancholy humor accustomed to be evacuated by the Haemorrhoides courses and stools How Phlegmatick But he acquires a Phlegmatick temper whosoever useth cold and moist nourishment much feeding who before the former meat is gone out of the belly shall stuff his paunch with more who presently after meat runs into violent exercises who inhabit cold and moist places who lead their life at ease in all idleness and lastly who suffer a suppression of the Phlegmatick humor accustomly evacuated by vomit cough or blowing the nose or any other way either by nature or art Certainly it is very convenient to know these things that we may discern if any at the present be Phlegmatick Melancholick or of any other temper whether he be such by nature or necessity Having declared those things which concern the nature of Temperaments and deferred the description of the parts of the body to our Anatomy we will begin to speak of the Faculties governing this our life when first we shall have shewn by a practical demonstration of examples the use and certainty of the aforesaid rules of Temperaments CHAP. VII Of the Practice of the aforesaid Rules of Temperaments Four bounds or Regioâ—â— of the the world THat we may draw the Theorick of the Temperaments into practice it hath seemed good for avoiding of confusion which might make this our Introduction seem obscure if we would prosecute the differences of the Tempers of all men of all Nations to take those limits which Nature hath placed in the world as South North East and West and as it were the Center of those bounds that the described variety of Tempers in colour habâ—t manners studies actions and form of life oâ— men that inhabit those Regions situated so far distant one from another may be as a sure rule by which we may certainly judg of every mans temperature in particular as he shall appear to be nearer or further off from this or that Region The forces of temperatures in particulars Those which inhabit the South as the Africans Aethiopians Arabians and Egyptians are for the most part deformed lean duskie coloured and pale with black eyes and great lips curled hair and a small and shrill voyce Those which inhabit the Northern parts The temperature of the Southern people as the Scythians Muscovites Polonians and Germans have their faces of colour white mixed with a convenient quantity of blood their skin soft and delicate their hair long hanging down and spreading abroad and of a yellowish or reddish colour of stature they are commonly tall and of a well proportioned fat and compact habit of body their eyes gray Of the Northern their voice strong loud and big But those who are situated between these two former as the Italians and French have their faces somewhat swart are well favoured nimble strong hairy slender well in flesh with their eyes resembling the colour of Goats-eye and often hollow eyed having a cleer shrill and pleasing voyce The Southern people prevail in wit the Northern in strength The Southern people are exceeded so much by the Northern in strength and ability of body as they surpass them in wit and faculties of the mind Hence is it you may read in Histories that the Scythians Goths and Vandals vexed Africk and Spain with infinite incursions and most large famous Empires have been founded from the North to South but few or none from the South to the North. Therefore the Northern people thinking all right and law to consist in Arms did by Duel only determine all causes and controversies arising amongst the Inhabitants as we may gather by the ancient laws and customs of the Lumbards English Burgonians Danes and Germans and we may see in Saxo the Grammarian that such a law was once made by Fronto King of Denmark The which custom at this day is every where in force amongst the Muscovites But the Southern people have alwayes much abhorred that fashion and have thought it more agreeable to Beasts than Men. Wherefore we never heard of any such thing used by the Assyrians Aegyptians Persians or Jews But moved by the goodness of their wit they erected Kingdomes and Empires by the only help of Learning and hidden Sciences For seeing by nature they are Melancholick by reason of the dryness of their temperature they willingly addict themselves to solitariness and contemplation being endued with a singular sharpness of wit Wherefore the Aethiopians Egyptians Africans Jews Phoenicians Persians Assyrians and Indians The Southern people learned and religious have invented many curious Sciences revealed the Mysteries and secrets of Nature digested the Mathematiques into order observed the motions of the Heavens and first brought in the worship and religious sacrifices of the gods Even so far that the Arabians who live only by stealth and have only a Waggon for their house do boast that they have many things diligently and accurately observed in Astrology by their Ancestors which every day made more accurate and copious they as by an hereditary right commend to posterity as it is recorded by Leo the African The Northern famous Warriers and Artificers But the Northern people as the Germans by reason of the aboundance of humors and blood by which the mind is as it were opprest apply themselves to works obvious to the senses and which may be done by the hand For their minds opprest with the earthly mass of their bodies are easily drawn from heaven and the contemplation of coelestial things to these inferior things as to find out Mines by digging to buy and cast metalls to draw and hammer out works of Iron steel and brass In which things they
acutis commands those things to be always eaten in the morning which are fit to loosen the belly and in the evenings such as nourish the body Yet notwithstanding drink ought not to precede or go before meat but on the contrary meat must precede drink by the order prescribed by him The time of eating Neither ought we in our eating to have less care of the time than we have of the order for the time of eating of such as are healthful ought to be certain and fixt for at the accustomed hour and when hunger presses any sound man and which is at his own disposure may eat but exercise and accustomed labours ought to go before The profit of labour before meat for it is fit according to the precept of Hippocrates that labour precede meat whereby the excrements of the third concoction may be evacuated the native heat increased and the solid parts confirmed and strengthened which are three commodities of exercise very necessary to the convenient taking of meat But in sick persons we can scarce attend and give heed to these circumstances of time and accustomed hour of feeding for that Indication of giving meat to the sick is the best of all which is drawn from the motion of the disease We must not give meat in a fit of a Feaver and the declining of the fit for if you give meat in feavers specially the fit then taking the Patient you nourish not him but the disease For the meat then eaten is corrupted in the stomach and yields fit matter for the disease For meat as we noted before out of Hippocrates is strength to the sound and a disease to the sick unless it be eaten at convenient time and diligent care be had of the strength of the Patient and greatness of the disease Variety of meats But neither is it convenient that the meat should be simple and of one kind but of many sorts and of divers dishes dressed after different forms lest nature by the continual and hateful feeding upon the same meat may at the length loath it and so neither straitly contain it nor well digest it or the stomach accustomed to one meat taking any loathing thereat may abhor all other and as there is no desire of that we do not know so the dejected appetite cannot be delighted and stirred up with the pleasure of any meat which can be offered For we must not credit thâ—se superstitious or too nice Physitians who think the digestion is hindred by the much variety of meats Why variety of meats is good The matter is far otherwise for by the pleasure of what things soever the stomach allured doth require it embraces them more straitly and concocts them more perfectly And our nature is desirous of variety Moreover seeing our body is composed of a solid moist and airy substance and it may happen that by so many labours which we are compelled to undergo and sustain in this life one of these may suffer a greater dissipation and loss than another therefore the stomach is necessarily compelled to seek more variety Indications of feeding taken from the age lest any thing should be wanting to repair that which is wasted But also the age and season of the year yield Indications of feeding for some things are convenient for a young man some for an old some in summer some in winter Wherefore we ought to know what befits each age and season Children need hot moist and much nourishment which may not only suffice to nourish but increase the body Wherefore they worst endure fasting and of them especially those who are the most lively and spiritful With old men it is otherwise for because their heat is small they need little nourishment and are extinguished by much Wherefore old men easily endure to fast they ought to be nourished with hot and moist meats by which their solid parts now growing cold and dry may be heated and moistned as by the sweet nourishment of such like meats Middle-ag'd men delight in the moderate use of contraries to temper the excess of their too acrid heat Young people as temperate are to be preserved by the use of like things Indication from the time of the year The manner of Diet in Winter must be hot and inclining to driness Wherefore then we may more plentifully use rost-meats strong wines and spices because in the Winter-season we are troubled with the cold and moist air and at the same time have much heat inwardly for the inner parts according to Hippocrates are naturally most hot in the Winter and the Spring but feaverish in Summer so the heat of Summer is to be tempered by the use of cold and moist things and much drink In the temperate Spring all things must be moderate but in Autumn by little and little we must pass from our Summer to our Winter diet CHAP. XV. Of Motion and Rest HEre Physitians admonish us that by the name of Motion What Motion signifies we must understand all sorts of Exercises as walking leaping running riding playing at tennis carrying a burden and the like Friction or rubbing is of this kind which in times past was in great use and esteem neither at this day is it altogether neglected by the Physitians They mention many kinds of it Three kinds of Frictions but they may be all reduced to three as one gentle another hard a third indifferent and that of the whole body or only of some part thereof That Friction is called hard Hard. which is made by the rough or strong pressure of the hands spunges or a course and new linnen cloth it draws together condensates binds and hardens the flesh yet if it be often and long used at length it rarifies dissolves attenuates and diminishes the flesh and any other substance of the body and also it causeth revulsion and draws the defluxion of humors from one part to another Gentle The gentle Friction which is performed by the light rubbing of the hand and such like doth the contrary as softens relaxes and makes the skin smooth and unwrinckled yet unless it be long continued it doth none of these worthy to be spoken of The indifferent kinds Indifferent consisting in the mean betwixt the other two increaseth the flesh swels or puffs up the habit of the body because it retains the blood and spirits which it draws and suffers them not to be dissipated The benefit of Exercise is great The use of exercises for it increases natural heat whereby better digestion follows and by that means nourishment and the expulsion of the excrements and lastly a quicker motion of the spirits to perform their office in the body all the ways and passages being cleansed Besides it strengthens the respiration and the other actions of the body confirms the habit and all the limbs of the body by the mutual attrition of the one with the other whereby it comes to pass they
ears neither doth the phlegmon in the jaws and throat admit the same form of cure as it doth in other parts of the body For none can there outwardly apply repercussives without present danger of suffocation What the conditions of the parts affected do indicate So there is no use of repercussives in defluxions of those parts which in site are neer the principal Neither must thou cure a wounded Nerve and Muscle after one manner The temperature of a part as Moisture alwayes indicates its preservation although the disease be moist and give Indication of drying as an ulcer The principality of a part always insinuates an Indication of astringent things although the disease require dissolving as an Obstruction of the Liver for otherwise unless you mix astringent things with dissolving you will so dissolve the strength of the part that hereafter it cannot suffice for sanguification If the texture of a part be rare it shews it is less apt or prone to obstruction if dense it is more obnoxious to that disease hence it is that the Liver is oftner obstructed than the Spleen If the part be situate more deep or remote it indicates the medicines must be more vigorous and liquid that they may send their force so far The sensibleness or quick-sense of the part gives Indication of milder medicines than peradventure the signs or notes of a great disease require Indications from the ages For the Physitian which applyes things equally sharp to the Horny tunicle of the eye being ulcerated and to the leg must needs be counted either cruel or ignorant Each Sex and Age hath its Indications for some diseases are curable in youth which we must not hope to cure in old age for hoarsness and great distillations in very old men admit no digestion as Hippocrates saith Aphor. 40. li. 2. Nunquam decrepitus Bronchum coquit atque Coryzam The feeble Sire for age that hardly goes Ne're well digests the hurtful Rheume or pose Moreover according to his decree the diseases of the Reins Aphor. 6. sect 6. and whatsoever pains molest the bladder are difficultly healed in old men and also reason perswades that a Quartain admits no cure in Winter and scarce a Quotidian and Ulcers in like manner are more hard to heal in Winter that hence we may understand certain Indications to be drawn from time and to increase the credit of the variety and certainty of Indications some certain time and seasons in those times command us to make choice of medicines for as Hippocrates testifies Aphor. 5. sect 4. Ad Canis ardorem facilis purgatio non est In Dog-dayes heat it is not good By purging for to cleanse the blood Neither shalt thou so well prescribe aslender diet in Winter as in the Spring for the air hath its Indications For experience teaches us that wounds of the head are far more difficultly and hardly cured at Rome Naples and Rechel in Xantoigne But the times of diseases yeeld the principal Indications for some Medicines are only to be used at the beginning and end of diseases others at the increase and vigour of the disease From our diet We must not contemn those Indications which are drawn from the vocation of Life and manner of Diet for you must otherwise deal with the painful Husbandman when he is your Patient which leads his life sparingly and hardly than with the Citizen who lives daintily and idlely To this manner of life diet may be referred a certain secret and occult property Hatred arising from secret properties by which many are not only ready to vomit at eating of some meats but tremble over all their bodies when they hear them but spoken of I knew a prime Nobleman of the French Nobility who was so perplext at the serving in of an Eel to the Table at the midst of dinner and amongst his friends that he fell into a swound all his powers failing him Galen in his Book de Censuetudine tells that Aerius the Peripatetick died sodainly because compelled by the advice of those Physitians he used he drank a great draught of cold water in the intolerable heat of a Feaver For no reason saith Galen than that because he knowing he had naturally a cold stomach from his childhood perpetually abstained from cold water Indications taken from things against nature For as much as belongs to Indications taken from things against nature the length and depth of a wound or ulcer indicates one way the figure cornered round equal and smooth unequal and rough with a hollowness streight or winding indicate otherwise the site right left upper lower in another manner and otherwise the force and violence of antecedent and conjunct causes For oftentimes the condition of the cause indicates contrary to the disease as when abundance of cold and gross humors cause and nourish a Feaver So also a Symptome often indicates contrary to the disease in which contradiction that Indication must be most esteemed which doth most urge as for example sake If swounding happen in a Feaver the feaverish burning shall not hinder us from giving wine to the Patient Wherefore these Indications are the principallest and most noble which lead us as by the hand to do these things which pertain to the cure prevention and mitigating of diseases But if any object that so curious a search of so many Indications is to no purpose because there are many Chirurgeons which setting only one before their eyes which is drawn from the Essence of the disease have the report and fame of skilful Chirurgeons We do not alwayes follow the Indication which is from the disease in the opinion of the vulgar But let him know that it doth not therefore follow that this Indication is sufficient for the cure of all diseases for we do not always follow that which the Essence of the disease doth indicate to be done But chiefly then where none of the fore-recited Indications doth resist or gain-say You may understand this by the example of a Plethora which by the Indication drawn from the Essence of the thing requires Phlebotomy yet who is it that will draw blood from a child of three months old Besides such an Indication is not artificial but common to the Chirurgeon with the common people For who is it that is ignorant that contraries are the remedies of contraries and that broken bones must be united by joyning them together But how it must be performed and done this is of Art and peculiar to a Chirurgeon and not known to the vulgar Which the Indications drawn from those fountains we pointed at before aboundantly teaches which as by certain limits of circumstances encompass the Indication which is taken from the Essence of the disease In what parts we cannot hope for restoring of solution of continuity lest any should think we must trust to that only For there is some great and principal matter in it but not all For so
and pinna are THe Ears are the Organs of the sense of Hearing They are composed of the skin a little flesh a gristle veins arteries and nerves They may be bended or folded in without harm because being gristly they easily yield and give way but they would not do so if they should be bony but would rather break That lap at which they hang Pendants and Jewels is by ancients called Fibra but the upper part Pinna They have been framed by the Providence of Nature into two twining passages like a Snails-shel The figure and the reason thereof which as they come neerer to the foramen caecum or blind-hole are the more straitned that so they might the better gather the air into them and conceive the differences of sounds and voices and by little and little lead them to the membrane This membrane which is indifferently hard hath grown up from the nerves of the fifth conjugation which they call the auditory But they were made thus into crooked windings lest the sounds rushing in too violently should hurt the sense of Hearing Yet for all this we oft find it troubled and hurt by the noise of Thunder Guns and Bels. Otherwise also lest that the air too sodainly entring should by its qualities as cold cause some harm and also that little creeping things and other extraneous Bodies as Fleas and the like should be stayed in these windings and turnings of the wayes the glutinous thickness of the cholerick Excrement or Ear-wax For what use the Ear-wax serves hereunto also conducing which the Brain purges and sends forth into this part that is the auditory passage framed into these intricate Maeanders The Figure of the Ears and Bones of the Auditory passage Tab. 10. Sheweth the Ears and the divers internal parts thereof Fig. 1. Sheweth the whole external Ear with a part of the Temple-bone Fig. 2. Sheweth the left Bone of the Temple divided in the midst by the instrument of Hearing whereabout on either side there are certain passages here particularly described Fig. 3. and 4. Sheweth the three little Bones Fig. 5. Sheweth a portion of the Bone of the Temples which is seen neer the hole of Hearing divided through the midst whereby the Nerves Bones and Membranes may appear as Vesalius of them conceiveth Fig. 6. Sheweth the Vessels Membranes Bones and Holes of the Organ of Hearing as Platerus hath described them Fig. 7. and 8. Sheweth the little Bones of the Hearing of a man and of a Calf both joyned and separated Fig. 9. Sheweth the Muscle found out by Aquapendens For the particular Declaration see Dr. Crooks Anatomy pag. 577. But that we may understand how the Hearing is made For what use the membrane stretched under the auditory passage serves we must know the structure of the Organ or Instrument thereof The Membrane which we formerly mentioned to consist of the Auditory-Nerve is stretched in the inside over the Auditory passage like as the head of a Drum For it is stretched and extended with the air or Auditory Spirit implanted there and shut up in the cavity of the mamillary process and foramen caecum that smitten upon by the touch of the external air entring in it may receive the object that is the sound What sound is which is nothing else than a certain quality arising from the air beaten or moved by the collision and conflict of one or more bodies Such a collision is spred over the air as the water which by the gliding touch of a stone produces many circles and rings one as it were rising from another So in rivulets running in a narrow channel the water strucken and as it were beaten back in its course against broken craggy and steep Rocks wheels about into many turnings this collision of the beaten air flying back divers wayes from arched and hollow-roofed places as Dens Cisterns Wells thick Woods The cause of an echo and the like yields and produces a double sound and this reduplication is called an Echo Wherefore the Hearing is thus made by the air as a medium but this air is twofold that is External and Internal The exteriour is that which encompasses us The 3 bones of the auditory passage but the interiour is that which is shut up in the cavity of the mamillary process and foramen caecum which truly is not pure and sole air but tempered and mixed with the auditory spirit Thence proceeds the noise or beating of the Ears when vapors are there mixed with the air instead of spirits whereby their motion is perturbed and confused But neither do these suffice for hearing for Nature for the more exact distinction of sounds hath also made the little bones of which one is called the Incus or Anvil another the Malleolus or hammer the third the Stapes or Stirrop because the shape thereof resembles a German-stirrop Also it may be called Deltoides because it is made in the shape of the Greek Letter Δ. Their use They are placed behind the membrane wherefore the Anvil and Hammer moved by the force of the entrance of the external air and beating thereof against that membrane they more distinctly express the difference of sounds as strings stretched within under the head of a Drum as for example Whence the difference of sounds these Bones being more gently moved represent a low sound to the common sense and faculty of Hearing but being moved more vehemently and violently they present a quick and great sound to conclude according to their divers agitation they produce divers and different sounds The Glandules should follow the Ears in the order of Anatomy as well those which are called the emunctories of the Brain that is the Parotides which are placed as it were at the lower part of the Ears as these which lye under the lower Jaw the Muscles of the Bone Hyoides and the Tongue in which the Scrâ—phulae and other such cold abscesses breed It shall here suffice to set down the use of all such like Glandules Therefore the Parotides are framed in that place by Nature to receive the virulent and malign matter sent forth by the strength of the Brain by the Veins and Arteries spred over that place The rest serve to strengthen the division of the vessels to moisten the Ligaments and Membranes of the Jaw lest they should be dryed by their continual motion Their other conditions and uses are formerly handled in our first Book of Anatomy CHAP. XI Of the Bone Hyoides and the Muscles thereof The reason of the name THe substance of the Bone Hyoides is the same with that of other Bones The figure thereof imitates the Greek letter Ï… from whence it took the name as also the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And from the letter λ it is in like sort called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by some it is styled os Gutturis and os Linguae The composition that is the Throat-bone and Tongue-bone The composition
Feaver which happeneth in Scirrhous Tumors Why a Quartain happens upon Scirrhous tumors SUch a Feaver is a Quartain or certainly comming near unto the nature of a Quartain by reason of the nature of the Melancholick humor of which it is bred For this shut up in a certain seat in which it makes the tumor by communication of putrid vapours heats the heart above measure and enflames the humors contained therein whence arises a Feaver Now therefore a Quartain is a Feaver comming every fourth day and having two days intermission The primitive causes thereof are these things which encrease Melancholick humors in the body such as the long eating of pulse of coarse and burnt bread of salt flesh and fish of gross meats as Beef Goat Venison old Hares old Cheese Cabbadge thick and muddy Wines and other such things of the same kind The antecedent causes are heaped up plenty of Melancholick humors abounding over all the body But the conjunct causes are Melancholick humors putrefying without the greater vessels in the small veins and habit of the body The signs We may gather the signs of a Quartain Feaver from things which they call natural not natural and against nature From things natural for a cold and dry temper old age cold and fat men having their veins small and lying hid their Spleen swollen and weak are usually troubled with Quartain Feavers Why they are frequent in Autumn Of things not natural this Feaaer or Ague is frequent in Autumn not only because for that it is cold and dry it is fit to heap up Melancholick humors but chiefly by reason that the humors by the heat of the preceding Summer are easily converted into adust Melancholy whence far worser and more dangerous quartains arise than of the simple Melancholick humor to conclude through any cold or dry season in a region cold and dry men that have the like Temper easily fall into Quartains if to these a painful kind of life full of danger and sorrow doth accrew Of things contrary to nature because the fits take one with painful shaking inferring as it were the sense of breaking or shaking the bones further it taketh one every fourth day with an itching over the whole body and oft-times with a thin skurf and pustules especially on the legs the pulse at the beginning is little slow and deep and the Urin also is then white and waterish inclining to somewhat a dark colour In the declination when the matter is concocted the Urin becomes black not occasioned by any malign Symptom or preternatural excess of heat for so it should be deadly but by excretion of the conjunct matter The Fit of the Quartain continues 24 hours and the intermission is 44 hours At often takes its original from an obstruction pain and Scirrhus of the Spleen and of the suppression of the Courses and Haemorrhoides Prognostick Quartains taken in the Summer are for the most part short but in the Autumn long especially such as continue till Winter Those which come by succession of any disease of the Liver Spleen or any other precedent disease are worse than such as are bred of themselves and commonly end in a Dropsie From what diseases a Quartain frees one But those which happen without the fault of any bowels and to such a Patient as will be governed by the Physitian in his Diet infer no greater harm but free him from more grievous and long diseases as Melancholy the Falling-sickness Convulsion Madness because the Melancholy humor the Author of such diseases is expelled every fourth day by the force of the fit of the Quartain A Quartain Feaver if there be no error committed commonly exceeds not a year for otherwise some Quartains have been found to last to the twelfth year according to the opinion of Avicen the Quartain beginning in Autumn is oft-times ended in the following Spring the Quartain which is caused by adust bloud or choller or Salt-flegm is more easily and sooner cured than that which proceeds from adust Melancholy humor because the Melancholy humor terrestrial of its own nature and harder to be discussed than any other humor is again made by adustion the subtiller parts being dissolved and the grosser subsiding more stubborn gross malign and acrid The cure is wholly absolved by two means that is by Diet and medicines Diet. The diet ought to be prescribed contrary to the cause of the Feaver in the use of the six things not natural as much as lies in our power Wherefore the Patient shall eschew Swines flesh flatulent viscid and glutinous meats fenny Fowls salt Meats and Venison and all things of hard digestion The use of white Wine indifferent hot and thin is convenient to attenuate and incide the gross humor and to move urin and sweat yea verily at the beginning of the fit a draught of such Wine will cause vomitting which is a thing of so great moment that by this one remedy many have been cured Yet if we may take occasion and opportunity to provoke vomit How much Vomiting prevails to cure a Quartain there is no time thought fitter for that purpose then presently after meat for then it is the sooner provoked the fibers of the stomach being humected and relaxed and the Stomach is sooner turned to vomitting whereupon follows a more plentiful happy and easie evacuation of the Phlegmatick and Cholerick humor and less troublesome to nature and of all the crudities with which the mouth of the ventricle abounds in a Quartain by reason of the more copious afflux of the Melancholick humor which by his qualities cold and dry disturbs all the actions and natural faculties Moreover exercises and frictions are good before meat such passions of the mind as are contrary to the cause from which this Feaver takes his original are fit to be cherished by the Patient as Laughter Jesting Musick and all such like things full of pleasure and mirth At the beginning the Patient must be gently handled and dealt withal and we must abstain from all very strong medicins until such time as the disease hath been of some continuance For this humor contumacious at the beginning when as yet nature hath attempted nothing is again made more stubborn terrestrial and dry by the almost fiery heat of acrid medicins If the body abound with bloud some part thereof must be taken away by opening the Median or Basilick-vein of the left Arm with this caution that if it appear more gross and black we suffer it to flow more plentifully if more thin and tinctured with a laudable and red colour that we presently stay it The matter of this Feaver must be ripened concocted and diminished with the Syrrups of Epithymum of Scolopendrium Medicines of Maiden-hair Agrimony with the waters of Hops Bugloss Borage and the like I sincerely protest next unto God I have cured very many quartains by giving a portion of a little Treacle dissolved in about some
by accident by reason of the humor contained therein moistening and relaxing all the adjacent parts the humor contained here lifts up the skull somewhat more high especially at the meetings of the Sutures which you may thus know because the Tumor being pressed the humor flies back into the secret passage of the Brain To conclude the pain is more vehement the whole head more swollen the fore-head stands somewhat further out the eye is fixt and immoveable and also weeps by reason of the serous humor sweating out of the Brain Vesalius writes that he saw a Girl of two years old A History whose head was thicker than any man's head by this kind of Tumor and the skull not bony but membranous as it useth to be in Abortive-births and that there was nine pound of water ran out of it Abucrasis tells that he saw a child whose head grew every day bigger by reason of the watery moisture contained therein till at length the tumor became so great that his neck could not bear it neither standing nor sitting so that he died in a short time I have observed and had in cure four children troubled with this disease one of which being dissected after it died had a Brain no bigger than a Tennis Ball. But of a Tumor and humor contained within under the Cranium or Skull I have seen none recover but they are easily healed of an external Tumor Therefore whether the humor lye under the Pericranium or under the musculous skin of the head it must first be assailed with resolving medicines but if it cannot be thus overcome you must make an Incision taking heed of the Temporal Muscle and thence press out all the humor whether it resemble the washing of flesh newly killed or blackish bloud or congealed or knotted bloud as when the tumor hath been caused by contusion then the wound must be filled with dry lint and covered with double boulsters and lastly bound with a fitting ligature CHAP. II. Of a Polypus being an eating disease in the Nose The reason the name THe Polypus is a Tumor of the Nose against Nature commonly arising from the Os Ethmoides or Spongy-Bone It is so called because it resembles the feet of a Sea Polypus in figure and the flesh thereof in consistence This Tumor stops the Nose intercepting and hindering the liberty of speaking and blowing the Nose Lib. 6. cap. 8. Celsus saith the Polypus is a caruncle of excresence one while white another while reddish which adhere to the Bone of the Nose and sometimes fills the Nostrils hanging towards the lips sometimes it descends back through that hole by which the spirit descends from the Nose to the Throttle it grows so that it may be seen behind the Uvula The differences hereof and often strangles a man by stopping his breath There are five kinds thereof the first is a soft membrane long and thin like the relaxed and depressed Uvula hanging from the middle gristle of the Nose being filled with a phlegmatick and viscid humor This in exspiration hangs out of the Nose but is drawn in and hid by inspiration it makes one snaffle in their speech and snort in their sleep The second hath hard flesh bred of Melancholy bloud without adustion which obstructing the nostrils intercepts the respiration made by that part The third is flesh hanging from the Gristle round and soft being the off-spring of Phlegmatick bloud The fourth is a hard Tumor like flesh which when it is touched yields a sound like a stone it is generated of Melancholy bloud dryed being somewhat of the nature of a Scirrhus confirmed and without pain The fifth is as it were composed of many cancrous ulcers spred over the transverse surface of the gristle Which of them admit no manual operation Of all these sorts of Polypi some are not ulcerated others ulcerated which send forth a stinking and strong smelling filth Such of them as are painful hard resisting and which have a livid or leaden colour must not be touched with the hand because they savour of the Nature of a Cancer as into which they often degenerate yet by reason of the pain which oppresses more violently you may use the Anodyne medicines formerly described in a Cancer such as this following An Anodyne â„ž Olei de vitell ovorum â„¥ ij Lytharg auri Tuthiae praep an â„¥ i succi plat solani an â„¥ i ss Lapid haematit camphorae an â„¥ ss Let them be wrought a long time in a Leaden Mortar and so make a medicine to be put into the nostrils Those which are soft loose and without pain are sometimes curable being plucked away with an Instrument made for that purpose or else wasted by actual cauteries put in through a pipe so that they touch not the sound part or by potential cauteries as Egyptiacum composed of equal parts of all the simples with Vitriol which hath a faculty to waste such like flesh Why it must be taken clear away Aqua fortis and Oyl of Vitriol have the same faculty for these take away a Polypus by the roots for if any part there remain it will breed again But Cauteries and acrid medicines must be put into the Nostrils with this Caution that in the mean time cold repelling and astringent medicines be applyed to the Nose and parts about it to asswage the pain and hinder the inflammation Such as are Unguentum de bolo and Unguentum nutritum whites of Eggs beaten with Rose-leaves and many other things of the like nature CHAP. III. Of the Parotides that is Certain swellings about the Ears What it is THe Parotis is a Tumor against Nature affecting the Glandules and those parts seated behind and about the Ears which are called the Emunctories of the brain for these because they are loose and spongy The differences are fit to receive the excrements thereof Of these some are critical the matter of the disease somewhat digested being sent thither by the force of Nature Others Symptomatical Their Signs and Symptoms the excrements of the Brain increased in quantity or quality rushing thither of their own accord Such abscesses often have great inflammation joyned with them because the biting humor which flows thither is more vitiated in quality than in quantity Besides also they often cause great pain by reason of the distention of the parts indued with the most exquisite sense as also by reason of a Nerve of the fifth Conjugation spread over these parts as also of the neighbouring membranes of the Brain by which means the Patient is troubled with Head-ach and all his face becomes swoln Yet many times this kind of Tumor useth to be raised by a tough viscous and gross humor This Disease doth more grievously afflict young men than old Prognostick it commonly brings a Feaver and watching It is difficult to be cured especially when it is caused by a gross tough and viscid humor sent
Iron so thrust into a Trunk or Pipe with an hole in it that so no sound part of the mouth may be offended therewith A hollow Trunk with a hole in the side with the hot Iron inserted or put therein CHAP. VIII Of the Angina or Squinzy What it is THe Squinancy or Squincy is a Swelling of the jaws which hinders the entring of the ambient air into the Weazon and the vapours and the spirit from passage forth and the meat also from being swallowed The differences There are three differences thereof The first torments the Patient with great pain no swelling being outwardly apparent by reason the Morbisick humor lyes hid behind the Almonds or Glandules at the Vertebrae of the Neck The first kind so that it cannot be perceived unless you hold down the Tongue with a Spatula or the Speculum oris for so you may see the redness and tumor there lying hid The Symptoms The Patient cannot draw his breath nor swallow down meat nor drink his tongue like a Gray-hound's after a course hangs out of his mouth and he holds his mouth open that so he may the more easily draw his breath to conclude his voyce is as it were drown'd in his jaws and nose he cannot lye upon his back but lying is forced to sit so to breathe more freely and because the passage is stopt the drink flies out at his Nose the Eyes are fiery and swollen and standing out of their orb Those which are thus affected are often sodainly suffocated a foam rising about their mouths The second kind The second difference is said to be that in which the tumor appears inwardly but little or scarse any thing at all outwardly the Tongue Glandules and Jaws appearing somewhat swollen The third The third being least dangerous of them all causes a great swelling outwardly but little inwardly The Causes The Causes are either Internal or External The External are a stroak splinter or the like thing sticking in the Throat or the excess of extreme cold or heat The Internal causes are a more plentiful defluxion of the humors either from the whole body or the Brain which participate of the nature either of bloud choler or flegm but seldom of Melancholy The signs by which the kind and commixture may be known have been declared in the general Treatise of Tumors The Squincy is more dangerous by how much the humor is less apparent within and without That is less dangerous which shews it self outwardly because such an one shuts not up the wayes of the meat nor breath Some dye of a Squincy in twelve hours others inâ—â—o four or seven days Hip. sect 3. proe 2. Apâ—â—r 10 sect 5. Those saith Hippocrates which scape the Squincy the disease passes to the Lungs and they dye within seven dayes but if they scape these days they are suppurated but also oftentimes this kind of disease is terminated by disappearing that is by an obscure reflux or the humor into some noble part as into the Lungs whence the Emprema proceeds and into other principal parts whose violating brings inevitable death sometimes by resolution otherwise by suppuration The way of resolution is the more to be desired it happens when the matter is small and that subtle especially if the Physitian shall draw bloud by opening a vein and the Patient use fitting Gargarisms A Critical Squincy divers times proves deadly by reason of the great falling down of the humor upon the throttle by which the passage of the breath is sodainly shut up Broths must be used made with Capons and Veal seasoned with Lettuce Purslain Sorrel and the cold Seeds If the Patient shall be somewhat weak let him have potched Egges and Barly Creams Diet. the Barly being somewhat boyled with Raisons in Water and Sugar and other meats of this kind Let him be forbidden Wine in stead whereof he may use Hydromelita and Hydrosachara that is drinks made of Water and Honey or Water and Sugar as also Syrups of dryed Roses of Violets Sorrel and Limmons and others of this kind Let him avoid too much sleep But in the mean time the Physitian must be careful of all because this disease is of their kind which brook no delayes Wherefore let the Basilica be presently opened on that side the tumor is the greater Cure then within a short time after the same day for evacuation of the conjunct matter let the vein under the tongue be opened let Cupping-Glasses be applyed sometimes with scarification sometimes without to the neck and shoulders and let frictions and painful ligatures be used to the extreme parts But let the humor impact in the part be drawn away by Clysters and sharp Suppositories Repelling Gargarisms Whilst the matter is in defluxion let the mouth without delay be washed with astringent Gargarisms to hinder the defluxion of the humor lest by its sodain falling down it kill the Patient as it often happens all the Physitians care and diligence notwithstanding Therefore let the mouth be frequently washed with Oxycrate or such a Gargarism â„ž Pomorum sylvest nu iiij sumach Rosar rub an m. ss berber Ê’ ij let them be all boyled with sufficient quantity of water to the consumption of the half adding thereunto of the Wine of sour Pomgranats â„¥ iiij of Diamoron â„¥ ij let it be a little more boyled and make a gargle according to Art And there may be other Gargarisms made of the waters of Plantain Night-shade Verjuyce Julep of Roses and the like But if the matter of the defluxion shall be Phlegmatick Alum Pomgranat-pill Cypress-nuts and a little Vinegar may be safely added But on the contrary Repercussives must not be outwardly applyed but rather Lenitives whereby the external parts may be relaxed and rarified and so the way be open either for the diffusing or resolving the portion of the humor You shall know the humor to begin to be resolved if the Feaver leave the Patient if he swallow speak and breathe more freely if he sleep quietly and the pain begin to be much asswaged Ripening Gargarisms Therefore then Nature's endeavour must be helped by applying resolved medicines or else by using suppuratives inwardly and outwardly if the matter seem to turn into Pus Therefore let Gargarisms be made of the roots of March-Mallows Figs Jujubes Damask-Prunes Dates perfectly boyled in water The like benefit may be had by Gargarisms of Cows-milk with Sugar by Oyl of Sweet-Almonds or Violets warm for such things help forward suppuration and asswage pain let suppurating Cataplasms be applyed outwardly to the neck and throat and the parts be wrapped with wooll moistned with Oyl of Lillies When the Physitian shall perceive that the humor is perfectly turned into pus let the Patients mouth be opened with the Speculum oris and the abscess opened with a crooked and long Incision-knife then let the mouth be now and then washed with cleansing Gargles as â„ž Aquae hordei
of the Peritonaeum being made more strait by reason of the future for the rest the wound shall be cured according to Art But before you undertake this work consider diligently whether the strength of the Patient be sufficient neither attempt any thing before you have foretold and declared the danger to the Patient's friends CHAP. XVI Of the Golden Ligature or the Punctus Aureus as they call it IF the Rupture will not be cured by all these means by reason of the great solution of the continuity of the relax'd or broken Peritonaeum and the Patient by the consent of his friends there present is ready to undergo the danger in hope of recovery the cure shall be attempted by that which they call the Punctus aureus or Golden tie For which purpose a Chirurgeon which hath a skilful and sure hand is to be imployed He shall make an Incision about the Share-bone into which he shall thrust a Probe like to the Cane a little before described and thrust it long-ways under the Process of the Peritonaeum and by lifting it up separate it from the adjoyning fibrous and nervous bodies to which it adheres then presently draw aside the spermatick vessels with the Cremaster or hanging muscle of the testicle which being done he shall draw aside the process it self alone by it self And he shall take as much thereof as is too lax with small and gentle mullets perforated in the midst and shall with a Needle having five or six threds thrust it through as near as he can to the spermatick vessels and Cremaster muscles But the Needle also must be drawn again in to the midst of the remnant of the process taking up with it the lips of the wound then the thred must be tyed on a strait knot and so much thereof must be left after the Section as may be sufficient to hang out of the wound This thread will of it self be dissolved by little and little by putrefaction neither must it be drawn out before that nature shall regenerate and restore flesh into the place of the ligature otherwise all our labour shall be spent in vain And lastly let the wound be cleansed filled with flesh and cicatrized whose callous hardness may withstand the falling of the gut or kall Another manner thereof There are some Chirurgeons who would perform this golden ligature after another manner They cut the skin above the share-bone where the falling down commonly is even to the process of the Peritonaeum and they wrap once or twice about it being uncovered a small golden wire and only straiten the passage as much as may suffice to amend the loosness of this process leaving the spermatick vessels at liberty then they twist the ends of the wire twice or thrice with small mullets and cut off the remnant thereof that which remains after the cutting they turn in lest with the sharpness they should prick the flesh growing upon it Then leaving the golden wire there they cure the wound like to other simple wounds and they keep the Patient some fifteen or twenty dayes in his Bed with his Knees something higher and his head something lower Many are healed by this means others have fallen again into the disease by reason of the ill twisting of the wire A Shews a crooked Needle having an eye not far from the point through which you may put the golden wire B B The golden wire put through the Eye of the Needle C The Mullets or Pincers to cut away the wast or superfluous ends of the wire D The spring of the mullets E The mullets to twist the ends of the wire together The third manner thereof There is also another manner of this golden tie which I judg more quick and safe even for that there is no external body left in that part after the cure Wherefore they wrap a leaden wire in stead of the golden which comes but once about the process of the Peritonaeum then twine it as much as need requires that is not too loosly lest it should leave way for the falling down of the Body neither too straitly lest a Gangrene should come by hindering the passage of the spirits and nourishment The ends thereof are suffered to hang out when in the process of time this contraction of the Peritonaeum seems callous then the wire is untwisted and gently drawn out And the rest of the cure performed according to Art But let not the Chirurgeon thrust himself upon his work rashly A thing to be noted without the advice of the Physitian for it divers times comes to pass that the Testicles are not as yet fallen down into the Cod by the two great sluggishness of Nature in some of a pretty growth but remains long in the groins causing a tumor with pain which thing may make a good Chirurgeon believe that it is an Enterocele Therefore whilst he labours by repelling medicines trusses to force back this tumor he encreaseth the pain and hinders the falling down of the testicles into the Cod. I observed this not long ago in a Boy A History which an unskilful Chirurgeon had long and grievously troubled as if he had had a rupture for when I had observed that there was but one Stone in the Cod and knew the Boy was never gelt I bid them cast away the Plaisters and Trusses and wisht his Parents that they should suffer him to run and leap that so the idling Stone might be drawn into the Cod which thing by little and little and without pain had the event as I fore-told That the reason of this affect may be understood we must know a man differs from a woman only in efficacy of heat but it is the nature of strong heat to drive forth as of cold to keep in Hence it is that the Stones in men hang forth in the Cod but in women they lie hid in the lower Belly Therefore it happens that in some males more cold by nature the Testicles are shut up some certain time until at length they are forc't down in the Cod by youthful heat But that we may return to our former Treatise of the Cod although that way of Curing Ruptures wants not pain danger yet it is safer than that which is performed by Gelding which by the cruelty thereof exposes to the to Patient manifest danger of death For the Gelders whilst they fear lest when the cure is finished the relaxation may remain pull with violence the process of the Peritonaeum from the parts to which it adheres together with it a nerve of the sixth conjugation which runs to the Stones they offer the same violence to the spermatick vessels by which things ensue great pain convulsion efflux of bloud inflammation putrefaction and lastly death as I have observed in many whom I have dissected having died a few dayes after their gelding Although some escape these dangers yet they are deprived of the faculty of
years continuance or longer must necessarily foul the bone and make the scars hollow Whither also belongs this saying of the same party An Erisipelas is ill in the laying bare of a bone But this flowing venenate and gangrenous matter is somewhiles hot as in pestilent Carbuncles which in the space of four and twenty hours by causing an Eschar bring the part to mortification otherwhiles cold as we see it divers times happens in parts which are possest with a Gangrene no pain tumor blackness nor any other precedent sign of a Gangrene going before For John de Vigo saith that happened to a certain Gentlewoman of Genoa under his cure A notable History I remember the same happened to a certain man in Paris who supping merrily and without any sense of pain went to bed and suddainly in the night time a Gangrene seised on both his legs caused a mortification without tumor without Inflammation only his legs were in some places spred over with livid black and green spots the rest of the substance retaining his native colour yet the sense of these parts was quite dead they felt cold to the touch and if you did thrust your Lancet into the skin no bloud came forth A Council of Physitians being called they thought good to cut the skin and flesh lying under it with many deep scarifications which when I had done there came forth a little black thick and as it were congealed bloud wherefore this remedy as also divers other proved to no purpose for in conclusion a blackish colour coming into his face and the rest of his body he dyed frantick I leave it to the Reader 's judgment whether so speedy and suddainly cruel a mischief could proceed from any other than a venenate matter Simple cold may cause a Gangrene yet the hurt of this venenate matter is not peculiar or by its self For oft-times the force of cold whether of the encompassing air or the too immoderate use of Narcotick medicins is so great that in few hours it takes away life from some of the members and divers times from the whole body as we may learn by their example who travel in great Snows and over mountains congealed and hoar'd with frost and ice Hence also is the extinction of the native heat and the spirits residing in the part and the shutting forth of that which is sent by nature to aid or defend it For when as the part is bound with rigid cold and as it were frozen they cannot get nor enter therein Neither if they should enter into the part can they stay long there because they can there find no fit habitation the whole frame and government of nature being spoiled and the harmony of the four prime qualities destroyed by the offensive dominion of predominant cold their enemy whereby it cometh to pass that flying back from whence they first came they leave the part destitute and deprived of the benefit of nourishment life sense and motion A certain Briton an Hostler in Paris having drunk soundly after Supper A History cast himself upon a bed the cold air coming in at a window left open so took hold upon one of his legs that when he waked forth of his sleep he could neither stand nor go Wherefore thinking only that his leg was numb they made him stand to the fire but putting it very nigh he burnt the sole of his foot without any sense of pain some fingers thickness for a mortification had already possessed more than half his leg Wherefore after he was carryed to the Hospital the Chirurgeon who belonged thereto endeavoured by cutting away of the mortified leg to deliver the rest of the body from imminent death but it proved in vain for the mortification taking hold upon the upper parts be dyed within three days with troublesom belching and hickering raving cold sweat and often swounding Verily all that same Winter What parts are usually taken by a Gangrene proceeding of cold the cold was so vehement that many in the Hospital of Paris lost the wings or sides of their nostrils seised upon by a mortification without any putrefaction But you most note that the Gangrene which is caused by cold doth first and principally seise upon the parts most distant from the heart the fountain of heat to wit the feet and legs as also such as are cold by nature as gristly parts such as the nose and ears CHAP. XIII Of the Signs of a Gangrene THe signs of a Gangrene which inflammation or a phlegmon hath caused are pain and pulsation without manifest cause Sect. c. lib. de fractur the suddain changing of the fiery and red colour into a livid or black as Hippocrates shews where he speaks of the Gangrene of a broken heel I would have you here to understand the pulsifick pain What a pulsifick pain is not only to be that which is caused by the quicker motion of the Arteries but that heavy and pricking which the contention of the natural heat doth produce by raising a thick cloud of vapours from these humors which the Gangrene sets upon The signs of a Gangrene caused by cold are Signs of a Gangrene proceeding from cold if suddainly a sharp pricking and burning pain assaileth the part for penetrabile frigus adurit i piercing cold doth burn if a shining redness as if you had handled Snow presently turn into a livid colour if instead of the accidental heat which was in the part presently cold and numbness shall possess it as if it were shook with a quartain feaver Such cold Signs of Gangrene proceeding from strait bandages or ligatures c. if it shall proceed so far as to extinguish the native heat bringeth a mortification upon the Gangrene also oft-times Convulsions and violent shaking of the whole body are wondrous troublesome to the brain and the fountains of life But you shall know Gangrenes caused by too strait bandages by fracture luxation and contusion by the hardness which the attraction and flowing down of the humors hath caused little pimples or blisters spreading or rising upon the skin by reason of the great heat as in a combustion by the weight of the part occasioned through the defect of the spirits not now sustaining the burden of the member and lastly from this the pressing of your finger upon the part it will leave the print thereof as in an oedema and also from this that the skin cometh from the flesh without any manifest cause Now you shall know Gangrenes arising from a bite puncture aneurisma or wound in plethorick and ill bodies and in a part indued with most exquisite sense almost by the same signs as that which was caused by inflammation For by these and the like causes Signs of a Gangrene occasioned by a bite puncture c. there is a far greater defluxion and attraction of the humors than is fit when the perspiration being intercepted and the passages stopt the native
need required with a bole of Cassia with Rubarb I used also suppositories of Castle-soap to make me go to stool for if at any time I wanted due evacuation a preternatural heat presently seised upon my kidnies The causes of a feaver and abscess ensuing upon a fracture With this though exquisite manner of diet I could not prevail but that a feaver took me upon the eleventh day of my disease and a defluxion which turned into an abscess long flowing with much matter I think the occasion hereof was some portion of the humor supprest in the bottom of the wound as also by too loose binding by reason that I could not endure just or more strait binding and lastly scales or shivers of bones quite broke off and therefore unapt to be agglutinated for these therefore putrefying drew by consent the proper nourishment of the part into putrefaction and by the putredinous heat thence arising did plentifully administer the material and efficient cause to the defluxion and inflammation Signs of scales severed from their bones I was moved to think they were scales severed from their bone by the thin and crude sanies flowing from the wound the much swoln sides of the wound and the more loose and spongy flesh thereabouts To these causes this also did accrew one night amongst the rest as I slept the muscles so contracted themselves by a violent motion that they drew my whole leg upwards so that the bones by the vehemency of the convulsion were displaced and pressed the sides of the wound neither could they be perfectly composed or set unless by a new extension and impulsion which was much more painfull to me than the former My feaver when it had lasted me seven dayes at length enjoyed a crisis and end partly by the eruption of matter and partly by sweat flowing from me in a plenteous manner CHAP. XXVI What may be the cause of the convulsive twitching of broken Members THis contraction and as it were convulsive twitching Why the extream parts are cold when we sleep usually happens to fractured members in the time of sleep I think the cause thereof is for that the native heat withdraws its self while we sleep into the center of the body whereby it cometh to pass that the extream parts grow cold In the mean while nature by its accustomed providence sends spirits to the supply of the hurt part But because they are not received of the part evill affected and unapt thereto they betake themselves together and suddenly according to their wonted celerity thither from whence they came the muscles follow their motion with the muscles the bones whereinto they are inserted are together drawn whereby it comes to pass that they are again displaced and with great torment of pain fall from their former seat This contraction of the muscles is towards their original CHAP. XXVII Certain documents concerning the parts whereon the Patient must necessarily rest whilest he lies in his bed THose who have their leg or the like bone broken The natural faculties languish in the parts by idleness but are strengthened by action because they are hindred by the bitterness of pain and also wish for their cure or consolidation are forced to keep themselves without stirring and upon their backs in their beds for a long time together In the mean space the parts whereupon they must necessarily lye as the heel back holy-bone rump the muscles of the broken thigh or leg remain stretched forth and unmoveable set at liberty from their usual functions Whereby it comes to pass that all their strength decayes and growes dull by little and little Moreover also How and what Ulcers happen upon the fracture of the leg to the rump and heel by the suppression of the fuliginous and acrid excrements and want of perspiration they grow preternaturally hot whence defluxion an abscess and ulcer happen to them but principally to the holy-bone the rump and heel to the former for that they are defended with small store of flesh to the latter for that it is of more exquisite sense Now the ulcers of these parts are difficultly healed yea and oft-times they cause a gangrene in the flesh and a rottenness and mortification in the bones thereunder and for the The figure of a Casse AA Shews the bottom or belly of the Casse BB. The wings or sides to be opened and shut at pleasure C. The end of the wings whereto the sole or arch is fitted DD. The Arch. EE The sole FF An open space whereat the heel hangs forth of the Casse most part a continued feaver delirium convulsion and by that sympathy which generally accompanies such affects a hicketing For the heel and stomach are two very nervous parts the latter in the whole body therof and by a large portion of the nerves of the sixt conjugation but the other by the great tendon passing under it the which is produced by the meeting and as it were growing together of the three muscles of the calf of the leg All which are deadly both by dissipation of the native heat by the feaverish and that which is preternatural as also by the infection of the noble parts whose use the life cannot want by carrion-like vapours Remedies for the prevention of the foresaid Ulcers When as I considered all these things with my self and become more skilfull by the example of others understood how dangerous they were I wished them now and then to lift my heel out of the bed and taking hold of the rope which hung over my head I heaved up my self that so the parts pressed with continual lying might transpire and be ventilated Moreover also I rested these parts upon a round cushion being open in the middle and stuffed with soft feathers and laid under my rump and heel that they might be refreshed by the benefit and gentle breathing of the air and I did oft-times apply linnen cloathes spred over with unguentum rosatum for the asswaging of the pain and heat The use of a Lattin Casse Besides also I devised a Casse of Lattin wherein the broken leg being laid is kept in its place far more surely and certainly than by any Junks and moreover also it may all be moved to and again at the Patients pleasure This Cass will also hinder the heel from lying with all its body and weight upon the bed putting a soft and thick boulster under the calf in that place where the Cass is hollow besides also it arms and defends it against the falling down and weight of the bed clothes having a little arch made over and above of the same matter All which shall be made manifest unto you by the precedent figure Now it remains that I tell you what remedies I applyed to the abscess which happened upon my wound A suppurative medicine When therefore I perceived an abscess to breed I composed a suppurative medicine of the yolks of eggs common oyl
thrust this hot iron thorow a pipe or cane made for the same purpose lest it should harm any sound part by the touch thereof and thus the putrefaction the cause of the arosion may be staid But if the hole be on the one side between two teeth then shall you file away so much of the sound tooth as that you may have sufficient liberty to thrust in your wier without doing any harm The forms of Files made for filing the teeth Worms breeding by putrefaction in the roots of the teeth Causes of worms in the teeth shall be killed by the use of causticks by gargles or lotions made of vineger wherein either pellitory of Spain hath been steeped or treacle dissolved also aloes and garlick are good to be used for this purpose Setting the teeth on edge happens to them by the immoderate eating of acrid or tart things or by the continual ascent of vapours endued with the same quality Causes of setting the teeth on edge from the orifice of the ventricle to the mouth or by a cold defluxion especially of acrid phlegm falling from the brain upon the teeth or else by the too excessive use of cold or stupifying liquors This affect is taken away if after general medicines and shunning those things that cherish the disease the teeth be often washed with aqua vitae or good wine wherein sage rosemarie cloves nutmegs and other things of the like nature have been boiled CHAP. XXVII Of drawing of teeth TEeth are drawn either for that they cause intolerable pains which will not yield to medicines or else for that they are rotten and hollowed so that they cause the breath to smell or else for that they infect the sound and whole teeth and draw them into the like corruption or because they stand out of order Besides when they are too deep and strongly rooted so that they cannot be plucked out they must oft-times be broken of necessity that so you may drop some caustick thing into their roots which may take away the sense and consequently the pain A caveat in drawing of teeth The hand must be used with much moderation in the drawing out of a tooth for the jaw is sometimes dislocated by the too violent drawing out of the lower teeth But the temples eyes and brain are shaken with greater danger by the too rude drawing of the upper teeth Wherefore they must first be cut about that the gums may be loosed from them then shake them with your fingers and do this until they begin to be loose for a tooth which is fast in and is plucked out with one pull oft-times breaks the jaw and brings forth the piece together therewith Lib. 7. cap. 18. whence follows a fever and a great flux of blood not easily to be staid for blood or pus flowing out in great plenty is in Celsus's opinion the sign of a broken bone and many other malign and deadly symptomes Some have had their mouths drawn so awry during the rest of their lives that they could scarce gape Besides if the tooth be much eaten the hole thereof must be filled either with lint or a cork or a piece of lead well fitted thereto lest it be broken under your forceps when it is twitched more straitly to be plucked out and the root remain ready in a short time to cause more grievous pain But judgment must be used and you must take special care lest you take a sound tooth for a pained one for oft-times the Patient cannot tell for that the bitterness of pain by neighbourhood is equally diffused over all the jaw The manner of drawing teeth Therefore for the better plucking out a tooth observing these things which I have mentioned the Patient shall be placed in a low seat bending back his head between the tooth-drawers legs then the tooth-drawer shall deeply scarifie about the tooth separating the gums therefrom with the instruments marked with this letter A. and then if spoiled as it were of the wall of the gums it grow loose it must be shaken and thrust out by forcing it with the three-pointed levatory noted with this letter B. but if it stick in too fast and will not stir at all then must the tooth be taken hold of with some of these toothed forcipes marked with these letters C. D. E. now one then another as the greatness figure and site shall seem to require I would have a tooth-drawer expert and diligent in the use of such toothed mullets for unless one know readily and cunningly how to use them he can scarce so carrie himself but that he will force out three teeth at once oft-times leaving that untoucht which caused the pain Instruments for scraping the teeth and a three-pointed levatorie The effigies of Forcipes or Mullets for the drawing of teeth The form of another Instrument for drawing of teeth What to be done when the tooth is pluckt out After the tooth is drawn let the blood flow freely that so the part may be freed from pain and the matter of the tumor discharged Then let the tooth-drawer press the flesh of the gums on both sides with his fingers whereas he took out the tooth that so the socket that was too much dilated and oft-times torn by the violence of the pluck may be closed again Lastly the mouth shall be washed with oxycrate and if the weather be cold the Patient shall take heed of going much in the open air lest it cause a new defluxion upon his teeth CHAP. XXVIII Of cleansing the Teeth PIeces of meat in eating sometimes stick between the teeth Causes of foul or rusty teeth and becoming corrupt by long staying there do also hurt the teeth themselves and spoil the sweetness of the breath He that would eschew this ought presently after meat to wash his mouth with wine mixed with water or oxycrate and well to cleanse his teeth that no slimie matter adhere to them Many folks teeth by their own default gather an earthy filth of a yellowish colour which eats into them by little and little as rust eats into iron This rustie filthiness or as it were mouldiness of the teeth doth also oft-times grow by the omitting of their proper duty that is of chawing Whence soever this slimie filth proceeds we must get Dentifrices to fetch it off withall The cure and then the teeth must be presently rubbed with aqua fortis and aqua vitae mixed together that if there be any thing that hath scaped the Dentifrices it may be all fetched off A caution in the use of acrid things yet such acrid washings are hurtful to the sound teeth for that they by little and little consume and waste the flesh of the gums Dentifrices shall be made of the root of marsh-mallows boiled in white wine and allom and as when the teeth are loose we must abstain from such things as are hard to be eaten and chawed but much more from
her senses did speak discourse and had no convulsion How an Epileptick fit differs from the Gout Neither did she spare any cost or diligence whereby she might be cured of her disease by the help of Physicians or famous Surgeons she consulted also with Witches Wizzards and Charmers so that she had left nothing unattempted but all art was exceeded by the greatness of the diâ— ease When I had shewed all these things at our consultation we all with one consent were of this opinion to apply a potential Cautery to the grieved part or the tumor I my self applied it after the fall of the Eschar very black and virulent sanies flowed out which free'd the woman of her pain and disease for ever after Whence you may gather that the cause of so great evil was a certain venerate malignity hurting rather by an inexplicable qualitie then quality which being overcome and evacuated by the Cauterie all pain absolutely ceased Upon the like occasion but on the right arm the wife of the Queen's Coach-man at Amboise consulted Chappellain Castellan and mee earnestly craving ease of her pain for shee was so grievously tormented by fits that through impatiency being careless of her self she endeavoured to cast her self headlong out of her chamber window for fear whereof she had a guard put upon her We judged that the like monster was to be assaulted with the like weapon neither were we deceived for useing a potential Cautery this had like success as the former Wherefore the bitterness of the pain of the gout is not occasioned by the onely weakness of the joints for thus the pain should be continual and alwaies like it self neither is it from the distemper of a simple humor for no such thing happen's in other tumors of what kinde soever they be but it proceed's from a venenate malign occult and inexplicable qualitie of the matter wherefore this disease stand's in need of a diligent Physician and a painful Surgeon CHAP. III. Of the manifest causes of the Gout The first primitive cause of the Gout ALthough these things may be true which we have delivered of the occult cause of the Gout yet there be and are vulgarly assigned others of which a probable reason may be rendred wherein this malignity whereof we have spoke lies hid and is seated Therefore as of many other diseases so also of the Gout there are assigned three causes that is the primitive antecedent and conjunct the primitive is twofold one drawn from their first original and their mother's womb which happen's to such as are generated of Goutie parents chiefly if whilst they were conceived this gouty matter did actually abound and fall upon the joynts For the seed fall's from all the parts of the Body as saith Hippocrates and Aristotle affirm's lib. de gen animal Lib. 〈◊〉 loc aqua 〈◊〉 1. cap. 17. Yet this causes not an inevitable necessity of haveing the Gout for as many begot of sound and healthful parents are taken by the Gout by their proper and primary default so many live free from this disease whose fathers notwithstanding were troubled therewith It is probable that they have this benefit and priviledge by the goodnesse of their Mothers seed and the laudable temper of the womb whereof the one by the mixture and the other by the gentle heat may amend and correct the faults of the paternal seed for otherwise the disease would become hereditary and gouty persons would necessarily generate gouty for the seed followeth the temper and complexion of the party generating as it is shewed by Avicen Another primitive cause is from inordinate diet especially in the use of meat drink exercise and Venery Lib. 3. seu 22. tâ—act 2. cap. 5. Anothâ—r primitive cause of the Gout Lastly by unprofitable humors which are generated and heaped up in the body which in process of time acquire a virulent malignity for these fill the head with vapors raised up from them when the membranes nerves and tendons and consequently the joynts become more lax and weak They offend in feeding who eat much meat and of sundry kinds at the same meal who drink strong wâ—ne without any mixture who sleep presently after meat and which use not moderate exercises for hence a plentitude an obstruction of the vessels cruditites the increase of excrements especially serous Which if they flow down unto the joynts without doubt they cause this disease for the joynts are weak either by nature or accident in comparison of the other parts of the body by nature as if they be loose and soft from their first original by accident as by a blow fall hard travelling running in the sun by day in the cold by night racking too frequent Venery especially suddenly after meat for thus the heat is dissolved by reason of the dissipation of the spirits caused in the effusion of seed whence many crude humors which by an unseasonable motion are sent into the sinews and joynts Through this occasion old men because their native heat is the more weak are commonly troubled with the Gout Besides also the suppression of excrements accustomed to be avoided at certain times as the courses hemorhoids vomit scouring Aâ—â—h 19 Sect. 9. causeth this disease Hence it is that in the opinion of Hippocrates A woman is not troubled with the Gout unless her courses fail her They are in the same case who have old and running ulcers suddenly healed or varices cut and healed unless by a strict course of diet they hinder the generation and increase of accustomed excrements Also those which recover of great and long diseases unless they be fully and perfectly purged either by nature or art these humors falling into the joynts which are the reliques of the disease make them to become gouty and thus much for the primitive cause The internal or antecedent cause is the abundance of humors The â—ntecedent cause of the Gout the largeness of the vessels and passages which run to the joynts the strength of the amandating bowels the loosness softness and imbecilitie of the reviving joynts The conjunct cause is the humor it self repact and shut up in the capacities and cavities of the joynts The conjunct Now the unprofitable humor on every side sent down by the strength of the expulsive faculty sooner lingers about the joynts for that they are of a cold nature and dense so that once impact in that place Five causes of the pain of the Gout it cannot be easily digested and resolved This humor then causeth pain by reason of distention or solution of continuity distemper and besides the virulency and malignity which it requires But it savors of the nature sometimes of one somtimes of more humors whence the Gout is either phlegmous erysipilatous oedematous or mix't The concourse of flatulencies together with the flowing down humors and as it were tumult by the hinderance of transpiration encreaseth the dolorifick distention in the membranes
tendons What and how the matter of the gout come down from the brain ligaments and other bodies wherein the joint consists CHAP. IV. Out of what part the matter of the Gout may flow down upon the joynts THe matter of the Gout comes for the most part from the liver or brain that which descends from the brain is phlegmatick serous thin and clear such as usually drops out of the nose endued with a malign and venenate quality Now it passeth out by the musculous skin and pericranium as also through that large hole by which the spinal marrow the brains substitute is propagated into the spine by the coats and tendons of the nervs into the spices of the joynts and it is commonly cold That which proceedes from the liver is diffused by the great vein and arteries filled and puffed up and participates of the nature of the four humors of which the mass of the blood consist's more frequently accompanyed with an hot distemper together with a gouty malignity Besides this manner of the Gout Gut by congestion which is caused by defluxion there is another which is by congestion as when the too weak digestive faculty of the joynts cannot assimilate the juices sent to them CHAP. V. The signs of the Arthritick humor flowing from the brain WHen the defluxion is at hand there is an heaviness of the head a desire to rest and a dulness with the pain of the outer parts then chiefly perceptible when the hairs are turned up or backwards moreover the musculous skin of the head is puffed up as swoln with a certain oedematous tumor the patients seem to be much different from themselves by reason of the functions of the mind hurt by the malignity of the humor from whence the natural faculties are not free as the crudities of the stomach and the frequent and acrid belchings may testifie CHAP. VI. The signs of a gouty humor proceeding from the liver THe right Hypocondrie is hot in such gouty persons When the Gout which proceeds from the default of the liver assimiates the nature of an oedema Why the Gout seldom proceedâ— from melancholy yea the inner parts are much heated by the bowelâ— blood and choler carrie the sway the veins are large and swoln a defluxion suddenly falls down especially if there be a greater quantity of choler then of other humors in the mass of the blood But if as it often falls out the whole bloud by means of crudites degenerate into phlegm and a whayish humor then will it come to pass that the Gout also which proceeds from the liver may be pituitous or phlegmatick and participate of the nature of an oedema like that which proceeds from the brain As if the same mass of bloud decline towards melancholy the Gout which thence ariseth resembles the nature of a scirrhus yet that can scarce hâ—ppen that melancholy by reason of the thickness and slowness to motion may fall upon the joynts Yet notwithstanding because we speak of that which may be of these it will not be unprofitable briefly to distinguish the signs of each humor and the differences of Gouts to be deduced from thence CHAP. VII By what signs we may understand this or that humor to accompany the gouty malignity YOu may give a guess hereat by the patients age temper season of the year condition of the country where he lives his diet and condition of life the increase of the pain in the morning noon evening or night by the propriety of the beating pricking sharp or dull pain by numness as in a melancholy gout or itching as in that which is caused by tough phlegm by the sensible appearance of the part in shape and colour as for example sake in a phlegmatick Gout the colour of the affected part is very little changed from its sef and the neighbouring well parts in a sanguine Gout it look's red in a cholerick it is fiery or pale in a melancholy livid or blackish by the heat and bigness which is greater in a sanguine and phlegmatiâ—k then in the rest by the change and lastly by things helping and hurting And there be some who for the knowledge of these differences wish us to view the patients urine and feel their pulse and consider these excrements which in each particular nature are accustomed to abound or flow and are now suddenly and unaccustomarily supprest Foâ— hence may bee taken the signs of the dominion of this or that humor But a more ample knowledg of these things may be drawn from the humors predominant in each person and the signs of tumors formerly delivered Onely this is to be noted by the way that the gout which is caused by melancholy is rare to be found CHAP. VIII Prognosticks in the Gout BY the writeings of Physicians the pains of the Gout are accounted amongst the most grievous and acute so that through vehemency of pain many are almost mad and wish themselves dead They have certain periods and fits according to the matter and condition of the humor wherein this malign and inexplicable gouty virulency resides Yet they more frequently invade in the Spring and Autumn The Gout frequent in the Spring Fall What Gout uncureable such as have it hereditary are scarce ever throughly freâ— therefrom as neither such as have it knotty for in the former it was born with them and implanted and as it were fixed in the original of life but in the other the matter is become plaster-like so that it can neither be resolved nor ripened That which proceeds from a cold and pituitous matter causeth not such cruel tormenting pain as that which is of an hot sanguine or cholerick cause neither is it so speedily healed for that the hot and thin matter is more readily dissolved therefore commonly it ceaseth not until forty dayes be past Besides also by howmuch the substance of the affected part is more dense and the expulsive faculty more weak by so much the pain is more tedious Hence it is that those Gouty pains which molest the knee hee l ad huckle-bone Gal. ad aphor 49. sect 5. are more contumacious The Gout which proceeds of an hot matter rests not before the fourteenth or twentieth day That which is occasioned by acriâ—e choler by the bitterness of the inflamation of the pain causeth a difficulty of breathing raveing and sundry times a gangrene of the affected part and lastly death and healed it often leaves a palsie behinde it Why the Sciatica causeth lameness Amongst all the gouty pains the Sciatica challengeth the prime place by the greatness of the pain and multitude of symptoms it brings unquietness and watching a fever dislocation perpetual lameness and the decay of the whole leg yea and often-times of the whole body Now lameness and leanness or decay of the part are thus occasioned for that the decurrent humor forceth the head of the thigh-bone out of the cavity of the huckle-bone
of Serpents in the curstness of its poyson The efficacie of the poyson of the Basilisk Therefore it is affirmed by Nicander that into what place soever he comes other venomous creatures do forthwith flie thence for that none of them can so much as endure his hissing for he is thought to kill all things even with this and not with his biting and touch only besides if any of them hasten to get any meat or drink and perceive that the Basilisk is not far from thence he flies back and neglects the getting of nourishment necessary for life Galen writes Lib. de Theriac that the Basilisk is a yellowish Serpent with a sharp head and three risings distinguished with white spots and rising up in form of a Crown by reason whereof he is stilled the King of Serpents Why the Basilisk is thought to kill by his onely sight Certainly the violence of his poyson in killing men is so great that he is therefore thought to kill men and other creatures by his sight only Solinus affirms that the body of a Basilisk hath wondrous faculties Wherefore the inhabitants of Pergamum in ancient times gave a mighty price for one to hang upon the joists of the temple of Apollo so to drive away the Spiders and Birds lest they should weave their webs or the other build their nests in that sacred place Verily no ravenous creature will touch their carkcass but if constrained by hunger they do touch it then they forthwith fall down dead in the same place and this happens not only by eating their body Plin. lib. 8. c. 21. but also by devouring of the bodies of such beasts as are killed by their bitings They kill the trees and shrubs by which they pass not only by their touch but even with their breath Among the western Aethiopians is the fountain Nigris near which there is a Serpent called Catablepas The Catablepas small in body and slow having a great head which it scarce can carry but that it lies alwaies upon the ground otherwise it would kill abundance of people for it forthwith kills all that sees the eies thereof the Basilisk hath the same force he is bred in the province of Cyrene of the length of some twelve fingers with a white spot in his head resembling a crown he chaseth away all serpents with his hiss Weasels are the destruction of such monsters thâ—s it pleased nature Nothing in nature without its equal that nothing should be without its equal they assail them in their dens being easily known by the barrenness or consumption of the soil These kill them also by their sent and they die and the sight of nature is ended thus nature to the magnanimous Lion lest there should be nothing which he might fear hath opposed the weak creature the Cock by whose crowing only he is terrified and put to flight Erasistratus writes Symptoms that a golden yellowness affects the bitten part of such as are hurt by a Basilisk but a blackness and tumor possesseth the rest of the body all the flesh of the muscles within a while after falling away piece-meal Cure An antidote against this must be made of a dram of Castoreum dissolved in wine and drunken or in the juice of poppy But Aetius thinks it superflous to write remedies against the Basilisk when as the sight and hearing only kills such as either see or hear her The figure of a Basilisk CHAP. XX. Of the Salamander THe Salamander kills not only such as it bites by making a venomous impression The malignity of a Salamander but it also infects the fruits and herbs over which it creeps with a spittle or gross moisture which sweats out of all the body to the great danger of the health and life of such as eat these things at unawares wherefore it need not seem strange which is received by some late writers that some families have all died by drinking water out of the pits whereinto a Salamander by accident was fallen For if it shall creep upon a tree The temper of her it infects all the fruit with the qualities of cold and moist poison wherein it yields not to Aconite Aetius writes that such as are infected with the poison of a Salamander certain parts of their body grow livid so that they fall away often being putrefied At the first there appear white spots Symptoms over the body then red after wards black with putrefaction and the falling away of the hairs The cure is The cure to procure vomit to loose the belly with a glyster and to give them Treacle and Mithridate in potions Avicen prescribes the same things against this kind of poison as against opium Lib. 2 cap. 54. by reason of the cold nature of them both the proper antidote is turpentine styrax nettle seeds and cypress-leaves Dioscorides writes that the Salamander is a kind of Lizard dull variegated and which is falsly reputed not to be burnt by fire But Pliny saith she is so cold that she extinguisheth the fire by her touch only being laied upon hot coles On the contrary Matthiolus saith How a Salamander may be said to live in the fire that cast into a great flame they are quickly consumed It is easie out of Actiuâ— to reconcile these disagreeing opinions This creature saith he passeth through a burning flame and is not hurt the flame dividing it self and giving her way but if she continue any time in the fire the cold humor being consumed in her she is burnt Now the Salamander is black variegated with yellow spots star-fashion The figure of a Salamander CHAP. XXI Of the Torpedo The craft of the Torpedo THe Torpedo hath his name from the effect by reason that by his touch and power the members become torpid and numme in muddy shoars it lives upon fish which the catcheth by craft His stupefying force For lying in the mud she so stupefies those that are nigh her that she easily preys upon them she hath the same power over men for she sends a numness not only into the arm of the fisher-man but also over all his body although his fishers pole be between them The effigies of a Torpedo CHAP. XXII Of the bitings of Asps Symptoms THe wound which is made by an Asp is very small as if a needle were thrust into the part and without any swelling These symptoms follow upon her bite sudden darkness clouds their eies much agitation in all their bodies but gentle notwithstanding a moderate pain of the stomach troubles them their fore-heads are continually troubled with convulsive twitchings their cheeks tremble and their eie-lids fall gently to rest and sleep the blood which flows from the wound is little but black death no longer deserred then the third part of a day will take them away by convulsions unless you make resistance with fitting remedies The male Asp makes two wounds Cu cing the
into a stove to supper whereas were divers of our acquaintance a certain woman knowing this mans nature lest that he should see her kitling which she kept and so should go away in chafe she shut her up in a cup-board in the same chamber But for all that he did not see her neither heard her cry A wonderful antipathy between a man and a Cat. yet within a little space when he had drawn in the air infected with the breath of the Cat that quality of temperament contrary or enemy to Cats being provoked he began to sweat to look pale und to crie out all of us admiring it Here lies a Cat in some corner or other The Antidote against the brains of a Cat. neither could he be quiet till the Cat was taken away But such as have eaten the brains of a Cat are taken with often Vertigoes and now and then become foolish and mad they are helped by procuring vomit and taking the Antidote against this poyson that is half a scruple of Musk dissolved and drunk in wine There be some who prescribe the confection Diamoscum to be taken every morning four hours before meat By this you may gather that it is not so fabulous that the common sort report that Cats will kill or harm children Cats dangerous for children for lying to their mouths with the weight of their whole bodies they hinder the passage forth of the fuliginous vapors and the motion of the chest and infect and stifle the spirits of tender infants by the pestiferous air and exhalation which they send forth CHAP. XXXV Of certain Poysonous Plants HAving described the poysons that come from living creatures Apium risus I come to speak of such as are from Plants beginning with the Sardonian herb which is also called Apium risus this is a kinde of Ranunculus or Crow-foot and as it is thought the round-leaved water Crow foot called Marsh-crow-foot or Spear-wort it taketh away the understanding of such as have eaten thereof and by a certain distention of the nerves contracts the cheeks so that it makes them look as if they laughed from this affect came that proverbial speech of the Sardonian laughter taken in evil part His Bezoar as one may term it is the juice of Balm His Antidote Napellus or Monks-hood The juice fruit and substance of Napellus taken inwardly killeth a man the same day or at the furthest in three dayes yea and such as escape the deadly force thereof by the speedy and convenient use of Antidotes fall into an hectick fever or consumption and become subject to the falling-sickness as Avicen affirmeth And hence it is that barbarous People poyson their arrows therewith For the lips are forthwith inflamed and the tongue so swells that by reason thereof it cannot be contained in the mouth but hangs out with great horrour their eies are inflamed and stand forth of their head and they are troubled with a Vertigo and swounding they become so weak that they cannot stir their legs they are swoln and puffed in their bodies the violence of Poyson is so great The Antidote thereof is a certain little creature like a * Our author deceived by the Arabians who it may be mistock the greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in stead thereof read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a Flie a Mouse for there is no Mouse to be found but whole swarms of Flies which feed thereon you may â—â—â—de the deâ—â—â—pâ—â—â—â— of an Antidote made with 〈◊〉 in Lebels Sâ—â—p 〈◊〉 pag. 3â—â— Mouse which is bred and lives on the root of Napellus being dried and drunk in â—owcer to the weight of two crams In want hereof you may use the seed of Raddish or Turnips to drink and annoint the body also with oil of Scorpions Doricinum and Solanum Manicum or deadly Night-shade Doricinum and Solanum Manicum or deadly Night-shade are not much different in their mortal symptoms or effects Doricinum being drunk resembleth milk in taste it causeth continual hickeâ—â—ing it troubleth the tongue with the weight of the humor it causeth blood to be cast forth or the mouth and certain mucous matter out of the belly like that which cometh away in the bloody flux A remedy hereto are all shell-fishes as well crude as rosted also Sea-Lobtâ—â—s and Crabs and the broth or liquor wherein they are boyled being drunk Now the root of Solanum Manicum drunk in the weight of one dram in wine The symptoms causeth vain and not unpleasing imaginations but double this quantity causes a distraction or alienation of the minde for three dayes out four times so much kills The remedies are the same as there prescribed against Doricinum Hen-bane Hen-bane drunken or otherwise taken inwardly by the mouth causeth an alienation of the minde of like drunkenness this also is accompanied with an agitation of the body and exsolutition of the spirits like swounding But amongst others this is a notable symptom that the patients so dote that they think themselvs to be whipped whence their voice becomes so various that somtimes they bray like an Ass or Mule The antidote neigh like an Horse as Avicen writes The Antidote is pistick nuts eaten in great plenty treacle also and mithridate dissolved in sack also wormwood rue and milk Mushroms Of mushroms some are deadly and hurtful of their own kinde and nature as those which broken presently become of divers colours and putrefie such as Avicen saith those are which be found of a grayish or blewish colour others though not hurtfull in quality yet eaten in greater measure then is fitting become deadly for seeing by nature they are very cold and moist and consequently abound with no small viscosity as the excrementitious phlegm of the earth or trees whereon they grow they suffocate and extinguish the heat of the body as overcome by their quantity and strangle as if one were hanged and lastly kill Verily I cannot châ—se but pitty Gourmondizers who though they know that Mushroms are the seminary and gate of death yet do they with a greet deal of do most greadily devour them I say pittying them I will shew them and teach them the art how they may feed upon this so much defited dish without the endangering of their health Their Antidote Know therefore that Mushroms may be eaten without danger if that they be first boyled with wild pears but if you have no wilde pears you may supply that defect with others which are the most harsh either newly gathered or dried in the sun The leaves as also the bark of the same tree are good especially of the wilde for pears are their Antidote yet Conciliator gives another to wit garlick eaten crude whereunto in like sort vinegar may be fitly added so to cut and attenuate the tough viscous and gross humors heaped up and in danger to strangle one by the too plentiful eating of Mushroms Iâ— 5. epidemy as it
is thirsty Or else put the flesh of one old Capon and of a leg of Veal two minced Partridges and two drams of whole Cinnamon without any liquor in a Limbeck of glass well lated and covered and so let them boil in Balneo Mariae unto the perfect conâ—oction For so the fleshes will be boiled in their own juice without any hurt of the fire then â—et the juice be pressed out there-hence with a Press give the patient for every dose one ounce of the juice with some cordial waters some Trisantalum and Diamargaritum frigidum The preserves of sweet fruits are to be avoided because that sweet things turn into choler but the confection of tart prunes Cherries and such like may be fitly used But because there is no kinde of sickness that so weakens the strength as the plague it is alwaies necessary but yet sparingly and often to feed the patient still having respect unto his custom age the region and the time for through emptiness there is no great danger lest that the venomous matter that is driven out to the superficiall parts of the body should be called back into the inward parts by an hungry stomach and the stomach it self should be filled with cholerick hot thin and sharp excremental humors whereof cometh biting of the stomach and gripings in the guts CHAP. VII What drink the patient infected ought to use IF the fever be great and burning the patient must abstain from wine unless that he be subject to swounding and he may drink the Oxymel following in stead thereof An Oxymel Take of fair water three quarts wherein boil four ounces of hony until the third part be consumed scumming it continually then strain it and put it into a clean vessel and add thereto four ounces of vinegar and as much cinnamon as will suffice to give it a tast Or else a sugred water as followeth Take two quarts of fair water of hard sugar six ounces of Cinnamon two ounces strain it through a woollen bag or cloth without any boiling and when the patient will use it put thereto a little of the juice of Citrons The syrup of the juice of Citrons excelleth amongst all others that are used against the pestilence A Julip The use of the Julip following is also very wholsome Take of the juice of Sorrel well clarified half a pinte of the juice of Lettuce so clarified four ounces of the best hard sugar one pound boil them together to a perfection then let them be strained and clarified adding a little before the end a little vinegar and so let it be used between meals with boiled water or with equal portions of the water of Sorrel Lettuce Scabious and Bugloss or take of this former described Julip strained and clarified four ounces let it be mixed with one pound of the fore-named cordial waters and boil them together a little And when they are taken from the fire put thereto of yellow Sanders one dram of beaten Cinnamon half a dram strain it through a cloth when it is cold let it be given the patient to drink with the juice of Citrons Those that have been accustomed to drink sider perry bear or ale ought to use that drink still so that it be clear transparent and thin and made of those fruits that are somewhat tart for troubled and dreggish drink doth not only engender gross humors but also crudities windiness and obstructions of the first region of the body whereof comes a fever The commodities of oxycrate Oxycrate being given in manner following doth asswage the heat of the fever and repress the putrefaction of the humors and the fierceness of the venom and also expelleth the water through the veins if so be that the patients are not troubled with spitting of blood cough yexing and altogether weak of stomach To whom hurtfull for such must avoid tart things Take of fair water one quart of white or red vinegar three ounces of fine sugar four ounces of syrup of Roses two ounces boil them a little and then give rhe patient thereof to drink Or take of the juice of Limmons and Citrons of each half an ounce of the juice of sowr Pomgranats two ounces of the water of Sorrel and Roses of each an ounce of fair water boiled as much as shall suffice make thereof a Julip and use it between meals Or take the syrup of Limmons and of red currans of each one ounce of the water of Lillies four ounces of fair water boyled half a pinte make thereof a Julip Or take of the syrups of water-Lillies and vinegar of each half an ounce dissolve it in five ounces of the water of Sorrel of fair water one pinte make thereof a Julip But if the patient be young and have a strong and good stomach and cholerick by nature The drinking of cold water whom and when profitable I think it not unmeet for him to drink a full and large draught of fountain-water for that is effectual to restrain and quench the heat of the Fever and contrariwise they that drink cold water often and a very small quantity at a time as the Smith doth sprinkle water on the fire at his Forge do increase the heat and burning and thereby make it endure the longer Therefore by the judgment of Celsus when the disease is in the chief increase and the patient hath endured thirst for the space of three or four daies cold water must be given unto him in great quantity so that he may drink past his satiety that when his belly and stomach are filled beyond measure Lib. 3. cap. 7. and sufficiently cooled he may vomit Some do not drink so much thereof as may cause them to vomit but do drink even unto satiety and so use it for a cooling medicine but when either of these is done the patient must be covered with many cloaths and so placed that he may sleep and for the most part after long thirst and watching and after long fulness and long and great heat sound sleep cometh by which great sweat is sent out and that is a present help But thirst must sometimes be quenched with little pieces of Melons Gourds Cucumbers with the leaves of Lettuce Sorrel and Purslain made moist or soaked in cold water or with a little square piece of a Citron Limmon or Orange macerated in Rose-water and sprinkled with Sugar and so held in the mouth and then changed But if the patient be aged his strength weak flegmatick by nature and given to wine when the state of the Fever is somewhat past and the chief heat beginning to asswage he may drink wine very much allayed at his meat for to restore his strength and to supply the want of the wâ—â—â—ed spirits The patient ought not by any means to suffer great thirst but must mitigate it by drinking or else allay it by washing his mouth with oxycrate and such like and he may therein also wâ—sh his hands and his
est unto the Vessels and Ad Vires id est unto the Strength and therewithal he hath a tumor that is pestilent in the parts belonging unto head or neck the blood must be let out of the cephalick or median vein or out of one of their branches dispersed in the arm on the grieved side But if through occasion of fat or any other such like cause those veins do not appear in the arm there be some that give counsel in such a case to open the vein that is between the fore-finger and the thumb the hand being put into warm water whereby that vein may swell and be filled with blood gathered thither by means of the heat If the tumor be under the arm-hole or about those places the liver-vein or the median must be opened which runneth alongst the hand if it be in the groin the vein of the ham or Saphena or any other vein above the foot that appeareth well but alwaies on the grieved side And phlebotomy must be performed before the third day for this disease is of the kind or nature of sharp diseases because that within four and twenty hours it runneth past help In letting of blood you must have consideration of the strength You may perceive that the patient is ready to swound when that his forehead waxeth moist with a small sweat suddenly arising by the a king or pain at the stomach with an appetite to vomit and desire to go to stool gaping blackness of the lips and sudden alteration of the face unto paleness and lastly most certainly by a small and slow pulse and then you must lay your finger on the vein and stop it untill the patient come to himself again either by nature or else restored by art that is to say by giving unto him bread dipped in wine or any other such like thing then if you have not taken blood enough you must let it go again and bleed so much as the greatness of the disease or the strength of the patient will permit or require which being done some of the Antidotes that are prescribed before will be very profitable to be drunk which may repair the strength and infringe the force of the malignity CHAP. XXV Of purging medicines in a Pestilent disease IF you call to minde the proper indications purging shall seem necessary in this kinde of disease and that must be prescribed as the present case and necessity requireth What purges fit in the Plague rightly considering that the disease is sudden and doth require medicines that may with all speed drive out of the body the hurtful humor wherein the noisome quality doth lurk and is hidden which medicines are divers by reason of the diversity of the kinde of the humor and the condition or temperature of the patient For this purpose six grains of Scammony beaten into powder or else ten grains are commonly ministred to the patient with one dram of Treacle Also pils may be made in this form Take of Treacle and Mithridate of each one dram Pils of Sulphur vivum finely powdred half a dram of Diagridium four grains make thereof Pils Or take three drams of Aloes of Myrrh and Saffron of each one dram of white Hellebore and Asarabacca of each ℈ iiii make thereof a mass with old treacle and let the patient take four scruples thereof for a dose three hours before meat Ruffus his pils may be profitably given to those that are weak The ancient Physicians have greatly commended Agarick for this disease because it doth draw the noisom humors out of all the members and the virtues thereof are like unto those of Treacle for it is thought to strengthen the heart and to draw out the malignity by purging To those that are strong the weight of two drams may be given and to those that are more weak half a dram It is better to give the infusion in a decoction then in substance for being elected and prepared truly into Trochisces it may be called a divine kinde of medicine Antimonium is highly praised by the experience of many but because I know the use thereof is condemned by the councel and decree of the School of Physicians at Paris I wll here cease to speak of it Those medicines that cause sweats are thought to excel all others when the Pestilence commeth of the venomous Air among whom the efficacy of that which followeth hath been proved to the great good of many in that Pestilence which was lately throughout all Germany as Matthias Rodler Chancelor to Duke George the Count Palatine signified unto me by letters They do take a bundle of Mug-wort and of the ashes thereof after it is burnt An effectual sudorifick and also purging medicine they make a lee with four pints of water then they do set it over the fire and boil it in a vessel of earth well leaded until the liquor be consumed the earthy dregs falling into the bottom like unto salt whereof they make Trochisces of the weight of a crown of gold then they dissolve one or two of these Trochises according to the strength of the patient in good Muskadine give it the patient to drink and let him walk after that he hath drunk it for the space of half an hour then lay him in his bed and there sweat him two or three hours and then he will vomit and his belly will be loosed as if he had taken Antimony and so they were all for the most part cured especially all those that took that remedy betimes and before the disease went to their heart The virtues of Mugwort as I my self have proved in some that were sick at Paris with most happy success Truly Mugwort is highly commended by the Ancient Physicians being taken and applied inwardly or outwardly against the bitings of venomous creatures so that it is not to be doubted but that it hath great virtue against the Pestilence I have heard it most certainly reported by Gilbertus Heroaldus Physician of Mompilier Vide rondelet lib. 7 depis c. 3. that eight ounces of the pickle of Anchovies drunk at one draught is a most certain and approved remedy against the Pestilence as he and many other have often found by experience For the Plague is no other thing but a very great putrefaction for the correction and amendment whereof there is nothing more apt or fit then this pickle or substance of Anchovies being melted by the Sun and force of the salt that is strewed thereon There be some which infuse one dram of Walwort-seed in white wine and affirme that it drunken will performe the like effect as Antimony Others dissolve a little weight of the seed of Rue being bruised in Muskadine with the quantity of a bean of Treacle and so drink it Others beat or bruise an handful of the leaves or tops of Broom in half a pinte of white wine and so give it to the patient to drink to cause him to vomit loose
before the death of the Patient drives the excremental humours which are the matter of the spots unto the skin or else because nature in the last conflict hath contended with some greater endeavour then before which is common to all things that are ready to die a little before the instant time of death the Pestilent humor being presently driven unto the skin and nature thus weakned by these extreme conflicts falleth down prostrate and is quite overthrown by the remnant of the matter CHAP. XXIX Of the cure of Eruptions and Spots They are to be cured by driving forth YOu must first of all take heed lest you drive in the humor that is coming outwards with repercussives therefore beware of cold all purging things phlebotomy and drowsie or sound sleeping For all such things do draw the humors inwardly and work contrary to nature But it is better to provoke the motion of nature outwardly by applying of drawing medicines outwardly and ministring medicines to provoke sweat inwardly for otâ—erwise by repelling and stopping the matter of the eruptions there will be great danger lest the heart be oppressed with the abundance of the venom flowing back or else by turning into the belly it infers a mortal bloudy flux which discommodities that they may be avoided I have thought good to set down this remedy whose efficacy I have known and proved many times and on divers persons when by reason of the weakness of the expulsive faculty and the thickness of the skin the matter of the spots cannot break forth but is constrained to lurk under the skin lifting it up into bunches and knobs The indication of curing taken from the like I was brought unto the invention of this remedy by comparison of the like For when I understood that the essence of the French-pox and likewise of the pestilence consisted in a certain hidden virulency and venomous quality I soon descended unto that opinion that even as by the annointing of the body with the unguent compounded of Quick-silver the gross and clammy humours which are fixed in the bones and unmovable are dissolved relaxed and drawn from the center into the superficial parts of the body by strengthening and stirring up the expulsive faculty and evacuated by sweating and fluxing at the mouth that so it should come to pass in pestilent Fevers that nature being strengthened with the same kind of unction might unload herself of some portion of the venomous and pestilent humor by opening the pores and passages and â—etting it break forth into spots and pustles and into all kind of eruptions Therefore I have anointed many in whom nature seemed to make passage for the venomous matter very slowly first looâ—ing their belly with a glyster and then giving them Treacle-water to drink which might defend the vital faculty of the heart but yet not distend the stomach as though they had the French-pox and I obtained my expected purpose In stead of the Treacle-water you may use the decoction of Guaicum which doth heat dry provoke sweat and repel putrefactioâ— adding thereto also Vinegar that by the subtilty thereof it may pierce the better and withstand the putrefaction This is the description of the unguent An ointment to draw them forth when as they appear too slowly Take of Hogs-grease one pound boil it a little with the leaves of Sage Thime Rosemary of each half an handful strain it and in the straining extinguish five ounces of Quick-silver which hath been first boyled in Vinegar with the fore-mention herbs of Sal Nitrum three drams the yelks of three eggs boyled until they be hard of Treacle and Mithridate of each half an ounce of Venice-Turpentine oyl of Scorpions and Bayes of each three ounces incorporate them altogether in a mortar and make thereof an unguent wherewith annoint the Patients arm-holes and groins avoiding the parts that belong to the head breast and back-bone then let him be laid in his bed and covered warm and let him sweat there for the space of two hours and then let his body be wiped and cleansed and if it may be let him be laid in another bed and there let him be refreshed with the decoction of a Capon reer eggs and with such like meats of good juyce that are easie to be concocted and digested let him be annointed the second and third day unless the spots appear before If the Patient flux at the mouth it must not be stopped when the spots and pustles do all appear and the Patient hath made an end of sweating it shall be convenient to use diuretick medicines for by these the remnant of the matter of the spots which happily could not all breath forth may easily be purged and avoided by urine If any Noble or Gentlemen refuse to be annointed with this unguent let them be enclosed in the body of a Mule or Horse that is newly killed and when that is cold let them be laid in another until the pustles and eruptions do break forth being drawn by that natural heat For so Matthiolus writeth In pâ—oaem lib. 6. Diâ—sc that Valentinus the son of Pope Alexander the sixt was delivered from the danger of most deadly poyson which he had drunk GHAP. XXX Of a pestilent Bubo or Plague-sore A Pestilent Bubo is a tumor at the beginning long and moveable and in the state What a pestilent Bubo is and full perfection copped and with a sharp head unmoveable and fixed deeply in the glandules or kernels by which the brain exonerates it self of the venomous and pestiferous matter into the kernels that are behinde the ears and in the neck the heart into those that are in the arm-holes and the Liver into those that are in the groin that is when all the matter is gross and clammy so that it cannot be drawn out by spots and pustles breaking out on the skin and so the matter of a Carbuncle is sharp and so fervent that it maketh an Eschar on the place where it is fixed In the beginning while the Bubo is breeding it maketh the patient to feel as if it were a cord or rope stretched out in the place or a hardned nerve with pricking pain and shortly after the matter is raised up as it were into a knob and by little and little it groweth bigger and is inflamed these accidents before mentioned accompanying it If the tumor be red The signs of Buboes salutary and deadly and increase by little and little it is a good and salutary sign but if it be livid or black and come very slowly unto his just bigness it is a deadly sign It is also a deadly signe if it increase suddenly come to his just bigness as it were with a swift violence and as in a moment have all the symptoms in the highest excess as pain swelling and burning Buboes or Sores appear sometimes of a natural colour like unto the skin and in all other things like unto an oedematous tumor which
miseries of mans life as it were by the enticements of that pleasure also the great store of hot blood that is about the heart wherewith men abound maketh greatly to this purpose which by impulsion of imagination which ruleth the humors being driven by the proper passages down from the heart and entrails into the genital parts doth stir up in them a new lust The males of brute beasts being provoked or moved by the stimulations of lust rage and are almost burst with a Tentigo or extension of the genital parts and sometimes wax mad but after that they have satisfied their lust with the female of their kinde they presently become gentle and leave off such fierceness CHAP. IV. What things are to be observed as necessary unto generation in the time of copulation How women may be moved to Venery conception WHen the husband commeth into his wives chamber he must entertain her with all kinde of dalliance wanton behaviour and allurements to Venery but if he perceive her to be slow and more cold he must cherish embrace and tickle her and shall not abruptly the nerves being suddenly distended break into the field of nature but rather shall creep in by little and and little intermixing more wanton kisses with wanton words and speeches handling her secret parts and dugs that she may take fire and be enflamed to Venery for so at length the womb will strive and wax servent with a desire of casting forth it own seed and receive the mans seed to be mixed together therewith But if all these things will not suffice to enflame the woman for women for the most part are more slow and slack unto the expulsion or yeelding forth of their seed it shall be necessary first to foment her secret parts with the decoction of hot herbs made with Muscadine or boiled in any other good wine and to put a little Musk or Civet into the neck or mouth of the womb and when she shall perceive the efflux of her seed to approach by reason of the tickling pleasure she must advertise her husband thereof that at the very instant time or moment The meeting of the seeds most necessary for generation he may also yeeld forth his seed that by the concourse or meeting of the seeds conception may be made and so at length a child formed and born And that it may have the better success the husband must not presently separate himself from his wives embraces lest the air strike into the open womb and so corrupt the seeds before they are perfectly mixed together When the man departs let the woman lye still in quiet laying her legs or her thighs across one upon another and raising them up a little lest that by motion or downward situation the seed should be shed or spilt which is the cause why she ought at that time not to talk especially chiding nor to cough nor snees but give her self to rest and quietness if it be possible CHAP. V. By what signs it may be known whether the woman have conceived or not IF the seed in the time of copulation or presently after be not spilt if in the meeting of the seeds the whole body do somewhat shake that is to say the womb drawing it self together for the compression and entertainment thereof if a little feeling of pain doth run up and down the lower belly and about the navel if she be sleepy if she loath the embracings of a man and if her face be pale it is a token that she hath conceived In some after conception spots or freckles arise in their face Spots or specks in the faces of those that are with child their eies are depressed and sunk in the white of their eyes waxeth pale they wax giddy in the head by reason that the vapors are raised up from the menstrual blood that is stopped sadness and heaviness grieve their minds with loathing and waywardness by reason that the spirits are covered with the smoaky darkness of the vapors pains in teeth and gums and swounding often-times commeth the appetite is depraved or overthrown with aptness to vomit and longing whereby it happeneth that they loath meats of good juice and long for and desire illaudable meats Why many women being great with childe refuse laudable meats and desire those that are illaudable and contrary to nature The suppressed terms divided into three parts and those that are contrary to nature as coles dirt ashes stinking salt-fish sowr austere and tart fruits pepper vinegar and such like acrid things and other altogether contrary to nature and use by reason of the condition of the suppressed humor abounding and falling into the orifice of the stomach This appetite so depraved or over-thrown endureth in some untill the time of child-birth in others it cometh in the third month after their conception when hairs do grow on the child and lastly it leaveth them a little before the fourth month because that the child being now greater and stronger consumes a great part of the excremental and superfluous humor The suppressed or stopped terms in women that are great with childe are divided into three parts the more pure portion maketh the nutriment for the child the second ascendeth by little and little into the dugs and the impurest of all remaineth in the womb about the infant and maketh the secondine or after-birth wherein the infant lieth as in a soft bed Those women are great with child whose urine is more sharp fervent and somewhat bloody the bladder not only waxing warm by the compression of the womb fervent by reason of the blood contained in it but also the thinner portion of the same blood being expressed and sweating out into the bladder Hip. 1. de morb mul. A swelling and hardness of the dugs and veins that are under the dugs in the breasts and about them and milk comming out when they are pressed with a certain stirring motion in the belly are certain infallible signs of greatness with child Neither in this greatness of child-bearing the veins of the dugs only but of all the whole body appear full and swelled up especially the veins of the thighs and legs so that by their manifold folding and knitting together they do appear varicous Aph. 41. sect 5. whereof commeth sluggishness of the whole body heaviness and impotency or difficulty of going especially when the time of deliverance is at hand Lastly if you would know whether the woman have conceived or not give unto her when she goeth to sleep some mead or honied water to drink and if she have a griping in her guts or belly she hath conceived if not she hath not conceived CHAP. VI. That the womb so soon as it hath received the seed is presently contracted or drawn together AFter that the seeds of the male and female have both met and are mixed together in the capacity of the womb then the orifice thereof doth draw it self close together lest
suffocation of the womb live only by transpiration without breathing will stain or make the glass duskie Also a fine downish feather taken from under the wing of any bird or else a fine flock being held before the mouth will by the trembling or shaking motion thereof shew that there is some breath and therefore life remaining in the body But you may prove most certainly whether there be any spark of life remaining in the body by blowing some sneesing powders of pellitory of Spain and Elebore into the nostrils But though there no breath appear yet must you not judge the woman for dead for the small vital heat by which being drawn into the heart she yet liveth is contented with transpiration only and requires not much attraction which is performed by the contraction and dilatation of the breast and lungs unto the preservation of it self For so flies gnats pismires and such like How flies gnats and pismires do live all the winter without breathing because they are of a cold temperament live unmoveably inclosed in the caves of the earth no token of breathing appearing in them because there is a little heat left in them which may be conserved by the office of the arteries and heart that is to say by perspiration without the motion of the breast because the greatest use of respiration is that the inward heat may be preserved by refrigeration and ventilation Those that do not mark this fall into that error which almost cost the life of him who in our time first gave life to Anatomical administration that was almost decayed and neglected For he being called in Spain to open the body of a noble woman which was supposed dead through strangulation of the womb behold at the second impression of the incision-knife A history she began suddenly to come to her self and by the moving of her members and body which was supposed to be altogether dead and with crying to shew manifest signs that there was some life remaining in her Which thing struck such an admiration and horror into the hearts of all her friends that were present that they accounted the Physicâ—an being before of a good fame and report as infamous odious and detestable so that it wanted but little but that they would have scratched out his eyes presently wherefore he thought there was no better way for him if he would live safe then to forsake the Country But neither could he so also avoid the horrible prick and inward wound of his conscience from whose judgment no offendor can be absolved for his inconsiderate dealing but within few dayes after being consumed with sorrow he died to the great loss of the Common-wealth and the art of Physick CHAP. XLVII How to know whether the strangulation of the wombe comes of the suppression of the Flowers or the corruption of the seed The signs of suffocation of the womb comming of corrupt seed THere are two chief causes especially as most frequently happening of the strangulation of the womb but when it proceedeth from the corruption of the seed all the accidents are more grievous and violent difficulty of breathing goes before and shortly after comes deprivation thereof the whole habit of the body seemeth more cold then a stone the woman is a widow or else hath great store or abundance of seed and hath been used to the company of a man by the absence whereof she was before wont to be pained with heaviness of the head to loath her meat and to be troubled with sadness and fear but chiefly with melancholy Moreover The signs when it comes of the suppression of the flowers when she hath satisfied and every way fulfilled her lust and then presently on a sudden begins to contain her self It is very likely that she is suffocated by the suppression of the flowers which formerly had them well and sufficiently which formerly had been fed with hot moist and many meats therefore engendring much blood which sitteth much which is grieved with some weight and swelling in the region of the belly with pain in the stomach and a desire to vomit and with such other accidents as come by the suppression of the flowers The signs of one recovering of or from the suffocation of the womb Those who are freed from the fit of the suffocation of the womb either by nature or by art in a short time their colour cometh into their faces by little and little and the whole body beginneth to wax strong and the teeth that were set and closed fast together begin the jaws being loosed to open and unclose again and lastly some moisture floweth from the secret parts with a certain tickling pleasure but in some women as in those especially in whom the neck of the womb is tickled with the Midwives finger instead of that moisture comes thick and gross seed which moisture or seed when it is fallen the womb being before as it were raging is restored unto its own proper nature and place Why the suppression of the seed is not perilous or deadly to men and by little and little all symptoms vanish away Men by the suppression of their seed have not the like symptoms as women have because mans seed is not so cold and moist but far more perfect and better digested and therefore more meet to resist putrefaction and whiles it is brought or drawn together by little and little it is dissipated by great and violent exercise CHAP. XLVIII Of the cure of the Strangulation of the Womb. The pulling of the hairs of the lower parts are profitable both for this malady and for the cause of the same SEeing that the strangulation of the womb is a sudden and sharp disease it therefore requireth a present and speedy remedy for if it be neglected it many times causeth present death Therefore when this malady cometh the sick woman must presently be placed on her back having her breast and stomach loose and all her cloaths and garments slack and loose about her whereby she may take breath the more easily and she must be called on by her own name with a loud voice in her ears and pulled hard by the hairs of the temples and neck but yet especially by the hairs of the secret parts that by provoking or causing pain in the lower parts the patient may not only be brought to her self again but also that the sharp and malign vapour ascending upwards may be drawn downwards the legs and arms must be bound and tied with painfull ligatures all the body must be rubbed over with rough linnen clothes besprinkled with salt and vineger untill it be very sore and red and let this pessary following be put into the womb A Pessary â„ž succi mercurial artemis an â„¥ ii in quibus dissolve pul bened Ê’ iii. pul radic enula camp galang minor an Ê’ i. make thereof a pessary Then let the soals of her feet be anointed with oil of bayes
of the name Lib. 15 de civit Dei cap. 22. 23. POwerful by these fore-mentioned arts and deceits they have sundry times accompanied with men in copulation whereupon such as have had to do with men were called Succubi those which made use of women Incubi Verily St. Augustine seemeth not to be altogether against it but that they taking upon them the shape of man may fill the genitals as by the help of nature to the end that by this means they may draw aside the unwary by the flames of lust from virtue and chastity An historie John Rufe in his Book of the conception and generation of man writes that in his time a certain woman of monstrous lust and wondrous imprudency had to do by night with a Devil that turned himself into a man and that her belly swelled up presently after the act and when as she thought she was with childe she fell into so grievous a disease that she voided all her entrails by stool medicines nothing at all prevailing Another The like history is told of a servant of a certain Butcher who thinking too attentively on Venerous matters a Devil appeared to him in the shape of a woman with whom supposing it to be a woman when as he had to do his genitals so burned after the act that becomming enflamed he died with a great deal of torment An opinion confuted Neither doth Peter Paludanus and Martin Arelatensis think it absurd to affirm that Devils may beget children if they shall ejaculate into the womans womb seed taken from some man either dead or alive Yet this opinion is most absurd and full of falsity mans seed consisting of a seminal or sanguinous matter and much spirit if it run otherwaies then into the womb from the testicles and stay never so little a while it loseth its strength efficacy the heat and spirits vanishing away for even the too great length of a mans yard is reckoned amongst the causes of barrenness by reason that the seed is cooled by the length of the way If any in copulation after the ejaculation of the seed presently draw themselves from the womans embraces they are thought not to generate Averrois his history c nvict of falshood by reason of the air entring into the yet open womb which is thought to corrupt the seed By which it appears how false that history in Averrois is of a certain woman that said she conceived with childe by a mans seed shed in a bath and so drawn into her womb she entring the bath presently after his departure forth It is much less credible that Devils can copulate with women for they are of an absolute spirituous nature but blood and flesh are necessary for the generation of man What natural reason can allow that the incorporeal Devils can love corporeal women And how can we think that they can generate who want the instruments of generation How can they who neither eat nor drink be said to swell with seed Now where the propagation of the species is not necessary to be supplied by the succession of individuals Nature hath given no desire of Venery neither hath it imparted the use of generation but the devils once creared were made immortal by Gods appointment The illusions of the devil If the faculty of generation should be granted to devils long since all places had been full of them Wherefore if at any time women with childe by the familiarity of the devil seem to travel we must think it happens by those arts we mentioned in the former chapter to wit they use to stuff up the bodies of living women with cold clouts bones pieces of iron thorns twisted hairs pieces of wood serpents and a world of such trumpery wholly dissenting from a womans nature who afterwards the time as it were of their delivery drawing nigh through the womb of her that was falsly judged with childe before the blinded and as it were bound up eies of the by-standing women they give vent to their impostures The following history recorded in the writings of many most credible authors may give credit thereto There was at Constance a fair damosell called Margaret who served a wealthy Citizen A history she gave it out everywhere that she was with childe by lying with the devil on a certain night Wherefore the Magistrates thought it fit she should be kept in prison that it might be apparent both to them and others what the end of this exploit would be The time of deliverance approaching she felt pains like those which women endure in travel at length after many throws by the midwives help in stead of a childe she brought forth iron nails pieces of wood of glass bones stones hairs tow and the like things as much different from each others as from the nature of her that brought them forth and which were formerly thrust in by the devil to delude the too credulous mindes of men The Church acknowledgeth that devils Our sins are the cause that the devils abuse us by the permission and appointment of God punishing our wickedness may abuse a certain shape so to use copulation with mankinde But that an humane birth may thence arise it not only affirms to be false but detests as impious as which believes that there was never any man begot without the seed of man our Saviour Christ excepted Now what confusion and perturbation of creatures should possess this world as Cassianus saith if devils could conceive by copulation with men or if women should prove with child by accompanying them how many monsters would the devils have brought forth from the beginning of the world how many prodigies by casting their seed into the wombs of wilde and bruit beasts for by the opinion of Philosophers as often as faculty and will concur the effect must necessarily follow now the devils never have wanted will to disturbe mankinde and the order of this world for the devil as they say is our enemy from the beginning and as God is the author of order and beauty so the devil by pride contrary to God is the causer of confusion and wickedness Wherefore if power should acrew equall to his evil minde and nature and his infinite desire of mischief and envy who can doubt but a great confusion of all things and species and also great deformity would invade the decent and comly order of this universe monsters arising on every side But seeing that devils are incorporeal what reason can induce us to believe that they can be delighted with Venerous actions and what will can there be whereas there is no delight nor any decay of the species to be feared seeing that by Gods appointment they are immortal so to remain for ever in punishment so what need they succession of individuals by generation wherefore if they neither will nor can it is a madness to think that they do commix with man CHAP. XVII Of Magick and supernatural
the use of emollients The third is that we artificially gather after what manner this mollifying must be performed that is whether we should mingle with the emollients detersive or discussing medicines For there are many desperate scirthous tumors that is such as cannot be overcome by any emollient medicine as those which are grown so hard that they have lost their sense and thereupon are become smooth and without hairs Here you must observe that the part sometimes becomes cold in so great an excess that the native heat plainly appears to languish so that it cannot actuate any medicine That this languishing heat may be resuscitated an iron stove shall be set near to the part wherein a good thick piece of iron heated red hot shall be enclosed for so the stove will keep hot a long time The figure of an iron stove A. The case of the stove B. The iron-bat to be heated C. The lid to shut the stove CHAP. XIV Of Detersives or Mundificatives A Detersive is defined to be that which doth deterge or cleanse an ulcer and purge forth a double kinde of excrement of the which one is thicker which is commonly called sordes which is drawn forth from the bottom of the ulcer by the efficacious quality of the medicines the other is more thin and watery which the Greeks call Ichor the Latins Sanies which is taken away by the driness of the medicine and therefore Hippocrates hath well advised that every ulcer must be cleansed and dried Detersives Of Detersives some are simple some compound some stronger some weaker The simple are either bitter sweet or sowr the bitter are Gentiana Aristolochia iris enula scylla serpentaria centaurinum minus absinthium marrubium perforata abrotonon apium chelidonium ruta hyssopus scabiâ—sa artemisia eupatarium aloe fumus terrae hedera terrestris a lixivum made with the ashes of these things lupini orobus amygdala amara faba terebinthina myrrha mastiche sagapenum galbanum ammoniacum the galls of beasts stercus caprinum urina bene cocta squama aeris aes ustum aerugo scoria aeris antimonium calx chalcitis misy sory alumen The sweet are Viola rosa mâ—lilotum ficus pingues dactyli uvae passae glycyrrhiza aqua hordei aqua mulsa vinum dulce mel saccarum serum lactis manna thus The sharp are all kinde of sowr things Capreoli vitium acetum and other acid things The compound are Syrupus de absinthio de fumaria de marrubio de eupatorio de artemisia acetosus lixivium oleum de vitellis ovorum de terebinthina de tartaro unguentum mundificati vum de apio Their use apostolorum pulvis mercurialis We use such things as deterge that the superfluous matter being taken away nature may the more conveniently regenerate flesh to fill up the cavity But in the use of them consideration is first to be had of the whole body whether it be healthy plethorick or ill disposed there is consideration to be had of the part which is moister and drier indued with a more exquisite or duller sense But oft-times accidents befall ulcers besides nature as a callus a defluxion of a hot or otherwise malign humor and the like symptoms Lastly consideration is to be had whether it be a new or inveterate ulcer for from hence according to the indication remedies are appointed different in quantity and quality so that oft-times we are constrained to appoint the bitter remedy in stead of the sweet Neither truly with a painful and dry ulcer doth any other then a liquid detersive agree neither to be moist any other then that of a dry consistence as Powders CHAP. XV. Of Sarcoticks No medicine truly sarcotick THat medicine is said to be sarcotick which by its driness helps nature to regenerate flesh in an ulcer hollow and diligently cleansed from all excrements But this is properly done by blood indifferent in quality and quantity Wherefore if we must speak according to the truth of the thing there is no medicine which can properly and truly be called sarcotick For those which vulgarly go under that name are only accidentally such as those which without biting and erosion do dry up and deterge the excrements of an ulcer which hinder the endeavour of nature in generating of flesh For as by the law of nature from that nourishment which flows to the nourishing of the part there is a remain or a certain thin excrement flowing from some other place called by the greeks Ichor and by the Latins Sanies Thus by the corruption of the part there concretes another grosser excrement termed Rypos by the Greeks and Sordes by the Latins That makes the ulcer more moist this more filthy Hence it is that every wound which requires restitution of the lost substance must be cured with two sorts of medicines the one to dry up and waste the superflous humidity thereof the other to fetch off the filth and by how much the wound is the deeper by so much it requires more liquid medicines that so they may the more easily enter into every part thereof But diversity of things shall be appointed according to the various temper of the part For if the affected part shall be moist by nature such things shall be chosen as shall be less drie if on the contrary the part be drie then such things shall be used as be more drie but many sorts of medicines shall be associated with the sarcoticks according to the manifold complication of the affects possessing the ulcer Therefore nature only is to be accounted the workmaster and the efficient cause in the regenerating of flesh and laudable blood the material cause and the medicine the helping or assisting cause or rather the cause without which it cannot be as that by cleansing and moderately drying without any vehement heat takes away all hinderances of incarnation and orders and fits the blood to receive the form of flesh This kinde of medicine according to Galen ought to be drie only in the first degree lest by too much driness it might drink up the blood and matter of the future flesh which notwithstanding is to be understood of sarcoticks which are to be applied to a delicate and temperate body For if the ulcer be more moist of the body more hard then is fit we may ascend to such things as are drie even in the third degree And hence it is that such drie medicines may first be called detersives and then presently sarcoticks A sarcotick medicine is either simple or comound Simple Sarcoticks stronger or weaker Simple sarcotick medicines are Aristolochia utraque iris acorus dracunculus asarum symphyti omnia genera betonica sanicula mellifolium lingua canis verbena scabiosa pinpinella hypericon scordium plantago rubia major et minor eorumque succi Terebinthina lota non lota resina pini gummi arabicum sarcocolla mastiche colophonia manna thuris cortex ejusdem aloe olibanum
health stored with pleasing delight Baths are of two sorts some natural others artificial natural are those which of their own accord without the operation or help of Art prevail or excell in any medicinal quality For the water which of it self is devoid of all quality that is perceiveable by the taste if it chance to be straitned through the veins of metals it furnishes and impregnates it self with their qualities and effects hence it is that all such water excels in a drying faculty sometimes with cooling and astriction and other whiles with heat and a discussing quality The baths whose waters being hot or warm do boil up take their heat from the cavities of the earth and mines filled with fire which thing is of much admiration whence this fire should arise in subterrene places what may kindle it what seed or nourish it for so many years and keep is from being extinct Some Philosophers would have it kindled by the beams of the sun other by the force of lightning penetrating the bowels of the earth others by the violence of the air vehemently or violently agitated no otherwise then fire is struck by the collision of a flint and steel Yet it is better to refer the cause of so great an affect unto God the maker of the Universe whose providence piercing every way into all parts of the World enters governs the secret parts passages thereof Notwithstanding they have seemed to have come nearest the truth who refer the cause of heat in waters unto the store of brimstone contained in certain places of the earth because among all minerals it hath most fire and matter fittest for the nourishing thereof Therefore to it they attribute the flames of fire which the Sicilian mountain Aetna continually sends forth Hence also it is that the most part of such waters smell of Sulphur yet others smell of Alum others of Nitre others of Tar and some of Coperas How to know whence the Baths have their efficacy Now you may know from the admixture of what metalline bodies the waters acquire their faculties by their taste sent color mud which adheres to the channels through which the water runs as also by an artificial separation of the more terrestrial parts from the more subtil For the earthy dross which subsides or remains by the boiling of such waters will retain the faculties and substance of brimstone alum and the like minerals besides also by the effects and the cure of these or these diseases you may also gather of what nature they are Wherefore we will describe each of these kindes of waters by their effects beginning first with the Sulphureous Sulphureous waters powerfully heat dry resolve open and draw from the center unto the surface of the body they cleanse the skin troubled with scabs and tetters they cause the itching of ulcers and digest and exhaust the causes of the gout The condition of natural sulphureous waters they help pains of the cholick and hardned spleens But they are not to be drunk not only by reason of their ungrateful smell and taste but also by reason of the maliciousness of their substance offensive to the inner parts of the body but chiefly to the liver Aluminous waters taste very astrictively therefore they drye powerfully Of aluminouâ— waters they have no such manifest heat yet drunk they loose the belly I beleive by reason of their heat and nitrous quality they cleanse and stay defluxions and the courses flowing too immoderately they also are good against the tooth-ach eating ulcers and the hidden abstesses of the other parts of the mouth Salt and nitrous waters shew themselves sufficiently by their heat they heat drye binde Of salt and nitrous cleanse discusse attenuate resist putrefaction take away the blackness comming of bruises heal scabby and malign ulcers and help all oedematous tumors Bituminous waters heat digest andy by long continuance soften the hardned sinews Of bituminous they are different according to the various conditions of the bitumen that they wash and partake of the qualities thereof Brasen waters that is such as retain the qualities of brass heat drye cleanse digest cut binde Of brizen are good against eating ulcers fistulas the hardness of the eye-lids and they waste and eat away the fleshly excrescences of the nose and fundament Iron waters cool drye and binde powerfully therefore they help abscesses hardened milts Of iron the weaknesses of the stomach and ventricle the unvoluntary shedding of the urine and the too much flowing terms as also the hot distemper of the liver and kidnies Some such are in Lucan territory in Italy Leaden waters refrigerate drye and perform such other operations as lead doth Of Leaden the like may be said of those waters that flow by chalk plaster and other such minerals as which all of them take and performe the qualities of the bodies by which they pass How waters or baths help cold and moist diseases as the palsie convulsion Of hot baths the stiffness and attraction of the nerves trembling palpitations cold distilllations upon the joints the inflations of the members by a dropsie the jaundise by obstruction of a gross tough and cold humor the pains of the sides colick and kidnies barrenness in women the suppression of their courses the suffocation of the womb causless weariness those diseases that spoil the skin as tetters the leprosie of both sorts the scab and other diseases arising from a gross cold and obstruct humor for they provoke sweats Yet such must shun them as are of a colerick nature and have a hot liver To whom hurtful T e faculties of cold-baths for they would cause a Cachexia and dropsie by over-heating the liver Cold waters or baths heal the hot distemper of the body and each of the parts thereof and they are more frequently taken inwardly then applied outwardly they help the laxness of the bowels as the resolution of the retentive faculty of the stomach entrails kidnies bladder and they also add strength to them Wherefore they both temper the heat of the liver and also strengthen it they stay the Diarrhaea Dysentery Courses unvoluntary shedcing of urine the Gonorrhaea Sweats and bleedings In this kinde are chiefly commendable the waters of the Spaw in the country of Leige The Spaw which inwardly and outwardly have almost the same faculty and bring much benefit without any inconvenience as those that are commonly used in the drinks and broths of the inhabitants In imitation of natural baths there may in want of them be made artificial ones Of artificial baths by the infusing and mixing the powders of the formerly described minerals as Brimstone Alum Nitre Bitumen also you may many times quench in common or rain-water iron brass silver and goold heated red hot and so give them to be drunk by the patient for such waters do oft-times retain the qualities and faculties of the metals quenched in them as you
of Waters BEfore I describe the manner how to distill waters The varieties of distilled waters I think it not amiss briefly to reckon up how many sorts of distilled waters there be and what the faculties of them are Therefore of distilled waters some are medicinal as the waters of Roses Plantain Sorrel Sage and the like others are alimentary as those waters that we call restauratives other some are composed of both such as are these restaurative waters which are also mixed with medicinal things others are purging as the distilled water of green and fresh Rubarb othersome serve for smoothing the skin and others for smell of which sort are those that are distilled of aromatick things To distill Rose-water it will be good to maceâ—ate the Roses before you distill them for the space of two or three daies in some formerly distilled Rose-water or their pressed-out juice Rose water luting the vessel close them put then into an Alembick closely luted to his head and his Receiver and so put into a Balneum Mariae as we have formerly described The distilled Alimentary liquors are nothing else than those that we vulgarly call Restauratives Restauratives this is the manner and art of preparing them Take of Veal Mutton Kid Capon Pullet â—ock Parâ—ridg Phesant as much as shall seem fit for your purpose cut it small and lest it should requires heat or empyreuma from the fire mix therewith a handful of French Barly and of red Rose-leaves dâ—ie and fresh but first steeped in the juice of pomgranats or citrons and Rosewater with a little Cinnamon The delineation of a Balneum Mariae which may also serve to distill with ashes A. Shews the Fornace with the hole to take forth the ashes B. Shews another Fornace as it were set in the other now it is of Brass and runs through the midst of the kettle made also of brass that so the contained water or ashes may be the more easily heated C. The kettle wherein the water ashes or sand are contained D. The Alembick set in the water ashes or sand with the mouths of the receivers E. The bottom of the second brass Fornace whose top is marked with B. which contains the fire There may be made other restauratives in shorter time with less labor and cost Anosher way of making restaurative Liquors To this purpose the flesh muâ—t be beaten and cut thin and so thrust through with a double thred so that the pieces thereof may touch each other then put them in to a glass and let the thred hang out so stop up the glass close with a linnen cloth Cotton or Tow and lute it up with paste made of meal and the whiâ—es of eggs then set it up to the neck in a kettle of water but so that it touch not the bottom but let it be kept upright by the formerly described means then make a gentle fire there-under un il the contained flesh by long boiling shall be dissolved into juice and that will commonly be in some four hours space This being done let the fire be taken from under the kettle but take not forth the glass befor the water be cold lest the fire being hot should be broken by the sudden â—ppulse of the cold air Wherefore when as it is cold let it be opened and the thred with the pieces of flesh be drawn forth so that only the juice may be left remaining then strain it through a bag and aromatize it with Sugar and Cinnamom adding a little juice of Citron Verjuice or Vineger as it shall best like the Patients palate After this manner you may quickly easily and without great cost have and prepare all sorts of restauratives as well medicated as simple But the force and faculty of purging medicines is extracted after a clean contrary manner then the oyls and waters which are drawn of Aromatitk things as Sage Rosemary Time Anniseeds Fennel Cloves Cinnamon Nutmegs and the like For the strength of â—hese as that which is subtil and aiery flies upwards in distillation but the strength of puâ—ging things aâ— Tuâ—bâ—th Agarick Rubâ—rb and the like subsides in the bottom For the purgative â—â—câ—l y of these purgers inseparably ache es to the b dies and substances Now for sweet waters and such as serve to smooth the skin of the face they may be distilled in Balneo Mariae like as Rose water CHAP. VIII How to distill Aqua Vitae or the spirits of Wine TAke of good white or Claret-wine or Sack which is not sowr nor musty nor otherwise corrupt or of the Lees that quantity which may serve to fil the vessel wherein you make the distillation to a third part then put on your head furnished with the nose or pipe Spirit of wine seven times rectified and so make your distillation in Balneo Mariae The oftner it is distilled or as they term it rectified the more noble and effectual it becomes Therefore some distil it seven times over At the first distillation it may suffice to draw a fourth or third part of the whole to wit of twenty four pintes of Wine or Lees draw six or eight pintes of distilled liquor At the second time the half part that is three or four pintes At the third distillation the half part again that is two pintes so that the oftner you distil it over the less liquor you have but it will be a great deal the more efficacious I do well like that the first distillation be made in Ashes the second in Balneo Mariae To conclude that aqua vitae is to be approved of neither is it any oftner to be distilled which put into a spoon or saucer and there set on fire burns wholly away and leaves no liquor or moisture in the bottom of the vessel if you drop a drop of oyl into this same water it continually falls to the bottom or if you drop a drop into tht palm of your hand it will quickly vanish away which are two other notes of the probation of this liquor The faculties of the spirit of wine The faculties and effects of aqua vitae are innumerable it is good against the epilepsie and all cold diseases it asswages the pain of the teeth it is good for punctures and wounds of the Nerves faintings swoonings gangreens and mortifications of the flesh as also put to other medicines for a vehicle The distilling of Wine and vineger is different There is this difference between the distilling of Wine and Vineger wine being of an aiery and vaporous substance that which is the best and most effectual in it to wit the aiery and fiery liquor comes from it presently at the first distillation Therefore the residue that remains in the bottom of the vessel it is of a cold drye and acrid nature on the contrary the water that comes first from Vineger being distilled is insipid and flegmatick For Vineger is made by the corruption of wine and the segregation of
was contained in that little close chamber was partly consumed by the fire of coals no otherwise then the air that is contained in a cupping-glass is consumed in a moment by the flame so soon as it is kindled Furthermore it was neither cold nor temperate but as as it were inflamed with the burning fire of coals Thirdly it was more gross in consistence then it should be by reason of the admixtion of the grosser vapor of the coals for the nature of the air is so that it may be soon altered and will very quickly receive the forms and impressions of those substances that are about it Lastly it was noisome and hurtful in substance and altogether offensive to the aiery substance of our bodies For Charcoals are made of green wood burnt in pits under ground and then extinguisht with their own fume or smoak as all Colliers can tell These were the opinions of most learned men although they were not altogether agreeable one unto another yet both of them depended on their proper reasons For this at least is manifest that those passages which are common to the brest and brain were then stopped with the grossness of the vapors of the coals whereby it appeareth that both these parts were in fault for as much as the consent and connexion of them with the other parts of the body is so great that they cannot long abide sound and perfect without their mutual help by reason of the loving and friendly sympathy and affinity that is between all the parts of the body one with another Wherefore the ventricles of the brain the passages of the Lungs and the sleepy Arteries being stopped the vital spirit was prohibited from entring into the brain and consequently the animal spirit retained and kept in so that it could not come or disperse it self thorough the whole body whence happeneth the defect of two of the faculties necessary for life It many times happeneth and is a question too frequently handled concerning womens maiden-heads whereof the judgment is very difficult Of the signs of virginity Yet some antient women and Midwives will brag that they assuredly know it by certain and infallible signs For say they in such as are virgins there is a certain membrane of parchment like skin in the neck of the womb which will hinder the thrusting in of the finger if it be put in any thing deep which membrane is broken when first they have carnal copulation as may afterwards be perceived by the free entrace of the finger Besides such as are defloured have the neck of their womb more large and wide as on the contrary it is more contract strait and narrow in virgins But how deceitful and untrue these signs and tokens are shall appear by that which followeth for this membrane is a thing preternatural and which is scarce found to be in one of a thousand from the first conformation Now the neck of the womb will be more open or strait according to the bigness and age of the party For all the parts of the body have a certain mutual proportion and commensuration in a well-made body Joubertus hath written that at Lectaure in Gascony Lib. de error popul a woman was delivered of a childe in the ninth year of her age and that she is yet alive and called Joan de Parie being wife to Videau Bechâ— the receiver of the amercements of the King of Navare which is a most evident argument that there are some women more able to accompany with a man at nine years old then many other at fifteen by reason of the ample capacity of their womb and the neck thereof besides also this passage is enlarged in many by some accident as by thrusting their own fingers more strong thereinto by reason of some itching or by the putting up of a Nodule or Pessary of the bigness of a mans yard for to bring down the courses Aph. 39. sect 5. Neither to have milk in their brests is any certain sign of lost virginity For Hippocrates thus writes But if a woman which is neither with childe nor hath had one have milk in her brests then her courses have failed her Moreover Aristotle reports that there be men who have such plenty of milk in their breasts that it may be sucked or milked out Cardan writes that he saw at Venice one Antony Bussey some 30. years old Lib. 4. de hist animal c. 20. Lib 12 de subtilitate who had milk in his brest in such plenty as sufficient to suckle a childe so that it did not only drop but spring out with violence like to a womans milk Wherefore let Magistrates beware lest thus admonished they too rashly assent to the reports of women Let Physicians and Chirurgions have a care lest they do too impudently bring Magistrates into an error which will not redound so much to the judges disgrace as to theirs But if any desire to know whether one be poysoned let him search for the symptoms and signs in the foregoing and particular treatise of poysons But that this doctrine of making reports may be the easier I think it fit to give presidents in imitation whereof the young Chirurgion may frame others The first president shall be of death to ensue a second of a doubtful judgement of life and death the third of a impotency of member the fourth of the hurting of many members I A. P. Chirurgion of Paris A certificatâ— of death this twentyeth day of May by the command of the Counsel entred into the house of one John Brossey whom I found lying in bed wounded on his head with a wound in his left temple piercing the bone with a fracture and effracture or depression of the broken bone scales and meninges into the substance of the brain by means whereof his pulse was weak he was troubled with raving convulsion cold sweat and his appetite was dejected Whereby may be gathered that certain and speedy death is at hand In witness whereof I have signed this Report with my own hand By the Coroners command I have visited Peter Lucey whom I found sick in bed Another in a doubtful case being wounded with a Hilbert on his right thigh Now the wound is of the bredth of three fingers and so deep that it pierces quite through his thigh with the cutting also of the vein and artery whence ensued much effusion of blood which hath exceedingly weakned him and caused him to swound often now all his thigh is swoln livid and gives occasion to fear worse symptoms which is the cause that the health and safety of the party is to be doubted of By the Justices command I entred into the house of James Bertey to visit his own brother In the loss of a member I found him wounded in his right arm with a wound of some four fingers bigness with the cutting of the tendons bending the leg and of the veins arteries and Nerves Wherefore I
branches By this difference of the spermatick vessels you may easily understand why women cast forth less seed than men For their Testicles they differ little from mens but in quantity For they are lesser In what their testicles differ from mens and in figure more hollow and flat by reason of their defective heat which could not elevate or lift them up to their just magnitude Their composure is more simple for they want the Scrotum or cod the fleshy coat and also according to the opinion of some the Erythroides but in place thereof they have another from the Peritonaeum which covers the proper coat that is the Epididymis or Dartos Silvius writes that womens Testicles want the Erythroides yet it is certain that besides their peculiar coat Dartos they have another from the Peritonaeum which is the Erythroides or as Fallopius calls it the Elythroides that is as much as the vaginalis or sheath But I think Lib. 14. de usu partium that this hath sprung from the mis-understanding that place in Galen where he writes that womens testicles want the Epididymis For we must not understand that to be spoken of the coat Site but of the varicous parastats as I formerly said They differ nothing in number but in site for in men they hang without the belly at the share-bone above the Peritonaeum women have them lying hid in their belly neer the bottom at the sides of the womb but yet so as they touch not the body of the womb But these testicles are tied to the womb both by a coat from the Peritonaeum Connexi-on as also by the leading vessels descending to the horns of the womb but to the rest of the body by the vessels and the nerves arising from the Holy-bone and Costal nerves They are of a colder Temper than mans Temper The ejaculatory or leading vessels in women differ thus from mens Their ejaculatory Vessels they are large at the beginning and of a veiny consistence or substance so that you can scarce discern them from the coat Peritonaeum then presently they become nervous and wax so slender that they may seem broken or torn though it be not so but when they come nearer to the horns of the womb they are again dilated in their own conditions they agree with mens Why they have more intricate windings Their site but that they are altogether more slender and short They have a round figure but more intricate windings than mens I believe that these windings might supply the defect of the varicous Parastats They are seated between the testicles and womb for they proceed out of the head of the testicle then presently armed with a coat from the Peritonaeum they are implanted into the womb by its horns CHAP. XXIII Of the Womb. THe Womb is a part proper only to women given by nature instead of the Scrotum as the neck thereof and the annexed parts instead of the yard Wherein the privy parts in women differ from those in men so that if any more exactly consider the parts of generation in women and men he shall find that they differ not much in number but only in situation and use For that which man hath apparent without that women have hid within both by the singular providence of nature as also by the defect of heat in women which could not drive and thrust forth those parts as in men The womb is of a nervous and membranous substance that it may be more easily dilated and contracted as need shall require The magnitude thereof is divers according to the diversity of age the use of venery The substance and magnitude of the Womb. the flowing of their courses and the time of conception The womb is but small in one of unripe age having not used venery nor which is menstrous therefore the quantity cannot be rightly defined The figure of the womb is absolutely like that of the bladder Figure The Horns of the womb if you consider it without the productions which Herophilus called horns by reason of the similitude they have with the horns of Oxen at their first coming forth It consists of simple and compound parts The simple are the veins arteries nerves and coats The veins and arteries are four in number Composure two from the preparing spermatick vessels the two other ascend thither from the Hypogastrick after this manner The Veins and Arteries First these vessels before they ascend on each side to the womb divide themselves into two branches from which othersome go to the lower part of the womb othersom to the neck thereof by which the menstruous blood if it abound from the conception may be purged Nerves come on both sides to the womb both from the sixth conjugation Nerves descending by the length of the back-bone as also from the holy bone which presently united and joyned together ascend and are distributed through the womb like the veins and arteries The utmost or common coat of the womb proceeds from the Peritonaeum The Coats on that part it touches the Holy-bone but the proper it hath from the first conformation which is composed of the three sorts of fibers of the right on the inside of the attraction of both seeds the transverse without to expel if occasion be the oblique in the midst for the due retention thereof The womb admits no division unless into the right and left side by an obscure line or seam such as we see in the scrotum but scarce so manifest No Cells in the Womb. neither must we after the manner of the ancients imagine any other cels in the womb For by the law of nature a woman at one birth can have no more than two An argument hereof is they have no more than two dugs If any chance to bring forth more it is besides nature and somewhat monstrous because nature hath made no provision of nourishment for them The site Nature hath placed the Womb at the bottom of the belly because that place seems most fit to receive the seed to carry and bring forth the young It is placed between the bladder and right gut and is bound to these parts much more straitly by the neck than by the body thereof but also besides it is tied with two most strong ligaments on the sides and upper parts of the sharebone on which it seems to hang but by its common coat from the Peritonaeum chiefly thick in that place it is tied to the hollow bone and the bones of the hanch and loins By reason of this strait connexion a woman with child feeling the painful drawings back and as it were The temper and action convulsions of those ligaments knows her self with child It is of a cold and moist temper rather by accident than of it self The action thereof is to contain both the seeds and to cherish preserve and nourish it so contained until the
time appointed by nature and also besides to receive and evacuate the menstruous blood The compound parts of the womb are the proper body and neck thereof That body is extended in women big with child even to the navel in some higher in some lower The Cotyledones In the inner side the Cotyledones come into our consideration which are nothing else than the orifices and mouths of the veins ending in that place They scarce appear in women unless presently after child-bearing or their menstrual purgation but they are apparent in Sheep Goats and Kine at all times like wheat-corns unless when they are with young for then they are of the bigness of hasel nuts but then also they swell up in women and are like a rude piece of flesh of a finger and a half thick which begirt all the natural parts of the infant shut up in the womb out of which respect this shapeless flesh according to the opinion of some is reckoned amongst the number of coats investing the infant and called Chorion because As in beasts the Chorion is interwoven with veins Columbus justly reproved and arteries whence the umbilical Vessels proceed so in women this fleshy lump is woven with veins and arteries whence such vessels have their original Which thing how true and agreeable to reason it is let other men judge There is one thing whereof I would admonish thee that as the growth of the Cotyledones in beasts are not called by the name of Chorion but are only said to be the dependents thereof so in women such swollen Cotyledones merit not the name of Chorion but rather of the dependences thereof The orifice of the Womb. This body ends in a certain straitness which is met withall in following it towards the privities in women which have born no children or have remained barren some certain time for in such as are lately delivered The proper orifice of the Womb is not always exactly shut in Women with child you can see nothing but a cavity and no straitness at all This straitness we call the proper orifice of the womb which is most exactly shut after conception especially until the membrane or coats encompassing the child be finished and strong enough to contain the seed that it flow not forth nor be corrupted by entrance of the air for it is opened to send forth the seed and in some the courses and serous humours which are heaped up in the womb in the time of their being with child The neck of the Womb. From this orifice the neck of the womb taking its original is extended even to the privities It is of a musculous substance composed of soft flesh because it might be extended and contracted wrinckled and stretched forth and unfolded and wrested and shaken at the coming forth of the child and after be restored to its former soundness and integrity In process of age it grows harder both by use of venery and also by reason of age by which the whole body in all parts thereof becomes dry and hard But in growing and in young women it is more tractable and flexible for the necessity of nature It s Magnitude The magnitude is sufficiently large in all dimensions though divers by reason of the infinite variety of bodies Composition The figure is long round and hollow The composition is the same with the womb but it receives not so many vessels as the womb for it hath none but those which are sent from the Hypogastrick veins by the branches ascending to the womb This neck on the inside is wrinckled with many crests like the upper part of a dogs mouth so in copulation to cause greater pleasure by that inequality and also to shorten the act Number and Site It is only one and that situate between the neck of the bladder and the right gut to which it closely sticketh as to the womb by the proper orifice thereof and to the privities by its own orifice but by the vessels to all the parts from whence they are sent Temper It is of a cold and dry temper and the way to admit the seed into the womb to exclude the infant out of the womb as also the menstrual evacuation But it is worth observation that in all this passage there is no such membrane found No Hymen as that they called Hymen which they feigned to be broken at the first coition Yet notwithstanding Columbus Fallopius Wierus and many other learned men of our time think otherwise and say that in Virgins a little above the passage of the Urine may be found and seen such a nervous membrane placed overthwart as it were in the middle way of this neck and perforated for the passages of the courses But you may find this false by experience it is likely the Ancients fel into this errour through this occasion Because that in some a good quantity of blood breaks forth of these places at the first copulation From whence the blood proceeds that breaks forth in some virgins at the first coition But it is more probable that this happens by the violent attrition of certain vessels lying in the inward superficies of the neck of the womb not being able to endure without breaking so great extention as that nervous neck undergoes at the first coition For a maid which is manageable and hath her genital parts proportionable in quantity and bigness to a man's shall find no such effusion of blood as we shall shew more at large in our Book of Generation This neck ends at the privities where its proper orifice is which privy parts we must treat of as being the productions and appendices of this neck This Pudendum or privity is of a middle substance between the flesh and a nerve the magnitude is sufficiently large the figure round hollow long It is composed of veins arteries nerves descending to the neck of the womb and a double coat proceeding from the true skin and fleshy pannicle both these coats are firmly united by the flesh coming between them whereupon it is said that this part consists of a musculous coat It is one in number situate above the Peritonaeum It hath connexion with the fundament the neck of the womb and bladder by both their peculiar orifices The thirteenth Figure shewing the parts of women different from those in men A.B.C.D. The Peritonaeum reflected or turned backward above and below E.F. The gibbous part of the liver E the cave or hollow part F. G. the trunk of the gate-vein H. the hollow vein I. the great artery K. the roots of the Coeliacal artery which accompanieth the gate-vein L.M. the fatty vein going to the coat of the Kidneys N.O. the fore-part of both the kidneys T.V. the emulgent veins and arteries aa the right Ureter at the lowest a cut from a part which neer to b sticketh yet to the bladder because the bottom of the bladder is drawn to the