Galeno-pale OR A CHYMICAL TRIAL OF THE GALENISTS That their Dross in PHYSICK may be discovered With the grand Abuses and Disrepute they have brought upon the whole Art of PHYSICK and CHIRURGERY in their Method touching Phlebotomy and Purgation Their vain Curiosity in Anatomy reprehended and their false Rule of Contraries in the Cure of Diseases manifested Also a full Answer to the Objections charged by the GALENISTS against the CHYMISTS and Chymical Medicines vindicated To which is added an Appendix De Litho-Colo or An History of Three large STONES excluded the Colon by Chymical Remedies By GEO. THOMSON Medicinae Doctor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Homer Odys 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 London Printed by R. Wood for Edward Thomas at the Adam and Eve in Little Brittain 1665. To the most Reverend Father in God GILBERT By Divine Providence Archbishop of Canterbury Primate and Metropolitan of all England and one of His Sacred Majesties most Honourable Privy Council May it please Your Grace AMong the many Moecena's of Hermetick Philosophy I conceive none more fitting to protect the Medicinal Verities here set down then Your Grace who hath been pleased to express very much kindeness and love for this Noble Art to the no small encouragement of the Professours thereof And all things duly pondered where can Chymical Physick better shelter it self against Maligners and Opposers of it then under the wings of Divinity on which it ought to attend as an Hand-maid yea there should be a Synergie and conspiration of all Arts and Sciences to advance Theology which makes the better Part of us happy How can the Soul act aright when there is an Atonie Ametrie and Dyscrasie in the Body Sith as the Chyle is such is the Chyme or rubified juyce as is the Chyme so is the Sanguis or purest part of the Blood and as this is so are the Vital Spirits the immediate instrument of the Soul either luminous and clear or dark and muddy and so capable to act well or ill How sollicitous then should we be to search out those great Arcana's in Nature which the good Creator hath ordained for the preservation and redintegration of these Bodies which upon slight occasions from within and without are obnoxious to be valetudinary and put out of frame that the Diviner part may operate the more freely vigorously and orderly Certainly there is no better way to attain this then by Spagyrick Philosophy which separates Tribulos Spinas what is Hurtful and Superfluous in every Concrete from the profitable pure and sincere bringing it to such an Entelechie and Excellency that it is able to display that radiant Virtue which God hath implanted in it for the good both of Body and Soul And were this course closely followed and generally countenanced those rebellious and enormous Vices of the Minde too grassant at this day among us which in great part arise from the Feral Anomalous unheard of Prodigious and untractable Diseases of the Body might in some measure be reformed and certainly if there be not some timely prevention mox daturi progeniem vitiosiorem most of our Posterity is like to be born diseased Seeing therefore no Medicine is able to mortifie these Seminal Principles of Diseases or wash off those Radical Tinctures which have been traduced to us from our Parents but the best sort of Chymical Preparations exalted to the highest degree of perfection some of which have been of late years brought to light by the indefatigable industry of some Ingenious men whom the Galenists have endeavoured to eclipse and despitefully to suppress by Calumnies and Reproaches we humbly beg Your Graces favour to stand up for the defence of our Art so far as truth sound reason and Optical Experiments shall permit and that Your Grace would be pleased to joyn with some other Heroes of the Nation either to stop the mouthes of these Anti-Chymists or to constrain them to make good by matter of Fact and fair equal Trials here proposed what they alledge against us that there may be a full discovery made who are the Physicians quos creavit Altissimus and who are they that go about ludere cum corio humano And this present and future Age shall be bound to celebrate Your Praises My Lord Your Graces most humble and obedient Servant Geo. Thomson To the Reader Courteous Reader BE pleased to bestow what time you can well spare in perusual of this short Treatise which how contemptible soever it may seem to thee may perhaps be a means to save thee from the jawes of untimely death and prolong thy dayes The main Scope of the Author is to do thee his Countrey and the whole World service in reference to that which according to the innate law of Self-preservation every Creature desires that is Life which if not accompanied with Health cannot but be very tedious That therefore thou mayest enjoy a sound Body and Soul next Temperance in all things embrace an Honest and Able Physician not one whom thou fancies but who is really so according to these infallible signs here described The sum of this Discourse is nothing but a Touchstone depending upon matter of Fact to try whether a Physician be as he professes himself and ought to be one that having a Commission from the Angel Raphael is endued with the gift of Healing not palliating dawbing and plaistering upon an unstable foundation Here thou mayest learn to keep thy Blood wherein is the Life and not prodigally to spend it upon every trifling occasion which may do thee more service sometimes then the best Doctor in England and help those Diseases he cannot Here thou mayest be instructed to beware of uncorrected Purgatives which do but colliquate and putrefie the wholesome Chyme or juyce of the Body enervating it without any considerable ease unless accidental and to value that Physick which carries off the occasional Morbifick matter to thy benefit without any notable Debility succeding In this Enchiridium thou wilt finde the difference between a sincere and corrupt Physician one that dares act subdio in the face of the Sun that men may behold him whether he doth right or wrong and so justifie him or condemn him and between him that studies to be in the dark and cast a mist before the Spectators eyes that he may play legerdemaine with them Lastly thou wilt see whose Actions are able to bear the test of the Fire best by which every Work is to be tryed the Galenical or Helmontian whose facts like Gold or Silver leave the least Scoria or Dross behinde and whose like Lead or other base mettals leave most We hope no man that desires the preservation of himself King and Countrey but will allow these Operative Propositions to be just equal profitable and laudable to put an end to that which garrulity and multiloquacity will never determine Wherefore Candid Reader all that we shall request of thee is to stand still and see that we may have right done us forbearing
to assert That whosoever took Chymical Medicines although he were cured for the present yet in the revolution of a year it would cost him his life So that in their fury they have cast into the Kennel out of a very honest and able Apothecary's Shop a most safe innocent and effectual Chymical Medicine and afterward have endeavoured the ruine of the poor man A quondam noted Galenist in greatest part reclaimed from their fopperies and almost got out of that durty practice protested that he knew a most eminent Doctor of the Colledge that passes for one of the most learned amongst them that did not dare to venture to give five or six grains of Antimonium Diaphoreticum which we can give with confidence security and good effect often to thirty or forty grains They formerly cried down Oyl of Vitriol by no means fitting to be taken into the body because it did corrode a Glove supposing it would act the same in the Stomack As for Mercurius dulcis and other Preparations of Mercury they concluded them all to be little better then poyson which now they frequently make use of not scrupling to give it to Children but we fear to their destruction sometimes as they order the matter by their method and a careless preparation of it which they alwayes referre to another Yet it is not long since that a Galenist of great fame did upon some Discourse of Mercury confidently affirm that he knew he could do as much with crude Mercury as any with it never so well prepared which he dares not we are sure maintain to be true by any visible instance but spake it meerly out of a Vatinian hatred to Chymical Preparations which nothwithstanding he and his Fraternity are forced to make use of closely labouring to pump and fish them out of others Now at length finding that they have strived in vain against truth by their obloquies and false suggestions still kicking against a prick and finding they cannot obscure the bright beames of Pyrotechnical Philosophy they take now another supplanting course and of a sudden will all become Chymists but Galeno-Chymists as monstrous and Anomalous as a Centaure or Syren and hereby they think to blear the eyes of the world to make them believe that their Method sweetens all our sharp Vitriolate Medicines allayes all our Corrosives fixes all our Mercurial Preparations and in short makes all safe and sound which otherwise would be destructive in our fingers Thus they still juggle with and delude the world still protracting and spinning out the time very unwilling to part with ease gain and honour notwithstanding thousands suffer by their indirect practice e're they will come in quietly and sincerely submit to the truth for the good of the Nation although they know at last they must be forced to yield time bringing that to light which is their principal study to involve in obscurity For we make no question but that posterity will admire their obstinacy herein and abhorre them for it Well come what will come for ought we can see they are still resolved to maintain their State and Grandure as long as they can for their present life and then let the world hereafter censure them what care they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek Poet hath it Yet it hapned that one of their greatest Donns being questioned by a Perspicacious Gentleman what the reason was that he ordered something very incongruous in reference to his Patient and being charged home by him whom he knew would not be baffled made this express answer Hang it quoth he we are but a Company of Cheats This was reported to us by a person of Quality that dares testifie the truth of it to the face of him that spake it CHAP. V. In what space of time a good Physician may resolve his Patient of the Event of his Disease HE is unworthy the name of a Physician that in Acute Diseases doth not on the fifth or sixth day after his admission either make Nature master of the Disease or else on the sixth or seventh give a positive prediction what will be the conclusion thereof and that with so much certainty that he should seldom be mistaken but as a man For it is a grand ignominy and an intollerable disgrace to see a Mechanick to engage himself to bring to pass what he undertakes and a learned Physician either not to dare to promise you any thing of a Cure or wholly to frustrate your expectation It is no wonder if some men taking advantage of your weakness in this particular have cast it in our teeth that our Art is altogether conjectural and that we do all things therein by hab nab happy be lucky hitting the mark with as much uncertainty as those people called Andabatae that fought with one another winking we wish these Scoffs and Taunts might lie at the doors of those that have justly deserved them In Chronick Infirmities a longer time must needs be required to give satisfaction to the Patient concerning his Recovery the matter of the Disease being many times fixt in the Body and as it were settled on the lees the ferment of the parts being either vitiated or in great part abolished and the Archeus or vital Spirit being much diminished the immediate instrument of the Soul by which it acts for our health or sickness in which every Disease nestles and is primarily seated and characterized without the power of which none can be cured of which the Galenists have been too ignorant until such time most Acute Helmont like a bright star of truth made it appear As the matter stands thus a Physician may very well assume a fortnight or three weeks at most finally to conclude what he is able to do for his Patient whether he be capable as he conceives to be restored to health if not then to resign him up to another that may be able to do more for this wier-drawing course in Physick to keep a Patient long in suspence without any relief peradventure for some private ends is to be abominated 'T is a strong Argument of great Weakness or Deceit in a Physician when in some reasonable time he cannot or will not give an account what is like to be the Issue of his labours such an one is to be avoided as the Plague that is blinde and cannot discover the Mark he is to shoot at or aims at the Purse of his Patient rather then the Recovery of his Health Be advised whosoever thou art not to suffer him that waits for a Crisis and cannot give thee in a short time a sufficient Testimony of an effectual Cure to proceed any further for be assured that a good Physician never looks after a Crisis standing still as a meer spectatour while Nature is oftentimes worsted upon unequal terms by its enemy but with all expedition unroosteth that unwelcome Guest that hath taken up its lodging in the vital Spirits wherein the longer it lurks the more difficult it
till he came to Pyrotechnie wherein he laboured fifty years compleat leaving those lying Sophisms that he had imbibed contemplating things as they were in themselves Hereby he learnt the genuine beginnings of all Concretes making separation of them into their fundamental parts dissolving and coagulating fixing and volatilizing Bodies looking narrowly into the defects alteration life and death of things extracting dividing conjoyning several bodies bringing what was crude to maturation and promoting natural Causes by removing those impediments that they could not arrive at their just ends Hence he dived into the Seminal virtues and properties of things and was able to give an account of their true efficient and natural Causes bringing to light the Doctrine of Fermentation the Original and activity of Spirits with the rare Effects of Tinctures and this by Mechanical demonstration of the Fire This is he that hath plainly detected the most absurd perilous Doctrine of the Galenists proving their palpable ignorance of the Causes of Diseases and their proper Cures setting down infallible Arguments to evince how destructive their Bleeding and Purgations are to mankinde challenging them to make good what he had delivered by visible instances and examples of fact which they would never come to nor ever dared to answer him by way of confutation but by denying all that he had proposed giving him scurrilous and opprobrious language as it is their common custom when they have nothing to say for themselves calling him Fanatick Innovator Dreamer carping at any lapse or Peccadillo in his Writings with aggravations to the height hating and abhorring to the death all those that stood up in his behalf naming them Hereticks in Physick and all this gratis dictum without the least tittle of truth Thus hath this worthy man been sleighted villified and reproached for not still conniving at those capital Errours in Physick which they have greedily swallowed down without any scruple to the ruine of millions However let these pittiful Physicians rail at and calumniate this Heroe 't is our duty who have received so much benefit from him to acknowledge him our Master and to maintain his true Positions to the utmost of our power against all gain-sayers CHAP. III. Of the Abuses and disrepute the Galenists have brought upon Physick and the Reformation they have of late pretended YE have of late made a great stir though to little purpose and credit to procure a Power from the Supreme Authority of the Nation that ye might make a Reformation in this Noble Profession of Physick there being as ye say no visible means left but your selves to compass it But what was your drift in this Truly we believe the first thing next the enslaving the poor Apothecaries would have been a total Suppression of those that had opposed your fictitious Principles false Axioms and indirect practices in Physick that then ye might have domineered as ye pleased But stay a while we hope the Sage Magistrate will take it into consideration that ye are the chiefest persons that need reformation and that your Purgations need purgation they being as we can prove by matter of fact not fitting so uncorrected to be taken into the Body We hope moreover they will take notice that your Bloody course ought to be voted cruel and unchristian the Life or Soul being seated in the Blood God having created the Medicines of the Earth not Bleeding cutting holes in the Skin Blisterings and such like butchering Tortures to cure miserable man 'T is true there are sad exorbitancies irregularities and abuses in Physick but who we pray have been the principal occasions of them but your selves who have conjured up such Swarms of Quacks in every place who like Locusts eat the bread out of honest Physicians mouths by your Profane Prescripts and now you would fain lay them down but ye cannot for they are become too potent for you some of them having so well improv'd their time that they are like for ought we can see to cast you out of the saddle and to ride with Foot-cloaths themselves dealing but deservedly with you If ye had better practised the Pythagorical Doctrine these things had never been or had ye delivered your selves as ye finde fault Paracelsus Helmont and other sons of Art did more obscurely and Aenigmatically who foresaw these mischiefs and endeavoured to prevent them Physick had flourished to this day in its splendor and beauty But as ye have handled the matter every Good-wife any silly fellow may read your Dispensatory use some of those Medicines without your method and sometimes no less success yea and may laugh at some of those ridiculous Compositions discovered to them by your trusty servant Culpepper But all this is no hinderance but a furtherance to encrease your Practice as we have heard some of you say sith these illiterate Ideots do but make work for you Is it so but we much doubt it surely if ye aimed at this at first to multiply these men to augment Mortalities for your advantage it was a very wicked Design not to be endured by a Nation but if this be fallen out through your incogitance accidentally that these men have brought in the more gain to you to the detriment and ruine of the people and simply for this reason ye desire to be Arnautists or self-deniers why do ye pretending to the Higher Powers a Publick Good not likewise instruct them in some way how the indigent Commonalty may be cured better and cheaper giving us infallible testimonies of some rare Cures above others and your zealous charity for your Neighbours by abating your excessive Fees and by curing him gratis that hath faln into Thieves like the good Samaritan And we think it were but just that they who have gotten such Riches in Physick as some of you undoubtedly by the destruction of those that might have been preserved should Zaccheus-like impart a portion to those that are distressed And certainly there is now great need of this retribution and as the state of things stands another course must be taken without this costly Physick to cure the Poor of the Nation which if our prudent Senators shall please to listen to we shall in all humility propose to their wise considerations beseeching them to consider what sad consequences must of necessity have come upon a Concession to the presumptuous Desires of these men How thousands of poor People must have neglected the means and so have run the hazard of perishing having not wherewithal to seek to these chargeable Doctors for recovery the Apothecary not daring to sell them a little London Treacle Mithridate c. unless authorized by them as if their Prescripts were able to infuse new Virtues into Medicines Neither should any have stretched forth his hand to have pulled his languishing Brother out of the ditch unless licensed by them What we pray should our City have done if some Epidemical contageous Disease as the Plague had reigned amongst us sith they according to
acknowledge to have received most part of our Instructions CHAP. XII Of the two grand Supporters of the Galenical Physick Phlebotomy and Purgation DId the World rightly understand what destruction of mankinde hath been made by this Sanguinary way of curing Diseases in all Ages since this prodigal emission of Blood came first in use suggested without all doubt by that sworn Enemy to mankinde the Devil it would being enraged utterly abominate any such Physician or such a pretended remedy How happy may those Nations be reputed in this particular witness their Longaevity and Sanity above ours whom Nature hath so well instructed as not to part with this precious treasure of Life unless against their wills through some violent separation of the connexed parts And certainly were we but governed by Nature which intends all things for its own preservation and never erres therein unless interrupted or put by its scope through some transverse contingent we would by no means admit of this Bloody course for a Cure being sufficiently convinced that this Solar Balsom the pure Blood called by the Latines to distinguish it from Cruor Sanguis the very Stamen and Subtegmen the subject and material foundation of Life is never exterminated or cast out of the Body by Nature unless extimulated through some exasperating and hostile matter that is gotten into it And indeed to let out promiscuously Sanguis and Cruor good and bad together which is unavoidable for qua data porta ruunt is equally absurd as to cut off part of the fleshie substance of the Finger that the Splinter or Thorn therein fastened may be removed or to suffer generous Wine to run out that some distasteful and fracedinous odour contracted from the Vessel may be taken off or that the Ebullition or Effervescence thereof proceeding from the impetuous Spirits endeavouring a segregation of impurities in it may be asswaged whereas it is more consonant to reason to pick the Thorn out of the finger to impregnate the Wine and Vessel with some odoriferous fume or liquor that it may become fragrant and pleasing in smell likewise to take down the fermentation of the fretting acide Atomes thereof by some artificial means that is able to lenifie and appease the Spirits and settle all quiet Doubtless the same may be accomplished in mans Blood when at any time through some preternatural occasion it becomes tumultuous exorbitant and degenerate from its genuine goodness by ridding it of that pungitive acidity and cadaverous foulness which makes it disturbed and restless as long as it remains in it for omne vivens mortui impatiens esse solet And this we are certain an able Physician can effect being admitted while there is a competent strength which we are alwayes most careful to preserve and augment contrary to the tenour of your Practice For so soon as we have discharged the first and second Digestions of what did burthen and clog them we either exhibit some potent Arcanum which upon its first entertainment into the Stomack doth either pacifie the fury of the vital Spirit or by its illuminating beams doth disperse the black Atomes that obnubilate the same Spirit that it cannot act for the good of the whole Or we give some Volatile Alkali enriched with the specifick Virtues of fit Concretes capable to be circulated with the Blood into all parts of the Body being allied to the foresaid Spirit and symbolizing with it These are powerful in Opening Cleansing Expectorating Volatilizing any congealed Blood invigorating the natural and correcting the preternatural Ferment extinguishing the acidity of the Latex in the Blood dissolving Scirrous and Tartareous-like matter with which sometimes the Veins Arteries and other parts of Body are as it were parietted These are Diuretick Diaphoretick and Antimalignant mortifying Erysipela's breaking and profligating Vomica's or any Abscesses in the Body and this we can engage our selves to perform without any notable diminution of the strength or fear of recidivation or any dangerous lapse into some Chronick Disease which the Phlebotomists dares not promise with any security for it often happens that the Patient is sent Piece-meal to his grave being as it were grated into his first Elements because his Disease was never rightly mannaged in the beginning Now the greatest Plea the Galenists have for Blood-letting is taken from Plethora sanguinis an extraordinary fulness of Blood quoad vasa or quoad vires as they call it that is when the Vessels are over-filled or the strength oppressed with too great redundance of Blood and here they speak equivocally leaving us to seek what Blood they mean either that which is properly named Sanguis the most pure sincere and sublimest juyce in our Body in which the Soul is chiefly seated or that crude lately rubefied liquor called Cruor oftentimes abounding with superfluities and recrements If they take their Indication of Bleeding from the first we can confidently upon sound Arguments deduced from some experimental Demonstrations which we would set down at large if succinctness which we aim at did permit assert that there is no such thing really existent in the Body of man for never had any man too much of that most vital Balsom called Sanguis the encrease or diminution of which shortens or prolongs our dayes for could there be every way a plenary absolute and continuate reparation of the same our Lives would be protracted to an exceeding great length beyond what they are This therefore is by no means to be exhausted or squandered away upon trivial occasions at the unreasonable and arbitrary commands of a desperate Galenist but to be precisely preserved and hoarded up as the onely Treasure and Stock of Life Well if they take their Indication to Bleed from fulness of the last called Cruor then sith this consists of partly excrementitious matter and partly wholesom juyce disposed and in a fair way to be made Sanguis by long Circulation they must necessarily by opening a Vein let out without any election the laudable as well as the depraved parts in the Cruor and its inseparable companion the Sanguis and all to satisfie one supposed palliating Scope of little moment in comparison of the rest an inanition of that which erres in quanto which being attained produces more hurt then profit any way and might easily have been corrected by Diaphoreticks and those proper Medicines that respect a Quale in the Blood and cause a free Diapnoe thereof consuming insensibly according to Sanctorius his Statica no small quantity of our Substance in four and twenty hours sufficient in a very short space with Abstinence joyned thereto to take down any Athletick habit of the Body so that the principal Indication in this case ought to be taken from Cacochymie which frequently infests us to our destruction and that imaginary and insignificant plenitude to be neglected There is we confess something to be said for the defence of immediate derivation of some degenerate Blood impacted any where as when in a Phlegmon the