oyly acid foetid or acrid salt Temper of the Blood which is apt to ferment too much 3. A bitter acrid Choler which with the Tartar of the Meat produces a great Saltness of the Blood 4. A frequent and impetuous Circulation of the Blood which raises the Digestion of it which happens often in Summer and to Young Men by Passions or Surfeits 5. Foetid Humours retained ferment the Humours as the salt Serum the Semen the Choler and many extraneous Ferments come into the Blood from without as in the Itch Leprosie Pox the Ferment of infectious Fevers or the Poysons from Mad-Animals or venomous Bites of them All which have their Effects on the Animal by Fermenting its Humours Such as the Blood and Spirits of Animals be as to their Qualities such is the Temper of their Stomachic Ferment for that rises from the other and any Errour committed in Chylification is communicated to the Blood and Spirits The Cure of too high a Fermentation requires First That all the Evident Causes be avoided and that we use a contrary Diet of crude acerb watery mucilaginous Styptics as crude Vegetables Bistort Lettuce Spinage Cucumbers Sorrel Melons Fruits as Apples Plumbs Cherries Strawberries Sloes the Legumens as young Peas Beans boiled Wheat and all the farinaceous Meats of Oat or Barley Meal Rice or Pudding Panados The Drink ought to be small Beer or Water two Parts with a little Wine or else the Drinking Mead Elder-Wine or Wood-Drinks or Water it self or thin Milk Milk-Meats are very useful in this State for we add Milk to fermenting Wines to stop their Fretting Secondly All Choleric Humours ought to be evacuated and the Rancid Contents of the Stomach I. By Vomiting with Carduus or Sal Vitrioli or Squills II. By Cholagogues and those 1. Nauseous Dock-Bitters as Chewing of Rhubarb or its Infusion with Manna by Dock-Beer 2. By Aloetics Elixir Proprietatis cum Acido 3. By Bitterish and Nauseous Pea-Tastes as Sena III. By the Bitterish Purging Waters IV. By Diagrydiates mixt with Tartar or some Acid Rhubarb Pouder by Pil. Tartareae V. By Lenitive Sweet Purgers as Manna El. Lenitiv Thirdly The oyly bilious or salt Temper of the Ferment and Blood and its frequent Circulation are to be corrected and checked 1. By Acids as Spirit of Salt Vinegar Sulphur Niter Alum Conserve of Roses vitriolated cum Tinct Rosar which coagulate the Chyle the Bile the Salt Serum and the oyly Particles of the Blood and thereby fix them Bitters are always corrected by Acids so the Bitter of Aloes Coloquintida is abated by Spirit of Sulphur or Vitriol 2. Styptics preserve the Consistence of the Blood and hinder or cure Fevers as Plantain House-Leek Tormentil Cinquefoil Purslain 3. The Mucilaginous incrassate or thicken the Consistence as Gum Tragacanth and Icthyocolla Borrage Bugloss Emulsions Lettuce 4. Watery Liquors temper and dilute hot Humours as Mineral Waters Whey with Syrup of Violets and cool bitterish slimy or acid Juyces Milk-Waters drinking Milk and Water 5. Bitterish Crude Plants deterge away the Choler as the Cichory Bitters as Decoction of Cichory-Roots or Dandelion in Whey with Cream of Tartar 6. Opiates stop the vapid Circulation of Blood 7. Mercurial Medicines depress the Fermentation and cool Humours and stop Putrefaction Fourthly Frequent Bleeding abates the Fulness of Humours and checks their Fermentations or Fervors or Ebullitions Fifthly All Evacuations suppressed ought to be renewed and all extraneous Ferments to be corrected or evacuated Sixthly Externally we may check the Ebullition of the Blood by applying Water and Vinegar to the Pulses Stones Forehead Feet and in an extraordinary Case the Patient ought to be put into cold Water or dipt according to the Method communicated to me by my Ingenious Friend Dr. Baynard a Member of the College of Physicians whose Success by it in Curing such Diseases as depend on too high a Fermentation of the Blood is very well known and the Practice seems to me very Rational if managed according to the Rules his Experience has found out The Diseases which chiefly affect the Stomach upon too high a Fermentation are an Oyliness and Rancidity of its Contents and a Nidorous Ructus The Causes of these are 1. A Salso-acid spirituous Ferment 2. Meats which are half putrid or oyly or rancid or fat or fryed with Fat and corrosive Vegetables as Garlic Onyons or the much Use of Tobacco 3. Choleric or Salt Humours mixed with the natural Ferment Since these Nidorous Ructus depend on the Acrimony of Humours and the Foetid Spirituosity of the Ferment and the Putridness of the Meat they are improperly imputed to a Crudity for a Foetor is rather a sign of a Putrefaction and in no Crudity are the oyly acid Spirits so far volatilized in the Stomach The Cure of this Nidorosity is 1. By Evacuation by Vomiting and Purging as is directed 2. By Correcting the Oleous Temper of the Bile or Ferment or Meat by the Acids mentioned as Cream of Tartar Juyce of Limon Decoction of Tamarind Spirit of Niter dulcified with Spirit of Mint or Aniseeds Or by Salso-Acids as Sal Prunellae 3. By Externals Styptics Aromatics and Acids as Quinces and Mint with Vinegar and Leaven By too great a Fermentation of the Meat the Lacteal Lympha as the Saliva becomes nauseously Sweet and Sharp and the Ferment of the Stomach of the same quality which produces a Nauseousness and by its Salso-Acid a hot Cholic The Mucus of the Larynx and Aspera Arteria becomes Sharp or Salso-Acid and produces Coughs The Milk in the Breasts becomes bitter rank oyly salt thick which gives Gripes to Children and Vomits them The Semen becomes salt and stimulating as in Furor Vterinus The Succus Nervosus salt or more lucid than ordinary as in Deliriums and more Oyly and Foetid The Salt Lympha becomes more Salt as in the Gout Stone Haemorrhagies and the Scurvy Those are most disposed to this State of Blood who are of Choleric hot Constitutions for the same kind of Diet produces much Choler which over-ferments the Blood as all acrid bitter salt aromatic and sweet things and all hot Meats and Medicines injure them but cool ones and those that are Serous refresh them The Choleric have their Senses and Actions of the Mind and Motions of the Body very quick and ready their Passions of Anger and Revenge violent and their Dreams cruel and little Sleep and their Pulse full and hard and all these Symptoms depend on Fiery or Choleric Hot Spirits The Abundance of Choler abates the Appetite creates Thirst and requires a cool-Diet and disposes to Fevers and Phrensies The Erysipelas and Choleric Vomitings and Loosenesses and a bitterness in the Mouth the Vrin is thin yellowish or flame Coloured or red The Habit of the Body is generally lean and the Colour of the Face yellowish and the Hair yellow or black By these Signs mentioned we may know when Humours are too high fermented and Choler produced but that the Nature of
correct their Acidities III. The Coagulation of the Choler by the Acidity of the digested Meat helps the Oyl of the Meat to separate from the Faeces which are of an Earthy Nature to which it was united by an Acidity and the thick nutritious Parts of the Meat are easily extracted from the rest by the liquid Juyces of the Stomach and both the Oyly and Nutritious Parts being dissolved in a Liquor constitute the white Milky Liquor which is our Chyle I took some dry Reliques of Peas digested in the Stomach of a Hog who was fed twenty four Hours before he was Killed with Peas only and Water which smelt like boiled Gooseberries pleasantly Acid I put some Water to the digested Peas and made it Milky by Addition of some of the Hog's Gall. To the Liquor squeezed out of the Contents of the Stomach I put some Gall which was coagulated by it from whence it appears that Choler is naturally coagulated by the Acid Reliques of the Stomach I put some Spirit of Sal Armoniac to Gall coagulated by Spirit of Vitriol and it produced a Milky Colour from both these Experiments I did collect that the Coagulation of Choler by the Acid of the digested Meat together with the Oyly Parts of the Meat produce the White Colour of our Chyle so in Preparation of Lac Sulphuris the Milky Colour follows the Precipitation of the Tartar by an Acid Spirit and the Oyly Parts of the Sulphur give a Milky Colour Oyly or Resinous Liquors as Tincture of Benjamin Turpentine it self being diluted with Water become Milky Emulsions are Milky from the Oyliness of their Seeds The best Oyls thickened by cold and the Fat of Animals have a White Colour and Milk it self has its Whiteness from the Caseous Fibers and its Buttery Oyl IV. The Choler has its grosser Parts separated by the Acidity of the digested Meat and that gives Colour and Consistence to the Excrements and the Choler abounding with much Slime as appears by its Ropyness that inviscates the Gross indigested Parts of the Alimentary Mass whereby the Chyle like Liquor clarified by the White of Eggs becomes more pure from the Sediment of Choler and the indigested Parts of the Meat and so only consists of a thin slimy nutritious Juyce with Volatile Spirituous Oyly Parts which can only pass the Canals of the Lacteals V. The Fifth Use of Choler is to help Sanguification and the Production of an Animal Salt of which I will discourse in the Chapter of Saltness I mixed the Bitter Decoction sine senâ with volatile and fixed Salts and these abated its Bitterness which may intimate the Use of them in some Choleric Cases Cream of Tartar and Spirit of Sulphur more evidently destroyed the Bitterness of it Common Salt and Spirit of Salt seemed rather to increase than destroy the Bitterness of the Decoction Mercurius dulcis made it Muddy but little altered it the same effect probably those Medicines will have on Bitter Choler CHAP. X. Of the Hot Scurvy or Oyly Vitriolic Rancid State of the Blood THAT Dyscrasie of the Blood wherein the Oyly and Acid Particles are too highly exalted is commonly called the Scurvy which is divided into the hot or cold Scurvies according to the various Constitutions of Blood it falls into for where the Oyl is more abundant in the Blood than the Acid it produces the hot Scurvy the Signs of which are the high Colour of the Vrin red Spots in the Skin from the coagulated or putrid Blood fixing there in its Circulation the Gums are Bloody they are subject to Fevers Dysenteries Choleric Diarrhaea's Night-Sweats and Consumptions these Symptoms are produced by the rancid or scorbutic Bloods but in the nervous Liquor the following Symptoms the Running Gout or Rheumatism in the Nerves Convulsions Palsies Apoplexies hot Cholics and Asthma and Crackling of the Bones Since the Scurvy is cured by Acid Fruits and crude Plants in Seamen who have long lived on a Salt Diet I may hence as well as from the mentioned Symptoms observe that the Scurvy depends on too high a Fermentation of the Blood The Causes which produce the Oyly Acid Temper of the Blood are those evident Causes which excite an Ebullition or Effervescence in it as in all hot Diet of Wines strong Drinks and Salt Meats Sea Air and Fish which some putrefie 2. The Passion of the Mind and Studies and a Sedentary Life or Suppression of Evacuations 3. The Scurvy is Hereditary or Contagious or succeeds other Diseases as Fevers Rheumatisms Melancholy Agues especially the Quartan I. The Cure consists in Evacuating the hot salt bitter acrid and vitriolic or viscid Humours by the Vomits and Purgers mentioned in the Cure of too high a Fermentation and frequent Bleeding II. By Evacuating the Salt Serum by gentle Sweats as will be hereafter mentioned or a Diet-Drink of Sarsa and China of each half a Pound Harts-Horn and Ivory Shavings of each one Ounce boil all in eight Gallons to six and add Juyces of Water-Cresses Brooklime of each two Pints of Gill and Liver-wort of each one Pint six Nutmegs sliced put all into six Gallons of Ale drink three Draughts in a Day of it III. The Salt Serum may be evacuated by Vrin By Terebinthinates as tops of Pine in all our Ale IV. The Oyl Acid Foetor of the Blood and its high Fermentation is to be corrected By 1. Acids as Wood-Sorrel Juyces of Oranges and Limons mixt with the cooler Antiscorbutic Juyces Conserve of Hips Wood-Sorrel 2. The Mucilaginous crude Juyces of some Legumens are used as Juyce of Fitches ℥ ij in White-Wine or Juyce of Fumitory or Green Peas or Green Corn distilled 3. Other cooling Mucilaginous Plants or Animal Parts are used to cool the Blood and dilute it as Juyce of Borrage Bugloss Barley Water Emulsions drinking Milk and Water Antiscorbutic Milk Waters Mineral Waters or Fountain Water or Water and Wine Lettuce Water with Sal Prunell and Syrup of Limons 4. The Acerbs supply their quantity of cruder Acids wanting in the Humours as Juyces of Apples Grapes the Sorrels House-Leek the Juyce of spotted Arsesmart or House-Leek in bilious Diarrhaea's Coral prepared with Juyce of Limon Purslain Water with Sal Prunell These Styptics Acerbs stop the hot Fermentation of Humours as Plantane boiled in Broths and Ribwort Plantane 5. Austere Styptics do the same as Bark of Tamarisk Ash the Cortex 6. Sweet Styptics of the Fern Class as Polypody Ceterach Maiden Hair do the same V. The Coagulations by the Scorbutic Acidity may be dissolved 1. By the watery Antiscorbutic Acrids as Juyces of Brooklime and its Conserve and Scurvy-Grass and Water-Cresses may be put into Milk with the Juyce of Orange and White-Wine and that to turn into Posset-Drink Spirit of Scurvy-Grass and Sal Armoniac may be given in Milk or the Juyce of Scurvy-Grass may be so used ℞ Conserv Beccabungae Rad. Cich Lujuloe an ℥ ij Ras Eboni Pulv. ʒiij Sal Prunell Diatrion Santal an ʒij
Binding of the Body Whatsoever ferments the Blood too much breeds Choler and that the Animal Saltness The internal Causes of Saltness are 1. The Natural Saline Temper of the Blood which supplies a Ferment for the Chyle of the same Nature to turn it into the like Saltness 2. Too quick a Circulation of the Blood excites too great an Ebullition and makes the Choler more acrid and the Salt more sharp and in greater quantity 3. The acrid Choler and sharp Acid of the Spleen or Tartar Acid which is corrosive produce the sharpest Salt 4. A preternatural Putrefaction in Fevers or long Effervescences make the Blood very salt So a Cancer Fistula the Itch or Lues Venerea or Consumptive Lungs Kidnies or other Viscera give a Ferment to the Blood and putrefie it into a Saltness The Cure of the Muriatic and Armoniac Saltness requires I. To abstain from fermented Drinks and to use watery Liquors as Milk and Water and the Decoction of the cooler Woods Wine and Water or Water boiled with Coriander Seeds and Sugar To abstain from Salt Meats and those dried in Smoak or Pickles To abstain from Ferments as old Cheese Fish To use slimy Meats as new Cheese Fruits Farinaceous Meats and Milk Meats Snails Tortoises Jellies Cray Fishes Tripes and the Feet of Animals and Young Pigs Goat Lamb Veal In short The Diet must be crude watery acerb mucilaginous farinaceous subacid The Air dry and not foggy Sea Air. II. The Salt Humours must be evacuated by the Sennate Rhabarbarate and sweet Manna Purgers with Acids added or the Purging Waters which are nitrous or aluminous or vitriolic these wash and cool by their Waterishness and precipitate the Salt by their Stypticity Hydragogues which evacuate the Serum abate the Saltness III. The Salivation by Mercury evacuates plentifully the Salt Serum and Aethyops Mineralis and Merc. dulcis correct the Saltness by joyning with the salso-Acid of the Blood and all Mercurials depress the over-Fermentation of the Blood as much as Chalybeates exalt the low Fermentation IV. The Salt Serum is sweat off by salso-acid or urinous Medicines and for the same end we use Baths and much Exercise the Decoctions of the Acrid Woods and Frictions and Fontanels V. Diuretics plentifully evacuate the Salt Serum as all Acid Diuretics and the testaceous and bitter cichoraceous Plants VI. The Saltness of the Blood and the Ferment of the Stomach the acrid Bile or splenetic sharp Acid or that of the Stomach must be corrected and the frequent Ebullition Circulation or Putrefaction removed 1. All Acids correct volatile Salts and Oyls which are foetid and all Lixiviums are made more mild by Acids 2. The mucilaginous Temper the Acrimony of Salts as Gum Tragacanth Powders Decoction of Snails Althaea Roots and Emulsions 3. The Saltness may be diluted by a watery Diet or Medicines as thin Broths Whey Chalybeate Waters Milk Diet and distilled Milks Watergruel 4. Opiates and Styptics stop the Motion of the Blood 5. Bleeding evacuates the Old Blood which is most salt and the New Blood which comes in its room is more fresh and less salt so Broths of Flesh Meat are salter by long boiling 6. All Extraneous Ferments ought to be removed from the Blood and by the Cortex or other Antifebriles the Fermentation must be stopped That the Vrin contains an Acidity naturally in it appears by the Correcting of Coloquintida by it whose Bitterness is made near insipid by it The Purging Quality in the Coloquintida is enervated by the Vrin as well as its Bitterness Hence it appears how great a Correcter of Choler the Vrin may be and how much it may preserve the Humours from Putrefaction as it preserves Vlcers by its salso-Acid Taste A Lixivium of Oyster-shells changes the Bitterness of the Species of the Bitter Decoction boiled in it into a Sweetness and this therefore may be used to correct Choleric Heart-burning in the Stomach and this may correct the Bitterness as well as Acidity of Humours But from this Experiment let our Prescribers consider whether they do not abate the Vertue of the Cortex by extracting it with a fixt Salt since the Taste of it is altered thereby I remember a Tincture of Wormwood made with Brandy and Salt of Wormwood did not taste very bitter by being made with a fixt Salt but that made with Spirit of Wine and a little Oyl of Sulphur was very bitter and in the Vomitings of our Patients we find both very bitter and very sowre which did not correct each other but a fixt Salt in this case may correct both sowre and bitter CHAP. XIII Of the Vitriolic Acidity of the Blood IN the most Healthful Blood we discern many Tastes besides a Sweetness and Saltness a vitriolic or chalybeate Taste is evident therefore we cannot doubt of the vitriolic Acidity of the Blood nor that it is produced from the tartareous Acidity of the Chyle which by Digestion is exalted and volatilized into a sulphureous Spirit The Acid sulphureous fumes from the Earth produce the Tartar in Plants as it is mixt with Earthy Parts but by the Animal Digestions and Fermentations and Precipitation by Salts the Acid may recover its Mineral Nature and appear to be a vitriolic Acid in the Blood or else it may acquire that Savour by its Mixture with the oyly acid foetid Particles of the Blood which somewhat resemble Sulphur This vitriolic Acidity was the Natural Alimentary Melancholy of the Blood which the Ancient Physicians observed in it They called it a Black Humour which gave the Blackness to the Blood for it is certain that Acids turn the Blood black They believed there was an Astriction in this Humour to bind the Belly and it is plain by the vitriolic Taste that it is capable of Binding the Body for Spirit of Vitriol and Vitriolum Martis bind the Body by their Stypticity though tartar Acids purge and have not that effect unless they be acerb They believed it to be cooling and drying because of the cooling quality of Vinegar and by being a great Diuretic both Vinegar and the vitriolic Acid dry up or evacuate the Succus Nutritius All Melancholy Persons are great Spitters and make too much Vrin and the Ancients called those Constitutions dry who had little of the Succus Nutritius in them to make the Habit of the Body plump as it is in Lean Persons and the Fat more moist Constitutions They esteemed this Natural Melancholic Acidity to be the limous or slimy faeculent Part of the Blood like to the Lees of Wine and so compared it to the Element of Earth for in all Tartar there is a great deal of Earth which makes it to subside in the Wine and this black Melancholic Acidity colours the bottom of the Blood most when it is cool in a Dish This Chalybeate Taste is in all Blood and is Natural to it part of it constitutes the splenetic Humour when it is mixed with a Sliminess and it is separated by its
of Humours which stands next to the putrefied State for whether the corrosive Acrimony be vitriolic saline or muriatic which is a Mixture of both it depends on a violent immoderate Fermentation of Humours As the natural Acidity Saltness and muriatic or armoniac salso-Acid depends upon a natural and moderate Fermentation of Humours Corrosive Acid Spirits are prepared by Chymists with an extraordinary degree of the Fire and so are the salt acrid pungent Acrimonies as that of volatile Salts which taste fiery burning salt and pungent There is a burning Acid in Oyl of Vitriol in which the Acid is combined with Sulphur and fiery Particles The Chymists prepare another corrosive kind of Medicines from an Acid and Metal which mix in a cutting tearing Texture such as is that in the Crystals of Silver and Sublimate In the tithymalline corrosive Plants there is a Milky Juyce made of the Oyl and Acid both which are very volatile In Minerals there is a natural corrosive Texture in Arsenick which contains a Mixture of Sulphur and sharp Acid. Whatsoever corrosive Qualities our Nourishment can acquire by Distillation by a strong Fire the same may be produced by Fermentation and Digestion in the Humours when they are over-digested From Animals a volatile fiery Salt may be produced and by that the Chyle and Blood and all their secretitious Humours are made salt and the hotter the Animal or the stronger the Fire is the greater is the Corrosiveness of the Salt 1. The Salt in the Animal Humours is made corrosive by its too great Volatility and by this the Apthae in Fevers are produced in the Tongue and Mouth as the Tongue is blistered by Spirit of Sal Armoniac very volatile This I call the Vrinous Corrosiveness and it is cured by the same Medicines as the Saltness of Humours for these States differ but in degree of a high Fermentation by which they are prepared and therefore requires the same Specific Tastes of watery acerb tartareous and mucilaginous Medicines but those which are more strong can only succeed in the corrosive State 2. The next Species of corrosive Acrimony is produced from a tartareous or natural vitriolic Acidity much raised by Fermentation when being joyned to the volatile Oyl of Blood it is made more sharp so from Bread and all tartareous Vegetables an acid Spirit may be distilled The Acrimony of the Spurge Juyce resembles this Acrimony The Oyl is manifest by the Milkiness of the Juyce and that an Acid is in the same Juyce appears because it changes the Colour of the Knife which cuts it Moreover This milky Juyce is dryed into a Resin and all Rosins yield much Oyl and a little Acid. 3. The Third Species of Corrosiveness is from the Mixture of a pungent burning Salt and a high vitriolic Acidity like that in Sal Armoniac which burns and corrodes the Mouth and this may be called a muriatic or armoniacal Corrosiveness 4. The Fourth and highest Species of Corrosiveness arises from Putrefaction All Putrefaction is joyned with a foetor and all foetid Matter corrodes the Vlcer The Cure of Corrosiveness is by the correcting the vitriolic Acidity or Saltness by the Medicines above-mentioned and by stopping the high and putrefactive Fermentation of Humours The Acrimony of Aqua Fortis is corrected by the Oyliness of Spirit of Wine or the Caput Mortuum of the same Minerals from which it is distilled so the acid Corrosiveness of animal vitriolic Acidities is tempered by Minerals or Animal Ashes and volatile Salts And the salt Corrosiveness by the crude Tastes as Tartar Acids and Styptic mucilaginous Plants The Saturnine Styptics stop Fermentations most strongly and so do acerb Styprics as Plantane and Opiates also All Evacuations by Bleeding Purging are necessary and a cooling Diet also CHAP. XIV Of the Putrefaction of Animal Humours 1. THE Meat in the Stomach is sometime putrid by too high a Digestion in a foetid Ructus which is very Nidorous or the Vlcers of the Stomach 2. The Saliva has a nauseous foetid Savour sometimes from putrid Fevers or the Corruption of the Foetus in the Womb or Vlcers in the Lungs or Mouth 3. The Mucus of the Aspera Arteria and the Nose is foetid from the Vlcers in those parts 4. The Seminal Humours are foetid by the Vlcers in the Genitals and the Blood of the Infected by the Pox is full of a putrid Ferment or acrid Salt which makes their Sweat and Breaths to have a foetid Savour 5. The Spirits themselves become very foetid in putrefied Bloods by Pains 〈◊〉 Passions and Infections By â—…mous Bites the Foetor is also inâ—…ased 6. The Milk putrefies by the Stagnation in the Breasts 7. The Humours of the conglomerate and conglobate Glands putrefie and ulcerate in the Scrophulae 8. The Blood putrefied has lost its Fibers which makes it not to coagulate when cold and it smells foetid 9. The Salt Serum of the Blood is turned by extraneous or internal Ferments into the Matter of the Itch Leprosy and Vlcers Upon the Evaporation of the natural Spirits the vitriolic Acid prevails on which depends the chylous Whiteness of Matter which is precipitated and changed by it so the Serum of the Blood is changed into a white milky Liquor by Spirit of Niter 10. The Vrin and Sweat stink in putrid Fevers as the bilious Stools do and the Blood it self There are Three kinds of Thinness in Animal Humours 1. An aquous Serosity which is evident in the Blood which is crude 2. A more fluid Consistence of Blood depending on a great Rarefaction of Blood whereby it s own oyly and salt Particles by their Agitation attenuate and dissolve the natural Viscidity of the Blood as appears in Hoemorrhagies and the hot Scurvey this is only the next degree or step to Putrefaction 3. The Third Cause of Tenuity in the Humours is the Putrefaction of them which is a perfect Destruction of all their viscid or fibrous Consistence by a high and a long Fermentation so in the perfect ripe Matter of an Vlcer the Viscidity is destroyed and in putrefied Eggs their ropy Consistence is altered and made fluid so as not to thicken by Boyling The Causes of Putrefaction and a high Fermentation differ only in degree 1. The natural Fermentation produces only nutritious Humours and no farther resolves the alimentary Mass than what is necessary for the perfection of a fit Nutriment but a preternatural high Fermentation proceeds farther and produces both the Acrimony Saline or vitriolic or a thick Consistence by Coagulation of the Chyle upon the Blood but in the putrefactive Fermentation it is continued to the perfect Dissolution of all the Viscidity of our Humours according to the Observation of Crato Fibrae Sanguinis cum mittitur infectis peste ita putridae sunt ut concrescere nequeunt and this is properly called the putrefactive Fermentation for in the Plague the Infection putrefies the Blood and the coagulate or putrid Parts are thrown upon the Skin
Choler may be more fully explained and the Cure of its Bitterness by Coagulations I will annex the ensuing Discourse about its Nature Use and Colours and its Coagulations by Acids Choler may be compared to the Juyces of bitter Plants for their Bitterness depends on an Oyl and Acid mixed with much Earth digested into a particular State and by the Mixture of these Principles they acquire the Texture of Particles necessary to a bitter Taste There is a good quantity of Water mixt with Choler whose Superfluity is drawn off by the Lymphatics that the Choler might be left more ropy Some of the bitterness goes off with the Lympha which gives a bitterness to it if it be tasted in the Vessels which return the Lympha from the Vesica Bilaria and because this meets the Chyle in the common Receptacle it certainly helps there its Sanguification which the Ancients by Mistake imputed to the Liver its self but that is more rationally ascribed to Choler which is produced by the Liver The Principles of Choler are easily mixed with watery Liquors and diluted by them When it is too slimy or hot we use much Whey or Water for that end to dilute it A great quantity of an Earthy Principle appears in Choler because it is apt to breed Stones and it leaves a great Thickness or Crassamentum upon Evaporation The Oyliness in Choler appears in its ropy Sliminess and for this reason it serves Painters to mix like Oyl with their Colours and it is used for the Washing of Cloaths because of its Oyly Parts I have observed in Faulcons a small quantity of Gall in the bladder of Gall the Oleous Parts of Chyle being spent most on the Fat and not digested so high as to produce Choler and the reason that fat Constitutions are more cool than the lean is because they breed less Choler Spirit of Harts-Horn put into the yellow Choler of a Hog precipitated it a little from whence I supposed some Acid might be in it There is naturally no Volatile Salt in Choler but that is made by Fermentation of it or by a strong Fire in Distillation This ought much to discourage Physicians from confiding in Chymistry for the Explaining the Nature and Principles of Animal Humours since it produces so much of a Volatile Salt which is not naturally in Choler and I think I have a much clearer and certain Notion of Choler and its Use from its Sensible Qualities especially its Taste The Green Choler of a Cow tasted sweet bitter sub-acrid or a little pungent and it turned Syrup of Violets green The yellow Choler of a Hog had the same but a stronger Taste and it turned Syrup of Violets green The florid Part of the Blood is that which the Ancient Authors meant by the Bilis Alimentaria or natural Choler for the florid Part being of an Oyly and Acid Nature it is the immediate Matter of Choler but the great Slime observable in Choler is sent to the Liver by the Spleen All Choleric Persons have very florid Bloods and that very hot which both depend on the oyly acid red Part of the Blood Choler is easily mixed with Blood if they be stirred together and so gives a very florid Colour to it which shews a great Agreement betwixt the Red and Yellow in Animal Humours The change of the red oyly Acid in Blood to a yellow Colour in Choler is from a further Digestion of the same Humour or a Mixture of a Spleen Acid with it so Brimstone in its Natural State is mixed with much Acid and Earth and is of a greenish Colour but when sublimed it has less Earth and Acid and then is of a yellow Colour but if the yellow Flames be melted with Salt of Tartar the Hepar Sulphuris is red and the Balsam made of it or its Tincture but if a Lixivium be made of the Hepar and it be precipitated by a good quantity of Acid it becomes Milky as in Lac Sulphuris The Oyl in Animal Humours gives us as great a Variety of Colour according to its different kinds or quantities of Acid mixed with it as Sulphur does in the Experiments mentioned or in the Variety of the Colours of Metals which depends on their different Digestions or Mixtures of their Sulphur with a Mineral Acidity I. The Oyl or Butter in Chyle gives a Milky Colour by the Mixture of it with a Tartar Acid and resembles the Colour and Mixture of Lac Sulphuris II. The Oyl gives a florid Colour to the Blood by its Mixture with the volatilized Vitriolic Acidity and Saltness there and this resembles the Hepar Sulphuris in Colour and Mixture of less Acidity with a Saltness III. The Oyl in the Choler is of different Colours according to the difference of its Spleen Acid mixt with it or the Acid of the Meats digested in the Stomach 1. It is Green in Sheep Hens Rabbits Cows Dear who feed on Herbs which supply a great quantity of crude or acerb Tartar to the Animal Humours If we drop Spirit of Nitre into yellow Choler it turns it Greenish and our Excrements look Green from Chalybeate Water in which there is the Acid of Sulphur joyned with a Stypticity All our Green Vomits in Women are from a Mixture of Yellow Choler and an Acid in the Stomach they taste and smell Sowre They are cured by the grossest Steel in Hysterical Women or Testaceous Medicines in Children when they are griped by a Green Humour from which Observations it appears that the Bilis Porracea is from a crude Tartar Acid mixed with Yellow Choler in the Stomachs of the Hysterical or Hypochondriacal or Children Griped by that Humour and the Green Choler of the Animals above-mentioned is from the red florid Parts of the Blood too much fixed by a crude Acid and much of Earth which those Animals have from their Food of crude Grass These Animals have a milder Heat than those who have Yellow Choler the lowness of their Fermentation may be discerned by a less offensive Foetor of their Bodies and the watery Paleness of their Vrins in a natural State From hence we may observe that all Green Humours are signs of Indigestion and a crude Acidity and they are to be cured as the Tartar Acid of Chyle already described 2. The Paleness of Choler is from a great Serosity mixed with it and this is a sign of a great Weakness of Digestion and a Serous Cacochymia 3. The Sliminess and Sweetness of Choler is from a weak pituitous Blood and a sign of it and belongs to Fat Constitutions 4. IV. In Animals whose Heat is very strong and their Fermentation more violent and whose Bodies have a stronger Foetor as Men Pigs Cats Dogs c. the Choler is of a Yellow Colour V. The Bilis Vitellina differs from the Yellow Choler only in Consistence and Acrimony it is compared to the Yolks of Eggs and is a sign of a viscid State of Blood VI. The Blue Choler is commonly
produces rheumatic Pains and all kinds of Inflammations as the Apthae or Inflammations of the Mouth the Quinsie Parotis or the Inflammation of the Glands the Inflammation of the Intestines or Stomach or Liver or Spleen Nephritis or Inflammation of the Kidnies Phrenitis or the Inflammation of the Brains Ophthalmia Peripneumonia Pleurisie Inflammation of the Breasts the Vterus or Stones Lethargies Apoplexies Palsies Rheumatisms and all hot Pains These are the Distempers attending Fevers when the Blood is sizie and that requires all the Methods proper for altering that as well as stopping the Fever Eighthly If the Fever happens in a salt Blood it has great Thirst attending of it and Haemorrhagies and runs into a tabid State In this Fever I observed a Haemorrhage to preceed every Fit of the intermitting Fever in Mr. Schrimsher of Aquilate who through an Aversion to the Cortex lost his Life in it and died Convulsed after divers Fits of the Fever with a Haemorrhage which returned at a certain Hour Ninthly If the intermitting Fever happens in a vitriolic State of Blood all the hypochondriac Symptoms are joyned with the Fever and the Fever appears under the Type of a Quartan The Cure of which requires Evacuating I. Of the vitriolic Humour in the Stomach by Vomiting and Purging off the same on the intermitting Days II. The vitriolic Humour must be corrected 1. By Bitters bitter Decoction Wormwood Wine Elix Proprietatis Myrrh with Treacle 2. By fixed Salts Extract Carduus with Salt of Wormwood Take Conserve of Hips Wormwood Enula Scurvy-Grass Citron Pills of each ℥ i. Saffron ℈ ij Sal Absynth ʒij Confectio Alcherm ℥ ss with Syrup of Citron make an Elect. 3. Chalybeates are absolutely necessary after the Fever is stopt to correct the vitriolic Humour and sometimes the Fever cannot be stopt till the Humour is corrected as I have often experienced in my younger Son who had the Quartan four Years by Relapses No Febrifuge could put off his Fit till he had used Steel fourteen Days or three Weeks and the Cortex could do him no Service nor would put off a Fit at last he having used at least a Pound of it by often repeating of it profuse Bleeding as 40 Ounces of Blood from a Child of Nine Years Old did more for the Cure of his Ague than all the Febrifuges for his Blood was extream viscid and Steel always cured his Cachexy I gave him Vitriolum Martis sometimes and Dr. Willis's Steel at others dissolved in a convenient Julep 4. The Earthy Calces as Antim Diap Bezoar Minerale with fixed Salts and volatile may be reduced into Pills with Extract of Gentian The Ashes of Oyster-shells are good to correct the vitriolic Humour III. The Paroxysm must be checked or stopt 1. By bitter Styptics as the Cortex The reason of its inefficacy in the Dose in which it was formerly given is the Mixing of the Chips of the Tree with the Bark and it is evident that the Bark exceeds the Taste of the Wood in all Trees and is of a stronger Virtue Let therefore the Apothecaries keep the Chips for Decoctions and use the Cortex only in Powder for they well know that the Cortex of Guaicum is stronger than the Wood. Lignum Colubrinum Ash Guaicum black Cherry-Tree are much oommended for Quartans as are also Myrtle-Leaves and Misletoe Five-Leaved-Grass Potentilla Avens Plantain-Roots are austere 2. By Acerbs as the Leaves of Ribwort Plantain boiled in Posset-Drink which cures some where the Cortex has failed Alum is very much used ℈ i. in bitter Decoction or with Nutmeg 3. Nauseous Bitters as Carduus Leavesʒss Alum ℈ i. taken in Ale before the Fit or Myrrhʒss in Wine or Treacleʒi before the Fit 4. By acrid Terebinthiuates as Roots of Asarum Valerian Serpentaria Decoction of Ivy-Wood and Savin applied to the Pulse with Salt 5. By other Acrids of the Orris Class as Zedoary Ginger Contrayerva or other acrid Aromatics as Pepper Radix Imperatoriaeʒi cum Vino Pepper 14 grains in Wine 6. Foetid Acrids as Rhue one handful Red Sage as much infused in Wine and given before the Fit A Nutmeg roasted in an Onion 7. Salso-Acids as Sal Absynth ℈ iss Sal Prunell ℈ ss Sacch Perl ℈ ij The Acerbs and bitter Styptics precipitate the depraved Succus Nutritius from the Blood the Acrids and Salts throw it off by Sweat and Vrin A Purge given six or eight Hours before the Fit evacuates the digested Succus and is successful after six or eight Months 8. Opiates stop the Pulse and all Fermentations 9. The Pericarpia are of Styptics as Bole Mastich Bursa and Astoris Knot-Grass Argentina Or Acids as Vinegar with Gun-Powder Or Caustics as Nettles Ranunculus black Soap Tenthly If the Fever happens in a Blood putrefied the several Sorts of Malignant Fevers are produced with a low Pulse feverish Symptoms Watching Delirium Convulsions and a sudden failing of the Spirits I. The Spirits being decayed fixed or oppressed or weakened by Evaporation become unfit to manage any extraordinary Fermentation for the Depurating of the Blood by an Effervescence from any of its depraved Succus Nutritius and in this Case all the Medicines against Malignity which are of the following Tastes are very necessary as 1. Volatile Salts and fixed Cineres Eufonum Salt of Vipers 2. Acrids Angelica Zedoary Imperatoria Petasitis Serpentaria Virginiana Contrayerva Aq. Ber. spec liberantis 3. Bitters decoct Amarum sine sena Mithridate or Treacles Syr. of Carduus Scordium Veronica Vervein or the Juyces or Extract of them 4. Foetids Camphire Garlic Castor Troches of Vipers Flesh Rhue 5. Mineral Sulph and Calces Antimon Diaph Bez. Miner Cinnab Antim 6. Acids Acetum Bezoardicum Syr. of Citrons Spirit of Vitriol 7. Salso-Acids made by Mixing contrary Salts II. The Second Species of a malignant Fever is from the Translation of the depraved Succus Nutritius upon the Head and Nerves in the intermitting Fever which requires all manner of Revulsion as Bleeding in the Neck Glysters Blisters Cataplasms to the Feet besides Diaphoretics Diuretics and Cordials to support the Spirits and the Fermentation III. The Third Species of a malignant Fever is from the Infection of the Air whose foetid Sulphurs cause divers degrees of Putrefactions in several parts of our Bloods and accordingly produce the several epidemical malignant or pestilential Fevers 1. In the petechial spotted Fever and the scarlet Fever or Measles the florid Particles of the Blood are corrupted or coagulated or putrefied and thrown into the Skin 2. In the Small-Pox not only the florid but also the viscid Particles of the Serum are coagulated and thrown into the Skin to putrefie and be expelled We observe in the Small-Pox a sizie Blood as well as a putrefactive State of Humours the Siziness makes it an inflammatory Fever and commonly requires Bleeding before and afterwards We keep a thin and low Diet both in respect of the Inflammation and Fever We use also Medicines against Malignity because of