to the Galenists proceeds from an hot and dry Distemper of the stomach to answer which indication they most frequently order cool and moist things which if the cause of thirst were as they suppose they would have a most facile ready way of Cure in case that were true Contraria suis contrariis curantur viz. That every distemperature were curable by its contrary for then supposing such and such degree of heat and dryness of stomach in a Fever it is but applying the same answerable degree of cooling and moistning liquors and the Cure would forthwith be effected If so Why are not the thirst in Fevers presently quenched That after great draughts of cooling Julips and the like are drunke down they yet cry out Drie Drie as thirsty after a while as ever 50. What Can the elementary properties of cold and moist so much conspire the Patients prejudice as to forget their own natures of cooling and moistning Surely these qualities if they may be so call'd of heat and cold of dryness and moisture must act one upon another upon the very contact and no sooner can heat be encountred with cold but the heat must be abated and if the degree of cold be proportionable must become quite extinct so neither can driness meet with moisture in the like degree but the driness will cease 51. So that indeed a Feverish thirst hath not these elementary qualities for its efficient and so is not curable by the contrary qualities but hath a more abstruse cause and that is from a depravation of the ferment of the stomack which not being able to digest after the wonted manner what is upon the stomach turns it into recrement which by the heat of the part having lost its curb the ferment is burnt into a kind of Alkali or friable mass which being fast impacted in the tunicles of the stomach becomes the efficient cause of a febrile thirst 52. These burnt Alkalizate sordes parch the very membranous parts of the stomach oesophagus and tongue which membrane is but as one continued web overspreading all those parts thence the intollerable thirst foulness roughness and parchedness of the tongue which by abstinence from drink as is the foolish custome of some Physicians who understand not the Disease too strictly prohibit the Fever becomes the more increased the thirst the stronger and all the symptomes more exasperated For there must be some liquid thing of necessity to dilute and soften these burnt sordes though it do not satisfie and quench the thirst or else all things go the worse but if the skill of the Physician be such as to mingle with these diluting potable liquids something to absterse these sordes and to satiate these Alkalizate recrements then he effects something as to the real quenching of thirst which otherwise proves obstinate and rebellious to all simple liquids 53. For if all simple water or fermentally married to a vegetable juyce viz. Beer Ale or Wine be thrown into the stomach upon these friable sordes they do but and that scarcely for a moment quench the thirst but by the untameable heat of the stomach are cast into vapours and by sweat or insensibly are driven through the pores of the body and in the conclusion encrease the heat cause cold sweats faintness debilitudes and wasting lassitudes after the manner of water poured on an hot stone is presently dispersed vapore tenus or as Spirit of Wine poured upon an Alkali of Tartar causeth a great heat more than was before 54. But if these adust sordes be absters'd by the well prepared Salt of Vitriol or other proper emeticks or some proper solutive that may cleanse downward the recrement of the primary digestions and be seconded with Spirit of Salt Sulphur or Vitriol acuating the Patients common drink together with the use of some anodynous Diaphoreticks not only the thirst will be abated and quenched but the Feverish fermentation and consequently the Fever it self I have often wondred the Galenists should not more seriously take into consideration the efficacy of Diaphoreticks or sweating Medicines in Fevers in as much as in the whole round of their Practice they find not a more effectual means to quench thirst and to abate a Fever than by Sudorificks which is most obvious both to them and to ordinary People and yet there is nothing they less frequent If it were no more than observing the operation of a Dose of Laudanum methinks it might convince them of the excellency of Diaphoreticks and put them upon ingenuous enquiries how they might promote and improve that stock of Diaphoreticks they have in the Shops might I say put them upon enquiring how a few grains of Laudanum should so quiet the Spirits for a time quench thirst and allay pains and all this as a Diaphoretick which surely if the narcotick Sulphur was castigated and the power of the volatile Diaphoretick Salt thereof exalted would prove a much more effectual Diaphoretick than any Laudanum in the Shops 55. As for Antimonium Diaphoreticum because it is Chymical they are afraid of it and if they order any it is in so inconsiderable a quantity as the effect cannot answer the Patients expectation They will prescribe 3 grains it may be 4 5 6 or 7 grains and a great Dose too and this forsooth must be clogg'd with some other farraginous mixture which together makes such a confus'd jumble upon the stomach that the Archeus or vital regent knows not what to make of it for by their mixtures they miss the mark of Specificks and thereby of the best Diaphoreticks In effect do nothing sincerely viz. without mixtures in the whole course of their Practice They will wonder perhaps if I tell them that of this Antimonium Diaphoretick which they scruple to give 6 7 or 8 grains I can and do with good success give from one scruple to an whole dragm which is 60 grains and that without scruple or danger but with great satisfaction to the Patient Bezoardicum Minerale another as dangerous anti-febrile Diaphoretick as they account it as the former of which they scarce dare give above 3 4 or 5 grains of which I with the like success as the former give from half a scruple to 24 grains Indeed they are both of my own Preparation and therefore dare more confide in them 56. Now the conclusion of all this is That Diaphoreticks whether Vegetable or Mineral after a previous abstersion of the primary digestions are the only quenchers of thirst abaters of pains allayers of Feverish fermentations composers of the Spirits and in fine the chief Curers of Fevers and therefore whether duely to be considered let the World judge seeing it conserves thousands of Lives Thus far as to particular Diaphoreticks Besides which Helmont speaks of an universal Diaphoretick or Panacea by the name of Mercurius Precipitatus Diaphoreticus which is a fixation of Precipitate by the cohobating the Elementum ignis extracted out of the Vitriol of Venus at last
offers it self How comes it That when we drink plentifully of strong Drink we become stupid and inebriate therewith is it not from the vapours of the strong Drink ascending into the head that makes a man drunk The Answer is no. For strong Drink is no sooner taken if in an excessive quantity but the subtle inebriating Sulphur thereof begins to act upon the Spirits whether animal or vital communicable with the brain by the nerves of the sixth conjugation and every where at work in all parts of the body so that there is neither need of ascending nor descending the Spirits which are overcome by the toxicum of strong Drink are every where present and as easily oppress'd in the stomack by the inebriating Sulphur of vinous Spirits as in any place 25. But before I go from the figment of a Catarrh I shall give you some account how I apprehend that defluxion of Rheume to happen which I have denied to proceed from vapours ascending from the stomack It is therefore a spurious depravation of the Latex which runs along with the blood and is every where while in the channels of the veins and arteries one with it under a ruby colour but upon any injury inflicted upon any part is almost at hand at the beck of the Archens ready to be separated from its boon companion the blood and to assist towards a washing of that stain impress'd upon the weakned part 26. So that if any injury of Cold become as a Thorn to prick or offend any part which is the same as is meant by taking of Cold presently the Latex which upon all such occasions is ready at hand is commanded away to bring what speedy help may be to the injured part but not being able to perform that work by reason of the prevalency of the thorny impression if I may so call it becomes rather tainted thereby receiving an exotick ferment from the injured part becomes thereby the Patron of all those exorbitant defluxions which are accompanied with pains inflammations or the like This falling upon the Larynx already alienated from an injury of Cold is sometimes turned into a copious mucous matter frequently expell'd by a Coughing 27. But if the Larynx happen to be debilitated through a continual defluxion thereof then it falls upon the Lungs where it perverts the alimentary juyce of that part turns it into a putrelaginous corrupt matter which as worm'd up by the force of a Cough still increaseth as fast so as at length fretting upon the spungy substance of the Lungs wears them away hence Ulcers of the Lungs Tabes or Consumption 28. If the Ossa Ithmoeida in the Nostrils be the parts affected from an injury of the cold Air or smoke of Coals or other bad offensive fumes thence a Coryza viz. a Disease we should all be troubled with in case that vapours actually ascended from the stomack to the head If the eyes be the parts offended thence an Ophthalmia viz. a defluxion of Rheums with an accompanied inflammation If the teeth or nervous parts therein be offended and that from the injury of the Air reaching thither through the hollowness thereof thence an Odontalgia viz. Tooth-ach with a defluxion of Rheum or portion of Latex showring down that way 29. Besides the exotick quality the Latex gets from injured parts to which it is carried by the next adjacent glandules to wash away the things offending or the impression it hath left behind as if a Mote injure the Eye a great quantity of Latex will presently flow to it to wash it out and that too from the soundest of bodies The like happens if any volatile acrimonious Spirits as of vinous Sal armoniack or Harts-horn smite the Nostrils presently an insipid Latex runs to the affected part and makes the Nose run The like also if any unwonted taste offend the Palate what a spitting doth it cause which is nothing but an insipid Latex which hasts away to wash off the impression the offensive thing hath left so a thorn pricking any fleshy part presently the adjacent Latex is sent away which endeavouring to wash off the impression the Thorn hath left but cannot thence upon a further conflux of more Latex comes a tumour and a pulse a pain and inflammation c. which being vitiated by the perverted ferment of the part turns sometimes to an Ulcer 30. I say besides the hurtful quality the Latex gets from the injured parts it also sometimes becomes depraved and badly qualified from some inbred cause even in the very vessels of the blood or in the lympheducts often tinctured with an hostile sharp pontick saltish acrimony which upon that very account is often proscribed from the oeconomy of life into some external parts quibus poenas luit whom it punisheth with its own crime tainting them with that they knew not before If this by the motion of nature be thrown upon any part it actually weakens it by impressing its own character thereon Hinc tincturae ac impressiones venenosae in vitam durabiles if it be thrown upon the Lungs it certainly causeth a phthisis Tabes or Consumption wears away the life insensibly 31. If upon the menninges of the brain hence inveterate and most obstinate head-aches not bending unless to the best of Arcana's If upon the Eyes it causeth Opthalmia's of most difficult cure If upon the Gums it ulcerates them loosening the Teeth together with intolerable pains If upon the Palate it ulcerates and mortifies them and in the French Disease it is that spurious Latex which retains the venomous properties for wherever it settles it ulcerates when tainted with the venom of that Disease It is also the author of Scorbutick and other cacoethical Ulcers 32. The waters of the Spaw may I confess at the long run and with continual use for a competent time help to dint the acrimony of this spurious Latex if it be not too much graduated nor hath not too immoderately weakned the parts for then nothing short of noble Chymical Arcana's that are enriched with a penetrative and restorative Balsom will effect the cure such as are the Spirit of Salt of Tartar the prepared Sulphur of Vitriol the tinctura lilii c. 33. Now as the forenamed Diseases are not curable by the Spaw so neither are Fevers especially continued for a Fever is a spurious fermentation of the blood from a depravation of the Elementary juyce coming too crudely into the third digestion where it should be elaborated into vital blood but by reason of its rawness or other alienated properties it perverts the natural ferment of the heart causeth a preternatural working and boyling in the blood by reason of plenty of Heterogeneities that are heapt up with the nutritive juyce 34. Now whatever hinders the natural fermentation of the blood from purifying it self by separation of Heterogeneities that I say rather aggrayates than abates a Fever but such is the coldness of the water Cold being the great enemy to the ferments of
Country-man chuseth for some grounds rather than Manure That there is an acid Salt therein is somewhat distinguishable by the taste Another sort of heat I have observed to proceed from the contact of Salts and the Calx of Metals as for instance in the following experiment I took of the Caput mort of Viride Eris from whence the Spiritus Veneris had been rectified being a very subtile Calx of Venus with which I mixed an Anatical proportion of Sal Armoniack pulverized very well in a large brass Mortar in mixing it came to such an impalpable powder as the particles seemed to be as minute and almost as continuous as the particles of water are for it was almost as fluid as water so that by the by it is plain minuteness and adaption of parts amongst themselves are mainly if not solely conducible to fluidity and fluidity the essential property of water When I had well incorporated them together for so they should be in as much as when any sutable body or Spirit is to penetrate and work an alteration in another body they then do it best when they touch each other per minima thence Contritions and Sublimations are the Pistilla Chymica by which alterations are made of one body by another I say when I had well incorporated them I put them into a paper thinking the next day to have put them into a Retort but within less than one quarter of an hour I perceived such a strong penetrating urinous smell as made me admire whence it should proceed which put me in fear of some glass being broke in my Balneum At length I came near the paper and presently found it to be that which sent forth such a strong odour which when I took up off the Table was so hot as I could scarce suffer to hold it I made hast to put it into a Retort which before I could do it well-nigh burnt my hand By this experiment thus far Two things considerable appeared one conducing to illustrate as I said the nature of fluidity to consist in minuteness of parts the other is That heat and so consequently the rest of the qualities so call'd are a certain disposition and adaption of parts of bodies amongst themselves after such and such a manner as to work differently upon one and the same body so that a brisk motion of the constituent particles either by an innate fermentation or extrinsick excitation from another subtile body is sufficient to cause that we call heat Some other causes there are of hot Springs viz. Subterraneal Fires set on work by the flagration of Bitumen or Sulphur which being kindled in some parts of the Earth where being close pent up not finding vent causeth Earthquakes but when it breaks forth it sometimes forceth with that violence as that if it break forth under the Sea it throws up stones and earth in such abundance as that a new Island is thrown up of a suddain in the midst of the Sea and that for many Leagues together the Sea is at that time covered over with the spongy Pumice-stone which is the Caput mort in the flagration of that Mineral Other places there are by which as Chimneys or Flewes the Subterraneal Fire finds vent as Aetna Vesuvius Strongilo Vulcano c. These Subterraneal Fires the ingenuous Kircker in his Mundus Subterraneus calls Pyrophylacia which being conveighed by several Subterraneal Pipes or Chanels to those Cisterns or receptacles of water called Hydrophylacia which thereby become heated and that in places not far from day I mean the superficies of the Earth breaks forth in hot Springs These Pyrophylacia it is very probable are the cause of some hot Springs as the kindling of Calx Vive are of others Of which last Fallopius tells us In agro Volaterrano ad castellum montis Cerbari vocatum sunt lacus dicti vulgo lagoni quasi lacunae ubi est aqua ferventissima undique cinis quinimo mons qui ibidem est totus calce cinere refertus est calido adeo ut calceamenta exurat uti ipse sum inquit aliquando expertus These Phyrophylacia heat the waters sometimes in ipsis cuniculis otherwhile they heat Mineral stones through which water passeth either way make hot Springs Thus having numbred up the several sorts of heats and amongst them pitched upon that which is the efficient of hot Springs amongst which also by the by the preparation of the body of Steel is performed whereby it will the most part of it readily dissolve in any Vehicle and make a Mineral water like Tunbridge Epsom and Knarsborough Spaw Let us now consider how artificial Baths may be made and those are either such as are more common as the decoctions of Vegetables and Salts in water and other liquors wherein Diseased Persons are frequently put also to have the body all but the head inclos'd within the steams of hot water or to sit under a frame of Pastboard with Spirit of Wine flaming in a large Lamp-vessel which is a kind of Stoving Bath or Stoves c. or such Baths as are more rare viz. Spirit of Wine with Salt of Tartar either for some particular parts of the body or for the whole if some Patients upon extraordinary occasions would go to the charge thereof also Sulphur so artificially contriv'd as that the flame thereof shall heat a large vessel of water in imitation of the terrestrial fires wherewith some Baths or Springs are made hot which Bath might constantly be kept hot by the continual supply of fresh Sulphur in manner of the Fountain which the Romans made constantly by art to flow hot which was performed by some brass Pipes wound up in Gyres In spiras voluti instar Draconis which were therefore called Dracones under which they made a fire by which the first Spires were made warm the next more the next again yet hotter so that the water did continually flow forth hot After which sort with some little variation Physicians might keep hot baths with Medicinal waters suted for the Patients Disease constantly at work with a small charge after the vessels were once artificially contriv'd To which purpose I have had a Balneum Maria kept hot for digestions by Leaden Pipes placed in Gyres in a wooden vessel The advantage of such artificial contriv'd Baths is this That the Physician may presently change his medicated waters as occasion offers can give what degree of warmth he pleaseth and keep them constantly in an equal heat which cannot easily be performed by the common sort of Baths and therefore comes nearer in efficacy to the natural hot Springs than the other and so consequently more effectual Now as to the virtues of Baths natural or artificial they are of large extent and may be if skillfully managed of much use in helping many Diseases as the Palsie Convulsions c. Which by opening the pores and thereby removing the obstructing or afflicting causes of the Genus Nervosum may
in the Intestines I had little ease thereby but rather grew worse Wherefore I ordered my Man to reach me a Dose of an abstersive Diuretick Salt which within two or three hours wrought pretty plentifully by Urine which gave me some ease after which it began to incline me towords a breathing sweat and that I promoted by the advice of an ingenuous Friend who came to visit me with a Dose of the Elixir Proprietatis a Medicine than which to taste nothing is more actually hot which if ordered to another who useth rather to consult his palace than his health he would have thought it rather to encrease his heat and to burn his bowels as that whereof some of the Galenists accuse that Medicine than otherwise 43. But the success thereof was very considerable for I had not taken it past half an hour but my sweat was very much increased my pains and gripings abated and my thirst but small after which I sweat very plentifully four or five hours during which time I took nothing but hot burnt Wine Enough a Galenist would have said who maketh heat to be the essential cause of a Fever to have procur'd a Fever though I found the contrary effect and have not only taken it my self but have ordered the same yea sometimes accompanyed with volatile Spirits as of Harts-horn or the like and that with extraordinary good success in Fevers it allying the thirst which nothing doth better than Diaphoreticks asswaging the violence of pains and abating most troublesom symptomes which accompany Fevers 44. Not that I am strictly confin'd to this Remely but I the rather mention it because it is one of those which the Galenists severely forbid their Patients and all their reason is because it is hot Whereas we have already shewed it to be not only safe but also very necessary I mean that Diaphoreticks whether they be hot in the taking or actually such in their operation are most likely to Gure Fevers and other acute Distempers and that both by discussing the inbred flatus as also by moving towards a separation of Heterogeneities in the mass of blood both which are most pertinent to be done in Fevers The second part of the Solution of the first Objection ANd although Chymical Remedies are vulgarly accus'd of being Empyreumatick or smelling too strongly of the fire as passing through the stress thereof and therefore not so sate as other more gentle Remedies Yet to that I answer first That although the Galenists do frequently whisper this in the ears of their Patients designedly to startle them at Chymical Physick as at a Bug-bear yet let them and their Patients know that the fire is no less useful for the preparation of Medicines than for the Cooking of meats Now How wholesome would it be for them to eat their meat as it is brought raw out of the Shambles without any preparation of the fire by boyling baking roasting or the like To drink their Beer and Ale unboyled To eat their Bread unbaked All which to which to make them wholesom and nutritive require the help of the fire which prepares all our Food and makes it more readily submit to the ferments of the digestions And as we can do nothing without fire even in our common Coockery of meats and drinks so can we do even as little without it in the preparation of Medicines which if they be of Vegetables they are most what as crude even as those Vegetables we eat as in Sallads which what riftings and belchings they cause especially to weak stomachs such as eat them can best bear witness Besides which crudities there doth also an acrimonious virulency adhere to many Vegetables as well as Animals or Minerals which are no way better tam'd than by fire or ferments for if they contain the least footsteps of virulency whereby they become actually hostile to the vital oeconomy they then must undergo a correction by the fire or by ferments which are equivalent to fire before they can be made to fit to yield any Medicinal virtue lurking under the mask of that virulency And therefore the Adepti corrects all poysonous Plants Animals or Minerals by that fiery Solvent The Alkahest by which those mixts forthwith lose their venomous properties and become exalted in their genuine though before dormant falutiferous endowments whose poysonous properties I mean of Vegetables may not a little also be corrected by bare digestions or the addition of succedaneous Menstruums as that of fixt Nitre or strongly calcin'd Salt of Tartar dissolv'd per deliquium Spirit of Salt Spirit of Tartar c. which often invert the properties of venemous Vegetables or Animals All which together with distilled Vinegar contribute not a little towards the castigating the Arsenical malignity of Minerals The latter viz. distilled Vinegar is very requisite for the extractions of the Sulphurs Tinctures or Souls as Basil Valentine calls them of the Metals or Minerals after their reduction into a spongy Calx which also doth not a little correct Antimony whether in glass or flowers yea if poured upon corrosive Mercury sublimate from which Aqua fortis hath been distilled and thereby sends forth a more suffocating steam I say distill'd Vinegar being poured thereon and thence distilled doth so tame it that no inoffensive smell doth at all arise therefrom Thus also Fire and Salts correct Antimony as to its Arsenical Sulphur making it innocent and harmless only Diaphoretick in its operation So fire raiseth up the flowers thereof which by a further strength of the fire become only a sweating Medicine The corrosive Oyl of Antimony as also another Menstruum almost as strong as it self though they are both very corrosive yet when mixed together after their mutual operation upon each other the corrosive Oyl by distillation becomes a white powder which by a slight dulcification proves to be an innocent Diaphoretick Of which I have frequently given Twenty four Grains without any sensible operation at all further then inclining to a breathing sweat Some admire the reason of the strong ebullition of these two mixed together which are Liquors as they suppose much what of the same original for take for instance the Aqua fortis which ariseth at first in the making of Mercury sublimate only with this difference that these Spirits arise at first in a liquid form whereas the other that come up with the particles of Mercury are coagulated together in a dry form of sublimate and therefore much what of the same original I say take this Aqua fortis pour it upon the butter of Antimony which is Mercury sublimate distilled with Antimony or Regulus of Antimony and a very strong ebullition happens with a dark red coloured fume This ebullition is not from the contest of the Salts for then the same would happen upon the pouring of Aqua fortis upon Mercury sublimate for the Salts in both are the same which I know upon tryal it doth not Therefore it is only thus as I conceive
whom such vain confidence gives occasion to suspect that either the Physician predicts Life to please the Patient and Friends about him or that through a confident ignorance he rapps at the prediction and at a venture because he would have it so saith assuredly his Life for his he will Live and Recover after all which with many other circumstantials of his confidence nothing is more frequent than that the Patient dies This makes Physicians a by-word amongst the vulgar and gives occasion to other understanding Persons to conclude that Physick as it is generally practiced is nothing but a meer quacking and a grand juggle impos'd upon the vulgar and others of inferior capacities which gave occasion to one ingenious Person to say That three grand Imposters of the World in that Art died in one Year which was Riverius Sir Theodore Mayhern who the third was I know not Thus we see how injurious confident Physicians are to their own Art how two or three days sometimes puts a period to their boasting in particular Patients brings a Catastrophe upon all their fair predictions blasts the deceitful hopes they have lull'd the Patient and his Friends withal and they live to prove themselves false Diviners And all because they are too short-witted to consult the Oracles of Heaven have not the right Jacob's staff to take the true altitude of the Disease nor what degrees it wants of the Horizon of Life they are too short-sighted to view the Records of Heaven and too inferior to know the Counsels of the most High and therefore it is just with him â—o baffle them in their judgements and confute them in their predictions How uncertain are the predictions by Urines which are as readily changeable as any liquid juyce in the body It hath indeed most what the same constituent principles as the Blood viz. a Phlegm a Sulphur volatile Spirit or Salt and a Salt Marine with some resident Faeces so that sometimes the Crasis of the Blood is indicated thereby For as from a due proportionable mixture of the constitutive Principles thereof the Sulphur well tempering and tincturing the volatile Salt in the Phlegm gives that curious citrine colour to healthful Urines yet are they not always sound because so coloured for we see that in any languishing Distempers where some principal parts are much vitiated both in their native ferment as also in the Parenchyma thereof and yet the Urine keeps its natural colour whence springs as from one root much deceitfulness in Urines as to predict any thing of truth as to the form of the Disease thereby and any slight disorder of the last passages it runs through will easily pervert the indication of all other primary parts and this gives an other ground of mistakes in the judgement upon Urines Some indications in some Diseases may be had from the Urine but they are incondesirable if compared with those we either have from conference with the Patient or the Patient's Messenger The truth of it is the World is so generally trained up with the custom of bringing their Waters and expecting a large Lecture of their Disease to be read thereon which many Physicians make a shift to do pumping with a few considerable previous Queries Insomuch that the People look not upon him as a Physician of skill who cannot read to them the Disease out of the Water which if he can do though it be but from what he hath already gathered from them by the by yet he then passeth for a man of judgement though he is wiser than to think himself so upon that account Many People are so credulous that they verily believe he whom they repute a skilful Physician doth certainly know the Disease and every punctilio thereof from the Water and look upon his conjectures as Oracles from the Urinal which they firmly believe he speaks from his depth of judgement therein thus the People are willingly deceived And some Physicians of this opinion Si Populus vult decipi decipiatur as the Learned Abbot riding through a Country-Town the vulgar People whom he passed by desired his Blessing to whom he replyed very gravely as if he had uttered a form of Benediction Si Populus vult decipi decipiatur streching forth his hands after a solemn manner which they received very thankfully and perhaps did them as much good as his Blessing would The gross mistakes that some are apt to commit either accidentally or designedly might methinks startle Physicians from being too positive in their predictions therefrom as for instance a Maid mistook the Vinegar-bottle for her Mistresses water carryed it very orderly to a Physician who upon previous Queries gave his judgement very methodically upon her Mistresses Infirmities thus far all was pretty well but the Maid returning found her Mistresses water in the Urinal in the same Window she had accidentally taken the Vinegar-bottle away she carryed it to the Doctor told him her mistake but it 's no matter the Diseases he saw in the Vinegar-bottle were somewhat alike with those in the Urinal-glass and therefore the judgement he passed upon the Vinegar-bottle was for ought I know as skilfully done as that upon the water it self and perhaps more for every ordinary Physician can make a shift to discover some Maladies by the Patient's water but to read a Lecture thereof out of a Vinegar-bottle was indeed extraordinary But really I could wish Physicians were more serious and would deal more fairly above board that in time they might unhinge the World from of this accustomed folly they have been by consent trained up in that the people may no longer be nuzzled up in the expectation of a Physitians looking at the Physiognomy of Diseases or staring them in the Faces through the Glass of the Water that henceforward they may not look upon them as Oracles to divine Life and Death therefrom Also I could heartily wish they would consult a more facil way of practice such as by the efficacy thereof might prove more delightful to themselves and more grateful to their Patients which certainly cannot be better attempted then by a serious Scrutiny into the natures of Concrets into the ferments of the Blood and humors and Depravations thereof also into the Sympathy and Antipathy of all medicinal ingredients how the Vital or Animal spirits stand in agreement or dissonance therewith All which and the rest necessary to be known by a Physician and best illustrated and confirmed by demonstrable experiments which are the onely satisfactory Criterions in all solid knowledge the want of which makes Physicians too erratick and inconstant in their Judgments A probable way propounded for the improvement of Experimental Philosophy TOwards a promoting an Hypothesis of experimental Philosophy one large branch whereof would be this of Physick I think it would not be impertinent yea perhaps necessary to lay aside all or most of our Books excepting such as by some Judicious persons might be reputed faithful in their communication of
their bodily Compage nor by pounding Vegetables to make Conserves thereof with the addition of Sugar nor the like addition of Sugar to the juyces thereof to make Syrups nor the additions of several Species together with Sugar and Honey for Lohochs and Electuaries I say None of these do suffer any considerable separation of the pure from the impure but the Sanguis cruor stercus of Vegetables the good and bad are all jumbled together and therefore Noble Helmont saith in his Pharmacopoeia Error Scholarum fuit succos Herbarum cum suo Parenchymate Fermento prius non subigere antequam optimarum partium selectio sit possibilis Who observing the frequent Preparations of Vegetables into Syrups Conserves and the like without any separation of parts tells us That the error thereof is for want of the knowledge of Fermentations and thereby of due separations of the pure from the impure and therefore also he saith in another place to the same purpose Discant Tyrenes sanguinem à cruore parenchymate plantarum distinguere separare si quicquam laude dignum egisse per simplicia meditentur so that unless there be some peculiar separations of earthly feculencies and other impurities which must be done by previous Fermentations in the Preparations of Vegetables we can scarce reap the Essential virtues thereof Now in Syrups Conserves Electuaries c. there are made no previous Fermentations or putrefactions and so consequently no separations of pure from impure Absque reseratione clausarum virium five vitae radice ac participatione emendatione defectuum cruditatum excrementorum potestatum violentarum Indeed Syrups and Conserves do by keeping work and ferment as we see that Syrups whilst working being close shut up in glass-bottles frequently break them though never so strong Conserves especially if made with powder'd Sugar and kept one or two years not with Loaf-Sugar which is commonly boyl'd up with a Lixivium of Calx vive do Ferment whereby the Compage of the Vegetable becomes opened out of which by a slight artifice I sometimes prepare a curious Spirit as of Roses or Rosemary Flowers which retains the taste and virtue of the Species whence they were extracted 4. Chymical Remedies are frequently more effectual in their operation than the Galenical By Chymical Medicines I do not mean such as every ordinary bragging Chymist exposeth to Sale who themselves are through their vain empty boasts no otherwise than a reproach to the noble Art of Chymistry and their Preparations spurious in comparison to the genuine products of the Spagyrical Art but such I call Chymical Medicines whose efficacy I am treating of as are made by a skilful Artist who by continued experience knows how to correct things corrigible and how by every succeeding Preparation to further inrich his Medicines with more noble virtues by making exquisite depurations and gradual seperations These will therefore more readily penetrate in intimos naturae thalamos into the more inward recesses of the Digestions and Fabrick of the vital and animal Spirits and thereby become more capable of rectifying the enormities of those nimble Agents who sit at the stern of the Digestions and govern the vital and animal functions much more than those clogging Medicines of Syrups Conserves Electuaries Lohochs Potions c. Which commonly are either rejected as nauseating to the Digestions or carryed off by seidge as cumbersom by reason of the unseparated Heterogeneities or else stuff and clog the vessels causing obstructions and thence enormous Flatulencies Concerning the constitutive Principles of all Coneretes whether Vegitable Animal or Mineral BEsides all which the Preparation of Chymical Medicines gives a diligent Searcher much insight into the Principles of Natural Philosophy which first insinuated the Tria prima of the Philosophers viz. Sal Sulphur Mercurius to be Principles of all things and that because they found in the Analysis of Bodies by the fire that they were reducible to some or all of those three for in reduction of Metals and Minerals to their first Principles as they suppos'd they found by this Art that they were separable into a Sulphur or Oyl which was the Hematina Metallorum retaining the true tincture of the Metal and into a Mercury which in the Mineral Kingdom is current Quicksilver and the key to this separation they found to be in a Mineral Salt which also needed reduction by Art to its primitive simplicity and graduation to its greatest activity They find also that Vegetables and Animals were by the Pyrotecnical Art separable into a Sulphur viz. into an Oyl or in Vegetables by Fermentation into a vinous Spirit which is the same thing with an Essential Oyl saving the different determination it receives from Fermentation also into a Salt and that either fixt or volatile for in the Concrete they are the same owing their difference to no other than to the force of fire and lastly into a Mercury which is their Phlegm or watery parts separable by fire or otherwise by the exiccating Blass of the Air. Now some of our modern Chymical Philosophers as the ingenious Dr. Willis multiply these three into five Principles which in effect are but the three first still the five which he reckons Bodies are most-what separable into rare Spirit Oyl Salt Water and Earth if by Spirit he means the vinous got by Fermentation What difference is there for both are Sulphurs both take flame and burn alike only the one is made by Fermentation the other not and being they have both the same Essential properties of Flamability What should hinder them from being Sulphurs But if he mean by Spirit the volatile saline Spirit which is not combustible This volatile Spirit by frequent rectification may be brought into the form of a volatile Salt whose Vehicle was water Phlegm or Mercury but the body of volatile Salt is Salt and therefore should not be accounted as another Principle As for that Principle which he calls Earth if a Concrete may be volatiz'd and brought over the helm without any resident Caput mort as the Chymical Adepti can perform Then I pray what becomes of his fixt Principles he calls Earth So that in the conclusion we shall find his five to be reducible into the first three These three Principles of Sal Sulphur and Mercury into which many Concretes are reducible by the Analysis of the fire are again reducible into two and those are Aqua Semen Water and Seed which are the primitive constituent Principles of all Bodies in the Mundane Systeme to which two the Sal Sulphur and Mercury are but posteriour products or offsprings of that double Original Yea whatever parts or supposed simple Principles any sort of Bodies are reducible into they are but the sequels or after-products variously extorted by force of fire of those two real Principles Water and Seed Water we suppose and perhaps may prove to be the first matter of all visible Bodies It is the true subject matter of all
the evincing the truth of the simplicity of the material Elementaryness of Concrets For as it is in this so also is it in other reductions by the same solvent What becomes of the Salt Sulphur Spirit and earth If these were real Principles they would not be convertible one into another neither would they be reducible into something more simple then themselves in as much as it is essential for Principles to be Primary and to be the last in reduction What becomes of the Spirit one of the Principals of the Moderne Chymical Philosophers which whether it be Vinous got by Fermentation or Saline got by distillation yet is it really convertible into Salt witness the Offa from Spirit of Wine and Spirit of Urine the Sal Alkali made out of spirit of Wine which before was Flagrable but being chang'd into a Salt hath lost that and lastly the rectification of Volatile Urinous Spirits whether of plants or Animals until they distil or Coagulate into the very body of Salt What becomes of Sulphur or Oyl another supposed Principle for Sulphurs are convertible into Salts as I have seen in an experimental process too redious here to be related and Helmont saith Salia aromatum ex eorum oleis facta primi entis illorum vices subeunt and that Oyl of Cinnamon if united to its own Alkali by an artificial and secret circulation for the space of three months without any water wil be totally changed into a volatile Salt Also what becomes of Salt another main Principle of both antient and Modern Chymists For whether it be fixt or Volatile neither of them is an ultimate and so consequently no primary Principle in the concrete it is neither volatile nor fixt but made so by Fermentations or force of Fire for in all simple distillations of Vegetables without previous putrefaction there alwaies remains an Alkali or Salt besides the Volatile Salt which ariseth by distillation So in the actual Flagration or Calcination of Vegetables the Salt catcheth hold of the Sulphur and both become fixt together into an Alkali which Assertion viz. that part of the Sulphur in the actual force of the Fire is fixt with the Salt into an Alkali is apparent from the Saponariness of every Alkali whether of Tartar or any dried Vegetable So that Salts as they lie woven up with the Sulphur in the Texture of the Concrete are as I said neither fixt nor volatile but in the mutual imbraces of each other become pregnant with the Medicinal Vertues Odours Sapours c. proper to the Plant and from different operations of fire and ferments thereon doth proceed both the Volatility and fixity of the Salt their mutability of one into another and Separation each from other Now both these are ultimately reducible into Mercury or water which I look upon as Synonyma for Helmont saith Omze oleum distillatum in salem est mutabile in aquam per adjuncta so that into neither of them are bodies by a genuine Analysis ultimately reducible and therefore they are constitutive Principles of things Lastly what will become of earth that first Principle of the Modern Chymists and fourth of the Aristotelians And although those who contend for five Principles because Vegetables and Animals are by a common Analysis of the fire separable into so many distinguishable parts viz. an Oyl Spirit Salt Phlegm and Earth I say though they do find after the separation of the first four an other part as a feculent dross of all the rest which they call earth yet do we deny the Separation of these parts from a concret by force of fire to be any true Analysis or proper way of taking bodies in pieces And therefore it is no genuine reduction thereof into their primary Principles but onely a forcing the parts asunder by violence of fire so that being put upon the Rack if they make any confession of their first parents its onely extorsive Also the basis of Aristotle's Elements falls imo ruit totum quaternarium elementorum praeter aquam for if we strictly examine what earth is we shall find that it enters not the composition of any body as a primary constitutive Ingredient thereof and that because if we search into the great variety of Earths we may observe them all to be but fruits or products of the primitive Principle Water except hence that Arena Quellem terra virginalis which never enters into the composition of any body quoad generatonem indeed artificially it enters the composition of Glass of Brick cement c. but that is sine semine praevio And that the several sorts of Earth are various coagulations of water according to the difference of the Fracedinous seeds dispersed and implanted therein and that they are no less products of water then Mineral Salts middle Minerals Stones and Metalline Bodies are all which receive a Specifical determination from the difference of the Fermental Seeds Is I say demonstable by granting the veracity of Helmont's experiment aforesaid viz. that all these Earths Stones Marcasites Minerals c. are ultimately reducible into water by his grand Solvent the Alkahest and that without any residence or Faeces at all so that if earth were a permanent Principle it would be so as long as bodies are bodies and would alwayes remain earth after the reduction of the concrete into Elements As earth is no Element so neither doth air enter as such into the composition of Bodies and though its true that air is both useful and necessary for Vegetation and Animation without which neither do plants grow nor Animals live yet is it onely respiraculum vitae promoting in Animals both circulation and volatization of the Blood and helps every part to perform the motion proper thereunto inasmuch as we cannot go to stoole without the help thereof compressing the muscles of the Abdomen and so of Urine and the like but still it enters not the composition of any body as an Elementary Ingredient thereof Nor is any body ultimately resolvable thereinto for though there be a flatus arising usually from the Enormities of the digestions yet that is quite another thing then air And as neither earth nor air so neither fire enters the composition of any concrete for though there be heat and consequently a kind of fire in the body of Animals yet that is no other than a product of Vital Fermentation and no radical Principle and therefore Paracelsus was to be laughed at who in his Tractate De separatione Elementorum teacheth the separation of the Element of fire and out of it again a new separation of Elements For if I should with him suppose an Element of fire yet if that be further reducible it forthwith looseth both the name and nature of an Element and although he and other Hermetical Philosophers tell us of the separation of Elementum iguis de vitriolo Veneris yet by that we must onely understand the Sulphur separated from the Vitriol of Copper which Sulphur
as well as that of Antimony c. they call fires because they have a power of maturating and digesting the Mercurial Crudities into a penetrative tinging Elixir Thus we see that neither the Ternary of Principles of Hermetical Philosophers nor the quaternary of the Peripateticks nor yet quinary of the Modern Philosophers are sufficient to be accounted real radical Principles into which all Concretes should ultimately be reducible because they themselves are yet remigrable into a more simple Element and therefore ipso facto forfeit the Prerogative of primary Principles The very hinge of the matter now is Whâ—â—â—â—â— we believe the truth of Helmont's Experiments or no. As for my own particular I do not pretend the possession of that great Liquor though I have several Preparations I hope in the way towards it but methinks I cannot suspect the veracity of so Noble and Grave a Philosopher in matter of fact as to the Experiments he hath made by that Solvent though I should never live to enjoy it I cannot but think it dissonant to reason that he who wrought Thirty Years with his own hands in Chymical Experiments that he might not take things upon trust nor Jurare in verba Magistri should whil'st on the verge of the Grave in his old Age leave figments and palpable Lies in matter of fact to the World Besides he seems to be consistent with himself in matter of Experiments in which he is abundantly more plentiful than ever Paracelsus was though he also had the knowledge of that Liquor from some of the Arabian Philosophers but I am apt to believe he did not know half the extent of its use Geber and others of the Arabian Philosophers so also Lully was possessors of this secret Menstruum as may be seen in his Theorica where he tells us that he coagulated Quicksilver into a fixt Powder Et nemo scivit modum salvá Regiâ Majestate Also a Countryman of our own an Anonymus who if yet living hath it It 's not many years since he was in England some of whose Manuscripts I have by me who certainly gives more light to the Writings of another of our Country-men viz. Riply also to Count Trevisan and other Hermetical Philosophers than ever yet was done The greatest light Helmont gives in order to the Faâ—â—ick of this Liquor is as followeth viz. Chymia 〈…〉 â—ando sollicitae est corpori quod tantae puritatis â—â—â—iphoniâ colluderet nobiscum ut â corrumpente nequiret dissipari tandem stupefactaest religio reperto latice qui ad minimas reductus atomos naturae possibiles coelebs omnis fermenti connubia spernit Desperata est ejus transmutatio digniue se corpus non reperiens cui nuberet Sed labor Sophiae anomalum in naturâ fecit quod absque fermento commiscibili à se diverso surrexit Serpens seipsum iste momordit à veneno revixit ac mori deinceps nescit Of which he saith Unus idem Liquor Alkahest omnia totius universi corpora tangibilia perfectè reducit in vitam eorundem primam absque ulla sui mutatione aut virium diminutione Mundat etiam nauram virtute sui ignis Nam ut ignis omnes perimit insectas ita Alkahest consumit Morbos c. Now as by the highest Preparation in the Chymical Art Concretes become reducible into water so likewise we see in a natural circulation out of one shape into another that water is found most what to be the last For all Vegetables are distillable into a great proportion of water also all juyces of Vegetables are by Fermentation brought into potable Liquors and those again into Vinegar and that into a vapid Liquor which at length is nothing but simple water The Vine we see which is the noblest of Vegetables according to the nature of its Seed specificates the water or Succus leffas Terrae into its own shape attracting like a Syphon the Elementary Water in great plenty out of the Earth into its leaves and clusters This innate Seed which makes the difference of water coagulated in this Vegetable from that coagulated in other Vegetables by the concurrence of the influence of the Sun and Season of the Year begets a Salt and a Sulphur these mutually acting upon each other in the Mercurial part beget a Fermentation in which Fermentation there happens a separation and rejection of a feculent part to the sides of the vessels which is called Tartar from which Tartar by force of fire is separable a Sulphur Salt Mercury Spirit and feculent Earth all which are not really pre-existent in the Tartar but are new products by the fire whereof the Salt and Empyreumatick Sulphur digested together do by Distillation give a water and the Spirit at length degenerate into water Now by Fermentation and while the feculent Tartar is separating the Sulphur by working upon the Salt become united and so graduated as they both combine in the Fabrick of a vinous combustible Spirit which is promoted by a secret Fermentation after the actual working is over which is nothing else but a more firm and closely riveted union of the Sulphur and Salt maturating the Mercurial part into a generous Wine This Wine either distill'd is the most part of it left as an insipid Phlegm or water yea and the very flammable vinous Spirit is by the touch of Salt of Tartar in Fifteen or Sixteen parts thereof according to Helmont reducible into simple water or if the Salt thereof become too much exalted by letting go its Sulphur then it degenerates into Vinegar which Vinegar if dulcified by making Saccharum Saturni or the Sal Sennerti is totally reducible into an insipid water The like happens in all Vegetables for Water is the material Principle of Vegetables and therefore they ultimately resolvable thereinto That Water is the material Principle of Vegetables is apparent both because without water whether distilled down upon the earth in the circulation thereof in Dews or Rain or by the overflowing of Rivers upon the grounds whence the fertility of Aegypt from Nilus his overflowing the banks or by any other sort of watering grounds because I say without water from some of the foresaid ways neither do Plants take nor increase nor is any Vegetation perform'd also because in water many Vegetables grow shoot forth roots and spread very largely witness Mint and several other Plants whose tops being only nipt off and put into a glass-viol full of water they begin in a few days as I have seen to shoot forth spriggy roots and from thence to grow up to a great height even as if they were actually planted or set in earth whose growth and increase is from nothing else but simple water So also many Vegetables as I said grow in water and have no roots at all fastened in the earth To confirm which further that remarkable Experiment of Helmont is very considerable viz. He planted the Trunk of a Willow Tree of five pound weight in Two hundred pound
thereof every Plant in its kind to the great and wonderful variety which we see upon the face of the earth so that presentem refert qualibet herba Deum 6. So in like manner the invisible Divine Power hath according to his own beneplacit dispersed variety of Mineral and Metaline seeds in hidden places of the opake body of the earth whence indeed the great and manifold difference of Mineral Glebes or Earths which Mineral seeds as well as all others whether vegetable or animal are indemonstrable a priori taking at first their immediate beginings from the very bosom of the Eternal Being 7. And therefore only demonstrable to us à posteriori viz. to our common sense by appearing in a visible garb upon the Stage of the World Now these dispersed Mineral Seminaries wherewith several parcels of earth become impregnate being set at work by the primitive fiat which is the same to this day as ever in their begining to shape bodies for their ideal essences to become manifest in form to themselves a Mercurial volatile juyce and an embrionate Sulphur as the materia proxima prima to Metalization 8. With these two proximate principles the Mineral Archeal faber operates ripens the elemental crudities and in a linear process puts on a tincture and weight and at length terminates in the coagulation of a perfect Metal specificated according to the form of the innate seed for the ripening coagulating fire of the embrionate Sulphur is as the Solterrae id quod est inferius est sicut quod est superius which kills the Python viz. exiccates and maturates the radical Mercurial moisture and terminates it in a Metalick species But I digress this being more fit for a Philosophick discourse upon another subject 9. We say therefore that these Mineral Glebes have for the mostpart a Mercury and a Sulphur in solutis principiis and both dissolvable in an essurine salt for salts are the keys that unlock the Mineral Kingdom These are those Menstrual Salts which teach Minerals and Metals how to dissolve in water by breaking them in minima and thereby how to communicate their medicinal virtues for the health of mans body 10. Here the Chymistry of nature is most admirable which by its own peculiar Menstruums extracts the essential innate virtues of Mineral Glebes and that by an intrinsick invisible fire in the digesting vessels of the earth yea and by the help of Art supplying the difficulties of Nature by frequent solutions and coagulations may yet further graduate these mineral virtues into more noble Arcana's whose essential tinctures may the better penetrate the vital ferments of the Microcosm 11. But how this Sulphurious essurine Salt becomes determined and specificated according to the difference of the Mineral Glebes it meets with into this or that fossile Salt or Mineral mixture may perhaps not unaptly be represented by this following instance as suppose several colours and salts placed at a distance one from another upon a large Marble and common simple water is convey'd to each of these this water though the same to all yet as it comes to every of them it becomes differently tincted and tasted according to the colour and taste of those parcels it meets with 12. So this essurine Sulphurous Spirit meeting with variety of Mineral Earths though the same in it self to every one yet becomes altered and tinctured according to the different property of the Mineral Earth and that according to the degree of Sulphur maturating the crude Mercurial juyce Now to confirm this our Thesis we must assume these two considerations first that all the various specificated Mineral Salts as Allom Vicriol Nitre c. have aliquid commune something in common amongst themselves and secondly that thereby all these Salts become transmutable one into another 13. For the first that they have something in common among themselves besides confirmation by our previous discourse is yet further demonstrable by matter of fact upon our second consideration viz. the transmutability of one salt into another by the Chymical Art we can out of sal marine or the spirit thereof make a Vitriol of Iron or Copper and by dissolving Quicksilver in Oyl of Vitriol according to what is done in making turbith Mineral as suppose four Ounces of Oyl of Vitriol to one of Mercury after the phlegm is evaporated and distilled that there remains a white precipitate which edulcorated by washing gives a Citrine powder and being revived as by distilling it from pot-ashes it may gives the same weight of current Quicksilver as it was at first This water which is impregnate with the Vitrioline Salts by being boyled up gives a true Allom here Vitriol salts are transmuted into an allumenish salt and that without the addition of any thing but Quicksilver which is again totally separable and yet salts by the very odour of the Mercury is turn'd into an Allom. 14. And not only Oyl of Vitriol with Mercury but also Oyl of Vitriol with common sal marine gives Alumen for if you put Oyl of Vitriol as we sometimes have done upon common salt and distil it in a glass body or retort with a gentle heat you will find a very volatile spirit of salt will come over the helm which will fume exceedingly the caput mort ' or remaining salt being dissolved gives a salt exactly resembling Allom. 15. Also Allom in its Minera exposed to the air is as a Magnet to Nitre attracting and centring it upon it self and common salt is in the body of Nitre Thus you see a relation or circulation of salts one into another and all this because they have in their Centre that one common Essurine spirit of salt which according to various alterations in Mineral beds admits of different coagulations 16. In short by way of recapitulation it is thus the Essurine acid salt having in its solution got a slight touch of a Vein or Minera of Iron and passing through a Rocky Mineral Glebe of Allom of which along the shore of Scarbrough and Whithy is found great plenty becomes more specificated in an allumenous than any other salt with which the water of the Quick-spring which breaks forth at the foot of the Rock is impregnate which makes that Fountain viz. the Spaw we discourse of SECT 7. 1. HAving thus run through the essential principles of this spring which make up this body of Mineral water which is so frequently and that for the most part not without the expected success drunk for the health of mens bodies I think it not impertinent to speak somewhat of its virtues and that the rather because Dr. Wittie gave forth as I was inform'd that I endevoured to defame the Spaw in that I held it to be an allumenous Spring 2. Let him therefore and the World know that in the Essurine salt of Allom as noble medicinal virtues are to be found as in any other Mineral specificated salt whatever for this salt in its primum ens is volatile and
inward inbred fire viz. the Sulphur of those bodies which ripens and maturates the Minerals and Metals making them more or less pure according to the disposition of the place and graduation of the Sulphur By Salts I mean the Primum Ens salium with its various coagulations into specificated Salts for without these Agents all Mineral and Metalline bodies are at rest There are neither solutions nor coagulations Now there are few sorts of earth through which water in its current passeth saving the Quellem or Arena bulliens but they are impregnate with Mineral juyces of one sort or other which by some sleight touch of a Mineral Salt in the water-Spring becomes dissolv'd in some small proportion enough to give that great difference we find in Spring-water both as to taste which some that have accurate palates and have accustomed themselves to drink water can easily discern an eminent difference in taste of one sort of Spring-water from another as also to the frequent use waters are put to both for boyling meat washing and bleaching cloaths Dying Tanning Brewing c. All which difference I say proceed some small solution of different Mineral juyces by the Medium of a little touch of Salt dissolv'd in the subterraneal chanels of water Here I might expatiate and shew the reasons of the difference of waters both as to taste and also in order to the foresaid uses but least I make these papers swell too much I shall wave it My next work is to shew How Mineral Salts upon the mutual contact of each other or of Mineral bodies are the efficient cause of heat in those Springs I am now speaking of To which purpose I shall propound several mechanical experiments of the productions of heat as first from the mixing acid and alkalizate Liquors as for instance of Oyl of Vitriol with Oyl of Tartar which upon mixing give a great heat making a strong ebullition which when over the heat wasteth and that is either when the one by its greater proportion over-acts or overcomes the other or when both proportionable they are reduc'd to an Equilibrium or neutral Salt called Tartarum Vitriolatum Which heat is caus'd not only by Oyl of Vitriol upon the Alkali of Tartar but also by any other acid Spirit as Spirit of Nitre Spirit of Salt Aqua fortis Spirit of Vinegar or the like which after the ebullition is over give a Tartarum nitrosum salinum acetosum c. And as Salts mutually acting upon each other cause heat so in like manner do some Liquors or Spirits affus'd upon Salts effect the same as Spirit of Wine poured upon drie Salt of Tartar will make a great heat so that in mixing them to rectifie Spirit of Wine therefrom we usually do it per vices or by sprinkling the Salt leisurely therein least we should indanger the glass by heating it too much The like heat happens by pouring the Spirit of Wine upon Arsenick fixt upon Nitre which as from the same cause with that of Spirit of Wine upon Salt of Tartar for the Nitre by the open calcination with Arsenick is partly turned into a fixed Alkali which that it is so appears because if to the dulcified Arsenical powder after the washing away the Salts Spirit of Wine be poured no heat is contracted So water poured upon Calx vive gives a considerable heat which it doth by resolving the acid and alkalizate Salts contained therein who by their mutual contest cause an heat As Salts acting one upon another and the affusion of some Liquors also upon them cause heat so also Salts acting upon Minerals or Metalline bodies by corrosion and dissolution are the efficients of heat Thus any corrosive Menstruum fretting Mineral or Metalline bodies cause the same as for instance in the solution of any Metal in Aqua fortis during the ebullition there is an heat so in making the Vitriolum Martis upon the affusion of the Menstrum the heat is so very strong as that I have not been able to hold the glass in my hand Which proceeds from the agile Spirits of Salts fretting upon the Metalline compage taking it in pieces and reducing it in minima in whose forcible not natural Analysis through the agility of motion the heat is caused But in the pouring Aqua Regia upon Antimony or Spirit of Nitre upon Butyrum Antimonii for the making Bezoardicum Minerale there an heat is caused by an actual humid calcination of the Sulphur of that Mineral where the Sulphur by those corrosive Spirits almost takes flame passeth off with a strong stifling Arsenical vapour Also the motion of bodies one upon or against another by concussion or frication cause heat so fermentation gives quickness of motion and that produceth heat which is sensibly perceived in some fermenting liquors in others not Now the Query pertinent to my purpose is Which of all these several causes of heats may probably be the efficient of hot Springs To which I answer That it is most likely to proceed from Mineral Salts one acting upon another that is from the Essurine Salt which alone with a slight touch of a Mineral give being to those Fontes Acidi viz. Vitrioline Spaws which meeting in the chanels of the Earth with some lixivial Marcasites are by the current of a water-Spring dissolv'd and set a boyling one working and fretting upon another give that heat to the water which dissolves them Which two Salts viz. Acid and Alkalizate are sometimes embryonative in the same Marcasite which may happen in some natural stone or middle Mineral of Calx Vive into which a current of water being opened presently dissolves the two Salts makes them contest and struggle by reason of the antipathy of their natures and thereby cause the heat in hot Baths So that in short It is very probable that it is from a natural stone of Calx Vive which being plentiful in the Minera thereof may give cause for the perpetuation of heat To confirm which Some have found a white Marcasite about the place of those hot oprings in Sommerset-shire which put into water give an heat Now that two such opposite Salts should be embryonate in the same Mineral stone is an argument that the seminal principles of Nature are at work in all places according to the capacity and manner of the matters reception viz. ad modum recipientis Calx Vive distill'd with fresh Urine makes the Spirit thereof arise at the first with that difference also from soliary Spirit of Urine as that it gives cause to think that some volatile Alkali of the Calx ariseth up with it which hinders the coagulation of the Spirit into an Offa with Spirit of Wine usually happening from simple Spirit of Urine and Spirit of Wine mixed together Which very thing argues the difference of Salts of Calx Vive That it hath an Alkali in it is demonstrable enough from its inriching of grounds for which purpose it is frequently used in barren Soyls which the
the Salts in the corrosive Oyl of Antimony close with the Spirits of Aqua fortis or of Nitre for the same happens to both and thereby becomes a powerful corrosive which presently set upon the flowers of the Antimony contained in the butter do in effect no more than so much Aqua fortis or Aqua Regia poured upon crude Antimony for in both the combustible Sulphur is ready to take flame which calcining in a humid way the flagrable Sulphur burns it off in a dark thick horrid fume even as Tartar and Nitre by the help of fire doth burn away that Sulphur in a dry way After the Sulphur is burnt away by the corrosive Salts the flowers become fixt into a Bezoardicum Antimoniale which Menstruum being distilled off is somewhat yellow and will dissolve Gold which it doth as an Aqua Regia of the best sort having some of the body of the Sea-Salt which was carryed over the helm in a complicated form with Mercury Vitriol and Nitre this distilled over with the other Salts into a Butyrum close with the Spirits of Aqua fortis or the Nitrous Spirits calcines the Antimomony and distill together in the form of an Aqua Regia and all this by the help of fire Thus you see a specimen of the power of fire which raiseth up corrosives and those corrosives dulcifie one another and correct Minerals of their Arsenical Sulphurs and that by the dry and moist way which is still by fire It fixeth things that are volatile as for instance Nitre and Arsenick both which if single are easily consum'd but joyntly and helped by the force of fire the one fixeth the other and becomes by dulcification with Spirit of Wine Paracelsus his Balsamus Fuliginis proper against cacoethical Ulcers It also volatizeth things that are fixed separates things that are separable it sweetens four things maturates crude things and hastens all productions whether Fruits or Vegetables to their perfection or full state of ripeness and therefore unripe Berries Apples Apricocks c. are by Coddling or Baking suddenly dulcified and Sallads whether Lettuce or other herbs are made more wholesom by boyling By a digestive heat in close vessels caustick acrimonious plants as Flamula Jovis Urtica Romana Persicaria c. become blunted and lose their sting yea even the same happens by bare distillation of them though no stinging or pricking acrimony is at all perceptible in their distilled water These things duly considered will necessarily evince the extensiveness of the use of fire both as to Food and Medicine Vegetables are not only crude but many of them virulent too and therefore need fire to ripen them and by correcting their venomous properties to make way for their intrinsick Medical virtues to appear Also Animals communicate not their virtue which lodge chiefly in the Blood and Urine unless helped by fire or ferments or both whereby their parts become separable and applicable to our mummial ferments And as for Minerals they are most what virulent and lock'd up and therefore of necessity require a correction and opening of their virtues by the fire which must be done by such degrees of fire as are proportionable to the strictness of the texture of their bodies and to the prevalency of their virulent properties which cannot be done by such gentle sost fires as Vegetable separations are usually performed by It is for the sake of the unlocking these Minerals that the great stress of fire is so frequently us'd in the Chymical Analysis of them which gives cause to the Galenists to accuse Spagyrical Preparations with being too much fired which how frivolously grounded Let all that have skill therein judge For a strong fire is as requisite in some Mineral Preparations as a mild fire to some easie Vegetable separations the one altogether as proper and necessary as the other Would not a Cook-Maid be accus'd of ignorance if she intending to Roast a joynt of meat should lay it down at a disproportionate distance from an ordinary fire thinking to take a longer time to do it in Surely if the distance from the fire was such as only to warm the meat gently it would not for many days and for ought I know never Roast but would dry up become insipid and turn to a kind of mummial flesh For as I apprehend Roasting of meat is perform'd thus viz. When the meat is plac'd at such a competent distance as that the fire penetrating the midst thereof forceth forth the crude blood and moisture from all parts which meeting with fresh assaults of fiery particles are driven back again and search all cavities of the flesh thereby maturating the rawness thereof which if the meat be taken whil'st this moisture remains and yet thoroughly penetrated by the digesting particles of fire it is then sapid sweet and savory but if this be spent and the meat yet kept longer at the fire then it begins to be burnt and thereby becomes tastless but if it be perform'd by a pretty quick fire it 's the soonest and best done So in Baking of Bread if the Oven be not throughly heated the bread will remain dough and not wholesom for food Though these be homely Examples yet are they sufficient to demonstrate the necessity of degrees of fire to be us'd according to the strictness or remissness of the texture of the body applicable thereto Besides I look upon my self here as speaking to those who need familiar comparisons to convince them thereby of the necessity of strong fires in some cases for to those acquainted with Chymical Preparations these are superfluous Again What Preparations are there in Shops which have undergone the fire but are Chymically Prepared and yet no less notwithstanding useful in order to the removing of Diseases What are all the Spirits and Cordial-waters but Chymical Separations of Urinous Spirits marryed with the tinctures and odours of Aromaticks and that by distillation by the fire What are the best of their Purging Pills viz. the Extractum Rudii but a Chymical Extraction of the tinctures of so many Vegetables as is requisite thereto by a good rectified Spirit of Wine which if neatly done and drawn off in Balneo as I do in the making it for my own use upon occasion and the fixed Salt of the species after calcination and separation thereof being reunited with its extract is not only Chymical as being prepared by the fire but the very best amongst the Shop-Purges What are the best Emeticks or Vomitings in the Shops but such as are Chymically Prepared and that by force of fire too Witness the infusion of Crocus Metalorum and Mercurius Vitae The one is prepared by fire and Salts out of Antimony which we call Hepar Antimonii from the Hepatick colour thereof whereby the external malignant Sulphur of the Antimony is mostwhat consumed The other is prepared by fire and Salts out of Mercury and Antimony but consists chiefly if not solely of the flowers of Antimony incorporated with
the Salt in the Mercury sublimate and carryed over together in a glacial Oyl For in an accurate observation of a distillation thereof with sublimate and Regulus of Antimony which sublimate we also made and so knew the quantity of Mercury therein we in a manner got all our Mercury current again and of Eighteen Ounces of Regulus we had but six Ounces or scarce so much left in the Caput mort Which very Experiment makes me close with Barthius who concludes this gummous Liquor to be the Reguline parts of Antimony and against Gluckradius who would have it to be from Mercury affirming that the Antimony only by its addition helps the fusion and liquefaction of the Mercury in its distillation and against Bilichius too who with Gluckradius would have it to be nothing else but Mercury brought over in a glacial Oyl by the help of Salts so as the Antimony onely contributes towards the liquidness of the Mercury as bole sand earth or the like doth towards the distillations of Salts with which they are us'd as a Retinaculum But our Experiment doth wholy thwart this for out of three Pound of sublimate in which by compute we find about Twelve Ounces of Quicksilver in each Pound and Eighteen Ounces of the Regulus Antimony we had one Pound an half of the Oyl two Pound and about four Ounces of current Mercury and in the Caput mort scarce six Ounces here the whole weight of the matter we took was four Pounds two Ounces answerable to which we got one Pound and half of Oyl two Pound four Ounces of Quicksilver and six ounces in the Caput mort in all four Pounds two Ounces so that we lost nothing Now how should Mercury make up the body of this Oyl when we got it in a manner all current again as it was at first before sublimation with Salts And why should not the Regulus make up the body thereof with the Salts Seeing we lost Twelve Ounces of the Regulus which must needs make up this butter for that quantity of Regulus which we found defective in the bottom of the Retort together with as much of the Salts out of the Sublimate made up the whole of the butter viz one Pound and an half Again Whence should proceed the strong Sulphureous fumes upon the pouring of Aqua fortis or Spirit of Nitre thereon but from the Sulphur of the Antimony which it has in greater plenty than quick Mercury has Besides if the white powder viz. Mercurius Vitae so called be put into a crucible and try'd further by the fire we have observ'd it to flow and fume over which fume though we directly plac'd a Spatula yet have we not discovered the least minute particle of Mercury thereon which from other vulgar Preparations of Mercury brought to the test of fire in a crucible we found particles of current Mercury viz. from Mercury precipitate Turbith Mineral factitious Cinnabar Mercuriùs dulcis Mercury sublimate all which gave a specimen of the body of Mercury but this of Mercurius Vitae none but melted into a kind of Stibium or black glass in the same manner as any common preparation of Antimony will do As to the main argument Bilichius brings which is Ego quoque inquit Mercurium vitae pulvisculo Tartari purificati permixtum modico attamen diuturno calore in arena exercitum vidi Liquoris aeterni guttulam unam atque alteram sudasse which I rather judge might be a particle or two of the Mercury of Antimony than of the vulgar Mercury at first contained in the sublimate for it is the very way at least analogous to that which some propround towards the getting the Mercury of Antimony Yet we cannot but admire at that wonderful operation thereof which Bilichius and besides him none that I know takes notice After he has given a large Encomium of the virtues thereof in order to the Cure of several Diseass both acute and Chronical he subjoyns Quin etiam mulierculis periculofissimè parturientibus felicissimè obstetricantem vidi quum debitos puerperio dolores crudelis Luâ—â—â—â—â—â—geret jawque fere triduum irritis conatibus matroâ—s fretamque defatigasset ut tenuisilo amborum res ponderet imò ommum opinione conclamatum utriâ—que videretur in hoc discrimine non deseruit me pulviâ—â— familiarissimus sed pondusculo siliquae cum vini momâ—â—tâ— propinatus effecit fortunante Deo intra horulam ut pro justis funebribus soteria usuvenirent pro parentalibus celebrarentur Natalitia Et quantum vitae studeat non sine miraculo demonstravit si venenatâ qualitate grassatur in corpus humanum non pe percisset tenellae proli non puerperae doloribus exhaustae benefecisset sed afflictas afflixisset pene morientibus accelerasset mortem Nunc secus accidit utraemque juvit neutram laesit vimque omnem expultricem non aliorsum atque in uterum convertit I confess I never yet tryed the Experiment though his authority is sufficient incouragement thereto So that both these foresaid Preparations which are the chief Emeticks of the Shops are I say both out of Antimony which very Mineral is that the Galenists so deeply accuse and tell their Patients how dangerous a thing it is and that they will order no such dangerous Ingredient when perhaps the next prescription will be infusion of Crocus Metallorum or some few Grains of Antimonium Diaphoreticum or the like not to mention here the Sal Vitrioli or the Gilla Theophrasti which they seldom prescribe either because they have them not or know not their virtues What is their best Medicine for worms which they also frequently use against venereal Diseases but a Chymical Preparation called Mercurius dulcis Made out of Mercury another Mineral or rather Metal they inveigh against and that too out of the most corrosive sublimate than which save the Oyl of Antimony nothing is more desperately corrosive and yet out of this corroding product of Salts Mercury and Fire with the help of more Mercury and the further use of Fire is This innocent harmless Medicine Chymically Prepared which is so safe as is frequently given to Children against the Worms and that so the Dose be duely ordered without the least harm as all those who use it can testifie especially if the Preparation be rightly done What are the fixt Salts in the Shops as of Tartar Wormwood Broom Scurvy-grass c. but Chymical products made by force of fire For the fire especially the naked force thereof separates all separable parts and in the actual flagration the Vegetable Salt takes hold of the Sulphur the one bears down the other by force to suffer all the injury the flames can do and so become fixed together whence proceeds the saponaryness of all fix'd Salts and that it is the Vegetable Salt which while it 's in the Concrete before any violence be done is neither fix'd nor volatile which catching hold of the Sulphur in the flagration of the
their gently purging quality lessen the Alkalizate Sordes which cause thirst and feverish burnings and boylings in the blood and besides by their Menstrual Salts blunt the acrimony of the spurious fermentation of the Stomach and with the help of Elixir Proprietatis which I call the Cordial Elixir taken as I shall shew afterwards the cause of the feverish Flatus will be much abated which Flatus is the necessary concomitant and result of the spurious feverish fermentation in the Stomach from which incoercible Flatus or Spiritus Sylvestris all those usual sick and faint fits proceed And if upon a previous vomit which skilfully ordered lessons these Alkalizate burnt Sordes which sometimes lie fast riveted in the tunicles and fouldings of the Stomach these Pills be afterwards given two or three dayes together and a Dose of the Cordial Elixir be given in the afternoon about 3 or 4 by the Clock as also last at Night one of our Diaphoretick Pills with a glass of burnt Wine after it will so blunt the acrimony of those burnt recrementall Sordes the Minera of the Fever as that the feverish Fermentation will be abated the cause of the Flatus whence sick fits will be mitigated the boyling Spirits will be settled The Archeus or regent spirit of the digestions that Spiritus impetum faciens will be composed and all the clutter will be hush'd into a silent calmness with a gentle breathing sweat which Diaphoretick or sweating Pills are but to be taken every other or every third night and that too after a previous evacuation either by our Scorbutick Pills or at least by a Clyster ordered that afternoon before they be taken Thus the causes being removed the Fever will begin to decline nisi mors sit in ollâ unless death be at hand not but that the disease will rally up again but with less force then you must still repeat the Method of your solutive pills in the morning and Cordial Elixir in the afternoon and sweating Pill at night which last when repeated let alwayes be done that night after the solutive Pills has been before taken in the morning Thus you will by the Blessing of God find a considerable abatement of the violent Symptoms of a Fever in a very small time And as in continued so also in intermitting Fevers whether Quotidians Tertians or Quartans the same Ternary of Medicines are of great use and benefit and that thus viz by taking the day before the fit 2 or 3 of the Scorbutick or Cathartick Pills and the night after a Dose of the Cordial Elixir at bed-time and then that day the fit comes to take one or two of the Diaphoretick or sweating Pills two or three hours before the usually expected time drinking a draught of hot drink after as of Mace-ale Posset-drink or Burnt-Wine and to indeavour with one covering more than ordinary to fall into a gentle breathing Sweat which these will readily procure And during the time of the Patients sweating he or she is to take nothing but hot drink as aforesaid and to lye in bed if the fit come on the day time till the next morning and then to renew the taking of the Cathartick Pills and Elixir as also an other of the sweating Pills before the next expected fit according to former directions and by this means the Patient will find ready help sooner in a Quotidian or Tertian than in a Quartaine that being seated more deeply in the radical Ferment of the Stomach and Splene These as well as continued Fevers if not all diseases are radically begotten in the Stomach primarily there and secondarily or Symptomatically in other remote parts to whose Regimen this Ternary of Medicines is cheifly made to correspond For the general Indication of most diseases are reducible to three and those are first a Recremental Faeces or deprav'd humour from the error of the Ferments both of the Stomach and other digestions I say the abstersion of these degenerate Faeces in the several digestions is the first and cheif Indication in most diseases The second is a Flatus or Wind ingendred between the reluctancy of the Ferment and the foresaid Sordes which constantly begets according to the degrees thereof a fresh supply of an inbred Flatus or Wind the Author of many Pains disturbances in the vital occonomy and thence Sicknesses I say the quieting or allaying the Wind by curing or preventing the the true cause thereof is the second main Indication requisite in the Cure of most diseases The third and last is an acrimonious acidity with a spurious Latex in the intermediate Juyces and Liquor of the Blood and Genus Nervosvm whose Seminals are desum'd from an error of the Ferment of the Stomachical digestion The correcting which acrimony and reduction of the blood to its genuine Sweet Balsamick Eucrasia is the third Indication requisite to be performed in the Cure of many diseases The general ignorance of this Ternary of Indications among some Physicians doting in lien thereof on the quaternary of fictitious humours and the like number of external barren qualities by which they groap'd as in the dark after the heat and cold driness and moysture of diseases and ordering their medicines accordingly hath been no small Remora in the improvement of this noble science of Physick which through the Tacite Subscriptions to the Galenical prescripts by most Physicians hath thereby long been kept in obscurity but now at length by the sons of art become more manifest and are expos'd to open view To which triplicity of Indications this Ternary of Medicines are cheifly and primarily adapted For first the Scorbutick or Cathartick Pills are ordered for the carrying off those Recremental Faeces which are begotten through the depravation of the Ferment of the Stomach and other digestions which give Beginning and layes the foundation of most diseases Secondly the Cordial Elixir appeaseth and quieteth the Flatus or wind begotten from the reluctancy of the Ferment and corrupt matter oppressing it and therefore it is proper for those diseases where Wind is most predominant viz. in those diseases where the Ferments are most weakened for where the Stomach in its Ferment is most debilitated there Wind is most prevalent And thirdly the Diaaphoretick or sweating Pills dint and correct the acrimonious acidity of the secondary digestions and liquor of the blood and of the Genus Nervosum and carry it off with the spurious Latex in gentle breathing sweats and therefore it is proper in all diseases which depend thereon as in Fevers Colicks Defluxions of rheume dysenteries or bloody Fluxes and pains of all sorts in all places of the body Now as to the Cordial Elixir whose preparation is with a Menstruum impregnated with vegetable essential Salts and is either red or white according to Helmont's process and not with Mineral acidities according to Crollius who falsly reports Paracelsus his Elixir Proprietatis to be made with the addition of Oyl of Sulphur besides its uses aforesaid