is often found in those Animals whom we account bloodless as Oysters and the like by reason of the heat which excites the fermenting Salâ—s which lay intangled and as it were asleep in the more slimy and unactive parts of those Animals and possibly the reason why Snails and such other Creatures are not endued with Blood is because the Ferment of their Heart lies idle all the Winter The other way of producing a red colour is by addition of a salt Menstruum Dr. Ent. Thus Juleps are colour'd red with Spirit oâ— Vitriol Infusions of Senna with Oyl of Tartar And Berigardus tells us He had a Chymical liquor into which if he put but a little piece of a certain Salt Berig Cinc. Vn p. 9. the Liquor would turn from being white and cold to be so red and hot that he could not endure to hold the Bottle After the same manner the milky juyce of the Chyle is most probably turned into Blood for meeting with the Salt or Ferment of the Heart it is turned from white to red and boils no less than the Chymists Liquor Having thus endeavoured to explain the manner of Sanguification and having deduced it chiefly from the firing of the Chyle in the Heart I do not find but that upon this Hypothesis agreeable to the experience of the World even in many Scorbutick Affects Phlebotomy may be most necessary but especially as in some persons where the Scorbutick Ferment is as I may call it a Stum to the Blood as I have found it in many especially in a Woman in Berkshire above 50 years of Age who every Fortnight or three Weeks has her Courses in so violent and large a manner that except the Flux be by seasonable bleeding often moderated she is continually in danger of bleeding to death Nay even in other cases of the Scurvy where by the adustness and sharpness of the Blood the Chyle is perpetually corrupted and depraved by seasonable bleeding the Blood is ventilated and enabled there being more room for the mass to ferment in to cast off many of its faeculent Salts by Urine and Transpiration and the Chyle the vitious fermentation of Scorbutick Salts being by breathing a vein somewhat allayed comes more sincere and less perverted to the heart I come in the next place to his Exceptions against Purgation in the Scurvy Mâ—â— Md. P. 88. By the Pills Electuaries Powders and Infusions reputed Classical and Authentick which he tells us work by offensive irritation of Nature rather than an amicable Clâ—se with her What his amicable Close with Nature is I understand not except he has explain'd himself in his cleanly Discourse of the French Disease But as to Purgation any man who shall seriously consider how Medicins purgative perform their effects shall find all those which are properly call'd so work either by a vellication of the Fibres of the Guts and Bowels or by exciting a Fermentation in the Blood or both wayes Those which work by irritating of the Fibres cause the Guts to thrust down their Excrements and by contracting themselves to expell â—em forth of the Body Those Purgatives which by the Lactials and possibly by the ends of the Meseraicks pierce into the mass of Blood work their effect by fermenting the juyces of the Body and stimulating the fibrous parts in the most inward recesses of the Bowels by which often the Morbifick matter is exterminated into the Guts as Barm in the fermentation of Liquors is separated and forced out of the Barrel Now as the Medicins differ in their Natures so I suppose may a different Fermentation be excited in the Blood and likewise a different Excrement or Barm be vented and wrought off upon which I suppose the whole business of elective Purgation to depend and whatever his Specificks be which he so much magnifies they must necessarily perform their business by one or other of these wayes except without Canting he can demonstrate a more reasonable In his Discourse of Contagion and of the Infection of the French Disease and Scurvy at a distance the Author of Medela as everywhere else discovers as much want of Civility as Philosophy and treats the learned Fernelius and the most acute and judicious Philosopher Sennertus with â— more respect than he does the Colledge of London and Universities and after he has made bold with several pieces of this Learned Author to patch up a Chapter he gives him the Lye tells him That he 's gross P. 128.130 and that it matters not what his or other Physitians phansie is touching a particular Disease And all this is because that these Learned men do not contrary to their observation and experience allow those Diseases to be communicable at a distance and without corporal contact in which though their own experience and observation be of abundantly more weight than his ill digested ratiocinations yet will it not be impertinent to shew that though these Diseases are very deservedly accounted Contagious or Infectious and that Contagion is caused by the insinuating of the Emanations of smal bodies from the morbifick matter into the Blood and Juyces of the persons infected and that from all Bodies do continually flow streams of Atoms yet does it not in the least follow that whatever infects or poysons by immediate Contact will also work the same effect at a distance Thus we see the poyson of a mad Dog insects not by the Effluvia from his Body but either by bite the touch of the some or his blood The Tarantula communicates venom by his bite the Scorpion by the sting and the like may be said of almost all poysons nay some require as in Bees Wasps Hornets and the like that the venom be conveyed by the sting through the very skin into the blood without which it may be questioned whether barely thrown upon the skin it would produce the effects of poyson And we evidently find that these Creatures poyson not by any effluxes from them but when the venom is closely applied to the Body and by Contact communicated to the Blood Consonant to this is an instance in an Epistle of Crato to Thomas Jordanus Crat. Epist Med. l. 2. of a kind of Plague in Moravia which only infected those persons who were bled with Cupping-glasses and that it seized upon them in that place where the skin was scarrified and the Cupping-glass fastned and that way the venom got into the whole mass of Blood and insinuated it self into the nervous parts And discoursing of the reason of this Disease he makes mention of a relation of the Emperor Ferdinand concerning a poyson used in Spain made of the juice of White Hellebore with which the Huntsmen of Spain use to poyson their Arrows and with them kill Deer and other wild Beasts In the beginning of Summer sayes the Author they who prepare this poyson press out the juice from the whole Plant expose it to the heat of the Sun till it be prepar'd and then
use and not design it for the sink or drein of the body or an idle and unprofitable bowel For indeed it is not her custom to be at expence of so much skill and pains to so little or no purpose for it cannot be imagined that she intended it for the separation of Excrements and filth since there is not any excretory vessel or passage to be found which belongs to it Nor is their opinion more likely who suppose the Spleen to be as a Bath or Stove to heat and warm the stomack with its blood since neither its fibrous constitution seems proper for such a use nor its scituation since in most Creatures only one end of it lies near the stomack Besides that it is now taken for granted That concoction in the stomack is performed by an acid menstruum rather than heat and therefore can stand in little need of the assistance of the heat of the Spleen especially since we find that Fish and other cold Creatures dissolve their meat easily and quickly and yet upon the opening of them alive we find no more sensible heat in their stomacks than in other parts of their bodies Agreeable to this I have observ'd in the stomacks of Mice some parts of a Tallow Candle dissolved in the bottom of the stomack by the menstruum when the rest that lay up towards the upper orifice was not at all melted by the heat The use then for which from the Make and fabrick of this bowel it seems to be framed by Nature is this That the blood brought hither by the Coeliac Arteries passing through many turnings and windings and as it were percolating through the Parenchyma does leave behind it as Salt-water streined through Earth some salt and earthy parts which after they have undergone some alteration by their mutual action one upon another by their attrition and justling in their passage through the several Cells Cavities and Pores of the Parenchyma are by the fresh blood which perpetually flows thither by continual Circulation carried back through the veins into the mass of blood in which they serve for a most useful and effectual Ferment Thus we see the Chymists separate the acid Spirit from Liquors and in the Liver the sulphurious or bilious part of the blood is separated into the vessels of Gall. Now for the clearer apprehension of the manner and way how the Ferment of the Spleen works upon the blood and other juyces it will not be improper in this place to take notice of those ordinary and familiar Ferments which the Bakers and Brewers every day offer to our consideration The learned Dr. Willis in his most excellent Treatise De Fermentatione tells us That there are two sorts of Ferments One an Absolute of which all the Particles are wonderfully active and indued with vigorous and brisk motions and therefore being mingled with any thing which is to be fermented they seize upon the Particles of that body of what kind soever they be and though they were sluggish and unactive before hurrie them along with them in their own motions Thus Barm Eggs and the like do almost in all bodies with which they can be mingled cause a Fermentation The other is a Respective Ferment which consists most commonly of Particles of one kind which will only ferment with Particles of another particular kind and nature when they chance to meet Thus fluid Salts ferment with fixed or alcalisate Salts as we find when sharp Liquors are poured upon Coral Harts-horn Shells Steel and when Spirit of Vitriol and Salt of Tartar are mingled together a great Ebullition does ensue such a Ferment as this is most probably communicated from the Spleen to the blood and juyces Now though it must be confessed that the saline and terrestrial parts which constitute the Splenick Ferment were actually in the blood before ever that they came to the Spleen yet were they before that so entangled and engaged with the other Principles the watry and earthy Particles of the blood that they could not then excite those Fermentations which depended upon their proper figures and genuine motions But in the percolation of the blood through the porous Parenchyma of the Spleen the combination of the Principles which constitute that Liquor is in a manner dissolved and the saline and terrestrial parts are disjoined from the Phlegm and Sulphur to which they were before very closely united which being free and in a manner at their own disposal nor any wayes dulled and blunted by the adhesion of those other Principles and thus digested carried through the veins into the mass of blood perform those effects in it which are sutable to their natures which whilst they remained in combination with the other Principles they could not possibly produce For then being by reason of their newly acquired Figures not easily miscible with the rest of the blood they excite an intestine motion of all the little Particles of it and by that means deliver the more spirituous and fine parts from being too much oppressed and choaked up by the more sluggish and gross and in short work that in the blood which is performed by a little Leven in a huge Tub of Dough. For as a little piece of Dough kept so long till it be stale and sowre ferments the whole mass and makes it light and rare which would otherwise have been close and heavy so by the mixture of this acid Ferment of the Spleen the whole blood is rarefied made more lively and brisk and fit to circulate for the better supply of the Natural Vital and Animal Constitutions That the Blood is after this manner fermented by the leven of the Spleen is farther argued from the Diseases which from the obstructions and schirrousness of this Bowel are wont to ensue such are Cachexies Dropsies and the like Dyscrasies of the Blood which necessarily happen upon defect of the Spleenick ferment And it is not unworthy of observation that Medicins made of the Spleens of Animals are recommended to us by Practitioners as proper and effectual for the cure of these Diseases The Decoction of an Oxes Spleen is commended by many Authors and the Spleen of a Hog is by Wallaeus said to be very proper in Crudities and imperfect Digestion of the stomach And it may well be supposed that the Saline Particles of the Spleen taken in by the mouth and with the Chyle carried into the Veins and Arteries have the same operation upon the Blood and Bodies of Animals with the Leven of the Spleen when that Bowel is in good order and performs its duty For that Salts are the most proper Bodies to ferment the Blood is known by every dayes Experience to Physitians who in Chronical Diseases perform the most considerable alterations upon the Blood and open the most obstinate obstructions of the Bowels by the assistance of the fixed Salts of Vegetables and Minerals Upon this score the Barks of Trees are so much in use because they contain in them a
far greater quantity of fixed Salt than the Bodies And we see that in Dropsies Chachexies Obstructions and the like Diseases which will not yield to vulgar Medicins the learnedst practitioners betake themselves to Medicins of Tartar Steel and Vitriol as a certain Refuge in the greatest Extremities and it cannot be imagin'd how these Medicins should perform such certain and admirable effects but that by fermenting the Blood with their Saline Particles they supply the defect of the natural ferment For as long as this is vigorous and the passages are open from the Spleen into the masse of Blood the Splenick leven by continually maintaining an intestine motion of the small Particles of the Blood preserves that Liquor in its due mixture and consistence so that the grosser and finer Particles being exactly mingled one with another and the Spirits free and at liberty the Blood is rendered fit to circulate through the most streight and narrow passages and not apt to curdle and stagnate in the Vessels And by this means Crudities are concocted Obstructions opened tough and slimy humors attenuated and the Blood defecated of all its Excrements and Impurities by the vents and emunctories of the Body By this means not only the Juyces which run in the Veins and Arteries are rich pure and spirituous but likewise from these a soft subtil and well rectified Spirit and Liquor is communicated to the Brain and distributed into the Nerves for the use of the Animal Function and exercise of Sense and Motion in all the Instruments and Organs designed by Nature for those uses Furthermore it is very probable that the Splenick Ferment does by the Arteries out of the masse of Blood supply the stomach and Bowels which serve for the concoction of Aliment with a Menstruum not unlike those Liquors with which the Chymists dissolve Mettals and other Bodies for the dissolution of meat and reducing it to Chyle For we cannot with Reason assign that work to Heat since the most intense fire cannot by roasting baking boiling or any other way of applying of that Element reduce bread flesh and other meats in many dayes into a substance so fluid and thin as the Stomach can in a very few hours Now as the Spleen whilest it dispenses a sincere and rightly elaborated ferment is a Bowel of great use and importance for the preservation of the blood and Spirits in their due temper and motion so does it often cause very considerable disorders and extravagancies in the Oeconomy of the Body when it degenerates from its natural constitution and infects the Humors and Spirits with an impure and ill digested Leven For that the Blood may duly and orderly ferment and circulate it is most requisite that the intestine motion of the little Particles which constitute it be neither too furious and tumultuous nor too heavy and sluggish And for this reason is it as I suppose that the fixed Salt is separated from the Blood in the Spleen and again returned and mingled with the Masse by the Veins For indeed fixed Salt consisting of parts which are indued with some kind of Acrimony and yet being not too severely acid seem to be Bodies most proper to maintain a leisurely and orderly Ebullition But if the ferment once grow too sharp and acid and acquire parts apt to provoke irritate and prick the sensible parts of the Body and the fixed Salts become to be fluid it presently fects the whole stream of the Blood puts it into violent and disorderly motions vellicates the nervous parts fixes the Spirits puts all the humors into a hurly burly and makes them apt to congeal and stagnate For when this Ferment is rightly made it consists of Salt with the addition of a moderate quantity of earth by the mutual Conjunction of which fixed Salt is produced but if by any means there be a seperation made of the Saline part from the earthy then are the Salts said to be in the state of fluidity because they run together into a Liquor as Spirit of Salt Spirit of Vitriol and the like Thus when the Ferment of the Spleen becomes fluid it acquires the fierce sharpness of Vinegar or Spirit of Vitriol This is the fault of it in Hypocondriacal Persons For in men who labour of those Distempers all the fixed Salts of the Blood which circulate through the Spleen are there made fluid till at length they come to prevail over the other principles of the Blood and turn the whole stock of it into a Liquor as sharp as Vinegar or Spirit of Vitriol by which means all the Spirits are depressed and kept under The sowre Belches and Vomits of Hypocondriacal Persons which oftentimes are no lesse sharp than Spirit of Vitriol are a very sufficient argument of the sharpness of their Juices which prick and tear their stomachs bowels and nervous parts with continual pains and torments and sometimes with their Corroding acidity flea their Tongues Throats and Lips And the violent and irregular motions and boylings of the blood do very evidendently convince that the Constitution of that Liquor in Hypochondriacal Persons is become sharp and eager For we find it most true from sundry expriments that such tumultuous Ebullitions are caused from the mixture of fluid Salts with fixed and in Liquors which are void of fluid Salts we meet with no such fermentations or where they are but in small quantity mingled the fermentation is lesse and more leisurely and nothing so tumultuous In quick-Lime and Juices which abound with acid Salt as soon as the fluid and fixed meet with one another presently a noise heat and boyling do ensue Thus we see Salt of Wormwood Scurvy-grass or the like Coral Pearl Oyster-shells and other testacious bodies when Spirit of Vitriol Sulphur juyce of Lemons Berberies Oranges or any acid liquor is poured upon them presently fall a boyling and hissing Many more Instances of this kind may be given but because they are obvious to every man who is in the least versed in Chymical operations I will pass them by and farther endeavor to prove from the way of cure of Hypochondriacal Distempers by the Medicins most approved and famed by the best and most learned Authors That the cause of those affections consists in a sharp and eager Distemper of the Blood and Juyces The Remedies which in this case are most commended are such as consist of Steel Tartar Vitriol fixed Salts and all testacious bodies as likewise diuretical Remedies which abounding with fixed Salts do very much precipitate the blood For we find by Experience That these Medicins do sweeten all sharp Liquors and abate their Pungency for the Acrimony of Salts is not blunted by Sulphurious but Saline bodies by reason that fixed Salts by an intimate and close union to the fluid do obtund their points and edges as a thick piece of Steel exactly fitted to the blade of a Knife will abate the cutting or dividing power of the edge Thus the corroding sharpness of Spirit
of Virriol is taken away by Salt of Tartar or Wormwood Habet says Fonseca Sal Tartari magnam vim domandi humores melancholicos atros nam trahit ad se proprietate quadam accetositates si aceti fortissimi lb iiii cum â„¥ i. Tartari vini destilletur per ignem aqua sine ulla aciditate exibit And truly it is very probable that the reason why Melancholy persons find so much benefit from Medicins of Tartar is that by sweetning of the blood and juyces after the same manner as that dulcifies Vineger the Tartar frees the body from those inconveniencies which are caused by their Pungency and Acrimony From this Hypothesis an account may very rationally be given why Medicins of Steel are used with very good success as well in Cachectical and Hydropical Distempers in which usually the Splenick Ferment is deficient as in Hypochondriacal and Scorbutical Diseases in which that Leven is too plentifully abounding and too highly exalted For the vitriolick Salt of Steel in which much of the force and virtue of that Mineral resides is very properly substituted to supply the defect of a Ferment to the blood and likewise the same Salt when the blood is become sharp and eager and overcome by too large a quantity of fluid and acid Salt does as Salt of Tartar works upon Spirit of Vitriol or Vineger abate its Acrimony and sweeten the whole mass It may now be time that I should more particularly explain the manner how the blood and humors of the body by passing through the Spleen do from that soft sweet and balsamick constitution which naturally is in sound and healthy persons degenerate into a Liquor altogether harsh sharp and unpleasant to the nervous parts of the body And for the better understanding of the way how this alteration is effected it is very necessary to look back to that description which I have in the beginning of this Discourse given of the Make and Fabrick of the Spleen To wit That the Spleen consists of a great many Arteries not so many Veins and of a multitude of fibrous Threds upon which the Parenchyma like Clots of blood does everywhere stick fast leaving little spaces or pores here and there interspersed between the parts of it throughout the whole substance of that Bowel I suppose then the little spaces or vacuities in the Parenchyma of the Spleen to be of such a figure and size as is unproportionable to the shape of the saline Particles of the Blood as long as any Sulphur or Phlegm sticks to them and therefore they are not admitted to pass along with the rest of the Blood out of the Arteries into the Veins but deteined so long in the little Cells or Cavities of the Spleen till by the frequent Circulations of the Blood and the Collision and justling of the Salts against the more solid parts of the Parenchyma they become free from the Phlegm and Sulphut which was join'd to them from which other Principles as soon as they are disingag'd they do very readily and easily pass along with the Blood which is circulated through the Spleen as being then very sutable to the figures of the Pores or Passages to which as long as they were united to those other Principles they were not in the least agreeable The fixed Salts thus prepar'd in the Spleen and passing from thence by the veins into the mass of Blood serve to impregnate and ferment the Liquors of the body and to preserve them in their due mixture and motions As long as the small Passages in the Spleen remain free and open and that the substance or Parenchyma of it is not grown so hard and earthy as to alter the natural position and shape of the Pores or little Spaces in it the supply of a well prepar'd Ferment to the Blood is duly and regularly perform'd But if either from a natural melancholy constitution or errors in dyer the substance of the Spleen be rendered too compact solid and earthy and the Pores or Spaces are altered from their natural Figure and Magnitude The saline Particles in their Percolation through the Spleen are so worn and grinded that they are not only separated from the Sulphur and Phlegm which is necessary for the making of a fit Ferment but likewise forcibly disjoin'd from the earthy Principle without which they cannot remain fixed but presently become fluid And then instead of a Ferment which should maintain in the Blood and Humors an orderly and moderate Ebullition asharp eager and pungent Liquor is sent into the Blood which puts it into irregular and tumultuous Fermentations and puts the whole frame of the body into disorder That this is the fault of the Spleen in Hypochondriacal persons seems to me the more probable for that it is observ'd That sar guin and phlegmatick Complexions are very rarely troubled with distempers of this nature and that even they who are naturally of a melancholy temperament fall not into them before they arrive at a ripeness of Age when the Blood begins to be adust and the Spleen to grow earthy and black whereas in those who are very young it is of a lively red colour It is worthy observation That this fault or disease of the Spleen is seldom or never perfectly cur'd and therefore the best Medicins do only by sweetning the Blood so long allay the Symptoms and Disorders of it till the mass becomes again infected with acidities from the Spleen and therefore persons who have been once troubled with Hypochondriacal distempers do usually periodically relapse into them From hence it will be no very hard matter to give an account of the causes of the particular Symptoms and Accidents which accompany the Hypochondriacal distemper They concern either the Natural Vital or Animal Faculties As to the Natural the appetite to meat is often by reason of the sharpness of the Ferment in the stomâ—ck too extravagant and yet the meat is ill digested and much of it turn'd sometimes into a sowre water at other into tough slime by reason that the extraordinary sharpness of the Ferment makes it unproportionable and unfit to dissolve the Aliment for that this may happen upon such a score the observation of the Chymists does sufficiently evince who find Berigard Circ Pisan Menstruum nimis acidum metallum suum non solvere From the same cause they who labour of this distemper are troubled with continual spitting loathing and sometimes vomiting the stomack being provoked and convell'd by the gnawing acidity of its Menstruum They are usually hard-bound in their bodies and seldom go to stool partly by reason that the Passages from the Gall are obstructed one use of Choler being to irritate the Guts and cause them to thrust out their Excrements and partly for that the Pancreas as Riverius observes is usually affected in this distemper and does not furnish the Guts with a Ferment For it is very probable that by Wirsungius his passage a Liquor is sent into