had no just reason to take any and so out of I know not what scrupulousness of fancy suffer their own Credits and the lives of their Patients so oft as the same Project came to be renewed to lye at the mercy of those who never had nor were never like to have any regard at all to either If they say they should not as 't is most probable they will then neither am I by their own confessions to be blamed for what I have done but if they should though the groundless scrupulosity of some be no warrantable Rule for others to take example by I care not much however for this one time if I do submit my self to the most rigorous severity even of their own Award and so let them censure me as they think fit And now I have made this bold challenge I cannot foresee that so great hazard I am like to run thereby because to be a Sot and a Dunce and an utter Ignoramus are the highest of Titles the learned Rabbies I have been endeavouring to decypher by their good would ever allow us poor Country Physitians to be in any capacity of attaining unto as the constant series of their deportment towards us and sometimes their discourses bolted out occasionally make evidently enough to appear And then I 'd fain know what sinister Accident that can possibly befal us in any undertaking we set about can render our Persons more contemptible or our Condition much worse But be it as it will whatever may become of me and my small concernments when the business is brought to the upshot I do not altogether despair but that as it falls out with the unhappiest Projectors some benefit may chance to redound to others though I my self should be made a loser thereby and that will be the compensation for the prejudice I am put to sustain every way as ample as I desire It was for ought I know and which is somewhat more am apt to believe and now and then when I think upon it seriously to please my self I confess with the conceit thereof prove an occasion of the saving much useful Blood and Spirits in the Bodies of a multitude of good people who upon the reading over the Arguments contained in this little thing though prosecuted I must needs acknowledge with weakness enough shall not be altogether so forward to lend an ear to every plausible pretension as otherwise they would have been And 't is not altogether impossible but that some who by one chance or other may happen to peruse these Lines and are withal conscious to themselves of having deserved the Character they shall find bestowed upon them though 't is very likely withal they'd ne're be brought to acknowledg so much may when they perceive their Actions taken notice of be induced so far forth to reform their manners as not to insult over their equals in every thing but pride and conceitedness with half that dominering Lordliness that formerly they were wont And it be but out of fear that as the thing is come to be commonly known so the next time they come to act it in publick it may as publickly be laughed at And to speak the plain Truth of the matter though I all along make my self a party principally concerned the occasion that has been offered is admitting of no other way of management Or at leastwise this being the best that my dull and barren fancy was able to suggest to me yet the main Scope I have from first to last intended has layen couched under these two particulars before-mentioned which if I obtain I shall have had my end but if I miss of it though every thing else should succeed that may seem desireable upon any or indeed all other accounts besides whatever it will signifie but very little or nothing to me But I both must and shall for ever look upon my self to have been totally disappointed As for what concerns the lateness of this Publication so long after the occasion given I have only one short word to alledge in the vindication of my self which is That though I had finished what I have now written timely enough yet there being some things contained in it of a reflecting nature which could not be avoided And I being then engaged in a business the most important of all others to the concernments of Humane Life which was not to be medled withal and any thing like Controversie at the same time I was in a manner compelled to give respit to the one till I had fully accomplished the other Farewell SIR HAving been lately informed of a pleasant passage befalling you in your practice concerning your Patient Sir H. F. I have made bold to be a little curious in enquiring into the truth thereof and so much the rather because the Catastrophe excepted in very many particulars more than a little resembling a Case I have had of my own I was given to understand how that after Sir H. F. upon a Fall he had received near Windsor was committed to your care A Physician from London by the importunities of some friends of his was brought down to visit him How that the many Arguments of their Discourse insisted upon almost all the way they came was to bewail the lamentable Condition of the unfortunate Gentleman whose hard hap it had been to catch his harm so far distant from London the only place as they conceived where the means of Relief in that and the like dangerous misadventures was to be sought for That his Lady was much to be blam'd for not looking out for better advice sooner and for having so little reason with her as to relie upon the fumbling skill of a poor Countrey Doctor How that the Learned Man so soon as ever he was carried into the Parlour was observed bitterly to inveigh against the irregularity of your Prescriptions without so much as taking time to see any or hear any account given of what had passed before his coming thither most magisteriously to have issued forth his orders for the taking away of thirty Ounces of Blood from your Patients Arm Peremptorily alledging there was an absolute necessity for so doing The only possible scruple remaining with him being this whether or no such wholesom advice might not come somewhat of the latest through the supine neglect of those foolish people who had been all this while about him to so little purpose as the usual pretence upon such occasions is wont to be with all the Fraternity of like Principles with himself so that if the Business had come to have succeeded well the credit of the Action had been wholly his if otherwise the Odium and Disgrace thereof had fallen to your share A pretty trim Invention this and a cheap way of gaining glory to ones self because hazarding nothing at all the mean while for it unless it be a Patients life or another man his good name or so forth A couple of petty and inconsiderable things I
for company These two qualities they supposed never long to continue in the self same plight and condition but however to be much more exuberant and vigorous in the beginning than in the latter end of the life of man but in the middle to seem to stand at a stay as being set at an equal distance between either of the extreams so that distinguishing his years into these set-periods of time Childhood or Youth middle Age and old Age there were scarce any considerable changes incident to humane Bodies which they were not able to salve by virtue of this Hypothesis and which might not some way or other be reducible to the blending together of these two qualities diversly considered as the principal occasion thereof Was the Party but now in his blooming years fresh and lively vigorous and active as apt to burnish in bigth as to encrease in stature 't was because the constitutive principles out of which he was at first made were as yet near their Original which being fabricated out of the purest Bloud and most refined Spirits in Natures choicest Laboratory had not as yet fully attained to the utmost of their force but were still in a capacity of exerting their activity more and more according as the Nutritive Facultie should be disposed to make use of them Did the same Party stand at a stay 't was because this innate heat had arrived to the utmost of its power beyond which it could not pass and was able to do no more than keep up those parts in sufficient repair it had already under its jurisdiction and that the moisture with which it was in conjunction had arrived to its vertical point also But then as is usual in the winter of our years was there an universal decay upon the parts of the whole Man were the Sinews stiff the Senses dull the Muscles dry and sapless and did every other Instrument and Organ of the Body in proportion unto these begin to falter in the execution of the office for which nature had appointed them Why there could be no other expected when the heat and moisture that should give vigour and preservation to every particular member had been so far wasted and spent and an answer taken from that general Topick was looked upon by all as satisfactory enough in these and a hundred other the like cases What was the Opinion of the Antients and the Men of his time concerning this Point Ovid who was known to be as good a Philosopher as Poet gives us clearly to understand in the first Book of his Metamorphosis where he has occasion to describe the replenishing of the Earth with those various sorts of living Creatures that had been swept away with the Floud Quippe ubi temperiem sumpsere humor que calorque Concipiunt ab his oriuntur cuncta duobus Cumque sit ignis aquae pugnax vapor humidus omnes Res creat discors concordia foetibus apta est As if so be the Productions of Nature considered in her full Latitude depended principally upon these two And Sennertus a late Writer to name no more but them as supposing all others of intermediate Ages who understood themselves as they ought to have been of their judgment Treating upon the same Head seems to illustrate the matter exceeding fully by a homely comparison or two tending to the same purpose which if minded with a little attention may render the conception thereof somewhat the more easie to be apprehended Suppose says he a Vessel of Wine should be continually drawing out or to that effect and have the empty space filled up again either with water or a more thin Wine than it self although the change be not at all perceptible at the beginning of the operation because of the great disproportion that is as then betwixt them yet in tract of time when the loss is more on the one side and the accession far greater on the other It will be made visible enough And the Wine after a long time of mixture will cease to have any predominance at all over such water as being rendred much more thin and heartless by it Etsi enim in locum humidi radicalis aliquid semper reponatur deterius tamen id est habetque se sicut aqua ad vinum quae vino per mixta id debilius reddit Jnstit lib. 1. cap. 6. And then a while after in the same Chapter he compares the natural heat and radical moisture whilst in conjunction together to the Flame of a Burning Torch which both wasts and yet is preserved by the combustible matter thereof at the same time Perinde enim ut flamma in lychno oleum aut sebum depascitur tandem absumpta materia ex pabuli inopia extinguitur ita etiam calor nativus noster instar flammae humidum primigenium depasâ—itur tandemque humido deficiente ipse etiam extinguitur This was the account or much to this purpose given by those of former times and since and according to these suppositions and principles in every thing almost they did were the Physitians woâ—t to bend their course and if it shall be said that comparisons are not to be taken for proofs and that such Notions as these could not but be liable to much uncertainty because apt to be mistaken as many of those who yet contradicted them not were wont to acknowledg themselves It must however surely be granted that in Matters of this abstruse nature a dimn Light ought to be esteemed of as much better than none at all And to act according to such Positions as might both have a proportion to the things they related to as also to one another and were capable in some measure of obtaining the end for which they were propounded to be much more allowable then to leave all to the determination of blind chance or what is full out as bad to the capricious humours of a fickle man There is neither Circle nor Degree to be found in the Concavous Parts of the Heavenly Bodies to which they are commonly assigned nor yet on the Surface of the Earth neither other than what is placed there by mens fancies and yet what a huge loss would Astronomers and Geographers be aâ— had they no such helps as these are to be guided by to say nothing of Navigators Architects Diallers and several other most ingenious Artists who find themselves exceedingly holpen by Rules and Directions taken from Positions meerly imaginary in the matters relating to their different employments and by which they are set in as sure and unerring a Method to order their affairs by as Demonstration it self is able to chalk out to them And though Physitians never were nor never shall be able to give a through resolution about those various and nice questions they are necessitated sometimes to be concerned in with half that positive clearness that those of many other Professions are by reason of the nature of many things so treated about by them
but call to mind that humane Bodies as they are observed to vary from one another exceedingly in respect of the unequal Quantities of Blood that are wont to be conâ—ained in each of them So neither will they be found to be at a much greater Agreement amongst themselves in point of Bulk and Stature And consequently all such of them as â—re of any thing a greater magnitude than those others they are compared with as they will require such an amplitude of Vessels as may best comport with such their Dimensions so likewise for the same reason will they stand in need of such convenient measures of Blood as may in some sort contribute to the satisfying these their different Capacities and be every way correspondent to the more than ordinary Largeness of them And then look what excess of greatness shall be alotted to any one mans Body above another the same in a like Proportion ought to be allowed to each Particular Member and Integral Part into which the whole â—b supposed to be divided if compared with other Parts and Members which are Constructive of some lesser Body unto which their own Total had been referred According to which way of procedure by a deduction as evident as Demonstration it self That Blood that shall be adjudged convenient for the repair and maintainance of those larger parts ought to be exhibited in somewhat a more plentiful and free manner than to those others that are less and then what becomes of all those Redundances and Superfluities that according to this Opinion are so much relied on Besides humane Bodies are known to differ as well in point of Temperament as they do in bigth and tallness upon which account there are incommunicable Degrees of Heat and Cold ascribed by the Learned to either Sex Men they affirm to be of a Constitution much more hot Vigorous and Active than Females usually are whence it comes to pass that they stand not in want of those periodical Evacuations that the others cannot be so well without the Superfluous excesses of their Blood being otherwise corrected and that as either preyed upon and consumed by their own natural â—eat or driven forth of the Body again in Sweat and Vapour by the protrusion of the same cause and if so be one Sex may be set at so wide a distance from the other in respect of these two Opposite Qualities as we see they are and as is commonly believed by all What hinders but that the several individuals comprehended under either kind may in a due measure and in some less Proportion be removed from one another likewise and then the as different Circumstances that unadvoidably fall in with and are appendant to the supposal of these various Qualities that is to say as considered in a more remiss or intense Degree are neither hard to conceive nor yet difficult to be accounted for Because there is nothing either more or less to be found in them than what is occasioned by Principles apt enough to produce such Effects by way of Natural Causality And so according to the Rules of common Discourse and ordinary Reasoning what can be more necessarily concluded than that all such as are of a Blith and Spritely humour should require of Course a great deal more of Blood and Spirits for the supporting it than others which are dull and lazy and Phlegmatick for the maintainance of theirs in regard they are put to a much greater Expence thereof every moment of their Lives than the others are It faring with the one as with the Earth in Summer At what time let the Clouds gather together never so fast and the Water descend upon it in almost never so great abundance 't is forthwith returned back again in Vapour and Exhalation and unless it may for a Constancy have its wants supplied with fresh and repeated Showers will unadvoidably in a very little while become scorched and burnt up But with the others as with the same Element in the depth and dead of Winter when there neither is nor can be the same avoidance of its moisture because that heat which should alone work its removal is so exceedingly abated over what it was wont to be at the other Season of the Year all things are not the same to all men and if that Assertion shall seem overstrange to any it will be less so if we do but consider that all men are not the same neither to themselves but vary and change Conditions almost as often as the Moon does Shapes to day appearing in one Humour and to morrow in another and as Rivers are called by the same Names by way of Analogy only when the Waters out of which they are constituted are hourly fresh and new so may the same thing in some qualified Sense be verified of mens Bodies too So that to resume our former Debate there is no great Question to be made but that as every Body is fitted with particular Instruments and Organs such as may be convenient for its use and composed of such Members as may bare a Proportion to the whole so likewise with such Supplies of Blood and Nourishment as are every way agreeable to its Temper And the Sanguine and the Cholerick the Melancholick and the Flegmatick have each of them such allowances as suit best with their several Constitutions and then if the Quantities of Blood that are observed to be in each of them be not alike so if the matter were well enquired into perchance neither is there Temperament and to the Dissimilitude of the one may very well be ascribed the Inequality of the other And then upon either or both these Accounts taken jointly or severally as the matter may seem to require there may be grounds sufficient shown for the producing a Reason for whatever common Experience informs us of as touching the present enquiry without flying to meer Possibilities Contigâ—â—ties things which indeed may but perhaps never will fall out of which more anon But suppose they should both fail and be rejected as unsatisfactory and that nothing of a direct proof could be made out from either of them that is to say that neither the Inequalities of mens Bodies nor yet the Disagreeableness of their Tempers ought to be allowed of as any Cause at all for the furnishing them with such various Supplies of Blood as we usually find they have which yet to me appeares plain and reasonable enough and so 't is like it may do to many others besides I do not see however upon what Imaginary grounds or colourable pretence this laying up Provisions against future Casualities can possible be made use of as an Argument of any Force at all to evince it that being neither consistent with the usual Methods of Nature in other like Cases not yet with those commonly received Notions that are vulgarly delivered concerning her such as are acting Necessarily and Perfectly her intending but one thing at a time and nothing at all in vain Whereas