and nips them for coldness is biting according to Hipp. it is cold to such extremity that the expurgation of it is actually cold by the testimony of Galen by a near experiment in himself as in his 4. book of affected parts Gypseous flegme is the production of crasse flegme emulating Limc or a stone almost in hardnesse This rejects the name of humor being consolidated therefore improperly placed in the classe of humors It proceeds from heat pillaging all the humid parts so that there is nothing left but earthy parts which are indurated into a Tophaceous matter almost resembling lime this often perplexeth the joints causing the knotty Gout The Fourth Section of Physiology Of the Spirits and innate Heat The First CHAPTER Of the Nature of Spirits Thus much of the Humors the Treatise of Spirits succeeds which are generated out of them but chiefly out of Blood THE Spirits of our bodies being of substance so thin that they are imperceptible to the quickest glance of sense and by this means reason only can confirm us in the truth of their existence it will not be amisse therefore to inform that our bodies have such attendents before their nature and essence be proposed First Therefore the context in Hippocrates 6. Epid. sect 8. is very convincing where he reckons three things which constitute the composition of our body viz. things containing contained and causing motion by the containing he signifies the parts by the contained the humors by those that cause motion the spirits according to the explanation of Galen himself for such is the tenuity and nobility of the spirits that with wonderfull swiftnesse they can shoot themselves to any place and insinuate themselves into all the parts of the body Secondly Platonicks do thus demonstrate the necessity of spirits nature doth not usually joine two contraries or things of wide distance without the help of a medium but the soul and body differ in the whole latitude of their genus for the soul is incorporeal and immortal but the body corporeal frail and mortal therefore such a dissiliency in natures cannot be forced to unition but by some medium and common obligation leaning as it were to both natures such are the spirits which indeed are material but in tenuity ambitious of the nature of things immaterial Thirdly This appears by prolifical seed which is wholly spumous and inflated with spirits which disappearing leave nothing but a waterish and unfruitful liquor Fourthly We are nourished by the same things of which we are conflated but attraction of breath or aire is necessary to our conservation therefore we comprehend in us some such substance Lastly This is evident by those great and empty cavities which are found in the ventricles of the brain and arteries of men deceased which are observed in the living swelled to a palpitation which clearly convinceth that those vacuities could not be repleat with any other thing then such spirits But a Spirit is a substance thin clear and etherial proceeding from the exhalation of pure blood and the inspiration of aire necessary for the due performance of all duties the body is engaged to It is called a thin substance because with incredible subtility and clerity it penetrates and courses thorough the whole bulk of the body and steals into the narrowest pores of the least particles and intervals of the muscles it is called clear and bright not according to the vulgar opinion as Argenterius fansies but because it excels in splendor and perspicuity which is easily seen in the observation of the eye the ball of which is very clear and we may spin an argument for the probation of it out of this that when some vapours of the melancholick humor or of over-swelling in drunken men are predominant the mind is in a present perturbation by reason of the dulness of these fogs which suffocate the spirits And of this Avicenna's demonstration is beyond all exception because saith he our soul which transacts every thing by her servants the spirits loves light and no darkness and the spirits do their duty with much more alacrity in a serene then in a cloudy day hence it is plain that they are excited by similitude They are also called Aetherial because the matter of them is by long elaboration so defecated that it stands in competition with that higher Element which is next neighbour to the celestial bodies and is called the Element of fire or etherial But that the spirits start out of the permixtion of blood and aire shall appear in the explication of their differences The uses of them are declared in the end for the soul cannot in the least operate upon the body without the officiousness of the spirits because they have the honour to be immediately and principally subservient to her CHAP. II. Of the Differences of Spirits Spirits are two-fold Inbred and Adventitious Inbred is the relict of the first principles in every part IT is called inbred innate or implanted according to the Greek Connate but while our parts are composed out of the first principles of our generation viz. seed and blood that spiritous substance which is contained in the seed constitutes the inbred spirit But this reason convinceth that this spirit is communicated to every part because the adventitious cannot be brought forth without the midwifery of this every production being like to its Author And also the prolifical seed issuing from every part argues that a spiritous matter is derived from every part from the sound parts sound from morbous parts morbous which in the issue represent their dispositions Adventitious is that which flowes and is sent in from some other place for the nutrition and conservation of the Inbred The Inbred spirit continually laborious in the performance of the functions of the parts would easily be consumed unlesse it were preserved and refreshed by the continual influence of this stranger therefore nature hath contrived some parts which should be the forge of great plenty of spirits which by their allotted courses influx into all the parts of the body to defend the inbred spirit This spirit is three-fold Natural Vital and Animal The Natural is produced in the Liver out of the thinner part of Blood tempered with a little Aire whose influence is thorough the veins into the whole body for the due exercise of the natural faculties This Natural spirit hath caused much dissention among Authors because some upon the ground of pregnant reasons deny nature the assistance of any such spirit First Because Galen was not resolved of it book 12. method cap. 5. where he thus discourseth If any spirit be natural it is contained in the Liver as its fountain and in the veins as its instruments And his first book of parts affected last chap. the natural faculties are by him differenced from the animal by this distinction that the natural are implanted in the parts but the animal are sent in from some other principle as light from the Sun whence it
happens that animal actions do not seldome perish in the parts though they receive no hurt but only the principle of them but the natural are never hurt while the parts are free from harme Secondly Aire is the matter of all spirits for out of it and clear exhalations from the blood they are produced But there is no passage thorough which the air may be conveyed to the Liver Therefore that can be no seat for the generation of spirits Thirdly The spirits are according to Hippocrates the causers of motion therefore if the veins harbour spirits they should beat no lesse then the Arteries But the principal argument to confirme the assertion of natural spirits is this Three actions specifically distinct are exercised in our bodies viz. Animal Vital and Natural but the exercise of action is the duty of the spirits as Galen very often affirms therefore we must necessarily constitute three spirits differing in species viz. the Animal Vital and Natural If you object that natural actions are exercised by the inbred spirits I Answer that the adventitious are absolutely necessary for conservation of the inbred which bear a similitude of nature to them the production of which is acknowledged from the Liver I Oppose therefore to the first argument established by the authority of Galen in opposition to this that the rudeness obscurity and non-purity of this spirit created sometimes in Galen a doubt it being more caliginous and terrestrial then the Vital and proportioned to those actions which it is designed to performe But though the faculties be implanted in the parts they want the help of the adventitious spirits for exercise and to hinder the dissipation of the implanted spirits To the second I Answer That the natural spirits want but little aire which by insensible transpiration by the Arteries knitted to the veins of the Liver and by the continual ventilation of the Diaphragma are easily imparted to the Liver To the third I Answer That the beating of the Arteries is not caused by the spirits but by a pulsifick vertue communicated to them from the heart But the Liver being not endowed with such a faculty the veins which have a dependence upon it do not beat for it is not necessary because the blood and natural spirits want no such ventilation but are well enough preserved only by transpiration The Vital is generated in the heart by the natural spirit and the attraction of the air by inspiration and by the help of the Arteries flowes into the whole body for the preservation of natural heat and defence of life It stands better with reason that the vital spirits which surpasse in tenuity should be generated out of that spiritous substance prepared and attenuated in the Liver rather then out of the venal blood only which is destitute of spirits for as the animal owes its production to the vital so it may be supposed the vital is related to the natural Therefore that natural spirit being conveyed to the left cavity of the heart with the purer part of the blood is intermixed with aire arriving thither by the inspiration of the Lungs thorough the venal artery whence by the inbred force of the heart and innate heat by joynt elaboration the vitall spirits are generated which being after transported to the Arteries are conducted thorough the whole body that they may nourish and preserve the whole body by their vigorous heat The Animal is generated in the brain by the concurrence of the Vital and the aire attracted by the mouth and nostrils whose influence on the whole body is by the nerves for the exercise of animal functions A portion of the vital spirit is conducted to the brain by the Arterie Carotides whose course is thorough the neck and in the ventricles of the brain is mingled with air attracted thorough the high-way of the mouth and nostrils where by the idiosincracy of the brain it is changed and acquires a new form and becomes Animal spirit fit for the performance of animal actions for during its continuance in the veins it is the principal officer and chief instrument in the execution of these actions but while it flowes thorough the nerves into the various parts of the body it compleates and perfects the motion of the senses A COROLLARY THE reasons following will sufficiently evince that there is no Animal spirit First The cold and moist substance of the brain cannot be convenient for the generation of spirits which are hot and thin since there must necessarily be a relation of similitude in all productions Secondly All vapors which ascend to the brain by the frigidity of it are condensed to a concretion and turned into water Therefore if the spirits which are of a like nature were contained in the brain they would in like manner be infrigidated to a concretion Thirdly If there were such spirits their chief place of residence would be the ventricles of the brain but that is impossible because those ventricles are continually feculent with excrements to the expurgation of which they are designed but they would infect the spirits Fourthly If these spirits were lodged in these ventricles of the brain they would easily make escape thorough those passages which are appointed for the evacuation of the excrements Fiftly If these spirits were housed in the brain sensation and cogitation would alwayes be quick because the faculties of the soul give constant attendance and are alwayes in action till they want instruments To the first I Answer That the brain is not in such a measure cold but that it is actually hot which heat is sufficient for the generation of the Animal spirits which are not simply the production of heat but of the very idiosyncracy of the brain which must necessarily incline to coldness that the heat of the vital spirits might be allayed that our cogitations and sensations may be constant and firm which otherwise those incendiaries the spirits would blow up to a deliration and madness as we see in men phrenetical To the second I Answer That the spirits are not concrete in the brain as the vapors because they are not the chief constitutions of a waterish nature but rather of Aery or Aethereal one To the third with Aristotles consent 2. of the soul chap. 8. I Answer That Nature can imploy the same thing in the business of divers offices as the tongue primarily for the taste secundarily for speech the nostrils primarily for smel and inspiration of aire but secundarily for the conveying away of mucous flegme so the ventricles of the brain are primarily contrived for the generation of spirits secundarily for the expurgation of excrements but these excrements by reason of their continual purging and effluxion cannot be infectious to the Animal spirits as long as the brain squares to Nature To the fourth I oppose That the spirits break not forth thorough those channels in which the excrements stream being retained by the friendly nature of the part and familiarity of the
same opinion in the place of deadly inserts dangerous Convulsion or an hiccough after much profusion of bloud is bad Aph. 3. Sect. 5. Convulsion followes an immoderate loss of bloud either when the veines and arteries are robbed of that due proportion of bloud which they should contain and being empty are contracted and being contracted contract the nerves or because the veines exhausted attract from the neighbouring parts demanding mutual courtesie and so being dried with long profusion of bloud seek aliment from the nerves which forceth the exsiccated and contracted nerves to a convulst retirement to the fountain head as it were to derive help from it or else because the veines and arteries being immoderately exhausted hurry away not onely the bloud but all the spirits from the extreme parts whence the nerves are suddenly refrigerated hence ariseth an extremporary not a long convulsion not proceeding from a preternatural cause but rather produced by the action of nature and endeavouring to hinder the detriment of this inanition therefore we said before that a convulsion upon a flux of bloud was not alwaies deadly though dangerous because no convulsions caused by inanition wants danger Convulsion or an hiccough upon a superpurgation is bad Aph. 4. Sect. 5. In superpurgation not onely the useless but the useful humors are evacuated therefore the convulsion which succeeds it is by inanition and therefore dangerous So Aph. 1. of the same Section Convulsion upon hellebore is deadly because of the immoderate purgation which succeeds the assumption of hellebore Convulsion and desipience after watching is bad Aph. 18. Sect. 7. Watching saith Galen in his comm is one of those things which do most evacuate and dry and so cause a convulsion by siccity and besides because by long watchings the bloud is made more bilious and by consequence more fit for the stimulation of the nervous parts Cold. Those feavers in which are daily colds have a daily solution Aph. 63. Sect. 4. It holds not onely true in quotidian but in tertian and quartan recourses that feavers are resolved by a precedent coldness and hence we collect that there is no danger in coldness of intermitting feavers and that it gives no cause of fear Coldness in continual feavers happening on a critical day with the precedent signes of concoction and a remarkable evacuation following is healthy Good evacuations following such colds are copious sweats vomits dejection of the belly or flux of bloud by which feavers are either wholly taken away or much remitted of which Hippocrates Aph. 58. Sect. 4. A solution of a burning feaver is caused by supervening coldness Which is thus to be understood viz. if it happen with the mentioned conditions So in Hipp. 3. Epid. Sect. 2. aegr 5. Cherion Demenetus his guest was taken after a drinking match with a great feaver on the third day with an acute feaver trembling of his head and most of all his lower lip a while after he was cold convulst was fond in all passed the night with trouble on the fourth he had some quiet slept a little talked On the fifth day he was troubled all exacerbated he was fond passed the night with molestation slept not On the sixth day in the same condition On the seventh day he was extreme cold taken with an acute Feaver sweated all over was judged this man all along had bilious dejections few and sincere from his belly thin urine well-coloured having a cloudy enaeorema About the eighth day his urine was better and more coloured having a white small sediment he was in his senses without a Feaver he intermitted But about the fourteenth day an acute Feaver surprised him and he sweated On the sixteenth he vomited bilious matter yellow somewhat copiously On the seventeenth he was extreme cold and seised by an acute Feaver he sweated was without a Feaver and was judged his urine after his relapse and Crisis was of a better colour having sediment neither was he fond in his recidivations on the eighteenth he was a little hot thirsted had thin urine cloudy enaeorema was somewhat disipient About the nineteenth he was without a Feaver was pained in his neck had sediment in his urine on the twentieth was perfectly judged In this sick person cold first happened on the third day to no purpose as well because that day is seldome decretory as for that there appeared not any signes of concoction neither followed there any excretion and so all the before proposed conditions of good cold were wanting but the cold happening on the seventh day was healthy because it appeared on a critical day with the precedent signes of concoction for his urine was indeed thin and of a good colour having a cloudy enaeorema with copious evacuation for he sweated all over therefore on the eighth day which followed the Crisis he was without a Feaver yet the disease was not wholly taken away but very much diminished for we said before that by such colds Feavers were either taken away or very much diminished and the morbifick cause being not wholly driven away by the mentioned sweats he relapsed which on the seventh day a cold again followed in company with the aforesaid conditions viz sweats and concocted urine therefore his Feavers left him again and he was on the twentieth day perfectly judged That is also observable in this history which is remarked by Hipp. in both colds which happened on the seventh and the seventeenth day that the Feaver was much inflamed for in both places he saith he was cold and taken with an acute Feaver whereas in all Critical cold the more the body is heated the better and more perfect judication followeth for this declares nature strong and to operate powerfully the exclusion of the morbifick matter Colds after which the body is not at all or very little heated are bad For they signifie nature to be in a languishing condition and unable to make head against the morbifick cause whence Hipp. in 1. Prorrhet refrigeration not resuming heat after coldness is bad For that as Galen in his comm writes denotes an extinction of heat Which Hipp. also observed in 3. Epid. Sect. 2. aegr 12. Where a woman on the seventh day was extreme cold was taken with an acute Feaver much thirst jactation about evening sweated all over cold her extreme parts were refrigerated she was no more hot and again at night was extreme cold on the seventh day she was not reinvested with heat on the fourteenth day she dyed If a coma succeed a coldness or trembling falling on a Critical day death is to be expected Coldness happening not on a Critical day or that which none or a bad evacuation followes is pernicious So in the woman mentioned coldness often appeared even on not Critical daies without any excretion or cold sweat which is a bad evacuation so again History the eleventh Section 1. book 1. Epid. The wife of Dromeada was extreme cold on the third day with an universal but a
conservation of it will be the conservation of life hence this faculty is significantly termed Vital or the preservative of life And so life is an action depending upon this faculty as an effect upon its cause The Vital faculty is attended by two servants Pulse and Respiration It is ignorantly asserted by some that the Pulse is the chief of Vital actions and immediately to depend upon the Vital faculty for life as we before affirmed immediately depends upon that but the pulse is only a subservient action to it caused by a pulsifick faculty whose vertue is only to cause systole and diastole in the heart by which means it performs its duty to the Vital faculty Pulse is a function of the heart and Arteries composed of Systole and Diastole with some interposition of rest caused by the pulsifick faculty of the heart to further the generation of the Vital spirits and effect the distribution of them thorough the whole body The Pulse of the heart and Arteries is composed of three parts viz. diastole systole and the intercession of a pause By Diastole the heart and Arteries are impregnate When the heart dilates it selfe it attracts the Aire from the Lungs by the help of the Arteria Venosa and the blood from the Vena Cava that from the commistion of them in the left closet of the heart the spirits may be generated but the Arteries being strtech'd to a dilatation attract the spirits from the heart and are tumid with them as also the external Aire entertained by those orifices which are terminated in the skin and in this manner is transpiration caused which by this intromission of external aire fixes the internal heat to a due temperament and cherishes it for all heat is preserved by a moderate compliance of cold according to Hippocrates By Systole or contraction the heart by the assistance of the Arteria venosa purges out at the Lungs all the fuliginous excrements left in the generation of spirits For the Arteries by an insensible transpiration drive out the fuliginous vapors contained in them and send the spirits more copiously to the parts Lastly there mediate between the systole and diastole and intercessive quiet because a transition from one contrary to another cannot be effected but by a medium A doubt may be moved whether the spirit and blood contained in the heart moves upon its coarctation I Answer that there are two doores in the heart one in the right corner another in the left which are dilated when the heart is contracted and are so filled viz. the right with blood contained in the right cavity but the left with spirits contained in the left Three things are requisite to cause pulsation Faculty Instrument and Use The first necessary is a pulsifick faculty which is the primary and principal agent Secondly instruments disposed to pulsation viz. the Heart and Arteries moved by that faculty Thirdly use and necessity forcing the faculty to action viz. the generation of spirits and conservation of native heat Respiration is an action partly Animal partly Natural by which the Aire is ushered in thorough the mouth to the Lungs by the distention of the breast and by the contraction of the same the smoaky vapors are excluded for the conservation of Native heat and the generation of Vital spirit The parts of Respiration and of Pulsation are three Inspiration expiration and immediate quiet By inspiration the breast is dilated by the muscles destin'd to this office and in compliance with the dilatation of the breast the lungs are also dilated lest there should happen a vacuity in that cavity and the lungs are filled with air as bellowes the inspiration of which aire tempers the violent heat of the heart and thence the vital spirits are generated as is before urged But by expiration the breast and lungs are contracted which by their contraction turn out of doores the hot aire and fuliginous vapors issuing from the heart The concurrence of three things is necessary for expiration Faculty Instrument Use First Animal faculty concurs moving the muscles of the breast as also the natural implanted faculty causing motion in the lungs that they might be helpful to the heart Secondly There is a concurrence of instruments as all the parts designed for Respiration And Lastly use or necessity of Respiration for the ventilation of the heat in the heart A COROLLARY It is much disputed whether Respiration be purely Animal or mixt viz. partly Natural partly Animal Which being ingeniously disputed by Laurentius question 20. book the ninth I referre the Reader to him CHAP. VII Of the Animal faculty and function and first of the Principal faculties The Animal faculty is that vertue of the soul which moveth a man to the exercise of sense Auction and other principal functions of the mind The principal are three Imagination Ratiocination and Memory Imagination is that action of the Soul by which the species of every object offered to the external senses is made perceptible and distinctly discerned EVery sense enjoyeth its proper and peculiar object as shall after appear whose species it entertains in its proper organ without passing judgment of it for this is the prerogative of the Imagination only to which the spirits presents the species conveyed by the nerves from the brain to the instruments of the senses The brain therefore being the Court of the principal faculties while the objects of divers senses promiscuously resort to it they are first represented and distinguished in the imagination which the peculiar senses are not able to perform for instance the whiteness of milk is only represented to the sight but not the sweetness of it on the contrary the sweetness is represented to the taste not the whiteness But they are both together perceptible to imagination which rightly distinguisheth to what sense they be related Besides imagination apprehends not only things present as the senses but things absent also and represents them to the mind composing many things never existent yet in Analogy to those which are apparent to the senses The Philosophers divide those operations of the mind which we consenting to Galen include under the notion of imagination into two species viz. into the common sense and into fantasy or imagination commanding as it were the common sense to welcome only the species of present objects but the imagination to propose to it self things absent as if they were really present as also things not in being and impossibilities But seeing that they differ only in the method of their operation it is not necessary that they should depend upon faculties differing in species Ratiocination is that action of the soul by which a man discourses understands and reasons This is appropriate to man the others being enjoyed also by brutes But this receives the species of things from the imagination dividing and compounding them and unravelling their nature by the help of discourse distinguishing good from bad truth from falsity drawing out of them many things
is cooled and the Feaver extinguished and that many by loosnesse and sweating have been clearly restored to health But this evacuation to swouning in our time is little in use and by the vulgar blemished by the name of rashnesse And therefore it is best to stop and to draw as much bloud as would bring the patient to swoun at two or three times without any fear of swouning and lesse hurt to the natural strength Causes also external and internal coindicate the quantity of bleeding The internal causes are the temperament habit and age A hot and moist temper endures more plentifull bleeding then a cold and dry An extenuated soft and slender habit of the body cannot endure a great evacuation of bloud but on the contrary a fleshy thick and firm A very fat habit of body very hardly sustains bleeding Though such a habit be not subject to dissolve yet because it hath narrow and slender vens which when they are emptied the fat easily straightens there is danger lest it extinguish the natural heat and therefore is prejudiced by bleeding A youthful age endures more bleeding then childehood or old age The external causes are the Countrey season posture of the heavens vacuation suppressed or else immoderate custome of diet manner of living or evacuating In a hot and dry Countrey men must bleed lesse Because such a Countrey consumes much of the natural heat bloud and spirits whence the strength is consumed and lesse quantity of bloud is left in the veins A cold and moist countrey endures more bleeding lesse that which is most cold but a temperate Countrey endures a larger then any A cold and moist temper of the air keeps in the humours and the natural heat and dissolves them not but in a very cold countrey the bloud being as it were congealed hardly gives way to evacuation then the internal parts if they remain destitute of their heat are in danger to be extinguished by the ambient cold As to the seasons of the year the Spring permits most bleeding next Autumn then Winter least of all Summer In the most hot and most cold posture of the heaven the bloud is to be sparingly let forth in a temperate more plentifully Any accustomed evacuation suppressed requires a larger emission of bloud A voluntary evacuation that takes not away the matter of the disease doth not exclude bleeding so the strength be not much impaired thereby but in respect of this the bloud is to be let out more sparingly and the evacuation to be suppressed if it will more impair the strength Spontaneous evacuation if it bring away the morbifick matter if it do ease the patient and is able to void as much as you require you must then leave it to nature if that be not able you shall vacuate so much bloud as that both evacuations joyned together may be able to do the work They that live frugally and sparingly either out of custome or by reason of some disease are more sparingly to be let bloud then those that live more intemperately Those that are accustomed to bleeding bear it with lesse danger then those who are not accustomed to it In such diseases as require bleeding there you must let bloud at the beginning The time of letting bloud is shewn by the presence of those Indicants that require such a remedy for in the beginning of a disease those Indicants do chiefly concur in respect of themselves and of the strength which then is more vigorous also because nature in the progresse of the disease being intent upon concoction and its contention with the disease is not to be called away from her work If the beginning of the disease be omitted or that then sufficient quantity of bloud hath not been taken away it is to be let forth at other times if the signs of fulnesse and crudity still appear and the strength can bear it and that other coindicants concur or at least hinder not Among those things which forbid bleeding at the beginning of a disease and at other times crudity of the stomack is not the least or the inconcoction of the meat in the first vessels This precept is propounded by Galen 9. Meth. c. 5. therefore unlesse the distemper of the bloud be very vehement bloud-letting is to be deferred till those humours be concocted lest being drawn to the liver they should beget obstructions and should do more harm then bloud-letting could do good In those diseases where there is either a certain remission or intermission Bloud-letting may be used either ie the remission or intermission In the fits and exasperations of Feavers there is the greatest conflict of nature with the disease at which time nothing is to be stir'd nor is the strength required for the conflict to be weakned by bleeding which is elegantly expressed by Celsus c. 10. l. 2. in these words If a vehement Feaver urge in the very vehemency thereof to let bloud is to kill the man When an affection urges vehemently a vein is to be opened at any hour but in those that intermit the fittest time to let bloud is the morning two or three hours after Sun-rising For then the meat eaten the day before is well concocted and the strength is more vigorous also in the morning the bloud is more full of power and is more thin and apt to flow CHAP. IV. Of Purgation PUrgation is an evacuation of the humours peccant in quality This definition is proposed by Galen Comm. in 2. Aph. sect 1. which that it may be rightly understood you must know that by vice of the quality is not meant a meer distemper for to that alteration only were sufficient but rather a Cacochymie or a redundancy of evil humours Of this sort are all excrementitious humours which being mixed with the bloud are contain'd in the veins or without them but those are of two sorts others natural others preternatural Natural are those which are generated according to nature as sweet flegm choler melancholy and the serous humour which if they are generated in due proportion and quantity need not any vacuation but if they abound in greater quantity are to be purged out but the excrementitious humours which are preternatural are those which are produced contrary to nature as yellow green eruginous glasteous and black choler as also sharp and salt flegm which humours when they ought by no means to be in the body the least quantity of them breeds a Cacochymia and indicates purgation if it cannot be removed by diet exercise and lighter labours But to every species of the peccant humour there ought to be corresponding a proper species of purging medicine And so for flegm medicines that purge flegm for choler medicines purging choler for melancholy things that purge melancholy for the serous humour things that purge aqueous and watry humours and for mixt humours mixt medicines are to be used Purgation is coindicated by the strength temperament habit age sex manner of living of the patient
proceeds not from the copiousness of aliment viz. after nutrition performed will in this convincingly appear because experience shews that they grow and fill who use but little nutrition as is evident in boys and youths diseased who though they be very lean are yet continually growing because at such age the auctive faculty is most efficacious and so potent that it plunders the nutritive it self of aliment conveying it chiefly to the solid parts viz. the bones by the extension of which the whole body is extended therefore the aliment by virtue of the auctive faculty is carried to these parts and the carnous parts are defrauded of their due nutriment Hence those that are in growth appear lean On the contrary we find many fat and well stuffed and fed with high delicacies which yet arrive not to a due or decent procerity of body But though to the auctive and nutritive faculties the same object is proposed viz. nutriment yet they use this object in divers relations For the nutritive useth it as it tends simply to the conservation of the substance of the part But the auctive as it is directed to heighten the substance to a just magnitude and quantity For though the substance acquired by nutrition have quantity it being impossible for a material substance to be destitute of quantity yet nutrition regards not the substance as it hath quantity but as it is a substance but accretion is related to it not as a substance but as having quantity So for example as the blood is incarnated so far goes nutrition respecting only the substance of the flesh but as blood is changed into a greater proportion of flesh here enters accretion regarding not the substance of the flesh but only its quantity The end of accretion is not commensurated by life but accretion is most usually extended to twenty five or thirty Nature hath measured out a certain proportion to every living body therefore a living body is so long in a tendency to augmentation as it is in attaining to this determination of time But when it is augmented to a compleat magnitude in obedience to the command of Nature it stops there and makes no further progress Besides because accretion immediately depends upon the extension of the solid parts according to the three dimensions the sequel will be that a body doth so long increase as the parts thereof may in this manner be extended But now in the course of our life the solid parts are so hardened and dryed through the continual resolution of primigenious moisture occasioned by the action of native heat that they will no longer yeeld to extension But though the auctive faculty after the limitation aforesaid operates no more yet we must not assert it corrupted or idle as some fancyed it being not necessary that the faculties of the soul should be alwayes secondly actual and in operation for in our apprehension generation and local motion is not ever actual and therefore also there is no necessity of a continual growth but the faculties upon their arrival to their appointed end repose themselves So the auctive rests upon the assecution of its end viz. the due stature of magnitude After that it is obstructed in its operation having no fit subject viz. a body not disposed to an aptitude for extension The cause therefore sprouts into two branches one taken from the end the other from the subject A COROLLARY Here is obvious a Probleme worthy our knowledge Why all men are not advanced to an equality of magnitude but some are taller others of shorter stature I answer That the cause of this is threefold The first drawn from the various disposition of bodies for the more moist and hot they are the fitter they are for extension and grow more and in less time than cold and dry bodies whose parts submit not so easily to extension The second proceeds from nutrition for the more perfectly and copiously a body is nourished it is of a better and more speedy growth and the more imperfectly and sparingly it hath been supplyed with nutriment it groweth the less and the slower The third cause is the similitude of the Parents for tall Parents generate tall Sons short short ones because the seed transfers the idea and conditions of all the parts from the Parents upon the Children CHAP. V. Of the Generative faculty and of Generation The Generative faculty is that virtue of the Soul by which a man produceth a thing like to himself for the perpetual conservation of his species Hence Generation is a production of something like the producer GEneration according to the Philosophers is twofold Univocal and Equivocal That is termed Univocal when every thing generates something resembling it self such is the generation of all perfect animals Equivocal is when things of a various and dissenting nature are generated such is the generation of imperfect animals whose wombe is putrefaction Therefore univocal generation is principally applicable to perfect animals Hence Mules and Eunuchs are not fit for generation By this it appears that the name of Generation is not used in so large a sense by the Physicians as by Philosophers who call all introduction of form into matter Generation but here it is taken onely for the production of a like thing which is also called procreation To the Generative faculty two other are subservient the alterative and conformative The Alterative is that which alters and changes the subject matter of generation Seed is the subject matter of generation which is incompatible with the nature of various parts unless all its qualities as well first as second be variously changed for this cause the soul is endowed with a peculiar faculty which may execute this duty which is therefore called alterative or immutative The Conformative is that which graphically delineates and effigurates the whole body and all its parts The Conformative faculty entertains the seminal matter altered and prepared and out of it commensurates all the parts of the body and assignes to every of them a due magnitude figure site connexion and all other things commodiously which are requisite for the convenient exercitation of every peculiar action A COROLLARY All other relations to the Generative faculty are more largely disputed in the succeeding Section which treats of the Procreation of Man CHAP. VI. Of the Vital faculty The Vital faculty is that virtue of the Soul by which the vital spirits are generated in the heart and life is preserved in the whole body THE Spirits plainly demonstrate that there is in the Soul a peculiar faculty distinct from the rest which from the fountain of the heart copiously flow into the Arteries but every spirit is the instrument of some faculty But this faculty generates Vital spirits in the heart which spirits are the subjects of the influent heat which two communicate themselves to every part of the body the heat whereof with the implanted spirit they preserve But life necessarily depending upon implanted heat the
Of Medicaments altering black Choler BLack Choler is generated from adustion which makes it hot and dry and something thick so that the Medicaments which prepare it must be cold and moist and withall attenuating These are not much distinguished from those things that prepare yellow choler only that those are chosen which are more moist and therefore no sharp things are here used because they are thought to have a drying faculty Therefore those things which alter yellow choler may here be used yet properly and directly the following Medicaments are most convenient against black choler Simples Roots of Buglosse Borrage Liquorish Leaves of Borrage Buglosse Fumitory Hops Seeds the four great cold Seeds Fruits Fragrant Apples Flowers of Borrage Buglosse Violets Water-Lilly Compounds Waters of Borrage Buglosse Water-Lilly Syrups of Violets fragrant Apples Conserves of violets Borrage Buglosse Water-Lilly Lettice Chymicals Spirits of Sulphur Vitriol Sal prunellae Saturne Martis Tartar Cream of Tartar CHAP. VI. Of opening Medicines IN many passages of the body especially the veins of the Liver Mesentery and Womb obstructions are bred from thick and clammy humours which adhere to the tunicles of the vessels and hinder the passage of the other humours In cold natures sedentary people and such as use bad nourishment crude humours are generated which being carried to the narrow passages cannot by reason of their crassity passe through but are more and more thickned and become more clammy and glutinous sticking to the tunicles of the veins and begetting obstructions there which brings along with it infinite mischief But those obstructions are opened by aperative medicaments which according to Galen 5. de simpl med fac c. 11. are of a nitrous and bitter quality by the help of which quality they attenuate cut and cleanse and so are near a kin to those medicaments that prepare flegm Opening Medicaments are by Galen called purging and unstopping Medicaments with which faculty all those medicines are endued which are most necessary for the taking away of obstructions for by their attenuating quality they take away the thicknesse of the humour as they cut they take away the clamminesse which consists in the tenuity of the parts and as they cleanse they shake off the humour adhering to the parts Whatsoever therefore are truly and efficaciously opening must be of necessity hot yet cold opening things are given though of lesser vertue and lesse properly so called fit for slighter obstructions and hotter natures In putrid Feavers or otherwise hotter natures obstructions do often happen which unlesse they be very obstinate are to be taken away by cool openers or at least cool ones are to be mixed with the hotter which notwithstanding are not so absolutely cold as compared with others For of themselves they are either temperate or remisly cold for an open faculty cannot consist with an extreme coldnesse Those opening Medicaments are these Hot openers Simple Roots of Smallage Parsly Fennel Fern Cyperus Elecampane Gentian Eringos Cammock both Birthworts Asaraban Rinds of the roots of Cappers the middle rinde of Ash the middle rinde of Tamaris Leaves of Origan Calamint Penyroyal Germander ground Pine lesser Centaury Betony St. Johns Wort Wormwood Roman all the Maiden-hairs which are temperate Seeds of Smallage Parsly Fennel blessed Thistle Nettle Agnus castus Anise Carrots Siceli on Hartwort Ammi or Bishopsweed red Chiches Flowers of Stoechas Rosemary Broom Elder Tamaris Hysop Betony Gums Ammoniack Bdellium Aloes Turpentine Myrrhe Minerals Steel Compounds Waters of Fennel Betony Wormwood Hysop Carduus benedictus Cinnamon Syrups By Zantine of the five Roots of Wormwood simple Oxymel compound Oxymel Conserves of flowers of Broom Tamaris leaves of Wormwood Maidenhair roots of Elecampane Ginger Electuaries Aromaticum Rosatum Diarrhodon Abbatis Confections Alkermes Treacle Troches of Cappars Wormwood Eupatory Myrrhe Chymicals prepared Steel Salt of Wormwood Tamaris Ash-tree Tartar Cream of Tartar Oyl of Anise Fennel Cinnamon Spirit of Turpentine Cold openers Simple Roots of Succory Grasse Asparagus Sorrel Bruscus or Knee-holy sharp pointed Dock Leaves of Endive Succory Sowthistle Sorrel Liverwort Agrimony all the Maidenhairs Seeds the 4. greater cold ones Sorrel seeds Flowers of Succory Compounds Waters of Endive Succory Grasse Sorrel Agrimony Syrups of Vinacre simple of Limons of Succory simple of the juice of Sorrell of Maidenhair Electuaries Triasantalon Diarhodon Abbatis temperate Chymical Spirit of Sulphur Vitriol Sal Prunellae Cremor Tartari CHAP. VII Of purging Medicaments HItherto we have proposed those Medicaments which prepare noxious humours and make them fit for purgation now we treat of those medicines that purge them The humours are usually evacuated by such purging Medicines as having a familiarity with the substance of them draw the humours to them as the loadstone drawes iron Therefore there are so many sorts of purging medicines as there are sorts of humours in the body fit for purgation that is choler flegm melancholy and water The humours which are evacuated by the help of purging Medicaments are choler flegm melancholy and the serum or watry humour to every one of which there are peculiar remedies electively purging So those that purge choler are named Cholagogues flegm Phlegmagogues melancholy Melanagogues the serous humours Hydragogues These are again divided into milde moderate and vehement remedies All purging Medicaments work not with like force but some with lesse some with greater according to their various power of acting allowed them by nature and therefore that their vertues may be the easier drawn forth to use they are divided into three ranks milde moderate and vehement Milde Medicaments are commonly used in weak natures or where the first region is only to be evacuated Moderate in a moderate condition of the strength and to evacuate the second Region Lastly the most vehement in stronger bodies and when the humour is to be attracted from the remoter parts as the brain joints c. But commonly a wary Physician in the same medicament mingleth vehement with milde and moderate that they may work the more successefully together And for the better using of them the just dole of every one is to be propounded 'T is of very great moment rightly to understand the dose of every Medicament without which no man can make a medicine without the apparent endangering the life of the patient But because the dose of purging Medicines is to be changed according to the various disposition of the bodies which wholly depends upon the judgement of the Physician we will therefore propound a greater and lesse dose as they are used in a moderate age that from their latitude a convenient quantity may be discerned But those Doses are so to be taken according as the Medicaments are taken by themselves or as they say in their substance For in infusion there is used a double quantity of the vehement remedy in decoction a troble but those more milde and moderate are commonly trebled in the infusion and quadruple in the decoction The vertue of Medicaments is lost by infusion