secondarily the seat and Subject of it Why the whole body is not alwayes afflicted of this disease but the Members of generation the mouth and instruments of sense and motion no greater reason can be given then the tendernesse of those parts their impotency to resist such an enemy and their exquisite sense That the humors first and next the spirits are the chief seat this amounts to a reason undeniable that the disease so speedily spreads the whole body Besides the spirits having their chief residence in those parts the genitalls and seminary vesseâ—ls for generation the Liver according to old opinion and the Veines heart and masse of blood according to the new and in the head for sense and motion these parts must needs be first and more taken of this disease then the outward parts which with their nourishment must of necessity afterwards successively have this defilement conveyed unto them also Neither may any one think that the humors and spirits are no living bodies and therefore not the subject of this disease Though I could grant the consequence yet the Antecedent can never be made good For can they be the first receivers instruments and conveyers of Life unto the other parts and yet have no life in themselves Are they nourished augmented diminished which are properties of living bodies and yet be no living bodies We conclude then the humors and spirits to be the subjects of this disease For they have the requisite conditions of a true subject which are these That primarily and of themselves and not by the intervention of any other and alwayes while the disease abides in the body it is seated in them though not alwayes in them onely The truth of this opinion you will the more rest in and with the greater evidence if I avoid the pretended claime that other parts of the body are supposed to have to be the seats of this disease There be three options only amongst many others which are worthy to be taken into this contest For some have seated this disease in them members of generation others in the Liver and a third sort in the Head First Râ—â—son and experience both will discharge the Genitalls from being the subject of this disease Reason For then there were no such disease in the body but of necessity they must be offended and injured but we often find men strongly taken of this disease without Ulcer Tumor or any other signe of wrong to the proper actions of those parts Besides if they were the subject and the diseases lodged in them then supposing them to be amputed the disease were cured and the body rendred uncapable of it which cannot be granted For many receive this disease by inheritance in the seed of their parents one or both and give it to their Nurses Many receive it from the venereous milk of their nurses the genitalls of both which for a long while remain sound So that the members of generation are discharged Next to quit the Liver 's claim to be the seat of this disease which hath been the opinion of many Physitians of note against whom I argue thus That part which is primò and per se offended is the subject of that offence or disease injuring but that 's not the Liver for Ulcers and Tumors arise in the genitalls from this disease and that sometimes very speedily which if by seasonable and fit remedies they were Cured the Liver and whole body would remain sound If any doubt whether these Ulcers and Tumors be effects and do shew the presence of this disease let them enquire How their bodies were contaminated and by what Contact also by what specificall remedies they were cured and they will cease to doubt If then these effects discover the disease present then that disease being an accident must have a subject proper to it which we have proved the genitalls themselves though offended cannot be much lesse the Liver which for a time remains untouch't the disease being as yet not propagated so farre Therefore either the accident must be without a subject or there is some other for the Liver must cease its claime Besides it is well known that the disease is propagated by Contact and contact is not of the Liver which is far distant Now if the disease enter the body by Contact it is then immediately in its proper subject or not If not then the disease passeth from subject to subject and so hath no proper subject Further If the Liver were the proper subject then to speak in their language the sanguifying faculty must necessarily be presently vitiated as soon as the disease enters For if a bowell be vitiated its proper faculty and work must necessarily be forthwith vitiated Galen will tell you that where sanguification is vitiated Fiunt fluxus sanguinei aut vitiatus color The body nourished by virulent blood the whole habit of it becomes virulent For as is the blood so is the flesh and consequently the colour of the same throughout the whole body But that dark squalid fuscous dull flowerlesse colour that usually accompanieth and discovereth this disease grown appeareth not of a long time in many infected in whom the disease lurks as curbed and corrected by stronger spirits and bowells and is in its progress resisted Nature endeavouring her own prefervation and to keep her quarters secure Now for the third opinion of those that make the Head the seat and subject of this disease If not the Liver or Genitals much lesse the Head can be for many have the disease grown as appears by afflicting-symptoms and yet find no sensible injury thereby in their heads Again The Head is never primarily and immediately affected but because some other parts of the body have been first taken with this disease and therefore not the Subject Besides the effects of this disease have often been removed from the Head and yet this Pest remained in other parts of the body which sufficiently evinceth the opinion asserted and confuteth the contrary Now though grievous symptoms as flames pustules hard tumors ringing in the ears dimnesse of sight falling away of the hair and many other effects of this disease appear in the head Yet these are caused by the contagion carried along in the humours and vitall spirits which are distributed through the whole body who especially moving towards the head and having this disease lodged in them produce these effects there For the spirits being light substances thin and passable do naturally move upwards and by their tenuity do pierce and passe through all the parts of the head yet the disease hath not its seat there for the reason in the former Section delivered For the proper and principall operations of the animal faculty are not offended by it as Imagination Reason Memory And if the sensory parts be offended vitiated and weakened by the disease it is rather by reason that they are naturall bodies nourished by such blood and spirits than that they are the instruments
Names WEE commonly knowing whence we had it call it the French Pox. They for the same reason for none take pleasure to owne it intitle it the Neapolitan Italian or Spanish They again whip the vagarant give it a passe-port and send it to the place of its birth calling it the Indian disease Some again observing how ill it is taken by each Nation that it should take the name of its Sire from their Country have found or made a name for it from its first quarters commonly and will have it called Pudendagra But what word bearing no modest English Translation we without slurring any other Nation as making them reputed fathers of the common Bastard and knowing our selves do choose rather to call it the Venereous disease or in contradistinction to the Variolae the Greaâ— Pox. And there is no lesse dissent and clashing amongst Authors of the first note in defining its nature than in assigning its name which comes to passe by the deep silence and darkness of the Antients in that they had no light from the Fathers of Physick to slay and be a Basis to their thoughts And therefore I shall take my liberty also and give you its nature and beeing thus CHAP. III. The Definition THe Venereous disease is A praeternaturall Affect or Disposition of man's body primarily and of it self hurting or offending the Naturall Operations and thence the Vital and Animal from a cause or reason occult or unknown I call it an Affect or Disposition not in a strict sense as opposed to Habit as if I thought it easily removed but in a large and genrall sense such as may imply Habit as well as Disposition For this Disease in weaker and more depravable constitutions becomes so rooted and hath committed such waste in the Vital and Animal spirits and induced such an Atony on the whole Microcosm as may admit Palliation but not Cure I call it Praeternaturall in opposition to naturall ordinate and preserving dispositions And Of man's body for there is no disease of man's body this excepted but is common to them with beasts but this befalls mankind onely more lustfully insatiate than the beasts themselves I say farther That it hurts and offends the naturall operations it being proper to such as labour under this disease that some naturall operation be offended And I call them Naturall retaining the old received distinction in opposition to Vital and Animal as arising from the Vegetable faculty which the Stoicks called Nature amongst whom Nutrition Augmentation and Generation are contained and such other operations as arise from and are subservient to them Now there is a three-fold hurt or offence done to any operation viz. Abolition Diminution and Depravation And in this disease the operations are evidently depraved I do not say they are not diminished but they are alwaies depraved and as far as they are diminished it comes on them by depravation Then I say Primarily and of it self because though the Vital and Animal operations be also and speedily offended yet it is Secondarily and by reason that the naturall operations were first offended and so not as Animals and Vitals but as Natural bodies have they their first injury Lastly I say For or from a cause or reason occult and unknown To distinguish this from other diseases concerning whom it appears whence how and when the operations are iujured either by dissolution or corruption or some other manifest way But how this disease wounds the operations is very obscure and we hardly find words to expresse what we conceive of it And though in the disease ulcers and gummy tumors do appear and other loathsome symptoms as in the Chapter of Signs more at large yet these are not the disease it self much lesse the causes but the effects I deny not that the effects do appear and oft do where the true nature reason and causes thereof lie in the dark If I should call these ulcers and tumors the disease by a Metonymy yet even in them is found that which reason but imperfectly much lesse sense can know For we do not find them cured by such remedies as give the effect by their first or manifest qualities or by any remedies taught by the Antients but by other remedies and such as are new and were unknown unto them Neither let this seem strange to affirm that there are diseases whose nature cause and formall reasons lye obscure for the evidence of this is prepared and plainly made out to our hands by learned Fernelius De abditis rerum causts from the Monuments of the Antients And thus much for the description of the Disease Venereal If any object that I have penned a Treatise to make a disease better known to my Countrymen labouring under it or in danger of it and that I do in the issue resolve all in rationes incognitas occult operations which are ignorantiae asyla I answer That of many things we know the quod sit not the cur sit When the Objectors can give me the reason of the strength of the Neather-jaw of the Load-stone's work and impotency of the Compasse its variation and stupor of the motion of the Sea and Winds of the production of the Stone and Worms of the forms and their transmutations in bodies mixt of the causes and reasons of operations in pestilent diseases By that time I shall further satisfie them Qui nil dubitat nil didicit maxima pars eorum quae scimus est minima pars eorum quae nescimus Shall the learned'st Lights of the Apollinaean Art called to set forth the causes and reasons of the Stone and Worms in the severall parts ventricles and cavities of the body and being urged by stresse of argument fly to defend their opinions to Spiritus lapidescens lumbrificans as the Essicient cause and Materia lapidescibilis lumbrisicabilis as the Materiall Shall those Heroes in shewing the reason of pestilent and malignant cacoethicall diseases fly to a cause quae agit tota substantia the Asylum ignorantiae Then what excuse or plea could my ignorance and madnesse have if in so learned an age I should tell the world in print that I knew any thing so comprehensively as that I were ignorant of it in nothing Whereas there are more depths of nature in a little Gnat then the learning of the World shall ever attain in this mortall state And he hath gone far in knowledge that knowes his owne ignorance And hee 's unworthy to know more that is ashamed to consesse it And so much by digression From the Definition I shall come to the Subject of this disease and then more distinctly to the Effect it self which though they have been touched in the Definition yet being most considerable parts require a particular hand CHAP. IIII. The Subject of the Venereous Disease AND that I take to be the humors and spirits primarily and by their circulationâ— and dispersing themselves throughout the body there is no part secure from being
more care of their diet skill to manage preservatives are more diligent in clensing their Cities and Habitations have more care of their persons in avoiding contagion The same may be said of this disease It raged formerly because men were more negligent of themselves but time and experience teach them more prudence Quest 4. Doth not the supervention of this disease cure and remove the falling-sicknesse Asthma or other mortall disease Ans I know it is affirmed by some and they give this reason because by this disease there is a totall change wrought upon nature so that it should easily come to passe that those almost naturall diseases mentioned should hereby be removed But these are fallacies for grant that by this disease a great change is made on nature yet it is a change to the worse Therefore how can it be that those diseases which in a body otherwise sound are of themselves difficult should being coupled with a more depraved disease become more easily cured Quest 5. Doth the Pox keep out the Plague Ans I know it hath been vulgarly asserted that the venereous are secure against Pestilent contagion and they give this reason because another kind of distemper prevaileth in the venereous distinct from that which is apt to produce pestilent diseases They argue also from experience that venereous houses and persons are seldom visited with pestilent diseases But these are trifles for the character of the pestilence is Putrefaction whether occult or not venenous putrefaction And who can deny putrefaction in this disease and that the humours spirits bowels and members depraved by it are apt further to beget it So that it cannot be hoped that one kind of putrefaction should secure against another Onely thus far it is true that if any venereous person hath been lately and perfectly cured he is the lesse subject to pestilent infection and the reason is because the Fomes of putrefaction is taken away in the venereous cure But that one plague keeps out another is a pleasant dream and were a madnesse to affirm Quest 6. Whether there be any Antidote any true and certain means of avoiding contagion so as that a man may use a venereous woman and yet not be infected by her Answ I know there are those who promise great matters this way and that they may feed their own covetousnesse and others lust and factor for the devill do boast of their secrets in this kind as if they were skild beyond others to give an Antidote that should secure against such venereous contagion But I look upon these pleasant and wicked fales as cheats and methods of base gain For we know that in coition there is a mutuall attrition of genitals a mixture of humours and spirits for the pores by such flames are set open so that it cannot be but that infected spirits should be mixed with the pure in those pores and they so become defiled 'T is true such prophylactick medecines may do two things 1. They may densare poros genitalium so that the passages of the humours and spirits may be lesse patent 2. They may corroborate and confirm the spirits that they may the more strongly repell the infection as Treacles do against poyson But there is a different reason between poisons that are taken inwardly and this disease which is contracted by Contact for poisons do not alwaies and presently mingle themselves with the humors and spirits as this doth Besides poisons first enter the stomack which presently repells them as appeareth in dogs vomitings then are dispersed through the vessells and contaminate the spirirs but this Pest presently enters the inward parts by defiling the humours and spirits Lastly such things as preserve from poison are taken inwardly that they may be diffused throughout the whole body and so confirm the spirits and bowels But the medecines to which these attribute so great vertue are outward things which cannot diffuse their efficacy through the inward parts Again if there be any medecines to be given which shall preserve from this infection it must be those Antidotes which cure the disease as Treacles cure the poisoned they also preserve from poison But the Indian Woods which though more flowly do at length cure this disease cannot preserve but that they which use them may at the same time be infected much less can other remedies But you will object that many go in to the Venreous and yet find by experience that they are not infected which yet is more than they can be assured of And then that which Nature doth for some Why may not Art do for others I answer Art cannot impresse upon the spirits such a faculty of refisting as Nature can Yet I do not deny but that Antidotes may be found which may work in tantum that men may not so easily be taken of this disease but that they may promise them safety I utterly deny Therefore let none suffer themselves to be deluded for to avoid this danger they have onely these three remedies To maintain Chastity To live Continently and To avoid the Venereous Questt 7. Is the venereous cure to be attempted as soon as the disease by any signe or just suspition discovereth it self Answ I know some are for the Negative and they tell us of their experience That they have found the disease thereby exasperated Also they argue further that the disease may be cured and expelled at first by Nature it self but when provoked by Medecines it further spreads throughout the body But this opinion is not more false than pernicious for all men rest in that generall rule Principiis obsta and from Hippoc. de locis in hom de sacro morbo that a disease must be withstood at the beginning and that great care is to be used that young diseases be forthwith extinguished Now as this is a good rule in the curing of all diseases so especially of this for at first this disease when taken by impure coition lodgeth in the out-parts and needs not medicines that work by alteration but expulsion And who doubts of the truth of that Turpiùs ejicitur c that venom is more easily driven out of the porch than turned out of the house when it enters by the genitalls than when it hath taken its walk through the humours and bowels And so I come to the cure in the next Chapter CHAP. XI Of the Cure in Common THe Cure hath two branches either as common to other diseases in the use of Vniv rsals or as Speciall and proper to this Antivenereal And this again either the cure of the disease it seif or of the symptoms which are many and fierce And though some go off or abate with the disease yet others require speciall cure which is done by Chirurgicall applications whereof I need not further trouble the Reader Now the cure in common consists in the right use of Catharicks Phlebotomy Diaphoreticks for if this Pest be to be thrown out all passages are to be set
LUES VENEREA WHEREIN The Names Nature Subject Causes Signes and Cure are Handled Mistakes in these discovered Rectified Doubts and Questions Succinctly Resolved BY JOHN WYNELL M.D. Desidia Luxuria haec duo priùs in Graecia corpora vitiârunt deinde apud nos afflixerunt â—um reclè curaturum esse dicunt quem prima origo causae non fefellerir Alii putant interesse non quid morbum faciat sed quid tollat Celsus LONDON Printed by W.W. for the Author and are to be sold by H. Herringman in the lower Walk in the new Exchange 1660. To my deservedly honoured Friend James Boevey of Upper-Chelsey Esq SIR IT is the Sanction of long-liv'd Custom that no one appear to publick view without Dedication to some considerable Friend And while others affect to chuse Nobles by Nativity and mutable Titles I one Noble by Nature and a better portion of her endowments the most primary true and immutable dignity which is not in honorante nor in the power of Men or Laws to give or take away but immures it self in your Principles and sheds its beams of love and favour on all ingenious men known of what faculty soever Sir Bountifull Nature to give an instance of what she can do hath bestow'd on you not lavish'd much more than a child's part the lesse she hath for some others for her store is not infinite I write not this to make you known whom all Europe knows already Much lesse would I offer dirty Wits an occasion to slurre you by this Dedication as if the Argument ensuing spake your disease and therefore fittest for your view study and countenance No Eagles are not wont to prey on carrion Great minds sublime fancies furnished with Arts Tongues enriched with the advantages of Travell kept in busiest speculative employments I say Great Souls whose activity the locall world is too narrow to circumscribe are above these carnall inescations leave them condemn'd to those whose souls dwell in their senses This Treatise hath lien in broken papers some years past penned for private use and had never seen more light but by your encouragement And now being got abroad first offers self to you to pay its birth duty and respects for publick freedom It lies in a small bulk and without Rhetoricall ornament for it intends the diseased to make them known to themselves appales to abide the narrow scan of your curious fancy which knows neither bonds nor rest the more 's your danger For let me tell you Sir you have a mind whom to supply with necessary animal-spirits is able to depauperate the most just and equilibrious Temper And provident Nature will store her Head-quarters and not fail to send enough to her Court and University though the lower Towns and Villages of the Microcosm fail and pine for it For the animal spirits luminous and aetherial fit to irradiate the soul's commands through the imperforate Nerves are raised out of the Vitall in the Plexus Choroides by further elaboration whence Nature amaunds the more foeculent part to the sewers of the Brain and the residue by the veines to the Heart for further concoction Hence the weak and depopulate bodies of busiest minds Hence those troublesome floods of rheums and destillations in them whose nature delights to dwell largely in the Animals especially quibus natura mater fortuna noverca And such would be your condition did not Fortune and Prudence conspire to prompt you a more elegant and defoecated diet to prevent it But what do I setting up my Candle to your Torch casting my Mite of advice into the Treasury of your prudentiall Rules Your Tongue and Pen drop little else and your loving Soul can do no lesse than to publish and enlarge the stock of Learning with your methodicall Digests All the divertisement that I shall further give your serious employment is to signifie and assure you that I am SIR Your affectionate Servant JOHN WYNELL Duresm-Yard 3d Nonas Decemb. 1659. To the Reader Reader BEfore thou enter the Treatise following peruse well this Epistle directed unto thee wherein thou hast 1 The Occasion that induced the penning and publishing of it 2 My Scope or End therein 3 The advanragious Use that thou maist make thereof 1. The Occasion was made up of these Observations following 1 Of the stupendious grouth and spreading of two depopulating diseases the Venercous and the Scurvy And enquiring thereupon into their effects in the yearly Bills of Mortality I found them so benign that it gave me occasion to admire the mystery of concealment I observed the Consumption in this sulphury aire to have slain its thousands and the Venereous disease scarce its hundreds I concluded thereupon that Latet dolus in generalibus Consumption's back is broad enough to bear such mocks I perceived also that the Scurvy had scarce a constant name in the killing Catalogue though it destroy more than any ten of its fellowes but the Dropsie Feavours of many kinds c. have great numbers dead at their feet I concluded thence that Filiae devorârunt matrem 2 I observed the mortality and pining of great noble and generous Families their generations gasping and soon run out one treading on the heels of another which gave me to enquire what should be the occasion And guiding my thoughts by that rule Causa Effectus sunt simul I accused their pampering diet effeminate education praemature marriage indiscreet covetousnesse in taking a weak crooked rickety woman for her Portion to be mater familiâs But my thoughts reasoning against the sufficiency of this enumeration as not of sufficient consideration carried me with greatest reason to their diseases And finding the Venereous disease amongst them as in its head-quarters I was strong in my conjecture that this traduced in the seed of parents and mi1k of nurses hindring nature in accomplishing her intention of perfection hath brought this calamity on great Families Haeret semini lethalis arundo 3 I observed further that hereby one principall end of Marriage to propagate a strong healthy and numerous posterity fit to traduce the being name and memory of parents to such an eternity as their mortall condition is capable of was much made void For in this wanton painting patching perfuming Issuing age a man knows not whom or what he takes to himself or his son in marriage a blessing or a curse Whereby not onely our own bodies are endangered damnified but posterity primarily foundamentally corrupted extirpated hearts of yoke-fellowes alienated iealousie let in of non-faithfulnsse after having lost their girdle before and indeed an uncomfortable life together because they cannot asunder like two dogs in a chain ever snaring and all because abusefull deceit in the marriage Manet altâ mente repôstum And now no securing evidence from the Hymen as amongst the Jews antiently being found Nature now in formation rarely plating any such transverse membrane the weeping breach whereof may assure the husband he is not deceived in his
of and belonging to the animal and rational faculty And therefore I conclude Not the Genitals not the Liver not the Head but the Humours and Spirits are the true and proper subjects of this disease of which I had not so much enlarged but for that it is importantly necessary to be known to direct how the Cure is to be specified and determined CHAP. V. What the Affect is which is seated in the Humours c. IF you enquire what that Affect is which is seated in the Humours and Spirits I say it is no other than a distemper If What distemper a hot cold moist or dry I say it may accompany any one every one of them and yet be another thing different from them For the character of this disease is a certain degree and manner of distemper which we have not words to expresse Neither therefore must we flye to a fourth kind or species of diseases amongst whom to place this to the Antients unknown who have left us the acknowledgment but of three kinds though they knew a kind of diseases that offend after a secret manner for they knew the biting of a mad Dog of which they could give no sufficient reason and yet they did not constitute another kind besides the three usually received for Modus aut gradus non variat speciem That there is in this Disease a degree and manner of distemper above that which is Elementary appears in this that there are certain effects and impressions of it that cannot be reduced to any manifest Distemper The operations arise from the Temper and they are injured or offended by Distemper As therefore perfect operations proceed from a like degree of Temper so also operations eminently offended are thus offended by a like degree of Distemper Also we find that this Disease is cured by remedies that do not cure manifest Distempers yet if they restore the operations it is necessary that they restore the Temper But seeing they do not as curing this Disease restore the manifest Temper it followes that they restore a degree of Temper that we cannot expresse and that they take away a like degree of Distemper superinduced by this Disease This also is to be considered that this Disease may lodge in every Distemper for in practice we find that men of cold Distemper as well as hot and some of dry and marasmodicall bodies as well as the moist and succulent are taken with this Disease So that this Distemper may joyne with any with every Distemper It is evident therefore that the Character of this Disease is another degree and manner of Distemper super-induced besides that of their owne formerly introduced And this consideration also in of great moment that in receiving this disease by Contact as in the next Chapter at large this degree and manner of distemper wherein it consisteth is introduced after the manifest distemper is induced yet so as that there is no great space of time rather a priority of nature then time between the degree impressed and the distemper which though at the beginning it may be disjunct from all proper matter yet most commonly it is joyned to and conveyed with and in matter And if not alwayes so yet while it corrupts the humours and spirits bowels and members it becomes the cause of begetting this corrupt and depraved matter tough and viscous sanies which is by degrees propagated in the humors and spirits throughout all the bowels and members And this is the manner of producing and deriving the Venereous disease which the next Chapter will more fully clear CHAP. VI. Of the Causes of the Venereous Disease NOw we shall enquire into the Causes producing this Disease which are either Externall or Internall The Externall are all comprehended under Contagion and that is either Immediate or Mediate Immediate contagion is when there is an immediate Contact between the bodies infecting and infected Mediate when some other body cometh between which receiveth the infective vapour and conveyeth it to the body that is to be infected as the aire Either the common aire or that portion of it that by the infector is breathed out and by the infected is received in Now that this disease cannot be contracted by the medium of common or outward air is evident for then multitudes that dwell in places and neighbourhoods of venereous persons as it falls out in times of pestilent contagion would daily be infected especially they that domesticaly cohabit and kindreds mostly would be much endangered which experience doth not confirm So that this good hath the Venereous plague beyond the other that it keeps more at home and doth not cast forth so strong a seminary of contagion though Fracastorus an Author of no mean rank thinketh otherwise Neither is it conveyed by aire breathed out and received in for then they that talk mouth to mouth with the Venereous and especially such as apply remedies to the ulcers of their mouth must needs be infected which is not found It is true the Tabes of the lungs communicateth a seminary of to the aire breathed out so that they which are apt to receive that disease drawing it in are endangered But not for it self but as accompanied with an Hectick Feaver But of this disease it is not observed So that all mediate contact being rejected it followes that onely by immediate and corporeall contact this disease is conveyed And hereby I understand carnall use of a venereous person sucking venereous milk or herditary disposition from the seed of venereous parents which Plautus in Amphiter calls Contagio The true manner then how this disease is contracted is no other but this as hath even now bin shewed either by generation lactation or mutuall attrition of bodies whereby defiled spirits mixed with the pure communicate a degree and manner of distemper together with a prava proluvies induced or produced which running up and down the body infecteth the bowells onely in some and in others the members also but in some not being resisted as in Answer to the Questions shall be made appear The Internall cause of this disease is no other but Ichor sanies quaedam prava having their proper leaven in them communicated and tenaciously adhering to the humours and spirits Why this Sanies is propagated sometimes and in some sooner in others later many causes may be alledged 1. The latitude or straitnesse of the seminall passages for in wider pores and passages this Illuvies is more easily drunk in Where the way is strair the disease doth seldomer and more hardly propagate it self 2. A greater or lesse plenty of humours as in bodies more or lesse moist-3 Greater or lesse disposednesse of the bowells and members to receive or resist the contagion And hence is it that they which have loose flesh and abounding with humours their vessells being large and open-mouth'd are soonest tainted first the humours then the genitalls next the mouth for these causes and other reasons before expressed You
may observe that men of dryer harder and colder bodies are lesse subject to this disease as labouring men poor men old men I have read it observed that the Turks are not easily infected herewith though they have alwaies amongst them venereous captives of both sexes and the reason suggested is for that their bodies are more hard and drie and consequently their genitalls And thus much for the causes whereby you may perceive how this disease deriveth insinuateth and propagateth it self Now forasmuch as no Argument can be set forth so clearly as to leave no darknesse or doubts in the mind of the Reader especially in this branch of it touching the Causes I shall therefore farther endeavour his satisfaction by solving such Questions and Doubts as may yet beclowd him CHAP. VII Doubts and Questions Resolved touching the Causes especially 1. QUest Why may not Venereous contagion be conveyed mediately by the aire since we find asserted before touching the Tabes of the lungs and by venerable Authors of the Ophthalmia that it sends out spirits infecting the air which the same air retaining for a certain time and distance communicateth by contagion to the eyes of others And if it be so in these cases why may not from the ulcers in the mouths of the Venereous infecting-vapours be sent out into the aire and that again infect others as well as in the Opthalmia and Tabes Answ This disease lyeth primarily in the humours and naturall spirits for so I may call them and they are more grosse and lesse moveable cannot be emitted or darted out of the body or if they should would take weak impression upon the aire The vitall spirits indeed are more subtile and may passe further and therefore diseases primarily in them have a more flagrant seminary to impoison the air Yet if this disease be accompanied with a feavour as in time and grouth it will that may put stings into it and render it mediately contagious Quest 2. May not the contagion be conveyed by Garments as some have thought Answ No for if the aire cannot receive it so as to convey it from person to person much lesse other externall bodies which should receive it from the air For qualities communicated to the aire are altered and changed by further mixture and change of fleeting aire and so lose their morbifick force Quest 3. May not kissing the Venerous pledging them out of the same cup sitting next after them on the same stool close-stool lying after them on the same bed bed-cloaths convey the infection Answ The contrary hath been proved that no mediate contact can of it self convey it for if the air or garments cannot for reasons expressed much lesse solider bodies as close-stools and cups leight contact of lips c. And if they should then would this disease be much more spreading and cohabitants with the Venereous unavoidably be infected so that Pest-houses were as necessary for these as for the Leprous antiently and of late for the visited with the plague of Pestilence And although this diseased usually be a gentleman yet common safety were preponderous to any man's private quality Quest 4. May a woman bring this Disease upon her selfe by prostituting her body to many clean and uninfected men Ans To affirm this doth suppose brothelry debauched brothelry to be of late edition in the World or at least in those places or regions where not withstanding the Venereous Disease never had a footing Quest 5. May sperm oft injected by coition with the same or severall clean Persons clogging the expulsive faculty of the Womb cause such a putrefaction as that her Humors become venereously corrupted and so the disease be produced Ans No for if clean seed extravasate by not being expelled the Womb should cause such a putrefaction as to render the person Venereous then seed long detained and kept in the seminary vessels and there corrupting and putrifying the cause of the most leonine Histericall fits as is commonly asserted should have much more causality to produce this disease But this cannot be granted and therefore not the former Quest 6. What is the reason that this Disease which in some persons for some years lurketh in the body so as no signe of it appears yet that at length it should discover it selfe and break forth in great rage Ans The venome of the biting of a mad Dog lieth for some years in the body of some man without any signe discovering it which all Physitians after Hippocraâ—â—s acknowledge and yet neither he nor any of the Ancients understood the disease So may this Lues But the manner How and reason Why is most worthy to come under Consideration I said before that this proluvies is viscous and therefore tenaciously adheres to the bowels and is mingled with the humors and spirits but because evidence of its presence cannot clearly and by manisest effects be shewed but on solid bodies which this venereous Illuvies doth find bowels so strongly spirited as that they make great resistance and refuse it and obtrude it into the bycavities of the body where it lies fermenting the disease resideth especially in this Venereous Illuvies and is not communicated to the outwards parts So that when how and where this disease begins acts and creeps on is not perceived There are workings and alterations and morbifick sensations in the body which are not at all in strong constitutions and in others not perceived by their proper causes and are of tentimes attributed to other than their owne So that if you put together the time wherein the bowels resist the Venereous poison and the time wherein it worketh insensibly together with the time of the bodies state neutral it may amount to a year many years before the effects symptoms and evidences undoubtedly discover the disease present Quest 7. How comes it to passe that sometimes and to some at one coition with the Venereous this disease is contracted yet others can scarce be infected at many Ans This must be ascribed to many causes 1. To the various dispositions of bodies for some are more prone to this or that disease and therefore take it sooner for nature makes lesse resistance Which also is the reason that they which have any weak part of their bodies do receive a disease sooner in that part For example let a man that hath the gowt be taken Venereously and he shall find it more to prevaile and afflict him in his feet So on him that hath weak eyes if this disease supervene his eyes are sooner and more afflicted than other parts 2. Carelesnesse sordidness in neglecting their own bodies is another cause For they that rightly and rationally cleanse themselves after coition are scarcely and seldomer taken of this disease But they that having no care of themselves do suffer the Illuvies to cleave unto them are sooner and more fiercely taken of it 3. Long stay in carnall coition makes much to infection for they that welter in unclean bodies and
through the ecstasy of lust much inflame themselves after saciety are speedily and at one coition infected But they that soon withdraw and are lesse inflamed are not so easily stung 4. They are soonest infected that most burn in lust and are with the horse more violently carried to coition by a sperm-fire And hence it is that so many of the younger sort are so soon infected For when heat of youth and heat of lust more turgent by spermatick and too liberall diet meet together there is a great flame which makes them fearlesse of a worse and greater The like may be said of them qui rarò venere fruuntur for when they obtain their desires they go on violently and so are the sooner infected The reason is because a great conflux of stimulating spirits fall into the genitalls by whose heat and rage the spermatick waies are much dilated and so set the more open to the poyson Quest 8. Some move the Question Whether a woman carnally known by a venereous man and remâ—ining her self as to sense at least uninfected may yet infect him that next approacheth her Answ Some hold the Negative because Nemo dat quod non habet and therefore it hardly finds credit that a person uninfected should yet infect another But to hold the Affirmative is to maintain that which is neither impossible nor irrationall It is evidenced already that this Lues may lurk in the body many years in the humours and cavities and therefore let it not seem strange if in coition it defile others We have the story in Avicen of a young woman nourished up with poysonous diet who was never poysoned her self and yet poisoned all that had carnall use of her You have another president in plague-times of cats and dogs who not being infected themselves carry the infection to others So that the Affirmative is no absurd assertion Quest 9. whence comes it to passe that at the beginning when this disease came newly into Europe it was so formidably raging but now is became much more mild and lesse destructive Answ There were many causes conspiring that at first made this disease more fierce which at this time ceasing or abating their activity it is reasonable the disease should remit The causes that made the disease so formidable at first were 1. Affrighting novelty new and fierce symptoms whereof they neither understood whence they arose nor to what degree of afflicting they might ascend So that men being terrified by this novelty and ignorant of the power of their enemy became spirit-faln and their bodies not having the benefit of the counsell and courage of their minds were delivered up captive to the disease to do what it could on them And this was one reason why it became so formidable For as in times of Pestilence that disease affrights most at first so they are in most danger which are most cast down and trampled on by their own fears Whereas the more careless and confident having all the help strength and defence of courage and resolution that the generous governing mind can give are so much the more secure So is it in this case And this also is the reason why the body in sleep is more subject to the inclemency of the aire for not being governed by the mind it is wholly delivered up to the piercing aire it being of it self able to make no resistance and therefore men are then most subject as we phrase it to take cold which let them observe who sleep in their day-cloaths without superstrate coverings 2. At the first breaking in of this disease apt remedies were not found out to arm men against the rage of it The vertues of those Indian-Simples whence the disease came were not known and when they were found it was looked upon as a blessing dropt down from heaven and the Inventors blessed 3. When apt Simples were found they were used by most in practise without weighty reason so that for want of method to direct their use those remedies not onely proved fruitlesse to some but to others hurtfull Bodies ill handled with acute medecines become more defiled 4. All enemies in their avaunt shew themselves most formidable Time was when the Yex or Hicket produced dreadfull effects the Neezing which we look upon as a remedy was once a disease so deplorate that by-standers terrified with it brought in that custom of praying over them Christ help c. which custom prevailes to this day So we read of the Mentagra and Gemursa diseases at their entrance fierce which afterwards became more remisse And this leads me to the next Question Quest 10. What the reason should be that though this disease be generally milder yet on some it appears very cruell Answ Hereof may be assigned many reasons 1. Either the disease finds weak bodies full of corrupt humours bodies passively disposed and hereby it becomes the more tyrannous 2. Or the disease is a relapse and finds nature yielding and renued and ingeminated diseases ever appear worst 3. Or other diseases fallen in are joyned with it one disease drawing on another his congenerate and diseases the more complicate the worse 4. Besides the new disease falls in when nature is weak low and languishing so that its expulsive ability cannot keep out or drive off the diseases new nor old Quest 11. Whence comes it to passe that this disease falls most sometimes on the hairs sometimes the nerves sometimes the bones sometimes the fleshy parts Answ Because they are more disposed and propense to receive it or because they do lesse repell it Hence it is that when and where the flesh is weak and doth lesse resist which ariseth of many causes then it falls on fleshy or musculous parts And the like may be said of all the rest That which Physitians say of the Feavour-heat that sometimes it falls on the humours sometimes on the spirits and sometimes on the solid parts as they are more disposed to inflammation or do lesse resist that flame may as truly be affirmed of this disease Quest 12. Some move the question Whether there be any region or people amongst whom this disease is more spreading And the reason why they move it is because it is observed of old that there are diseases which have spread some Countries for speciall reasons and aptnesses in the natives as the Elephantiasis in Egypt the gout in Attica the Dracunculi in Arabia the Aphthae in Syria In Aethiopia was a disease that sent out of their bodies winged lice and out of the same perforations grew a strange scab which held them till death Ans To give resolution to this question know That all diseases which distinctly befall some Countries more than other do arise either from their diet or from some evill conjunction of humors in and thereby inclinations of that people or from some winds that bring contagious vapours by inspiration assaulting them or from the temper of the aire impressed by Influences The scab of
Aethiopia the Dracunculi of Arabia which the Ancients mention came on them by their excesse in diet for they were a voracious people and especially from their feeding on Locusts which depraved their constitutions The gowt of Attica arose from their full and delicious diet and much venery We read also of Winds which brought the causes of sicknesses as the south Wind from Africk to Europe and some Winds barrennesse to Women So that all Endemicall diseases proper to regions arise either from a corrupt usage of those Countries or from the temper of the aire But this disease hath no such rise adjuvant causes I deny not so that it cannot be peculiar to any region but seeing it is gotten by contact especially that of coition I say it is most peculiar to those Countries Cities Families Persons that are most addicted to Venery And so I come from the Causes and such doubts as arise thereupon unto the Signes CHAP. VIII Of the Signes Diagnostick THe signes of this disease are either Diagnostick or Prognostick Diagnostick or such as discover the disease present besides those which have been scattered in the precedent Chapters may from the accidentall differences of this disease the essence being alwayes the same be rallied in this order as they flow 1. From the rise that one is haereditary and native another accidentary as by a soul bed a venereous Child to the Nurse or a venereous Nurse to the Child 2. From the age of it that one is begun another growing a third consummate 3. From the symptoms that one is more vehement another milder 4. From the sex 5. From the age of the patient 6. From the constitution 7. From the usages 1. From the rise for if the Countenance do not plainly speak the disease as by paint it may be much silenced yet it will give occasion to enquire whether they have not been carnally joyned to the venereous whether they have not been informed or had reason to believe that they descended of venereous parents one or both or had a venereous Nurse or she a venereous Child These may make the matter probable and prevent or strengthen other enquiries Otherwise the signes discovering are not certain and infallible but suspitious and conjecturall 2. Signes from the age of the disease fall under three Heads either as it is 1. Begun for at entrance they are all obscure and general and much common with other diseases as wearinesse without labour overthe whole body moveable pains in the head and body heavinesse or sloathfulnesse of all instruments of motion unlustfulnesse after sleep the colour of the face changing and growing darker If it entred by a defiled bed heat and sharpnesse of urine smart in the genitals heat in the reins dulnesse sadnesse 2. Growing on virulent running of the reins green yellow or towards black pains swellings soft tumors of of the privities one or all with increasing anguish Sometimes a little feavour without any great signes of putrefaction akeing of the periostia or by the bone pains increasing in the evening and later part of the night and enraged by the heat of the bed a little cough urine becomn sabulous pale smelling strong and rancid spermaticall matter floating on it ordure foeculent of various forms and colours towards green yellow black not onely in divers but in the same stool 3. Consummate and Confirmed are coldnesse of nature desirous of the fire a continued and setled pain of the head in some part of it tumors ulcers about the head flaccidity loosnesse of flesh and rottennesse of the privities tumours ulcers or both of the mouth which are sometimes crusty sometimes purulent sometimes callous whorsenesse of voice speaking through the palate or roof of the mouth and nose not opening their mouths wide to speak as formerly and finding it painfull so to do falling down of the nose and a stinking breath from the cariosity thereof falling of the hairs especially of the eye brows sometimes a painfull flying humour from the brain to the haemorhoid-veins and thence a recurrence to the brain hard knots in the legs arms neck or all rottennesse of the periostia and bones tumours and sharp pains about the cheek-bones ringing of the ears clefts of the hands feet and grievous tormenting pains throughout the whole body which becommeth emaciate appetite being decayed and concoction much weakned dimnesse of sight the colour of the eyes changed having lost their brightnesse and agility become slow of motion stinking loathsome slimy sweats tophous knots like those of the gout the colour of the skin becomming still more darksome squallid and like the countenance in a black Jaundies Buboes swelling out in the Inguina and sometimes falling in flying from place to place especially of the Emunctories Most commonly it appears in this order First by acrimony and sharpnesse of urine virulent running of the reins and sometimes not which is seldom This flowing women oft mistake for the Whites whereby the disease is let grow on unperceived Then pustules appear arising first about the genitalls next swelling gums knots Thence crusty sores white in the midst and red round about which being broken give case Then pains of the Head in the evening increasing After that buboes about the Inguina growing as big as Eggs. Then Tophous knots At length Ulcers of the Nose palate and cruell pains 3. Signes from the symptoms which ever at beginning are milder and afterwards more fierce This is the reason why the patient neglects the best season of Cure governing the care of his health by sense of pain which creeping on insensibly makes him think the distemper will spend it self and so wear away 4. Signes from the sex for the weaker sex have some benefit above the stronger to abate the disease by Child-bed and monthly clensings but a greater mischief by the passive and receptive formation of their bodies lodging virulent sperme and being of more soft and spungy bodies are more apt to receive contagion and have weaker humors and spirits to resist and repell the same And hence it is that the signes and symptoms before mentioned on themâ— do become more fierce and dolorous 5. Signes from the age of the Patient As more years are an advantage against infection old men do not so easily receive it and the signes and symptoms do not appear so fierce so have they thereby a greater disadvantage for if they are once seized it seldome departs but with Life 6. Signes from the constitution and temperament The Cholerick are soonest tanged the Melancholly most afflicted the sanguine make best resistance to infection and are best Cured the Phlegmatick have it lying longest in their humors all which must be taken into Consideration when you examine upon the signs before mentioned Lastly From the Usages The tender and idle take it soonest are most afflicted and with greatest difficulty Cured Contrarily laborious and dry bodies And thus you have a Catalogue of the signes not all for that were endlesse
open that way may be made for the speciall cure A method is to be taken from this distemper and all complications for it rarely goes alone and all other indications The fix things called not-naturall must be rightly ordered Venery for a season banished that so the Vires may be kept strong to expell a disease of long cure and short diet and lest by inflaming-motion of the body in coition the disease entred in one part be diffused Phlebotomy is in case of Plethory or fierce accidents to be used and not as is the manner of some in all venereous cures to breathe a vein presently Diaphoreticks in growen diseases are of great moment and require due management CHAP. XII Of the Cure in Speciall AS there are many methods of Speciall Cures so they may all be reduced to these two heads Reproved or Approved Methods Reproved are 1. By remedies common and not Specificall which find no obedience here or not without a greater mischief than benefit to Nature 2. The good cheap poor whore cure by Fontanels taken up from the practice of the poorer Spaniards amongst whom it is in common use whereby Nature findeth some ease disburthening part of the purulent matter but the fomes is left within to render their condition deplorate I am no friend to continued Issues which prevailed not in practise untill this disease brake into to Europe 3. By Mercuriall Unguent which may serve for Carriers and Porters robustious bodies and yet even in them the consequents render it perilous if not pernitious I know some are so ignorant and audacious that they make it their ordinary Champion setting upon every venereous patient with this dreadfull remedy as if no cure could be dispatched without it the effects of whose boldnesse many have mournfully carried to their graves What this Unguent is I need not expresse its composition is well known better than trusted to or delighted in by Artists For this Unguent rubb'd on the palms and plants of hands and feet is speedily carried to the head as appears by the floods of salivation that follow the use of it For its Mercury being an aerial spirituous body compacted as appeareth by its orbicular trembling motion as soon as it is attenuated and resolved by naturall heat breaks out of its compacture as fired powder out of a gun and naturally flying upwards is carried through veins and arteries to the brain with many vapours accompanying it which Vapours and Mercury there condensing are attenuated eliquated as a cloud for rain and through the palate are cast down to the mouth or stomack in salivation The truth of this appears to them who in salivation hold a piece of gold in their mouthes who find the spirits and vapours of the Mercury concreating hang about it as it doth about other solid bodies for its subtile flying spirits passe through the whole body and fix about the bones also who receive on themselves the substance and colour of the Mercury as in the mouth about the gold 4. By Mercuriall Cinnaber-fume which is yet more formidable and to such as have pectorall diseases short breath ill affected lungs are troubled with distillations weak bowells chollick pains dysenteries pernicious use what care you can Mercuriall aire will get in There being safe methods of cure let these be laid aside for scarce to any person are they used without the manifest offence and detriment of some bowell And though great pretenders may promise security in its use yet it is no wisdome to adventure your person upon every one's bold rash and ignorant confidence Melius est non prodesse quà m obesse Fierce accidents will all in Bold Empericks will promise much and perform little and will adventure upon what they cannot govern and therefore must needs abuse themselves and their patients I do not decry the right use of Mercury for take away Mercury Antimony and Vitriol you leave the Armory of Physick reproachfully weak The Methods of cure approved are 1. That by Treacles and Indian Alexipharmaca which in time and right use will take effect but this way is long and tedious 2. That by Antivenereall Magnets which is noble and to be rested in sure potent and effectuall to draw out the venereous matter which let none despise because they do not understand by such hints Dii laboribus omnia vendunt The Last is that by Sympatheticall application which saveth the patients much trouble and useth nature in her most sublime and noblest activities These two last Methods of cure let the weaker sex especially take notice of whose more tender bodies and feeble spirits render them more unable to bea the more rough and difficult wayes of cure These are methods which many men of great attainments otherwise through pride and unthankfullnesse have rendred themselves uncapable of What the Magneticks are how applied and by what causality they operate what the Sympatheticks to be chosen are and by what symmetry oneness and community of spirit they have their effect or whereby their causality is hindred or set on motion longa dies docuit every one is not fit to receive it nor would understand if they were told nor could apply if they understood The learned unprejudiced may inform themselves If any one find a new spring issuing out of Parnassus reason will that he first drink the waters thereof The effect will best commend the work and the patients Euge's the cure and that 's enough to secure against the mad tooth of detraction and silence the charge of Novelty the strength whereof others famous in their generation have broken to my hands For who knowes not that the opinion of the Circulation of the blood is new and thereupon the doctrine of Feavers fundamentally new the way of the Chyle new the sanguification of the heart veins masse of blood it selfe new the proper work of the Liver new the Chymicall anatomy of all mixt bodies new the whole frame and face of naturall Philosophy new and yet the Assertors of these not despised by any but proud Stoicks whom no reason can perswade that they are men Physick came in at first Empirically though it stood not so and by induction of manifold experience it was brought into Precepts and Principles And had the way of improving experience been longer stood on and Physick too soon not taught to systematize it had better improved and fewer breaches been made on its doctrine to the greater honour of the Art and its Professors and benefit of Patients But this practicall Art must be like speculative Sciences and take a body of generall Principles before they be found side digna sufficient causes of Conclusion But had they been such the Fabrick had been firmer It is true and cannot be denyed that naked Experience not supported by weighty Reason is but a dwarf and can do little nay is often mischievous but they that joyne both together will find them a fortresse strong enough to abide the battery of calumny If in these methods of cure I walk in paths lesse trodden yet since my foundation is purest Philosophy I shall say for my selfe Salve amicum lumen I will not with some others contra rationem insanire All the satisfaction I shall in conclusion give the Reader and that will satisfie the sober and modest is to remit him to that of Seueca Multi ad sapientiam pervenire potuissent nisi putassent se pervenisse Multum egerunt qui ante nos fuerunt sed non peregerunt Multum adhuc restat operae multumque restabit neque ulli nato post mille secula praecidetur occasio aliquid adhuc adjiciendi THE CONTENTS Chap I. THE Preface Pag. 1 Chap II. The Names Pag. 2 Chap III. The Definition Pag. 6 Chap IV. The Subject Pag. 12 Chap V. The Affect it self Pag. 22 Chap VI. The Causes Pag. 26 Chap VII Doubts and Questions resolved touching the Causes viz. Pag. 31 1. Whether the disease may be conveyed by the air ibid. 2. Whether by garments Pag. 32 3. Whether by drinking after the Venereous of the same cup sitting after on the same stool lying next af er on the same bed Pag. 33 4. Whether a woman by much prostitution to clean men may contract it Pag. 34 5. Whether by extinguishing the expulsive faculty of the womb ibid. 6. Why the disease oft lurks in the body c Pag. 35 7. Whence it is that some are infected sooner than others Pag. 37 8. Whether a woman having coition with a venereous man may remain uninfected and yet she infect others Pag. 39 9. Whence it is that this disease at first enentrance into Europe was so formidable but now is more milde Pag. 40 10 Whence it is that though the disease be generally milder yet it is cruel on some Pag. 43 11. Why the disease falls mostly in some on the Hairs in others on the Nerves Bones c Pag. 44 12. Whether this disease be proper to any Country and to what c Pag. 45 Chap VIII The Signes Diagnostick Pag. 47 Chap IX The signes Prognostick Pag. 55 Chap X. Questions leading to the cure viz. Pag. 57 1. Why this disease kills so slowly ib. 2. Whether this disease be curable Pag. 59 3. Whether as time was when the disease was not it will in time cease to be Pag. 60 4. Whether the supervention of this disease doth cure the Falling-sicknesse c. or other mortall diseases Pag. 61 5. Whether the Pox keep out the Plague Pag. 62 6. Whether there be any Antidote to keep a man using a venereous wonan from being infected Pag. 63 7. Whether Cure be to be endeavoured at first entrance of the disease Pag. 66 Chap. XI Of the Cure in Common Pag. 68 Chap. XII Of the Cure in Speciall Pag. 69 Some Methods Approved others Reproved Pag. 70 FINIS