Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	body_n	part_n	whole_a	9,166	5	5.5416	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31621	A few queries relating to the practice of physick with remarks upon some of them : modestly proposed to the serious consideration of mankind, in order to their information how their lives and healths (which are so necessary, and therefore ought to be dear to them) may be better preserved / by H. Chamberlen ...	Chamberlen, Hugh.	1694 (1694)	Wing C1873; ESTC R39949	30,349	136

A FEW QUERIES Relating to the Practice of Physick WITH Remarks upon some of them Modestly proposed to the serious Consideration of MANKIND IN Order to their Information how their LIVES and HEALTHS which are so necessary and therefore ought to be dear to them may be better preserved By H. Chamberlen Physician in Ordinary to the late King Charles the II. LONDON Printed and Sold by T. Sowle near the Meeting House in White-hart-court in Gracious-street 1694. A FEW QUERIES Relating to the Practice of Physick WITH Remarks upon some of them Modestly proposed to the serious Consideration of Mankind c. Q 1. WHether every Sickness and indisposition in humane Bodies as well Acute as Chronical doth not arise from the change of useful nutrimental and natural humours into vitious and whether such change is not chiefly if not only caused by an Error of some of the six Non-naturals in the sick Patient or if Hereditary in their Parents The Author is inclin'd to believe that all Diseases proceed only from the alteration of Good Humours into Bad for all Persons may enjoy perfect Health if some change within them did not hinder Nor doth it appear to this Author that any other entrance for Diseases hath been anciently or lately discovered besides the said six Non-naturals which are agreed to be as Follows 1. Air 2. Meat and Drink 3. Motion and Rest 4. Sleep and Watching 5. Excretion and Retention and lastly the Passions of the Mind Under some of which as Excretion and Retention may be justly comprehended Stinging Bruising Wounding c. 2. Whether Sickness or that preternatural Something thus introduced can ever be removed till such vitiated Humours shall be either changed again into good or expell'd the Body If there is a third way to free Patients from Diseases besides Evacuation and Alteratives such as know it will do well to oblige the World with it 3. Whether these bad Humours can be any more altered and reduced to their primitive Excellence and Order than Curds and Whey can be reduced again to good sweet Milk If this be impossible as the Author is apt to believe it is then 't will be in vain to hope for the recovery of Health by Alteratives For though the Body and Blood can be alter'd by superinducing natural Juices as the bad wasts yet the bad parts of the Blood or the ill Humors mixt with it can never be changed to any good purpose And that which probably deludes some into a contrary Opinion is that when Health is restored by insensible Perspiration or Evacuation by Urine c. without any more manifest discharge by Siege Sweat or Vomiting T is presumed though it be no natural consequence that the same individual bad Humours are totally changed into Good for life being a continual Flux daily wasting and requiring daily supply 't is not to be doubted but as the bad are consumed Nature is daily furnished with a better Juice from wholesome Food so that the bad decaying which is a sort of Evacuation faster than they are again recruited Health returns of course after all the vitious Humours have been so consumed But there hath been farther objected against this Opinion that Pleurisies have been sometimes cured by Alteratives only without Bleeding or other manifest Evacuation and that prickt and decay'd Wines have been also recovered from their Acidity c. by Alteratives In answer to which may be offer'd to second Consideration that Non causa pro causa hath made many if not most of the mistakes in the World and this probably amongst the rest For 't is not unlikely but that such Pleurisies were cured either by Evacuation though less manifest as by Urine or insensible Perspiration or else by precipitation or depositing the peccant matter on a less noble part separating thereby the Humours from their Impurities For if the whole Mass of Blood had been corrupted it had been impossible to mend it and the Patient must have died because in this acute Disease Non dantur induciae And when there is only a Separation from the Blood of the corrupted Humours mixt with it without any expulsion it can be but a truce or shifting off the present inconvenience and no cure a kind of purging the Blood but not the whole Body which still remains affected though possibly not after the same manner As to the Wines 't is certain that the greatest part of them was no otherwise Acid than Water made so with a few drops of Spirit of Vitriol which are sometimes cured by an Alkali or by the heavy parts setling by their own weight to the Bottom as new River-water is purified when Muddy and sometimes by the help of a Ferment as in compound Liquors where the lighter parts flying upward becoome a Cap or Head as they call it on the top to preserve the Liquor and the heavier parts are precipitated to the Bottom leaving the Wine pure and sound in the Middle but this change is no other but a Separation of the Acid or Noxious parts from the rest of the Wine which the Cask still retaining all the hurtful parts within it as before though not in the same manner and mixture will upon every the least disturbance be again out of Order 4. Whether 't is possible Health can be restored by any other means than Evacuation only either by a natural Crisis or by Art Such as grant the Premises can never dispute this Point but the following instance amongst many others that might have been quoted may end the Controversie viz. Patients recovering out of the Small Pox where no Art was made use of might have been saved only by a critital Expulsion of all the peccant matter through the strength of Nature And whenever that matter recoils or is struck back and not afterwards sufficiently expell'd by Nature the Patient must die if Art doth not assist to drive it out by Sweat or otherwise 5. Whether when Poison is received into the Body there are not very few if any that dreams of curing such a Patient by only Alteratives And whether they do not rather unanimously agree to expel it by all the skilful ways and with all the speed possible If this be daily practice as the Author doubts not the same reason may hold for Diseases which are as truly Poisons bred in the Body as the other that is taken inwardly and every way as Dangerous And as there are degrees of Poison so there are of Diseases some more some less injurious or mortal but still all must be expell'd sooner or later the Weaker as well as the Stronger 6. Whether in a strict sense there is any such thing as Poison Some say Van Helmont was of Opinion there was not and the Author sees no cause to differ from him for God made all things good and useful to Mankind but our folly and ignorance of the right use and just Dose of many things makes their excess Dangerous and sometimes Mortal Even Roast-beef Brandy

Countries have not the Plague brought to them by infected Persons or Goods from Abroad instead of receiving it from a pestilential Air as many Believe If it were not communicated by contact how came it to pass that in the last great Plague in England there were fourty Towns infected by Persons or Goods known to be brought from London for any one that had neither and if it proceeded from the Air 't was wonderful how Mortclack could be so much Infected and Richmond and Barnes but a mile on each side from it but very little besides Rains and variable Winds do always cleanse and change the Air 39. Whether any Disease could last long if not daily supplied from the Body as Hair and Nails are There is little reason to think it would But Diseases once existing have a vegetative life like Plants and will according to their respective Kinds and Duration unless interrupted by Art or Nature support themselves by attracting Nourishment out of the Body and this was apparent in a Patient the Author had many years ago and recovered after she had been wasted by a looseness of Three Years standing in which time she must have discharged by Stool at but half a pound a day above 547 pound which was near five times her own weight if therefore it had not been supplied it must either have ended the Patient or it self in few Months 40. Whether all such cures must not fail that are not as justly proportioned to the Disease as to the strength of the Patient Few will doubt but they must for suppose an ounce of peccant matter to be daily prepared and no more emptyed either by Nature or the Remedy the Disease must necessarily remain in the same state but if less be emptied the Disease must increase if more it must mathematically have an End What is further to be considered is how to avoid making too much hast for the Patient's strength with violent Remedies so called or large Doses or too little to save his life for when Diseases ride post Remedies must not follow a snails pace curable Diseases must be headed and out-run according to their pace Extremis morbis extrema remedia conveniunt 41. Whether when vitious humours received bred or alter'd within the Body happen to be put into motion either by their quantity quality or other accident the expulsive faculty is not thereby excited without ceasing or by fits to drive them from one part to another till they shall be either quite expell'd or the remainder thrown upon some outward or ignoble part where it becomes a setled Pain Tumour Vlcer Fistula or the like unless Death ends the strife before It is evident how small a matter is uneasie to Nature a Moat in the Eye and a small Fibre between the Teeth gives great disturbance even our natural Humours out of their proper Vessels as extravasated Blood as well as the preternatural Humours puts Nature upon an endeavour to free it self from what can be no longer useful to it and thus are both Acute and Chronical Distempers formed and that which continues their periods is either the Weakness or Situation of the part or a preternatural Ferment lodged in it which is a prepared matter like tinder ready to catch Fire assoon as any Foreign spark falls on it 42. Whether before a Patient recovers many ill fits do not return in the course of a Disease and whether before a patient dies he hath not many lucid Intervals This is so known to practitioners that it must not be denyed therefore the first ought not to minister fear or despair if other circumstances are good nor the last to give hopes when they are not 43. Whether Health is not preserved by the several fluids or humours of the Body in a natural or healthy State and Sickness introduced by like fluids in a preternatural or unhealthy State This seems to be self-evident 44. Whether the Spirits or finer parts of those Natural Fluids are not active for our preservation and the Spirits or finer parts of the preternatural Fluids as active for our Destruction This appears no less manifest than the last 45. Whether the natural Fluids are not preserved and supplied by a right use of the Six Nonnaturals and the preternatural introduced by a wrong use or abuse of the same Non-naturals This few will deny 46. Whether the proportion of strength and quantity of good animal Spirits is not according to the quantity of the natural Humours and whether the quantity of evil Spirits and their activity and contrarity to our Natures is not proportionable to the quantity of preternatural humours If this be granted as it cannot well be denied then must the Duration Power and Danger of Diseases with their extent to part or all the body bear exact proportion with the quantity of such preternatural Humours 47. Whether as long as there is life there is not hopes and whether any Remedy is not better than none Dum spiro spero praestat anceps remedium quam nullum For Patients have been reduced to that desperate Condition in the Opinion of By-standers as no appearance of life remained and yet by God's blessing directing to the right means they have beyond hopes recovered so that none ought to be forsaken before they are dead besides what hurt can there be to try to save a Patient tho the greatness or progress of the Disease should give little Encouragement they can but die Tentare non nocet Many who in all appearance were past Hopes are now alive and well and must certainly have died had not proper means been used in Season 48. Whether a frequent unreasonable fancy if not very accidental and occasional is not as much a Disease requiring help as a Fever or the Scurvy The Arch-bishop of York in his Sermon of the Government of the Thoughts fully grants this quere saying That he doubts not but extravagant Fancies are as properly a bodily Disease as a Fever or Fits of the Falling Sickness Madness is only extravagant Fancies and the Spleen but some degrees below it if therefore the Spleen and Madness can be cured why not Fancies which though a Disease is much less 49. Whether Persons in perfect Health ought ever to take Physick or Purge and whether the Vnhealthy ought to neglect it one Moment Health ad pondus is not to be expected on Earth but Health ad justitiam may and such are to take no Purging Physick except in a visible Plethora because it will certainly carry off some Humours which ought not and protempore weaken the Patient by wasting without any necessity or benefit so many of his Spirits there being no ill Humours to be workt upon which might have recompensed that loss and trouble but on the other side a sick Patient ought to lose no time in hopes of being well to Morrow which deceives many out of then lives for the sooner they begin the sooner they 'll be cured and the less serves turn and