Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	description_n	herb_n	precious_a	1,076	5	9.7216	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28142	Matæotechnia medicinæ praxeōs, The vanity of the craft of physick, or, A new dispensatory wherein is dissected the errors, ignorance, impostures and supinities of the schools in their main pillars of purges, blood-letting, fontanels or issues, and diet, &c., and the particular medicines of the shops : with an humble motion for the reformation of the universities and the whole landscap [sic] of physick, and discovering the terra incognita of chymistrie : to the Parliament of England / by Noah Biggs ...	Biggs, Noah.	1651 (1651)	Wing B2888A; ESTC R20474	151,011	267

artifice and without the elementall true genuine homogeneall entity of the compositum without its spirit life or the domestick balsome inhabiting in the whole Destillatio tunc est operatio qua quod in Corpore est humoris totum illud vaporis specie ab eo separetur qui postea à frigido ambiente congelatus in liquorem ab excipulo recipitur This is but a short and cold definition and description of distillation but such as well will serve and sute with the common distillation It 's confessed on all sides that in simple distill'd waters out of herbs there may be the strength and vertue of the whole I 'le take the leave to adde That out of herbs plants or any vegetable may be drawn forth a water by art if they be distilled as they ought to be not in the common leaden stills which shall equall if no● surpasse the herbe as it is whole For there is a terra damnata in all externalls whether animall vegetall minerall or metalline which must passe the Chymicks Limbus or Purgatory before it enjoyes its own Astrum or Sidereall firmament This is the deciphering of our distillation The topick or domestick astrum in the horizon of its own ens or orb is excited and awakened by the enormantick power of an exotick motor from the Lethargy of grosse inactivity inoculated contracted and fast luted by the crude and cadaverous opium of corporeity and circumferentiall lumber gets a habeas corpus from under the arrest of its own domestick luggage emancipated from the gabardine of corporeality by the sub-poena or turn-key of Pyrotechny and subtiliated into a jubilee of spiritual Aporhaea's or evaporations sallies a broad hand in hand emitting a continual steame of most subtle effluviums homogeneous and consimilar that is of the same identicall nature with it self wafted on the wings of its own hydromantick vehicle being sufficiently sublimated condenses into a materiall water by the Deliquium of the stills Cranium periwigg'd and seeks the nose or portal of the stillatories Cranium at length is saluted by the cold embracements of the Recipient What more foolish can distill from the crack'd Retort of whymsical or obtuse sculls then the insipid and unsavoury prescriptions of the Apothecaries common stills cookery since we are of opinion that no man who hath but Philosophy ingenuity enough to examin the whole scheam of natural endowments of each single ens how upon the small stock of the smallest piece of the hexameron fabrick is inoculated severall azimuths meeting in the Zenith of its own Horizon and hath but so much understanding to know what true distillation is in the nature use and end and how the severall epicycles may be drawn forth from the own individuall meridian by the Aequinoctiall line of Pyrotechny must of unavoidable necessity confesse and acknowledge That simple waters of Apothecaries as they are commonly distill'd are but the stagnant aqueous humour and insipid snivell of the rheumatick vehicle or menstruum of the Compositum castrated and excis'd of its vitality and energy and is no better then that water which is the Cingulum macrocosmi wherein the pulse of the great world beates For let it be consider'd in all its stages by our Pharmacopropaeans we mean this vulgar operation of simple waters by our Chymick mimes and counterfeits and we shall find That the whole scene of still pissing all the journey is nothing but the insipid effeminate cold shivering and aguish exudations the stew'd steams of the Lady Ignorance's hous-wifery so that the Catastrophe or last exit of drop into the stills chamber-pot when it comes to the atrophy of a caput mortuum doth epiloguise and confesse that it is but the sceleton a lean starv'd anonymous thing scar'd out of its wits not endew'd with any formall transmutation nor nothing differs from that thin-legg'd Gentleman-Usher the fleam as they call it that comes forth in the prologue or first act If the blind lead the blind they both fall into the ditch into this standing pool or puddle of simple waters What epidemick blindnesse and ignorance hath possess'd us of this age in these common leaden stills that it is got into every corner of the Land with those who can goe to the charges of keeping one at work and think themselves not well till they have one then they cannot do a misse when they shall have ready at hand the waters out of all herbs growing amongst them But they will from hence learn when they shall know That nature loathes to pick strawes yet is never idle and that this trifle so universally practis'd is no issue or product of her generous endeavours It is neither the elementall or semin●ll water or radicall moisture of the compound but a crude raw and phlegmatick matter partaking little or nothing of vitality For first such waters are destitute of savour and tast for water of Worm-wood neither smelleth like Worm-wood nor is bitter yea the more wonder it is sometimes somewhat sweet Manarde in his Epistles lib. 15. Cap. 15. saith That the common waters distill'd out of herbs by fire neither the smell no● tast remain but many times the contrary whereby is easily perceiv'd that the simple waters have not the same vertues which the whole herb had And why should one main principle the Earth the faeces or ground after distillation ●e thrown away as a terra damnata like that of the Colledge of Physitians bidding in their Dispensatorie the Apothecary to fling away the faeces in their extract Rudy their best pill the most purgative and cordial part and so in other of their extracts also when there lyes ambus●ado●d in it a main principle of vitality and if not ligamentum yet Conservatum tatius which cannot be destroyed which is wanting in the simple distill'd waters and therefore worth little and ub● sapiunt as that great Master once said who was the salt of sacrifices and the light of the world and his Schollars the salt of the earth This is clear out of the ashes of vegetables for although their weaker exterior elements may expire by violence of the fire yet their Earth cannot be destroy'd but vitrified If this be true as without and beyond the doubt of any the most pyrrhonian incredulity may be evinced what a sympathy then and harmony there is between it the humane earth and his mother in which are principles homogeneall with his life such as can restore his decaies and reduce his disorders to a harmony But say they if they do no good they do no harm To which we reply as good never a whit as never the better what are we to jest in Physick Play the antick play the Treuant Shall not the compunction of this call bloud into their faces and imprint such a tincture the character of shame so deep as shall stand for ever a statue of unworthy un-medical basenesse and ignominy or be left as only fit for the practise of Quacks To which we subjoin

to make it our designe to beat down or make apocryphall the praecipitous opinion of the common people in their obstinate creed and implicite confidence in the goodnesse of this stone from the incredible number of them in this Countrey and in all Europe whereby it 's impossible that that countrey of India and but a spot of that neither can furnish so many Countreys by a thousand parts of these stones that is every where so common when it 's eported by those of the Countrey and by Authors of good esteem and credit That all the stones there must be brought to the King of that Countrey And Garcias ab Horto saies that it is very difficult to get any there whence seeing they are now so familiar and frequent among us and how it comes to passe and that we have any good is almost a miracle at least as rare as the white stone Mathiolus also in Libro epistolar tertio ad Quacelbenum saies That the stones the Emperour had were not good Vallesius again a learned and chief Physitian to Philip the second King of Spain in his fourth book beleeves the King himself had not nor in all Spain was not a true stone Moreover the Physitians themselves of that Countrey confesse that these stones are very rare and besides are so dear that they are kept very precisely by the Indians themselves for their own proper use We dare believe that above the hundred part of these Bezoar-stones so called are sorged and sophisticate such a cunning cast of suttle and deceiving merchants are there here in England after the Italian mode who can so exactly counterfeit them that themselves cannot know the one from the other the true from the false but by a certain eminent signe of notifying them Josephus Acosta in lib. 4. cap. 42. confesses that the simple Indians themselves know very well to adulterate them and do it with a wonderfull accurate artifice and very frequently and no wonder nor unlike to verifimility when this cousenage is wont to happen very often in medicines of a lesser price Lastly upon sure grounds we know that there is not much to be trusted to this stone because they do not answer to those effects written of by Authors For they will have it to move sweat powerfully and sometimes vomit sometimes as alexipharmacall and again as Cardiacall and therefore fly to it as to the last refuge as to the Anchora spei and Sanctuary of life But alas poor ignorant deluded vulgar who will rather snore in the lethargy of their stupid ignorance then awake to the disquisition of Truth They erre first in their too good opinion of this stone Secondly in their too great ignorance of the quality of it And thirdly in their too little knowledge of the quantity Which last is greatly feared among the common people and the same is evident from the Physitians prescriptions We will suppose now we have the true genuine Bezoar stone because the wild beliefe of the wilderness'd vulgar runs a madding after this stone more then seeking to be baptized with the new name or have the Evangelicall illegible stone The most are wont to fear the quantity of it thinking it to be a most hot medicine and powerfully vigorous and therefore dare not exceed above four or five grains at most Seeing it causes large sweat Now sudorificks seem to be begotten under the torrid Zone to be hot because they attenuate and cut the Line of humours and expell them out of the Center of the body unto the confines bordering upon the Territories of the Epidermis by the Nilus of profuse sweat that rills through the creeks of the Pelt the pores But first it is to be noted that at this day we seldome find Be●oar-stone to be the Mid-wife of evill humours or impregnated with a vertue to deliver and purge the body of vitious excrements by the menstruum of sweat as daily experience testifies Secondly that whosoever takes this stone in the maximity or greatest quantity of it shall not therefore perceive himself to be e're the hotter which every sound man may bring to the Test of experience in himself Thirdly they who have written hitherto o● this stone have sailed and coasted into the furthest parts of the knowledge of it have steer'd by the compasse or Lant-skip only of others petragraphy and description Some calculate and will have it to dwell under the temperate Zone Others under the frigid But no man who hath travelled into the Indies or America of its qualities and vertues by the fixed North-pole of experience will say that it is an inhabitant under the sūmer solstice or more hotter Zone but is a naked substance living in the Autumne or wildernesse of insipidity having no elevation of either of those two poles of odour or sapour in it which is a wonder that for all this it should attain to the meridian of that degree of heat as is computed and ascribed to it whereby it 's feared as a Harry-Cain least the deluge of sweat it may procure by its hot sudorifick quality might drown and wash away our vitall powers Therefore they get into the Arke of a small dose or quantity and save themselves But it is more nigh unto the Israel of verisimility that it acts by an occult and not manifest property namely Corroborating and fortifying the Canaan of the Heart against the Aegyptian Garlick and onyons of malignant powers whence we may infer by the way That the militia of this stone is uselesse and unprofitable to draw a Line of fortification about the breast-works of the heart except there be an hostile incursion and invasion of malignant distempers to settle the barbarous tyranny of evill and venemous humours to subvert and overthrow the actions and powers of the Common-Wealth of our vitalls And so although it may do no harm yet to be sure it doth no good and is administred in vain Fourthly They who write of this stone do not agree in the latitude degree or dose of it For as in their petragraphicall character of the qualities of it they make many a voyage wide of the Aequator and beyond the line of Truth so in their description of its dimensions or quantity they come short of it and at the Lands-end fall foul and split upon the sands of a small and common dose of three or four grains But Mathiolus prescribes at least seven grains Garcius ab Horto unto thirty grains and confesses that more may be taken without hurt And we verily beleeve and from the premisses we before hinted do affirm that one main reason why this stone is so little effectuall is because it is taken in too small a quantity And it is recorded that to Edward the Confessour was given a dram weight at one time of this stone in pouder which is sixty grains Fumanellus also commends a dram of it to be given in the plague And certainly if the stone be innoxious a good quantity also

will be innoxious Thus therefore the magnified vertue of this childish Rattle like that pretious trifle of the Countesse of Kents pouder with those seriovs fopperies of Pearls Corrall and Crabs-stones either in pouder or dissolved in some acid liquor crumbles away and vanishes like a morning dew before the sunne of Truth Again it 's worth our noting that if wine or vineger be drunk in the same draught with the aforesaid pouders they do not dissolve one sixth part of the pouder and leave not the rest changed but whole The which will be manifest from this experiment That if any one drinks the stone of crabs not in pouder but broken in little bits and after excretion it be washed you shall find the same weight of it as before and truly nothing of it brought under subjection to the stomack nor it to pertake any thing of those stones by digestion And here we advise the Galenists to consider how they are beaten with their own weapon For if the aforesaid stones or pearles being taken in pouder do melt in us they in vain attempt to dissolve them in the acid salnie vitriolated qualities of wine vineger or juice of Limons For there is nothing of the indigestible dissolved thing conveyed into us but that it contains its own digestible part as we before have said of the lacteous mucilage of animated stones But if otherwise the dissolved should make progresse and march into the Garrison of the veins which never happens that he might offer and communicate his gifts unto us suppose it be pearls or the aforesaid stones it would stir up a mutiny and consecution of more miseries and anxieties from this soure enemy and alien then helps or profit For in the first place seeing they have refus'd to answer and subscribe to the engagement of the Common-Hall of our oeconomy the stomack who is made Lord paramount and Surveyor-Generall over all things that 's to be receiv'd in and have not submitted to the present power of digestion as was proved even now that 's conferred on it by the Parliament of our Interiours in their totality and full session it is therefore adjudged and voted that they shall not be preferred any further nor admitted to compound or be concocted in the second digestion because they do not goe to the ●lysium of the second but by the purgatory of the first And therefore secondly continue and are looked upon as Delinquents and never are converted into true Common-Wealth's men bloud but into an other recrement of the veins Vain and fruitlesse are the blew promises of Physitians of their cordiall exhilarating fortifying and corroborating medicines prepared of gold gemmes c. of like stupidity with the rest For although they be reduced into most fine po●der yet they that suffer nothing from the fire how much lesse can they be transmuted by the digestive vertue For first they are pouder'd in a brasse or iron mortar and the gemmes s●rape off and carry away part of the brasse with themselves because they are harder then my file And this we have shewed sometimes to the shops when we have ma●erated that their pouder of pearles in Aq. fortis For indeed by and by the gre●● colour hath betrayed it self and the Apothecary confesses that in stead of his cordiall and fortifying medicines of pearles and gemmes which should act powerfully he hath communicated to the sick the green rust of br●sse or verdigrease Then if afterwards the gemmes be more curiously ground upon a stone or marble far more soft then themselves they encrease in weight and the marbles and stones become confortative beyond the originall gemmes All which at length being summ'd up by an impartiall and mature judgement the totall product must amount to this That the pouder of peals profit no more then flint-stones or glass-pouder taken inwardly And to this will subscribe all those who apply themselves to the serious disquisitions and scrutinies of Nature in examining of bodies by Analysis and who with me pitty the deplorable ignorance and foolishnesse of Physitians and the unluckie tutelage of the sick It is not denyed but worthy of all due acknowledgement that pearls not of the same hardnesse with cristalline gemmes but members of the animall Common-Wealth do contain most precious vertues and riches of good yet cannot bestow any notable help much lesse in their pouder or dissolv'd as afore For we have had the opportunity and happinesse to learn and now divulge to the world that they may take notice in the first place that whatsoever Physitians prate and babble and largely promise concerning them it is but meer vain boasting Then that a true marga●ite or pearl hath not within a farinaceous pouder and dissimilar from its Cortex but the whole systeme or globe of the pearle with all the whole round of spheares from the surface to the center is homogeneall hath a Syzygia a conjunction or revolution of meer pellicles lying on one another as the involved pills of onyons encompasse one another The which thing they can testifie with me who know how to reduce pearls of ovall figures into orbicular ones But the aforesaid firmament or Region of pellicles or conticities are in no wise resolved and fixed into a Caput mortuum or al●o●l pouder by the Crucible or reverberium of acidity as aforesaid The which only grinds the meal of fals pearls in the mill of its acid f●rment And moreover that although the aforesaid circumvoltuion of corticities should be dissolved which is not yet were it but as a terra damnata or pulverata and the whole batch but the same meal or dust of the pearle as before Doth it not then on all hands appear very ridiculous and worthy of hissing that they will comfort fortifie and corroborate with their Alkermes gemmes leaf-gold pouder of pearls c. when an enemy in the bowels and heart of the City of our vitalls rages and tyrannizeth within by the prerogative of routing our forces and remaining Conquerour and precipitates the life it self into all disorder and confusion of dissolution For such an enemy who could lay seige to our oeconomy and dares to attempt the scaling of our fort-rampant beat all the Commanders and Officers from their works and cause Nature not only to sound a Retreat but quite quit the Garrison how will he not grapple within push of pike with all her Auxiliaries blow up the sconces and bull-workes of fortifications the strongest of them all despise their contemptible militia and hang out the flag of defiance to all the Recruits the Physitian can make and let down the port-cullice to stake out their Cordiall cups He that can subdue and bring under subjection the health of the soundest man and despises the strength of the strongest what cannot he do to him being overcome though he hath the advantage of the sunne wind and hill of corroborating cordiall medicines Chiefly when these Auxiliaries have no good cause no good ground or footing in Nature