Presenting some things relating to the Hygieinal Part of Physick That the Knowledg of Fermentation is useful to make our Drincks wholesome for Aliment 95 How much Simples may be alter'd by Preparation exemplified by the Indians making Cassavy out of the poisonous Plant Mandioca 96. Odd unhandsome wayes of their making Drinck from the same Root ib. Of making Drink from sorts of course Bread 97 The Drinks in use in China 98 Of Cherry-wine ib. Of Excellent Ciders 99 Of Hydromel ib. Of Sugar Wines 100 Of other Brafilian and Barbada VVines 100 The way to make VVine of Raisons 101 Of Wines from the dropping or Weeping of wounded Vegetables ib. Of the Tears of the Walnut-tree 102 The Vse of the Teares of Birch with some other Ingredients for the Stone 102 The wayes to preserve these Liquors 103 The use of the Teares of Birch in hot distempers of the Liver and hot Catarrhs 103 The use of Daucus Ale and proportion of the Seed to the Liquor 104 Of The or Te. ib. Of Animal Drinks 105 The use of Brandy-Wine in hot Climates 105 The use of Natural Philosophy to meliorate Meats 106 Of preserving Bisket from putrefaction 107 Of preserving Fruits ib. Of preserving Meats roasted for long Voyages 108 Of preserving Raw meats 109 Of salting Neats tongues with Salt-peter ib. Of preserving Flesh in spirit of Wine ib. Of conserving by Sugar and making Sugar of other Concretes besides the Cane 110 111 112 That the Naturalist may find out new wayes to investigate the wholsomness or insalubrity of Aliments proved by Instances out of Sanctorius his Medicina Statica 113 The difference in transpiration betwixt the times after ordinary Diet and after Excess tryed by the weighing of Man's body 114 Difference in the weight of Waters ib. That Chymical Experiments may discover other qualities in Waters 115 That the Naturalist may discover the qualities of particular Airs 116 ESSAY V. Proposing some Particulars wherein Natural Philosophy may be useful to the Therapeutical part of Physick The Introduction 117 118 That the Naturalist may invent Medicines Chymically prepared more pleasant then the ordinary Galenical Ones 119 An Instance in Resin of Jalap Mineral waters and the Author's Pil Lunares 120 That the Naturalist may find out inward Medicines able to do Chirurgical Cures proved by divers Instances 121 122 Sr. Rawleigh's Cordial 123 What great use the Indians make of the Juice of Tobacco 124 Chap. II. That the Search of Nature by Chymistry in particular discovers the Qualities of Medicines 124 c. Of the Nitro-tartareous Salt in some Vegetables 126 Difference in Operation between Acid and Alcalizate Salts ib. Of Ink made by the Decoction of divers astringent Plants with a little Vitrol 127 Of some Metalline Precipitations ib. That Sulphureous Salts turn the expressed Juices of Vegetables into a Green colour 1â—8 Of the Destillation of the Calculus Hâ—manus and of the Concretions that are called Lapides Cancrorum 128 The changes in Animal Substances made by Fermentation only in Vrine 129 Of the mixture of Sp. of Salt with digested Urine 129 Chap. III. That this search of Nature adds much to the Materia Medica 130. by employing Bodies hitherto not employed ib. Of Remedies newly prepar'd out of Zinck ib. The Cure of the Dropsy by the Pil Lunares ib. Of the use of divers Medical Earths 131. Instances of Gold and divers Menstruums drawn out of them 132 Of Medicines out of Arsenick 133. and out of Bismutum 134 Of the correction of Poisonous Medicines 134 135 The Preparation of Asarum turns it from being Emetick to be notably Diureticall 136 Instances in some of the secret Menstruums ib. That the Preparation of Asarum is only the Boyling it in common water 137. That the boyling it in Wine alters not its violence ib. That the Emetick and Cathartick properties of Antimony are destroy'd by Calcination with Salt-Peter and Mercury sublimate may be depriv'd of its Corrosivenesse by bare resublimations with fresh Mercury 137 Chap. IV. A strang correction of the Flowers of Antimony 138 That the Naturalist may assist the Physitian to make his Cures lesse chargeable ib. Inconveniencies of stuffing Receipts with a multitude of Ingredients 139 140 141 142 143 144. That Acid and Alcalizate Salts being mixed grow thereby more fixed and yield in Balneo but but a Phlegme â—45 The same is observ'd of the Mixture of Spirit Urin by it self highly Volatile and Spirit of Salt ib. Chap. V. That the Naturalist discovers the Mis-application and Use of Gems and divers other costly Ingredients 145 146. A difference between the fixednesse of a Gem and of Glass of Antimony ib. Concerning Autum Potabile 147 148. Examples of great Medicines drawn from unpromising Bodies 149 The D. of Holstein's Panacea duplicata is made of the vulgarly despised Caput Mortuum of Aqua-fortis ib. Flores Colcotharini are made of the Caput Mortuum of Vitriol 150 A Comparison between the Bezar's Stone and the Stone cut out of Mans Bladder ib. Medicines out of Soot 151 The use of Horse dung 152 An Arcanum of Ivy Berries ib. Medicines out of Mans Vrin. 153 Medicines out of Blood 154 The great Effects of Millepedes in the Stone ib. In Suffusions of the Eyes 155. And real Cataracts 156. In sore Breasts and Fistulas ib. Chap. VI. That the Naturalist discovers how much of the cost and labour in making many Chymical Remedies may be spared 157 A Comparison of Chymical Remedies with Galenical ones in point of Cheapnesse 158 Of the use and commendation of Simples even by the most able Chymists ib. Powder of Pearlmore Operative then Magistery 159. So crude Harts-horn then Magistery 160 An excellent Simple Medicine to stanch Blood ib. Another like Medicine for spitting and vomiting of Blood 161 That many times Chymists by their tedious and injudicious preparations alter the Medicine and make it worse 162 So the dissolving the Salts of Vegetables in Aqua-fortis to make them pure and Chrystalline alters their vertues and makes them inflammable as Salt-Peter 162 163 The Preparation and vertues of Ens Veneris 164 165 The Preparation and vertues of the Balsamum Sulphuris Crassum 166 167 The Preparation and vertues of Essence of Harts-horn 168 169 Chap. VII That Mechanicks and other Experimental Learning may teach how to lessen the charge of Cures by making more convenient furnaces demonstrated in divers particulars 170 171 172 173 174 Glasse-stopples fittest for corrosive Liquors 173 174 That inflammable saline Sulphureous spirits may be drawn from other substances cheaper then Wine 175 Instances in divers particulars how the Naturalist may find cheaper wayes of Heating the Chymists Furnaces 176 Of charring Coles so that while it charres it gives an intense heat fit to melt or calcine Minerals 177 Of Charring Peat ib. Of Digestion and Distillations without Fire 178 179 Wayes of Distilling spirit of Urine 180. Of Distilling it with Lime without Fermentation ib That so distill'd it doth not coagulate spirit of Wine as in
Anima Mundi furnished with various Passions which watchfully provides for the safety of the Universe or that a Brute and Inanimate Creature as Water not onely has a power to move its heavy Body upwards contrary to speak in their Language to the tendency of its particular Nature but knows both that Air has been suck'd out of the Reed and that unless it succeed the attracted Air there will follow a Vacuum and that this Water is withal so generous as by ascending to act contrary to its particular inclination for the general good of the Universe like a Noble Patriot that sacrifices his particular Interests to the publick ones of his Countrey But to shew Men by an easie Experiment how little Attraction is perform'd to avoid a Vacuum I have sometimes done thus I have taken a slender Pipe of Glass of about four Foot long and putting one of the open ends of it into a Vessel full of Quick-silver I have suck'd as stronly as I could at the other and caus'd one to watch the ascent of the Quick-silver and mark where it was at the highest and I found not that at one suck I could raise it up much above a Foot and having caus'd a couple of strong Men one after another to suck at the same end of the same Pipe I found not that either of them could draw it up much higher Nor did it appear that by repeated Suctions though the upper end of the Pipe were each time stopp'd to hinder the relapse of the Quick-silver it could at all be rais'd above the seven and twenty Digits at which it us'd to subsist in the Torrecellian Experiment De Vacuo Whereas the same end of that Tube being put into a small Vessel of Water I could at one suck make the Water swiftly ascend thorow the perpendicularly held Tube into my Mouth which argues that the ascension of Liquors upon Suction rather depends upon the pressure of the Air and their respective measures of Gravity and Lightness compar'd to that Pressure then it proceeds from such an abhorrency of a Vacuum as is presum'd And so likewise in the other Question propos'd it is imply'd that there is in a Female Body something that knows the rule of Physitians that of a Plethora the Cure is the convenient Evacuation of Blood and that this intelligent Faculty is wise enough also to propose to it self the double end above-mentioned in this Evacuation and therefore will not provide a Quantity of Blood great enough to require an Excretion nor begin it till the Female be come to an Age wherein 't is possible for both the Ends to be obtain'd that also this presiding Nature is so charitable as that Man-kinde might not fail it will make the Female subject to such Monethly Superfluities of Blood from which Experience informs us that a whole Set of Diseases peculiar to that Sex does frequently proceed And in a word there is a multitude of Problems especially such as belong to the use of the Parts of a humane Body and to the Causes and Cures of the Diseases incident thereunto in whose Explication those we write of content themselves to tell us That Nature does such and such a thing because it was fit for her so to do but they endeavor not to make intelligible to us what they mean by this Nature and how meer and consequently bruit Bodies can act according to Laws and for determinate Ends without any knowledge either of the one or of the other Let them therefore till they have made out their Hypothesis more intelligibly either cease to ascribe to irrational Creatures such Actions as in Men are apparently the Productions of Reason and Choice and sometimes even of Industry and Virtue or else let them with us acknowledge that such Actions of Creatures in themselves Irrational are perform'd under the superintendence and guidance of a Wise and Intelligent Author of Things But that you may not mistake me Pyrophilus it will be requisite for me to acquaint you in two or three words with some of my present thoughts concerning this subject That there are some Actions so peculiar to Man upon the account of his Intellect and Will that they cannot be satisfactorily explicated after the maner of the Actings of meer corporeal Agents I am very much inclin'd to believe And whether or no there may be some Actions of some other Animals which cannot well be Mechanically explicated I have not here leisure or opportunity to examine But for most of the other Phaenomena of Nature methinks we may without absurdity conceive That God of whom in the Scripture 't is affirm'd That all his Works are known to him from the Beginning having resolved before the Creation to make such a World as this of Ours did divide at least if he did not create it incoherent that Matter which he had provided into an innumerable multitude of very variously figur'd Corpuscles and both connected those Particles into such Textures or particular Bodies and plac'd them in such Scituations and put them into such Motions that by the assistance of his ordinary preserving Concourse the Phaenomena which he intended should appear in the Universe must as orderly follow and be exhibited by the Bodies necessarily acting according to those Impressions or Laws though they understand them not at all as if each of those Creatures had a Design of Self-preservation and were furnish'd with Knowledge and Industry to prosecute it and as if there were diffus'd through the Universe an intelligent Being watchful over the publick Good of it and careful to Administer all things wisely for the good of the particular Parts of it but so far forth as is consistent with the Good of the whole and the preservation of the Primitive and Catholick Laws established by the Supreme Cause As in the formerly mention'd Clock of Strasburg the several Pieces making up that curious Engine are so fram'd and adapted and are put into such a motion that though the numerous Wheels and other parts of it move several ways and that without any thing either of Knowledge or Design yet each performs its part in order to the various Ends for which it was contriv'd as regularly and uniformly as if it knew and were concern'd to do its Duty and the various Motions of the Wheels and other parts concur to exhibit the Phaenomena design'd by the Artificer in the Engine as exactly as if they were animated by a common Principle which makes them knowingly conspire to do so and might to a rude Indian seem to be more intelligent then Cunradus Dasypodius himself that published a Description of it wherein he tells the World That he contrived it who could not tell the hours and measure time so accuratly as his Clock And according to this Notion if you be pleas'd to bear it in your memory Pyrophilus you may easily apprehend in what sense I use many common Phrases which custom hath so authorized that we can scarce write of
Physiological subjects without employing either them or frequent and tedious Circumlocutions in their stead Thus when I say that a stone endeavors to descend towards the Centre of the Earth or that being put into a Vessel of Water it affects the lowest place I mean that not such a Mathematical Point as the Centre of the Earth hath power to attract all heavy Bodies the least of which it being a point it cannot harbor or that a Stone does really aim at that unknown and unattainable Centre but that as we say that a Man strives or endeavors to go to any place at which he would quickly arrive if he were not forcibly hindered by some Body that holds him fast where he is and will not let him go So a Stone may be said to strive to descend when either by the Magnetical Steams of the Earth or the pressure of some subtle Matter incumbent on it or by what ever else may be the cause of Gravity the Stone is so determined to tend downwards that if all Impediments interpos'd by the Neighboring Bodies were removed it would certainly and directly fall to the ground or being put into a Vessel with Water or any other Liquor much less heavy then it self for on Quick-silver which is heavier Stones will swim the same Gravity will make it subside to the bottom of the Vessel and consequently thrust away its bulk of Water which though heavy in it self yet because it is less ponderous then the Stone seems to be light And so in our late instance in the Clock if it be said that the Hand that points at the Hours affects a circular motion because it constantly moves round the Centre of the Dial-plate 't is evident that the inanimate piece of Metal affects not that motion more then any other but onely that the impression it receives from the Wheels and the adaptation of the rest of the Engine determine it to move after that manner And although if a Man should with his Finger stop that Index from proceeding in its course it may be said in some sense that it strives or endeavors to prosecute its former Circular Motion yet that will signifie no more then that by virtue of the Contrivance of the Engine the Index is so impell'd that if the Obstacle put by the Finger of him that stops it were taken away the Index would move onwards from that part of the Circle where it was stopt towards the mark of the next Hour Nor do I by this Pyrophilus deny that it may in a right sense be said as it is wont to be in the Schools that Opus Naturae est opus Intelligentiae Neither do I reject such common Expressions as Nature always affects and intends that which is best and Nature doth nothing in vain For since I must according to the above-mention'd Notion refer many of the actions of irrational Creatures to a most wise Disposer of Things it can scarce seem strange to me that in those particulars in which the Author intended and it was requisite that irrational Creatures should operate so and so for their own Preservation or the Propagation of their Species or the publick good of the Universe their Actions being ordered by a Reason transcending Ours should not onely oftentimes resemble the Actings of Reason in Us but sometimes even surpass them As in effect we see that Silk-worms and Spiders can without being taught spin much more curiously their Balls and Webs then our best Spinsters could and that several Birds can build and fasten their Nests more Artificially then many a Man or perhaps any Man could frame and fasten such little and elaborate Buildings And the Industries of Foxes Bees and divers other Beasts are such that 't is not much to be wondered at that those Creatures should have Reasons ascrib'd to them by divers Learned Men who yet perhaps would be less confident if they considered how much may be said for the Immortality of all rational Souls And that the subtle Actings of these Beasts are determined to some few Particulars requisite for their own Preservation or that of their Species whereas on all other occasions they seem to betray their want of Reason and by their Voice and Gestures seem to express nothing but the Natural Passions and not any Rational or Logical Conceptions And therefore as when to resume our former comparison I see in a curious Clock how orderly every Wheel and other part performs its own Motions and with what seeming Unanimity they conspire to shew the Hour and accomplish the other Designs of the Artificer I do not imagine that any of the Wheels c. or the Engine it self is endowed with Reason but commend that of the Workman who fram'd it so Artificially So when I contemplate the Actions of those several Creatures that make up the World I do not conclude the inanimate Pieces at least that 't is made up of or the vast Engine it self to act with Reason or Design but admire and praise the most wise Author who by his admirable Contrivance can so regularly produce Effects to which so great a number of successive and conspiring Causes are requir'd And thus much Pyrophilus having been represented concerning those that rejecting from the Production and Preservation of Things all but Nature yet imbrace the Principles of the vulgar Philosphy you will perhaps think it more then enough but Object That what is not to be expected from the barren Principles of the Schools may yet be perform'd by those Atomical ones which we our selves have within not very many Pages seem'd to acknowledge Ingenious And I know indeed that the modern Admirers of Epicurus confidently enough pretend that he and his Expositors have already without being beholding to a Deity clearly made out at least the Origine of the World and of the principal Bodies 't is made up of But I confess I am so far from being convinc'd of this that I have been confirm'd rather then unsetled in my Opinion of the difficulty of making out the Original of the World and of the Creatures especially the living Ones that compose it by considering the accounts which are given us of the Nativity if I may so speak of the Universe and of the Animals by those great Denyers of Creation and Providence Epicurus and his Parapharst Lucretius Whose having shown themselves as I freely confess they have very subtile Philosophers in explicating divers Mysteries of Nature ought not so much to recommend to us their impious Errors about the Original of Things as to let us see the necessity of ascribing it to an Intelligent Cause This then is the account of this matter which is given us by Epicurus himself in that Epistle of his to Herodotus which we finde in Diogenes Laertius Quod ad Meteora attinet existimari non oportet aut motum aut conversionem aut Ecclipsin aut orâ—um occasumvè aut alâ—a hujuscemodi ideo fieri quod sit Praefectus aliquis qui sic
whence at length he was stol'n And though I remember the famous Emperick Fiorouanti in one of his Italian Books mentions his having been prevail'd with by the importunity of a Lady whom he calls Marulla Greca much afflicted with Splenetick distempers to rid her of her Spleen and addes That she out-liv'd the loss of it divers Years Yet he that considers the situation of that part and the considerableness of the Vessels belonging to it in humane Bodies will probably be apt to think that though his relation may be credited his venturousness ought not to be imitated The Experiment also of detaining Frogs under Water for very many hours sometimes amounting to some days without suffocation may to him that knows that Frogs have Lungs and Breath as well as other Terrestrial Animals appear a considerable discovery in order to the determining the Nature of Respiration Besides the scrupulousness of the Parents or Friends of the deceased Persons deprives us oftentimes of the Opportunities of Anatomizing the Bodies of Men and much more those of Women whereas those of Beasts are almost always and every where to be met with And 't was perhaps upon some such account that Aristotle said that the external parts of the Body were best known in Men the internal in Beasts Sunâ— enim says he speaking of the inward parts hominum imprimis incertae atque incognitae quamobrem ad caeterorum animalium partes quarum similes sunt humanae referentes eas contemplari debemus And questionless in many of them the frame of the parts is so like that of those answerable in Men that he that is but moderately skill'd in Andratomy as some of the Moderns call the Dissection of Mans Body to distinguish it from Zootomy as they name the Dissections of the Bodies of other Animals may with due diligence and industry not despicably improve his Anatomical knowledge In confirmation of which truth give me leave to observe to you That though Galen hath left to us so many and by Physitians so much magnified Anatomical Treatises yet not onely divers of those Modern Physitians that would eclipse his Glory deny him to have learn'd the skill he pretends to out of the inspection of the Dissected Bodies of Men or Women or so much as to ever have seen a humane Anatomy But I finde even among his Admirers Physitians that acknowledge that his Knives were much more conversant with the Bodies of Apes and other Bruits then with those of Men which in his time those Authors say 't was thought little less then Irreligious if not Barbarous to mangle which is the less to be wondred at because even in this our Age that great People of the Muscovites though a Christian and European Nation hath deny'd Physitians the use of Anatomy and Skeletons the former as an inhumane thing the latter as fit for little but Witchcraft as we are inform'd by the applauded Writer Olearius Secretary to the Embassy lately send by that Learned Prince the present Duke of Holsteine into Moscovia and Persia. And of this the same Author gives us the instance of one Quirin an excellent German Chyrurgion who for having been found with a Skeleton had much adoe to scape with his Life and was commanded to go out of the Kingdom leaving behinde him his Skeleton which was also dragg'd about and afterwards burnt To these things we may adde Pyrophilus that the diligence of Zootomists may much contribute to illustrate the Doctrine of Andratomy and both inform Physitians of the true use of the parts of a humane Body and help to decide divers Anatomical Controversies For as in general 't is scarce possible to learn the true Nature of any Creature from the consideration of the single Creature it self so particularly of divers parts of humane Body 't is very difficult to learn the true use without consulting the Bodies of other Animals wherein the part inquired after is by Nature either wholly left out as needless or wherein its differing bigness or situation or figure or connection with and relation to other parts may render its use more conspicuous or at least more discernable Thâ—s Truth may be somewhat illustrated by the following Observations which at present offer themselves to my thoughts upon this occasion The Lungs of Vipers and other Creatures whole Hearts and whose Blood even whil'st it circulates we have always found as to sense actually cold may give us just occasion to inquire a little more warily whether the great use of Respiration be to cool the Heart The suddain falling and continuing together which we may observe in that part at least of a Dogs Lungs that is on the same side with the Wound upon making a large Wound in his Chest though the Lungs remain untouched is a considerable Experiment in order to the discovery of the principal Organ of Respiration If you dexterously take out the Hearts of Vipers and of some smaller Fishes whose coldness makes them beat much more unfrequently and leisurely then those of warm Animals the contraction and relaxation of the Fibres of the Heart may be distinctly observed in order to the deciding or reconciling the Controversie about the cause and manner of the Hearts motion betwixt those Learned modern Anatomists that contend some of them for Dr. Harvey's Opinion and others for that of the Cartesians Towards satisfying my self in which difficulty I remember I have sometimes taken the Heart of a Flownder and having cut it transversly into two parts and press'd out and with a Linnen cloth wip'd off the Blood contain'd in each of them I observ'd that for a considerable space of time the sever'd and bloodless parts held on their former contraction and relaxation And once I remember that I observed not without Wonder That the sever'd portions of a Flownders Heart did not onely after their Blood was drain'd move as before but the whole Heart observ'd for a pretty while such a succession of motion in its divided and exsanguious pieces as I had taken notice of in them whil'st they were coherent and as you may with pleasure both see and feel in the intire Heart of the same Fish Some of the other Controversies agitated among Anatomists and Philosophers concerning the use of the Heart and concerning the principal seat of Life and Sense may also receive light from some such Experiments that we made in the Bodies of Bruits as we could not of Men. And the first of these that we shall mention shall be an Experiment that we remember our selves formerly to have made upon Frogs For having open'd one of them alive and carefully cut out his Heart without closing up the Orifice of the Wound which we had made wider then was necessary the Frog notwithstanding leaped up and down the Room as before dragging his Entrals that hung out after him and when he rested would upon a puncture leap again and being put into the Water would swim whil'st I felt his Heart beating betwixt my
those things as they are discoverable out of mans body may well be suppos'd capable of illustrating many things in man's body which receiving some Modifications there from the nature of the Subject they belong to passe under the notion of the Causes or Symptomes of Diseases If I were now Pyrophilus to discourse to you at large of this Subject I think I could convince you of the truth of what I have proposed And certainly unlesse a Physitian be which yet I fear every one is not so much a Naturalist as to know how Heat and Cold and Fluidity and Compactnesse and Fermentation and Putrefaction and Viscosity and Coagulation and Dissolution and such like Qualities are generated and destroyed in the generality of Bodies he will be often very much to seek when he is to investigate the causes of preternaturall Accidents in men's bodies whereof a great many depend upon the Presence or Change or Vanishing of some or other of the enumerated Qualities in some of the Fluid or Solid Substances that constitute the body And that the Explications of a skilfull Naturalist may adde much to what has hitherto commonly been taught concerning the Nature and Origine of those Qualities in Phisitians Schools a little comparing of the vulgar Doctrine with those various Phaenomena to be met with among Naturall things that ought to be and yet seem not to be explicable by it will easily manifest to you And questionlesse 't is a great advantage to have been taught by variety of Experiments in other bodies the Differing waies whereby Nature sometimes produces the same effects For since we know very little à priori the observation of many such effects manifesting that nature doth actually produce them so and so suggests to us severall wayes of explicating the same Phaenomenon some of which we should perhaps never else have dream'd of Which ought to be esteem'd no small Advantage to the Physitian since he that knows but one or few of Natures wayes of working and consequently is likely to ignore divers of those whereby the propos'd Disease or Symptome of it may be produc'd must sometimes conclude that precisely such or such a thing is the determinate Cause of it and apply his Method of relieving his Patient accordingly which often proves very prejudiciall to the poor Patient who dearly paies for his Physitians not knowing That the Quality that occasions the Distemper may be as probably if not more rationally deduc'd from an other Origine then from that which is presum'd This will scarce be doubted by him that knowes how much more likely Explications then those applauded some ages since of divers things that happen as well within as without the body have been given by later Naturalists both Philosophers and Physitians and how much the Theory of the Stone and many other diseases that has been given us by those many Physitians that would needs deduce all the Phaenomena of diseases from Heat Cold and other Elementary Qualities is Inferiour to the Account given us of them by those ingenious Moderns that have apply'd to the advancement of Pathologie that Circulation of the Blood the Motion of the Chile by the Milky vessels to the Heart the consideration of the effects deducible from the Pores of greater bodies and the motion and figuration of their minute parts together with some of the more known Chymicall Experiments though both of those and of the other helps mention'd just before them I fear men have hitherto been far enough from making the best use which I hope it will dayly more and more appear they are capable of being put to He that has not had the curiosity to enquire out and consider the severall waies whereby Stones may be generated out of the body not only must be unable satisfactorily to explicate how they come to be produc'd in the Kidnies and in the Bladder but will perhaps scarce keep himselfe from imbracing such errors because authoriz'd by the suffrage of eminent Physitians as the knowledge I am recommending would easily protect them from For we find diverse famous and otherwise learned Doctors who probably because they had not taken notice of any other way of hardning a matter once soft into a stonelike consistence have believ'd and taught that the Stone of the Kidneyes is produc'd there by slime baked by the heat and drinesse of the Part as a portion of soft Clay may by externall heat be turn'd into a Brick or Tile And accordingly they have for cure thought it sufficient to make use of store of Remedies to moisten and cool the Kidneys which though in some bodies this be very convenient are yet far inferiour in efficacy to those Nobler medicines that by specifick qualities and properties are averse to such coagulations as produce the Stone But not to mention what a Physitian skill'd in Anatomy would object against this Theory from the nature of the part affected 't is not unlike the imbraces of this Hypothesis would not have acquiesc'd in it if they had seen those putrefactions out of the bodies of men which we elsewhere mention'd For these would have inform'd them that a Liquor abounding with petrescent parts may not only turn Wood as I have observ'd in a petrifying Spring into a kind of Stone and may give to Cheese and Mosse without spoiling their pristine appearance a strong hardnesse and weight but may also produce large and finely shap'd Christalline bodies though those I try'd were much lesse hard then Chrystall in the bosome of the cold water which brings into my mind that I have diverse times produc'd a body of an almost stony hardnesse in lesse then halfe an hour even in the midst of the water by tying up in a rag about the quantity of a nutmeg of well and recently calcin'd Alabastre which being thus ty'd up and thrown into the botome of a bason full of water did there speedily harden into a Lapideous Concretion And that even in the bodies of Animals themselves such concretions may be generated much otherwise then the Hypothesis we have been speaking of supposes may appear by what happens to Craw-fishes which though cold animals and living in the waters have generated at certain seasons in their heads Concretions which for their hard and pulverizable consistence divers Authors call lapides Cancrorum though in the Shops they are often but abusively styled Oculi cancrorum And such strong concretions are affirm'd to be generated in these Fishes every Year which I the less scrupled at because I have not found them at all times in the Head of the Fish And besides these and many more Concretions that had they been observ'd by the Physitians we have been speaking of might easily have kept them from acquiescing in and maintaining their improbable explication of the manner of the Stones nativity There is yet another kind of Coagulation which may both be added to the former and perhaps also serve to recommend the use of Chymical Experiments in investigating the Causes
but in the neck of the Retort a greater quantity of the same adust Oyl incorporated with a pretty quantity of volatile Salt whose smell did readily recall to my minde that peculiar kinde of stink which I had sometimes taken notice of in the volatile Salt of unfermented Urine nor were the taste of these two Salts unlike The caput mortuum consisted of a fine light cole-black Powder not unlike the finest sort of Soot and by weighing but of six Drachmes it inform'd us that above two thirds of the distill'd calculi humani had been as being volatile forced from the Terrestrial Parts even in a close Vessel wherein the caput mortuum though it were left insipid enough yet retained stink enough to make us think it still conteined pretty store of heavy Oyl as indeed having put it into a Crucible and kept it a competent while in a stronger fire we found it reduced to about two Drachmes of a brâ—ttle Mass of insipid white Calx which did not slack or fall asunder like Lime when it is cast into Water To this Example of the usefulnesse of Chymistry to discover the unobserv'd and otherwise scarce discoverable difference of the calculus humanus from other stones we may venture to adde That though some Paracelsians do take too much liberty when they crudely tell us that there are arsenicall vitriolate aluminous and other minerall substances generated in humane bodies yet if they had more warily propos'd their Doctrine it would not perhaps appear so absurd as they are wont to think it who considering only the nature of the Aliments men usually feed upon cannot conceive that such being but either Animals or Vegetables can by so gentle a heat as that of man's body by which they suppose all the changes of the Aliments must be effected be Exalted to an energie like that of such bodies as are compos'd of active Minerall substances and have some of them perchance acquir'd a violence of operation from the fire But we see that Concretions so like Stones which belong to the Minerall Kingdome as to passe generally for such may be produc'd in the bodies not only of men but of sucking children whose Aliment is fluid Milk and it seems a mistake to imagine how many soever do so that Heat must needs be the Efficient of all the changes the matter of our Aliments may happen to undergoe in a humane body where there are Streiners and Solvents and new Mixtions and perhaps Ferments and diverse other powerfull Agents which by successively working upon the assum'd matter may so fashion and qualifie it as in some cases to bring the more dispos'd part of it to be not unlike even fossile Salts or other minerall substances A very eminent person was lately complaining to me that in the fits of a distemper which almost as much puzzls her Physitians as her selfe she sometimes vomits up something so sharp and fretting that after it hath burnt her throat in its passage almost like scalding water it doth not only Staine the Silver vessels that receiv'd it but also work upon them as if it were a Corrosive Menstruum And there dyed a while since a very intelligent person much imploy'd in publick affaires who complain'd to me that in the fits of the strange distemper he labor'd under he divers times observ'd that that part of his pillow which his breath passed along would by the strange fuliginous Steams which that carried off with it be blackt over as if it had been held in some sooty smoak or other We may also consider that the Rain-water which in its passage through a Vine or an Apricok-tree or the like plants is turn'd into a sweet fruit in its passage through those plants that bear Lemmons and Barberries is transmuted into a liquor sharp enough to corrode not only Pearles but Corall lapides cancrorum and other hard Concrets as spirit of Vitrioll would do And writers of unsuspected credit affirme that an Indian fruit whose name I cannnot readily call to mind will speedily corrode and wast the very steel knives 't is cut with if its Juice be left long upon them and we see that some sorts even of our Apples and Peares will quickly black the blades of Knives on which the Juice is suffer'd to continue And least what I freshly mention'd about Limmon trees should be question'd I will here adde that I remember also that I have made not only some other hot and strongly tasted Herbs but even a Ranunculus it selfe to grow and incâ—ease notably in weight as well as bulk though I fed it but with fair water and allowd it nothing else to shoot its roots into Wherefore since this plant is reckon'd amongst those that either are poisonous or want but little of being so and since its operation is so violent that this sort of Vegetables is taken notice of from the experience of Country people to be able by outward application to draw blisters and since neverthelesse that which this plant without any heat discernable by the touch transmutes into so virulent a substance is but so unactive a body as water why may not such aliments as may have in them divers parts of a far more operative nature be in a humane body by an unusuall concourse of Causes and Circumstances so alter'd and exalted as to approach in operations especially upon the more tender parts to those of fossile Salts or other Minerals So that a Chymist might upon such an account without any great absurdity teach some parcels of morbifick matter to be of an Arsenicall or a Vitriolate or an Antimoniall nature especially since we see that sometimes Cancers Ulcers and sharp Juices generated in the body doe by their vitiating and wasting the invaded parts but too much emulate the pernitious operations of Arsnick and of fretting Salts and the infusion of Antimonie doth scarce more stimulate nature to disburthen her selfe both upwards and downwards then doth sometimes an humor such as that which causes the Cholera morbus and perhaps more violent diseases And that such degenerations of Innocent aliments should sometimes happen in discompos'd bodies you will perhaps think the lesse strange if you duly perpend what I lately mention'd of the transmutation of Water into hot and vesicatory substances and if thereto I annex that from a single pound of so common and temperate an Aliment as Bread I can by an easie way and that without addition obteine many ounces of a menstruum which as tryall has inform'd will worke more powerfully upon bodies more compact then some hard mineralls or perhaps Glasse it selfe then a wary Chymist would expect to see Aqua fortis doe These things I have mention'd Pyrophilus to intimate some of the Reasons why I think Chymicall Experiments may be usefully apply'd to illustrate some things in Pathologie either by imitating out of the body the production of some sorts of morbifick matter or by such resolutions of that which is generated in the body as may
not alone freed from her Fistula's but recovered to a thriving condition of Body by the frequent use of an internal Medicine which as both her Parents and the Person that taught in them informed me was onely a Drink to be taken twice or thrice a day made of a small proportion of a couple of Herbs very common and not much more likely to do Wonders in this case then Worm-wood and Mint and of Three hundred of these Millepedes well beaten when their Heads are pull'd of in a Mortar and tunn'd up with the Herbs and suspended in four Gallons of small Ale during its fermentation The wonderful efficacy of this Medicine in this and many other cases which by occasion of this Cure were related to me being almost wholly ascrib'd to the Millepedes by the Illustrious Imparter of it whose leave I have not yet by naming him to disclose that this is the Secret He makes use of CHAP. VI. ANother way there is whereby the Naturalist may assist the Physitian to make the Therapeutical part of Physick less chargeable and that is by shewing those that are wont to employ most Chymical Remedies that much of the cost and labor in many cases might be spared I am not altogether of their minde that indiscriminatly cry down Chymical Preparations as excessively dear For of many of those that seem very dear when bought by the Pound or the Ounce a Dose may be cheap enough as if for instance an Ounce of precipitate of Gold and Mercury cost ten times its weight of Silver under which rate I have bought it of honest Men that make it themselves yet that Ounce containing 480 Grains of which three or four may be a Dose a taking of this dear Powder may cost far less then a Dose of many Galenical Medicines where the quantity that is taken at once makes up what is wanting in the costliness of the Ingredients But though this be the case of some Chymical Remedies yet we must not deny that many others are chargeable and though perhaps not more so then many Galenical ones employ'd for the same purposes Yet if those be dearer then they need be that grievance ought to be redress'd in Chymical Medicines how justly soever the same thing may be imputed to Galenical ones Now there are two Particulars wherein the Chymists and those Physitians that imitate them are wont to be blameable in reference to this matter The one their employing Chymical Preparations on all occasions even where Simples or slight Compositions might serve the turn and the other is Their making many of their Pâ—eparations more laborious and consequently more chargeable then needs As for the first of these 'T is known there are divers Chymists and others that practise Physick who so dote upon the Productions of their Furnaces that they will scarce go about to cure a cut Finger with less then some Spagyrical Oyl or Balsam And in slight Distempers have recourse to Chymical and perhaps to Mineral Remedies which being for the most part such as vehemently alter the Body especially by heating and drying it they do often more harm then good when employed in cases that need not such active Medicines And methinks those that practise as if Nature presented us nothing worth the accepting unless it be cook'd and perfected by Vulcan might consider That Paracelsus himself oftentimes employeth Simples for the cure even of formidable Diseases And though for particular Reasons I be inclâ—nable enough to think that such searching and commanding Remedies as may be so much of kin to the Universal Medicine as to cure great numbers of differing Diseases will be hardly obtain'd without the help of Chymical Preparations and those perhaps of Minerals Yet as to most particular Diseases especially when not yet atriv'd to a deplorable height I am apt to think that either Simples or cheap or unelaborate Galenical Mixtures may furnish us with Specificks that may perform much more then Chymists are wont to think and possibly be preferable to many of their costly Magisteries Quint-essences and Elixirs Helmont himself a Person more knowing and experienced in his Art then almost any of the Chymists scruples not to make this ingenious Confession Credo saith he simplicia in sua simplicitate esse sufficientia pro sanatione omnium morborum And elsewhere he truly affirms That there may be sometimes greater Vertue in a Simple such as Nature affords it us then in any thing that the Fire can separate from it And certainly the specifick Properties of divers if not most Simples are confounded and lost by those Preparations wherein that Texture which is the foundation of those Properties is either destroyed by the Fire or chang'd by the taking away of some of the Parts or the adding of some other Substance to it with which compounded it may constitute a new thing The more Judicious of the Chymists themselves do several of them now acknowledge that the bare reducing of Pearls to fine Powder affords a Medicine much richer in the Vertues of the Pearls then the Magistery prepar'd by dissolving them in acid Spirits and precipitating them with Oyl of Tartar and afterwards scrupulously edulcorating them And one may easily observe that by making the Magistery of Harts-horn the same way the Vertues seem to be more lock'd up then they were in the crude Horn which may easily enough impart its Vertue in the Body since fair Water will reduce a good part of it into a Jelly whereas the Magistery remains a fix'd Powder not easily dissoluble even in acid Menstruums and which thrown upon hot Iron will scarce send forth that stinking Smoak which argues the avolation of the saline and sulphureous Parts I never knew any of the vulgar Chymists Essences or Elixirs half so powerful a Remedy to stanch Blood as a slight Mixture of two Drachmes of Hyosciamum or Henbane-seed and the like weight of white Poppey-seeds beaten up with an Ounce of Conserve of red Roses into a stiff Electuary with which given in the quantity of a Nutmeg or Wall-nut I have snatch'd some as it were out of the Jaws of Death and with which an eminent Physitiâ—n now dead affirm'd That he and the Inventor of the Remedy had very frequently cured profuse bleedings at the Nose and in Women at other Parts besides Nor did I ever see to give an instance in a resembling Disease such wonderful Effects against spitting and vomiting of Blood of the most elaborate Chymical Preparations as I have of a slight Syrrup made onely of a convenient quantity of fine Sugar and the strongly express'd Juice of twelve handfulls of Plantain-leaves and six Ounces of fresh Cumfrey-roots well beaten together with which Syrrup besides what I have try'd my self two eminent Physitians perform'd in that Disease unusual Cures though for reasons elsewhere mentioned I forbear to name them otherwise then by telling you That one of them is that Ingenious and Friendly Dr T.C. to whose skill both You and I owe
so much But I consider further that as oftentimes those I am reasoning with make use of Chymical Remedies when much more easily parable ones may suffice so in divers cases where Spagyrical Medicines are proper enough their Preparations of them are more tedious and expensive then is necessary There are more then a few who seldom prescribe and seldomer esteem a Chymical Process that is to be perfected in less then many Weeks as if a Chymical Medicine like an Embryo must needs be an Abortive if it be produc'd in less then so many Moneths And as if in Preparations the Vertue depended less on the skilfulness then the elaboratness they seem to estimate the efficacy of Remedies by the time and pains requisite to prepare them and dare not think that a Medicine can quickly cure that was not long a making as indeed their 's especially those where Cohobations and Digestions till they have such and such effects upon the Matter to be wrought on by them are prescrib'd are many of them far more toilsom and tedious then those that have but read such Processes without working them are apt to suspect And this is the humor of divers not onely as to those stable Medicines that ought always to be found ready in Apothecary's Shops but even as to those that are design'd for particular cases and perhaps acute Diseases in which Emergencies if a Physitian had no other Remedies then those he must make according to such Processes it would â— fear too often happen that before the Medicine could be ready the Patient would either be past the need of it or past the help of it And that which oftentimes encreaseth the tediousness of Chymical Processes is the unskilful Prescriptions of those that devise them 'T is not unusual in Chymists Writings to meet with Processes wherein the Matter to be prepar'd is expos'd to I know not how many several successive Operations But if you should ask why such a thing should be for instance rather precipitated then exhal'd ad siccitatem or why such and such an Operation is to be us'd after such another rather then before it nay perhaps if one should demand why some of those Operations should be used at all the Devisers of those unskilful Processes would possibly assoon be able to finish their Operations as to give a satisfactory answer Nay sometimes they lengthen their Processes by Operations so injudiciously prescrib'd that they cross one another And the Chymist vexeth himself and the Matter he works upon to leave it at last no better if not a worse Medicine then he found it of this we have already given an instance in the common Magisteries But I lately met with another Example of it in the Writings of a Famous Modern Chymist where to purifie the fix'd Salts of Vegetables to the height after I know not how many Solutions Filtrations and Coagulations which alone would abundantly serve the turn he prescribes the dissolving them in Aqua fortis after which he saith they will become very pure and chrystalline and not so easily resoluble in the Air Of which I make no doubt for divers Years before I met with this Process I have with the fix'd Salts of more then one kinde of Vegetable by joyning them with Aqua fortis and after awhile exhaling the superfluous moisture made good inflammable Salt peter by which you may easily guess how judiciously the solution in Aqua fortis is prescrib'd onely as a further depuration and how fit such Authors are to be credited when they ascribe to these Chrystalline Salts the several Vertues those improved too of the respective Vegetables from which the Alcalies were obtain'd And indeed as to those exact Depurations which some Chymists so strictly require in all their Preparations though their Processes be oftentimes hereby made incredibly tedious I will willingly allow nay I assert that in some cases and especially in the making of powerful Menstruums which by their activeness and penetrancy are to unlock other Bodies Chymists do rather erre in making their Depurations less exquisite then they should then on the other hand Yet in many other cases such exact refining and subtiliation of a Remedy is not so necessary as they imagine and sometimes too may do more harm then good by sequestring those parts of a Simple as faeces which concurr'd with the finer parts to that determinate Texture whereon the specifick Vertues of it did principally depend but of this more elsewhere And therefore I shall here present you with two or there Instances to shew you That Remedies at least as noble as such vulgar Chymical ones as are more tedious and costly may be prepar'd in a shorter time and cheap enough to be fit for the use of the Poor And to comply Pyrophilus with your curiosity to know the Preparations of those Chymical Medicines that I do the most familiarly employ the three following Instances shall be of such namely The Flores Colchotaris The Balsamum sulphur is crassum and The Essentia Cornu cervini that you may see what slight and easie Preparations afford the Remedies whose Effects you have so often heard of if not also seen The first of these is the same Powder which passeth under the name of Ens Veneris which appellation we gave it not out of a belief that it equals the Vertues ascrib'd by Helmont to what he calls the true Ignis Veneris but partly to disguise it a little and partly upon the account of the occasion whereon it was first found out which was That an Industrious Chymist whom you know and I chancing to look together upon that Tract of Helmont's which he calls Butler and to compare it somewhat attentively with other Passages of the same Author we both resolv'd to try whether a Medicine somewhat approaching to that he made in imitation of Butlers Stone might not be easily made out of calcin'd Vitriol And though upon tryals we found this Medicine far short of what Helmont ascribes to his yet finding it no ordinary one we did for the Minerals sake 't is made of call it Ens primum Veneris The Preparation in short is this Take good Dantzick Vitriol if you cannot get Hungarian or Goslarian and calcine it till the calx have attain'd a dark red or purplish colour then by the frequent affusion of boyling or at least warm Water dulcifie it exactly and having freed it as well as you can from the saline parts dry it throughly and after mix it exquisitly by grinding or otherwise with an equal weight of pure Sal Armoniack very finely powdered Put this Mixture into a glass Retort that may be but a third part fill'd with it and subliming it in a sand Furnace by degrees of Fire for ten or twelve hours towards the latter end encreasing the Fire till the bottom of the Retort if you can be brought to be red hot That which is sublim'd must be taken out and if it be not of a good yellow
but pale which usually happens for want of an exact commistion of the Ingredients it may be return'd to the residue mingled better with it again and subliâ—'d once more The yellow or reddish Sublimate may be sublim'd a second time not from the Caput Mortuum but by it self but if you re-sublime it oftner you may though you will think that strange impair the Colour and the Sublimate instead of improving them The Dose is from two or three Grains to ten or twelve in some Bodies it may be encreas'd to twenty or thirty without danger in distill'd Water or small Beer or other convenient Vehicles It may be given at any time upon an empty Stomack but I most commonly give it at Bed-time It works when it works sensibly by Sweat and somewhat by Urine That it is a potent Specifick for the Rickets I think I scarce need tell â—ou Pyroph whose excellent Mother and Aunt together with some Physitians to whom I also gave it ready prepar'd have cur'd perhaps a hundred or more Children of that Disease divers of whom were look'd upon as in a desperate condition I give it also in Feavors and other Distempers to procure sleep which it usually doth where 't is wanting In the Head ache likewise in which if the Disease be inveterate the Remedy must be long continued with the like admonition it hath done Wonders in suppressione Mensium obstinata In the Worms it hath sometimes done strange things and for provoking of Appetite I remember not that I have either taken or given it without success And though I seldom take for I often give more above two or three Grains of it at a time yet in that small Dose it usually proves Diaphoretical to me the next Morning But the Experiments we have had of the several Vertues and Efficacy of this Medicine would be here too tedious to recite and therefore I shall now pass them by though if you require it I shall not be backward to set you down by way of observations most of the cases wherein I or my Friends have given it and of the principal Cures that have been performed by it In the mean time because this exalted Colcothar being given in so small a Dose may prove if it be rightly and dexterously prepar'd what Helmont saith of his imitation of Butlers Drif A Medicine for the Poor and yet requires more care not to say skill to Prepare it well then upon the bare reading of the Process you will imagin I shall to gratify your Charity annex to the end of this Essay for to insert them here would make too prolix a Digression as many of the Particulars relating to the Preparation of it as I can readily meet with among my loose Notes And least you should think me a Mountebanck for want of knowing in what sense it is that I commend this and the other particular Medicins I shall likewise to those Observations subjoyn a Declaration of my meaning in such particulars and of the sense wherein I desire you should understand what you meet with in the Praise of Remedies either in this Essay or any other of my Writings which I hope it will be sufficient to give you this Advertisment of once for all The next Medicine I am to mention to you is the Balsamum Sulphuris which being made but with gross Oyls drawn by Expression may be called Crassum to distinguish it from the common and thinner Balsom of Sulphur that is made with the Distil'd Oyl or Spirit of Turpentine This Balsom is made in an Houre or less without a Furnace onely by taking to one part of good Flower of Brimstone foure or five times as much in weight of good expressed Oyl either of Olives or Nuts or Poppey-seeds and boyling the former in the latter in a Pipkin half fill'd with both till it be perfectly Dissolv'd into a Blood-red Balsom But as easy as this Preparation seems and indeed is to them that have often made it it will not at first be so easie to make it right For the Fire which ought to be of well kindled Coals must be kept pretty quick and yet not over-quick least the Oyl boyle over or doe not well Dissolve the Flowers of Sulphur but turn them with its self into a Clotted and almost Liver-colour'd Masse And to avoid these Inconveniencies and the adustion of the Matter speciall care must be had to keep it constantly stirring not only whil'st the Pot is over the Fire but after it is taken off till it be quite Cold. You may if you think fit Dissolve this simple Balsom in Chymicall Oyl of Anny-seeds or any other Essential Oyl like to advance its Efficacy in this or that particular Distemper But those Oyls being generally very hot I most commonly Prescribe the Balsom without those Additions especially if long Digestion have somwhat lessened the Offensiveness of the smell which though no peculiar fault of this Preparation being common to Sulphureous Medicins is yet the chief Inconvenience of it I will not too resolutly affirme that this is the very Balsamum Sulphuris Rulandi of which that Author relates such wonderful things in his Centuries but if it be not the same t is so like it and so good that I doubt not but by perusing those Centuries you may find divers uses of it that I have not made tryall off And in Coughs old Strains Bruises Aches and sometimes the Incipcent fits of the Gout it self and especially Tumors some of your friends can inform you that it doth much greater things then most Men would expect from so slight and easy a Preparation And indeed greater then I have seen done by very costly and commended Balsoms and Oyntments sold in Apothecaries Shops And in those Observations I lately told you you might command you will find that this Balsom outwardly applyed hath cured such obstinate Tumours as Men either knew not what to make off or what to doe with them of which skilful Physitians to whom I gave it to make tryal off in difficult cases can bear me witness Though it ought sufficiently to endear this Balsam to us both that it was the Meanes of rescuing your Fair and Vertuous Sister E from a dangerous Consumption In outward Applications it is to be well warm'd and to be chafâ—'d into the part affected which should be afterwards kept very warme or else Lint dipped in it may be kept upon the place Inwardly some drops of it may be given at any time when the Stomach is not full either rol'd up with Sugar or mingl'd with any convenient Vehicle But as for the Particulars that concern the Preparation of this Balsam you will find those I can readily meet with among my loose Papers annex'd with the Notes concerning Ens Veneris to the end of this Essay And therefore I shall now proceed to mention the third Medicine which you have often heard off under the name of Essence of Harts-horn but which is indeed onely the Simple but
inch in Diameter were thus suddenly turned White all over the rest of his Hair of which you know the Irish use to weare good store retaining it's former Reddish Colour You will mistake my design Pyrophilus if you conclude from what I have said concerning the Power of Effluvia to work upon the Body that I am either so much an Helmontian as to condemne the Use of all those Remedies that make such more grosse Evacuations if I may so call them as are made by Vomit Seige and the like or that I would have you or am my self so credulous as to believe all the Vertues that are ev'n by Eminent Writers ascribed to the Remedies called Specificks For to mention here but this we have observed that the hopes built upon ev'n excellent Specificks unlesse they be of such a resolving and abstersive Nature as to be able to make way for themselves into the Recesses of the Body are oftentimes disappointed where some Emetick or Cathartick Remedy has not been first us'd to free the Stomack and Guts from those viscous Humours which obstructing the first passages much enervate the Vertue of the Remedy if they do not altogether deny it accesse to the innermost parts of the Body That then which I aim at is first to keep you from being prejudiced by the Confidence of some Learned Doctors who laugh at the very name of Specificks and will not allow any Disease to be curable but by visible Evacuations of store of what they call peccant Matter And next to give you cause to think that such Specificks as men of judgment and credit do recommend upon their own Experience ought not to be rejected without Trial upon the bare account of their not being either Laxative or Vomitive Sudorifick or Diuretical Nay nor so much as for this that they are not endow'd with any Eminent Degree of any manifest Quality such as Heat Cold Drinesse Odor Tast Astriction and the like nor able perchance to work any considerable alteration in a healthy Human Body For I consider the Body of a living man not as a rude heap of Limbs and Liquors but as an Engine consisting of several parts so set together that there is a strange and conspiring communication betwixt them by vertue whereof a very weak and inconsiderable Impression of adventitious matter upon some one part may be able to work on some other distant part or perhaps on the whole Engine a change far exceeding what the same adventitious Body could do upon a Body not so contriv'd The faint motion of a mans little Finger upon a small piece of Iron that were no part of a Engine would produce no considerable Effect but when a Musket is ready to be Shot off then such a Motion being applied to the Trigger by vertue of the contâ—ivance of the Engine the Spring is immediatly let loose the Cock falls down and knocks the flint against the Steel opens the Pan strikes Fire upon the Powder in it which by the Touch-hole Fires the Powder in the Barrel and that with great noise throw's out the ponderous Leaden Bullet with violence enough to kill a Man at Seven or Eight hundred Foot distance And that also the Engine of a Humane Body is so fram'd as to be capable of receiving great alterations from seemingly slight Impressions of outward Objects upon the bare account of its particular contrivance may appear by several instances beside those which may belong to this Argument in the foregoing part of this ESSAY When a man goes suddenly out into the Sun it often happens that those beames which light upon his Head and would not in so short a time have any discernable effect on the least Hair of it do allmost in a moment produce that strange and violent motion in the head and almost all the Body which we call Sneezing Men that from the top of some Pinacle or other high and steep place do look down to the bottome of it are at first very apt by the bare prospect which yet convey's nothing into the Body but those images if yet there intervene corporeal ones in sensation of visible Objects that enter at the Eye to become so giddy that they are reduced to turne away their Eyes from the Praecipice for fear of not being able to stand upon their Leggs And many that look'd fixedly upon a Whirle poole or upon a very swift stream have had such a Vertiginous Motion thereby impressed on their Spirits that they have been unable to keep their Bodies upright but have fallen into the Water they gazed on And it is no lesse remâ—rkable that when a man is somewhat discompos'd at Sea and yet not enough to Vomit freely the Seamen are wont to advise him to look from the siâ—e of the Ship upon the Water which seeming swiftly to passe by the Vessel has upon the gazer the operation of a rapid stream and by making him giddy hastens and facilitates his Vomiting as I hâ—ve sometâ—mâ—s tâ—ied upon my self when I had a mind for healths sake to be put into a fit of Sea sicknesse If a person be very Ticklish and you but gently stroke the Sole of his Foot with the top of a Feather that languid Impression on the bottome of the foot shall whether he will or no put all those Muscles and other parts into motion which are requisite to make that noise and to exhibite that shape of the Face so farre distant from the feet which we call Laughing and so the gentle Motion of a straw tickling the Nostrils is able to excite Sneezing Most men may observe in themselves that there are some such noises as those maâ—e by the grating of an ungreas'd Cart-wheele upon the Axle tree or the tearing of course Paper which are capable of â—etting the Teeth on edge which yet cannot be done without exciting a peculiar Motion in several parts of the Head I had a servant who sometimes complained to me of a much more remâ—â—kable and unfrequent disorder namely that when he was put to whet a Knife that stridulous Motion of the Air was wont to make his Gummes bleed Henricus ab Heer in his Twenty nâ—nth Observation Records a Story of a Lady to whom he was sent for who upon the hearing of the sound of a Bâ—ll or any loud noise though Singing would fall into fits of Sounâ—ing which was scarce distinguishâ—ble from Death anâ— we may confirm that this disposition depended upon the Texture of her Body in râ—ference to Mâ—terial sounds by whâ—t he subjoyns that having well purg'd her and given her for two Months the spaa-Spaa-waters and other appâ—opâ—iate Remedies he throughly cur'd her And it often enough happens that when a Woman is in a Fit of the Mother another Hâ—sterical person standing by is by reason of a peculiar Disposition of her Body soon infected with the like strange discomposure And to shew you that a distemper'd Body is both an Engine and also an Engine disposed to receive alterations
from such Impressions as will make none on a sound body let me put you in mind that those subtile Steâ—mes that wander through the Air before considerable changes of Weather disclose themselves are wont to be painfully felt by many sickly Persons and more constantly by men that have had great Bruises or Wounds in the parts that have been so hurt though neither are healthy men at all incommodated thereby nor do those themselves that have been hurt feel any thing in those sound parts whose Tone or Texture has not been alter'd or enfeebl'd by outward violence I have known several also and the thing is obvious whose body's and Humours are so fram'd and constituted that if as men commonly speak they ride backward in a Coach that Motion will mâ—ke them giddy and force them to Vomit And it is very ordinary for Hysterical Women to fall into such Fits as counterfeit Epilepsies Convulsions and I know not what violent distempers by the bare smell of Musk and Amber and other strong perfumes whose steames are yet so farre from having great much lesse such Effects in other Humane body's that almost all men and the generality ev'n of healthy Women are not affected by them unless with some innocent delight And that even on men Odours how minute and invisible bodies soever may sometimes have very great power may be gathered from the story told us by Zacutus Lucitanus of a Fisherman who having spent all his life at Sea and being grown Old there and coming to gaze upon a solemne reception made in a Maritine Town to Sebastian King of Portugal was by the perfumes plentifully Burnt to welcome the King immediatly cast upon the ground thereby into a Fâ—t which two Physicians judg'd Apoplectical and Physiâ—k'd him accordingly 'till three daies after the Kings chiefe Physician Thomas à Vega guessing at the cause of his disease commanded him to be remov'd to the Sea side and cover'd with Sea Weeds where within four Houres the Maritime Air and steames began to open his Eyes and made him know those that were about him and within not many Dayes restor'd him to health We may also conjecture how much the alteration produced in the Body by sickness mâ—y dispose it to receive strong Impressions from things that would not otherwise much affect it by this That even a man in perfect health and who is wont to Drink cold without the least harme may when he has much heated himself by exercise be cast by a draught of cold Drink into such sudden formidable and dangerous diâ—tempers as did not daily Experience convince us we should scarce think possible to be produc'd in a Body free from Morbid Humours by so familiar a thing as a cup of small bear or water insomuch thâ—t Benivenius relates a Story of one who after too vehement exercise Drinking a Glasse of very cold Water fell into a swoun that was quickly succeeded by Death And yet to adde that on this occasion in Bodies otherwise dispos'd a large draught of cold Water Drunk even without thirst may vâ—ry much relieve the Dâ—incker and prevent great Fitâ— of the Mother and partly of the Spleen especially upon suddâ—in fâ—ights to which purposes I know some Hysteâ—ical Ladies that find in this Remedy as themselves assure me more advantage then one woâ—ld easily imagine And further to shew you that the Engine we are speaking of is altâ—rable as well for the better as for the worse by such Motions of outward Bodies as in themselves consider'd are languid or at least may seem despicable in reference to sickness or recovery Let me call upon you to consider a few not unobvious things which may also serve to confirme some part of what has hitherto been deliver'd The true Mosse growing upon a Humane Skull though I do not find Experience warrant all the strange things some Chymical Writers attribute to it for the stanching of Blood yet I deny not but in some Bodies it does it wonderfull enough And I very well know an Eminent Virtuoso who has assur'd me as his Physitian likewise has done that he finds the Effects of this Moss so considerable upon himself that after having been let Blood his Arm falling to Bleed again and he apprehending the consequences of it his Physitian who chanc'd to be present put a little of the abovemention'd Mosse into his hand which barely held there did to the Patients wonder stanch his Blood and gave him the cuâ—iosity to lay it out of his hand to try whether that Mosse were the cause of the Bloods so oddly stopping its course whereupon his Arm after a little while beginning to Bleed afresh he took the Mosse again into his hand and thereby presently stanch'd his Bleeding the second time and if I misremember not he added that he repeated the Experiment once more with the like successe The smoak of burnt feathers or Tobacco blown upon the face of an Hysterical Woman does oftentimes almost as suddenly recover them out of Fits of the Mother as the odour of perâ—umes did cast them thereinto And now I speak of Cuâ—es performable by fumes it brings into my mind that a friend of yours and mine and a Person of great Veracity professes to have strangly cur'd Dysenteries by a way unusual enough which is to make the Patient sit over a Chair or Stool close on the sides and perforated below so that the Anus and the neighbouring parts may be expos'd to the fumes of Ginger which must be thrown upon a Pan of Embers plac'd just under the Patient who is to continue in that posture and to receive the Fume as long as he can endure it without too much fainting And when I mention'd one of the Cures that was thus perform'd to one that is look'd upon as a Master of Chymical Arcana against Diseases he preferr'd before it as he saies upon experience the shavings of Harts-horn us'd after the same manner and the Remedy seems not irrational But if in this distemper the Actual heat applied to the abovemention'd parts of the Body concurre not to the Effect we may too warrantably enough adde that Cures may be perform'd by far more minute corpuscles then those of smoke insinuating themselves from without into the Body For I know a very dextrous Goldsmith who when he over heats himself as he often unawares does at hammering of Plate is subject to fall into Gripings of the Belly which lead to Fluxes but his usual and ready Cure is assoon as conveniently he can to heat his Anvil and sit upon it for a great while together heating it hot again if there be need But to return to our Medicinal Smoaks 't is known that some find more good against the Fits of the Colick by Glysters of the Smoak of Tobacco then by any other Physick they take so that I know wealthy persons that relying upon the benefit they find by this Remedy have left off sending for their Physitians to ease them of the
it that the Spaa-waters do universally cure all the afore-mention'd Distempers yâ—t it is very much and makes much for our present purpâ—se that they should in so many Patients cure most of these Distempers and lessen if not cure the rest And we may somewhat the better credit him because even where he reckons up the Vertues of the Spaa he denys it some which other Physitians ascribe to it And it is very considerable what he subjoyns in these words Paucissimos enim vel nullos Spadae Incolas Capitis doloribus Cardialgiâ Calâ—ulo Obstructionibus renum Hepatis Lienis Mesaraicarum laborantes invenies Ictericos Hydropicos Podagricos Scabiosos Epilepticos quod sciam nullos But that which I most desire you to take notice of is That besides all the above-mention'd Diseases I finde that he ascribes to these Waters the Vertues of curing such as are counted of a contrary nature and are thought to require contrary Remedies For besides that he expresly affirms in the beginning of the eighth Chapter That these Waters being endow'd with the Veâ—tues both of hot and cold Minerals they cure both hot and cold affections in the same Patients and in dâ—ffering Bodies and that contrary Effects are performed by them He hath after some Pages this passage which may go for an Illustrious Proof of what he had asserted Inter caetera saith he speaking of the spaa-Spaa-Waters Mensibus movendis imprimis idonea quod millies experientia comprobavit Et tamen nimium eorum fluxum quovis alio medicamento felicius sistit These Testimonies Pyrophilus of our experienc'd Author would perhaps obtain the more credit with You if You had seen what I laâ—ely had the opportunity to observe in a hot and dry Season at ouâ— own Tunbridge-Waters in Kent when I was there to drink them And therefore I shall again invite You not onely to consider Whether one potent Remedy such as it may be may not be able to cure variety of Diseases and some suppos'd to be of contrary natures But whether or no divers Persons on whom the received Methodus medendi hath been long and fruitlesly employ'd be not by their tyred and despondent Physitians themselves sent thither and there cur'd of their abstruse and obstinate Diseases by Remedies prepar'd by Nature without the assistance of Art For if you duly reflect on this conspicuous Observation and consider how much it is possible for Art to meliorate and improve most especially Mineral Remedies afforded us by Nature you would probably dare to hope That Medicines might be prepared of greater Efficacy and applicable to more Diseases then they who think the more received Theory of Diseases from which yet very eminent Physitians in divers Particulars scruple not to recede incapable of being rectified and that judge of all Remedies by them that are publickly Venal in Apothecaries Shops will allow themsâ—lves so much as to hope If now You demand Pyrophilus if I think that every Particular which hath contributed to swell this Discourse into a bulk so disproportionate to that which the Title of an Essay promised do directly belong to the Art of Physick I shall leave it to the Judicious Celsus whom Leâ—rned Men have stiled The Roman Hippocrates to answer for me and he will tell you That Quanquam multa sint ad ipsas artes non pertinentia tamen eas adjuvant excitando artificis ingenium I suppose I need not remind You Pyrophilus that it was not my design in what hâ—th been represented to subvert those Principles of the Methodus medendi from which no sober Physitians themselves recede and in which they unanimously acquiess And that I much less intend to countenance those venturous Empericks who without any competent knowledge of Anatomy Botanicks and the History of Diseases think Receipts or Processes alone can enable them to cure the Sicknesses they know not and who would perswade Men to lay by as needless a Profession of whose Usefulness to Mankinde we may elsewhere have occasion to discourse No Pyrophilus without peremptorily asserting any thing I have but barely represented the Notions I have mention'd concerning the Methodus medendi as things probable enough to deserve to be impartially considered That in â—ase they prove fit to be declin'd they may appear to have been rejected not by our superciliousness or laziness but after a fair tryal by our experience And in case they seem fit to be approved they may prove additional Instances of the Usefulness of Natural Philosophy to Physick Which Usefulness Pyrophilus if I have in any considerable measure been so happy as to make out I shall not think the time and much less the pains I have bestow'd upon that Theme mis-spent For I must confess to you Pyrophilus that to me it seems that few things ought more to endear to us the Study of Natural Philosophy then that according to the Judicious Sentence of our Celsus Rerum Naturae contemplatio saith he quam vis non faciat Medicum aptiorem tamen Medicinae reddit a deeper insight into Nature may enable Men to apply the Physiological Discoveries made by it though some more immediately and some less directly to the Advancement and Improvement of Physick And I well enough know Pyrophilus that if instead of Writing this Essay to such an one as You I should Write it to the more critical and severer sort of Readers they would be apt to think both that it is impertinent for me who do not profess to be a Physitian to treat prolixly of Matters Medicinal and that it may appear somewhat below me in a Book whose Title seems to promise you Philosophical Matters to insert I know not how many Receipts But I shall not scruple to tell such a Person as Pyrophilus That since my Method requir'd that I should say something to you of the Therapeutical part of Physiâ—k I thought that Christianity and Humanity it self oblig'd me not to conceal those things which how despicable soever they may seem to aspeculative Philosopher are yet such as besides that some of them may perhaps afford improveable Hints touching the Nature of Remedies if not also of Diseases Experience hath encouraged me to hope that others may prove useful to the sick And as for the inserting of Receipts even in Books of Philosophical Subjects I have not done it altogether without example For not onely Pliny a Person of great Dignity as well as Parts and Friend to one of the greatest Roman Emperors hath left us in a Book where he handles many Philosophical Matters store of particular Receipts but our great Chancellor The Lord Verulam hath not disdain'd to Record some And as for that Industrious Benefactor to Experimental Knowledge the Learned and Pious Mersennus his Charity made him much more fearful to neglect the doing what good he could to others then to venture to lessen his Reputation by an Indecorum that in a Mathematical Book and in a Chapter of Arithmetical Combinations he brings in not onely a Remedy
many Diseases proceeding from these two general Causes And though I dare not deny that divers of those Praises may be well enough deserv'd by the Remedies to which they are ascribed yet I am not apt to think them much superior to the generality of volatile Salts And even the Spirit and Salt of Sheeps-blood it self did by their penetrancy of taste and fugitiveness in gentle heats promise little else Efficacy then those others so much celebrated Medicines 10. Nor is it onely by being administred it self that one of this sulphureous and subtle kinde of Spirits may become a good Remedy but also by its being made a Menstruum to prepare other Bodies For it will extract Tinctures out of several sulphureous and resinous Concretes whose finer parts by being associated with so piercing a Vehicle may probably gain a more intimate admission into the Body and have their Vertues conveyed further then otherwise they would reach And a Learned Doctor to whom I recommended such kinde of Remedies confessed to me That by the bare extractions of appropriated Vegetables themselves with Spirit of Urine he perform'd no small matter But one difficulty You may meet with in drawing the Tincture of Minerals and other very compact Bodies even with good Spirit of Urine for that I account to be the cheapest of these volatile Menstruum and the most easie to be obtain'd in good quantities For we have found but with a little heat the more fugitive Particles to ascend to the upper parts of the Glass and there fasten themselves in the form of a Salt by whose recess the debilitated Liquor was disabled from drawing the Tincture so powerfully as was expected wherefore we were reduc'd to make our Extractions in short neck'd Glass-Eggs or Vials exquisitely stop'd which may also be plac'd stooping in the Sand and when we perceiv'd much to be lodg'd in the necks of the Vessels by barely inverting them the hot Liquor soon reimbib'd the Salt and was fit to be plac'd again in Sand so that notwithstanding this difficulty we were able by this means in no long time to impregnate the Spirit of Urine or of Haâ—ts horn for I do not perfectly remember which it was with the Tincture of Flowers of Sulphur which may probably prove a noble Medâ—cine in divers affections of the Lungs since in them these volatile Liquors alone have been found very effectual And I remember I have sometimes made a much shorter and more odde Preparation which at any time You may command of Crude Sulphur whereby in not many hours I have by the means of Salts brought over such a sulphureous Liquor or Tincture as even in the Receiver was of a red Colour as well as of a strongly sulphureous Scent To the Page 164 165 c. where Ens Veneris is treated of BUt before I enter upon Particulars I think it will not be amiss to tell You how this Preparation first occur'd to Us because by that Information Your happyer Genius may peradventure hereafter be prompted to improve this Remedy or to devise one more approaching to the Nature and Excellency of that which we endeavor'd but with very imperfect success to light on or equal by our Ens Veneris I must then tell You that an Industrious Chymist of our Acquaintance and I chancing to Read one day together that odde Treatise of Helmont which he calls Butler when we had attentively perus'd what he delivers of the Nature as well as scarce credible Vertues of the Lapis Butleri he there mentions we fell into very serious Thoughts what might be the matter of so admirable a Medicine and the hopefullest manner of preparing that matter And having freely propos'd to one another our Conjectures and examin'd them by what is deliver'd by Helmont concerning the Preparation of Butlers Stone or some emulous Remedy we at length concurr'd in concluding that either the Lapis Butleri as our Author calls it or at least some Medicine of an approaching Efficacy might if Helmont did not mis-inform us be prepar'd by destroying as far as we could by calcination the body of Copper and then subliming it with Sal Armoniack And because the Body of Venus seems lesse lock'd up in good Vitriol then in its metalline form we concluded that it was best to calcine rather the Vitriol then the Copper it self and having freed the Colcothar from its separable Salts so to force it up with Sal Armoniack But the Person I discours'd with seeming somewhat diffident of this Process by his unwillingness to attempt it I desir'd and easily perswaded him at least to put himself to the trouble of trying it with the requisites to the work which I undertook to provide being at that time unable to prosecute it my self for want of a fit furnace in the Place where I then chanc'd to lodge And though at first we did not hit upon the best and most compendious way yet during the Sublimation he being suddenly surpris'd as both himself and his Domesticks two daies after told me with a fit of sickness attended with very horrid and seemingly Pestilential Symptomes was reduc'd to take some of this Medicine out of the Vessels before the due time and upon the use of it found as he told me an almost immediate Cessation of those dreadfull symptoms bâ—t not of the Palenesse they had produc'd This first prosperous Experiment emboldned us to give our Remedy the Title of Primum ens Veneris which for brevities sake is wont to be call'd Ens Veneris though I am far from thinking that it is the admirable Medicine to which Helmont gives that name at least if his Ens Veneris did really deserve half the praises by him ascrib'd to it But such as Ours is I shall now as time and my yet incompleat Trials will permit acquaint you with that Process of it which among some others we are most wont to employ as the most easie simple and genuine Take then of the best Hungarian or if you cannot procure that of the best Dantzick or other good Venereal Vitriol what quantity you please Calcine it in a strong fire till it be of a dark Red Dulcifie it by such frequent affusions of hot Water that at length the Water that hath pass'd through it appear full as tastless as when it was pour'd on it Let this thus exquisitely dulcified Colcothar when it is thorowly dry be very diligently ground with about an equal weight of good Sal Armoniack and let this mixture be put into a Glass Retort and either in as strong a heat as can conveniently be given in Sand or els in a naked fire force up as much of it as you can to the Top or Neck of the Retort and this Sublimation being ended out of the broken Retort laying the Caput Mortuum aside take all the Sublimate and grind it well again that if in any part the Sal Armoniack appear sublim'd by it self it may be reincorporated with the Colcothar Resublime this Mixture
per se in a Glass Retort as before and if you please you may once more elevate this second Sublimate but we have not found That allwayes needful And for the better understanding of this Process be pleas'd to take notice of the following Particulars First We have alwaies preferr'd such Vitriol as abounds with Copper before our common English Vitriol about the making of which those that keep the Copper as work at Detford are wont as themselves have upon the place inform'd me to use good store of Iron to increase the quantity of their Vitriol Secondly If You be unwilling to loose the Phlegm Spirit and Oyl of that Vitriol with which You design to make Ens Veneris You may distill them away in an earthen Retort or one of Glass well coated But though it be well known that the distillation of Oyl of Vitriol requires a very intense and lasting Fire so that unlesse you have need of the Liquors the best way will be without any Ceremony to calcine the Vitriol in a naked Fire and open yet afterwards it will be for the most part requisite further to calcine the Caput Mortuum in an open Vessel For you must take notice that unless the Vitriol be very throughly calcin'd it will be very troublesome for you to dulcifie it and sometimes we have observ'd that the Caput Mortuum which look'd Red and seem'd indifferently well calcin'd hath been almost like Crude Vitriol dissolv'd in the fair Water which was pour'd on it to dulcifie it The weight of the Calx in reference to the Vitriol of which it was made we cannot easily determine but we have sometimes found it necessary to reduce the Vitriol to lesse perhaps much lesse then half its weight to make it fit for Dulcification Thirdly The Water that hath been pour'd on the first and second time to edulcorate the calcin'd Vitriol may be filtrated and steamed away till it come almost to the consistence of a Syrrup or Honey and then may be put into a cold place to shoot for after this manner we have sometimes had many very regularly figur'd Chrystals or Graines of Salt I say sometimes because sometimes also you may find it necessary to abstract all the Water to obtain the Whitish Salt of Vitriol which we have known us'd as a good Vomit and which Angelus Sala none of the least sober of the Chymical Writers doth highly extoll as an excellent Emetick in his Ternary of Vomitive Remedies where he discourseth at large of the Vertues of it and the way of administring it And of this Salt as Chymists are pleas'd to call it we have had out of calcin'd Copper as a very great quantity and have sometimes observ'd it to have been almost as deeply colour'd as the Vitriol it self was before Calcination Fourthly We several times tryed to sublime dulcified Colcothar with Sal Armoniack in Retorts and Urinals plac'd in Sand but whether by reason of the fixedness of the Colcothar or because the Furnace we were fain to use though no very bad one was none of the best we never could that way obtain any considerable Quantity of the desir'd Sublimate and that which did ascend was but of a faint colour wherefore unlesse you have an extraordinary good Sand Furnace if you will make use of Glasse Vessels which is the cleanliest way You will find it expedient to sublime Your Colcothar in coated Retorts with an open Fire except you have the Dexteritie to sublime in a naked Fire with Glass Retorts uncoated which we have divers times seen perform'd by heating the bottome of the Retort by degrees and then placing it upon Embers with Coales round about it but to be kindled at a distance from it for if this course be watchfully follow'd the Retort will be so well neal'd before it be reduc'd to endure any intense degree of heat that after a while You may safely lay thorowly kindled Coales not onely round about it but upon the top of it which needs not to be done till towards the end of the Operation and thereby drive most of the Sublimate into one lump and into the Neck of the Retort And by this way you may sublime without any Furnace upon a bare Hearth but if you desire to give a more intense heat you may lay first some warm ashes in an ordinary Iron pot and having with them and a few small Coals well kindl'd neal'd your Retort you may afterwards prosecute the Sublimation in the same Pot which being once throughly heated it self by the Fire will afterwards considerably increase the heat of it Fifthly Though it be most commonly requisite to resublime the Sublimate that comes the first time up that the Salt and Colcothar may be more exquisitly mix'd yet as far as we can guesse by some trials it will not be expedient to resublime it above once or at most twice For in those Trials we have found the Ens Veneris oftener resublim'd of a paler colour then that which was resublimed but once And N B. perhaps by further sublimations the Salt instead of being more intimately united with the Colcothar may be almost totally sever'd from it according to what we elswhere in other cases declare Sixthly Of these Sublimates that which hath the highest Colour seems to be the best as being most enrich'd with the Colcothar from whence the rednesse proceeds But at the first Sublimation I have often observ'd a pretty part of the Sal Armoniack to come up first white by it self especially if it had not been very diligently mix'd with the Colcothar But at the second sublimation the Ingredients which we have sometimes almost totally forc'd up without leaving a Caput Mortuum in the bottom of the Retort will be more accuratly mix'd and the Sublimate will appear Yellow and perhaps Reddish of which sort we have sometimes had when the Operation hath been very carefully manag'd Seventhly How great a proportion of the Ingredients committed to Sublimation will arise in the form of Ens Veneris we dare not precisely define but a Sublimate amounting to the fourth part of the whole Mixture you will scarce if you work skilfully faile off Eighthly We sometimes made a Sublimate of equal parts of pure Sal Armoniack and Salt of Tartar both of them very throughly dry'd for else they will be apt to yeeld rather a Spirit then a Sublimate well ground together and so sublim'd And with this Sublimate instead of Simple Sal Armoniak we intended to make Ens Veneris but by some intervening Accidents and Avocations we were not able to perfect the Experiment of which we nevertheless think it fit to give You this hint because of the great Efficacy which an excellent Physitian of my acquaintance to whom I gave some of it assures me he has found in it against Obstructions and some Distempers that are wont to spring from them Ninthly When you are about to make Your first Sublimate You may if You please lute to the Retort
Rerum c. The Contemplation of Nature though it maketh not a â—hysitian yet it fits him to learn Physick FINIS The INDEX to the Second Part. The Second Part Of the Usefulness of Natural Philosophy SECT I. Of its Usefulness to PHYSICK ESSAY I. Containing some Particulars tending to shew the Usefulness of Natural Philosophy to the Physiological part of Physick The advantage of the Knowledg of Nature towards the increasing the Power of Man and its Use as to Health of the Body and Goods of Fortune pag. 3 That in Man's Knowledg of the Nature of Creatures consists his Empire over them 4 That the Discovery of America is owed to the Knowledg of the Loâ—d stones Polarity 5 That the Martial affairs all over the World were altered by the Knowledg of the Nature of Brimstone and Saltpeter ib How prejudicial the mistake of that Aphorism that if teeming Women be let bloud they will miscarry hath been to Femal Patients 6 The interest of this Knowledg to the Happiness and Life â—f Man 7 The enumeration of those Arts to which this Knowledg is profitable ib. The Method or way intended for the ensuing Discourse 8 The Division of Physick into five parts 9 How the Physiological part of Physick is advantaged by the Knowledg of Natural Philosophy ib. That the Anatomical Doctrine of Man's body recâ—ives light from Experiments made on other Creatures ib. Proved by divers Instances as of the finding the Lâ—cteals and Lymphae-ducts first in Bruit Bodies 10 The Experiment of taking out the Spleen in Dogs ib. The same thing done by Fioravanti in a Woman 11 The Respiration of Frogs divers Hours sometimes Daies under water without suffocation ib. What use Aristotle and Galen made of the Dissections of Bruits 11 12 The Anatomy of Man counted now in Muscovy for inhumane and the use of Skeletons for Witchcraft 12 The Use of the comparison of the parts of Humane Body with those of Beasts ib. Illustrated by divers particular Observations 13 Divers Motions and Actions of Frogs after their Hearts were cut out 14 Observations of the motion of a Chicken 's Heart after the Head and other parts were cut off 14 Of the Vivacity of dissected Vipers 16. and Tortoises 17 Whether there be a necessity of the unceasing influence of the Brain to Sense and Motion 17 That the Silkworm-butterfly is capable of Procreation after the loss of its Head 17 That the Redness of the Bloud is not to be ascribed to the Liver proved by the inspection of the Liver of Chickens unhatcht 18 That the loss of a Limb in all Animals is not irreparable ib. That notwithstanding the great Solution and Digestion of Meat in the Stomachs of Fishes no sensible Acidity is found there 19 Experiments concerning the Solution of Meats and their change of Colours by acid Menstruums 20 VVaies of Artificial Drying and preservation of Plants and Insects 22. and more bulky Bodies 23 Particularly the Schemes of divers parts of Humane Body 24 Of the preservation of an Embryo divers Years by Embalming it with Oyl of Spike 25 Instances of men in the American Mountains kill'd and afterwards preserv'd from putrefaction only by the VVind ib. Of the use of Spirit of VVine for the preservation of Bodies from putrefaction 26 That the Examination of the Juices of Humane Bodies by the Art of Chymistry may illustrate their Use and Nature 27 That the Actions which are common to Men with other Animals being perform'd Mechanically the Skill of Mechanicks must be of Use to Physiology· 28 ESSAY II. Offering some Particulars relating to the Pathological Part of Physick That the Naturalists Knowledg may assist the Physitian to discover the Nature and Causes of Diseases 29. Prov'd by generall Reason 30 By particular Instance of the Cause of the Stone in the Kidnies 31 The cause of that Disease illustrated by the Petrifaction of VVood Cheese Moss VVater c. 32 The Origin of Helmont's Offa alba and Paracelsus his Duelech by the mixture of Spirit of VVine and Spirit of Urine and example of the Generation of the Stone 33 That a terrestrious Substance may lurk undiscern'd in limpid Liquors 34 The Vse of Chymistry in explaining the Nature of and aberrations in our Digestions 35 prov'd by a Catalogue of considerable Observations 36 The Salt and Sulphur have more influence in the causation of Diseases then the first Qualities of Heat Cold c. 37 Observations mad upon the Liquor that distends the Abdomen in the Dropsy 38 Observations on the Calculus Humanus 39 Of the changes that may reasonably be thought to happen to our aliments within the Body 43. Illustrated by the Example of Juices out of the Body 42 43 Difference between vulgar and true Chymistry 44 The Use of the Knowledg of Fermentation 44 Of Periodical Effervences in the Blood without Fermentation 44 45 Of the use of Zoology to the Knowledg of Diseases 46 Helmont's Error refuted that the Stone is a Disease peculiar to Man 47 That the Venom of Vipers or Adders consists chiefly in the Rage and Fury wherewith they bite and not in any part of the Body that hath at all times a mortal property 57 A certain Cure for the Biting of Vipers 59 Of external Application of Poisons and letting them into the Veins of Beasts 60 61 Postcript Experiments of conveying Liquid Poisons immediately into the Mass of Blood 62 63 64 65 ESSAY III. Containing some Particulars relating to the Semiotical Part of Physick That the Improvement of the Therapeutical would alter the Prognosticks in the Semeiotical part of Physick 66. An Instance to that purpose in the Peruvian Bark 67 68 and in Riverius's Febrisugum and a New Cure of the Kings Evill 69 That though no Disease should be incurable yet every Disease is not curable in every Patient 70 That the Hope of doing greater Cures then ordinary hath engaged Artists to make profitable Trials 71 Examples of some unexpected and strange Cures 72 73 Examples of the Cures of Cancers 74 An Example of a Cure of one that was born with a Cataract in the Eye 75. and other Examples of Cataracts strangely cured ib. Examples of the Cure of the Dropsie and Gout 76 77 Examples of the Cure of the Stone 78. The use of Persicaria for that Cure 79. Instances in other Medicines for the same Disease 80. The Use and Success of Millepedes 81. The Argument concerning the Incurableness of â—he Stone answered 82. That there may be a Liquor able to dissolve the Stone that may not be corrosive to any other part 83 84 Examples of those who could digest Metals and Glass 85 86 87 The Descriptions of a Menstruum prepar'd from common Bread able to draw Tinctures from pretious Stones Minerals c. 88 Helmont's Arguments from the Providence of God censured 90 The Argument that Paracelsus outliv'd not the 47th Year of his Age answered 90 The efficacy of Paracelsus his Laudanum 91 Butler's great Remedies 92 93 94 ESSAY IV.