sharpned with Salt pricks more strongly the sensory and strikes it with its sharpness in the mean time Sulphur exhaling with Spirit both pleases the sense and excites a very pleasant Smell Sulphur is as it were distracted between Spirit and Salt and adheres at once to both parties In the Distillation of Amber Turpentine Harts-Horn and the like a certain lesser part of Sulphur being united to Spirit first ascends and causes a Yellow Oyl or clear Liquor of a grateful smell the other part of Sulphur being joyned to the Salt is driven forth in the second place and is Distilled with a most stinking smell in the form of a red or black Oyl In like manner in the Circulation of the blood a pure and delicate portion of Sulphur being mixed with the Spirit supplies both the Animal and Vital Spirit with matter the other more thick part being Boyled and Rosted with Salt is layd up in the Choledock Vessels or belonging to Choler as it were a certain excrement separated from the blood As Spirit does not easily Cohere with Salt so Sulphur does not with Water wherefore Fat and Oyly things as also Gumms and Sulphureous Refines either swim upon the Water or sink down to its bottom But Sulphureous things Salt coming between are commixed with a Watery Liquor as we see Oyls imbued with Sugar or Salt to be dissolved in common Water which otherwise would flow separate Sulphur is not so tractable in Distillation as Spirit Water or Salt for the Particles of this being very Viscous stick together among themselves and also to others that they cannot easily be pulled from their embrace Hence among Sulphureous things there are some which are not forced but by a strong and burning heat into a stinking Oyl and very empyreumatick or smelling of Fire but others more pertinaciously cleaving together are not to be loosened by Distillation but are only broken into integral parts and so ascend under the form of a dry Breath as common Sulphur Benzoin Camphor and the like Salt besides its affinity with Sulphur is also most strictly united with Earth wherefore Stones and the more hard Minerals consist chiefly of Salt and Earth The Acid Spirits of Minerals which are only Salts resolved into Liquor by Distillation if at last they be poured on the Caput Mortuum Cohere with a strict embrace to it that there will be need of a most strong Fire to drive them forth again Also in Glass the union of Salt and Earth is so strictly made that it will not suffer a Divorce by any means Salt also is most easily dissolved in Water and it melts of its own accord in a moist Air and these are as easily separated one from another By reason of these Combinations these Principles have got various Appellations and not Congruous in their own Nature to themselves For Sulphur for as much as it is Associated with Spirit is called pure and sweet when with Salt impure and stinking for as much as with Salt and Earth it is called thick and Earthly when the Spirit assumes to it self Sulphureous Particles in a moderate quantity it is seen to be sweet when saline sharp when both bitter Salt has a diverse disposition and is known by many names by reason of its various mixture with the other Elements and chiefly with Earth for besides the Titles of Fluid Fixed Volatile for this reason it is termed Marine Aluminous Nitrous Vitriolick Armoniack or of some other kind By some these kind of Conjugations are esteemed but wrongfully as so many divers Principles when they are but more simple mixtures by the coming together of the first Elements and being loosened by Distillation they openly shew their Race from whence they are For all Salts whatsoever being driven into a Flux by the Fire shew Liquors very near of Kin one to another to wit Acetous by the like means Spirit and Sulphur are compelled to put off their Masks and to resume the Native Species common to each And so much for the Principles of Natural Things and of their Affections and Conjunctions It is abundantly manifest that these kind of Substances are in every Body besides the Analyses of Bodies Chymically instituted also from the Mutations and effects of Things which happen of their own Nature When Must is Ripened into Wine is not Spirit a Sulphureous part also Salt and Earth Conspicuous to our Tast and Eyes besides the watery Liquor Also the Juice of every Plant being exalted by Digestion exhibits the same sincere and as it were distinct what is greater things subject to the Flame when they seem to be burnt and reduced almost to nothing they go into these kind of Particles besides the Salt remaining in the Ashes the Smoke and Flame grow together into Soot as it were a Meteor in which are comprehended together Spirit Sulphur Salt Water and Earth as it were in a certain compendium of the mixture For the active Principles abound in Soot more than in any other inanimate Body But because with some there hath spread a certain suspicion that those our Princiciples chiefly the Saline and Sulphureous are to be produced for the most part by Fire and are no ways to be found in mixt things unless after the coming between of that I will witness to you in some instances that the thing is plainly otherwise Concerning the first It is commonly known that the Ashes of every Plant being once Elixivated or made into a Lye if it be afterwards Calcined will not yield any thing of Salt besides if Concretes being Distilled Exhale or Breath forth a very sharp or acid Liquor their Calx is not saltish and on the contrary when the Salt being Volatilized or brought to a Flux ascends the Alembic you shall seek for it in vain in the dead head To prove the existency of the Sulphureous Principle in Vegetables take Guaiacum or a piece of any other ponderous Wood and being put into a Glass Retort draw it forth by degrees it shall exhibit together with an Acid Liquor which water is saltish in great quantity a blackish Oyl which part of it is Sulphureous It appears from hence that this was in the Body before the Distilling and in no wise produced by its Operation because if you proceed after another manner that the Sulphur may be taken out of the Concrete before Distillation the Liquor that comes forth will be almost wholy deprived of its Oyliness Wherefore if you pour Spirit of Wine to those Chips of Wood it will Extract in a great quantity by this Menstruum a pure Refine which is the Sulphureous part it self then if you Distil as before in a Retort the remaining Chips being washed in common Water and dryed you will have a very little Oyl only What is more to be admired and confirms also more fully the truth of this kind of Origination some Bodies which being almost destitute of Spirit and Sulphur because chiefly Volatile consist chiefly of Salt Earth and Water are separated
ways are thought of whereby the Menstruum of water is made sharper and is rendred fit for the dissolving of any Bodies whatsoever For by means of the Bodies which it ought to dissolve and of the parts which it ought to receive in it self it is armed as it were with some Weapons with which it is able to unlock any Subject and to possess now these now those Particles The Menstruum of water is sharpned with Spirit Salt or Sulphur to wit either with each of these or with more of them joyned together we will first speak of the watery Menstruum with the various sharpning of it and afterwards of the fiery dissolvent Common water most easily dissolves the more simple Bodies except Sulphur and hides their Particles in its pores and passages it readily receives Salts of every kind and easily imbibes Spirits it loosens the frame of Earth and cherishes its more tender little bodies in its embrace but it is hardly mixed with Fat and Oyly things and receives not their Particles but by the coming between of others but drives them forth to its Superficies as not miscible or thrusts them down to the bottom Water in some measure enters the more compounded Bodies whose frame is somwhat loose and then receives into its bosom some not simple Particles but resembling the nature of the whole mixture hence most Vegetables also parts of living creatures and some Minerals being put into common water do impregnate it with a certain virtue and from most Metals by a long maceration it takes away some strength though but small Some Bodies are dissolved by water which yet a Sulphureous or Spirituous Menstrua leave almost untouch'd as the Gums Tragacanth Arabic c. also Salts and Sugar The first and most common way of sharpning whereby simple water may more easily enter the Bodies to be dissolved is that it be furnished with fiery Particles or darts of adventitious heat for so it is driven more deeply with a certain force into Bodies and destroys some thrids as it were the smallest mites in their most inward recesses Wherefore we are wont to boyl for a long while the matter to be dissolved in water or at least to infuse it in warm water by which means the more tenuious and certain subtil Particles which resemble the nature of the Subject are easily drawn forth and impregnate the water with the virtue of the whole mixture So much for the simple or natural Menstruum of water to wit for as much as its activity is wont somtimes to be promoted by fire or ascititious heat But this cannot be so simple but that it contains in it self some Particles of another kind as may be gathered from its easie Putrefaction for oftentimes it is impregnated with Spirituous Sulphureous or Saline breathings contracted from the Air or Earth that for the drawing forth the tinctures of very many things somtimes it excels an Artificial Menstruum for that Acidulous or Spawish waters Mineral waters Rain water and May Dew are of frequent use among Chymicks for the remarkable faculty of dissolving with which they are strong Besides 't is a vulgar observation that some waters most easily dissolve Sope and being throughly mixed with the same causes in the liquor a great spume or froth such if they be rubbed between the fingers feel soft and gentle but other waters which being handled with the hands are more harsh refuse the mixture both of Sope and Oyl and so are accounted unprofitable for the washing of Cloaths these sort of waters if they should be evaporated in a Glass oftentimes affix a Crust to its bottom and sides because they are impregnated more than they ought with Saline Particles with which when the Saline parts residing in the Sope combine the Sulphureous are carried away and they being excluded the pores are thrust forth as not miscible to the top of the Liquor When Flesh is boyled in these waters it grows very red which tincture indeed being thence contracted is a sign that those waters are somwhat imbued with Vitriol or some other kind of Salt But we will pass to Artificial Menstruas in which the watry Liquor is furnished with Spirit Salt or Sulphur being gathered apart or many of them together The Spirituous Menstruum of water is made when from a Body swelling with Spirits a clear and limpid water is distilled as from Wine or strong Beer or other Bodies truly Fermented and brought to exaltation The kind of dissolvent is hardly to be had so sincere but it is mixed with the Particles of more pure Sulphur and somtimes of a volatile Salt The former kind of Liquor is called Spirit of Wine which being subtil and very penetrating easily enters the Bodies and parts of Vegetables and also of living Creatures but hardly Minerals or not at all it extracts from many things not any Particles or resembling the Nature of the whole mixture as common water but chiefly Spirituous and Sulphureous the rest being almost untouched wherefore it is wont to be used for the resinous magisteria of Vegetables which it draws forth almost sincere or without mixture under the form of Gum or Refine in the mean time it is not so fit as common water for the extracts of Plants which are not so indued with Sulphur from Sulphureous things as Benzoin Sulphur Olibanum Styrax Amber and the like it draws forth excellent Tinctures It dissolves the fixed Salts of Herbs also of Pearls and Coral before prepared with Vinegar by a long digestion and receives their Tinctures into it self it leaves Sugar and Gums being dissolvable in water almost untouch'd But there is another Spirituous Menstruum that is sharpned with a volatile Salt such is the Liquor which is distilled out of blood Harts-horn or Soot it is far stronger than the former and cuts most Bodies except Metals into parts and oftimes destroys the forms of the whole mixture yea it most excellently dissolves secondarily the most fixed Metal to wit Gold being first reduced into a Calx by its proper Menstruum and reduces it into a Tincture or potable Liquor They are accounted Sulphureous Menstrua which are brought forth of Sulphureous Bodies under the form of an Oyl these are prepared either by distillation such as are chiefly the Oyl of Turpentine Juniper and the like or by expression such as are wrung forth of Olives Almonds and other Fruits or Seeds of Vegetables Things distilled are of more efficacy than preparations by expression either of them draw forth some Particles from Vegetables or Animals by the vertues of which these Oyls being impregnated they are made fit for Medicinal use Yea they are conveniently enough made use of for the extracting of the Sulphureous Particles of Minerals which somtimes they draw forth sincere or unmixt But if Oyl of Turpentine or Lin-seed Oyl draws forth by dissolving the combustible part of common Sulphur in the mean time the remaining Saline parts and untouched by the Menstruum grow into Crystals
readily thrust out of the little spaces of the Menstruum and descend to the bottom We will in this place more sparingly insist upon instances of this nature because the more full handling of them belongs to the Chymical Work Precipitation is not only observed in the separation of a more thick matter from a serous latex and in the settling of the disturbed parts towards the bottom but somtimes the Particles shut up within the pores and passages of the Liquor are so small and subtil that being Precipitated they are not discerned by the sight neither do they quickly descend to the bottom but from their situation and position being variously changed the colour and consistency of the Liquor are diversly altered I was wont in times past to sport with the solutions of Vegetables and Minerals which being made by themselves were clear like Spring water and appeared bright being commixed shewed now a Black colour now a Milky Red Green Blue or some other kind The solution of Saturn or Lead being made with distilled Vinegar appears bright like common water if you add to this Oil of Tartar like clear water the mixture straight grows White like Milk If Antimony calcined with Nitre be boiled in Spring water the straining seems clear and almost without smell which yet being dashed by any Acid thing presently acquires a deep yellow colour with a most wicked stink Common water being imbued by an infusion of Mercury Sublimate is presently tinged with yellowness by Oyl of Tartar dropped into it Quicksilver and Sal Armoniack being beaten together and Sublimated in a Matrace by the heat of Sand go into a white powder this being soluted by melting shows like to clear Spring water which yet being smeared upon Brass or Copper appears like Silver and being lightly rubbed on brasen Vessels renders them as if they were perfectly silvered A solution of Calcined Tin being put to melted Salt of Tartar becomes bluish A clear infusion of Galls being mixt with a solution of Vitriol makes Ink if you add to this Spirit of Vitriol or Stygian water the black Liquor is by and by made clear like Spring water and this Oil of Tartar reduces again to Ink. And what is more wonderful if you write on Paper with the clear infusion of Vitriol and frame any Letters what you so write presently vanishes nor is there any marks of the Characters left but if you smear over the Paper with an infusion of Galls presently the Letters may be read as if wrote with Ink which yet with a Pen run over dipt in Spirit of Vitriol you may put quite out at once wetting and then again render them with wetting them with another Liquor of Tartar The Sky-colour Tincture of Violets being dashed with Oil of Vitriol becomes of a Purple colour to which if you add some drops of the Spirit of Harts Horn that Purple colour is changed into Green Brasil Wood being infused in common water leaves a very pleasant Tincture like to Claret Wine if you pour to this a little distilled Vinegar the Liquor appears clear like White Wine a few drops of Oil of Tartar reduces it to a deep Purple colour then if the Spirit of Vitriol be poured in it becomes of a pale yellow like to Sack if you add the Salt of Lead being soluted by deliquation the mixture grows presently Milky by this means you may imitate that famous Water-drinker who having swallowed down a great deal of Spring water was wont to vomit forth into Glasses placed before him diversly coloured Liquors resembling the ideas of divers kinds of Wines for Glasses being medicated with the aforesaid Tinctures so lightly that they may not be perceived by the standers by will not only cause the water poured into them to imitate every Wine but will exhibit the very Proteus himself of the Poets changed into waters and from thence putting on all colours and infinite forms If a Reason of these kind of appearances be asked it ought to be fought in the minute Particles contained within the pores of every Liquor which as to their site and position being diversly altered by another Liquor infused transmit variously the Rays of Light many ways break or reflect them and so make divers appearances of colours For when the Rays of Light pass through almost in right Lines they make a clear colour like Spring water but it in their passage they be a little broken the Liquor grows yellowish but being more refracted they cause a red colour if they are bowed back so as to be drained or that they cannot shew themselves a dark or black colour arises but if they are again reflected to the outmost Superficies of the Liquor they create the image of Whiteness after this manner we might variously Philosophise about other colours and their appearances the diversity of which and sudden alterations in Liquids depend chiefly on Precipitation because as the Particles conteined in the Liquor are driven somtimes more near by another infusion that they clasp themselves together somtimes are ordered into other series of positions the diverse representation of colours is made For Liquor being impregnated with little Bodies or Atoms or this Nature most minutely broken seems as an Army of Soldiers placed in their Ranks who now draw into close Order now open their Files and Ranks now turn to the left now to the right hand as is diversly shown in the exercising of Tacticks or the Art Military When two clear Liquors being mixed together shall make Ink it is because the Particles conteined in either approach near one another and as it were placed in their close Orders hinder the passage of the beams of light when afterwards this Ink is made clear by another Liquor poured in it is because the new Bodies of the thing put in disperse abroad the former close joyned Particles and drive them as it were into their open Orders CHAP. XII Of the motion of Fermentation as it is to be observed in the Coagulation and the Congelation of Bodies COagulation and Congelation of Natural Bodies no less than their Solution depend only on these our Principles The improportionate mixture of these and the exaltation and powerfulness of some above others are the cause of either Spirit and Sulphur being loosned from the bond do not only pull assunder the proper Subjects but they set upon whatever is next them and where they are mighty in number and strength they affect nothing more than divorces and separations from the rest of the Principles and suffer no delay but on the contrary Salts love to be united to the rest and to be made into hard and solid substances and being destitute of the Company of the rest presently to enter into new Friendships and desire only not to be joyned to any opposite If at any time they are more impetuously moved either by their own disposition or being soluted they destroy the substance of others this thing seems to be done for this end
head moreover a leaping up of the tendons in her wrists also she had sudden concussions of her wholy Body yet still her loosness held to her were administred by the prescripts of several Physicians Cordials and other Remedies and kinds of Administrations carefully but nothing profited her Pulse being more weak and her strength leisurely wasting she died on the ninth day after she was delivered This Feaver very much depended upon the vitious provision of the Body as the procatartic cause for I have often observed that it fares ill with Women Lying in who when Big bellied devoured fruit and any unwholsom trash and living without motion or exercise indulged themselves with ease and rest the Blood by reason of the previous Cachexie conceived a burning without any evident cause as it were of its own accord But growing hot laying inwardly still its recrements and impurities caused the Diarrhea neither yet was its mass made more pure by its almost continual excretion yea rather being still more depraved in its mixtion or crasis the Blood at length wholly departed from its proper disposition and became unable to be fermented in the heart whereby heat and breath might be every where dispersed The loosness excited by the motion of Nature was untowardly stopped especially by the use of astringent things for this I have often observed never to be done without paying for it because the Flux of the Belly has cured some that have been ill but in this Lady and in many others as has abundantly appeared to our experience altho it did not take away the Feaver yet it freed her from the more grievous distempers of the Brain and nervous stock from whence this sick person was wholly free from a Delirium nor was struck with Convulsive motions till reduced almost to extremity The Mother of a Family and a Gentlewoman about 36 years of Age or upwards being with Child of her seventeenth Child was troubled and very anxious lest she should die of that Child-bearing But God favouring she was delivered well enough of a Son and for three days after she was very cheerful on the fourth day when she had eaten more than she should do of a Chicken a little before night she fell into a feaverish Distemper with vomiting and a stopping of the Lochia all night she lay restless and without sleep the next morning she had four stools and seemed somewhat eased about Noon about which time I came to her she complained again of heat and thirst as also a palpitation of the heart and of the ascent of some substance in her throat her Pulse was quick and small her Urine red the Lochia scarce appeared I ordered her Juleps Cordials and things to purge the Womb besides a fomentation for the bottom of her Belly also her Legs and Feet to be rubbed often with warm Wollen Cloaths at going to sleep I gave her of Laudanum one grain with Saffron Pouder half a scruple in a spoonful of treacle-Treacle-water She slept well and the Lochia came down plentifully and by that means with a slender dyet and continuing to provoke moderately the Flux of the Womb for a few days she became very well The immoderate eating of flesh as an evident and almost only sufficient cause without any great provision or vitious predisposition induced the Feaver The Lochia restagnating into the Blood increased its intemperance and presently brought troubles upon the nervous kind but in the mean time the Blood altho growing hot did not undergo any great corruption but when the recrements heaped up by the Surfeit were sent forth by the loosness and the Blood the Lochia being restored began to be purged forth again after its wonted manner this Feaver wanting a further malignant ferment quickly vanished A noble Lady young and fair was brought to Bed of a second Child and for six days as to the Lochia and other accidents she was well and wholly free from the suspicion of any intemperature she ate flesh daily and rising from her Bed was brisk and chearful in her Chamber on the seventh day without any manifest cause a shivering came upon her with a Feaver and a lessning of the Lochia but not suppressed to the tenth day after her Delivery she was only moderately feaverish whilst the purgings of the Womb yet flowed she remained free from any grievous symptom but then although she was greatly feaverish she was more cheerful than ordinary and seemed more confident of her health at Night she slept little or nothing the morning following at which time I first visited her she clearly raved the Lochia were stopped also her whole Body was shaken with horror the tendons in her wrists were pulled together so that I could hardly distinguish her Pulse which in the mean time was weak unequal and very quick I said she would die quickly unless God should miraculously restore her by his Divine Power however six grains of Oriental Bezoar being given her in a spoonful of Cordial Julep brought upon her a plentiful sweat with a better Pulse then other Cordials being given wiâ—â— due intervals gave some little hopes tho I doubted they would not continue aâ—tâ—r four hours from the time that I came the sick Lady had of her own accord a great Stool and presently her strength wholly failed her and within half an hour she died When there hapned nothing of ill to this Lady as to her Delivery or Womb so pernicious a Feaver and so suddenly Mortal could not happen without a great and malignant procatarsis of the Blood and humors whether a more full Dyet or taking Cold or any other evident cause gave a beginning to this is uncertain because the Women and Nurses helping her knew of no manifest occasion of her sickness The Feaver being inkindled the infection of the Blood could not be wholly carried away by the purging of the Womb tho long continued tho for that reason the more cruel symptoms came not presently upon her yet the evil still lurked within and the Disease being very acute shewing it self with a swift motion on the fourth day when Nature should have indeavoured a Crisis the matter of the Feaver being moved but not overcome as it were in a moment overturned at once the Brain and nervous parts whence Death was to be expected and suddenly followed A Woman well known who had scarce passed the twentieth Year of her Age of a florid countenance and slender Body after her being brought to Bed when the Lochia flowed immoderately made use of some astringent Remedies by the counsel of those about her by which means they were wholly stopped but a Flux of her Belly succeeded which when it had increased for three days the Women gave her other things for the stopping her Loosness nor were they frustrated in the success in the mean time in the place of the former evil they had brought a most dangerous Feaver and distempers as it were hysterical for the unhappy Gentlewoman Lying in was troubled
the stony or an ulcerous distemper or both together planted beyond the emulgent Vessels It is an usual thing for some to void with their water gravel or small find of a red colour in great quantity some of these are obnoxious to the stone in the Reins and are frequently tormented with Nephritick fits I have also known others without pain or other grievous Symptom for a long time to make a sandy water All urines whatsoever if they stand for some time in a leaded or earthy glazed vessel affix this kind of red land to the sides and bottom of the Pot to wit the volatile Salt of the urine is coagulated with the fixed Salt of the Metal so when Sal Armoniac being mixed with the filings of Steel Sea-Salt or Vitriol is sublimated the elevated flours grow notably red wherefore it seems that these kind of little sands are begot in the Reins for that the Salt of the urine is coagulated with the Tartarous feculencies laid up about the windings of the Reins from whence the sandy matter is made which is presently washed away by the serous Juyce passing through Therefore the gravel that is so frequently made are no small parts or fragments of a greater stone as is commonly thought but extemporary products of the blood and Serum washing the winding passages of the Reins By what means little stones are produced in the Bladder or Reins is not to be fully discoursed in this place But without doubt it is done rather by Coagulation than Exsiccation or Excalefaction by drying or heating I have observed some sick of the Stone in the Bladder who after they have made water were wont to void with great striving and pain a thick and viscous Juyce which presently hardned into a scaly matter the smell of this was like Lye and of such a consistence as Lye evaporated to a thickness the liquor of which being made thick presently stiffens into a saline hardness Lesser stones sometimes pass through the urinary passages and are carried out the greater remain unmoved in their Cells The places wherein they are usually begotten are the narrow winding bosoms of the Reins from thence the smaller slide into the Bladder and if not excerned they grow into great stones I once saw many great stones shut up as it were in a Chest about the sides of the Bladder between its Membranes these without doubt being sent from the Reins while smaller remained in the passages of the Ureters creeping between the Coats of the Bladder and there by degrees did increase in bulk A Matron so distempered long before her death cast out of the urinary passage a Membrane thick and broad full of sandy matter which as appeared after her body was opened was part of the interior Tunick of the Bladder worn and broken by the stones there included It is ordinary for Nephritick people or such as are troubled with the Stone frequently to void blood or matter with their Urine for from a greater stone and endued with sharpness the flesh of the Reins is easily worn and the mouths of the Vessels opened whereby blood flowing out tinges the urine and when a solution of unity is caused in this manner in the Reins an Ulcer most commonly follows whereby matter and filthy stuff are poured out with the serous water and constitute a plentiful and stinking sediment in the urine then the sore being more inlarged by the Ulcer more large profusions of blood often follow and the flesh it self of the Reins being worn away and by degrees eaten off is voided with the urine I visited once an ancient Woman who daily voided with her urine for many months pure blood in great quantity besides as often as she made water she used to void in great quantity pieces of flesh great gobbets as it were the little Tubes of the Vessels eaten away that it was suspected one of her Kidneys was all thus cut away from her body yet afterwards by a vulnerary Decoction acidulated with Spirit of Vitriol that bloody water was staid and this Woman lives still well and in health I knew another Matron who used for a long time in making water to void at first blood with a purulent matter and Membranes then the bloody water ceasing for many years she made a waterish urine with a copious sediment and white like snot sinking down to the bottom of the Urinal Afterwards when she began to want that sediment a feaverish intemperance followed with pains wandring here and there with a languishing of strength and other dangerous Symptoms and when this sick Woman was brought into danger of her life a Tumor arising in her left side about her Reins and ripening into a Boil or Sore by reason of the large flowing out of the matter freed her but yet an hollow and sinuous Ulcer pouring out a thin matter remained in that place during her life and being sometimes healed up would presently break out again Scarce two years after this Noble Lady having endured the suppression of her urine for fourteen days became apoplectick and dyed Her body being opened her left Kidney was quite gone in the place of it a membranous substance growing to the Loyns infolding the extremities of the Vessels and Ureter was grown up some prints or marks of the Ureter remained but without any opening into the hollowness of the passage yea a certain ichor or serosity dropping out from the little mouths of the emulgent Artery was carried outwardly into that sinuous Ulcer The other Kidney was very full of sandy matter and small stones besides near the top of the Ureter a stone about the bigness of ones thumb was fixed whose extremity was so fitted and firmly impacted to the passage or cavity of the Ureter that it shut it up just like a Tap and quite hindered the passage of the serous Juyce The purulent matter comes into the urine not only from the Reins but sometimes out of the Bladder and urinary passage distempered with an Ulcer and sometimes also a corrupt seed or white flux or menstruous blood are poured into urines from the Vessels and genital parts and produce in them preternatural settlements 4. In the Urines of sick people are often seen abundance of white Contents composed of most small bodies which when they are setled fill up above half the liquor and make it white and duskish the rest remaining limpid and thin in the upper region of the Urinal this kind of sediment is called Mealy because it is like water imbued with meal Concerning this it is doubtful whether it proceeds from the whole mass of blood or only from the urinary Viscera It appears by observation that the same sort of urine is always made in the stone of the Bladder also sometimes by reason of the Kidney being oppressed with some great stone I never saw such a settlement in urines without a Nephritick distemper wherefore I have thought it almost indubitable to be always a sign of the Stone And
feavour a phrensie or madness should come remedies appropriate to those distempers are made use of 2dly But if either with or without this sort of displeasure In the Cough brought to the head the Lungs also have taken the evill of this disease so that the sick not yet free from the feavour seem to fall into a waisting or Consumption with a troublesome cough with abundance of thick and often discoloured spittle Medicines commonly prescribed for such kinde of Distempers are convenient enough wherefore pectoral Decoctions Electuaries syrrops distill'd waters of milk and snails and other remedies of the like nature ought diligently to be made use of the forms of which may be found in the before-described Cases Thus far we have described the continual feavour for the most part convulsive and arising no less from the fault of the nervous juice then of the blood I will here further propose an example of a disease having the likeness of an intermitting feavour but radicated chiefly in the nervous juice the nature of which kinde of distemper for that it is very rare and truly pertinent to our convulsive Pathologie will appear from the following history A noted Woman very young A very rare Observation and indued with a more weak constitution of brain and nervous stock and for that cause very obnoxious to convulsive distempers after she had conceived with child about the fourth month of her being big from cold being taken she was grievously afflicted with Astmatical fits and besides with a frequent sinking down of her spirits but by the use of remedies indued with a volatile salt she grew well within a fortnights space but after that about 14. days an unwonted and truly admirable distemper fell upon this Gentlewoman One morning awaking after an unquiet sleep that night she felt a light shivering in all her body as if she had had the fit of an Ague frequent yaunings and reatchings with an endeavour to vomit followed thereupon then her urine which was but now of a citron colour and of a laudable substance became pale and waterish and was rendred at every turn to wit almost every minute of an hour moreover about her loins and hypochondria and in other places pains with light Convulsions running about here and there were excited which kinde of symptoms plainly convulsive with her frequent making of a lympid urine continued in the Morning allmost to Evening in which space of time a great quantity of water at least three times more then the liquor she had taken was rendred in the mean time neither was the heat great nor did thirst trouble her nor was her pulse encreased In the evening the aforesaid distempers ceased and her urine became citron colour and moderate and besides all night she enjoy'd a moderate sleep then the morning following about the same hour the fit returned accompanied altogether with the like symtoms and so dayly acted the same Tragedy The reason of it Visiting this Gentlewoman after she had been sick in this manner for 12. days I framed the Aetiologie of the aforesaid case to wit that this disease chiefly radical in the nervous stock did depend upon the effervescency and flux of the humour watering the nervous parts For it might be suspected that this water being diffused from the blood made degenerate by reason of the suppression of her Terms upon the brain and nervous stock became more sharp and serous than it ought to be and for that cause incongruous to the containing parts wherefore being gathered together to a plenitude by the nights sleep it did stir them up or provoke them for the expulsion of it every where into wrinklings and contractions hence shiverings yaunings streachings and wandring pains were excited in the whole body Furthermore from the sollid parts after this manner contracted and shaken not only the nervous Liquor but also the nutricious every where laid up in the sollid parts but not truly assimilated were shaken off and then either Latex being exterminated from its receptacles and received by the veins or Lymphaducts or water-carrying vessells was render'd to the Mass of blood from whose bosome before it had acquired a lixiviall tincture from it being at last cast forth by the reins constituted a clear and Copious urine But that this distemper observed such exact periods the reason is because the nervous water being supplyed with an equall dimension did arise to a fulness of running over dayly at the set time Therefore also the urine appeared concocted and yellow before and after the fit because then its matter consisted only from the serum of the blood Afterwards during the convulsive fit the limpid humour being shaken off from the solid and nervous parts and passing quickly thorow the blood adulterated the colour and the quantity of the urine I prescribed to this big-bellied woman Phlebotomie and besides a powder composed out of Corall pearls ivory and other Cardiacks to be taken thrice in a day in a proper Liquor morning and evening she took of the tincture of Antimony 12. drops whose singular effect in the too great flux of urine I have many times experienced By the use of these all the symptoms ceased in a short time CHAPTER IX Of Vniversal Convulsions which are wont to be excited because of the Scorbutic disposition of the Nervous juice Vniversal Convulsions by reason of the Scorbutic disposition of the nervous juice THus much concerning universal Convulsions diffused thorow the whole nervous kinde which come upon feavours and especially concerning the Convulsions which are wont to be excited in the commonly called malignant hectick Feaevour There yet remains which was proposed in the third place for us to shew by what means and from what causes universal Convulsions are induced without poyson or feavourish infection by reason of the scorbutick or otherwise vitious dyscrasie or evill disposition of the nervots juice For indeed the Liquor watering both the nerves and the nervous parts sometimes disceding from its naturall disposition is so much stuff'd with heterogeneous and explosive particles that the animal spirits admitting an incongruous Copula every where growing to themselves are irritated into continuall as it were cracklings or convulsive explosions These kinde of Affections of the spirits Two kindes of these viz. Separate and Connex or joyned together are either divided or separated between which no Communication or dependency intercedes viz. When many parts of the body are troubled at once with so many Convulsions proper to themselves which do not come successively one from another but are terminated in the same muscle or member where they begin After which manner I have known some sick people who have had their muscles and tendons all at once in their whole body perpetually to leap forth with so many distinct Convulsions Or Secondly the Convulsive Distempers which are excited in the whole nervous kinde together are continued or connex which succeed one another with a certain perpetual vicissitude continued
with their coming between and amplifie and enlarge the lineaments of the Body otherwise too short and contracted 4. Water is the chiefest Vehicle of Spirit and Sulphur by whose intervention they consociate one with another and with Salt for the other Principles being dissolved by a watery humor or at least diluted continue in motion without which they grow stiff as congealed things When Water is wanting the active Principles meet together too strictly and mutually rub against and consume themselves and when for this reason the suppliment of food is cut off the Body grows withered If humidity abounds too much these Elements are estranged or dissociated too much one from the other wherefore the subject becomes sluggish and slow and of less efficacy and unapt for motion Besides Bodies too moist are lyable very much to rottenness and Corruption because from too much Humidity the Combination of Spirit and Sulphur and Salt is too loosely effected that they do not mutually embrace one another nor are retained with their embracement in the subject Indeed Water abounding easily evaporates and then the frame of the mixture being loosened and the doors set open Spirit and Sulphur easily break forth the way being made and leave the subject as it were vapid or made sharp with Salt for from hence the infusions of Vegitables Decoctions Juices of Herbs and all Liquid preparations if the quantity of Water be greater than the rest of the Principles and improportionate quickly Corrupt Water is most easily drawn forth out of every thing by Distillation for when Spirit and Sulphur are often intangled with nets of Salt or Earth they hardly let go-their embraces and are not obedient but to a more intense heat and often times require a previous Putrefaction Water most easily and often with no labour is driven out of every Body But most often it snatches in its flying away some more loose Particles of Spirit and Sulphur and carries them with itself forth of doors 5. As the interjection of Water in Liquids so of Earth in Solids fills the empty little Spaces and Vacuities left by the other Principles For these hinder the active Principles from a too streight embrace whereby they should rub against themselves and cleave one to another also by its thickness it retains too Volatile things besides it inlarges the due substance and magnitude in Bodies The more that Earth abounds in any thing it is so much the less active but of longer duration hence Minerals endure a long while then next the greater Trees in the mean time Animals and the more slender Plants are but of short age In Distillations Earth ascends the Alembic almost not at all or but in a very little quantity for the most part it is left with a portion of Salt for a Caput Mortuum or Dead Head therefore it is called Terra Damnata or damned Earth because when the other Principles are freed the Prison being as it were broken this is still detained besides Earth being deprived of the Company of the rest is of no Use nor capable of change or exaltation Thus much for the Elements or Principles of Natural things considered apart and by themselves It follows that some of their Affinities and Conjugations be unfolded because these very strictly cohere with those and very hardly or not at all are joyned with others Out of the mutual Combination of some and disagreement of others various Affections arise the knowledg of which gives no little Light to the Doctrine of Fermentation There is a certain Kindred and Similitude of parts between Spirit and Sulphur which are agil or light and easily to be dissipated in both wherefore Spirit being driven forth of the Body draws abundantly with it Sulphureous Particles as is discerned in Spirituous Liquors Distilled out of any thing to some of which if you mingle Water the Liquor appears as it were troubled with precipitated Sulphur but the Spirit without the Sulphur is undiscernably mixed with the Water which however by reason of is Volatility may be also easily drawn away and separated by Distillation Altho Spirit and Sulphur are Principles very resembling and because of a ready motion either are inflameable yet they are not one and the same as is asserted by some For Sulphur Copiously subsists in Bodies almost destitute of Spirit to wit in common Sulphur Antimony and other Minerals in which its Particles are very fixed and of their own nature almost immoveable which is very far from the Nature of Spirits For they abounding in any mixture never lye idle and always in motion bring various alterations to the Subject where they dwell then if they abound in strength they easily and without tumult carry themselves forth of doors of their own accord But Sulphur altho it abound doth not easily evaporate but hath need of a strong heat or an actual fire that may make a way for it and lastly it breaks forth not without a stink or burning yea if you endeavour to Distil Oyly and Fat things although very Sulphureous with a moderate Fire they are wont to yield a Liquor only Waterish and not inflameable but if we provoke generous Wine which swells with Spirit by the gentle heat of a Bath a most burning Water will Still forth and apt wholly to be inflamed Spirit is not presently joyned with Salt For Sugar and Salts are scarcely dissolved by the rectified Spirit of Wine but are after a manner associated by a long digestion and circulation as is perceived in the Volatile Salt of Animals or Tincture drawn forth from the Salts of Herbs or of Minerals by the Spirit of Wine If that Spirits excel in plenty and virtue they assume to themselves and Volatilise the Saline Particles And therefore the Salt contained in the Juice or Blood of Animals being associated with Spirit is volatilised also the Spirit of Wine being Distilled by many Cohalations with the fixed Salt of Herbs renders it Volatile and makes it pass through the Alembic but if the power of the Salt be greater it tames the Spirit and fixes it Hence the blood being become Salt by means of an ill dyet becomes less Spirituous Fixed Salts and the Oyl of Vitriol fix the Spirits grown too volatile and unbridled and Coagulate the Spirit of Wine it self But Sulphur is a more fit subject of the Spirit by the coming between of which it easily is united with Salt and the other Principles and as Spirit best agrees with Sulphur and Water so Sulphur intimately cleaves to Earth and Salt As to Sulphur besides its affinity with Spirit it hath a great relation with Salt it self to the volatilisation of which it doth not a little help wherefore in Bodies which abound with a volatile Salt there is found plenty of Sulphur as in Amber Soot Hornes and Bones as also in the excrements of living Creatures where Salt and Sulphur are in motion and evaporate from the subject a very stinking smell is sent forth for Sulphur being
loosned even into a Vapour and then kneaded with an Earthy Matter or the moistning of Waters they cause Eruptions of Fountains and Acidulous or Spaw Waters which resemble the disposition of Vitriol Alum Nitre somtimes of Iron or Copper Also the Sulphureous little Bodies being loosned and gathered together inkindle an Heat and somtimes Subterraneous Fires by whose Breaths the Dens and Caverns being made Hot like an Hot-House whilst the Watery humors pass through them they from thence conceive their Heat and supply the Springs of Hot Fountains for Bathes In like manner in this visible and Etherial world Vapours both Sulphureous and Saline and of a diverse Kind and Nature perpetually breath forth and are diffused through the whole Region of Air. From hence the diversity of winds the vicissitudes of Cold and Heat Rain Snow Hail Dew and Hoar Frost and what are of this Nature have their Origine Concerning the particular instances of these the famous Gassendus may be consulted who in his Epicurean Philosophy most aptly deduces the Phaenomena almost of all Meteors and the reasons of them from the Exhalations of Sulphur and Salts either Nitrous Vitriolick Aluminous or Armoniack CHAP. IV. Of Fermentation for as much as is observed in Vegetables IN Vegetables Fermentation is yet more plainly discerned for whilst they Bud forth Grow Flower bear Fruit Ripen Decline and Dye we may observe the divers motions of Particles or Principles their various Habits and Tempers I intend not here to describe the several ways and proceedings of these It will be sufficient for the unfolding the Doctrine of Fermentation to take notice of some chief instances concerning this Subject If is manifest by dayly Experience that all Plants whatsoever exposed to a Spagyrical or Chymical Operation may with little labour be resolved into the aforesaid five-fold Elements But in some there is found a greater plenty of Salt in others of Sulphur in some Spirits abound Water and Earth are in most proportionated according to the Bulk and magnitude of the thing Plants in which Salt abounds with a mean of Sulphur and a little quantity of Spirits are for the most part of long Age somwhat big or flourish all the Winter or tho their Leaves fall they keep a Nutricious Juice under the Bark Of which sort are the Oak Ash Elm Box-Tree and all ponderous Woods and Shrubs In some Sulphur abounds with a little Salt and Spirit as are the Pine the Firr-Tree Cyprus Tree Juniper Ivy Olive Cedar and Myrtle Trees and all resinous Plants which for the most part have a sweet smell and are perpetually Green by reason the juice wherewith they are nourished is viscous and not easily to be dissipated In others besides plenty of Salt and Sulphur Spirits also are found in a greater proportion as are Fruit-bearing Trees and especially the Vine from whose Fruit the Juice being wrung out and purified by Fermentation grows very big with Spirit Of this rank are Plants for the most part Medicinal also such as produce Curious and Odoriferous Flowers But in some Water and Earth luxuriat in too great a quantity above the other Elements as in cold Plants and such as grow in too rank a Soil The Germination of Plants happens after this manner either it is made out of the Seed Root Trunk or of its own Nature from the naked matrix of the Earth First the Spirit being shut up within by the Ambient Heat and Moisture loosening the frame of the mixture being loosned it presently endeavours to fly away But being held back in its flight by the more thick Particles of the rest stretches forth more largely its Den and together with the other Principles with which it is bound thrusts forth on every side into length and breadth even as a little bundle of Silk being contracted into wrincles and folds is opened here and there In the mean time the little Spaces left by the enlargement of the Spirit and as it were made hollow are filled up by the next Matter driven even into the Vacuities And after this manner the Architect Spirit with his Ministers Salt and Sulphur still stretching forth it self like a Snail frames for it self an House whose Inhabitant it is and by dilating it self stretches forth that until at last it hath wrought the Plant into the due Bulk and Figure designed by Nature You may take notice that the times of the year for the Budding Flowring Ripening and decaying of Vegetables are of great Efficacy and Virtue All the Winter the Womb of the Earth as it were shut up is almost barren for the Spirituous Particles which are wont to actuate the rest and as it were to lead the dance of Natural Motions are either chased away by the Winters Cold or being Congealed in their Subjects are fixed Wherefore at this time Germination and Vegetation are very rare unless that some irregular Plants which are composed of plenty of Spirit Salt and Sulphur dare to break forth But in the Spring when the bowels of the Earth begin to be a little warm by the Vicinity of the Sun presently they are impregnated with a wonderful Fecundity and produce the effects of their Seminality Not only the Superficies of the Earth but also the Water and Air every where grow big with Spirituous Particles which as it were raise up from the Dead the little Bodies of Salt and Sulphur and bring them into Motion Therefore besides that the Plants Bud the Juice and Blood of living Creatures is quicker and more apt to abound At this time the Birds and Fishes build their Nests and bring forth Eggs also we may perceive in our selves the Blood to flow high in the Vessels and usually to Ferment too much For all things are then full of this Aetherial Substance and the whole Bulk of Nature as it were inspired by a lively Fermentation is abundantly fruitful of Motions and Generations Yea these our Principles at first separated and dispersed one from another led as it were by an Appetite of Copulation enter into mutual Marriages and being Married together almost with infinit Embraces cause a most ample Seeding and Germination of the Herby State At the beginning of the Summer and perhaps in some sooner in some later when sufficient time hath been granted for the Stature and Magnitude of every Plant and that it is now come to the highth of increase it behoves Nature to perfect her Work and to cook and ripen the Substance as yet rude and undigested Wherefore the active Principles leisurely extricate themselves from the more thick and creep forward towards the top there being placed with a mutual increase they are formed into Flowers and Blossoms from which at length for that they are of a soft and light texture Spirit and Sulphur easily evaporate and the frame of the mixture quickly decays But Nature careful of the perpetuating every thing when it cannot keep for ever the individuum is so provident that the Species may not wholly
perish Wherefore she institutes new and more firm and lasting Combinations of Spirit Salt and Sulphur For she selects from the whole Substance of the Plant the more noble and highly active Particles and these being gathered together with a little Earth and Water she forms in the Seed as it were the quintessences of every Plant in the mean time the Trunk Leaves Stalks and the other Members of the Plant being almost quite deprived of the active Principles are much depauperated and are of less Efficacy and Virtue About Autumn after the Seeds are framed as it were pledges left in memory of the Plant the Particles of Spirits Salt and Sulphur which remain being now placed in their Strength or Exaltation endeavour a Dissolution and Departing one from another And first of all the Spirits evaporate by degrees with the Watery humour through the Doors set open by the Summer Sun with which the more pure parts of the Sulphur make also their Journey in the mean time the Salt being fixed with the Earth and more thick Sulphur is left behind Wherefore in most the Leaves fall at this time and in those of a tender and light Constitution the Principles are wholly dissipated and the Trunk and Stalk together with the Root wholly die In some after the falling of the Seed with the Leaves the Stalks wither in the mean time the Principles which may renew the Plant in the next Spring are preserved in the Root Also Winter coming on the face of things is wholly changed and the Elements which in the Spring did affect to be Joyned and to Marry one with another seek nothing more than Divorces The Spirits fly away from very many things and wander in the Air in the mean time the Particles of Salt and Sulphur lie as it were benummed and asleep Not only the Bodies of Vegetables but of very many Animals are left as it were dead all the Winter till they are raised again to life by the Spirit returning with the Vernal Sun and as it were animated anew But this little Branch being made concerning the Vegetation of Plants it is now fit that we proceed on our Journey to Fermentation by the Rule of our before established Method to what is to be observed concerning the parts and humours of Living Creatures CHAP. V. Of things to be Observed of Fermentation about Animals IT is so certain that the Bodies of Animals consist of the aforesaid Principles that it wants no proof For they so plentifully swell up with Spirit Salt and Sulphur that their Particles are obvious to the sense Wherefore they are moved with a more swift motion and more excellent senses of Life and Functions of Heat in the Subjects in which they are implanted are inlarged It would be too much labour and tedious here to describe the several manners and processes of Fermentations The first beginnings of Life proceed from the Spirit Fermenting in the Heart as it were in a certain little punct The motion of this is not as in Vegetables slow and insensible and only to be known by their increasing but presently becoming rapid is conspicuous to the Eyes because the Spirit leaping from the Punct as from a Prison being stirred and having obtained the Vehicle of Blood swiftly runs forth and leaping forth it cannot wholy fly away it makes hollow spaces for it self in the thick substance in which it is included for its excursion being compelled some other way backward Lastly being returned to the Heart it Ferments the more wherefore it stretches forth further the spaces of its Excursion and so easily makes an hollow way for its return back and after this manner for the carrying about the Blood Arteries and Veins as Channels and Rivulets are framed through all the parts of the Body and on such a Vicissitude of Motion or Reciprocation depends the life of living Creatures which that Nature might preserve a long while she placed the Ferment in the Heart by whose instinct or endeavour the Blood grows impetuously Hot and as it were inkindled into a Flame by its Deflagration diffuses the effluvia of its Heat round about on every side for by the Fermentation or Accension which the Blood suffers in the Bosome of the Heart very many Particles of Spirit Salt and Sulphur endeavour to break forth from its loosened frame by which being much rarified and like Water boyling over a Fire the moved and boyling Blood is carried through the Vessels not without great Tumult and Turgescency We would speak more in this place both of the Natural Fermentation of the Blood and the Feaverish but that we reserve this Consideration for a peculiar Tract where we Treat of Feavers Besides this Ferment constituted in the Chimny of the Heart upon which the motion and heat of the Blood very much depends there are others laid up every where in the Bowels of a diverse disposition by the help of which both the Chyle which is the Rudiment or Beginning of the Blood and the Animal Spirits its Quintessence are truly framed There are others also which serve for the perfecting the Blood transmuting it into other Liquors and freeing it from Excrementitious Matter It will be too far from our proposed method to wander to insist upon each of these and to reap anothers Harvest Wherefore I will only add in this place some select instances which may illustrate the Doctrine of Fermentation It is commonly received that the Concoction of the Chyle in the Ventricle is made by the means of a certain Acid Ferment That such a thing is the Acid belching in a full Stomach and the want of it in the loss of Stomach in Feaverish and Dysenterical people do testifie c. and its restitution a sign of Health to which may be added this Observation Chalybeat Medicines being taken at the Mouth a little after excite a Sulfureous savour in the Throat as if hard rosted Eggs had been eaten which seems wholly to be made by the Acid Ferment of the Ventricle gnawing the Iron even as Spirit of Vitriol being sprinkled upon the fileings of Steel excites such a stinking and Sulphureous Odor Some say this Ferment is breathed into the Stomach from the Spleen but by what means that may be done doth not yet appear by Anatomical Observation It seems not improbable that this Ferment is implanted in the Ventricle that it is only made by some remains of the perfected Chyle which fixed in the folds of the Ventricle and there growing sowr puts on the Nature of Ferment even as a portion of Dough being fermented or levened and and kept to a sowrness becomes a convenient Ferment or Leven for the making of Bread In like manner this kind of Acid humour being prepared from the Aliments and long carried in the Ventricle promotes the Concoction and subaction or subduing of the Food For Acid things which are full of Salt carried out to a Flux excellently conduce both to the Fermenting and Dissolving of Bodies Wherefore by
any Menstruum and that I had especially tryed many things about Iron after several experiments at length by a certain chance and almost thinking of somthing else I found out a preparation whereby without any Corrosive or Acid Liquor by the mediation only of a gentle heat the body of Iron is opened that being reduced into powder gives immediately a tincture to any Liquor that neither Salts themselves are sooner dissolved in common water By this means I am wont to prepare suddenly in great quantity Mineral waters which exactly resemble our Tunbridg Spaws and to render Wine Beer Milk or Whey with no trouble Chalybeated By this means Syrrops Tinctures Extracts or Magisteria out of Steel are most easily to be had Moreover plainly by the same Artifice Corals Pearls Eyes and Claws of Crabs and all shelly things are prepared that their powders presently impart to any Menstruum a tincture or the virtues of the whole Concrete And in this preparation no strange quality is introduced to the Subject nor its own proper quality lost When I had by this means learnt to unlock all Bodies whatsoever consisting of a Saline bond presently from the Analogy of this was made known the means of unlocking Subjects whose Concretion is wholly Sulphureous for I am wont so to prepare common Sulphur that its powder immediatly impregnates any Liquor with the tincture and virtue of Sulphur The Spirit of Wine suddenly contracts a deep colour and very red that being put into it Common water by the infusion or decoction of the same Powder is rendered clearly Sulphureous and gilds Silver and by this means from that Tincture a praecipitation being made of White Wine or Vinegar the Milk of Sulphur is easily prepared in great quantity Out of Sulphurated Wine by this infusion I make a Syrrop than which there is scarce found a more excellent remedy in the distempers of the Thorax By this means Tinctures Extracts Magistries are prepared from Sulphur with no labour and without any smatch of the fire By the same way preparations from Amber Benzoin and other Sulphureous things easily dissolvable in any Menstruum are composed But enough and too much of this we will now pass to the other great dissolvent of Nature CHAP. X. Of the Nature of Fire and by the way of Heat and Light WE may almost pronounce the same thing of Fire what the Philosophers of old did of the first Matter to wit that it was potentially every where and in all things but in none in act For among these sublunaries Fire hath got no existence of its own Nature or certain means of duration It is produced almost in every Subject but is retained long in none but it suddenly vanisheth and expires yea unless some external accidents oftentimes should concur for its production I think it had not at all been in the world Some have dreamed that its Sphear is scituate under the Moon but this was introduced only for the making the Hypothesis of the four Elements for such a thing seems consonant neither to Sense nor Reason That we may rightly search out the Nature of Fire we must seek in what Bodies it is chiefly to be found and how they are disposed and then we may proceed to the unfolding its essence The Subjects most convenient both for the producing and the maintaining of Fire are of that kind in which there are very many Particles of Sulphur and but only a moderate portion of Water Salt and Earth for these do hinder its inkindlings and being plentifully poured on it extinguish it being inkindled Wherefore Bituminous Fat and Oyly things quickly take flame so also Chips Straw light and dry Wood in the mean time Metals Minerals the glebe of the Earth Dung wet Straw and green Wood are hardly or not at all to be inkindled Secondly we observe that all the time Fire continues in the Subject Sulphureous Particles fly away in heaps and from the departure of these the substance of the burning body is by degrees destroyed in the mean time very much of Salt and Earth remains in the form of Ashes after the burning There is a third observation that when the Sulphureous Particles are wholly or for the most part flown out of any Subject the burning wholly ceases and the form of fire is quite destroyed nor can it be renewed in the remaining matter wanting of Sulphur Fourthly we will note that somtimes some Bodies conceive a burning without the advention of another fire only by their own effervency and by the intestine motion of the implanted Particles and of their own accord are reduced into Ashes as when wet Hay is layd up close it first grows hot then afterwards breaks forth into smoke and flame or the Wheels and Axeltrees of Carts or Wains being heated by too great agitation are inkindled According to these positions we may affirm that the form of fire wholly depends upon Sulphureous Particles heaped up in any Subject and breaking forth from it in heaps and that fire is no other thing than the motion and eruption of these kind of Particles impetuously stirred up For Sulphur is of an exceeding fierce and untamed Nature whose little bodies when the yoak of the mixture being shook off they begin to be thickly heaped together diffuse themselves on every side like a torrent break whatsoever obstacles are in the Subject destroy whatever comes in opposition or fling it down headlong Nor do they only unlock their proper Subjects but also lay open the gates and doors of any other Subject near that they can reach to and there incite to the like fury all the consimilary Particles of Sulphur and provoke them to an eruption wherefore fire every where inkindles fire The Sulphureous Particles while they heaped together within the confines of their Subject or on its Superficies are agitated with a rapid motion but are detained by the Embrace of other little Bodies from a more free eruption and more aggregated constitute the form of fire as is to be seen in burning Coals or in glowing Iron but when these sort of Particles fly away by heaps from the same Subject and bound together they produce flame which is only an heap or rather a torrent of the Particles of Sulphur flowing together and conjunctly flying away if Watery Earthy and Saline Particles are commixt with the Sulphureous breaking away and are able to disjoyn and separate them only smoke is excited which afterwards the Sulphureous little Bodies more plentifully breathing forth themselves and getting together breaks forth into flame The inkindling of Fire happens very many ways The first and most simple is when from hard bodies struck one against another but oftenest from a Flint struck against Steel sparks of fire break forth which being received in Tinder made of a Linnen Cloth burnt to blackness dilate themselves and then a Match or Sulphurated thing being applyed they cause the inkindling of a flame Secondly a fire often happens in dry Wood and dry
retarded by reason of the interjection of the Earthy matter and it happens that the Sulphureous little Bodies therein apt to be too hastily inkindled are a little disjoyned and so the substance of the infused powder takes fire successively and by parts and not all at once The reason of Aurum Fulminans does not so manifestly appear but it seems wonderful that the Calx of a Metal otherways inviolable by fire should be brought into a powder one grane of which if it be but lightly heated by fire is exploded with so great a force and yields such a noise that is an hundred fold beyond Gun-powder I know many deduce the cause of this as in Gun-powder from a Nitrous-Sulphureous mixture For they suppose the Nitre drawn forth from the solvent Menstruum to joyn together with the Sulphur of the Metal and so the powder from thence prepared to get that fulminating force But in truth if this matter be better thought on it will appear far otherways because this golden thundring powder is not at all inkindled as preparations of Nitre with Sulphur for if fire be put to it it goes off only successively by grains nor as in Gun-powder doth the whole fulminate at once but being put into an Iron Silver or other convenient Vessel and for some time heated by a sudden fire at length all the Particles being stirred together into motion it is exploded with a mighty noise but yet being explosed it yields neither flame nor sparks neither is the Gold lost For if this powder fulminates in an open Vessel whatsoever is of the Gold remains after the thundering in the form of a purple powder and may be gathered up That the genuine cause of this may be extricated there are some things to be observed concerning its preparations which will give no small light For the making of this powder it is altogether requisite that a solution of Gold be made with a Menstruum impregnated with Sal Armoniack or at least Analogical to it for I have tryed it in vain with the Spirit of Nitre Salt with the Bezoartic Spirit and some others Then next it is requisite that the Calx be precipitated with Oyl of Tartar for if the same be brought into a powder with Silver or Mercury being cast in it loses its thundring force Also if the Liquor of the Tartar be too precipitately poured in that with the great heat a repercussion of the thing soluted be made it often loses its fulminating virtue but a precipitation being leisurely made the powder setling in the bottom is washed away by the often pouring on of warm water which though it be most often washed and dryed far exceeds the weight of the dissolved Gold According to these positions in seems most likely that whilst the Gold is dissolved by an appropriate Menstruum for this business some little Bodies of Sal Armoniack or some other resembling it being greatly akin to the Gold do most strictly cohere with its Particles which then by the Salt of Tartar leisurely in the precipitating infused are more fixed and more strictly tyed fast together and then the explosion of this powder or Solary Calx is nothing else than a violent eruption of those kind of Salts from the Cohesion or Embrace of the Gold For when the powder prepared after this manner is brought to the fire or is otherways made hot the heat causes the Sal-Armoniack Particles or others of the same nature affixed to the Solar to dissociate which notwithstanding when they hardly depart one from another are not pulled asunder but by a strong and continued heat yet afterwards being pulled asunder with a certain force by reason of the sudden and violent breaking off they strike the Air impetuously and so cause a most strong noise for their bulk But in the mean time if the explosion be made under a Silver Spoon you will see a separation made of either Particles here the Solar of a Purple colour there the Saline of an Ash colour But that this powder doth not make a noise unless it be leisurely precipitated with the Oyl of Tartar it is because some Particles of the Salt of Tartar being before bound together with the Sal-Armoniac Particles do couple together by which means all are more strongly combined For the Salt of Tartar being pounded with the mixture of Nitre and Sulphur fixes their Particles for a time that this Composition is not presently inkindled by heat but afterwards is exploded with a strong noise And powder prepared after this manner seems to imitate the Nature of Aurum Fulminans and it is probable that from other Minerals dissolved and precipitated by reason of the strict Cohesions of the Salt with the Metallic matter and their violent abruptions thundering Calxes may be prepared That truly the preparation of this chiefly depends on the Combination of the Salts it appears because if in the Precipitating as I have known it somtimes to have hapned the Oyl of Tartar being too hastily infused the Complexion of the Salts is dissolved with the Metallic matter the powder falls in small quantity to the bottom and of a very Purple colour whose grains are fragments of almost most pure Gold and therefore they do not fulminate at all afterwards in that precipitated Liquor very many slender Crystals grow together which are indeed the Salts having suffered a Divorce from the Metal Besides That the Salt of Tartar brings somthing to the preparation of this powder it is a sign because those things which take away the fulminating force from this are of the same Nature which chiefly work upon the Salt of Tartar as a beating it together with common Sulphur Spirit of Salt Oyl of Vitriol or of Sulphur for these grow hot and greedily desire to be joyned with the Salt of Tartar and so they call it away from the Embraces of the Gold by which means the Combination of the Salts with the Particles of the Gold is loosned and therefore loses its Gun-like force What is commonly said that this powder will be presently inkindled or exploded by a most light heat or by shaking it in an Iron Ladle is nothing true as appears to me for I have often tryed it Nor is it more worthy of belief what is said that this only forces downwards and breaks the thickest hollow Pipes with its force in the mean time that it doth not move or shake any thing laid over it because long since I made tryal after this manner two grains of this being laid in a Silver Spoon I covered with a Doller then a Candle being held under the Spoon upon the explosion of the powder there followed a great noise and there was a little hollow made in the bottom of the Spoon almost through and the piece of mony was carried up with a force to the Cieling wherefore when this Aurum Fulminans is explosed its force is diffused round Altho vehement heat and incited and also the emission of Smoke and Soot
Inns are able to produce by their eruption an intense and almost fiery heat in the mean time those Saline little Bodies are so loosned by the long familiarity of the fiery and by the embrace of one another and of the strangers that they become Volatile and being diluted with water for the greatest part evaporate with it and the remaining Salt because also Volatile and having suffered almost a divorce from all the rest of the Principles is both sweetish and becomes desirous of Conjunction and astringent and therefore also is of excellent use for plastring of Walls But that Stygian waters being poured upon the Stagmas of fixed Salts produce heat and the same mixed with Iron or the Butter of Antimony stir up a mighty ardor with a blackning smoak the reason seems plain As to the Stygian waters and fixed Salts it may be said that both these Concretes are only Salts having got divers states by the fire and so either being very much stuffed with fiery Particles which are the most minute atoms of Sulphur But they being confused together do forthwith rush into mutual embraces and because the Particles of either are made unlike therefore whereby they may be more strictly united there is made a great attrition of parts and together an excussion of the fiery Particles from whence the great ebullition with a heat is excited when the same Menstrua are poured on Iron or the Ice of Antimo the Salts of either come together and shake forth the fiery Particles and also the Sulphureous Particles before implanted in either Subject which flying away in heaps cause a smoak with a heat but not a flame CHAP. XI Of the motion of Fermentation as it is to be observed in the Precipitation of Bodies WE have hitherto treated of the Solutions of Bodies it remains now that we speak of Precipitation this is performed only in Liquids which when as they are stuffed with Heterogeneous Particles are compelled by a matter Precipitating those Particles to separate one from another and to obtain for their substance divers places and conditions wherefore since in this operation there is an agitation and motion of parts its consideration ought to be referred to the Doctrine of Fermentation Precipitation is performed either in Natural things as chiefly in Milk Blood Urine and perhaps in some others or in Artificial things which are of a diverse Kind and Nature but they may be described and ranked in a certain order according as the Liquor to be Precipitated or Precipitating is either Spirituous Sulphureous Watery or Saline besides according as the Particles separated from the rest are either Elementary viz. either Sulphureous Earthy or Saline or Integral which participate of the Nature of the whole mixture and are only very small portions of it very much broken There are two common and known ways of Precipitation whereby is made from Milk both Cheese and Butter As to the first if any sharp thing be poured into warm Milk the thicker and Cheesie parts presently separate from the serous and thinner and are gathered together into a thick substance The reason of which consists in this Milk has a somwhat thick consistence and its pores and passages are very much beset with the thicker to wit the Cheesie contents wherefore when somthing more subtil and penetrating as is Rennet passes through the Liquor it easily thrusts forth the more thick Particles with which the pores were possessed which then mutually Embrace one another and are separated a part from the thin and Wheyie Liquor When Milk is kept long to a sourness it is Precipitated after the same manner without Rennet by warming it over the fire For in stale Milk its Saline parts get a Flux then being stirred up by the fire supply by their own sourness the turn of Rennet yea it is not improbable that the fluid Salt in the Rennet provokes the Saline Particles of the Milk into a Flux and that for this reason chiefly its Coagulation succeeds for that the Saline parts having gotten of their own accord a Flux so bind the pores of the Liquor that the more thick Contents are willingly exterminated from them wherefore we do say for that reason the same thing happens when a Flux of the same Salt is caused by some thing else put into it But that the Coagulation of Milk happens not only by reason of the passages and pores being possessed by a strange Body the sign is because the Salt of Tartar tho exceeding Precipitatory effects nothing of this and this effect is excited almost only by sour things Sugar hinders the Precipitation of Milk and many other Liquors because it restrains the Flux of the Acetous Salt and as it is easily Soluble and its Particles are soft and blunt they extrude not the former Contents implanted in the Liquor but fill all vacuities that afterwards there is no space whereby another Precipitating Liquor may unfold it self and break into anothers quarters But Country people are wont to make Butter of the Flowers or Cream of Milk kept for the most part to a sourness only by shaking or Churning it The reason of which as it seems to me is this in Cream there is great plenty of Sulphur with which also a mean portion of Salt and Earth is mixed as may be conjectured both by the sourness of the Liquor remaining of the Butter or the Butter-Milk and by its thicker consistency In this mixture the parts both Saline and Sulphureous are in motion and a Flux but as the Liquor is thicker they cannot presently fly away wherefore it remains that if the bond of the mixture be further loosned they will separate into parts and that first the Sulphureous Particles which exceed the others in power are Congregated together with a mutual embrace wherefore these two things the Churning of the Cream performs viz. it brings the Sulphureous parts by their often obvolution together whereby they do the better intangle themselves and mutually ensnare one another besides it breaks their mixture with the rest For this reason in the Winter time when Cream is thinner and abounds less with Sulphur Butter is hardly made Besides the admixtion of Salt or Sugar wholly hinders its making because by the coming between of those little Bodies the Sulphureous parts are hindred from a mutual adhesion The chief Precipitation of the blood which is performed within a living Body is made in the Reins where not without the strength of a certain Coagulum or Rennet the serous matter is separated from the rest of the blood just as Whey from Milk For which reason Diuretical things are of the same Nature as those which bring a Coagulation to Milk and therefore because they more Precipitate the blood by fusing it they cause a large profusion of urine The blood being sent forth of the Vessels separates into various substances by its own disposition whilst it is warm it is variously Precipitated by some Liquors poured to it in like manner
Urine not without a pleasant Spectacle If you pour upon warm blood the spirit of Wine Harts Horn Soot Vitriol or other Liquors chiefly Spirituous or Saline a wonderful Ebullition and heat is stirred up whence we may conjecture after what manner it grows turgid in Feavers But before the rest the Salt of Tartar and a Solution of Alum procure both in Blood and in Urin a great perturbation of the Liquor and falling down of the parts for these disturb all the Contents in the pores and passages of the Liquor and by their astriction very much lock them up for a long time Precipitation in Artificial things is of greater note and use for this for the most part follows Dissolutions and succeeds them as it were by a certain right of Order because this takes out of their Jaws and as it were lays by the prey which all Menstrua take by dissolving According to the diversity of the Menstruum and of the Body dissolved Precipitation also variously happens but in some Subjects there are two chief remarkable things concerning the manner of Precipitation to wit the soluted Particles immersed in the pores and passages of the Menstruum are wont to fall out of them either by reason of the narrowness of the conteining space or else by reason of the Contents being increased in weight and bigness for in some the pores of the Solvent being either leisurely bound up or beset with a strange Body shut forth from their Cells the little Bodies of the thing soluted and send them to the bottom as may be observed in Sulphureous Solutions or such as are made of the whole mixture of integral parts in a thin Liquor which are disturbed and lay away their Contents by external cold simple water or at least by any Acid infusion After this manner resinous Tinctures also of Sulphur Olibanum Benzoin and the infusions and decoctions of Vegetables also Urin Milk and Blood are wont to be Precipitated but in several others besides that the pores and passages of the Menstruum are either leisurely drawn together or possessed by a new guest also somthing new grows to the Particles of the thing soluted from the Precipitating matter whereby being increased in weight and bulk they can be no longer sustained but that they are necessitated to sink to the bottom This is chiefly seen in the Saline Solutions of Minerals which are only Precipitated by the Salts whose Particles presently cleave to the little Bodies of the thing soluted and increase their substance that presently they descend to the bottom by their own weight For in Saline solutions the little Bodies of the thing soluted are strictly bound together by the fluid Menstruum with the Saline Particles and the Particles run hastily and are heaped together into the Embraces of the same fluid Salt from the Precipitating infusion of the fixed Salt wherefore when these three to wit the little Bodies of either Salt and of the soluted matter do cohere together they constitute greater grains than can be contained in the narrow spaces of the Menstruum and therefore being thrust out they fall down towards the bottom That this does truly happen after this manner the great affinity both of the fluid and fixed Salt is a sign that the Particles of both being placed near or mixed together are presently combined in one also because many solutions of Minerals are presently Precipitated by a fixed Salt but not by Vitriol or Alum being put in which do much more bind and stop up the pores of the Liquor Thirdly it appears clearly even to sense because that the matter put for a Precipitate far exceeds the thing soluted in bulk and weight and is impregnated by the fixed Salt adhering to it But these being thus disposed we will descend to the particular cases of Percipitations forasmuch as Precipitation is made manifold to wit according to the diversity of the Menstruum of the soluted matter and the Precipitating infusion Simple water though it do not well sustain the Particles of the mixture which it receives into it self by infusion or Cohesion yet hardly sends them away by Precipitation For the pores of this Menstruum are too open and loose wherefore the Precipitating matter doth not easily strike the little Bodies of the thing soluted in the mean time by reason of the more loose frame of the Menstruum some parts of the soluted Body sink down others of their own accord evaporate from whence that Liquor doth not long keep the Virtues or Tincture with which they are impregnated by another As some more thick parts and Terrestrial may be thrust down to the bottom or otherways separated we put in the Juice of Limons or some acid thing or boil in it the whites of Eggs to wit that whatsoever is thick might cleave to their viscous substance Spirituous and Sulphureous Menstrua being impregnated with the Sulphureous Particles of the thing soluted easily lay by their burthen for they are Precipitated by common or any Distilled water as is seen in Sulphureous and Resinous Tinctures of Sulphur Scammony Benzoin Frankincense and others of that kind prepared by the Spirit of Wine or Oyl of Turpentine which presently grow Milky by Water or Phlegm being infused For in these sort of solutions the pores are wholly possessed that they admit nothing besides the thing soluted and besides both the Liquor and soluted Matter are so thin that they easily give place to any thing else being infused When Menstruas of this kind are filled with Saline Particles as we may observe in the Tinctures of the Salt of Corrals of Tartar and such like Precipitation does not presently succeed from common water but from an Acid Liquor as the Spirit of Vitriol Salt c. Saline Menstruas impregnated by the solutions of Stones or Metals are most easily Precipitated by Saline Particles and scarce by others The chief Precipitatory Liquor is the Salt of Tartar or of Herbs burnt to Ashes deliquated or melted for this strikes back the Particles of every soluted thing whatsoever and sends them headlong to the bottom to wit forasmuch as it passes through every where the little spaces of the solvent and sticking to the Contents increases them in bulk that they more easily fall out of the pores of the Menstruum bound also together with their own weight What fluid Salt as Vinegar Stygian waters c. dissolves the same a fixed Salt precipitates and on the contrary because Salt of Tartar being melted most excellently penetrates common Sulphur and receives the Tincture which then is precipitated by a fluid Salt viz. by the Spirit of Vitriol and the like which indeed does not happen by reason of the disagreeing Particles of the Salts and mutually opposing one another but for that the same are greatly of kin and rush into mutual Embraces for from hence the little grains of the thing soluted by reason of the cohering of both the Salts together being increased in bulk and weight are more
pertinaciously will be deceived whilst they imagine the knowledg of every Disease and the prognostication of it cannot be found out but by inspecting the Vrine and esteem a Physician of little worth unless he undertakes to divine from the Vrinal as from a Magical Glass But indeed as to what belongs to the precepts and rules whereon the reason of Judgment by Vrine doth depend there are many collected by diligent observation that are extant and from thence establish'd with good reason and judgment yet for as much as the signification of Vrines is by some too largely extended to particular Cases very many uncertain things interwoven and some obnoxious to deceit and others plainly false therefore who shall confidently pronounce concerning the business of the Sick by the judgment only of the Water deserves rather the name of a jugling Quack than of a Physician But this Doctrine concerning Vrines abounds so ordinarily with errors that the observations which belong to its practice are either wrongfully made or not well reduced into method We may lawfully suspect that the observations are not rightly made because perhaps from one or two particular cases oftentimes a general Rule is established For Example sake because some Hydropical people render a thin and watry Vrine therefore it is affirmed such sort of Vrines necessarily denote a Dropsie when also in some other diseases such like Vrines are made and sometimes in the Dropsie the Vrine are thick and full of redness Also as it is most commonly received that Vrines on which a cream doth swim as on water that hath Tartar boyled in it doth denote a Consumption which is most uncertain because this sign is more proper and familiar to Hypochondriacks than to Consumptive people And how many dye of Consumptions without this Besides what is generally asserted to wit that in all diseases whatsoever Nature doth make known the Disease by the Vrine is altogether false because sometimes sick people make their Vrine like healthful people and sometimes those who are very well in health by reason of some accident perhaps from the meats eaten have suspected Vrine varying from the natural state or condition As to what belongs to the method or doctrine delivered by most concerning Vrines they seem to be altogether Empirical and nothing rational for the naked differences of Vrines are rehearsed and are wont to be distinguished according to their colour consistency and contents thence are opposed to the several species of these pathologick significations collected only from more rare observations when in the mean time the causes of the appearances nor of the preternatural alterations in the Vrines are not assigned as they ought to be nor is the signification of the Vrines applyed to the Causes of diseases but only to the Disease or Symptom and therefore it is most often deceitful and uncertain because the same morbifick Cause and signification of the same Vrine may in like manner mediately respect at once divers Diseases and Symptoms As for Example a thin and watry Vrine most often immediately denotes Indigestion or a defect of Concoction in the Viscera nevertheless by reason of that condition of Crudity the Green-sickness in Virgins sometimes the Dropsie or the white watery phlegmacy sometimes Head-aches and many other diseases arise But the task which you have required of me Worthy Sir to wit That the notions which in times past we have discoursed together and conceived concerning Vrines as it were collected notes and what have since fallen under my own knowledg by my proper study and observation concerning this thing should be fram'd into a little Treatise and that I should write a plain and new method of Vrinoscopie I confess the work greater than can well be performed by our own proper strength however I have resolved as much as I am able to obey you therein But that a doctrine or method concerning Vrines may be instituted beyond the vulgar and plainly Empirical manner of Philosophising there shall be these two heads of our Discourse To wit First that the Anatomy of Vrine may be delivered of what elements and parts it consists and also its genesis in our Body to wit by what Concoction this kind of Liquor is made and then by what secretion of some Particles from others Secondly That the inspection of urines in the Vrinal may be truly unfolded and what may be the Rules and the Certitude of Vromancie or divination of the Vrine OF URINES CHAP. I. Of the Elements and chief Accidents of Vrine WHEN the Liquor of the Urine being either fresh rendred from the body or putrified by a long digestion is exposed to a spagirick Analysis it is wont to be resolved into these parts or principles In the Distilling first ascends whatever of a vinous spirit is in it diluted with water but yet in fo very small quantity that it is not easily to be perceived by the taste it self To this follows a watry liquor large enough in proportion with which are mixed some more loose particles of Salt and Sulphur especially Thirdly There is stilled forth a very penetrative water which is commonly called the spirit of Urine but in truth almost without any vinous spirit and is chiefly phlegm highly sharpned with Salt and therefore it ascends last as in the distillation of Vinegar but forasmuch as the salt of Urine is volatile but that of Vinegar only in the Flux therefore the liquor stilled forth which is greatly impregnated with its particles is very acid That which is imbued with the saline Particles of the other is exceeding sharp and pricking It is a sign that this kind of Spirit of Urine as it is commonly known ows its sharpness chiefly to the Salt because though it be most subtil it will not take fire but being put to it extinguishes it After the humidity is wholly exhal'd another portion of Salt remains with the earth in the bottom of the cucurbit to which if a more hot fire be made that Salt will be sublimed into the Alembick and the earthy feces only remain This kind of Anatomy of Urine plainly shows that the Elements of which its liquor is composed are a great deal of Water and Salt and a little of Sulphur and Earth and a very little of Spirit The saltness in Urines is perceived by the taste and touch it comes nearest to a Nitrous salt in savour It is drawn indeed from saline particles of things eaten which being more plentifully exalted by the concoction in the Bowels and the circulation in the Vessels for the most part go into a volatile Salt That is truly Salt and Spirit by reason of the long accompanying of either together are gathered into a most strict bond and therefore it happens that the Salt it self otherways fixed is carryed up on high and rendred able for motion as it were by the wings of the other Urines contain in them more or less of Salt according to the disposition of our body and have it either more
fuse it as it were with a Coagulum or Runnet as are sharp things and preparations of Salts will more freely provoke Urine It sometimes happens that the Urines of the sick are made in a large quantity and very profuse that in a day and a nights space they make perhaps twice or thrice as much water as the Liquids they have taken the causes of which distemper are also various and the significations very divers if after the suppression of Urine or its quantity formerly lessened if in Hydropick distempers Rheumatisms or passions of the nervous stock or in the Crises of Feavers a flowing down of the Urine follows either of its own accord or by the use of Diureticks it denotes a Cure of the disease or preternatural disposition or at least a declining of it But if as I have often observed in a lean and weak constitution without any of the previous distempers but now recited the Urine exceeds much the Liquids taken and from thence a great debility of the whole follows this indeed signifies an evil disposition with a tendency to a wasting or Consumption I have known some women of a tender and most fine make who sometimes being ill for many days were wont daily to make water in a great abundance exceeding twice the Liquids taken and that watry and thin without contents or settlement at which time they have complained of a languishing of strength difficult respiration and an impotency to motion I suppose in this case that the blood and nervous juyce grow too sour from the salt carried forth and suffering a Flux and therefore that they are somewhat loosned in their mixture and fused so much into serosity as to be made fit for it For it is to be observed that all Liquids though more thick and mucilaginous if they be kept to a sourness presently become for the most part watry and limpid also the flowing down of the Urine is sometimes seen to arise from such a disposition of the blood and humors for that the Urine so copiously excreted is like Vinegar in taste and these kind of distempers are usually cured chiefly by Chalybeates and not by binding and thickning things But as to what respects the Colour the Urine of sound people may be the square or rule to which all the rest of the sick may be referred for as the colour of sound peoples is Citron the Urine of the sick is paler than Citron and so either watry or white or higher coloured than it whose chief kinds are flame-colour yellow red green and black I shall run through every one of these briefly and endeavour to weigh them together by what causes all the alterations may be made and what distempers or provisions of diseases they are wont to make known The Urine is watry or limpid when by reason of the indigestion of the Ventricle the saline and sulphureous particles of things eaten are not rightly subjugated nor being smally broken are made so volatile that being dissolved in the Serum they may impart to it a tincture which it may carry with it through the several turnings and windings of its passage For the Latex or juyce to be changed into Urine because it is forced through very secret passages and narrow as it were by a certain distillation therefore it is wholly deprived of the colour and consistency which it had from the taken Liquids and imbibes almost nothing but the volatile part from the Chyme whose Vehicle it is Wherefore if by reason of the great crudity the Salt Sulphur and other contents are not first made volatile in the Viscera nor afterwards dissolved in the Vessels that they may make their passage together with the serous juyce it being at last stripped almost of all is sent out like clear water That such Urines do want the active principles it is a sign because they are kept a long time from putrefaction This sort of Urine denotes in Virgins for the most part the Green-sickness in most the Cachexy or Dropsie in all it is a note of indigestion and crudity Sometimes in those obnoxious to the Stone it foretels the approach of the fit viz. whilst the Serum is coagulated by the stony juyce in the Reins its dissolutions and contents are congealed into a tartareous matter only a watry juyce or Latex staying behind Those who for some time make a thin and watry Urine whatever sickness they are obnoxious to have often adjoyned to it a difficulty of breathing and shortness thereof after motion and a distention about the region of the Ventricle and as it were a swelling up after eating The reason of the former wholly depends on the defect of spirits in the blood because its liquor is not fully imbued with active principles of Spirit Sulphur and Salt rightly exalted therefore it is not sufficiently kindled by the ferment of the heart whereby the whole may presently leap forth and break as it were into a flame but that hardly fermenting and being apt to stagnate in the heart and for the most part to reside there burdens it grievously wherefore if the blood so disposed is urged more than it is wont by a more quick motion into the bosom of the Heart because not being rarified of its own accord it may presently go wholly forth therefore there is need of great endeavour of the Lungs and a more quick or frequent agitation whereby it may be carried forth Therefore watry Urines signifie this kind of Crudity in the blood because for as much as they receive no tincture almost from the Salt and Sulphur it is a sign that the Particles are little dissolved in the mass of blood or are rendred volatile As to what appertains to the inflation of the Ventricle of which also limpid or clear Urines are the effect and sign I say because of a defect of due Fermentation the Chyle goes not into a volatile Cream but like bread not fermented into a sad and heavy mass which indeed is slowly and not without a residence of viscous Phlegm carried out of the stomach its reliques being impacted in the folds and Membranes of the Ventricle obstruct all the Pores and passages that nothing may vapour forth nor that the thin and spirituous part may be conveyed as it ought to be by the secret passages to the blood hence flatulencies are begotten which continually distend the Ventricle and blow it up beyond its due bulk also when those Feculencies are left a long time in the stomach they abound in a fixed Salt and degenerate now into an acid now into a vitriolick matter or of some other nature from whence Heart-aches desire of absurd things oftentimes Heat with cruel thirst and sometimes Vomiting arise some of which though they argue a very sharp heat to lye hid within yet by reason of the want of concoction such distempers often render the Urine crude and watry We have treated thus largely of a limpid or clear Urine because from hence the reasons of the
of the primary intention of Nature but result only secondarily and accidentally from the complication of the Brain he will be far from thinking that the supreme seat of the Soul is fixed there where being hem'd in with a most noble Guard of Spirits it doth execute and perform its Functions For it neither appears at all out of what matter and by what artifice the Spirits are there begotten nor by what ways of emanation they are derived from thence into the other parts of the Brain and nervous System Wherefore almost all Anatomists who are of a later Age have attributed that vile office of a Jakes or sink to this more inward chamber of the Brain To which Opinion there has been some trust given for that these Ventricles are often seen in the dead to be filled with water also from these ways seem to lye open for excretion both towards the Tunnel and also into the Sieve-like Bone It is observed that where-ever the blood flows more copiously into any part and waters it there Vapors or watry Humors are begotten from the superfluous Serum left in the circulation which for the most part either exhale out through vaporous Effluvia's or are brought back into the blood by the Veins or Lymphatick Vessels But when the blood by a plentiful influx waters not only the Cortex of the Brain but the interior marrow also it remains that the serous Latex when-ever it abounds more in the blood than that its superfluities may be reduced immediately by the Veins or by the Lymphaeducts if they be there or may be separated by the Glandula's should slide down into this den made hollow within the infolding of the Brain Truly there are many instances which plainly evince that the serous humors are ordinarily laid up in the Ventricles of the Brain Anatomical Observations of men dying of many Cephalick diseases and especially of soporiferous or sleepy distempers confirm this Yea it may be lawfully thought that natural sleep follows for that the Pores and passages of the Brain are occupied and stuffed with a watry Latex which serves for a Vehicle to the Spirits Then as often as a profound sleep invades any one from a Surfeit or drinking of Wine the cause is that the little spaces in the medullary substance of the Brain destinated for the motions of the Spirits are too much obstructed by a Narcotick or a watry humor certain reliques of which being resolved into vapor and thrust out from the company of the Spirits do often sweat out or drop into this Vacuum or empty space After this manner it may be believed concerning the Ventricles of the Brain or the empty space left within its plicature or folding together But in truth because this matter hath been very much controverted among Physicians of every Age and the right decision of it seems to be of great moment for the explicating the offices of the other parts of the Head I will here compare together the reasons for and against this Opinion that we may at length give our Judgment of this Opinion what may be either true or most likely CHAP. XII It is inquired into whether the serous Humors heaped together within the Vacuity of the Brain be sent out by the Pituitary Glandula and the Sieve-like Bone or not SInce Experience testifies that the Serum and excrementitious I may justly say morbifick and oftentimes deadly Humors are found frequently within these Ventricles of the Brain we ought to inquire more diligently concerning their passage in and out and the rather for that it is very much doubted by some concerning the use of these Dens nor are there wanting those in this late Age who have endeavoured to bring into vogue the ancient Opinion though long since exploded concerning the Spirits being begot in this place and here exercised I believe without doubting for the reasons before alledged that the Spirits are not here begotten nor exercised and no less certain is it made by Experience that the serous Colluvies is here often gathered together This therefore only remains that we should see from whence and how this flows hither and then by what ways of Excretion the same should be carried out As to the first it is exceeding probable that the serous Latex which is the Vehicle of the Spirits newly produced and is introduced together with them into the Pores of the Brain after it is grown stale and being attenuated into Vapour doth distil forth into this Cavern and there at last grows into a watry Humor for otherwise what becomes of that Humor or into what other Receptacle could it be derived Besides this ordinary and I believe assiduous heaping together of the serous Colluvies within the Ventricles of the Brain certainly it may be believed that this kind of serous Humor is distilled out of the Glandula's inserted in the Choroeidal infolding being too much filled into the Ventricles so called I have often seen in a Dropsie the Glandula's of the Brain to be intumified and like grains of Barley bursting with too much wet to become flaccid or withered so that they could not retain the ferosities brought to them but continually disposed them into the Cavity beneath Truly in a Dropsie of the Brain these Cavities or Ventricles are always seen to be full of water the cause of which kind of distemper is the blood being made more watry puts off in its circulation a greater heap of Serum than the Veins can presently carry back or the Glandula's are able to receive and retain For indeed that the Serum redounding on every side from the Vessels may the better slide into the Ventricles of the Brain it is so ordered that the greater infoldings of the Vessels with the inserted Glandula's should be disposed near all the Ventricles of the Head because not only the infolding Choroeides is placed nigh the concourse of the three Ventricles in the Brain but another infolding and no less noted which we above described with greater Glandula's is set behind the Cerebel nigh the fourth Ventricle In all as it seems for that end such care is taken that the watry part coming from the blood which is destinated either for the Brain or the Cerebel for that it is not fit for the procreating of Spirits might run into these infoldings of the Vessels But yet if a greater plenty of Serum be there laid up than can be contained in them or may be sent away outwardly whatever is superfluous will slide into the Cavity underneath Hence it appears from whence and by what means the serous heap is gathered together within the Ventricles of the Brain certainly to deny this going out is no other than to assert every ones Brain big with a Viper which cannot be brought forth but by gnawing asunder the bowels of its parent Who shall lightly consider the parts nigh the Ventricles and their Fabricks at first sight only would swear with the Ancients that the excrements of the brain were laid aside both lower
afore-prescribed Remedies Or the aforesaid Ingredients excepting the Liquoris and Raysons may be boyled in vi pints of Hydromel or water and hony or meath to the Consumption of the third part The dose â„¥ iiii to vi If that the aforesaid Method consisting in the use of Catharticks and Specificks being for some time tryed and altogether in vain you must come to Remedies of another kinde Great Remedies and chiefly to those called Great or Notable In this rank are placed Diaphoreticks Salivation Bathes and Spaws Alphonsus Ferrius affirms that he had cured many Epileptical people with a decoction of simple Guaicum being prescribed twice in a day and taken to vi or viii ounces and its second decoction drunk as in the cure of the Pox instead of ordinary drink If to such a decoction the roots of Paeony and other specificks should be added perhaps it would be more efficatious It seems probable that a Salivation strongly excited from Mercurie and afterwards a sudoriferous or Sweating-Diet following might certainly cure this Disease What Baths or spaw-Spaw-waters are able to do I have not observ'd either by my own or others experience Perhaps I have made tryall that our Artificial Spaws sometimes have been available in Curing the Epilepsie to wit both those impregnated with Iron and also with Antimony and taken in a great quantity for many days CHAPTER IV. Of other kinds of Convulsions and first of the Convulsive Motions of Children AFter the Epilepsie as it were the principal Spasm in the chief place excited to wit within the middle part of the brain the other Kindes of Convulsions come to be treated of in order The differences of those are best taken from a twofold kinde of cause and the various manners and accidents of either We have already shown that all Spasmodic distempers do flow either from the meer irritation of the spirits or from their explosion by reason of the cleaving of an Elastick Copula to them or jointly from both together wherefore the manifold Ideas of Spasms may be distinguished and distributed into certain Classes as it happens for this or that cause or either together to remain in the various places of the Encephalon or the nervous Appendix For indeed the Spasmodic matter or the explosive Copula of the Spirits finding a passage chiefly and most often thorow the Brain and sometimes in some measure thorow the extremities of the nerves subsists either about the origine of the nerves or their middle processes or their outmost ends or abounds in their whole passages as shall be by and by more particularly declared Further an irritation stiring up Convulsions by it self or with a previous remote cause although it be made every where in the nervous stock yet it chiefly and more frequently produces such an effect about the beginings middle processes and foldings or ends of the Nerves But the same Kinde of Cause and effects are after one manner in Infants and children and another in youths and those of riper age Since therefore we have determined particularly to consider all the kindes of Convulsions we will first discourse of the Convulsive motions of Infants and Children Infants and children happen so ordinarily and frequently to be tormented with Spasmodick Distempers that this is reconed the chief and almost the only Kinde of Convulsions for the Symptoms of this kinde in other more ripe people are wont to be called by other known Names and referred to the Epilepsie hysterick hypochondriac Collie passions or also to the Scurvie but in children they are called as it were by way of Excellency Convulsions As to this we must observe that children are found to be greatly obnoxious to Convulsions chiefly about two seasons to wit within the first month after they are born or about their breeding of Teeth Although it often happens that the assaults of this Disease may come also at other times and from certain other Causes In the first place therefore it very often happens that children newly born or at least er'e they are two months old are afflicted at every turn with Spasms excited in divers parts for that inversions of the eyes distortions of the cheeks and Lipps or tremblings yea Contractions of the Tendons and frequent jerkings or leapings forth of the members and sudden shakings of the whole Body infest them and that the same effect likewise sometimes afflicts the praecordia appears plain enough because whilst the Spasms busie the Limbs and outward members also the face becomes now pale now of a livid or dead Colour from the blood stagnating in the heart and the Lungs being at that time contracted As therefore Spasms are wont to infest three Regions of the Body in children to wit the parts of the head and face the outward members and Limbs and the Praecordia and viscera we observe now these regions now those now two or all together to be possessed by the morbific Cause to wit as it is fixed either about the beginings or ends of the nerves and when the former of these happens as the superior part of the oblong pith the middle or the lowest part of the spinal marrow is touch'd one or more parts together are assaulted by the morbifick Cause As to the other Causes of this Distemper to wit the procataric and evident those of the former Kinde do chiefly consist in two things first that all the parts of the Head in infants are very weak and abound with a viscous humidity to wit the Brain less firm and the tone of the nerves very loose so that they are not able to bear the more light force of every matter but the Spirits inhabiting them are easily incited into irregular motions or Spasms by the proper liquour wherewith those parts are watered if it flows never so little immoderately or at least more plentifully than for the measure of so little strength But in the second place because it appears by observation that children not only nor all who are of a more tender Constitution are found to be prone to this Disease therefore this ought to be rather accounted for a reason of the more remote morbid Cause that the Blood and nervous Juce are originally vicious in some Infants by reason of evills contracted from the womb For that the sanguineous mass wanting eventilation for many months past becomes impure in children newly born wherefore broad and Red puttings forth like the small pocks shew themselves through the whole skin in most children soon after they are born to which sort of wealks or efflorescences if they are hindred or repressed oftentimes dangerous exulcerations about the parts of the mouth follow Hence we may deservedly suspect such impurities of the blood sometimes to be poured forth into the brain and nervous stock considering their debility and for that reason Spasmodic Distempers to arise to wit whilst the blood being vitious from the womb endeavours to purifie it self it transfers its faeculencies into the head which were wont to be
and more light Convulsions in remote parts as hath been said or being slidden from thence more deeply into the passages of the nerves excites fits of Convulsions very Cruel such a progress of the morbific Cause we suspect in whom the Vertigo swooning heaviness of the head and torpor of the minde go before the Convulsive assalts Indeed the matter of the disease abounding as yet in the brain and marrowy Appendix produces these kinds of previous distempers which being slidden from thence into the Nerves causes Convulsions 2dly There is yet another way whereby it plainly appears that the materiall cause of the Convulsive Distemper is transferred to the beginnings of the Nerves to wit when the same being deposited by the serous water within the Cavities or ventricles of the Head it is insinuated into the Neighbouring roots of the Nerves For in Chronical Diseases when the remarkable discrasie of the blood and humours happens also to be accompanied with a praved disposition of the brain oftentimes a great plenty of sharp serum infesting the Nervous stock dropping forth from the Vessells of the Choroeidan or retiform enfoldings slides into the ventricles of the brain and its Appendix But this serous water afterwards breaking thorow the under-spreading of the Cerebell into the fourth ventricle the little skin there being displaced whereby the oblong marrow is uncovered it falls upon the beginnings of one or more of the Nerves and either by irritating or imbuing them with Heterogeneous and explosive particles induces the Convulsive disposition And this for the most part is the cause that sick people after long and ill handled Feavours also after the more grievous Cephalic Diseases at length dye of Convulsions as I have found by the frequent Anatomie of the Carcases of those who dyed by that means Also it appears by anatomical Observation that the brain may be overflowed by a certain serous water without the distemper of the Convulsive disposition and further that in some who dyed of the Epilepsie and other Convulsive diseases there was no deluge of the serum within the ventricles of the brain By which it is given us to be understood that the Convulsive distempers do not flow only from the waterie matter in the Head but that they arise not at all from such a cause unless the serous water overflowing the ventricles of the Brain and chiefly that underlaying of the Cerebel be imbued with heterogeneous and explosive particles I remember once my Councel to be ask'd for a young man labouring with an Egregious Phtisis and at that time truly desperate besides a cough and shortnesse of Breath he had grievously complained for many days yea weeks that he could not lye upon his back in his Bed or whilst he sat in a chair he could not lean his head backwards for that by this or that posture of his Body he was wont presently to suffer tremblings of his heart and a fainting of the Spirits as if he were just about to dye wherefore of necessity he was fain to hold his head upright or leaning forward After he was dead his carcase being dissected his Lungs appeared all over tumified and in some places Ulcerated then his Skull being opened there flowed within all the Ventricles of the brain a great quantity of yellow and salt Serum which water certainly whilst it did slide forward upon the fourth Ventricle about the Trunk of the oblong marrow his head leaning back rushing upon the heads of the wandring and intercostal pair of nerves did stir up the aforesaid Convulsions about the Praecordia but so long as his head was inclined forward that the heap of serum flowed back into the anterior Ventricles of the Brain the origine of the nerves remained free from that Convulsive matter Having hitherto shown how many ways and by what passages the morbific matter being dilated towards the origine of the Nerves seems to bring on Convulsions it were easie according to these reasons to unfold many Convulsive Symptoms for besides the Convulsive motions of Infants and children oftentimes excited from the same kinde of Causes hither may be referr'd the Contractions and sudden leapings forth of the nervous parts which follow upon feavours As also those passions commonly called Hysterical also hypocondriacal and certain others proceed not seldom from the morbific Cause rushing upon the beginings of the Nerves We will therefore endeavour to establish the truth of this Hypothesis by some other Histories and examples of Sick people but in the first place we will propose observations of that Kinde in whom the morbific matter setling upon the beginings of the nerves and not being as yet slid deeply into their processes induced frequent vertigos and only more light Convulsions of the Viscera and Praecordia A noble woman about 30. years of Age of a tender Constitution and lean in Observation 1 Body was wont every winter to be grievously afflicted with a Catarrh or Rhume flowing upon the winde pipe and Lungs with a hoarse Cough and great spitting but the last year great care and dilligence being used she avoyded that evill But after the winter Solstice having taken cold she was troubled with an huge pain of the head a tingling of the ears a giddiness with a great defluxion upon the eyes that it easily appeared that the heap of Serum which before this time was wont to distill into the Breast was now wholly layd up within the head and Brain besides an effect of which was that as often as she began to sleep she was greatly infested with passions as it were histerical to which she had never been before obnoxious For when ever being sleepy she closed her eyes presently a bulk ascending in her belly a choaking in her throat tremblings and leapings about the Praecordia were stirred up which Affections notwithstanding quite ceased when she was thorowly awakened so that the Sick party was necessitated to abstain almost altogether for many days and nights from sleep Being sent for to this Lady after she had bin sick and weak for many days I was compelled at length to use gentle medicines Therefore I took care that blood should forthwith be drawn from the foot to four ounces and every day a Clyster of milk and sugar to be administred by which she was wont to have three or four stools besides I gave her every eighth-hour a dose of the Spirits of Harts horn in a Spoonfull of the following Julap Take of the water of penny-royall of walnuts and black Cherries each ℥ iii. of Histerical water ℥ ii of the Syrrop of Clove-gilliflowers ℥ i ss of Caster tyed in a little knot and hang'd in the middle of the glass ʒss of the powder of Pearls ℈ i. mingle it I Caused with success a vesicatoris to be put behinde the ears and a Cataplasm of the leaves of Rue and Cuccowpint with the Roots of Bryony bay salt and black soap to be layd to the soals of her feet Sometimes I gave her in the
the Serum nor the bloody latex may sweat out or be broke off from the file of its circuit Wherefore in the Dropsie and great bleedings Remedies imbued with the Saline particles of Iron are of famous and efficacious use for very many Diseases proceed from this cause forasmuch as the little mouths of the Arteries being too open and the interspaces of the vessells above measure loosned the serum or bloody latex breaks forth which kinde of Affections the Vitriollic Particles of Steel do often help by binding and corroborating the sanguiferous Vessells and nervous fibres After this manner the filings of Steel being taken inwardly seems at once to add to the blood both spurs and a bridle But forasmuch as from this medicine an incitation much more than a restriction doth arise therefore it ought to be given only to them whose blood is very thick and cold as country people and strong persons in very hot and spirituous bloud and in hot inwards 't is no ways convenient moreover in delicate persons and men of a more tender constitution 't is dangerous lest the little portions of the steel when they cannot be sufficiently dissolved should like fragments of glass be driven into the membranes of the Viscera and there pertinaciously sticking produce some ulcer or deadly torments which indeed I have known sometimes to happen 2. After the filing of Iron the next way of preparing it is calcining it with Sulphur to wit let thin peeces of steel being strongly fired be laid upon a roler of Sulphur that the mettle may melt into little round balls which are to be calcined to the consumption of the Sulphur and pounded in a morter are to be reduced into a subtle powder which is of choice use In this preparation of Iron some sulphureous particles are exhaled the signe of which is that this powder an acid liquor being poured upon it much less boyls up or grows hot than the limature or filing of Iron but being taken by the same mouth it excites a Sulphureous savour In the mean time in this preparation the saline particles seem to be somewhat augmented by new ones sticking to them from the mettall burning with Sulphur so that active particles of either kinde to wit Sulphureous and Saline come almost to an Aequilibrium and when by this means this medicine the substance of the mettle being loosned may be finely poudered it becomes of far more excellent use than the filings ef Iron In most Cases where steel ought to be given in substance as in a Cachexie or a fullness of evill humours the longings of maids or the green-gckness and such like this medicine is convenient to be used 3. In the third place follows the preparation of steel with vinegar to wit the filings of the whole steel is moysten'd with vinegar and dryed till it may be reduced into an impalpable powder in this preparation the Sulphureous particles are yet much more yea as to the greatest part evaporated only a few being left in the mean time the Saline by reason of others sticking to them from the vinegar are much encreased which are mingled with the terrene particles This chalibiated powder very little or nothing froths or boyles up a sharp liquor being sprinkled upon it also being taken at the mouth has with it scarce any sulphureous Savour wherefore it conduces less to the taking away of the obstructions of the Bowells or to the restoring the ferment of the blood nevertheless in a more hot Constitution in hemorrhages or fluxes of Blood and the hypochondriac Distemper it is wont to be administred with greater success then the former preparations 4ly Follows the rust of Iron which being an extract of the metallic body seems to be as it were a fifth Essence because in this excrescency some particles of every kinde to wit sulphureous saline and terrene being loosned from the whole substance are combined among themselves and constitute as it were a new mixture more subtile and defaecated or clearer from dreggs For that in this concrete there remains less particles of sulphur therefore it doth not so potently ferment the blood or take away the obstructions of the Viscera as steel prepared with sulphur but in more hot distempers of the parts or humours it egregiously performs the requisite Intentions of a steeled Medicine To this Class may be referred by right our preparation of steel to wit in which all the particles of the mettal being loosned from the bond of mixture are contained together which notwithstanding the concrete being first reduced into pouder and immediatly dissolved in any water or Menstruum This powder being inwardly taken hath the like vertue as steel prepared with sulphur but to the liquor or menstruum in which it is dissolved it imparts almost only saline or chiefly vitriolic particles the sulphureous flying away and the terene sinking to the bottom I am wont to give in great quantity and not seldom with excellent success common water impregnated with the dissolution of this instead of the natural acidulous or spawish waters moreover I make thereof medicated wine beer cyder whey or other Liquors this pouder being dissolved in them and prescribe them to be taken for several intricate Intentions So much for the preparations of Iron in which the elementary particles of every kinde are comprehended in a various proportion There remain others in which the particles almost only of one kinde to wit the saline or earthie are left the rest as to the greatest part being driven forth of which sort are chiefly vitriol or the Salt of steel 5. For the making the vitriol of steel first the mettal is wont to be eaten thorow with a very sharp and corrosive Liquor and to be dissolved into elementary parts In the dissolving the saline particles of the menstruum are joyned to the other salines of the Iron and are with them intimately combined in the mean time the remaining sulphureous and terrene being laid aside and excluded from their company then common water being poured to this solution the salts of either kinde being combined are imbibed by the Liquor and that being lastly filtrated and evaporated they are reduced into christalls This kinde of making of salt or salification succedes if you do it either with the Spirit of vitriol the oyle of sulphur or stygian water or any others distilled from the stagmas of mineralls Yea Sal Armoniac only being soluted by melting dissolves Iron after the same manner and causes it to Chrystalize Salt of Steel thus prepared hath a sweetish taste with a certain sharp stipticity of binding and participates much of the nature of vitriol that it seems not to differ much from Verdigrease Taken inwardly for a medicine it somewhat ferments the humors and powerfully bindes the nervous fibres for cold Cachecical and Phlegmatic people this medicine is not convenient because there are in it no particles of Sulphur but it is often administred with successe in hot distempers of the bowels
joyning together Concatenated Joyned tyed or fastned together Conflagration A burning out or being in a flame as in great Feavers Conformation The framing fashioning or disposition of a thing Congelation A freezing or gathering together into an hard substance as Ice of Water Congeled Frozen stifned Congestion An heaping or gathering together Conjugation A yoking together a derivation of things of one kind Consistency Thickness or substance as a Jelly Convolutions Roulings about or together a twisting together Contexture A weaving together or a framing or composition Copula A joyning or fastning together fettering Corollary Addition vantage or overplus Corrosive Knawing eating corroding Corrugations Wrinkling together Cortex The bark shell or piel or rind Cortical Belonging to the bark or rind or piel of a thing Crasis The disposition complexion temperature or mixture of natural humors Crass Thick Crassament A thickness or thick setling as of dregs Cribrous Sivelike or that hath holes like a Sive Crude Raw undigested Crudities Raw and undigested humors or rawness or indigestion of any thing Crisis Is the time of the turn of the disease when it either increases or diminishes always observed by the Physitians Critical To the Crisis or such time belonging Cremasteral Muscles belonging to the Testicles Crural Belonging to the Leg. Crucible An earthen Vessel used to melt Metals with Cucurbite A Glass-body with a great Belly used in distillations Cuneform Wedg-like or in form of a Wedg a bone so shap'd Cutaneous Belonging to the skin or skinny Culinarie Belonging to the Kitchin Cuticula The little thin skin under the Cutis or the upper skin Cutis The upper or outward skin of the Body D Dead head The same with Caput mortuum Decapulation A pouring off Defection A failing weakness or infirmity Decoction A boyling or seething Defecated Made free from dregs Deflagration A flaming or burning forth Deliquium As of the salt of Tartar a clear draining also a swooning away or a failing of the senses Delirium A raving madness as in Feavers Deltoides A muscie in the top of the Arm having the figure of a Delta the Greek D. Demersed Drowned Depauperated Made poor or wasted Depraved Corrupted or marred Depurated Cleansed from dregs Depuration A cleansing or making pure Desultory Leaping wavering or inconstant Diabetes The Pissing evil a disease that causeth the party troubled therewith almost continually to piss and in a great quantity a clear and sweetish water Diacodium A Syrup to procure sleep made of the tops of Poppy Diagnosis Dilucidation or Knowledg Diagridium See Scammony Diaphoresis Evaporation as by sweating Diaphoretic That causeth Evaporation or sweating forth of humors Diaphanous Clear and splendid Diaphragma The Midriff that separateth the Heart and Lights from the stomach Diapneon A breathing forth Diapnoe A breathing forth Diarrhaea A loosness of the Belly without inflammation a Lask Diascordium A Cordial medicine made of Scorum and other Ingredients Diastole The rising up of the Heart or Artery the contrary motion of Systole Diathesis The affection or disposition Diluted Rinsed or washed Dilucidation An explaning or clearing Dioptric Belonging to the Perspective or a Mathematical Instrument thorow which they look to take the height of a thing Divarications A varying or severing into parts running up and down as the Veins and Nerves Diversory A diverting place or a place to turn of one side out of the way Diuresis Evacuation by Vrin Diuretick A Medicine that causeth evacuation by Vrin Dogmatic Stiff in Opinion Duodenum The first Gut or Intestine of twelve fingers long Dura mater The hard membrane or tunicle that encompasseth the Brain next the skull Dyscrasie Intemperature as some humor or quality abounding in the Body Dysentery A flux of the Belly that corrodes the Bowels and often causes blood called then the Bloudy flux Dyspathy A contrariety of affection Dyspnoea A pursiness or shortness of breathing and a stopping of the Conduits of the Lights E Ebullition A boiling up Eccentric Without Centre Eccathartic Not purging Eccritic Not critical Edulcorated Made sweet Effervency A being very hot or inflamed Effervescency A being very hot or inflamed Effluvia Things that flow out of the Body as steam and breath thorow the pores of the skin Egestion A casting forth as ordure from the Body or any excrementitious humor Egritude Sickness or not being well Elastick That goeth off with a force like Gun-powder or spreads forcibly forth with a jerk Elaterium A violent strong purging Medicine Elixation A boyling Elixir An Arabian word for Quintessence high Cordials so called Elogie A report in praise or dispraise of a thing Emanations Things that flow or proceed from the Body or its parts flowing forth Embryo The Child before it hath perfect shape in the Mothers womb Emissaries Places that sends forth any thing as the sinks of the Body Empirical Belonging to an Empirick or of knowledg in Physick got by practice only Empiric Such a Physitian who hath no judgment but has all his skill from practice or by experiments Empyema An Imposthume or collection of corrupt matter with inflammation between the breast and the Lungs Empyreuma A smatch or taste of the fire as burnt too or as in most waters newly drawn off by distillation Emulgent Vessels or Arteries or Veins two large Arteries so called springing out of the great Artery which being carried near to the back-bone are inserted into the Reins Also two large Veins which springing out of the Vena Cava under the Ventricle are carried into the Kidneys Emulging Vessels or Arteries or Veins two large Arteries so called springing out of the great Artery which being carried near to the back-bone are inserted into the Reins Also two large Veins which springing out of the Vena Cava under the Ventricle are carried into the Kidneys Emunctories Sinks or cleansing places for the Body Encephalon The head and all its parts Enema A Clister Energy The force or operation or virtue of a thing Enervation Vnnerving or a loosing of the strength a weakning or making feeble Enthymiama Medicines used to express the flowing of the Blood or other humors to any place Enthymeta Medicines used to express the flowing of the Blood or other humors to any place Ephemera Things of a days lasting a short Feaver of a day Epidemical General universal publick Ephidrosis A sudden sweat beginning about the head and breast passing over the Body unprofitable and of small use for that Evacuation of the disease sometimes taken for sweating Epigastric Belonging to the Epigastrium Epigastrium The same with Abdomen or the outward part of the Belly from the Navil to the privy members Epilepsie The Disease called the Falling-sickness Epiphysis Is an addition of some bone of a different description to the true bone to which it is annexed an addition or augmentation Epispasticks Certain Medicines used for the drawing forth of ulcerous matter Epithema Moist Medicines used to bathe or foment the parts affected Epithymum Dodder of Time used to purge