oyly acid foetid or acrid salt Temper of the Blood which is apt to ferment too much 3. A bitter acrid Choler which with the Tartar of the Meat produces a great Saltness of the Blood 4. A frequent and impetuous Circulation of the Blood which raises the Digestion of it which happens often in Summer and to Young Men by Passions or Surfeits 5. Foetid Humours retained ferment the Humours as the salt Serum the Semen the Choler and many extraneous Ferments come into the Blood from without as in the Itch Leprosie Pox the Ferment of infectious Fevers or the Poysons from Mad-Animals or venomous Bites of them All which have their Effects on the Animal by Fermenting its Humours Such as the Blood and Spirits of Animals be as to their Qualities such is the Temper of their Stomachic Ferment for that rises from the other and any Errour committed in Chylification is communicated to the Blood and Spirits The Cure of too high a Fermentation requires First That all the Evident Causes be avoided and that we use a contrary Diet of crude acerb watery mucilaginous Styptics as crude Vegetables Bistort Lettuce Spinage Cucumbers Sorrel Melons Fruits as Apples Plumbs Cherries Strawberries Sloes the Legumens as young Peas Beans boiled Wheat and all the farinaceous Meats of Oat or Barley Meal Rice or Pudding Panados The Drink ought to be small Beer or Water two Parts with a little Wine or else the Drinking Mead Elder-Wine or Wood-Drinks or Water it self or thin Milk Milk-Meats are very useful in this State for we add Milk to fermenting Wines to stop their Fretting Secondly All Choleric Humours ought to be evacuated and the Rancid Contents of the Stomach I. By Vomiting with Carduus or Sal Vitrioli or Squills II. By Cholagogues and those 1. Nauseous Dock-Bitters as Chewing of Rhubarb or its Infusion with Manna by Dock-Beer 2. By Aloetics Elixir Proprietatis cum Acido 3. By Bitterish and Nauseous Pea-Tastes as Sena III. By the Bitterish Purging Waters IV. By Diagrydiates mixt with Tartar or some Acid Rhubarb Pouder by Pil. Tartareae V. By Lenitive Sweet Purgers as Manna El. Lenitiv Thirdly The oyly bilious or salt Temper of the Ferment and Blood and its frequent Circulation are to be corrected and checked 1. By Acids as Spirit of Salt Vinegar Sulphur Niter Alum Conserve of Roses vitriolated cum Tinct Rosar which coagulate the Chyle the Bile the Salt Serum and the oyly Particles of the Blood and thereby fix them Bitters are always corrected by Acids so the Bitter of Aloes Coloquintida is abated by Spirit of Sulphur or Vitriol 2. Styptics preserve the Consistence of the Blood and hinder or cure Fevers as Plantain House-Leek Tormentil Cinquefoil Purslain 3. The Mucilaginous incrassate or thicken the Consistence as Gum Tragacanth and Icthyocolla Borrage Bugloss Emulsions Lettuce 4. Watery Liquors temper and dilute hot Humours as Mineral Waters Whey with Syrup of Violets and cool bitterish slimy or acid Juyces milk-Milk-Waters drinking Milk and Water 5. Bitterish Crude Plants deterge away the Choler as the Cichory Bitters as Decoction of cichory-Cichory-Roots or Dandelion in Whey with Cream of Tartar 6. Opiates stop the vapid Circulation of Blood 7. Mercurial Medicines depress the Fermentation and cool Humours and stop Putrefaction Fourthly Frequent Bleeding abates the Fulness of Humours and checks their Fermentations or Fervors or Ebullitions Fifthly All Evacuations suppressed ought to be renewed and all extraneous Ferments to be corrected or evacuated Sixthly Externally we may check the Ebullition of the Blood by applying Water and Vinegar to the Pulses Stones Forehead Feet and in an extraordinary Case the Patient ought to be put into cold Water or dipt according to the Method communicated to me by my Ingenious Friend Dr. Baynard a Member of the College of Physicians whose Success by it in Curing such Diseases as depend on too high a Fermentation of the Blood is very well known and the Practice seems to me very Rational if managed according to the Rules his Experience has found out The Diseases which chiefly affect the Stomach upon too high a Fermentation are an Oyliness and Rancidity of its Contents and a Nidorous Ructus The Causes of these are 1. A Salso-acid spirituous Ferment 2. Meats which are half putrid or oyly or rancid or fat or fryed with Fat and corrosive Vegetables as Garlic Onyons or the much Use of Tobacco 3. Choleric or Salt Humours mixed with the natural Ferment Since these Nidorous Ructus depend on the Acrimony of Humours and the Foetid Spirituosity of the Ferment and the Putridness of the Meat they are improperly imputed to a Crudity for a Foetor is rather a sign of a Putrefaction and in no Crudity are the oyly acid Spirits so far volatilized in the Stomach The Cure of this Nidorosity is 1. By Evacuation by Vomiting and Purging as is directed 2. By Correcting the Oleous Temper of the Bile or Ferment or Meat by the Acids mentioned as Cream of Tartar Juyce of Limon Decoction of Tamarind Spirit of Niter dulcified with Spirit of Mint or Aniseeds Or by Salso-Acids as Sal Prunellae 3. By Externals Styptics Aromatics and Acids as Quinces and Mint with Vinegar and Leaven By too great a Fermentation of the Meat the Lacteal Lympha as the Saliva becomes nauseously Sweet and Sharp and the Ferment of the Stomach of the same quality which produces a Nauseousness and by its Salso-Acid a hot Cholic The Mucus of the Larynx and Aspera Arteria becomes Sharp or Salso-Acid and produces Coughs The Milk in the Breasts becomes bitter rank oyly salt thick which gives Gripes to Children and Vomits them The Semen becomes salt and stimulating as in Furor Vterinus The Succus Nervosus salt or more lucid than ordinary as in Deliriums and more Oyly and Foetid The Salt Lympha becomes more Salt as in the Gout Stone Haemorrhagies and the Scurvy Those are most disposed to this State of Blood who are of Choleric hot Constitutions for the same kind of Diet produces much Choler which over-ferments the Blood as all acrid bitter salt aromatic and sweet things and all hot Meats and Medicines injure them but cool ones and those that are Serous refresh them The Choleric have their Senses and Actions of the Mind and Motions of the Body very quick and ready their Passions of Anger and Revenge violent and their Dreams cruel and little Sleep and their Pulse full and hard and all these Symptoms depend on Fiery or Choleric Hot Spirits The Abundance of Choler abates the Appetite creates Thirst and requires a cool-Diet and disposes to Fevers and Phrensies The Erysipelas and Choleric Vomitings and Loosenesses and a bitterness in the Mouth the Vrin is thin yellowish or flame Coloured or red The Habit of the Body is generally lean and the Colour of the Face yellowish and the Hair yellow or black By these Signs mentioned we may know when Humours are too high fermented and Choler produced but that the Nature of
Liquors force it as distilled Waters with Diuretics Whey Milk and Water Asses Milk Mead Posset-Drink with Chamomile Flowers Pellitory and Mallows Chalybeate Waters and Water distilled from Birch Juyce and Daucus Seeds 6. Vomits Sneezing Leaping Standing on the Head and Cupping-Glasses Riding Stroaking the Loins and Belly or Cupping-Glasses help to remove the Stone and Bleeding in the Arm or Foot and Purging to which Laudanum must be added 7. Narcotics allay the Pain 8. The Glysters may be made deterging as of Turpentine Vrin and Purgers or Carminatives and Diuretics with Soap and Oyls The Preservation from the Concretions of Stones requires 1. Vomiting and Cholagogues Purging Waters or Purging Antiscorbutic Diet Drinks or Purging once a Month. 2. The salso-acid or vitriolic Blood is corrected by Chalybeate or Bath Waters Asses Milk drank distilled Milk Oat Mault Whey with Antiscorbutics Water drinking a Toast and Water and Nutmeg every Morning fasting or Antiscorbutic cooling Juyces Emulsions Strawberry Water 3. The vitriolic Acid requires temperate Chalybeates Testaceous Salts volatile and fixed Tinct Antimonii Tartari 4. The Use of Vulneraries which deterge as Veronica Strawberry Roots Virga Aurea Hypericon Millefoyl ground Ivy Pine Tops Ceterach boiled in Beer or Water to which Honey and White-Wine must be added and Lucatellus's Balsam taken at Night or Turpentine Pills with Bole cum Mastich or Rhubarb A Plate of Lead must be worn on the Back The Stone in the Bladder must be cured 1. By Diuretics if the Stone be small and can pass as by the Acrids or Caustics as Water distilled from Caicus or the Powder of Millepedesʒi 2. By Lixiviums 3. By Cutting if the Stone cannot pass the chalybeate Waters do Injury in such a case and the palliative Cure requires the Evacuating the calculous Matter which increases it the allaying the Pain and Strangury by gum and mucilaginous Medicines as Comfrey Roots Milk and Water Emulsions and Asses Milk and Narcotics and Vulneraries Fourthly Of the Hypochondriac Flatulencies arising from too high a Fermentation of Humours Windiness is an extraordinary Complaint in all Hypochondriacal Cases which arises either Symptomatically from the Obstruction Schirrus or Inflammations and Imposthumations of some of the Viscera or else it depends on some viscid sowre Phlegm lodged in the Stomach or some putrid Humour which ferments the new Mass of Meat into continual Eructions which taste either hot burning broyling fat foetid or very sharp sowre according as the Ferment of the Stomach is tinctured either with too much bitter Choler salt Serum or the vitriolic Spleen Juyce which is also viscid and thrown upon the Stomach The Cure of this Flatuosity requires the Evacuation of the flatulent Mass and the vitiated Ferment and afterwards the Humour that tinctures it must be carried off by those Glands which are made for its Secretion We must lastly use those cooling Alteratives which are prescribed in the over-fermentation of Humours This is the Flatulency properly of the Chyle over-fermented but the second Species of hot Flatulencies is from too great a Rarefaction or Expansion of the Spirits in the Mass of Blood and such a Fret of the Spirits we observe in all vinous Liquors when they are kept too hot for then those Liquors are very windy and taste hot and froth much Such is the Temper of the natural Spirits of the Blood when it is apt to febrile Effervescences upon very slight occasions in Hysterical Hypochondriacal or Scorbutic Persons who are sensible of sudden Alterations of Heat and Chilness and I have observed in a Scorbutic person a sudden Tumour rising in the Flesh which would immediately subside again This flatulent Effervescence of Spirits must be cured as an Ephemera removing the Occasion and tempering the Humours by Acids Acerbs Mucilages and Opiates as will hereafter be described and the Disposition to this Flatulency will be removed by a long use of the Cortex and those cooling Alteratives which depress too high a Fermentation There is a third kind of hot Flatulency which happens in the Nerves who receive their flatulent Spirits from the Blood In the Nerves the Spirits being rarefied or expanded produce the Asthma of which I shall particularly treat or the Tympany Cramps and running Pains Poysons tumifie the Body by rarefying the Spirits and some who die of Convulsions are prodigiously swell'd those who die of the Iliac-Passion have their Bellies much swelled This Nervine Flatulency requires the same Method for Curing the Inflammation of the Spirits as in an Ephemera and also the same Method for preventing any new fit of Windiness in the Nerves as is mentioned above for the Natural and Animal Spirits differ not in Nature for what is in the Blood now after a small time is carried through the Nerves and so returns into the Blood again The Ferment producing hot Flatulencies was esteemed by the Ancient Writers to be Humores adustos atrabilarios acidos instar fermenti sese habentes as Sennertus describes it and of this Opinion was Diocles Carystius for which he quotes Galen's Third Book de Locis affectis The crude Flatulencies are produced by a weak Heat as they called it that is a low crude Ferment which does not thoroughly ferment the Meat and that is either serous or a viscid Slime in the Stomach or tartareous Acidities but in all hot Flatulencies the Ferment producing the Flatulencies is either bilious saline vitriolic or putrid Some Flatulencies are imputed to the Contrarieties of Humours as that which is produced by fixt Salt or Alcali and acid Spirits such may be observed in the Guts betwixt acid Meats and acrid Choler which produce the nitrous Flatulency These following Flatulencies are not produced by a weak Heat or Fermentation but by adust Humours that is an over-fermentation as the Flatus in a hot Cholic are from Inflammation of the Guts The Tympany depends on a hot Flatulency rather than on a cold or low Fermentation The Hypochondriac Affection is accompanied with so much Flatulency that it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and depends on too high a Fermentation and the Blood is too thick and hot and the Spirits inflamed These are Flatulencies depending on the hot Ferments mentioned and these produce it from any kind of Meat taken but there is a different Flatulency arising from the hot Spirits lodged in some kind of Meats as in Poysons Garlic and many oyly Fruits and fryed Meats and all other Diet which turns nidorus on the Stomach Any Animal Humour kept to putrefie as the Serum of the Blood long bottled becomes flatulent Putrefaction in all Tumours ripened swells them by which it appears that all Windiness is an effect of some preternatural Ferment either too strong or weak or mixt with other Humours by which it preternaturally ferments them for when the stomachic Ferment does its Office well no Ructus are produced and from hence it appears that the windy Fumes or Vapours are nothing but the natural Spirits of our Humours ill fermented
All sweet Fruits have their Mucilage as Grapes Gooseberries c. and therefore these yield much phlegmatic Matter in Digestion and all thick Wines made of them are accounted Phlegmatic All the Legumens as Peas and Beans have an evident Sliminess and so have all Cakes and crusty baked Pyes or such like and all Meats prepared of Flower All the Olera as Cabbage Turnips Lettuce Spinage Cucumbers Melons c. have an evident Sliminess which they always produce in Animals who eat them This Mucilage in Plants is their crude Juyce and is of an Oyly Nature as appears evidently in Linseed this is of a cooling quality as Phlegm is accounted from their crude Slime many Plants prepare their sweet bitter acrid or aromatic Tastes and Phlegm is a nutritious Juyce which may be farther digested into Blood The Nervous Parts of Animals yield the greatest Slime as the Calves Feet and Head the Guts are Membranes of Animals the shavings of Horns and the decoctions of Bones The Liver Spleen and Brains have much Slime Fish and Water-Fowl who feed of turbid and muddy slimy Water are accounted to be the Causes of Phlegm especially Eels All Flesh full of Nourishment as Beef Pork Gellies Gravies and Eggs increase the matter of Phlegm Young Creatures as Pig Lamb c. yield a very great Slime if eaten too young Goats-Flesh cats very slimy All fat Meats are slimy and of hard Digestion and fat Bodies are usually phlegmatic Oyl has a Slimeness and so has Fat always joyned with it Milk breeds much Phlegm from the Caseous parts in it and Butter is accounted phlegmatic from its oyly fat parts Too great a quantity of Meat and often Drinking great quantities breed a Sliminess in the Chyle by hindring the Fermentation of the Meat and its perfect Dissolution 2. Sleep and Idleness hinder the circulation of Humours and produce a stagnation of them by which their viscid oyly or sibrous parts cohere and unite into a Slime 3. A Mucilage is increased in the Humours by a fenny wet Countrey or moist Air which clogs the Spirits fermenting and a cold Air coagulates the Humours so the lymphatic Liquor exposed to the Air immediately grows thick or gellies and all our strong Broths grow thick and viscid by cooling 4. Cares and Sadness stop the Motion of Humours and thicken them and hence it is that melancholy Persons are phlegmatic and spit much viscid Phlegm 5. The Suppression of Evacuations as the Menses in Girls and stoppage of a Cough or Spitting encreases Phlegm in the Stomach 6. Haemorrhages long Fevers Fluxes of the Belly or other Chronical Diseases produce much Slime 8. Those who have been born of phlegmatic Parents or live in a moist cold Countrey near standing Waters or the Sea-side those who are of a great Age for want of a perfect Digestion and those who are very Young as Children through their much and disorderly eating Women by reason of the lesser degree of Fermentation in that Sex abound most with Phlegm The Cold and the Moisture of the Air stopping the Pores in the Winter-time makes that Season to be accounted most phlegmatic 9. The Mucilaginous Temper of the Blood Chyle and Ferment of the Stomach is natural to some Constitutions who dissolve their Meat only into a Mucilaginous Juyce which is the greatest Crudity of our Digestion and therefore from this arises all our Phlegm for that was accounted by the Ancient Physicians the coldest Humour which being a nutritious Juyce it by only fasting was turned into Blood This crude Chyle swims in the Blood and appears as Milk in the Blood let out of some Persons who are greatly Cachectic and by putting Spirit of Harts-Horn to such milky Blood I have turn'd it reddish or of a rosy Colour Such was the Blood of a Gentleman who had drank hard and bled much this milky Blood in him was never turn'd into Serum but in others of a less Crudity the milky Chyle is imperfectly turned into Serum but that is very much in quantity and watery or insipid rather than very salt The Sanguification is hindred for want of an acrid Bile and the Saltness thence proceeding The Circulation is hindred by the viscidity of the Slime and the Secretion of most of the glandulous Humours The Chyle is never digested further than to a nutritious Sweetness and from hence the habit of the Body is very fleshy and fat but the Pulse slow soft and weak the Spirits are dull and torpid the Bile ropy and sweet rather than bitter or acrid the Juyce of the Spleen very mucilaginous for want of Digestion and the Blood has more of a gelatinous Consistence than fibrous and Tumours happen in the Viscera or Glands In the Brain sleepy Distempers and Dulness of the Senses or Stolidity from the thick Sliminess of the nervous Juyce the Vrin is pale and waterish with thick and white farinaceous Contents or without any if there be Obstructions and an Appetite is wanting The Sweats are cold and viscid for Phlegm offends by both those qualities The Succus Nutritius abounds with Slime and causes a leucophlegmatia or pale Tumour of the habit of the Body The Seminal Lympha's are cold and slimy in Sterilities and the fluor albus or Gonorthoea simplex and so becomes unsit for the use of a Ferment in Generation The Lympha lactea is most abundant in the phlegmatic for that is immediately produced from the mucilaginous Chyle and separated by the Glands of the Mouth whence the slimy Phlegm is hawked up and this is plentifully emptied into the Stomach where it causes a loss of Appetite a saburra pituitosa and windiness and in the Lungs it causes Coughs and â—â—oppage of Phlegm or dyspnoea with Lassitude in the Limbs a slow Fever and Palenes of Vrin and of the Countenance and Palpitation of the Heart which are the signs of a pituitous Cachexia evident in the Green-Sickness All outward oedematous Tumours arise from the succus nutritius of a pituitous Temper This Chyle and the Lympha lactea is the natural and alimentary Pituita which the Ancients described as insipid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Galen's description of it this is the humid cool and sweetish part which is so agreeable to the Taste of the Blood and they esteemed that Blood pituitous naturally which abounded with an exceeding quantity of sweetish Chyle which remained something undigested in the Blood and was not wholly sanguified but capable of it this of all the Humours to the touch was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or coldest and they called it most viscid or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when it is made so by the great Ebullition of Blood in Inflammations for they thicken it into that tough Skin which covers the Blood when cooled in the Dish But when this chylaceous part of the Blood or the Lympha's thence arising become preternatural Galen describes the Phlegm thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The lacteal Lympha's have their Acidities from Stagnation in
the Head in the Hydrocephalus 3. Hydrops Thoracis is when it is evacuated into the Cavity of the Breast 4. In the Dropsy of the Womb the Water is contained in the Cavity of it or its Testicles or distends the Lymphatics into Vesiculae 5. In the Hydrocele the Water is evacuated into the Cods These Distempers depend on too great a Serosity of the Blood but they being Evacuations of it into particular Cavities ought to be treated of under that head The external Causes of the Serosity of the Blood are I. A wet and a moist Region which supplies great foggy Air for our Respirations and by that we imbibe its Humidities and that also hinders Transpiration and so increases the Serosity II. A crude watery mucilaginous Diet of Vegetables Fish immoderate Drinking Milk-Meats Broths Water drinking Herbs and Fruits III. The Intermission of dew Exercise which ought to discuss by Sweat and that also helps Chylification Sanguification and the Circulation and Secretion of Humours IV. The Suppression of Evacuations by Sweat and Vrin in the Stone or the Suppression of Fontinels Menses Haemorrhoids or Looseness make the Blood more serous V. The Sanguification is weakened by great Evacuations as Haemorrhagies Dysenteries Fluxes of the Menses as also by the Fluor Albus and Vomitings and Quartanes VI. Sadness and Sleep stop the Motion of our Spirits and Humours and by that means hinder our Sanguification of the Chyle The internal Causes of too much Serosity of the Blood are 1. A weak Ferment and a watery Chyle 2. A vapid watery Blood which is less florid and oyly and wants its due Saltness by which it ought to turn the new Chyle into the Serum and the Cake of Blood 3. The Circulation of the Blood being hindred by any inward Polypus or Tumour of the Viscera as the Lungs Liver Spleen Kidneys either cause an Extravasasion of the Serum or hinder its Digestion and Sanguification and the Stagnation of it is observed in some part The Circulation of the Blood is deficient in the languid and dying and their Legs pit The Circulation being often stopt occasions that Dropsies follow Asthma's Hysterical Fits and other Convulsions The Signs of a serous Constitution and of the serous Cacochymia are The Use of watery Meats and Drinks Evacuations of Sweat or Vrin or any other stopt The Swelling of the Belly Legs or Face under the Eyes much Sweating or great quantity of pale Vrin watery Stools and much Water contained in the Blood when let forth above an equal weight of the Serum in respect of the Cake The Cure of the serous Cacohymia requires First A dry Diet and that which is heating drinking Wine or strong Beer Roast rather than Boiled all manner of salt bitter acrid or aromatic Pickles and abstinence from much Liquids only lbiss of Wine in a Day for 40 Days or else with Wormwood Juniper-Berries Anti-scorbuties and Ashes in constant Drink Secondly The Evacuation of the Chyle which is watery from the primae viae Blood or Cavities of the Body 1. By Purgers which by their Tithymaline Acrimony carry off the Water as Extract Esulae Pil. De Gambogia Turbeth 2. Or by Purgers which have an acrid Resin as Jalap Mechoacan Scammony with Merc. dulcis 3. Or by nauseous Bitters as Syrup de Spina Roots and Seeds of Dwarf Elder Juyce of Briony Solanum Lignosum Soldanella Troches of Alhandal Elaterium Extract of Hellebor Or by other gentler Acrids as Jayce of Iris. Or Vitriolic Minerals as Crystals of Silver Squamae Aeris Antimonials Infusion of Crocus Metallorum Mercurius Vitae Turbeth Mineral and these work by Vomit and evacuate the Serum both ways Thirdly The Serum must be evacuated out of the Cavities by Paracentesis unless the Dropsie depend on a Schirrus of the Viscera for that is incurable The Parts may be pricked with a Needle above the Knee and Escarotics applied of Ash-Ashes or Blystering Plaster Fourthly The serous Matter is most plentisully evacuated by Vrin 1. By Lixiviums of Broom Juniper Bean-Ashes infused in White-Wine with Orange and Limon Peels or Flints extinguished in Wine 2. By Salso-Acids Tart. Vitriol Sal Armoniac or Salt of Wormwood and Spirit of Salt dissolved in any diuretic Julep Sal. Succini Sal. Prunell or Salt of Tartar nitrated the Herb Kali half a dram three Mornings successively 3. By acrid and caustic Turpentines Juniper-Berries Golden Rod Conyza Roots Enula Campane Squinanth Asarabacca Roots Spikenard Leaves of Arse-smart Savin or Pine Leaves Hepatica Terrestris 4. By watery Caustics Ranunculus Hederaceus Aaron Roots Anagallis Mas Ros Solis Squills Garlic Acrids as Garlic infused in Ale or its Juyce in Broths or Onions or Leeks in the same or Nettle Roots which have a caustic Juyce in them 5. By Cresse Acrids Infusion of Mustard-Seed in Wine Spirit of Scurvy-Grass and the Leaves of Scurvy-Grass Juyces of Water-Cresses 6. By aromatic sweet Acrids as Daucus Parsley Fenil Dill-Seeds distilled Water from Water Parsnip Roots of long Fenil Smallage Parsley Chervil 7. By the smoaky bitter Acrids as Eryngo Scabious Carduus Roots of Burdock and the Seeds 8. By the aromatic bitterish Acrids as Penny-Royal Hyssop Rosemary Sage 9. By the acrid Legumens as Asparagus and Butchers Broom-Roots Periclymenum Flowers Broom 10. By the acrid Foetids as Rheu Crocus Rheu boiled in White-Wine Posset-Drinks help the Tympanitical to make Water plentifully 11. By the bitter Acrids of a wormwood Taste as Sea and common Wormwood 12. By the acrid Bitters of a Mather Taste as Radix Rabiae 13. By Acrids of a laurel Taste as Bay-Berries Ash Seeds tops of Holly and Ivy-Berries 14. By acrid Insects as Millepedes Earth-Worms Scarabaei Grashoppers 15. By burning Acrids of the Orris kind as Xyry Acorus 16. By the bitter Acrids as Grana Alkakengi Bacc. Fraxini Bubulae 17. By volatile Salts and chymical acrid Cyls of Vegetables or Bitumens 18. By Acid Minerals Spirit of Salt Oyl of Vitriol By acid Vegetables Juyce of Limons Cream of Tartar Vinegar helps the Thirst 19. By the lamium Faetids as Hedera Terrestris 20. By the strong Bitters Salvia Agrestis Lupulus Scordium Chamaedrys Marrubium Vervein 21. By the sweet nauseous Bitters as Centaury Trifolium Palustre Gentian Fifthly The Serum may be evacuated by Clysters as 1. Vrinous 2. Terebinthinate 3. Of the bitterest Purgers as Coloquintida 4. By Sulphurous Medicines as Infusion of Crocus Metallorum 5. By Tithymaline Acrids added as Gambogia Ê’ss dissolved in Sack Sixthly A sweating Diet of Guaiacum and with that he may dilute his Wine for ordinary Drink Baths or Fomentations or the frequent Use of Venice Treacle discuss by Sweat and the Balsamum Polychrestum Seventhly All Hydropical Tumours may be discussed by Baths Fomentations Cataplasms Oyntments Plasters 1. By the acrid foetid and aromatic Plants above-mentioned being boiled in salt Liquors as Sea-Water a Lixivium of Ashes or Aqua Calcis 2. By the Stercora of Animals boiled in Wine Vrin or a Lixivium and Sulphur added to them 3.
Binding of the Body Whatsoever ferments the Blood too much breeds Choler and that the Animal Saltness The internal Causes of Saltness are 1. The Natural Saline Temper of the Blood which supplies a Ferment for the Chyle of the same Nature to turn it into the like Saltness 2. Too quick a Circulation of the Blood excites too great an Ebullition and makes the Choler more acrid and the Salt more sharp and in greater quantity 3. The acrid Choler and sharp Acid of the Spleen or Tartar Acid which is corrosive produce the sharpest Salt 4. A preternatural Putrefaction in Fevers or long Effervescences make the Blood very salt So a Cancer Fistula the Itch or Lues Venerea or Consumptive Lungs Kidnies or other Viscera give a Ferment to the Blood and putrefie it into a Saltness The Cure of the Muriatic and Armoniac Saltness requires I. To abstain from fermented Drinks and to use watery Liquors as Milk and Water and the Decoction of the cooler Woods Wine and Water or Water boiled with Coriander Seeds and Sugar To abstain from Salt Meats and those dried in Smoak or Pickles To abstain from Ferments as old Cheese Fish To use slimy Meats as new Cheese Fruits Farinaceous Meats and Milk Meats Snails Tortoises Jellies Cray Fishes Tripes and the Feet of Animals and Young Pigs Goat Lamb Veal In short The Diet must be crude watery acerb mucilaginous farinaceous subacid The Air dry and not foggy Sea Air. II. The Salt Humours must be evacuated by the Sennate Rhabarbarate and sweet Manna Purgers with Acids added or the Purging Waters which are nitrous or aluminous or vitriolic these wash and cool by their Waterishness and precipitate the Salt by their Stypticity Hydragogues which evacuate the Serum abate the Saltness III. The Salivation by Mercury evacuates plentifully the Salt Serum and Aethyops Mineralis and Merc. dulcis correct the Saltness by joyning with the salso-Acid of the Blood and all Mercurials depress the over-Fermentation of the Blood as much as Chalybeates exalt the low Fermentation IV. The Salt Serum is sweat off by salso-acid or urinous Medicines and for the same end we use Baths and much Exercise the Decoctions of the Acrid Woods and Frictions and Fontanels V. Diuretics plentifully evacuate the Salt Serum as all Acid Diuretics and the testaceous and bitter cichoraceous Plants VI. The Saltness of the Blood and the Ferment of the Stomach the acrid Bile or splenetic sharp Acid or that of the Stomach must be corrected and the frequent Ebullition Circulation or Putrefaction removed 1. All Acids correct volatile Salts and Oyls which are foetid and all Lixiviums are made more mild by Acids 2. The mucilaginous Temper the Acrimony of Salts as Gum Tragacanth Powders Decoction of Snails Althaea Roots and Emulsions 3. The Saltness may be diluted by a watery Diet or Medicines as thin Broths Whey Chalybeate Waters Milk Diet and distilled Milks Watergruel 4. Opiates and Styptics stop the Motion of the Blood 5. Bleeding evacuates the Old Blood which is most salt and the New Blood which comes in its room is more fresh and less salt so Broths of Flesh Meat are salter by long boiling 6. All Extraneous Ferments ought to be removed from the Blood and by the Cortex or other Antifebriles the Fermentation must be stopped That the Vrin contains an Acidity naturally in it appears by the Correcting of Coloquintida by it whose Bitterness is made near insipid by it The Purging Quality in the Coloquintida is enervated by the Vrin as well as its Bitterness Hence it appears how great a Correcter of Choler the Vrin may be and how much it may preserve the Humours from Putrefaction as it preserves Vlcers by its salso-Acid Taste A Lixivium of Oyster-shells changes the Bitterness of the Species of the Bitter Decoction boiled in it into a Sweetness and this therefore may be used to correct Choleric Heart-burning in the Stomach and this may correct the Bitterness as well as Acidity of Humours But from this Experiment let our Prescribers consider whether they do not abate the Vertue of the Cortex by extracting it with a fixt Salt since the Taste of it is altered thereby I remember a Tincture of Wormwood made with Brandy and Salt of Wormwood did not taste very bitter by being made with a fixt Salt but that made with Spirit of Wine and a little Oyl of Sulphur was very bitter and in the Vomitings of our Patients we find both very bitter and very sowre which did not correct each other but a fixt Salt in this case may correct both sowre and bitter CHAP. XIII Of the Vitriolic Acidity of the Blood IN the most Healthful Blood we discern many Tastes besides a Sweetness and Saltness a vitriolic or chalybeate Taste is evident therefore we cannot doubt of the vitriolic Acidity of the Blood nor that it is produced from the tartareous Acidity of the Chyle which by Digestion is exalted and volatilized into a sulphureous Spirit The Acid sulphureous fumes from the Earth produce the Tartar in Plants as it is mixt with Earthy Parts but by the Animal Digestions and Fermentations and Precipitation by Salts the Acid may recover its Mineral Nature and appear to be a vitriolic Acid in the Blood or else it may acquire that Savour by its Mixture with the oyly acid foetid Particles of the Blood which somewhat resemble Sulphur This vitriolic Acidity was the Natural Alimentary Melancholy of the Blood which the Ancient Physicians observed in it They called it a Black Humour which gave the Blackness to the Blood for it is certain that Acids turn the Blood black They believed there was an Astriction in this Humour to bind the Belly and it is plain by the vitriolic Taste that it is capable of Binding the Body for Spirit of Vitriol and Vitriolum Martis bind the Body by their Stypticity though tartar Acids purge and have not that effect unless they be acerb They believed it to be cooling and drying because of the cooling quality of Vinegar and by being a great Diuretic both Vinegar and the vitriolic Acid dry up or evacuate the Succus Nutritius All Melancholy Persons are great Spitters and make too much Vrin and the Ancients called those Constitutions dry who had little of the Succus Nutritius in them to make the Habit of the Body plump as it is in Lean Persons and the Fat more moist Constitutions They esteemed this Natural Melancholic Acidity to be the limous or slimy faeculent Part of the Blood like to the Lees of Wine and so compared it to the Element of Earth for in all Tartar there is a great deal of Earth which makes it to subside in the Wine and this black Melancholic Acidity colours the bottom of the Blood most when it is cool in a Dish This Chalybeate Taste is in all Blood and is Natural to it part of it constitutes the splenetic Humour when it is mixed with a Sliminess and it is separated by its
and Vinous to avoid Passions Studies too much Solicitude and Labour and to help all Evacuations stopt especially that of the Haemorrhoids II. The Saburra pituitous tartareous or bilious must be evacuated often by Vomits and the Body kept open by Aloetics and Sennate Medicines or Wines and Clysters or Purging Waters and a Pill of Ammoniacum once a Week III. Frequent Bleeding small quantities checks the preternatural Fermentation and keeps the Humours from Stagnation and Obstructions especially the opening the Haemorrhoids procuring the Menses and giving way to the varicous Swellings in the Legs without binding them Bleeding at the Nose does good IV. In the cold Melancholy we use hot Digestives as 1. Acrids 2. Causticks 3. Bitters Elixir Antiscorbuticum Tinct Sacra 4. The Salts volatile as Sal volatile oleosum Sal Absynthii Cochleariae and testaceous Medicines 5. The Aromatics all which are mentioned in the cold Scurvy 6. The Chalybeates which are most Sulphureous as Chalybs cum Sulph praep and the Filings V. In the hotter Constitutions all strong Drinks and hot Medicines are offensive and these require 1. Watery Liquors and Medicines according to the Observation Melancholici non diutius curantur quam humectantur and for this end they use Whey and Syrup of Violets in all black Humours and cool Clysters to evacuate it We use distilled Milks Mineral Waters c. Wine and Water to cool and moisten 2. Cichoraceous Bitters as Decoct of Dandelion Conserve of Cichory Flowers and Roots Decoct of Scorzonera 3. The mucilaginous Bugloss Borrage Leaves and Flowers Syr. Borraginis de Pomis citri 4. Sub-acid as Juyce of Limons Citrons Syr. de Pomis which Syrups are good in Whey and Spirit of Alum to fix furious Spirits but Vinegar is injurious to the Melancholic 5. The Fern Styptics as Polypody Spleenwort Ceterach these stop the Fermentation of Humours Boil them in Whey or small Ale with Antiscorbutics VI. The vitious Acidity of the Spirits must be corrected by 1. Aromatic Cephalics as Penny-Royal Thyme Sage Bettony Lavender the Spirit of Lavender 2. By Cardiac Odoriferous Medicines of Ambergrease Lozenges made of Species of Diamber or Laetificans Galeni with Oyl of Cinnamon Cubebs candied with Sugar are good for the Vertiginous Some Tincture of Aromatics with Ambergrease 3. Testaceous Medicines and Powders of Antimony Steel Cinnabar Mercury Lapis Lazuli with Purgers 4. Narcotics Diascordium and Confect Alchermes with Laudanum Fomentations to the Hypochondria with proper Oyntments for Schirrus of the Viscera Baths of warm Water are much commended an Issue betwixt the first and second Vertebra of the Neck or Shoulders The best Diet for Hypochondriac Affection is fresh Flesh-Meats and small Ale with Pine-tops dock-Dock-Roots and other Antiscorbutics VII Anti-splenetics which open the Obstructions of the Spleen for the Secretion of the vitriolic and viscid Humours from the Blood are absolutely necessary for the Hypochondriac Winds are to be cured by vomiting up the corrupt sowre Ferments by diverting the splenetic Humour from the Stomach and keeping the Body open by Aloetics Tinct Sacra Pil. Ammoniacum We use hot Medicines in Hypochondriac Cases because of the Obstructions by viscid Humours and the evaporated Spirits must be supplyed by spirituous Medicines and in all long chronical Diseases a decay happens in our Digestions for want of Spirits and a crude Saburra of Humours is produced though the original Distemper proceeded from a hot Cause that is an over-Fermentation of Blood Thirdly Of the Concretion of Stones or Sand in the Humours of an Animal The Vrin contains three parts 1. The viscid Particles of the Succus Nutritius which make its Contents 2. The salso-acid and oyly Particles which give the salso-acid or bitterish Taste to the Sweat and Vrin 3. The thin serous watery Part which carries all the other Parts and dilutes them When the oyly Part of the Vrin which I suppose to be the Choler is too high digested it looks red and flame coloured or deep yellow The red Part of the Blood seems in some hot Bloods to colour the Sediment red When the vitriolic Acid abounds it joyns its self with such Earthy Particles as are observed in all Liquors for Lime-Stone Particles may be observed in all Waters but most plentifully in the Purging ones and that with these stoney Particles coagulates into Sand or Stones The same vitriolic Acid coagulates the Lympha's into tophaceous or cretaceous Stones in the Joynts and Limbs and Lungs Not only the milky Lympha's but the serous are subject to this Coagulation as appears by the Stones in their several Glands If the Salts of the Blood were only coagulated by this vitriolic Acidity they would not appear in any firm tenaceous Consistence in the Stone but all Stones would be friable like Tartar therefore this Acid coagulates some viscid Parts with the saline If there were no Earthy Parts then the Stones would appear gummy or tenaceous only and not solid Stones are generally bred like Tartar which consists of the Acid Part of the Wine joyned to the Earthy and mixed with the slimy Foeces into a hard Stony Substance so from the Tartar of Vegetables coagulate with stony Particles the Stones and hard Cases of their Fruits and Seeds are produced The evident Causes of the Stone are 1. A hot acrid and aromatic Diet and a muriatic Diet which over-ferment the Blood and supply a salso-acid Matter for the Stone or a viscid as all Diet of that kind 2. Strong Diuretics force the salso-Acid to the Kidnies too much if used too oft or mixed with our Diet. 3. Too much Venery Baths Passion Flannel or hot Cloaths on the Back or soft Beds lying on the Back Exercise after Meat much Riding all these weaken the Kidnies by Heating them or forceing the calculous salso-Acid thither The inward Causes are 1. A rancid viscous Chyle from hard Drinking strong Liquors 2. A Saltness of Blood and a bilious Temper 3. A vitriolic Acidity of the Spleen 4. Narrow Pores or Canals in the Kidnies 5. Such a Conformation of Pores or Temper of Humours may be derived from the Parents and Children have Stones bred in them before they are Born for the same reason and because they retain their Vrin so long in their Vrinary Vessels whilst Embryo's The Stone is often bred from the Nurses Milk The Cure of the Stone consists I. In evacuating and correcting the rancid Chyle the Saltness and Viscidity of Blood and the vitriolic Acidity as is above-directed and evacuating the calculous Serum by Diuretics II. In making the Passages slippery 1. By Vomiting with Posset-Drink in which Althea Roots are boiled in the beginning of Fits 2. By a mucilaginous Glyster and Bolus of Cassia 3. By Emollients Baths or Fomentations as Crocus Mallows and Pellitory fryed with Butter and applyed By Emollient Plasters and Oyntments Empl. Melilot 4. Oyly Medicines as Oyl of Sweet Almonds and Sperma Ceti an Oyly Glyster Oyly Emulsions Butter and Sugar or Milk half churned 5. Watery
and the whole Body stinks so that the Eremite whom Borellus mentions knew a Place infected by the Plague only by the Smell which Smell was as he related foetidus instar calceorum ustorum and Crato observed contagii foetoris magnam esse similitudinem Whatsoever other Causes produce a high Fermentation and continue the same very long they cause a Putrefaction in the Blood as all feverish Ferments 2. When an extraneous Ferment corrupts a particular Humour as the Pox doth the feminal Humour the Itch and external Venoms from the Bites of mad or poysonous Animals infect the Succus Nutritius or Blood near the Skin and this is a virous Putrefaction 3. Any inward Humour stagnating corrupts and becomes a Ferment as the Sanies in the Vlcers of the Lungs Liver or Kidnies or Cancers or Gangreens which infect and putrefie the whole Mass of Blood by little and little and this may be called an Vlcerous Putrefaction such as is procured by Suppuratives laid to Apostemes 4. There is a cadaverous Putrefaction in Gangreens with the greatest foetor and Bladders containing a sharp Water Cancers have such a Smell and that is a corroding Vlcer In the Scurvy there is a Foetor of the Mouth and the Teeth and Gums are corroded The Humour which issues from a carious Bone being tasted is salt as Mr. Regis affirms By the great Foetor we may know the Putrefaction of Vlcers and the corrosive Sharpness of the Humours and this may be called a Scorbutic Putrefaction The Cure of Putrefaction requires 1. The Avoiding of the evident Causes of Putrefaction of Humours and the insisting on an incrassating Diet which may produce a viscid Consistence in the Blood as all viscid Broths and Jellies of Calves Feet Harts-Horn Ivory Iceing-Glass All the Mealy Diet is here very convenient and Milk Diet and all the Diet prescribed in the Cure of too high a Fermentation but the Diet in Fevers must be thin 2. The sharp Choler and acrid Ferment in the Stomach and oyly Temper of Blood must be evacuated and corrected by the Medicines mentioned in the Cure of a high Fermentation for to that all Putrefaction must be imputed according to the Observation of our Ancient Physicians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whatsoever putrefies is made hotter 3. Every extraneous Ferment and all kind of purulent Matter must be evacuated according to the old Rule non alterari quod putridum sed tolli postulat These following Tastes check the Fermentation and preserve the Consistence of Liquors and precipitate the Ferment 1. Acids by which we stop Fermentations and Putrefactions We preserve our Plants in Vinegar when pickled We find the Vinegars which we call Theriacalia Aceta to do much good in putrid Fevers and the Plague Treacle Water has much of an Acid in it We ferment Gangreened Parts with Vinegar and the Juyces of Vegetables are preserved from Corrupting by the Acid Fumes of Sulphur which also restore them to their former Vigour The Oyl of Vitriol is useful to putrid Parts 2. The salso-Acids are very good in all Putrefactions and therefore all Gangreens are fomented with Brine sea-Sea-Water or Vrin and common Salt preserves our Humours from Putrefaction and Spirit of Salt is useful for Imbalming and Freserving of Bodies and against the Putrefactions in the Mouth 3. Styptics Acerbs and Austeres as Tormentil Pentophil Bistort Roots Bole Terra Sigillata are used as Preservatives in malignant Fevers and the Bitings of Mad-Dogs These following Tastes preserve the Mixture of Humours and their Fluidity 1. Fixed Salts hinder Putrefaction and Fermentation so we foment Mortified Parts with Lixiviums and Lime Water Both volatile and fixed Salts hinder the fermenting of Milk by Rennet and volatile Salts hinder the Putrefaction of Animal Humours by the Bite of a Viper 2. Bitters preserve fermented Liquors from Decay Our Chyle is preserved from Putrefaction by the Bitterness of Choler and our bitter Turpentines as well as Cedar it self preserve dead Bodies from Corruption and we prevent Gangreens by bitter Plants as Roots of Gentian Aristolochia Leaves of Centaury Rhue Wormwood Scordium and by Myrrh Aloes and Meal of Lupines and we give inwardly Treacle and Mithridate all which have a great Bitterness 3. We use Acrid Plants inwardly and outwardly in Gangreens By the Scurvy as Water-Cresses Horse-Radish Spirit of Scurvy-Grass Mustard-Seed lesser Celandine and Garlic or Leek Pottage Outwardly Decoctions of Turnips and Cataplasms 4. By the acrid Aromatics we sweat and outwardly discuss Humours as Roots of Serpentariae Contrayerva yellow Flag By Spirit of Vine Vlcers are preserved from their foetor and for the same end we use spirituous Cordials inwardly 5. We use vitriolic Styptios which are corrosive also outwardly as burnt Alum Sublimate and Precipitate which by their Stypticity stop the creeping Vlcer and by their caustic Acrimony they deterge the sordid Vlcers and separate the dead Flesh APPENDIX I. CHAP. XV. Of FEVERS IN a Feverish State of Blood there happens a violent Fermentation of the whole Mass of Blood as appears by the quick Pulse the high-coloured Water the Alterations of Heat and Chilliness This sudden and great Alteration of the Humours the Ancients explained by Putrefaction of the Blood or of Choler or Melancholy or Pituita There are many other Notions framed for the explicating the Nature of Fevers and their Symptoms but I shall endeavour to explain more particularly the Opinion of the Ancients and to accommodate it to the Modern Hypotheses That a Fever is a Putrefaction of the Blood or some of its Parts seems probable by the foetor of the Sweat and Vrin in that Disease by the infectious Nature of it which lies in its foetid Effluviums which reduce the Blood of another Animal to the same State and Symptoms None can deny the Putrefaction in the Plague which putrefies all our Humours to a mortified State The Petechiae and purple Spots shew malignant Fevers and the Small-Pox and Measles to be lower degrees of the same Putrefaction The violent Heats in ordinary intermitting Fevers produce a putrefactive Dissolution of Humours which are thrown off in Sweats and appear in the precipitated Sediment of our Vrin as well as by the Evacuation in a Cholera Diarrhaea Salivation which are Symptoms of the Fever the whole Succus Nutritius is dissolved from the solid Parts as well as the Mass of Blood Hence the Body becomes flaccid and empty of Nourishment after long Fevers and then we supply that defect by a nourishing Diet as after the Fever Since there appears so much of a Putrefaction in Fevers I think that Notion of the Ancient Writers ought to be inserted into the Definition of a Fever I shall next consider the Notion of a Fever described by a Fermentation or Ebullition of Blood caused by some extraneous Ferment And such a Commotion of Blood happens by too high a Diet which stums or ferments the Humours or else any of the Humours which are naturally to be evacuated being stopt in their
by Sweats Vrin Spitting and Looseness and then the Hectic Fit is over when the Succus Nutritius which is the ferment is wholly spent The Matter of an Apostemum is the ferment of a Hectic as in those of the Liver Lungs Kidnies and this Hectic cannot be cured without curing the Imposthume but the former scorbutic Hectic must be cured by altering the Viscidity and Saltness of the Blood by frequent Bleeding and diluting of it by Milk Diet or the Chalybeate Waters Decoction of the Woods Emulsions distilled Waters and leaving off fermented Liquors Pectoral Decoctions and using a thin Diet most apt to mix with viscid Blood When I had observed that all sorts of Cacochymia's were joyned with Fevers I could not omit this Discourse about Fevers as not impertinent to my Design of describing the preternatural State of Humours I will farther observe that the several Cacochymia's depend not on the Fever as an effect of it though that after some time may produce some of them as a viscid salt vitriolic or putrid State of Humours but the Fever finds the Cacochymia in the Blood which produces the Symptoms preceeding the Paroxysm as Pains Coughs Vomitings Gripes Diarrhaea's c. Hence it appears that the antecedent Cacochymia depends on the same Causes as at other times when there is no Fever but the febrile Effervescence agitates the Cacochymia and thereby produces the Evacuations or Inflammations to which it pre-disposed the Patient And these Symptoms require the same Method of Cure as at other times but Care must be taken because of the Complication with the Fever that nothing may be done in Cure of the Cacochymia which may prejudice the general Cure of the Fever The Cacochymia alters the Nature of the Fever for a pituitous tartareous serous or flatulent Cacochymia depresses the feverish Ebullition too much and for these the Old Authors rationally used Digestives in Fevers to correct the Cacochymia and to raise the Fermentation which is depressed by them that the Succus Nutritius may be more easily digested or putrefied and at last by a Crisis separated from the Blood In a bilious rancid salt or putrid State of Blood the Fever is generally too acute and unless in the malignant Fever or Plague must be depressed by cool Alteratives which are the Digestives or Precipitators in such Fevers and this seems to be a general Rule in Fevers that as the general Cure of the Fever must not increase the Cacochymia so neither must the Cure of the Cacochymia either too much irritate or depress the Fever but by Bleeding Vomiting or Purging in the beginning we abate the quantity of the Cacochymia and by Digestives dispose it for a Separation from the Blood which at length the Fever expells with the depraved Succus Nutritius or at least prepares it for a Purgation afterwards which ought to respect the particular Cacochymia's after the Fever as well as before If we consider the various Causes of a Cacochymia above-mentioned we cannot believe but every body is inclined to some one or other of them We have some particular degrees of Fermentation by which our Humours are prepared that arise to a particular quality by which the Constitution is called either pituitous tartareous flatulent or serous if they be too cool or else they are too hot as the choleric or scorbutic salt viscid vitriolic or putrid Constitutions of our Humours We have some of these from our Parents and the Age as it runs on produces a various Temper of our Humours In Children the Blood is like the Milk they feed on apt to turn sowre and for that reason Vomitings Gripes and Loosenesses attend their Fevers as well as Coughs and sore Mouths and comatous effects from the Serosity of their Bloods In the Middle Age the Blood is florid and salt by which they of that Age are disposed to Haemorrhagies and all sorts of Inflammations Consumptions and the hot Scurvy which are frequently complicated with Fevers in the Middle of our Ages as Pleurisies Quinsies Phrensies Rheumatisms In the Consistent Age the Blood grows vitriolic and produces Dysenteries Cancers Cholera's Melancholic Winds which with Lethargies Apoplexies Peripneumonia's are frequently at that Age complicated with Fevers In Old Age the feverish Ebullition runs low and it is most easily stopt with a smaller Dose of the Cortex and since the Saltness Viscidity and vitriolic Acidity abounds in Old Men as well as the pituitous and serous Cacochymia they have some of the Diseases depending on them but especially Catarrhs and Atrophy and Pains of the Limbs are complicated with the Fevers of Old Men. Particular Cacochymia's are not only produced by our several Ages but also the different Seasons of the Year incline us to different Cacochymia's The Winter disposes us to Rheums Pains and Coughs which depend on too much Serosity retained or stopt in the Blood and the Cold checks the Fermentation of Blood as well as other fermented Liquors which hinders the thorough Digestion or Fermentation of Humours from hence it appears that Winter Fevers have Coughs Rheums Pains and greater Coldness attending them and are longer The sudden Alterations of Hot and Cold produces a Siziness of Blood and makes the Spring attended with Pleurisies Rheumatisms Apoplexies Lethargies and intermitting Fevers have then such Symptoms Cold is not so Injurious as the Moisture of the Air which makes the Transpiration less and the pressure of the Air also less and for this reason Fevers frequently happen in wet Weather with Looseness Heaviness of the Senses and many inward Inflammations as Apoplexies Quinsies Epilepsies In the Spring far advanced the Blood becomes more heated and choleric and then Tertians and Erisipela's are complicated with the Fever and Haemorrhagies In the Summer the Blood is more rancid salt viscid and hot and produces the highest burning Fevers with Vomiting Diarrhaea's and Inflammations and sore Eyes In Autumn the Blood is most vitriolic on which Quartans Melancholies Dysenteries and Epilepsies much depend on This is the chief Season for the intermitting Fever with which the preceeding Diseases are frequently complicated Since the late severe cold Winter it has been observed that the Blood has been more sizie than usual and it is not improbable that such a Cacochymia may last some Years in the Blood of all Persons which may upon the Fit of a Fever produce the Rheumatic Pains and Inflammations lately observed in Fevers It seems probable that after some time this State of Blood may be altered to another of a different kind as a putrid and then we must expect a pestilential Fever If there be a common Epidemical State or Cacochymia of Humours which the common Changes of the Air or the Seasons of the Year or the particular Digestion of our Diet or some secret Effluviums of the Earth or Mineral Tinctures in our Water may produce as we must observe by some common Distemper which seizes many every Year we may very well allow that the same Cacochymia which produces the
Sulphuris three Days before the New and Full Moon and three Days after them may be given in the Morning to prevent the Fit Sarsa Drink and Lucatellus's Balsam best cleanse the Lungs in the spitting Asthma after the Fit If an Inflammation of the Lungs be joyned with the Asthma Fit Bleed three or four times give Emulsions Pectoral Drinks Oyly Mixtures and Laudanum and a Decoction of the Cortex which may be mixed with that of the Pectoral Drink and Gas Sulphuris a Spoonful may be given in a Draught of Pectoral Drink to cool After fourteen Days Purge with Decoct Senae and Manna after which repeat the Laudanum and Cortex again and at last for Cleansing the Lungs Lucatellus's Balsam and Decoct Sarsae and this Method I have found very successful All other Asthma's depending on the Tubercula of the Lungs or Collection of Matter Serum Blood in them or the Cavities of the Breast as also that on the Gibbosities or ill Formation of the Thorax in the Rickets or Tumours of the Viscera are improperly called Asthma's Though they produce an Ephemera by Stopping the Nutritious Serum in its Circulation yet they have an evident Cause which requires to be removed before they can be cured Children subject to Rheums with scabbed Heads if that be ill cured or repelled they become Asthmatic with Returning Fits about the Solstices and Aequinoctials In this Case all the Methods for Scald Heads must be used as Decoct Sarsae Mercu. Dulcis Bath-Waters Sulphur Medicines Vitriolic Waters but these generally dis-agree with the Asthmatic and by giving them a Catarrh produce the Fit and much Drinking of Fountain-Water produces Dropsies in the Lungs to which they are subject Ammoniacum Medicines used to some Ounces much help the Viscidity of a mucilaginous Slime in the Lungs but that and the Cortex has failed me when the Blood by an accident as the Use of the Bath is made more than ordinary prone to an Effervescence and all high Diet and strong Liquors make all Specifics ineffectual till the Aptitude to an Effervescence be taken off by Bleeding Vomiting Purging or above all by a cool thin Diet and Abstaining from fermented Liquors by which Method my Asthma has intermitted three or four Months which before was rather irritated by all other Medicines this Winter The Anointing the Breast and keeping it hot or rubbing it and Cupping-Glasses and all hot Medicines were the Errours of the Ancients but as the Fit declines the Pectorals are necessary to deterge the Phlegm and the Drymphagia which Caelius Aurelianus mentions is very proper to help Expectoration He commends Acetum Scylliticum before Meat and Nitre with Vinegar Decoction of Hyssop and Figs Pine-Nuts with Mulsum Turpentine with Honey or Nettle-Seeds or Cress-Seeds with Honey or bitter Almonds He recommends Travelling or Navigation the Drinking bath-Bath-Waters In Italy they use Theriacae Antidoti And he also recommends the cold Immersion Vtilis consuetudo frigidi lavacri quam Pseucrolusian appellant He mentions Cataclysmus sive illisio aquarum supernè iisdem locis qui patiuntur But though the Pumping of the Breast may give the scorbutic or hypochondriac Symptoms some Ease yet they rather do Injury for the future He orders the Asthmatic Jacere altioribus stramentis thorace capite sublevato loco lucido atque calido mediocriter Adhibitâ requie abstinentiâ cibi usque ad tertium diem si vires permiserint He dislikes strong Purges of Diagrydium and the Spurges He mentions Castor to be used in and out of the Fits which probably they used for the hysteric Asthma but that I fear cannot cure them without Laudanum and the Cortex I believe the Old Oxymels with proper Evacuations have cured more Asthma's than the Moderns by their anti-Convulsives for the Notion of the Asthma being a Defluxion of Humours when clearly stated gives very true and useful Indications whereas the Convulsive Inflations are Symptoms of the Effervescence only and all the Medicines designed for the Cure of the Convulsive Symptoms by increasing the Effervescence occasion more frequent Fits of the Asthma and cure none Ninthly An Ephemera in a putrid State of Blood produces the Impetigo Scab Scald Head which are by an Effervescence thrown into the Skin Spring and Fall as common Experience informs us The Cure of the simple Effervescence which is generally called an Ephemera though it sometimes lasts Thirty or Forty Days is in the following manner I. By Bleeding for Vessels full of Liquors are most apt to ferment and therefore upon the Fermenting of Wines we draw off some of the Liquor and for Preventing the Ebullitions some part of the Vessels is left empty and the same effect Bleeding has which is done in proportion to the Fulness and by that we check Fluxes Pains Inflammations which depend on the Ebullition of our Humours II. By Glysters at first the fermenting Mass in the Guts is drawn off which resembles the Lees in Wines that occasion frequent Fermentations III. Specific Purges after seven eight nine or fourteen Days when the Ebullition remits are necessary to evacuate the Fulness of some particular Cacochymia IV. All Diuretics ought to be cool as Decoct Pectoral Rad. Graminis Cichorei Liquiritiae Decoct Sarsae Chinae Ras Eboris C. cervini Emulsions All hot Specifics irritate the Fever V. Ante-febrile Medicines check the Ebullition As 1. Styptics which hinder the Ebullition of Blood as well as the Fluxes of Humours Decoct Corticis mixed with any specific Decoctions The Powder of Acorns allays the Pains and Inflammations in Pleurisies 2. Acids Ol. Sulph cum Conserv Ros. Gas Sulphuris Sal Prunell in Pectoral Drinks 3. Opiates which suppress the expanded Spirits that produce the Nervous Inflations VI. All Pains must be treated with Anodynes and Tumours discussed and Fluxes stopped by proper Specifics VII The Diet must be thin such as is in Fevers or perfect Abstinence for one or two Days is very necessary to cure the Effervescence For the Preventing the return of these Effervescences 1. The Cacochymia must be evacuated by Vomits repeated Monthly or Quarterly by Purges once in fourteen Days and an Opiate the Night after by Bleeding Spring and Fall by a long use of Specifics for the several Cacochymiae And moderate Exercise and a cooling spare Diet is necessary to prevent that Fulness of the Succus Nutritius which produces the Ebullition in Chronical Cases 2. The inflammatory Disposition of the Blood and its Effervescence must be checked by the cool Febrifuges above-mentioned by the Decoction of the Cortex at the Changes of the Year or that of the Moon when the Fluxes or Fits usually happen or Gas Sulphuris for three Days before and after the Changes of the Moon when the Alterations commonly happen in the Weather which excites the Effervescence and especially in the extream hot Time of the Dog-Days when Wines are most apt to ferment and when the intermitting Fevers begin and by the Observation of all Asthmatics that is the worst time of the Year for the Asthma The inflammatory Disposition of the Blood is best cured by the cool Juyces of Herbs as Dandelion Brooklime Sorrel Water-Cresses Milk-Waters Sarsa-Drinks Whey Milk and Water Abstaining from Mault Drinks or by the cold Immersion 3. The Tumour of any Part or the Obstruction in its Vessels or the Weakness of its Tone must be cured that it may become less subject to Defluxions 4. All external Accidents must be avoided which may excite an Ephemera but chiefly hot Diet strong Drinks and Tobacco and if possible all fermented Liquors and full Meals and Changes of Weather FINIS