with thirst heat wakings and at several turns with swoonings and cold sweats at this time being sent for I prescribed her Cardaic Remedies and such as moved the purgings of the Womb and also a Clyster to be given her at length the Flux of her Belly being provoked the Lochia also came down and the sick Woman being freed from the aforesaid symptoms and the more grievous Disease to wit the Remedies of the Nurses quickly grew well of her Feaver The more plentiful Flux of the Womb hapning to this Woman removed the Procatartic cause of a more grievous Disease wherefore when they had committed so many errors about the ordering her viz. first in stopping the Lochia then what might compensate their defect in hindring the Flux of her Belly yet the Feaver was only light and without any venomous taint impressed on the Blood the like to this I have known to happen frequently to wit when at first the purgings of the Womb have flown very plentifully afterwards when they have flown very sparingly and sometimes stopped the Women in Child-bed have escaped And by the way it is here to be noted that it is wholly dangerous to inhibit or at least divert and cross any motion of Nature incited tho irregular A Noble Gentlewoman about 20 years of Age indued with a smooth and full habit of Body miscarried twice in the space of a Year when she had again Conceived by the prescription of her Physician she provoked a Vomit once a month by drinking plentifully Posset Drink by which she was wont to cast forth much thick tough Phlegm also in the time of her being with Child he Let her Blood 5 times the time of her going being over she was brought to Bed of a Son with very hard Labour the Secundine came whole away and she purged notably on the second day whilst she was lifted upon her feet in Bed that the Sheets and the Blankets might be laid in better order she took Cold and by that means the bloody Lochia wholly stopped and only a little serous Water came away on the third day she began to complain of an acute pain in her right side to which the Women laid Bags of Camomil made hot with Bricks but the distemper grew worse with a bloody spittle on the fourth day of her being brought to Bed a most â—harp pain with a difficult breathing and very Laborious invaded her by the prescription of her Physician then coming to her from the neigbourhood six ounces of Blood was taken away out of the Basilic Vein and she felt sudden ease for 10 hours she was better in the middle of the night the pricking pain returned with its wonted fierceness at length other Physicians being called to Counsel they agreed that it was necessary to open a Vein again in the arm of the distempered side four ounces of Blood being taken away the pain remitted and the sick breathed better then by Diasphoretic Remedies she fell into a great sweat with a quiet sleep But the Pulse was made quicker and weaker also contractures of the tendons in her wrists appeared presently afterwards she talked idly and within 24 hours after she was last Let Blood she departed That this Lady fell into a Pleurisie with a Feaver upon the Lochia being suppressed the cause in some measure seemed to be the Letting of Blood so often in the time of her being with Child for by this means the Blood being accustomed to be eventilated at the arm afterwards growing hot leaving the Womb was carried violently towards the place of its letting forth where when it found not a passage it fixed in the neighbouring side as the next nest to the place of extravasation yea besides the usual manner of a Pleurisie there was no small malignity hapned to this Disease for the Blood being hindred from being let forth of the Vessels began presently to be corrupted in its disposition and in the third day of the Feaver was so much depraved that it could not be any longer fermented in the heart so as to Prorogue Life It was not so with the Wife of a certain Smith who was brought to Bed at what time her Children had the Small Pox in the same House and she her self as it seemed had taken the Contagion of the same Disease for on the second day after her Delivery they began to break forth with a feaverish heat and pain in her Loyns which indeed for three days whilst the Lochia moderately flowed arose rightly into little swellings altho the purging of the Womb was very copious at that time she had the Small Pox very thick all over her Body not only in the superficies of her skin but also they filled the cavity of her mouth and throat so that she could scarce speak or swallow The sixth day of her Lying in the Lochia flowed immoderately from whence presently fell upon the sick a frequent swooning with a flagging of the Small Pox Convulsions and other symptoms of an ill nature which threatned Death soon being sent for I prescribed half a dram of this Powder to be taken constantly every three hours in a spoonful of the following Julep viz. take of the Roots of Tormentil in Powder drams two of the best Bole Armonie dram one of the species of Hyacinth half a dram make a Powder Take of the Compound Water of Scordium of Dragons of Meadowsweet each three ounces of Therecal Vinegar one ounce of the Syrup of Corals two ounces of Harts-horn burnt half a dram make a Julep Besides I ordered to be boyled in her Broths and in every thing she drank the Roots of Tormentil by these Remedies the purging of her Womb was soon wholly stopped and the Small Pox by degrees being ripened came off without any grievous symptom Indeed this case was difficult and was cured with great danger viz. for either the Lochia or the Small Pox to have been restrained inwardly was very dangerous and yet the more full eruption of the one hindred the motion of the other so long as either moderately proceeded things being permitted to the conduct of Nature was moderately well but when one of them became ill the work of Art was required and it was requisite to bridle the Lochia but to provoke the Small Pox. CHAP. XVII Of Epidemical Feavers HAving meditated rather a Commentary than an intire Tract I had thought here to have concluded our Discourse of Feavers But forasmuch as certain Epidemical Feavers do often spread which observe no Laws nor can be brought to any certain rule of Doctrine but being irregular vary every year and for that reason as often as any of them increase or spread abroad presently it is called the new Disease therefore I thought it worth our while because general precepts concerning these Feavers are not to be delivered to subjoyn some particular Histories of some of this kind for out of the various provision of symptoms whereby they are wont to be noted the nature and the whole
hysterical water what will suffice to make 16. pills Let 4. of them be taken every sixth or Seventh day Take of the Roots of Polypodia of the Oak of sharp pointed-docks prepared of chervill cach ʒ vi of the male Paeony ʒ iii. of the leaves of Betony germander Chamipits Vervine the male Betony each i. handfull of the seeds of Cardamums and burdock each ʒ iii. let them be boyled in 4. pints of Spring water till half be consumed Let it be strained into a matrace to which put of the leaves of the best Senna ℥ i. of Rhubarb ʒ vi of Turbith gummed ℥ ss of Epithimum of yellow-Sanders each ʒ ii of the Salt of wormwood and Scurvy-grass each ʒ i. the yellow rine of the Orangeʒ ii let them digest close shut in hot Sand for 12. hours let the straining be kept for use sweeten it if there be need with what will suffice of the Augustan Syrrop or of Succory with Rubarb The Dose ℥ vi once or twice in a week Every day in which purges are not taken Remedies strengthning the brain and also the animal Spirits for the taking away the heterogeneous Copula or for the hindring them from running into explosions Remedies for a more hot temperament are to be administred which indeed ought to be prescribed and chosen according to the Constitution and habit of the Body and temperament of the sick for too lean bodys and such as being indued with a more hot blood medicines less hot and which do not trouble the bloud above measure ought to be given On the Contrary for phlegmatick and fat people whose urine is thin and watery and whose Blood is Circulated more heavily and Viscera's stuffed more hot Remedies and notably apt to ferment the humours are designed In the former Case let it be prescribed after this manner Coroborating medicines and specificks Take of the Conserve of the Flowers of Betony Tamarisk the male-Paeonie each ℥ ii of the Species of Diamargerit frigidaʒ iss of the powder of the Root of Paeonie and of the seeds of the same each ʒ 1. of red-Corall prepared ʒ ii of vitriol of steel ℈ ii of the Salt of Wormwood ʒ ii with what will suffice of the juce of Oranges make an Electuary take of it twice or thrice in a day drinking after it a little draught of the Julap hereafter prescribed Powders Take of Corall Red with the juce of Oranges beaten together in a glass or marble mortar and dry'd ℥ ss of the powder of misletow of the oake of the root of the male Paeonieʒ ii of perled sugar ʒ iii. make a powder the dose from ℈ i. to ʒss twice or thrice in a day Take of the Species of Diamargarit frigidaʒ ii of the Salt of wormwood ʒ iii. of the root of Cocowpint powderd ʒ i. mix them make a powder let it be divided into xx parts take a dose in the morning and at four in the afternoon Distilled waters and Julaps Take of the Roots of Butterbur ℥ i. dose ʒss to ʒ i. twice in a day Take of the Leaves of Burdock and Cocowpint each vi handfulls let them be cut and mixed together and so distilled The dose ʒ ii to iii twice or thrice a day after a dose of Electuary or powder Take of this water distilled ii pints of our steel prepared ʒ ii mix them in a Vial let it be taken after the same manner Take of the Simple water of walnuts and of black-Cherries each half a pint of Snalesʒ iii. of the Syrrop of the flowers of the male Paeonie ℥ ii the dose ℥ iss to two after the same manner Take of the shavings of Ivory and harts-horn each iii. drams of the roots of Chervill burdock Valerian each half an ounce of the leaves of Betony Chamepits harts-tongue the tops of Tamarisk each one handfull of the barks of Tamarisk and of the woody nightshade each half an ounce let them be boyled in two quarts of spring water to the consumption of the third part add to it of white-wine eight ounces strain it into a pitcher to which put of the leaves of brook-lime and Cardamine each one handfull make an Infusion warm and close for four hours Let the colature be kept close in glasses The dose ℥ vi twice in a day after a dose of some solid Medicine sometimes such an Apozme may be mixed with ʒ ii of our steel and taken in the same manner In the Summer time the use of spaw-waters is convenient and for want of them our Artificial ones may be taken Remedies in a more cold temperament If that for the reasons above-recited more hot Medicines are to be prescribed you may proceed according to the following method Take of the Conserves of Rosemary of the yellow of Oranges and Lemmons each ℥ ii Electuaries of Lignum aloes of yellow-sanders of the roots of snake-weed Contrayerva Angelica Cocowpint each ʒ i. of the vitriol of steel or of steel prepared ℈ iiii of the salt of wormwood and Scurvy-grass each ʒ i. with what will suffice of candied Wallnutts make an Electuary Let it be taken twice in a day to the quantity of a nutmeg drinking after it a dose of appropriate Liquor Take of the Roots of male-Paeony Angellica and red Coral prepared each ʒ ii Tablets of Sugar dissolved in the water of Snales boyled to the consistency of Tablets ℥ vi of the oyle of Amber lightly rectified ʒ ss make a sufficient quantity of Lozenges each weighing about half a dram take one or two twice or thrice a day drinking after it a dose of proper Liquor Take of the Roots of Virginian Snake-weed Contrayerva Valerian each ʒ ii Pills of red Coral and prepared Pearl each ʒ i. of winteran Bark and of the root of Cretian Dittany each ʒ i. of the Vitriol of Steel and Salt of wormwood each ʒ iss of the extract of Centauryʒ ii of Ammoniacum dissolved in histerical water what will suffice to make a pillulary mass of which take four pills in the morning and at four in the afternoon Take of the Spirits of harts-horn or Sut or humane Blood or of Sal ammoniack Spirits what will suffice take of them from 10. to 12. drops morning and evening in a spoonfull of Julap drinking a little draught of the same after it Take of the Leaves of Betony Vervine Sage Lady-smocks Cocowpint Burdock Distill'd waters each two hand-fulls of green wallnuts number 20. the rinds of six Oranges and of 4. Lemons of Cardamums and Cubebbs each ℥ i. being cut and brused pour on them of whey made of Cider or white wine six pints let them be distilled according to Art The dose ℥ ii or iii. twice in a day after a dose of a solid medicine Add to i. quart of this liquor ii drams of our Steel Take of the Water of Snailes and of earth-worms each ℥ vi walnuts simple ℥ iiii of Radish Compound ℥ ii of
Waters hot Spirits Oyls fixed Salts of Herbs and very many other more simple preparations of the Chymists remain a long while without any alteration or Fermentation Perhaps some of the Particles do evaporate but the rest do not tumultuate In the mean time the juice and blood of Vegetables or Animals as also all Liquors Concreted and compounded of many things quickly Ferment and from thence enter into divers turns of changes The Spirit of Wine being closely shut up in a Phial shews no sign of growing hot but if but a little Oyl of Turpentine be added to this Spirit the Particles of the Liquor will so leap forth that I have seen it break a Glass Hermetically Sealed All Distilled Waters of Herbs so they be kept simply in a Glass will remain incorrupt a long time but if you add to the same Sugar or Syrrup it presently grows soure and is corrupted Wherefore that the Fermentation of Bodies may be rightly unfolded we must inquire what those Particles or Substances are and of what Nature of which mixt things are Compounded and from whose being put together and mutual strivings motions for the most part naturally proceed Altho there be many and divers Opinions of Philosophers concerning the beginnings of Natural things yet there are three chiefly deserve our Assent and Faith before the rest That famous fourfold Chariot of the Peripateticks obtains the chief place which emulous of the four wheel'd Coach of the Sun is hurried by a quick passage through the fictitious Heaven of the first Matter and measures that vast and empty thing with a perpetual reciprocation For they say all things are Constituted out of Water Air Fire and Earth and that out of the divers transposition of these Generation and Corruption as also the changes of all alterations whatsoever do arise In the second place and next stands the Opinion of Democritus and Epicurus which lately also hath been revived in our Age this affirms all Natural effects to depend upon the Conflux of Atoms diversly figured so that in all Bodies there be Particles Round Sharp Foursquare Cylindrical Chequer'd or Streaked or of some other Figure and from the divers changes of these the Subject is of this or that Figure Work or Efficacy The third Opinion of the Origination of Natural Things is introduced by Chymistry which when by an Analysis made by Fire it resolves all Bodies into Particles of Spirit Sulphur Salt Water and Earth affirms by the best right that the same do consist of these Because this Hypothesis determinates Bodies into sensible parts and cutts open things as it were to the life it pleases us before the rest As to the four Elements and first Qualities from thence deduced I must confess that this Opinion doth somthing help for the unfolding the Phaenomena of Nature but after so dark a manner and without any peculiar respect to the more secret recesses of Nature it salves the appearances of things that 't is almost the same thing to say an House consists of Wood and Stone as a Body of four Elements The other Opinion which is only a piece of the Epicurean Philosophy forasmuch as it undertakes Mechanically the unfolding of things and accommodates Nature with Working Tools as it were in the hand of an Artificer and without running to Occult Qualities Sympathy and other refuges of ignorance doth happily and very ingeniously disintangle some difficult Knots of the Sciences and dark Riddles certainly it deserves no light praise but because it rather supposes than demonstrates its Principles and teaches of what Figure those Elements of Bodies may be not what they have been and also induces Notions extremly subtil and remote from the sense and which do not sufficiently Quadrate with the Phaenomena of Nature when we descend to particulars it pleases me to give my sentence for the third Opinion before-mentioned which is of the Chymists and chiefly to insist upon this in the following Tract to wit affirming all Bodies to consist of Spirit Sulphur Salt Water and Earth and from the diverse motion and proportion of these in mixt things the beginnings and endings of things and chiefly the reasons and varieties of Fermentation are to be sought If any one shall object That the Atomical and our Spagyric Principles are altogether subordinate to wit that these tho at the last sensible are resolved into those only to be signified by Conception I shall not much gainsay him so it shews that those Conceptions are real I being dul and purblind leave the more accurate to quick sights being content to be so wise as to perform the business of the outward Sense with Reason for I profess it pleases not me to devise or dream Philosophy But that our Work may more rightly proceed it will be necessary to speak first a few things of these kind of Principles in general and of their Affections I mean by the name of Principles not simple and wholly uncompounded Entities but such kind of Substances only into which Physical things are resolved as it were into parts lastly sensible By the intestine motion and combination of these Bodies are begot and increase by the mutual departure and dissolution of these one from another they are altered and perish In the mean time what Particles are gathered together in the subjects or depart away from them will appear under the form of Spirit Sulphur Salt or of one of the rest CHAP. II. A description of the Principles of Chymists and the Properties and Affections of them 1. SPirits are Substances highly subtil and Aetherial Particles of a more Divine Breathing which our Parent Nature hath hid in this Sublunary World as it were the Instruments of Life and Soul of Motion and Sense of every thing whilst they of their own Nature are always enlarged and endeavouring to fly away lest they should too soon leave their subjects they are bound somtimes with more thick Particles that by entring into them and by subtilizing them and variously unfolding them they dispose the substance to maturity as is to be observed in the Vegetation and Fermentation of Bodies somtimes being restrained within some spaces to wit the Vessels or Bowel of living Creatures they are compelled more often to repeat the same measures of their motions for the performing the works of Life Sense and Motion From the motion of these proceed the animation of Bodies the growth of Plants and the ripening of Fruits Liquors and other preparations they determinate the Form and Figure of every thing prefixed as it were by Divine designation they conserve the bonds of the mixture by their presence and open them by their departure at their pleasure they bridle the irregularities of Sulphur and Salt The perfection and state of every thing consists in the plenty and exaltation of Spirits and the fall and declination in their want and defect As to the Subjects in which the Spirits are Minerals because they are of a more fixed nature wanting Motion and Vegetation
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
fire grows hot above measure the bond of the mixture for the greatest part is loosed that its Principles are almost wholly drawn away by the Ferment of the Heart and the active Particles being loosned from the mixture break forth as it were into a flame Wherefore the Liquor of the Blood being after this manner rarified in the Heart and as it were inkindled is from thence carried through the Vessels with a most rapid motion and disperses very many Effluvia of heat from its deflagration Hence the whole mass of Blood like water put over the fire continually boiling distends the Vessels pulls the Brain and Nervous parts raises up Convulsions and pains in them very much destroys the Vital Spirits with its heat wasts the Ferments of the Bowels hinders the Offices of concoction and dispensation often depraves the nourishing Juice destinated for the Nervous stock that from thence exceeding great disorders of the Animal Spirits follow yea almost perverts the whole oeconomy of Nature The course of this Disease shews it self after this manner It rarely begins without a procatartic cause or previous disposition to wit the Sulphureous or oily part of the Blood is first too much carried forth and exalted beyond its due tenor which afterwards either of its own accord like Hay not eventilated begins to grow hot or by the coming of an evident cause it is forced into a preternatural heat But when it grows turgid in the first place by reason of the admixtion of a crude Juice with the Blood now a shivering now heat infests which shew themselves unequally like fire which is covered with green wood sends forth now smoak now flame But at length the fire glowing more largely as here the victor fire spreads it self abroad so there sooner than said the whole mass of Blood is inflamed and is urged at once with heat and a most swift motion Nor is this immoderate heat of the Blood appeased before its active particles being loosned from the mixture and then successively inkindled in the Heart are wholly burned out which doth not happen but in the space of many days And then at length this Feaver ceases when the remaining Liquor of the Blood the Spirit and Sulphur being very much consumed being made lifeless and poor is fit only for a weak and small fermentation From this kind of deflagration of the Blood and also of the alible Juice by the same fire burnt out the recrements or little Bodies of torrified matter are heaped up in the Blood which yet do more promote its fervor and ebullition and for a time increase the Feaverish distemper After the Blood hath very much burned forth and these kind of little Bodies are gathered together to a fulness of swelling up the vital Spirit endeavors a separation and tries to concoct and to overcome what it may these adust recrements and then having put a great many of them into a swelling up a Flux being risen strives to shut them wholly out And indeed in the subaction and seclusion of this matter chiefly consists the event of this Disease for if the vital Spirit being strong the Bloody humor when it hath sufficiently burned forth and shall be freed from these adust particles should recover its pristine tenor whereby it is made fit for motion and a due fermentation in the Heart the sick tends towards health but if by a long deflagration and an inextricable confusion of the morbific matter the liquor of the Blood being wanting of Spirits and more pure Sulphur or those same by the impure mixture growing ill being as it were put under the yoak is rendred so lifeless that it is not any longer rarified by the ferment of the Heart or inkindled by degrees its heat and motion together with Life it self decays The procatartick causes which dispose to this Disease are an hot and humid Temper an active habit of Body a youthful Age the Spring time or Summer season a high and rich Dyet besides the often drinking of rich Wines a sedentâ—ry and idle life a Body full of gross humors and stuffed with vitious Juices but above all the rest it appears by observation that the frequent letting of Blood renders men more apt to Feavers wherefore it is commonly said from whom Blood is once drawn that unless they do the same every year they are prone to a Feaver The reason of this is unless I am deceiv'd by the frequent letting of Blood the Sulphur is more copiously gathered together in the mass of Blood in the mean time the Salt which should bridle it and hinder it from raging by this means is drawn away for the Blood the older it grows becomes so much the more Salt the Salt of all the Elements not evaporating But by how much the more the Blood abounds in Salt by so much the less it abounds in Sulphur for Salt eats and consumes the Sulphur and makes it evaporate wherefore they who are lean and abound with a Salt Blood are less prone to Feavers But when by the letting of Blood the ancient Blood is drawn forth in its stead another more rich and more impregnated with Sulphur is substituted so that it becomes less Salt and more Sulphurous Hence it is that those who often let Blood are not only prone to Feavers but also are wont to grow fat because of the Bloods being more impregnated with Sulphureous Juice The evident causes which deduce the latent disposition of this Feaver into act are of the same sort which procure an Ephemeran Feaver and simple Synochus in this rank chiefly come Transpiration being hindred and Surfeiting By reason of the effluvia being restrained the mass of the Blood being increased in bulk grows turgid and conceives a Fervor as it were from a certain ferment inspired anew and cruelly boyls up from thence presently the pores are more obstructed by the infartion of the effluvia and the frame of the Liquor being loosned the particles of the Sulphur exuberating in the Blood leap forth from the mixture and are inflamed by the ferment of the heart as it were by fire put to them and so they enkindle a very intense Feaver But from a Surfeit both an immoderate fermentation is induced in the Blood and also a nitrous Sulphureous matter apt for adustion and an inkindling is conveyed as it were food to the burning Blood In this Feaver four times or seasons are to be observed in which as it were so many posts or spaces its course is performed These are then The Beginning the Augmentation the Height and Declination These are wont to be finished in some sooner in others more slowly or in a longer time The beginning ought to be computed from the time the Blood begins to be made hot and its Sulphur to conceive a burning untill the ardors and burnings are diffused thorow the whole mass of Blood The Increase or Augmentation is from the time that the Blood being made hot and inkindled thorow the whole burns forth
CHAP. XVI Of Feavers of Child-bearing Women VUlgar Experience abundantly testifies that the Feavers of Women lying in are very dangerous beyond the disposition of other common Feavers also that the same differ very much as to their essence from both a simple and putrid Synochus plainly appears from their signs and symptoms rightly weigh'd wherefore I believe it not to be from the matter to handle after malignant Feavers the acute Diseases of Women lying in being exceeding neer of kin to those for their mortality or perniciousness Yet before I shall enter upon the unfolding these Diseases it behoves us to consider their subjects viz. the Bodies of Women in Child-bed after what manner they are predisposed and by what provision they are made obnoxious to these kind of sicknesses Concerning this the first thing that offers itself is that the Flux of the menstruous Blood is wholly convenient to be suffered by human kind and at this time for Women concerning whose nature and original we shall not inquire in this place but it shall suffice to note that in them the particles of the Blood to be periodically thrust forth are very Permentative which if reteined in the Body beyond the wonted manner of Nature are very often the cause of many Diseases unless only when a Woman conceives with Child For all the time of her being big Bellied the monthly Flowers are stopped without any incommodiousness and in the mean time milk or the alible juice is disposed in great plenty about the parts of the Womb for the nourishment of the Child but after the Birth this daily suppression of the monthly Flowers is recompensed by a copious flowing forth of the Lochia or what comes away after the Birth and the milk within three days having wholly left the Womb springs forth plentifully into the Breasts at which time Women lying in are wont to be troubled with a small Feaver If that the milk be driven away from the Breasts it restagnates again towards the Womb and is thrust forth together with the Lochia under the form of a whitish humour In the mean time the Womb after the Birth becomes subject to various distempers for oftentimes its tone is hurt the unity is dissolved and many other accidents are induced which render Women lying in subject to danger wherefore that their acute Diseases may be rightly unfolded it is convenient for to consider chiefly these three things viz. first the nourishment of the Child or the Generation of Milk both in the Womb and in the Dugs and the metastasis or translation of it from one to another Secondly the purging of the Mothers Blood or the profluvium of the Lochia after a long suppression of the Menstrua Thirdly the condition of the Womb after the Birth and its influence on other parts of the Body And these being premised we will speak of the Feavers of Women lying in viz. both the milkie and the putrid called and that deservedly malignant by reason of its deadliness First the Milk and nourishing humour being heaped up in the parts of the Womb for the nourishment of the Child are of a like nature tho somewhat different in consistency Milk is indeed more thick because it ought to be received in at the mouth and to be kept in the Ventricle and afterwards it more thin portion to be conveyed to the mass of Blood The other alible Juice is more thin and like the water of distilled Milk because 't is immediately poured into the Blood of the Embryo thorow the umbilick Vessels without any previous digestion Either Juice is supposed to come from the Chyle fresh made in the mothers stomach what is reposed or laid up in the Breast is more thick and white by reason of the more thin or open strainer and coction in the greater Glandulas on the contrary it happens in the Womb ootherwise where the Glandulas are smaller and the Straining more close But there is a great disagreement among Authors concerning the passages by which this humor is carried both in the Breasts and into the Cake of the Womb. Some contend that Milk only is begotten of the Blood more plentifully cocted in the Glandulas which yet by reason of the immense dispense of Milk which consists not with the Blood this seems not probable Others affirm that the Chyle or Milkie humor is immediately conveyed from the Viscera of Concoction thorow occult passages without any alteration into either receptacles But in the mean time while these passages lie open it seems indeed to me more likely that from the meat taken into the Mothers Stomach a portion of the Chyle thence made is presently supped up into the Veins which having obtained the vehicle of the Blood before it be assimilated by it is said up in the Glandulas destinated here and there for the receiving of it being carried by the Arteries and lastly separated from the mass of Blood for as it appears that drink being plentifully taken presently passes thorow the whole mass of Blood and is rendered by Urine like water and as old Ulcers by means of the Blood coming between prey upon the nutritious humor from the whole Body and pour it forth under the shape of a putrified matter Why may not the alible Juice in like manner being strained by the Collander of the Glandulas before it has indued the colour of Blood go into a Milkie humour This indeed seems more probable because whilst the Milk is carried from the Womb into the Breasts and on the contrary passing thorow the mass of Blood it is wont to stir up a perturbation thorow the whole with a feaverish intemperance besides in the first days after the Birth when the Glandulas do less rightly perform the office of secretion Beasts who have not the Lochia give a bloody Milk which is drawn forth of their Udders that is mixt with Blood by reason of the plenty of it flowing forth together Secondly As to what belongs to the Menstrua being suppressed in the time of being with Child and the Lochia plentifully coming away after being Delivered we say that after the Conception of the Child the Menstrua ought to be suppressed by Divine Designation for that the flowing of them often causes abortion then because the Vessels are filled by a continual stilling forth of the alible juice into the parts of the Womb the mass of the Blood doth not arise into swellings up to be allayed by the menstruous Flux For the same reason Women for the most part have not their courses so long as they give suck Perhaps in some indued with a more hot Blood the monthly courses flow both whilst they are Big-bellied and in the time of their giving suck but that more rarely and is wont not to happen without trouble yet in the mean time the Menstrua being suppressed during the time of being with Child because much less of the nutritious humor is expended at that time for Milk they much more deprave the Blood
to vomiting let a more plentiful evacuation be procured by a gentle Emetie in the time of the fit The opening of a Vein and Purging ought not to be administred unless between the fits for whilst the Blood grows mainly hot or is resolved into sweat Nature ought not to be called back from the Work begun nor her endeavours to be disturbed by the prescriptions of Physicians wherefore after the 〈◊〉 being past and the sweat throughly finished a Purging may be instituted by a gentle Cathartic and the same afterwards sometimes repeated on the like occasion for by this method not only the provision of the excrementitious matter is brought away from the first passages but chiefly the choler-bearing Vessels being emptied the choler is copiously drawn forth from the mass of Blood and by that means the Blood is restored to its natural Crasis or disposition The Letting of Blood if it be indicated should be performed presently after the beginning for so its Liquor being too turgent or swelling up is eventilated whereby both the nutritious juice is less perverted and the fit urging it burns forth with a less heat together with the morbifick matter but otherwise if a Vein be opened after a long sickness when the Blood being made poorer and more watry more of the morbific matter is heaped together and does not rightly concoct and sift it forth it detracts much from the strength of Nature and nothing from the power of the Disease In the interval of the fits when there is no place for opening a Vein nor Purging let the Belly be kept loose by the constant use of Clysters also digestive Remedies of acetous or saline Liquors and Powders are to be exhibited of which sort are Cream of Tartar fixed Salts of Herbs Tartar Vitriolate Harts-horn burnt Spirit of Vitriol and Salt c. for these restore the lost or sleepy ferments of the Viscera purifie the Blood by fusing it also separate the morbific matter and as it were precipitate it also at this time between if pertinations waking infest the sick and overthrow their strength it may be lawful to administer anodyne and gentle narcotic Remedies but never in the fit for then they greatly hinder the subduing and sifting forth of the feaverish matter and draw out in length the fit that would end sooner These things are to be done about the interstitia or intervals of the fits but whilst the fit is urgent altho the sick then chiefly send for and call upon Physiicans yet at this time their prescripts are limited to a narrower space If Vomiting notwithstanding an Emetic being given still infest it may be more freely provoked either by simple Posset Drink or with bitter Herbs boyled in it But let the chiefest means of help be in temperating the heat and thirst which most grievously torments the sick in this Feaver For whilst the Blood growing hot with the morbific matter and being inkindled in the Heart leaps forth into the Lungs stirs up there a cruel Inflamation which requires a profusion of a cold humor as it were for the extinguishing the Flame wherefore they greedily desire without any measure drink for want of which the sick are almost killed with too great heat and their Blood being almost wholly rarified into flame and fume the thrid of Circulation is hardly continued wherefore drink ought to be wholly granted to those in Feavers which however if it be taken in too large a quantity it at first more disturbs the estuating Blood and at length brings confusion to the feaverish matter begun to be separated that from thence the Work of subaction and secretion is longer protacted and the fit is made longer also besides large drinking causes troubles in the Ventricle and by disturbing it and often provoking Vomiting hinders the breathing forth and calls inward the sweat breaking forth or perhaps already broke forth wherefore at first the heat of the Feaver being inkindled altho the sick be very thirsty let them only sip a little and abstain from drink as much as they can afterwards when the matter being burnt and subdued begins to be dissipated by sweat they may be more freely indulged as to this for so the sweating is greatly helped and the fit is sooner finished as to the nature of the Drink let them take sometimes Posset Drink sometimes Small Beer or Barly Water and sometimes simple Water or sharpned with the juice of Lemons In this case the use of Sal Prunellae is deservedly praised to be given in every Liquor for this with its nitrosity wonderfully allays the raging Blood and potently moves sweats I have often observed in the midst of a fit the sick wont to fall into a swoon or syncopy to whom presently they give Cordials or hot Waters that much increase the violence of the Feaver and bring forth more troubles than usual that the fit is more difficultly finished But these faintings for the most part happen either from a bilous humor suffused in the Ventricle or by reason of the sweat suddenly breaking forth and against these I always found the most present Remedy that either a feather being put down the throat Vomiting may be provoked or that Liquor being plentifully drunk a sweat may be again raised up also in the whole course of this Feaver I am wont never to give any Cordials or alexiteriums The Dyet in this Feaver ought to be only slender and not nourishing all sorts of Flesh or any thing prepared of them are wholly to be avoided for as these abound with Sulphur they give a more plentiful food as Oyl poured on Flame to the hot or enkindled Blood besides nothing spiritous as strong Waters strong Beer or Wine is to be yielded to but Decoctions or Broths of Oat-meal or Barly altered with cooling Herbs are chiefly to be used also Posset Drink and small Beer or Whey is to be given them at their pleasure for by this means when a very slender and watry nourishing juice is conveyed to the mass of Blood the soluted Particles of Sulphur burn forth sooner and with the less tumult also the recrements of the adust matter are more easily carried from the bosom of the Blood but if on the contrary a more rich or plentiful nourishment be administred the effervency of the Blood is thereby very much augmented and the Blood is more infected by the confusion or pouring in of the adust matter After that the Blood being much burnt forth by frequent fits and the Feaver being in its declination remits of its fervor and fierceness you must take heed lest the sick at length growing well fall not into a Cachexie or Scorbutic Distemper for the disposition of the Viscera being hurt and the Blood very much depauperated the alible juice though not scorched so as at first is not however rightly concocted and ripened into perfect Blood but by reason of the want of transpiration the serous excrements being imbued with a fixed salt are greatly heaped together
volatile or fixed which are therefore of a divers colour and consistency That there is Sulphur contained in Urines their quickly putrifying and stink sufficiently testifie it arises from the fat and sulphureous particles of Meats in the concoction being most minutely broken and boyl'd with the serum and salt so as also there is less plenty of Spirit in it than is in Blood Soot or the Horns of Animals wherefore in the distillation of Urine there ascends nothing almost of an oylie form or fat But indeed whilst the blood is circulated in the Vessels the spirituous and sulphureous little bodies which fall away from it do for the most part evaporate out of dores in the mean time the saline recrements and the watery chiefly constitute the Piss nevertheless Urines do always participate a little of sulphur but its quantity and proportion is diversly altered according to the various degrees of Concoction and Crudity and thence also the colour and consistence receive many mutations in Urines That there is but a very little of vinous spirit in Urines the defect of it in the liquor first distilled forth also the soon putrifying of the Stale do testifie but that there is some the intestine motion of the particles in the Urine doth argue to wit the departure of the thin from the thick and the spontaneous separation of some parts from others and a collection of them into a settlement besides the saline particles for that they are made volatile are married to spirituals and so they are of a more ready motion and energy yet according to the divers plenty of spirits in Urines and their power there arise divers manners of hypostases and settlements also the Urines themselves sooner or slower putrifie The watry part of the Urine far exceeds the rest in quantity and is greater than they by almost a sixth part it is not so simply drawn forth by distillation but that some particles of Salt and Sulphur for as much as they are volatile ascend with it and impart to the water an ingrateful stink the potulent matter copiously taken with aliments affords an original to this which of what kind soever it be before it is changed into Urine lays aside its proper qualities and acquires others for truly from the assumed liquor there is nothing sincere almost left in the Piss besides meer humidity That there is earth and muddy feces to be had in Urines its distillation or evaporation sufficiently declares for when the rest of the parts are exhaled the earth as it were a caput mortuum will remain in a moderate quantity in the bottom Forasmuch as in the nourishing juice there is required something solid besides the active principles of salt sulphur and spirit whence the bulk and magnitude of the body grows the recrements of this viz. the earthy feculencies are plentifully dissolved in the serum and contribute to it a thick consistence and contents but these shew themselves after a divers manner according to the state of Concoction and Crudity These are the principles which constitute the body of the Urine also into which it is easily resolved by a Chymical Analysis Out of the divers changes and various contemperation of these the other accidents of Urine arise viz. Quantity Colour Consistency and Contents which are as to the sense the most notable concerning it and the chief objects of the rendred Urine For when there is nothing almost beheld besides in the Piss they constitute these first Phaenomena in which rightly solved consists the whole Hypothesis of this Science Wherefore we shall speak in the next place concerning these and first of the Urine of healthful people what its quantity may be how coloured with what consistence and contents indued and together shall be unfolded out of what mixture of Elements and by what Concoction in the Viscera and Vessels each of these depend Secondly shall be shown how many ways the Urines of Sick people vary from the square or Rule of this of the Sound and I shall endeavour to assign for the several differences of them proper Causes of their alterations and these shall conclude our first proposition in this Discourse viz. the Anatomy of Urine CHAP. II. Of the Quantity and Colour of the Urines of Sound People THE Quantity of the Urine in sound people ought to be a little less than the humor or liquid substance daily taken for moist and drinkable things dayly taken are the matter it self of which Urines are first made But these hunger and thirst urging are more plentifully required both that they may sufficiently wash the mass of the Chyme by which means it may rightly ferment in the Viscera and that they may serve for a Vehicle both to the Chyme whereby it may be conveyed to the bloody Mass and to the Blood it self that it might be circulated in the Vessels without thickening and to the Nervous Juice whereby it might actuate and water the Organs of sense and motion when the serous Latex by this means hath bestowed whatever it hath almost of Spirit and Sulphur for nourishment Heat and Motion it gives way to a new nutritious humour and it self as unprofitable being secluded from the Blood by the help of the Reins is sent away The nourishing liquor which will at last be changed into Urine of its own nature is divers viz. now watry now impregnated with Spirit now with Salt and Sulphur and according to the various forces of this or that Element in it Urines are wont to be somewhat altered However all liquors taken in at the mouth do not pass thorow our body whole and untouched but that they undergo mutations in various parts and lose a little portion of their quantity before they are made into Urine For the Latex or Humour to be converted into Urine is first of all received into the Ventricle for I assent not to Reusner who affirms the same falling for the most part on the Lungs to cause the more quick making water after drinking whilst that it stays in the Ventricle it is there boyled also impregnated with Salt and Sulphur of its own or from more solid Aliments dissolved then very much of it is confused in the blood with the nourishable juice which when it is a long time Circulated from thence receives a farther tincture of Salt and Sulphur according to the various temper of the Blood and its inkindling in the Heart Hence some portion of it is derived with the Animal Spirit to the Brain and nervous stock and afterwards from thence being made lifeless and weak is lastly reduced into the bosom of the Blood after that it hath bestowed on the Blood and Nervous Juice whatever of generous or noble is conteined in the Serum also no small quantity is consumed by sweat and the other emunctories what remains whilst that the Blood continually washes the Reins a precipitation being made either by a straining or force of a certain ferment it is there separated from the Blood
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
rest which as to colour and consistency are pale and thin in healthful persons may be drawn For from the Salt and Sulphur more or less dissolved and boiled in the Serum the appearances of a pale and straw-coloured Urine and of other colours under a Citron colour are excited and by the like means which was said of the watry they may be unfolded There remains another certain kind of Urine more pale than the Citron colour not thin but thick and cloudy and of a whitish colour it appears by common observation that children do often make such water when they are troubled with the Worms The reason of which seems because the matter whereof the worms are made is a certain viscous Phlegm heaped up in the Viscera by reason of the indigestion of the Chyle and a defect of making or generating Spirits which matter at first transmits no tincture to the Urine because of its fixity the same afterwards putrifying is exalted and is in some manner volatilized and then partly by heat and spirit is formed into worms and partly being confused with the passing Chyle and carried into the vessels when 't is made unfit for nourishment it is separated with the Serum from the blood and being mixed with the Urine gives it that white colour Sometimes also in Feavers especially of children the Urine is whitish the reason of which is because the supplement of the nutritious juyce being poured from the Chyle to the mass of blood is not rightly assimilated but degenerates into an excrementitious humor A portion of which being incocted in the Serum imparts to it the thick consistence and milky colour otherwise than in the Feavers of those of riper years where when the heat is stronger the same degenerate juyce impresses on the Serum a red colour Also the Urine is whitish in the flowing of the Whites the Gonorrhoea Ulcers of the Reins and Bladder and of the urinary passages by reason of the confusion or mingling of the filthy matter or the corrupted seed however it be that the colour of the urine be white it is produced from its contents which at last putting down its settlement to the bottom the liquor for the most part becomes of a palish and yellowish colour even as it may be perceived by the making of the Milk of Sulphur where the milky substance sinking down to the bottom the over swimming liquor is of a Citron colour Urines whose colour is deeper than Citron owe their appearance not only to the Salt and Sulphur dissolved more than usual but in some sort to the more thick contents in the liquor The more plentiful dissolution of the Salt and the Sulphur is chiefly performed in the vessels in the mass it self of the blood and from thence the Tincture is impressed on the serous Juyce But this happens to be done for the most part after a double manner viz. either by reason of the feaverish fervour for as much as the blood boiling in the vessels and being more kindled in the Heart is very much loosned in its mixture and so copiously fixes on the Serum the particles of Salt and Sulphur wasted as it were by the boiling Or without a Feaver when these kind of sulphureous and saline little bodies wont to be sent forth at other sinks are restrained and so being by degrees heaped up in the blood are poured into the Serum Of this also there are two chief causes or means for either the excrements of the blood which chiefly participate of adust Sulphur and that ought to be sent away by Choler-carrying vessels are retained and so they impress being suffused on the serous humor a tincture of yellowness or else the Effluvia's which are chiefly of a saline nature and ought to be evaporated by insensible transpiration are restrained and from those the urine is filled with a lixivial tincture The urines of the former kind are proper to people that have the Jaundice but those of this latter are familiar to the Scurvy for in the Scurvy the saline particles of the blood depart from volatilization and get a Flux wherefore by reason of their fixity they will not evaporate and so being more fully heaped together in the blood they more and more pervert its Crasis and very much impregnate the serous humor with a saltness The contents which heighten the colour of the urine are of a twofold kind to wit either adust recrements remaining after the deflagration of the blood or particles of the nutritious juyce degenerated into an extraneous matter Concerning which we shall speak hereafter in their proper place It now remains that we describe particularly the several Colours of Urine more intense or deep than Citron colour 1. The first is a flame-coloured urine which shines with a brightness like the Spirit of Nitre and this is very often seen in an intermitting Tertian Feaver this colour arises from a portion of the thinner yellow Bile mixed with the Serum whilst it is in motion for that in this Feaver there is a sharp and hot intemperature of the blood which burns and scorches all the humors and so plentifully begets Choler But although this for the most part is separated from the mass of blood by the bilary vessels and passages yet when it abounds in the vessels a part of it or which is the same thing some burnt and adust particles of the blood and humors being boiled in the serous water impart to it an high or deep yellowness This urine is thin and shining for that there is in this disease almost a continual breathing forth that thrusts out the recrements of the nutritious Juyce and all the thicker parts of the Serum towards the circumference of the body 2. The Saffron-coloured urine and which dyes Linen with the same colour undoubtedly is a sign of the Jaundice it is tinged after this manner by the yellow Bile or Choler or by the Salt and Sulphur burnt and plentifully mixt with the Serum for the yellow Bile is necessarily begot from the yoked heat and motion of the blood but for this the Gall bag is designed by Nature for the separating it from the mass of the blood its passages being rooted in the Liver But if such a separation be any ways hindred that humor flowing back in the blood and copiously heaped together infects the skin with its yellowness the blood and especially the serous Latex The Saffron-coloured urine differs from the flame-coloured because in this only a certain portion of the more thin Bile is poured into the urine but in that the more thick part and much more plenty besides in the yellow Bile the Sulphur with the Salt being joyned and long circulated is fully dissolved by it that it becomes like paint imparting to every subject a Saffron-coloured tincture as when common Sulphur and Oyl of Tartar are mixed together But what things cause a redness in urines without the restagnation of this Bile happen after the same manner as in the Lye of
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
from the spinal Marrow But besides these another manner of differencing them seems best to us to wit That some Nerves as it were Clients and Servants of the Brain perform only spontaneous Acts and others Ministers and Servants of the Cerebel are imployed only about the exercises of the involuntary Function There will be no need to assign different Essences or Constitutions of Nerves according to these several differences but rather that there be instituted a particular Cense or Muster of them and following the order of Nature that we especially unfold every one of them in the series in which they are disposed in the animal Body Among the Nerves arising from the Skull the smelling Nerves or those which are commonly called the Mammillary Processes lead the way for that they have their rise before all the rest and are stretched out forward beyond the Brain it self These Nerves go out of the shanks of the oblong Marrow within the chamfered bodies and chambers of the Optick Nerves and being endued with a manifest cavity open into the first Ventricle of the Brain on either side behind the same chamfered bodies so that the humidity flowing between the folding of the Brain is carried through these chanels into the mammillary Processes whether they go farther forward shall be anon inquired into Because these Nerves being broad and large arising near the chamfered bodies and from thence stretched forward under the Basis of the Brain their bulk is increased by degrees till they go into the round Processes like Paps by which either bosom of the Cribrous or Sieve-like Bone is besmeared Within the Socket of this Bone these Nerves as yet soft and tender obtain Coats of the Dura Mater with which being divided into many fibres and filaments and passing through the holes of the Sieve-like Bone they go out of the Skull from whence being dilated or carried forward into the caverns of the Nostrils and distributed on every side they are inserted into the Membrane bespreading those Labyrinths If we inquire into the nature and use of these parts without doubt the mammillary Processes and their medullar roots with the fibres and small threads hanging to the same are truly Nerves and serve properly for the very Organ of the Smell Seeing these conduce to the sense only without any local motion therefore even as the other hearing Nerve whilst they are within the Skull they are plainly medullar and soft whereby the animal Spirits more easily moved within the more tender substance of the Nerves might convey more readily and accurately to the common Sensory the Ideas or forms of the sensible Species But because the effluvia's or odorous breaths to be received by the naked Organ carry oftentimes with them sharp and pricking Particles hurtful to the Brain and Nerves therefore in the first course these Nerves being about to go out of the Skull borrow Coats from the Dura Mater which serve for Armour Further as these breaths lest they should strike more sharply by rushing impetuously on the Sensory being admitted only by little and little and by small bands ought to be brought through divers narrow turnings and windings of the Nostrils therefore that these Nerves may the better receive the effluvia's flowing within the several dens they are so divided into very many fibres and small threads or filaments that there may be no passage of the Nostrils to which at least some of them are not destinated And after this manner although the exhalations as it were torn into little Clouds are received by the nervous filaments and so care is sufficiently taken that they being more thickly elevated may not overwhelm or obscure the Sensory yet lest any thing sharp and troublesom should be carried with them to the Brain the cribrous bone is set before the doors as an obstacle through whose little holes being strained they may put off all sharpness And lastly they being carried through the softer Nerve as it were another Medium and so broken again they at length being soft and gentle enough are staid at the first Sensory But that these Nerves are noted through the whole with an open hollowness within the Skull the reason seems to be that the watry humor stilling out of the foldings of the Brain and being derived into those chanels might beat back and temper the impressions of the odours when too sharp and fiery for as the humors included in the Eye variously refract the visible Species whereby it passing at last through the Optick Nerve without any force slides pleasantly to the common Sensory so it is not improbable that the water contained within these passages of the Nerves does in like manner sweeten the species of the odours and prepare them in some measure for the Sensory Wherefore it is observed that Cattle and Beasts which are fed with herbage have the mammillary Processes exceeding large and always full of water to wit lest the odours of the herbs continually attracted by them unless their force should be blunted after the aforesaid manner might hurt or overthrow their more weak brain Besides it is very likely that this watry juyce falling down from the infolding of the Brain doth not only flow into the open chanels of the Nerves and the mammillary Processes but also doth pass through by the passage of the fibres and filaments the holes of the Sieve-like Bone and doth wet and continually moisten the cavities of the Nostrils apt to be dryed or torrified too much by the Air thither attracted and by the breath continually blown out For it clearly appears as we have elsewhere shewn that the serous humors creep through the blind passages of the Nerves and Fibres and by them wander from place to place Yea it may be thought that not only water sufficient for the watering the Nostrils doth by this way sweat through but also whensoever the serous heap is gathered together in the Ventricles of the Brain its superfluities or the excrementitious humor doth very often pass through the cribrous Bone by the passage of the Fibres and is sent out But we have in another place discoursed more largely of this The smelling Nerves which have within the Skull their mammillary Processes depending on them are much greater in an Ox Goat and in Cattle and such like beasts that live on herbage than in flesh-eating Animals to wit because in those there seems to be more need of the sense of smelling to be more exquisite for the knowing the virtues of the manifold herbs Also these Nerves are larger in all Brutes than in Man the reason of which is because they discern things only by the sense and especially their food by the smell but Man learns many things by education or nurture and discourse and is rather led by the taste and sight than by the smell in chusing his aliments These Nerves in Birds as also in Fishes are conspicuous enough for either of these even as four-footed beasts seek out and chuse their food by the
of it self untameable and not to be overcome by any Remedies From this observation that a Cautery accidentally and by chance being made on this sick party freed her from the fits of the Disease it may be inferr'd that fontanells or Issues may be profitably administerd in the Cure of the Epilepsie for wheresoever an emissary is opened for the constant carying away of the serous water both from the blood and nervous juce there very many heterogeneous and morbifick particles flow out with it that therefore the brain might remain free The Daughter of a Brewer of Oxford had been very obnoxious to a Rheume Observation 2 falling into her eyes from her Infancy otherwise strong and sound enough also accustomed dayly to hard labour about the 14th year of her age she began to be tormented with Epileptick sits of which she suffered neer the greater changes of the moon especially then returning Being asked to endeavour her Cute I gave her a Vomit of precipitate Solar and orderâ—d it to be renewed three days before every new and full moon besides that she should take at every turne for four days after the Vomit twice in a day a dram of male-Paeonic root in powder with a draught of black Cherry water By these remedies the fits so long intermitted that the Disease seem'd to be Cured Afterwards when they returned again she was again recovered by the use of those medicines and then the menstruous flux breaking forth and observing its true periods she remained for the future free from that disease The Therapeutic or Curatory Method IN the Curing of the Epilepsie I judg it fit to begin with a Cathartick and if the sick can easily bear vomiting first let an Emetick be administred and for several months let it be repeated four days before the full of the Moon For infants and youths may be prescribed wine of Squills mixed with fresh Oyle of Sweet Almonds or also of Salt of Vitriol from half a Scruple to 1. Scruple For those of riper years and of a stronger Constitution may be prescribed the following forms of Medicines Vomitories Take of Crocus mettalorum or of Mercurius vitae gr iiii to vi of Mercurius Dulcis grain xvi ℈ i. let them be brused together in a mortar mix it with the pap of a rosted Apple or of Conserve of Burage â„¥ i. make a Bolus or you may take an Infusion of Crocus Mettalorum or Mercurius Vitae made in Spanish wine from â„¥ ss to â„¥ i ss or take of Emetick Tartar of Mynsicht gr iv to vi who are of a tenderer constitution let them take of the Salt of Vitriol ℈ i. to Ê’ ss and half an hour after let them drink severall pints of posset drink then with a feather or finger put down the throat let vomiting be provoked iterate it often The day following the vomiting unless any thing shall prohibit let blood be taken out of the Arm or from the haemorhod veins with a Leech then the next day after let a purging medicine be taken which afterwards may be repeated constantly four days before every new Moon Purger Take Refine of Jalop ℈ ss Mercurius Dulcis ℈ i. of Castor gr iii. of Conserve of the Flowers of Paeony â„¥ i. make it into a Bolus Take pill faetida the greater ℈ ii of Hysterica what will suffice make thereof v. pills Take of the strings of black hellebore macerated in Vinegar dry'd and powder'd â„¥ ss of Ginger ℈ ss of the Salt of Wormwood gr xii of the Oyl of Amber drops ii make a powder let it be given in the pap of an Apple Take of the powder of Hermodactils compound â„¥ i. of humane Scull prepar'd gr vi make a powder let it be given in a draught of the decoction of Hyssop or Sage On those days that they do not purge especially about the time of the changing of the Moon let there be administred Specifick Remedies morning and evening which are said to cure this Disease wirh 〈◊〉 certain innate and secret virtue of these there are extant a very great company and are prescribed in various forms of Compositions Specificks The most simple Medicines which Experience hath found to be very Efficacious are the root of the male Paeony and the seeds of the same Take of the Root of the Male Paeony dryed and powder'd â„¥ i. to ii or iii. let it be given twice a day in the following Tincture Take of the leave of Messletow of the Oak â„¥ ii of the root of Paeony slic'd â„¥ ss of Castor â„¥ i. let them be put into a close Vessel with simple water of Betony or Paeony and white-wine Each lb i. of the Salt of Missletow of the Oake or the Common Missletow â„¥ ii let them digest close in hot sand for ii days let them take â„¥ iii. with a dose of the aforesaid powder Poor people may take of the aforesaid powder in a decoction of Hysop or Castor made with fair water and white-wine At the same time let the Root of Paeony be cut into little bits and being strung upon a thrid hung about the neck Also let the Roots being fryed in a pan or boyled tender be eaten dayly with their meat Take of the Roots and Seeds of the male Paeony each â„¥ ii of Missletow of the Oake of the hoof of ElkÊ’i each let them be fliced and brused and put into a thin silk bag and hang at the pit of the Stomack Among the spicificks this powder is greatly commended by many Authors Powders Take of Castor Opoponax Dragons blood Antimony and the seed of Paeony each alike make a powder of which may be taken â„¥ ss to â„¥ i. every morning with wine or some proper decoction or with black Cherry water Take of a mans Skull prepar'd â„¥ i. of Missletow of the Oake of Counterfeit Cinaber of an Elks Claw each â„¥ ss so mingle them The dose is ℈ ss to ℈ i. If the form of powder be distastful to any one or if it should become loathsome by the long use of it Electuaries Pills Troches Spirits and Elixirs each of which agree with specifick medicines are wont to be prescribed Take of the Conserve of the male Paeony of the Lilly of the Valley each â„¥ iii. Electuaries of the seed and root of the male Paeony powder'd each Ê’ ii prepared CorallÊ’ i. of the powder of Pearls and of humane Skull prepared each ℈ ii of the salt of Missletow of the OakeÊ’ i ss with what will suffice of the Syrop of Corall make an Electuary let them take of it morning and evening the quantity of a Nutmeg Take of the powder of the root of the male Paeony â„¥ i. of the seeds of the same â„¥ ss of Missletow of the Oake of an Elks claw of humane Skull prepared each Ê’ ii of the roots of Angelica Contrayerva Verginian Snakeweed each Ê’ i. of the whitest Amber of Calcined Corall each Ê’ i. of the Common Salt of Missletow