things and that are indued with a styptic or binding vertue are equally to be avoided for these fix the Blood and bind it too much and hinder its very requisite Purgation both by the Lochia and by transpiration thorow the skin But rather though the Feaver be urgent give them decoctions powders and confections of things moderately hot of which sort are as is already said decoctions or Distilled Waters of the Flowers of Marigoids the Leaves of Pennyroyal Mugwort the roots of Scorzonera also Bezoartic Powders Spirits of Harts-horn fixed salts of Herbs c. If the Lochia should be stopt that their Flux may be again provoked must be indeavoured every way To the moving of this conduce frictions and ligatures about the Thighs and Legs sometimes Cupping-Glasses or Blisters about the Thighs or Hips also in the soles of the Feet also sometimes the opening a Vein in the Ankle is convenient in the mean time a fomentation of the hysterical decoction is to be applied about the Pubis or the Caul of a Weather or Sheep taken out warm may be layed to the bottom of the Belly and experience manifests that sometimes injections into the Womb are profitable If the Belly yields not it may be gently brought down with a violet suppository so called or an emollient Clyster of more strong provocations you must take heed because in Women Lying in even as in a Malignant Feaver from a copious dejection with loss of Spirits Life is quickly lost If with the suppression of the Lochia there be a notable perturbation of the Blood with vomiting thirst and wakings I have often known Laudanum mixt with Saffron given with happy success Instead of a cooling Julep this kind of mixture is convenient viz. take of water of Pennyroyal and Balm each three ounces of hysterical water two ounces of the Syrrop of Mugwort three ounces and an half of the tincture of Saffron two drams of Castor ty'd in a rag and hung in the glass one scruple mingle these and let them drink of this three or four spoonfuls oftentimes in a day 2. If notwithstanding the use of these Remedies the Feaver grows still worse and by degrees is increased with worser symptoms that besides the disorders of the Blood the Brain and nervous parts begin to be touched Medicines tho many of every kind may be tryed do little yea in this case the indications are almost the same with those made use of in the Plague it self forasmuch as the Lochia being for a good while suppressed they cannot easily be reduced or scarcely at all in the great confusion of the Blood and humors therefore it is convenient quickly to move a sweating to wit that the corruptions impressed on the Blood and nervous juice and restagnating from the Womb may be carried forth some how by sweat and insensible transpiration Therefore here Powders and Confections of Bezoar Spirit of Hartshorn or of Soot tinctures of Corals or Pearls help I have sometimes seen by the help of those kind of Medicines in a desperate case when the Pulse and other symptoms have appeared a little better some small hopes to shew themselves yet Cure rarely to follow but when the use of these Cordials were left off the sick with a weak Pulse and a Loosness presently arising have been precipitated to Death 3. When yet the business of the sick proves still worse when the Feaver being increased the Pulse is weak and unequal and frequent horrors and convulsive motions in the whole body with a delirium and stupefaction infest them then the Physitian having first made a Prognostication of Death may insist upon a few Remedies and those only Cordials and must wholly abstain from blood-letting scarification blistering or the use of Cupping-glasses for such administrations beget only an odium and blame that by so doing we are esteemed by some Women as wicked and cruel The Symptomatic Feavers of Women in Child-bed THE Acute Diseases of Women in Child-bed shew themselves not only according to the Figure of the aforesaid Feaver but sometimes they are beset with some signal symptoms to wit the Squinancy Pleurifie inflamation of the Lungs Dysentery Small-Pox or of some other kind and at that time they get the appellations of those Distempers It will not be here seasonable to repeat at large what belongs to the essences and natures of each but I shall briefly shew what these sicknesses being complicated with the distempers of Women Lying in contain peculiarly as to the Causes or Cures All these symptoms we suppose to proceed from a certain Coagulation of the Blood and from thence its extravasation But whilst the Blood is extravasated or put forth of the Vessels in one part its efflux however natural and critical is hindred in another wherefore it is dangerous lest whilst the Blood begins to be coagulated either in a particular or accustomed nest of Coagulation or universally in its whole mass the flowing of the Lochia be stopped which in truth for the most part happens and therefore these Distempers for the most part are deadly to Women in Child-bed yet the cause of their Death for the most part happens with some difference viz. in the Small Pox the flowing of the Lochia draws inwardly the malignity begun to be carried forth outwardly and forthwith compels the mass of Blood and the heart it self to be impoysoned with its evil and therefore in the Small Pox these purgings of the Womb are convenient to be stopped But in the Pleurisie Squinancy and the rest when the provocative of the Disease being fixed here or there in a particular place draws to it self the impurities of the Blood which ought to be separated or sifted forth by the Lochia and derives it streight from the Womb for that reason it increases the impurity of the Blood The Lochia being stopped in the Small Pox by the more universal manner or way of excretion may be shut forth of doors with the venemous Particles of the Disease which thing indeed does not succeed in the rest by reason of the minute and more sparing manner of excretion Of these the Squinancy Pleurisie and Inflamation of the Lungs by reason both of the great similitude of the Cause and analogy of the Cure may be considered together when any Woman Lying in is distempered with any of these it is to be supposed that besides the Infection gathered together in the time of being Big-bellied there happens a certain sourish disposition of the Blood by the means of which whilst that it self grows feaverishly hot certain Particles of it being fused with the sourness enter into congelation in this or that part like Milk growing sour and then to be coagulated The Blood being there frozen or congealed and hindred in its circuit stops the passage of the rest but the Blood being obstructed in its motion buts against the impediment and so being heaped up about it and driven forth of the Vessels grows into a tumour from thence presently whatsoever is
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-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
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
and the blood did drink up the same from the nourishing juice sent as a supply from the Bowells These being thus supposed we must consider in what space of time the bloody mass is filled with those morbific particles and then in what measure it pours them forth into the nervous Liquor As to these that it may the better appear after what manner it was done in the case of this sick person you must know that she took in 24. hours space only at one time a full meal to wit after the second fit was ended she supped moderately about 7 of the Clock the rest of the day wanting an Appetite she hardly took any food therefore it is probable that the morbific matter was poured forth together with the nutritious provision into the bloody mass chiefly in the night time and that more plentifully than that all could presently be derived into the nervous Liquor The heterogeneous particles which are first conveyed from the blood newly satisfyed into the nervous Liquor being heaped up to the fulness did excite the first fit the coming of which therefore was longer delayed because both one space is required wherein the blood and then another wherein the brain and nerves are to be filled after this fit was over because the blood yet full containing in it self more particles of the same kinde pours them suddenly on the nervous juice therefore the other fit is induced within thrice the space of the former but this being ended because both the bloody mass and the nervous juice are wholly freed from their burthen the sick person finding her self better than at any other time took her food greedily enough but after that when to the next following fit first the bloody mass and then the nervous juice ought to be filled with the morbific matter therefore 10. hours are required for this double task but forasmuch as there is only need for the second fit that the other particles should be derived from the bloody mass yet full into the nervous juice therefore for this effect a much less space doth suffice viz. of 6 hours After I had seen this Lady who had labour'd for many weeks with these kinde of periodicall fits I order'd that three hours before the second fit The Curatory Method ten ounces of blood should be taken out of the vein on the foot which being done the coming of the fit in the evening being expected quite left her neither did it return at all afterwards but the other fit observing its former time dayly returned till the Patient being let blood a little before its coming remained that day free from the disease which however returning the day after according to the same manner exercised her for many months In the mean time because the cold of the winter was very great she forbore for some time the use of remedies but the spring coming on this honourable Lady being brought to Oxford was Cured by the following method First I gave her this Cathartick and I took care that it was repeated every 6th or 7th day Take of the Sulphur of Antimony grains 6 of Mercurius dulcis 1. scruple of the Resine of Julap gr iv of ginger gr vi let them be beaten together in a morter then adde of the Conserves of Violets i. dram make a bolus It was wont to provoke two or three vomits and three or four stools The flux of her Terms came constantly in great abundance at the set times wherefore when the blood seem'd very plentifull and hot I order'd phlebotomy twice or thrice in the midst betwixt the times of her Terms Besides every day that she did not purge she took twice in a day 4 pills of the following mass drinking after them a little draught of the Julap below prescribed Take of the Roots of the male-Paeony â„¥ ss of Virginian snakeweed Contrayerva Cretic Dittany each Ê’ iâ—i of humane skull prepared Ê’ i ss of an Elks clawÊ’ i. of red Corral prepared of the powder of Pearls each Ê’ i. of the salt of Wormwood Ê’ ii of the salt of CorrallÊ’ i. with what will suffice of the syrrop of the flowers of the male-paeony make a mass Take of the water of the flowers of the male-paeony of black Cherries and of Wallnuts each â„¥ iiii of the antiepileptic of Langius â„¥ ii of the syrrop of the flowers of Paeony â„¥ i ss of Castor tyed in a knot and hung in the glass Ê’ i. mix them and make a Julap When she began to loath the Pills they being omitted she took twice a day to wit in the Morning and the Evening about one scruple of the following powder in a spoonfull of Julap drinking after it 4. or 5. spoonfulls of the same Take of Bezar-stone of either white Amber of Pearls prepared of red Corrall each ℈ i. of humane skull ℈ ii of the root of Virginian snakeweed and the seeds of Rue each Ê’ ss mingle them and make a powder let her take ℈ i. Morning and Evening with a dose of the above-prescribed Julap Then when also this medicine began to be tedious to her she used the pills or the Elixir proprietatis and also sometimes for many days the Spirits of Harts-horn At last she began to be helped by that powder being daily taken for some space In the mean time whilst this method of healing was ordained her hair being shaven from her head it was covered only with a thin covering She wore upon her Belly an Hysterical plaister mixed with Galbanum for her ordinary drink she took a Bochet of Sarsa and China the roots of the male-Paeony and other proper things infused in spring-Spring-water and boyled Within a month the Fits were something remitted then being by degrees made gentler and lesser at length they almost quite ceased unless that at the time of her Terms one or two fits of the disease was wont to trouble her Further she labour'd with an almost constant giddiness and queasiness of Stomach in the middle of the Summer she drunk Astrop-waters for a fortnight and was perfectly well But as for the means in generall to be shown for the Cure of these admirable Convulsions it will not be easie to assigne either fit remedies for this herculean disease or a certain method of Cure approved by often experience for besides that these like cases are seldome met with it is likewise observed that the same Medicines which at this time were helpfull to this sick person being given to another or to the same helpt nothing at another time The reason of which seems to be because the cause of the Disease consists in the discrasie or evill disposition of the nervous juice which Liquor is not always perverted after one and the same manner But by the manifold combination of the salts and Sulphures it gets a morbid nature of a various manner and kinde and oftentimes changes it wherefore in the most grievious distempers of this kinde not the vulgar medicines taken from the
I had begun to look more deeply into the matter I perceived I had gotten a far more large Province Because it plainly appeared besides these of Art very many Works of Nature to be not only like but themselves the effects of Fermentation For when for the solving of the Phoenomenas which are met with about the swelling up of the mealy Mass and the working of Wine and of other Liquors I had Composed divers Arguments Reasons and Hypotheses I found at length those first begotten Particles by whose Orgasm or Heat those vulgar preparations do Ferment to beget the Causes of motions and alterations in whatever things they are mix'd with besides wherefore I may be pardoned if I have strayed far from our proposition and have seemed to any one to have heaped together here too plentiful an Harvest of Matter because I was wholly led by the same thrid of Ratiocination and the most conjunct Affinity of things to these various and diverse Concretes If any one shall object that I prostitute the unusual Notions and almost only heard of in the Shops of the Chymists unhandsomly among the works of ordinary people I say these Principles which being brought indeed to perform the self moving motions of Natural things also more easily to represent them to the vulgar capacity and lay them not only before their Eyes but even into their very Hands what of these kind of substances I call Particles men tho rude and unskilful may perceive even by the help of their senses to be in the things besides the names of Sulphur Salt and Spirit and the rest are more familiarly known than Matter and Form or the four Principles of the Peripateticks As to our method and manner of Philosophizing no man can blame me if I should not here describe all things according to Rule and Analytick Patterns because in this Work it chances for me to wander without a Guide or Companion in solitary places and as it were in a solitude trodden by no footsteps where I not only make a Journey but my way also therefore when ever I deviate I cannot be said to err among right Judges of our endeavours who have no Path in which I should Walk nor could find a Track which I might fear to miss ON THE AUTHORS Medical-Philosophical Discourses THE intricate and hidden cause of things Both Peace and Strife by what means Nature brings What various motions Bodies do inspire What mixes with the Waters quenchless Fire What Bonds the Elements together tye Before this happyer Age unfolded lye Things hid to former Ages and unknown The Secrets of the world to all are shown Metals dug from the Bowels of the Earth Tho they from Phoebus boast their Heavenly birth We without light dark and obscure behold And Splendor's found only in burnisht Gold Iron unknown lay hidden without light By Slaves wrought from the Mine grows dazeling bright This to whole Troops confusion doth afford Wit which first fram'd stoops to the Victor Sword We thus of old did Nature search in vain Our Arts did only i th' outward bark remain But now we her hid mysteries unfold And the great secrets of the world behold Better than us herself can hardly tell What Love doth far within high Mountains dwell What flame first gives the Marble Quarry birth To Metals forms blind Rudiments of Earth And the hard child doth to perfection bring Why Earth shows her rich Treasures in the Spring And shines made brave with her own Native flowers What gentle gales and what sweet moistning showers Do on the pregnant Goddess Seed bestow Whilst Heavenly Iris mounts the Cloudy Bow Why Ceres swells with watery Nymphs embrace What Strife what Wars spring from hot Bacchus race What Vulcan doth th' Aetnean Fornace blow What doth soft fires thorow all Bodies throw What Spirit nimbly moves the human frame Whence Milky juice here there a Purple stream Watering the Body whence the Crimson flood And the quick Circulation of the blood What hidden fires in veins and intrals burn Which do the boyling Blood to Feavers turn What mixes freezing cold with parching heat And makes the different Zones together meet Whence comes the Pestilence with Stygian breath Riding on blasting Winds and arm'd with death What Prophesying Humor through the Reins doth pass What colour and what odor in the Glass All things lye open now He did not know So much to whom Prometheus did bestow His stollen fires We now every part Of the whole Earth compass about with Art He 's happy who Causes of things can shew Sacred to Nature and to Phoebus too About his Temples Delphic Laurels spread And flames of lightning ne'r shall blast his head Whom Hermes doth with Sacred Arts imbue Whose Labours Learning out of Darkness drew May all 's days happy be may he shine bright And may he still enjoy Coelestial light May no Disease infect with poysonous breath Him who gains Health from Sickness Life from Death OF FERMENTATION OR THE Inorganical Motion OF NATVRAL BODIES CHAP. I. Of the Principles of Natural things THere is nothing more rarely to be met with in the Vulgar Philosophy where Natural things are unfolded with the vain figments of Forms and Qualities than the word Fermentation but among the more sound especially of later years who respect the Matter and Motion chiefly in Bodies nothing is almost more usual But Fermentation hath its name from Fervescency as Ferment from Ferviment or growing hot The word is well known in making of Bread and in the purgings of new Wine Beer and other potable Liquors thence it is also applyed to other things which are wont to swell or grow turgid after the same manner that at length it signifies whatsoever Effervency or Turgency that is raised up in a Natural Body by particles of that Body variously agitated Bodies of a divers Consistency and Habitude are apt to a Fermenting viz. either Thin or Thick Liquid or Solid Animate or Inanimate Natural or Artificial in all which is found an Heterogeneity of parts or particles to wit there are in them some substances light and always endeavouring to fly away and also there are others thick earthy and more fix'd which intangle the subtil Particles and detein them in their Embraces whilst they endeavour to fly away from the strivings and wrestlings of these two twins in one Womb the motion of Fermentation chiefly proceeds but on the contrary what things do not Ferment for the most part consist of like Particles and are of the same Figure and Conformation which indeed consociat among themselves without any Tumult or Turgescency lye quiet and enjoy a deep peace If Must or new Wine or new Ale or Beer be closely Bottl'd up or put into Vessels of small vent they will grow so very hot that often the Vessels are in danger of breaking But if the same Liquors being Distilled by themselves and then what is seperated shut up from thence no motion or heat will follow Wherefore Distilled
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
when they being layed up wet or the wheels of Carts or Axeltree made hot by motion doe fire or because Sulphur is inkindled by Sulphur for its Particles being impetuously moved shake or move all that 's near them and carry them into the like motion of Conflagration as shall be more fully shown hereafter when we shall discourse concerning the nature of fire 3. Salt is of a little more fixed nature than either Spirit or Sulphur nor so apt to fly away but bestows a Compaction and Solidity on things and also weight and duration It retards the dissolution of Bodies and promotes Congelations and Coagulations and very much resists Putrefaction Corruption and Inflammation to wit forasmuch as it fixes the too volatile Sulphur and Spirit and detains them in a Body wherefore ponderous Woods Stones Metals and what abound in Salt are hardly enkindled and remain a long while free from Corruption Not only the duration of the individual but also the propagation of the Species depends very much upon the Principle of Salt because the fertility of the Earth the growth of Plants and especially the frequent faetation and bringing forth of young in living Creatures takes their Original from the Saltish Seed hence it is that Venus is said to arise from the Sea and Lust is called Salacity For Salt having obtained a flux gathers together and stirs up into motion the idle or too much disjoyned little Bodies of Spirit or Sulphur and excellently keeps them together with itself for the producing the first ground-work of things Salt within the frame of the mixture is either altogether fixed when its Particles being almost destitute of Spirit and Water but bound together with Earth or Sulphur or both of them grow into Stones Metals or Minerals of another kind which fixity in Nature is imitated in making Glass and Earthen Ware or Salt is loosned from its fixedness to wit when its Particles being mixed with the other Principles and chiefly with Spirit and Sulphur and Diluted with Water do unfold themselves and being diffused through the mixture do Ferment with the rest whilst the little Bodies of the Salt are after this manner put into motion there is observed of them a threefold State or Condition to wit of Fusion Volatilisation and Fluxation I call the State of Fusion when the little Bodies of the Salt being Commixed with the rest begin as to their smallest parts to be dissolved and diffused and explicated here and there through the whole substance of the mixture as may be observed in the Germination of Plants in the first Conceptions of living Creatures and in the beginnings of Fermentations hence Spring only a rude and indigested formation of things an ingrateful savour and for the most part bitter or biting From these first Rudiments of Motions the Saline Particles ascend by little and little to Vigor and Volatilisation together with Spirit and Sulphur to wit whereby they run through the whole substance of the Body and variously move its matter and dispose it towards maturity Some little Bodies sharpen and stir up into Motion others Fix Establish and Congeal into a stony hardness If there be plenty of Spirits and Sulphur the Particles of Salt as their handmaids go about to unite and associate themselves intimately with them that they are not only snatched together with them through all the recesses of the mixture but the subject being exposed to Distillation Salt also ascends in the Alembic even as the Spirit From the Volatilisation of Salt Beauty and Fairness and savour chiefly sweet happen in things as in the florid blood of living Creatures in ripe Fruits as also in Sugar Milk and Hony we know by experience I mean the Fluxation of Salt when the saline Particles which being first gathered together with Earth or Sulphur or associated with Spirit and so remain separated one from another afterwards the bond of the mixtion being loosened they become wholy free and unloosened from the yoak of the rest for so they flow together explicate themselves through the whole frame of the subject and whilst Spirit and Sulphur for the most part fly away these exercise a dominion over the remainder and induce a soureness into the whole mixture by reason of this Fluxation of Salt Wine Milk Blood and Eateable Things at first grateful and sweet grow ingratefully soure when they begin to Corrupt and for this Reason all Salts whatsoever having gotten a Flux by a violent Distillation by Fire that is being driven from the Combination of Earth grow sour than if the same sour Liquor be put upon the insipid dead Head the Whole lastly becomes salted Salt being deprived of the Company of the rest except the Earth becomes at last fixed as is observed in Sea-Salt or the incineration made of Herbs whose Particles so cleave together that they cannot be pulled asunder by the strongest Fire When Vegetables are Distilled some Saline Particles though but few made fit for Fusion ascend with the rest and from thence some Distilled Waters retain a genuine savour of the mixture The parts of living Creatures being exposed to Distillation yield a Volatile Salt when Minerals or ponderous Woods full of Salt are brought under by Chymistry the Distilled Liquor is like to Salt that hath gotten a Flux and is very sour Spirit and Sulphur easily unlock the substance of the mixture and make way for themselves but Salt cannot unless it be snatched forth of doors together with the Spirit it self As Spirit and Sulphur being outwardly applyed in dissolving or burning a Body open as it were the doors for their Companions shut within so also Salt Liquors Distilled do the same thing For Stygian Waters strongly Corrode Metals and are seen like a flame put to them to burn and consume the same Salt resists Inflammation for that it detains the Sulphureous Particles in its Bosom and hinders them from breaking forth But excepting that Sal Nitre encreases the burning of Sulphur which indeed happens by accident because that Salt as it were an Hermaphrodite grows very turgid with Sulphureous Particles also combined in the mixture wherefore when the Salt is melted by other fired Sulphur the shut up Sulphur breaks forth with violence and like a blast from a Bellows shakes the inkindled fire round about and drives more impetuously the subject into a Body In the mean time if yout put the flame to Nitre it will not be inkindled at all but being put to a Sulphureous Body it promotes its enkindling but the other Salts less turgid with Sulphureous Particles or rather destitute of them being mixed with Sulphur hinder its inkindling and somtimes put it out So much for the Active Principles which effect as it were the first ground-work of Bodies those which follow chiefly bestow on them Consistency and Substance For from hence exist either Liquids or Solids Small things or Great For Water and Earth fill the little spaces that are empty through the Combination of the rest
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
ways are thought of whereby the Menstruum of water is made sharper and is rendred fit for the dissolving of any Bodies whatsoever For by means of the Bodies which it ought to dissolve and of the parts which it ought to receive in it self it is armed as it were with some Weapons with which it is able to unlock any Subject and to possess now these now those Particles The Menstruum of water is sharpned with Spirit Salt or Sulphur to wit either with each of these or with more of them joyned together we will first speak of the watery Menstruum with the various sharpning of it and afterwards of the fiery dissolvent Common water most easily dissolves the more simple Bodies except Sulphur and hides their Particles in its pores and passages it readily receives Salts of every kind and easily imbibes Spirits it loosens the frame of Earth and cherishes its more tender little bodies in its embrace but it is hardly mixed with Fat and Oyly things and receives not their Particles but by the coming between of others but drives them forth to its Superficies as not miscible or thrusts them down to the bottom Water in some measure enters the more compounded Bodies whose frame is somwhat loose and then receives into its bosom some not simple Particles but resembling the nature of the whole mixture hence most Vegetables also parts of living creatures and some Minerals being put into common water do impregnate it with a certain virtue and from most Metals by a long maceration it takes away some strength though but small Some Bodies are dissolved by water which yet a Sulphureous or Spirituous Menstrua leave almost untouch'd as the Gums Tragacanth Arabic c. also Salts and Sugar The first and most common way of sharpning whereby simple water may more easily enter the Bodies to be dissolved is that it be furnished with fiery Particles or darts of adventitious heat for so it is driven more deeply with a certain force into Bodies and destroys some thrids as it were the smallest mites in their most inward recesses Wherefore we are wont to boyl for a long while the matter to be dissolved in water or at least to infuse it in warm water by which means the more tenuious and certain subtil Particles which resemble the nature of the Subject are easily drawn forth and impregnate the water with the virtue of the whole mixture So much for the simple or natural Menstruum of water to wit for as much as its activity is wont somtimes to be promoted by fire or ascititious heat But this cannot be so simple but that it contains in it self some Particles of another kind as may be gathered from its easie Putrefaction for oftentimes it is impregnated with Spirituous Sulphureous or Saline breathings contracted from the Air or Earth that for the drawing forth the tinctures of very many things somtimes it excels an Artificial Menstruum for that Acidulous or Spawish waters Mineral waters Rain water and May Dew are of frequent use among Chymicks for the remarkable faculty of dissolving with which they are strong Besides 't is a vulgar observation that some waters most easily dissolve Sope and being throughly mixed with the same causes in the liquor a great spume or froth such if they be rubbed between the fingers feel soft and gentle but other waters which being handled with the hands are more harsh refuse the mixture both of Sope and Oyl and so are accounted unprofitable for the washing of Cloaths these sort of waters if they should be evaporated in a Glass oftentimes affix a Crust to its bottom and sides because they are impregnated more than they ought with Saline Particles with which when the Saline parts residing in the Sope combine the Sulphureous are carried away and they being excluded the pores are thrust forth as not miscible to the top of the Liquor When Flesh is boyled in these waters it grows very red which tincture indeed being thence contracted is a sign that those waters are somwhat imbued with Vitriol or some other kind of Salt But we will pass to Artificial Menstruas in which the watry Liquor is furnished with Spirit Salt or Sulphur being gathered apart or many of them together The Spirituous Menstruum of water is made when from a Body swelling with Spirits a clear and limpid water is distilled as from Wine or strong Beer or other Bodies truly Fermented and brought to exaltation The kind of dissolvent is hardly to be had so sincere but it is mixed with the Particles of more pure Sulphur and somtimes of a volatile Salt The former kind of Liquor is called Spirit of Wine which being subtil and very penetrating easily enters the Bodies and parts of Vegetables and also of living Creatures but hardly Minerals or not at all it extracts from many things not any Particles or resembling the Nature of the whole mixture as common water but chiefly Spirituous and Sulphureous the rest being almost untouched wherefore it is wont to be used for the resinous magisteria of Vegetables which it draws forth almost sincere or without mixture under the form of Gum or Refine in the mean time it is not so fit as common water for the extracts of Plants which are not so indued with Sulphur from Sulphureous things as Benzoin Sulphur Olibanum Styrax Amber and the like it draws forth excellent Tinctures It dissolves the fixed Salts of Herbs also of Pearls and Coral before prepared with Vinegar by a long digestion and receives their Tinctures into it self it leaves Sugar and Gums being dissolvable in water almost untouch'd But there is another Spirituous Menstruum that is sharpned with a volatile Salt such is the Liquor which is distilled out of blood Harts-horn or Soot it is far stronger than the former and cuts most Bodies except Metals into parts and oftimes destroys the forms of the whole mixture yea it most excellently dissolves secondarily the most fixed Metal to wit Gold being first reduced into a Calx by its proper Menstruum and reduces it into a Tincture or potable Liquor They are accounted Sulphureous Menstrua which are brought forth of Sulphureous Bodies under the form of an Oyl these are prepared either by distillation such as are chiefly the Oyl of Turpentine Juniper and the like or by expression such as are wrung forth of Olives Almonds and other Fruits or Seeds of Vegetables Things distilled are of more efficacy than preparations by expression either of them draw forth some Particles from Vegetables or Animals by the vertues of which these Oyls being impregnated they are made fit for Medicinal use Yea they are conveniently enough made use of for the extracting of the Sulphureous Particles of Minerals which somtimes they draw forth sincere or unmixt But if Oyl of Turpentine or Lin-seed Oyl draws forth by dissolving the combustible part of common Sulphur in the mean time the remaining Saline parts and untouched by the Menstruum grow into Crystals
any Menstruum and that I had especially tryed many things about Iron after several experiments at length by a certain chance and almost thinking of somthing else I found out a preparation whereby without any Corrosive or Acid Liquor by the mediation only of a gentle heat the body of Iron is opened that being reduced into powder gives immediately a tincture to any Liquor that neither Salts themselves are sooner dissolved in common water By this means I am wont to prepare suddenly in great quantity Mineral waters which exactly resemble our Tunbridg Spaws and to render Wine Beer Milk or Whey with no trouble Chalybeated By this means Syrrops Tinctures Extracts or Magisteria out of Steel are most easily to be had Moreover plainly by the same Artifice Corals Pearls Eyes and Claws of Crabs and all shelly things are prepared that their powders presently impart to any Menstruum a tincture or the virtues of the whole Concrete And in this preparation no strange quality is introduced to the Subject nor its own proper quality lost When I had by this means learnt to unlock all Bodies whatsoever consisting of a Saline bond presently from the Analogy of this was made known the means of unlocking Subjects whose Concretion is wholly Sulphureous for I am wont so to prepare common Sulphur that its powder immediatly impregnates any Liquor with the tincture and virtue of Sulphur The Spirit of Wine suddenly contracts a deep colour and very red that being put into it Common water by the infusion or decoction of the same Powder is rendered clearly Sulphureous and gilds Silver and by this means from that Tincture a praecipitation being made of White Wine or Vinegar the Milk of Sulphur is easily prepared in great quantity Out of Sulphurated Wine by this infusion I make a Syrrop than which there is scarce found a more excellent remedy in the distempers of the Thorax By this means Tinctures Extracts Magistries are prepared from Sulphur with no labour and without any smatch of the fire By the same way preparations from Amber Benzoin and other Sulphureous things easily dissolvable in any Menstruum are composed But enough and too much of this we will now pass to the other great dissolvent of Nature CHAP. X. Of the Nature of Fire and by the way of Heat and Light WE may almost pronounce the same thing of Fire what the Philosophers of old did of the first Matter to wit that it was potentially every where and in all things but in none in act For among these sublunaries Fire hath got no existence of its own Nature or certain means of duration It is produced almost in every Subject but is retained long in none but it suddenly vanisheth and expires yea unless some external accidents oftentimes should concur for its production I think it had not at all been in the world Some have dreamed that its Sphear is scituate under the Moon but this was introduced only for the making the Hypothesis of the four Elements for such a thing seems consonant neither to Sense nor Reason That we may rightly search out the Nature of Fire we must seek in what Bodies it is chiefly to be found and how they are disposed and then we may proceed to the unfolding its essence The Subjects most convenient both for the producing and the maintaining of Fire are of that kind in which there are very many Particles of Sulphur and but only a moderate portion of Water Salt and Earth for these do hinder its inkindlings and being plentifully poured on it extinguish it being inkindled Wherefore Bituminous Fat and Oyly things quickly take flame so also Chips Straw light and dry Wood in the mean time Metals Minerals the glebe of the Earth Dung wet Straw and green Wood are hardly or not at all to be inkindled Secondly we observe that all the time Fire continues in the Subject Sulphureous Particles fly away in heaps and from the departure of these the substance of the burning body is by degrees destroyed in the mean time very much of Salt and Earth remains in the form of Ashes after the burning There is a third observation that when the Sulphureous Particles are wholly or for the most part flown out of any Subject the burning wholly ceases and the form of fire is quite destroyed nor can it be renewed in the remaining matter wanting of Sulphur Fourthly we will note that somtimes some Bodies conceive a burning without the advention of another fire only by their own effervency and by the intestine motion of the implanted Particles and of their own accord are reduced into Ashes as when wet Hay is layd up close it first grows hot then afterwards breaks forth into smoke and flame or the Wheels and Axeltrees of Carts or Wains being heated by too great agitation are inkindled According to these positions we may affirm that the form of fire wholly depends upon Sulphureous Particles heaped up in any Subject and breaking forth from it in heaps and that fire is no other thing than the motion and eruption of these kind of Particles impetuously stirred up For Sulphur is of an exceeding fierce and untamed Nature whose little bodies when the yoak of the mixture being shook off they begin to be thickly heaped together diffuse themselves on every side like a torrent break whatsoever obstacles are in the Subject destroy whatever comes in opposition or fling it down headlong Nor do they only unlock their proper Subjects but also lay open the gates and doors of any other Subject near that they can reach to and there incite to the like fury all the consimilary Particles of Sulphur and provoke them to an eruption wherefore fire every where inkindles fire The Sulphureous Particles while they heaped together within the confines of their Subject or on its Superficies are agitated with a rapid motion but are detained by the Embrace of other little Bodies from a more free eruption and more aggregated constitute the form of fire as is to be seen in burning Coals or in glowing Iron but when these sort of Particles fly away by heaps from the same Subject and bound together they produce flame which is only an heap or rather a torrent of the Particles of Sulphur flowing together and conjunctly flying away if Watery Earthy and Saline Particles are commixt with the Sulphureous breaking away and are able to disjoyn and separate them only smoke is excited which afterwards the Sulphureous little Bodies more plentifully breathing forth themselves and getting together breaks forth into flame The inkindling of Fire happens very many ways The first and most simple is when from hard bodies struck one against another but oftenest from a Flint struck against Steel sparks of fire break forth which being received in Tinder made of a Linnen Cloth burnt to blackness dilate themselves and then a Match or Sulphurated thing being applyed they cause the inkindling of a flame Secondly a fire often happens in dry Wood and dry
common manner of this sort are among Simples common Sulphur and Sal Nitre among Compounds Gun-Powder and Aurum Fulminans Concerning common Sulphur we may observe that it quickly catches fire heat it immediatly breaks forth into flame such as nothing besides that by its deflagration it puts out the Kitchen fire that it sends forth a blueish flame and whitens all objects with its Smoke or Soot If you behold the matter of this Subject or the parts of which the mixture is composed its Spagyrical Analysis will exhibit great plenty of pure Sulphur a moderate quantity of Vitriolic Salt a little of Spirit Water and Earth For when common Sulphur is dissolved by the Spirit of Turpentine the Sulphureous part impregnates the Menstruum with a very deep Tincture and the Saline grows into Crystals or when it is fired under a Bell the Sulphur wholly burns in the mean time the Salt being resolved and having taken a Flux is fixed about the sides of the Vessel and so exhibits a Liquor most like the Spirit of Vitriol or rather the very same To which add if you mingle the Oyl of Vitriol and Antimony together and distill it in a Retort a Yellow Sulphur just like the common will be Sublimed in the neck of the Retort I say therefore because there are very many Particles of Sulphur in this Concrete and that they lie loose and unbound in the mixture to wit neither divided and separated by the coming between of Earth or Water nor much bound together by Salt therefore they are of a most prompt motion wherefore by the least spark of fire they break forth from the loose frame and because very many run forth adoors together therefore not a naked fire as in every Combustible thing besides but first of all and immediatly a flame is inkindled It s flame becomes blueish because 't is almost pure Sulphur that burns not mixed with the Particles of Water and Earth as it is in Wood or Straw The very same thing happens to Spirit of Wine being inflamed It extinguishes the Kitchen fire by reason of the little Bodies of Vitriolic Salt left behind and the same being eventilated with the flame and fume of Sulphur gives a white colour to things the like to which the Effluvia's exhaled from the Spirit of Vitriol or Stygian Waters do effect Concerning Sal Nitre we will take notice that it is not to be inkindled at all by it self but to be melted by an intense fire but being mixed with any Sulphureous things it breaks forth into a flame with a certain force and explosion For being added to common Sulphur Antimony or Tartar it burns with a thundering noise also if you put into melted Nitre a burning Cole or Wood the flame is exploded round about with a wind so that the matter put in is flung up and down here and there and often times flung clear out of the Vessel by this kind of deflagration what is Nitrous is consumed the fixed Salt which is Tartar remains When Nitre is distilled Sand or Brick dust is mixt with it in a double quantity at least otherwise the Nitre melting is not at all loosened into a vapor In the distilling the vapor sent forth is very red so that the Receptacle shines with a splendor as if a flame were shut up within it a sharp corrosive Liquor is stilled forth which dissolves most Metals also Gold These things being truly weighed it seems that this mixture consists chiefly of aboundance of Salt and a little Sulphur but these not fixed and idle but either exalted and ready for motion and not without a certain resistance bound together to wit the Sulphureous little Bodies being rouled about by the Saline and as it were strictly pressed still endeavour to get forth but being strictly bound within they are not able to rise forth by their own strength or endeavour but as soon as by the mixture and inkindling of another Sulphureous Body the Particles of the Salt are disjoyned and their Prisons unlocked presently the included little Bodies of Sulphur as it were breaking Prison fling themselves forth with violence remove every Obstacle and strike the Air violently with a sudden eruption The reason why fire doth not inkindle Nitre being inclosed in a Vessel but only melts it when in the mean time any Sulphureous matter being fired makes it to flame forth with a noise is because the little Bodies which fall away from the fire enter the Nitre make it a little loose and dissociate the concretion of the Salt but not so loosen it that a way may be made for the included Sulphur but by the addition of Sulphureous things the Saline compaction is more dissolved and is so far unlocked that the Particles of the inclosed Sulphur fly away all together and being freed from their straightness do hugely stretch themselves abroad and seek greedily an immense space That there is plenty of Sulphur in Nitre besides its deflagration the Genesis of it sufficiently testifies for it is begot chiefly in places where the Sulphureous Excrements of Animals abound The use of it in agriculture argues the same thing because the fertility of the Earth depends very much upon it And to this also the flaming colour shining in the distilling may persuade From these premises it will not be difficult to unfold the nature of Gun-Powder used in Warlike Instruments For the sudden firing and vehement explosion of it arise for that those very many and almost infinite Particles of Sulphur which constitute that fire-dilating Body being fired fly away together in a moment all which breaking forth at once a force being made and desiring a most free and ample space for their expansion violently move the Air and all obstacles and so are exploded or thrust forth with a noise There is in this mixture common Sulphur put because its Particles are loose and ready for motion and therefore apt to move a quick inkindling there is added Charcoal dust because in that also the little Sulphureous Bodies as is seen in Tinder that is made of half burnt Linnen are brought to the very top of eruption and therefore these presently conceive an inkindling and both these being fired and opposed to the Nitre they quickly loosen its frame and send forth the Sulphureous Particles inclosed in it which indeed break forth from their impediments with a force and as the blast of a Bellows encrease the strength of the whole in firing The Charcoal dust is added in a moderate quantity though it abounds with Terrestrial matter yet by reason of the Sulphur being carried forth in it it accelerates the deflagration of this mixture For the Coal and Nitre being beaten together is sooner fired and with a greater explosion than Nitre and Sulphur But if the Coals be added to this Composition as they are wont to make it for Cannon and great Guns in a greater quantity than it ought and improportionate to the Nitre the immediat firing is somwhat
Inns are able to produce by their eruption an intense and almost fiery heat in the mean time those Saline little Bodies are so loosned by the long familiarity of the fiery and by the embrace of one another and of the strangers that they become Volatile and being diluted with water for the greatest part evaporate with it and the remaining Salt because also Volatile and having suffered almost a divorce from all the rest of the Principles is both sweetish and becomes desirous of Conjunction and astringent and therefore also is of excellent use for plastring of Walls But that Stygian waters being poured upon the Stagmas of fixed Salts produce heat and the same mixed with Iron or the Butter of Antimony stir up a mighty ardor with a blackning smoak the reason seems plain As to the Stygian waters and fixed Salts it may be said that both these Concretes are only Salts having got divers states by the fire and so either being very much stuffed with fiery Particles which are the most minute atoms of Sulphur But they being confused together do forthwith rush into mutual embraces and because the Particles of either are made unlike therefore whereby they may be more strictly united there is made a great attrition of parts and together an excussion of the fiery Particles from whence the great ebullition with a heat is excited when the same Menstrua are poured on Iron or the Ice of Antimo the Salts of either come together and shake forth the fiery Particles and also the Sulphureous Particles before implanted in either Subject which flying away in heaps cause a smoak with a heat but not a flame CHAP. XI Of the motion of Fermentation as it is to be observed in the Precipitation of Bodies WE have hitherto treated of the Solutions of Bodies it remains now that we speak of Precipitation this is performed only in Liquids which when as they are stuffed with Heterogeneous Particles are compelled by a matter Precipitating those Particles to separate one from another and to obtain for their substance divers places and conditions wherefore since in this operation there is an agitation and motion of parts its consideration ought to be referred to the Doctrine of Fermentation Precipitation is performed either in Natural things as chiefly in Milk Blood Urine and perhaps in some others or in Artificial things which are of a diverse Kind and Nature but they may be described and ranked in a certain order according as the Liquor to be Precipitated or Precipitating is either Spirituous Sulphureous Watery or Saline besides according as the Particles separated from the rest are either Elementary viz. either Sulphureous Earthy or Saline or Integral which participate of the Nature of the whole mixture and are only very small portions of it very much broken There are two common and known ways of Precipitation whereby is made from Milk both Cheese and Butter As to the first if any sharp thing be poured into warm Milk the thicker and Cheesie parts presently separate from the serous and thinner and are gathered together into a thick substance The reason of which consists in this Milk has a somwhat thick consistence and its pores and passages are very much beset with the thicker to wit the Cheesie contents wherefore when somthing more subtil and penetrating as is Rennet passes through the Liquor it easily thrusts forth the more thick Particles with which the pores were possessed which then mutually Embrace one another and are separated a part from the thin and Wheyie Liquor When Milk is kept long to a sourness it is Precipitated after the same manner without Rennet by warming it over the fire For in stale Milk its Saline parts get a Flux then being stirred up by the fire supply by their own sourness the turn of Rennet yea it is not improbable that the fluid Salt in the Rennet provokes the Saline Particles of the Milk into a Flux and that for this reason chiefly its Coagulation succeeds for that the Saline parts having gotten of their own accord a Flux so bind the pores of the Liquor that the more thick Contents are willingly exterminated from them wherefore we do say for that reason the same thing happens when a Flux of the same Salt is caused by some thing else put into it But that the Coagulation of Milk happens not only by reason of the passages and pores being possessed by a strange Body the sign is because the Salt of Tartar tho exceeding Precipitatory effects nothing of this and this effect is excited almost only by sour things Sugar hinders the Precipitation of Milk and many other Liquors because it restrains the Flux of the Acetous Salt and as it is easily Soluble and its Particles are soft and blunt they extrude not the former Contents implanted in the Liquor but fill all vacuities that afterwards there is no space whereby another Precipitating Liquor may unfold it self and break into anothers quarters But Country people are wont to make Butter of the Flowers or Cream of Milk kept for the most part to a sourness only by shaking or Churning it The reason of which as it seems to me is this in Cream there is great plenty of Sulphur with which also a mean portion of Salt and Earth is mixed as may be conjectured both by the sourness of the Liquor remaining of the Butter or the Butter-Milk and by its thicker consistency In this mixture the parts both Saline and Sulphureous are in motion and a Flux but as the Liquor is thicker they cannot presently fly away wherefore it remains that if the bond of the mixture be further loosned they will separate into parts and that first the Sulphureous Particles which exceed the others in power are Congregated together with a mutual embrace wherefore these two things the Churning of the Cream performs viz. it brings the Sulphureous parts by their often obvolution together whereby they do the better intangle themselves and mutually ensnare one another besides it breaks their mixture with the rest For this reason in the Winter time when Cream is thinner and abounds less with Sulphur Butter is hardly made Besides the admixtion of Salt or Sugar wholly hinders its making because by the coming between of those little Bodies the Sulphureous parts are hindred from a mutual adhesion The chief Precipitation of the blood which is performed within a living Body is made in the Reins where not without the strength of a certain Coagulum or Rennet the serous matter is separated from the rest of the blood just as Whey from Milk For which reason Diuretical things are of the same Nature as those which bring a Coagulation to Milk and therefore because they more Precipitate the blood by fusing it they cause a large profusion of urine The blood being sent forth of the Vessels separates into various substances by its own disposition whilst it is warm it is variously Precipitated by some Liquors poured to it in like manner
readily thrust out of the little spaces of the Menstruum and descend to the bottom We will in this place more sparingly insist upon instances of this nature because the more full handling of them belongs to the Chymical Work Precipitation is not only observed in the separation of a more thick matter from a serous latex and in the settling of the disturbed parts towards the bottom but somtimes the Particles shut up within the pores and passages of the Liquor are so small and subtil that being Precipitated they are not discerned by the sight neither do they quickly descend to the bottom but from their situation and position being variously changed the colour and consistency of the Liquor are diversly altered I was wont in times past to sport with the solutions of Vegetables and Minerals which being made by themselves were clear like Spring water and appeared bright being commixed shewed now a Black colour now a Milky Red Green Blue or some other kind The solution of Saturn or Lead being made with distilled Vinegar appears bright like common water if you add to this Oil of Tartar like clear water the mixture straight grows White like Milk If Antimony calcined with Nitre be boiled in Spring water the straining seems clear and almost without smell which yet being dashed by any Acid thing presently acquires a deep yellow colour with a most wicked stink Common water being imbued by an infusion of Mercury Sublimate is presently tinged with yellowness by Oyl of Tartar dropped into it Quicksilver and Sal Armoniack being beaten together and Sublimated in a Matrace by the heat of Sand go into a white powder this being soluted by melting shows like to clear Spring water which yet being smeared upon Brass or Copper appears like Silver and being lightly rubbed on brasen Vessels renders them as if they were perfectly silvered A solution of Calcined Tin being put to melted Salt of Tartar becomes bluish A clear infusion of Galls being mixt with a solution of Vitriol makes Ink if you add to this Spirit of Vitriol or Stygian water the black Liquor is by and by made clear like Spring water and this Oil of Tartar reduces again to Ink. And what is more wonderful if you write on Paper with the clear infusion of Vitriol and frame any Letters what you so write presently vanishes nor is there any marks of the Characters left but if you smear over the Paper with an infusion of Galls presently the Letters may be read as if wrote with Ink which yet with a Pen run over dipt in Spirit of Vitriol you may put quite out at once wetting and then again render them with wetting them with another Liquor of Tartar The Sky-colour Tincture of Violets being dashed with Oil of Vitriol becomes of a Purple colour to which if you add some drops of the Spirit of Harts Horn that Purple colour is changed into Green Brasil Wood being infused in common water leaves a very pleasant Tincture like to Claret Wine if you pour to this a little distilled Vinegar the Liquor appears clear like White Wine a few drops of Oil of Tartar reduces it to a deep Purple colour then if the Spirit of Vitriol be poured in it becomes of a pale yellow like to Sack if you add the Salt of Lead being soluted by deliquation the mixture grows presently Milky by this means you may imitate that famous Water-drinker who having swallowed down a great deal of Spring water was wont to vomit forth into Glasses placed before him diversly coloured Liquors resembling the ideas of divers kinds of Wines for Glasses being medicated with the aforesaid Tinctures so lightly that they may not be perceived by the standers by will not only cause the water poured into them to imitate every Wine but will exhibit the very Proteus himself of the Poets changed into waters and from thence putting on all colours and infinite forms If a Reason of these kind of appearances be asked it ought to be fought in the minute Particles contained within the pores of every Liquor which as to their site and position being diversly altered by another Liquor infused transmit variously the Rays of Light many ways break or reflect them and so make divers appearances of colours For when the Rays of Light pass through almost in right Lines they make a clear colour like Spring water but it in their passage they be a little broken the Liquor grows yellowish but being more refracted they cause a red colour if they are bowed back so as to be drained or that they cannot shew themselves a dark or black colour arises but if they are again reflected to the outmost Superficies of the Liquor they create the image of Whiteness after this manner we might variously Philosophise about other colours and their appearances the diversity of which and sudden alterations in Liquids depend chiefly on Precipitation because as the Particles conteined in the Liquor are driven somtimes more near by another infusion that they clasp themselves together somtimes are ordered into other series of positions the diverse representation of colours is made For Liquor being impregnated with little Bodies or Atoms or this Nature most minutely broken seems as an Army of Soldiers placed in their Ranks who now draw into close Order now open their Files and Ranks now turn to the left now to the right hand as is diversly shown in the exercising of Tacticks or the Art Military When two clear Liquors being mixed together shall make Ink it is because the Particles conteined in either approach near one another and as it were placed in their close Orders hinder the passage of the beams of light when afterwards this Ink is made clear by another Liquor poured in it is because the new Bodies of the thing put in disperse abroad the former close joyned Particles and drive them as it were into their open Orders CHAP. XII Of the motion of Fermentation as it is to be observed in the Coagulation and the Congelation of Bodies COagulation and Congelation of Natural Bodies no less than their Solution depend only on these our Principles The improportionate mixture of these and the exaltation and powerfulness of some above others are the cause of either Spirit and Sulphur being loosned from the bond do not only pull assunder the proper Subjects but they set upon whatever is next them and where they are mighty in number and strength they affect nothing more than divorces and separations from the rest of the Principles and suffer no delay but on the contrary Salts love to be united to the rest and to be made into hard and solid substances and being destitute of the Company of the rest presently to enter into new Friendships and desire only not to be joyned to any opposite If at any time they are more impetuously moved either by their own disposition or being soluted they destroy the substance of others this thing seems to be done for this end
either being put into a Flux are by so strict a marriage joyned together that afterwards they are never to be pulled assunder There are many ways and diverse provisions of Vitrification to wit of Sal Alcali with Sand or a sandy matter fused together by a violent fire common Glass is made which is transparent both by reason of the abundance of Salt and of the clearness of the Sand for if you behold the little Sands of which Glass is made with a Microscope each of their little Globes appear as they were Glassie Gems clear and shining Wherefore Salt promotes the fusion of that clear matter by fire and then is admitted into its most strict embraces being fused Besides Glasses of diverse Colours and Consistences are made of Minium the Calx of Tinn Antimony and some other Minerals when the Sulphureous part doth first fly away fused now by themselves now with Flint or Sandy matter The reason of all which consists in this that Salt and Earth being most smally broken by a violent fusion of fire and being divided as to their least Particles catch hold of one another and so are bound together by the most strict bond of the mixture The Coalition or Coupling of these is never to be dissolved because there is wanting within in the mixture other Principles which might unlock the frame of the Subject yea Salt and Earth being joyned by the mediating fire do so intimately cohere that they affect not divorces of themselves nor suffer them from another The baking of Earthen Pots and Bricks is of kin to Vitrification or making of Glass whereby moist and soft Clay is stifned into a very stony hardness But in these there is greater plenty of Earth and less of Salt wherefore they are less brittle and not transparent Concerning these we say that by the fire mediating and as it were handying the smallest broken and divided Particles of Salt are married to every Particle of the Earthy matter and with them grow hard into as it were a stony substance and that not easily to be resolved Also in these kind of matters prepared by human Industry we imitate indeed with an excellent Artifice the Concretions of Bones and Stones made by Nature in divers Families of Animals Vegetables and Minerals As to what respects Congelation Salts of a diverse kind do often meet together and grow stiff into as it were a new substance But this happens many ways Of these some Salts being mixed together presently grow together into Crystals for the Acid Spirits of Minerals being added to the Salts of Tartar or those made of the incineration of Vegetables turn into a white Coagulum like Snow and with a spumeous or frothy Heat The reason of which is that the Particles of the Salt having gotten a Flux take hold of other Salts in the Spirit Alcalisate by melting but by reason of the first Particles of either being made unlike there arises a strife then from the same consociated in one that white settlement is made Not unlike the same manner these Acetous Spirits to wit of Vitriol Nitre Salt and others being mixed with Metals while they corrode them are Crystallised together with their Saline Particles so the Spirits of Vitriol Nitre also Stygian waters which are only Salts having gotten a Flux are formed into most elegant Crystals in the dissolving of Silver Iron Copper and other things For Salts even as Sulphur being loosned from the mixture dissolve other mixtures and greedily desire to be united with the Homogeneous Particles of the same Subject There is another manner of Congelation when Salts being mixed with some other matter are elevated by Sublimation out of their Subjects and then congeal the Particles of that new matter which they carry away with them and grow together with them like a Meteor on high after this manner the Salts of Vitriol Nitre and Sea-Salt being sublimated with Mercury are congealed as it were into a snowy substance The same being sublimed with Antimony go into a matter like Ice After this manner the Natural Congelations by which some Minerals and chiefly Vitriols and Sulphurs are begot in the Bowels of the Earth may be imitated For of Iron and Copper are prepared factitious Vitriols which are very like the Natural Of Antimony Sulphur is made which answers to an hair our common Sulphur in taking fire colour and smell for example pour Oyl of Vitriol to the height of a fingers breadth upon pulverised Antimony and let it be distilled in a Retort in a Sand Furnace a yellow Sulphur will be sublimed in the Neck of the Retort that cannot be discerned from the common Sulphur which is a sign that the Concretion of Sulphur is made in the Earth when some Sulphureous Mineral is corroded by the Salt of Vitriol whose Sulphureous parts are congealed by the same Salt This also is an Argument that Oyl of Sulphur which is separated by inkindling under a Bell from the Sulphureous matter is nothing else but Vitriolic Salt nor doth any thing differ from Oyl of Vitriol Artificial Congelation concludes instances and examples of Congelations to wit whereby common water or any Liquors being put over the fire or in an Hot House are suddenly congealed into Ice 't is a common way and vulgarly known Salt being mixed with Snow and Ice and agitated or shaken in a Vessel put into water suddenly the water about the sides of the Vessel will be frozen This will be done if you make tryal of it either with common Salt or Sea-Salt Nitre or also with Vitriol Alum Sal Armoniac or Mercury Sublimate For Salt of every kind being put to Snow or Ice loosens their mixtures and sends away the Nitrous and Congelative Particles from the Subjects which presently being immersed in the neighbouring water Congeal it as if they were freshly blown from the North. What is more admirable let a dish with Snow be placed over hot Coals and in the middle of the Snow put a Glass full of water as the Snow is melted by degrees by the fire the water shall be frozen for the Nitrous Particles being driven away by the heat by their departure they are dashed against the neighbouring water and congeal it And thus much for FERMENTATION in general and briefly of its various parts it had been almost an infinite Labour and from our purpose to heap up instances in so diffuse a thing Those hitherto brought however chosen out of Natural Philosophy were fit to wait upon the following Medical dissertation that we may more happily know the Original Progress and State as also the Remedies and Cure of Motions and Mutations in Causes which variously happen to all kind of Bodies and somwhat respecting the Tumults which from thence are begot in the human Body from the blood being irritated and the rest of the humors to which exercise God willing we will now proceed FINIS THE PREFACE To the Friendly Reader TO Institute in this Age a new Doctrine of Feavers
and goes about this work only when Nature is strong and quiet that she may at once be at leisure for the operation of the Medicine and may have sufficient strength Nor is there less need of circumspection in sweating Medicines and Cordials which if administred in the Feaverish fit do too much strengthen the former violent motion of the Heart and oftentimes break its strength also when the Pulse is very languid if hot and strong Cordials are administred as when a small flame is troubled with a more strong blast of wind life is easily extinguished wherefore t is a vulgar observation that Cordials often accelerate death for that by too much troubling the Blood they sooner beat down strength There is yet the most need of the caution and direction of the Pulse in exhibiting narcoticks for these because they perform their work by extinguishing and fixing the too fierce vital spirits if used in a weak or inconstant Pulse either by diminishing the vital spirits render them wholly insufficient for the Disease or by suffocating them too much cause a perpetual sleep wherefore in a languid unequal or formicating or creeping Pulse opiats are to be shun'd more than a mad Dog or a Snake An unequal and intermitting Pulse has a most evil report from the writings of Physitians yet altho of an ill note does not so certainly portend death as a weak Pulse for I have known many to have recovered tho by those kind of signs condemned to the Grave because the inordination of the Spirits and the Blood may be more certainly and easily composed or allayed than their dejection restored 2. The inspection of Urines in Feavers before all other Diseases whatsoever hath more of certainty and is of greatest use for from hence the conditions of the sick and of the Disease are best known and the medical intentions concerning what is to be done are better directed what observations and rules concerning this thing are vulgarly set forth are so many that it would be almost an infinite labour and tediousness to recount them all it will be sufficient here to note the chief of them Concerning the Urines of persons in Feavers there are chiefly to be considered the colour consistency contents and subsidency or setling The colour of the Urine shews the measure or excess of heat in the Blood which as it is increased and becomes more remiss the Urine also is more or less red the cause of which is the ebullition of the Blood or the effervescency induced from the Feaver to the Blood by reason of which the particles of Salt and Sulphur implanted in the Blood humors and solid parts are more dissolved and incocted with the serum and impart to it a redness even as when Salt of Tartar and common Sulphur being mixed one with another and boiled in water impart a deep red colour to the Liquor The Urines of some are highly red when they are but a little or lightly Feaverish and on the contrary the Urines of others labouring with a Feaverish burning are less coloured Who abound with lively heat and a very hot Blood or are obnoxious to the Scurvy phthifis or hypochondriac distemper when by taking cold condensation surfeit or drinking of Wine they are troubled by any little Feaver they render a Urine strongly red for that the particles of Salt and Sulphur remain exalted in their Blood and before half loosned wherefore there is a necessity that the Feaver urging they are more boiled in the serum on the contrary they who are indued with a cold temper with a faint and weak Pulse being taken with a Feaver with a greater effervescency of the Blood render their Urine less coloured The consistency contents and subsidency of Urines being put as it were upon the same thrid depend all of them on the adust and recrementitious matter which is remaining in the Blood after the Feaverish deflagration if there shall be plenty of this the consistency of the Urine becomes somwhat thicker and after it has stood it is troubled by the cold but if there be a lesser quantity of this or otherways derived than to the Reins to wit by sweat or is called away by a critical translation to this or that part the consistency is made thinner and the Liquor remains clear Also the particles of this matter do inlarge the contents of the Urine which shew themselves diversly according as the nutricious Juice is now somwhat cooked and assimilated by the Blood now altogether perverted and carried into a putrifaction some signs of concoction and assimulation shew themselves in the Urines of Feaverish persons now a laudable Hypostasis now some marks and rudiments of the same A want of Hypostasis and the confusion and perturbation of the Urine denote the concoction vitiated But as this matter is more or less roasted in the Blood the contents are now of a pale now of a red colour like oker By reason that the recrements confounded with the Blood either the Spirit being strong begin to be overcome and separated or the same being depressed too much they are less able to be separated also the contents of the Urine are wont to be more or less sooner or slower separated from the rest of the Liquor and to sink down towards the bottom As to the Prognosticks to be taken from the Urine we may take notice that the colour of the Urine being somwhat more remiss the consistency mean the contents few and the subsiding free or easily collected into a Cloud portend good on the contrary a deep red a thick and troubled consistency thick and cloudy contents which slowly or scarce at all sink to the bottom denote a very great heat plenty of adust matter and its being brought under and secretion difficult or frustrated As to the Medicinal directions the business depends on this that we attend by the frequent inspection of the Urine the motion of Nature and be helpful to the same neither is it to be moved by purge or sweat but when a certain hypostasis of the Urine shews signs of concoction and separation I thought it needless to say any more here concerning this matter because those things are more largly handled elsewhere in a proper place which belong to Urines CHAP. XI Of the Kinds and Cure of a Putrid Synochus or contitinual Feaver ANd thus much for a Putrid Synochus in general in which is described its formal reason according to the accidents and symptoms which are commonly observed in its Figure there are besides I shall not say species but some varieties or irregularities of this Disease in which this Feaver somtimes declines from this common Rule and by reason of some accidental Distempers gets new names and distinctions In the first place therefore a Putrid Synochus is wont to be divided into Symptomatick and essential It is called Symptomatick which draws its beginning from some other Distemper or Disease before excited in the Body so that the Feaver is only a
pertinaciously will be deceived whilst they imagine the knowledg of every Disease and the prognostication of it cannot be found out but by inspecting the Vrine and esteem a Physician of little worth unless he undertakes to divine from the Vrinal as from a Magical Glass But indeed as to what belongs to the precepts and rules whereon the reason of Judgment by Vrine doth depend there are many collected by diligent observation that are extant and from thence establish'd with good reason and judgment yet for as much as the signification of Vrines is by some too largely extended to particular Cases very many uncertain things interwoven and some obnoxious to deceit and others plainly false therefore who shall confidently pronounce concerning the business of the Sick by the judgment only of the Water deserves rather the name of a jugling Quack than of a Physician But this Doctrine concerning Vrines abounds so ordinarily with errors that the observations which belong to its practice are either wrongfully made or not well reduced into method We may lawfully suspect that the observations are not rightly made because perhaps from one or two particular cases oftentimes a general Rule is established For Example sake because some Hydropical people render a thin and watry Vrine therefore it is affirmed such sort of Vrines necessarily denote a Dropsie when also in some other diseases such like Vrines are made and sometimes in the Dropsie the Vrine are thick and full of redness Also as it is most commonly received that Vrines on which a cream doth swim as on water that hath Tartar boyled in it doth denote a Consumption which is most uncertain because this sign is more proper and familiar to Hypochondriacks than to Consumptive people And how many dye of Consumptions without this Besides what is generally asserted to wit that in all diseases whatsoever Nature doth make known the Disease by the Vrine is altogether false because sometimes sick people make their Vrine like healthful people and sometimes those who are very well in health by reason of some accident perhaps from the meats eaten have suspected Vrine varying from the natural state or condition As to what belongs to the method or doctrine delivered by most concerning Vrines they seem to be altogether Empirical and nothing rational for the naked differences of Vrines are rehearsed and are wont to be distinguished according to their colour consistency and contents thence are opposed to the several species of these pathologick significations collected only from more rare observations when in the mean time the causes of the appearances nor of the preternatural alterations in the Vrines are not assigned as they ought to be nor is the signification of the Vrines applyed to the Causes of diseases but only to the Disease or Symptom and therefore it is most often deceitful and uncertain because the same morbifick Cause and signification of the same Vrine may in like manner mediately respect at once divers Diseases and Symptoms As for Example a thin and watry Vrine most often immediately denotes Indigestion or a defect of Concoction in the Viscera nevertheless by reason of that condition of Crudity the Green-sickness in Virgins sometimes the Dropsie or the white watery phlegmacy sometimes Head-aches and many other diseases arise But the task which you have required of me Worthy Sir to wit That the notions which in times past we have discoursed together and conceived concerning Vrines as it were collected notes and what have since fallen under my own knowledg by my proper study and observation concerning this thing should be fram'd into a little Treatise and that I should write a plain and new method of Vrinoscopie I confess the work greater than can well be performed by our own proper strength however I have resolved as much as I am able to obey you therein But that a doctrine or method concerning Vrines may be instituted beyond the vulgar and plainly Empirical manner of Philosophising there shall be these two heads of our Discourse To wit First that the Anatomy of Vrine may be delivered of what elements and parts it consists and also its genesis in our Body to wit by what Concoction this kind of Liquor is made and then by what secretion of some Particles from others Secondly That the inspection of urines in the Vrinal may be truly unfolded and what may be the Rules and the Certitude of Vromancie or divination of the Vrine OF URINES CHAP. I. Of the Elements and chief Accidents of Vrine WHEN the Liquor of the Urine being either fresh rendred from the body or putrified by a long digestion is exposed to a spagirick Analysis it is wont to be resolved into these parts or principles In the Distilling first ascends whatever of a vinous spirit is in it diluted with water but yet in fo very small quantity that it is not easily to be perceived by the taste it self To this follows a watry liquor large enough in proportion with which are mixed some more loose particles of Salt and Sulphur especially Thirdly There is stilled forth a very penetrative water which is commonly called the spirit of Urine but in truth almost without any vinous spirit and is chiefly phlegm highly sharpned with Salt and therefore it ascends last as in the distillation of Vinegar but forasmuch as the salt of Urine is volatile but that of Vinegar only in the Flux therefore the liquor stilled forth which is greatly impregnated with its particles is very acid That which is imbued with the saline Particles of the other is exceeding sharp and pricking It is a sign that this kind of Spirit of Urine as it is commonly known ows its sharpness chiefly to the Salt because though it be most subtil it will not take fire but being put to it extinguishes it After the humidity is wholly exhal'd another portion of Salt remains with the earth in the bottom of the cucurbit to which if a more hot fire be made that Salt will be sublimed into the Alembick and the earthy feces only remain This kind of Anatomy of Urine plainly shows that the Elements of which its liquor is composed are a great deal of Water and Salt and a little of Sulphur and Earth and a very little of Spirit The saltness in Urines is perceived by the taste and touch it comes nearest to a Nitrous salt in savour It is drawn indeed from saline particles of things eaten which being more plentifully exalted by the concoction in the Bowels and the circulation in the Vessels for the most part go into a volatile Salt That is truly Salt and Spirit by reason of the long accompanying of either together are gathered into a most strict bond and therefore it happens that the Salt it self otherways fixed is carryed up on high and rendred able for motion as it were by the wings of the other Urines contain in them more or less of Salt according to the disposition of our body and have it either more
to wit whether by Accension or by Fermentation or by any other way we shall first in general inquire by what means and for what causes any liquid things are wont to grow hot then we shall consider to which of these the growing hot of the blood ought to be attributed Concerning these we say that there are only three ways or so many kinds of causes by which Liquors conceive a heat viz. first by fire or heat being put to them as when water is made to seeth or boil over the fire or that it grows hot by the heat of the Sun a Bath or Stove or by the dissolution of quick Lime instances of all which are commonly known For the same reason Bath-waters seem to boil For that we may instance in our own Baths to wit they are impregnated neither with Sulphur nor fixed Salt as I have plainly experimented by distilling and evaporating them and by pouring into them precipitating Liquors yea by dissolving them with Sulphur and many other ways They most resemble Lime-water and they as we believe grow hot from a like cause to wit by imbibing the fiery little bodies somewhere hid within the Earth Of these unless it had been superfluous we had here given a fuller description which may perhaps be done at some other time Secondly when saline Corrosives which are of a diverse kind being mingled with themselves or with sulphureous things work mutually one on another with a great strife and agitation of Particles and oftentimes excite heat yea sometimes fume and flame as when the Spirit and Butter of Antimony are poured to or mixed with stygian Water wherein lixivial Salts are melted or with Oyl of Turpentine or other distilled things besides when corrosive Liquors eat metallick Bodies they often grow hot Thirdly and the only way besides as I suppose whereby a liquid thing is made hot is when any humour being very much imbued with Sulphur or Spirit conceives a burning by putting a flame to it and so grows hot by burning forth This is ordinarily seen in oily or very spirituous Liquors being inkindled and inflamed There remain indeed some other ways of Calefaction to wit Fermentation Putrefaction and Attrition whereby more thick Bodies or Solids often conceive a fervour but they produce not such an effect in Liquids whilst the mealy Mass or Dough is fermented the active Particles being stirred up into motion unfold themselves on every side and lift up the bulk or substance of the subject in the mean time for as much as the sulphureous Particles being agitated with them take hold one of another and begin to be combined a certain heat though more remiss is excited in like manner from Putrefaction Dung or wet Hay get an heat to wit for as much as the sulphureous Particles within included are very thickly heaped up together then being combined together they break out in troops yet no Liquors either thin or thick whether they ferment or putrifie do for that reason at any time grow hot For Wines whilst in fermenting they break in pieces the sides of the Tun or overflow the top of the Vessel with a great noise and ebullition do not actually grow hot yea not so much as grow warm The blood being let out of the Body and placed in convenient Glasses either to ferment or putrifie doth not get any actual heat yet in truth we grant the Blood in living Creatures to be fermented and by fermenting to be putrified yea and some other offices of the animal oeconomy to perform the same moreover we have formerly shewed from its Fermentation being hindred or too much increased or otherwise depraâ—ed divers kinds of diseases to be produced yet we deny the heat of the blood to be excited by Fermentation Because neither the blood of more frigid Animals nor Wines nor any other Liquors though agitated with the highest Fermentation are for that reason actually hot And indeed the reason seems evident enough to wit because the sulphureous Particles being raised up in the more thick subjects though they lay hold on one another mutually and being more thickly heaped together raise up heat yet in Liquids the same kind of Particles however stirred up or agitated are immediately disjoyned by the watry coming between and are hindred from their mutual embrace and combination so that they cannot of themselves produce an actual heat For the same reason hard Bodies being rubbed one against another or violently knocked or bruised do not only produce heat but oftentimes fire whenas yet Liquids however shaken and agitated do not grow warm Therefore as there are only three ways whereby actual heat may be begotten in all Liquors we shall inquire to which of these the heat of the Blood may be ascribed First Some say it is the first way from the opinion both of the Ancients and of some of the Moderns the Blood is said to grow hot by reason of some hot thing put to it to wit whilst those affirm an innate heat and these a little flame to be placed in the Heart and to heat the blood passing through it but either of these opinions easily fails from which it is clear that the Heart is a mere Muscle her doth contain in it self any tinder or matter for a flame or heat I know not how implanted fit for their continuance For though it be confessed that on the continual motion of this Bowel which is only animal the Circulation of the Blood doth depend yet the Heart borrows heat altogether from the blood and not the blood from the Heart Secondly As to what respects the second way of making hot a liquid thing to wit whereby a great heat is excited by the mixing of saline Corrosives together or also oily or by corroding a metallick Body I think there is none that will seriously assert that the blood grows hot from such a cause for that its liquor in its natural state is always homogene and although it be stuffed with plenty of Salt it is however with that which is volatile gentle and benign only But there is not to be found either in the Heart or in any other place a saline or any otherwise heterogene Mine whereby the bloody liquor by working or corroding may get or conceive an heat to wit it behoves either such a Mine or the Body to be corroded to be perpetually renewed because the ebullition and heat raised up by the strife of Salts ceases as soon as the Salts are combined or the Body corroded If at any time the saline Particles of the humours in our Body depart from their right temper and become enormous and unbridled for that reason the blood as to heat and motion enters into some irregularities yet it seems impossible that it should originally and perpetually become hot by the congression and strife or corrosion of the Salts Thirdly As to the third way whereby Liquids are made hot though it may seem an uncouth saying That the blood is so inkindled
as yet included within the scarce hollow gums hence the blood being hindred in its Circulation causes a tumour and so presses the nerves and also pours on them the more sharp particles of the Serum by which being notably pulled or hauled they are tormented with Corrugations and painfull Spasms Therefore when so cruel pains happen to children from their breeding Teeth it is no wonder if a feavour and also Convulsive motions sometimes follow the former of these happens both for as much as the blood being hindred about the pained part is not circulated with its wonted and equall course wherefore it becomes inordinatly moved in the whole Body and besides because Spasms being stirred up somewhere in the nervous stock the corrugated and contracted nerves presse together and pull the Arteries and by that reason stir up irregular and feavourish fluctuations in the Blood But sometimes Couvulsions happen in breeding Teeth both because the blood growing hot sends forth heterogeneous particles to the animal government and so stirs up the spirits into explosions and besides also when this acute pain and as it were a Lancing follows upon the teeth being about to cut it communicates a very troublesome and irritative sense from the affected parts to the first sensorie presently from thence the motion of the rage is retorted by the same or other neighbour nerves which by reason of a praevious disposition doth not rarely become convulsive Besides these two occasions of Convulsions which are wont to be chiefly and more often in children to wit the times of Infancy and breeding Teeth this Distemper also is excited at other Times very often and for other Causes For in whom the Seeds of the Spasmodick Disposition is sown they sometimes unsold themselves presently after the birth and are ripened into morbid fruit or else lying hid for a while they now come before the breeding of Teeth and follow a long time after it and by reason of other evident causes to wit either external or Internal of which sort are a sickly or breeding nurse milk Coagulated in the stomack or degenerating into an acid or bitter putrifection a feavourish distemperature of the head Ulcers or wealks of other parts suddenly vanishing the Changes of the aire the Conjunctions oppositions and aspects of the Sun and moon and such like they at length break forth into Act from an uncertain event Concerning these there is no need that we should particularly discourse When all the Children of a man dwelling in the neighbourhood dyed of Convulsions within the space of three months at length to prevent that fatal event they sought for remedies for a child newly born I being sent for a few days after the being brought to bed first advised the making an Issue in the nape of the neck then that the next day after a leech being applyed to the jugular veine of each side two ounces of blood should be taken away besides that about every conjunction or opposite aspect of the Sun and moon about five grains of the following powder should be given in a spoonfull of Julap for three days morning and evening Take of humane Skull prepared of the root of the male Paeonie each ʒ i. of the powder of Pearls ʒ ss of white sugar ʒ i. mingle them and make a very fine powder Take of the waters of Black Cherries ℥ iii. of the antiepileptic of Langius ℥ i. of the Syrrop of the flowers of the male Paeonie ʒ vi mingle them also I order'd that the nurse at the same times should take a draught of whey or posset drink in which were boyled the seeds and roots of the male Paeonie and the leaves of the Lilly of the Vally the Infant for about four months was well but then began to be troubled with Convulsions at which time the same Remedies being administred both to the child and to the nurse in a larger dose vesicatories also were applyed behind the eares and blood was taken by the sucking of a Leech from the jugular veins within two or three days the child grew well afterwards whenever within four or five months the Convulsions return'd it was cured again by the use of the same Remedies After half a year the Convulsive motions wholly ceased but a painfull Tumour arose about the lower part of the Spinae dorsi or back-bone from which proceeded a certain distortion of the Vertebrae or joynts of the back bone and a weakness of the legs and at length a Palsie It seems in this case that the Spasmodic or Convulsive matter being wont to come upon the brain first and beginings of the nerves entring at last the Spinal marrow and being thrust out at its further end it wholly stopt up the heads of the appending nerves and shut out the passage of the Spirits to wit because other narcotick and more thick had joyned themselves to the explosive particles The Curatory Method against the Convulsive Distempers in Children IT is to be endeavour'd either to prevent the Convulsive passions threatning Children and Infants or to cure them being already begun For if the former children of the same parent were obnoxious or lyable to Convulsions that evill ought to be prevented timely The Preservation of Infants from Convulsions by the use of Remedies to those born after It is usuall for this end to put into the mouth of the child newly born some antispasmodick Remedy assoon as it begins to breath from hence some are wont to give them some drops of the purest hony others a Spoonfull of Canary sweetned with Sugar and some again oyl of Sweet Almonds fresh drawn to some may be given half a Spoonfull of epileptic water or one drop of oyle of Amber Besides these first things given to Infants which certainly seem to be of some moment certain other Remedies and means of Administrations ought to be used to wit let one spoonfull of Liquor proper to this distemper be drunk twice a day as for example Take of the water of black Cherry and of Rue each ℥ i ss of the Antiepileptic of Langius ℥ i. of the Syrrup of Corall ʒ vi of prepared Pearl gr xv mix them in a Viol. On the third or fourth day after the birth let an Issue be made in the nape of the neck then if it be of a fresh Countenance let a little blood to about ℥ i ss or ii ounces be taken by the sucking of Leeches from the jugular veins having a care lest the blood should flow out too plentifully in its sleep let the temples and the hinder part of the neck be gently rub'd with such a like oyntment Take of oyle of nutmegs by expression ʒ ii of Capive ʒiii of Amber ℈ i. Let an Amulet be hung about the neck of the roots and seeds of the greater Paeonie a little of the hoof of an Elke being added to it Moreover antispasmodick Remedies should be dayly given to the Nurse The Method of Curing to be used to the Nurses Let her
take morning and evening a draught of whey or posset-drink in which the roots and seeds of the male Paeonie and sweet fenill seeds are boyled Take of the Conserve of the flowers of Betony of the male Paeonie and of Rosemary each ℥ ii of the pouder of the Root and flowers of the male Paeonie each ʒ ii of red Corall prepared and of the whitest amber each ʒ i. of the roots of Angelica and Zedoarie prepared each ʒ ss with what will suffice of the Syrrop of Paeonie make an Electuarie let her take morning and evening the quantity of a Nutmeg Take of the powder of the root of Male-Paeonyʒ ii the seeds of the same ʒ i. make a powder of the whitest Sugar ℥ iii. dissolved in the water of the flowers of the Line-tree and boyled to tablets of the oyl of Amber ℈ i. make tablets according to Art each weighing ʒ ss let her eat one every sixth hour Also let her keep to an exact dyet If any Infant be actually afflicted with Convulsions because that an Issue operates little and slowly it will be expedient to apply blistering plaisters The Cure of Infants sick with Convulons to the nape of the neck and behind the ears and unless a more cold temperament should gain-say it let blood be drawn with Leeches from the veins Let Liniments be used about the Temples Nostrills and hinder part of the neck and plaisters also laid to the bottoms of the feet Clysters that may keep down the belly should be dayly administred besides let specifick Remedies be inwardly taken often in a day to wit every sixth or eighth hour Take of the oyl Capive of Caestor each ʒ ii of Amberʒ ss make a Liniment Oyntments Take of the plaister of Oxycrocia two parts of dissolv'd Galbanum one part of oyl of Amber ℈ i. make a plaister for the soles of the feet Let there be given of the powder of Ammoniacum according to the description of Reverius twice or four times in a day Take of humane skull prepared of the seeds of Paeony of an Elks claw Powders of Pearls prepared each ʒ ss of Amber greese gr vi make a powder the dose vi grains in a spoonfull the Liquor hereafter described three or four times a day Or Take of humane Skull prepared of pearls each ʒss of the Salt of Amber ℈ i. of the Sugar of Pearleʒ i. the dose ℈ ss Or Take of the Spirit of harts-horn iii. drops let it be given every sixth or 8th hour in a spoonfull of the Julap below prescribed To the children of the poor may be administred the powder of the Roots of wild Valerian ℈ ss to ℈ i. let it be given twice a day in a spoonfull of milk or appropriate Liquor Vntzerus greatly commends the Gall of a sucking whelp to wit that the whole juice of the gallie-Bag being taken forth be given to the child to drink with a little of the water of the flowers of the Tile or Line-tree A learned Physitian lately told me that he had Known many Cured with this Remedie Besides Empericks are wont to cause the bigger children after they have drank the gall to eat also the Liver of the whelp broyled Liquors Iulaps distill'd waters and other appropriate Liquors may be prepared after the following prescripts Take of black-Cherry water ℥ iii. of the Antiepileptical water of Langius ℥ i. of perlate sugar ʒ ii mix them Take of the green Roots of the male Paeonie cut into little peeces ℥ vi of Hungarian Vitriol ℥ viii of humane skull ℥ ii of the Antiepileptic water of Langius half a pint mix them and let them be distilled in a glass retort in hot sand the dose i. spoonfull to ii Take of the fresh roots of the male Paeonie cut ℥ iiii being brused in a Marble morter pour to them of Spanish-wine lib. i. make a strong expression add of manus Christi pearled ℥ ss let it be kept in a close glass The dose i. Spoonfull or ii twice in a day Convulsions by reason of breeding of Teeth When Convulsive motions happen by Reason of the difficulty of breeding Teeth this Symptom as it is secondary and less dangerous so the Cure does not always require the first or chief labour of healing but sometimes we are rather carefull to remove it by allaying the pain and the feavourish Distemper wherefore both the patient and the nurse oughr to use a slender and refrigerating Diet the Teeth being about to break thorow the Gums their passage should be made easie by rubbing or cutting them and also Anodynes should be applied to those swelled and grieved parts Clysters and taking away blood are often used it behoves to cause sleep and to attemper the feirceness of the blood some times antispasmodick Remedies are made use of but the more temperate and such as do not trouble the blood and humors Vesicatories or Blistering plaisters because they aptly evacuate the serum too much poured forth on the Head oftentimes bring help Spasms or Convulsions caused from other occasions When Children are troubled with Convulsions not presently after they are born nor by reason of the cutting of their Teeth but for other occasions and accidents the cause of such a Distemper for the most part subsists either in the head or somewhere about the Viscera of Concoction When the former is suspected as it is wont to be manifested by signes which argue a Serous Colluvies too much heaped up within the Head the former Remedies allready recited ought to be given in a larger dose besides in those who are able to bear purging sometimes a Vomit or a light purge is prescribed Wine and Oxymel of squills also Mercurius Dulcis Rhubarb and Resin of Jalap are of approved use As often as the Cause of the Convulsive Distemper seems to be in the Viscera either Worms or sharp humors stirring up the torments of the Belly are understood to be in fault By reason of worms Against Worms a purge of Rhubarb or Mercurius Dulcis the Resin of Jalap being added is ordained sometime past a Child being miserably afflicted with Convulsions that he seem'd to be just dying I gave him a dose of Mercurius Dulcis with Resine of Jallap with his stools which were four he voided xii worms and presently grew well Take of the root of Verginian Snake-weed in powder ʒ i. of Corall Calcined to a whitenessʒ ss a powder ʒ i. the dose from half a scruple to one scruple twice in a day continued for three days drinking after it a decoction of Grass-roots Take of the species of Hieraʒ i ss of Venice-Treacleʒ ii make a plaister for the bottom of the belly or apply to the Navel a plaster of Galbanum If the Convulsive motions are suspected to proceed from an irritation of the ventricle and intestines made by sharp humours a gentle purging either by vomit or stool or both successively ought to be instituted For this end let
and more light Convulsions in remote parts as hath been said or being slidden from thence more deeply into the passages of the nerves excites fits of Convulsions very Cruel such a progress of the morbific Cause we suspect in whom the Vertigo swooning heaviness of the head and torpor of the minde go before the Convulsive assalts Indeed the matter of the disease abounding as yet in the brain and marrowy Appendix produces these kinds of previous distempers which being slidden from thence into the Nerves causes Convulsions 2dly There is yet another way whereby it plainly appears that the materiall cause of the Convulsive Distemper is transferred to the beginnings of the Nerves to wit when the same being deposited by the serous water within the Cavities or ventricles of the Head it is insinuated into the Neighbouring roots of the Nerves For in Chronical Diseases when the remarkable discrasie of the blood and humours happens also to be accompanied with a praved disposition of the brain oftentimes a great plenty of sharp serum infesting the Nervous stock dropping forth from the Vessells of the Choroeidan or retiform enfoldings slides into the ventricles of the brain and its Appendix But this serous water afterwards breaking thorow the under-spreading of the Cerebell into the fourth ventricle the little skin there being displaced whereby the oblong marrow is uncovered it falls upon the beginnings of one or more of the Nerves and either by irritating or imbuing them with Heterogeneous and explosive particles induces the Convulsive disposition And this for the most part is the cause that sick people after long and ill handled Feavours also after the more grievous Cephalic Diseases at length dye of Convulsions as I have found by the frequent Anatomie of the Carcases of those who dyed by that means Also it appears by anatomical Observation that the brain may be overflowed by a certain serous water without the distemper of the Convulsive disposition and further that in some who dyed of the Epilepsie and other Convulsive diseases there was no deluge of the serum within the ventricles of the brain By which it is given us to be understood that the Convulsive distempers do not flow only from the waterie matter in the Head but that they arise not at all from such a cause unless the serous water overflowing the ventricles of the Brain and chiefly that underlaying of the Cerebel be imbued with heterogeneous and explosive particles I remember once my Councel to be ask'd for a young man labouring with an Egregious Phtisis and at that time truly desperate besides a cough and shortnesse of Breath he had grievously complained for many days yea weeks that he could not lye upon his back in his Bed or whilst he sat in a chair he could not lean his head backwards for that by this or that posture of his Body he was wont presently to suffer tremblings of his heart and a fainting of the Spirits as if he were just about to dye wherefore of necessity he was fain to hold his head upright or leaning forward After he was dead his carcase being dissected his Lungs appeared all over tumified and in some places Ulcerated then his Skull being opened there flowed within all the Ventricles of the brain a great quantity of yellow and salt Serum which water certainly whilst it did slide forward upon the fourth Ventricle about the Trunk of the oblong marrow his head leaning back rushing upon the heads of the wandring and intercostal pair of nerves did stir up the aforesaid Convulsions about the Praecordia but so long as his head was inclined forward that the heap of serum flowed back into the anterior Ventricles of the Brain the origine of the nerves remained free from that Convulsive matter Having hitherto shown how many ways and by what passages the morbific matter being dilated towards the origine of the Nerves seems to bring on Convulsions it were easie according to these reasons to unfold many Convulsive Symptoms for besides the Convulsive motions of Infants and children oftentimes excited from the same kinde of Causes hither may be referr'd the Contractions and sudden leapings forth of the nervous parts which follow upon feavours As also those passions commonly called Hysterical also hypocondriacal and certain others proceed not seldom from the morbific Cause rushing upon the beginings of the Nerves We will therefore endeavour to establish the truth of this Hypothesis by some other Histories and examples of Sick people but in the first place we will propose observations of that Kinde in whom the morbific matter setling upon the beginings of the nerves and not being as yet slid deeply into their processes induced frequent vertigos and only more light Convulsions of the Viscera and Praecordia A noble woman about 30. years of Age of a tender Constitution and lean in Observation 1 Body was wont every winter to be grievously afflicted with a Catarrh or Rhume flowing upon the winde pipe and Lungs with a hoarse Cough and great spitting but the last year great care and dilligence being used she avoyded that evill But after the winter Solstice having taken cold she was troubled with an huge pain of the head a tingling of the ears a giddiness with a great defluxion upon the eyes that it easily appeared that the heap of Serum which before this time was wont to distill into the Breast was now wholly layd up within the head and Brain besides an effect of which was that as often as she began to sleep she was greatly infested with passions as it were histerical to which she had never been before obnoxious For when ever being sleepy she closed her eyes presently a bulk ascending in her belly a choaking in her throat tremblings and leapings about the Praecordia were stirred up which Affections notwithstanding quite ceased when she was thorowly awakened so that the Sick party was necessitated to abstain almost altogether for many days and nights from sleep Being sent for to this Lady after she had bin sick and weak for many days I was compelled at length to use gentle medicines Therefore I took care that blood should forthwith be drawn from the foot to four ounces and every day a Clyster of milk and sugar to be administred by which she was wont to have three or four stools besides I gave her every eighth-hour a dose of the Spirits of Harts horn in a Spoonfull of the following Julap Take of the water of penny-royall of walnuts and black Cherries each ℥ iii. of Histerical water ℥ ii of the Syrrop of Clove-gilliflowers ℥ i ss of Caster tyed in a little knot and hang'd in the middle of the glass ʒss of the powder of Pearls ℈ i. mingle it I Caused with success a vesicatoris to be put behinde the ears and a Cataplasm of the leaves of Rue and Cuccowpint with the Roots of Bryony bay salt and black soap to be layd to the soals of her feet Sometimes I gave her in the
kinde of remedy I often experienced with success in little Children For that by the means as it were another breathing place is opened to the mass of blood silently and covertly growing hot and obtruding its soot or smoak on the more noble parts and for that reason its impure efflorescencies or puttings forth are drawn away from the brain and lungs Therefore although this feavour of an ill Condition may be accounted as it were malignant yet forasmuch as the blood is not presently apt to be coagulated but to be too much poured forth and to bestow its serosities on the nobler parts to wit the brain and lungs therefore Phlebotomy so it be administred in the beginning of the disease is convenient allmost to all For the same reason Cathartick Medicines and chiefly vomitory are administred at the very beginning of the disease for these do not only evacuate the viscera of concoction and so draw away the chief fomenting of the disease and as it were its originall but besides they draw forth the serosities from the blood and so effect its cleansing rather in the stomach and Intestines then in the head and lungs Further by Emeticks for that the receiving Glandulaes of the Lympheducts are pulled with a great shaking the superfluities of the nervous juice least they should evilly affect the brain and its dependencies are expressed forth into the lower bowells also for this end the belly is to be kept continually loose by the use of Clysters But in the mean time whilst the blood being infected with the taint of this disease threatens the brain or praecordia with the evill it will not be safe to attempt any thing with Diaphoreticks or sweating medicines or Diureticks or such as evacuate by urine or also with Catharticks vomiting and purging medicines For these kinde of medicines forasmuch as they greatly pour out the blood and compell its serosities into more open issuings forth all the recrements being apt to fall away from the mass of the blood are easily obtruded on the brain or Lungs when they are of a more feeble constitution So in the youth above-mentioned a loss of speech came upon the raising of an untimely sweat Also I have known that Sudorificks no other then chaly beats in the morbid disposition of the lungs have brought on a waisting or Consumption Vomits and Purges are to be administred Phlebotomy therefore and if need be vomiting or purging either one or other or both being to be made use of at the very beginning of the disease the other Intentions shall be to draw away the morbific serosities of the blood apt to flow forth on the head or breast and to derive them gently by other ways of evacuation Blistering plaisters and to put them forth of doors To this end Vesicatories or blistering plaisters ought to be applyed to the nape of the neck or Parotida or jugular Arteries or to the Arm-pits or the Groin or about the thighs or calves of the legs sometimes in this part sometimes in that to wit that the little Ulcers being here and there excited and continually running might plentifully pour forth the serum imbued with the morbid and heterogeneous particles Diureticks But Remedies gently carrying the serum into the Reins and urinary passages are most often administred with success For this business diuretical Apozems and Julaps are to be ordained after the following forms A diuretick Apozem Take of the Roots of Scorzonera cherfoil grass and of Eryngoes candied each Ê’ vi 1. Apple cut of the leaves of pimpinell meadow-sweet each i. handfull of Raysons of the Sun â„¥ i ss of harts-horn burnt Ê’ ii being cut and bruised let them be boyled on a clear fire in four pints of spring water to the Consumption of the third part to the straining being cleared ii pints add of the Syrrop of green Cytorns or violets â„¥ ii of sal prunellaÊ’ i ss make an Apozem The dose â„¥ iiii to vi thrice in a day Or into that straining put 15 blanched sweet Almonds and of the four cold seeds An Emulsion each Ê’ i. being bruised make an Emulsion according to Art Take water of Dragons and of black-Cherries each â„¥ iiii of scordium compound Ê’ ii of Threacle water â„¥ i ss of syrrop of Clove-gilliflowers Julap â„¥ ii of the spirit of vitriol xii drops make a Julap Take oftentimes in a day in small beer or posset-drink half a dram A Power or ii scruples of sal-prunella Besides in this feavour medicines gently sweating of that sort chiefly which restores the animal spirits and defends them from any heterogeneous Copula Gentle Diaphoreticks are of very great use wherefore either the powder of pearls or the spirit of harts horn or of blood in a moderate dose are administred twice in a day viz. Morning and Evening Clysters are to be given almost every day and if it be thought fit Glisters a gently loosning purge may be taken once or twice in a week The dyet prescribed ought to be slender as in other feavours Dyet let them be wholly interdicted from flesh or broath made thereof only let the sick feed on Grewell or barly-broth and let their drink be small beer or posset-drink If that notwithstanding any preventive physick the morbific matter should lodge in the brain or Lungs or both together so that a dissolution or inordination of the animal function or also a violent cough should assalt them it must be consider'd what is to be done in either state of the disease carried forth after this manner into an evill condition but then the curative Indications ought to respect the stupor or madness or cough and lastly if in the declination of the disease these symptoms do remit proper Remedies are to be adhibited against the Atrophie as it were the last fortress of this Feavour 1st Therefore if the morbifick matter as it is often wont being brought to the brain should bring in an Insensibleness or a soporiferous or sleepy distemper The Curatory Method in the unsensibleness and madness remedies drawing it another way and deriving it some way from the head and besides such as stir up the animal spirits and take away the impure Copula ought carefully to be administred wherefore in this case the use of Epispasticks or such things that draw the water outwardly should be much increased and let the spirit of Harts-horn be exhibited allmost every sixth hour in a little bigger dose let blood be also taken by the sucking of Leeches more largely from the jugular veins the Salvatella or the sedal veins If the distemper remits not the head being shaven let Emollient fomentations be often applyed thereto Further let Cupping-Glasses Plaisters and Cataplasms be laid to the soals of the feet and other means of Administrations such as are commonly prescribed for the curing of the stupor or Insensibleness ought to be used In like manner if on the evill or no Crisis of this
the formal Reason or the means of generation The reason of the aforesaid case whereby the Convulsive matter falling down into the nervous stock did produce these admirable Symptomes we may lawfully suppose that the same being thrust forth from the Confines of the head being yet more firm into the spinal marrow and its Appendix and being like a malignant firment it first infected with heterogeneous and highly explosive particles these parts of the juce watering the whole mass which cleaving to the spirits every where disposed thorow their whole series and agitating them as it were with a certain fury did stir them up into continuall explosions When in truth the nervous juice as is said was so fermented by the inflowing of the Convulsive matter that which did other ways water the containing parts with a gentle falling on them and through the same did pass over the animal spirits with an equal Expansion now the same did torment the nervous fibres with various contractions and Corrugations or shrinkings up and did hinder both the spirits flowing in being too much burthened with an heterogeneous Copula from their due irradiation and also variously moving those implanted in every part did incite them as it were with a diabolical Inspiration so that no more obeying the Empire of the will they ran into inordinate motions and did renew them translated rapidly here ahd there with a perpetuall reciprocation But altho the heterogeneous particles being poured forth with the blood into the brain and thence thrust forth into the nervous stock did not enter rightly the beginnings of all the nerves but chiefly and almost only the spinal marrow and its nervous shoots so that the internal Viscera also the parts of the eyes mouth and face remained free from any Convulsion yet that same explosive force being hindred by some violence whereby it entred less in the outward members presently like wild-fire a way being found it was wont to run into the praecordia and bowells of the lower belly viz. because the inflowing spirits being struck with a certain fury and requiring a larger space in which they might exercise their madness being excluded from one place presently enter another somewhere open wherefore if that fury had been repulsed both from the members and the viscera no doubt but it would have flown back on the brain and brought thither madness or as it were an Epileptical Insensibleness which Symptoms indeed hapned to be wanting for that the brain of this most ingenious Gentlewoman being indued with a more firm Constitution did take from the nervous Liquor freshly instilled whatsoever was congruous and spiritous for its proper food and enjoy'd it In the mean time it did depress all the morbific particles into the spinal marrow by which the involuntary motions of the members were excited after that manner as we said but now Being requested to undertake the Cure of this worthy Virgin first The Curatory Method Observed in this case a light preparation of her body being made I gave her a solutive potion of the Infusion of Senna and Rhubarb with yellow Sanders and salt of Wormwood added to it by which she was purged 12 times with great ease the next day I took viii ounces of blood from her left Arm every evening I gave her an opiate of the water and Syrrop of the flowers of Lungwort with the powder of pearls besides once within vi hours I prescrib'd her to take a dose of the spirits of Harts-horn in a draught of the following Julap Take of the waters of black Cherries Walnuts and the flowers of Paeony each ℥ iii. of the Antipeleptic of Langius ℥ ii of the Syrrop of the flowers of the male-paeony ℥ ii of the powder of pearls ℈ i. mix it and make a Julap because she could not endure much purging Clysters with Sugar'd-milk were made use of frequently besides antispasmodic oyntments being applyed to the hinder part of her neck and the back-bone we order'd often rubbing of the distemper'd members with warm woollen Cloaths wetted in proper oyl By the use of these the sick person within 6 days seem'd to be very much helped for the Convulsive motions allmost wholly ceased and she could contain her members quietly in their due position only her head sometimes by a lighter Contraction was compelled to bend gently this way and that way further she was able to stand a little and rise out of her chair but when she went to step forward she went not rightly but obliquely on one side At this time going away I left her much better and in a manifest state of growing well But after another week when the North-winde being high and arisen in Night time the window not being fast shut blew very much upon the sick person being in Bed she presently taking cold relapsed into that kinde of Condition that she became obnoxious not only to Convulsive passions but to an universal periodical palsie for after that she was forced to move about turn and winde variously all her limbs successively with her head and members by turns bent and thrown about here and there as before from morning to night till at night these kinde of motions wholly ceasing a resolution of her members or palsie succeeded so that she was not able to stir either hand or foot or any other part of her body besides or to exereise any motive bending of the body lying in her bed allmost immovable like a stone but being a little refresh'd with sleep about morning as she recovered some little strength or virtue of the regular motive faculty by bending tho but weakly here and there her arms and legs so also the involuntary and Convulsive motions did constantly return enduring from that time all the day which again at the Evening were changed into these resolutions of the Limbs By these it appears clearly that the sick Gentlewoman laboured with a two-fold disease viz. a Palsie and Convulsion and that the materiall Cause of either was somewhat distinct For it seems that the animal spirits every where abounding being burdened with narcotick particles were almost continually bound besides that in the time of sleeping together with the nervous juiee the Convulsive particles plentifully flowing in clove also to the spirits for the explosions of which the spirits being incited produced the involuntary motions but also at that time the narcotic Copula being somewhat shaken off they were then able in some sort to perform the voluntary or regular also Besides the Remedies but now recited they did carefully administer very many others allmost of every kinde viz. Antiscorbuticks antiparaleticks Decoctions sudorificks or sweating medicines distilled waters spirits Elixirs Tincture Baths Liniments with many others by the use of which the Symptoms were something remitted but yet the disease was not wholly cured the universal palsie soon ceased that she was able at any time to move her Limbs and to bend them here and there and also the involuntary motions did trouble
a day of the powder of Pearls and Crabs-eyes with a dose of the following Julap Take of the water of Snails and of worms magisterial each â„¥ iii. of Saxifrage and black cherries each â„¥ iiii of hysterical water â„¥ ii of the syrrop of Corralls â„¥ i ss of the tincture of CostorÊ’ i. mingle them The bath of sweet herbs was frequently used when necessity urged she took Opiats always with good success Vesicatories were applyed to the inward part of either thigh also to the hinder part of her neck also Fomentations Oyntments Clysters Cuping-glasses Sneezing-powders with many other manner of administrations were prescribed according to the exigences of the symptoms By this method observed for about 14. days the noble Lady having received very much ease was wholly rid of her convulsive fits Yea the torments of her Bowells and members and the other symptoms being very much lessen'd she hoped quickly to recover her health But after this partly by reason of an ill order of dyet which the sick Lady always indulg'd her self in or taking little but chiefly by reason of a sudden passion of fear and sadness which an unluckie accident hapning within her own house had caused she fell into a relaps by and by the disease growing into a much worse Condition for both the Convulsions and pains did infest her more bitterly yea and her stomach being almost tyred out with continual vomiting would not admit either of food or medicines She took Asses milk for some days with some success which notwithstanding for as much as breeding Choller in her stomach she found it troublesome she shortly omitted at length in spite of all Remedies prescribed carefully by the Consultation of many Physitians my noble patient from day to day grew worse and by degrees death approached Two days before her death the torments of her belly and loyns very much abated and she became more than usually chearfull and conceived some hope of Recovery But in the mean time she complained of a pain and great heavyness in her head and about the beginning of the night she selpt foundly but being awakened she fell into a very horrid convulsive fit which presently pass'd into a quick deadly Apoplexie for being made insensible and speechless she left this life within twelve hours When various judgments had passed about the cause of the sickness The rational account of the disease taken from anatomical Observations of which this illustrious Lady dyed most flinging all the evills on the distemper of the womb others on an Ulcer or Imposthum which they suspected lay hid somewhere about the viscera of the abdomen it pleased her friends that her dead Carcase kept long opened for the Funeral should be dilligently inspected and so the genuine Causes of the disease and her death might be investigated which task being left to my care I executed with all the dilligence I was able Therefore in the first place it was worth observation about the habit of the body that the members and lower parts nigh and beyond the seats of the pains were very much wasted as her thighs quite worn away appeared like a Skelliton In the mean time her face neck and arms remained full and plump enough from whence it appears that the nervous Liquor does help no less to the business of nourishment than to the exercise of the animal faculty wherefore when that Liquor being much hindred in its passage the loyns and belly taken up with the continual Convulsions did not descend with a due influx to the inferior parts they for that reason became presently both without strength and lean and wasted This kinde of Atrophie differs in this from other hectical wasting which happens from the vice of the blood because in this latter an hippocratick or wanish face is the chief signe of the Disease in that first mention'd the countenance and aspect show little or nothing of evill The dead body of this noble Lady tho very lean and that her bowells were all the emptied yet quickly putrified for within 40. hours all the skin was discolour'd and appeared in this part livid in that green and in others blackish and her Corps so suddenly putryfying yielded a most horrid smell the reason of which without doubt was that by reason the muscles were exercised with perpetuall Convulsions the principles of their mixture were so much loosned that they being in a readiness for dissolution quickly after death fell asunder one from another after the like manner as we may observe of the flesh of wilde beasts which being tyred with a long course or beaten to death with Clubs for this much sooner putrifies then the flesh of those which are kill'd quickly and peaceably Her belly being opened the Intestines and ventricle appeared whole enough viz. Intire and well colour'd but they were emptie and as it were blown up for as much as they were troubled almost with perpetual evacuations viz. Those placed above or below in all this Cavity no foot steps of an Ulcer or Imposthum were perceived Whilst we were searching the cause of the disease and rolling the Inwards here and there there was something met within the mesentery worthy notice to wit about its middle where it is fixed to the back and contained the greater folds of the nerves a substance somewhat loose and inflated as it were with many little bladders equalling an hands breadth was seen after that manner as when in a shoulder of Veal the inter-space of the muscles are blown up by the Butchers that those parts might swell up and seem fuller and fatter In this place of the mesentery because it was more tumid and softer we thought some humour the cause of the pain to lodg there but opening it I found only the membranes to have been loosned one from another and to conclude nothing but winde within its inter-spaces which seperation of the membranes and devulsion one from another was without doubt induced by the frequent Convulsions or explosions of the spirits which within the enfoldings and nervous fibres there thickly planted were almost continually provoked and those Convulsions hapned by reason of the heterogeneous and explosive particles being derived thither from the head by the pipe of the Nerves But as to those torments of the belly and as it were an ascent of a bulk or substance in the convulsive distempers and the inflation of the Abdomen it is not to be doubted but that the seat of the morbific cause did lye hid in that part of the mesentery but because so much suspition was had of the womb being chiefly affected we did next inquire how much this Inward deserv'd it Therefore having dilligently searched the tunnell placed within the Os pubis I found the womb in its due place and as to all parts sound and well furnished its body was drawn to its just proportion altho it was but 5. weeks since she had miscarried viz. It was like a small pear in figure and magnitude the
the belly and groin yea also let them be often provoked to sneezing it is convenient to give some in the middle of the fit a draught of simple cold water or in which Champhir had been dissolved Preservatory 2. The preservatory Indication comprehends these three Intentions viz. In the first place to take away or to derive to some other place the impurities of the blood apt to be poured forth on the brain and nervous stock Secondly to fortifie the brain and so to strengthen the indwelling spirits that they may either not at all receive or may easily shake off the heterogeneous Copula Thirdly to amend whatsoever is enormous in the womb and contributes to the convulsive disposition 1. The first Intention is performed by purging and phlebotomy and other common ways of purifying and purging the blood and humours If there be opportunity for an emetic I judge it best allways to begin with it especially in Cacochymicks or bodies full of evill humors in the longing disease and Pica and in such whose great load of viscous phlegm stuffed within the folds and coats of the ventricle hinders the virtues of other medicines The next day after the Vomit unless any thing bids the contrary let blood be taken in women of a hotter temper presently from the Arm and afterwards if need be from the foot or from the sedal veins with Leeches but in bodies troubled with obstructions and less hot let blood be taken more sparingly and more rarely and only in places scituate below the womb After these Evacuations if they are to be ordered rightly performed once within six or seven days a purge is to be prescribed according to the following forms Take of pill-fetida major Ê’ i ss of the resine of Julap xii grains of Tartar Vitriolat and Castor each ℈ i. of ammoniac dissolved in hysterical water what will suffice to make xii pills for iii. doses Or take of the resine of Jalap gr xviii of CalomelausÊ’ i. of Castor ℈ i. make a powder let it be divided into iii. parts for iii. doses let it be given in the pap of a roasted apple or in Conserves of Borage so those induced with a more hot temperament a dose of extract or our solutive syrrop may conveniently be administred for the revulsion of the morbific matter from the head Issues made in the calf of the leg or thigh and sometimes vesicatories legatures and painfull rubbings are wont to be administred But not only a purging of the blood and a revulsion of its recrements from the head but an alteration of its Liquor and reduction of it to its due temperament have here a place Wherefore in some hysterical people steel Medicines help in others the use of Spaw-waters or whay in others the baths are wont to be signally profitable The second Intention to wit the rectification of the brain and animal spirits is performed with Cephalic and properly anti-convulsive medicines which indeed ate to be diligently exhibited almost every day when they do not purge or bleed since there are various species of such like Remedies and several manners of administrations we will here add some of the more choice forms Take of the Lees of bryony Assa fetida Castor each Ê’ i. of the Salt of Coral Amber Tin each Ê’ ss of Galbanum dissolved in hysterical water what will suffice to make a Mass dose half a scruple to ℈ i. morning and evening drinking after it a dose of proper liquors Or Take of the seeds of Wilde-parsnips of nettles each Ê’ ii of vitriol of SteelÊ’ i. of the extract of Gentium featherfew each Ê’ i ss with what will suffice of the syrrop of Mugwort make a mass let half a dram be taken after the same manner If the form of a powder pleases better Take of the Roots of Virginian snakeweed and Contrayerva each Ê’ i ss of Coral prepared of Pearls of white-Amber each Ê’ i. mingle them make a powder Dose ℈ i. to half a dram morning and evening with an appropriat Liquor Opiats are Composed after this manner Take of the Conserves of the flowers of the Lilly Convallis of the male-paeony of betony each â„¥ ii of the seeds of Paeony of red Coral prepared each Ê’ ii of the powder of Cretic DittanyÊ’ i ss of the salt of wormwoodÊ’ ii with what will suffice of the syrrop of the rinds of Citrons make an Electuary The dose morning and evening the quantity of a nutmeg After the same manner may be given to poor people Conserves of the Tree of Life or of the leaves of Rue twice in a day The Liquors appropriat against the hysterical affections and to be drunk after the aforesaid Medicines are either distilled waters which are to be taken by themselves or with other things in form of a Julap or decoctions or tinctures and Infusions Take of the water of Mugwort and of penny Royal each half a pint of histerical water â„¥ iiii of the Tincture of Castor â„¥ ss of the Syrrop of Coralls â„¥ i ss mix them The dose from â„¥ i to â„¥ i ss with any of the medicines afore described Take of the leaves of Penneroyall of Fetherfew of either Southernwood of Calaminth of Nep and of either Horehound each i handfull of the Roots of Bryonie â„¥ iiii of the seeds of Parsnips â„¥ ii cut and brused put them into white-wine or Cider six pints and so distill them according to art Take of the Root of the male Peony Angelica Valerian each â„¥ ss of the leaves of mugwort ground Pine Calaminth Peneroyal and Missletow of the Oak each i handfull of the Seeds of either wilde Parsneps eacâ—Ê’ iii of Raifins i. handfull let them be boyled in 4 pints of Spring-water to the half add to it of white-wine lib i ss strain it and keep it in close vessells The dose â„¥ iii or 4 twice in a day Take of the wild-Parsnep Seeds brused â„¥ ii of Castor â„¥ i let them be put into a Glass with i quart of white wine The dose â„¥ ii twice in a day 3. As to the third Intention which inhibiting the disorders of the womb doth promote the cure of the passion called hysterical I say first of all what in times past was believed concerning the Cause and scope of curing the disease that the womb did ascend therefore that it ought to be reduced into its right place is altogether fictitious as we have elsewhere shown The falling down of the womb or its coming forth oftentimes happens but rarely or never produces the hysterical Distempers Besides the dislocation of the womb in childbearing Women sometimes happens presently after their bringing forth to wit when the body of the womb being made Capacious and newly emptied doth not sink down or fall within the Tunnel in its right place but upwards inclines now to the right side now to the left and there being drawn together like a purse is folded into a great bulk which kinde of bulk remaining long nigh
joyning together Concatenated Joyned tyed or fastned together Conflagration A burning out or being in a flame as in great Feavers Conformation The framing fashioning or disposition of a thing Congelation A freezing or gathering together into an hard substance as Ice of Water Congeled Frozen stifned Congestion An heaping or gathering together Conjugation A yoking together a derivation of things of one kind Consistency Thickness or substance as a Jelly Convolutions Roulings about or together a twisting together Contexture A weaving together or a framing or composition Copula A joyning or fastning together fettering Corollary Addition vantage or overplus Corrosive Knawing eating corroding Corrugations Wrinkling together Cortex The bark shell or piel or rind Cortical Belonging to the bark or rind or piel of a thing Crasis The disposition complexion temperature or mixture of natural humors Crass Thick Crassament A thickness or thick setling as of dregs Cribrous Sivelike or that hath holes like a Sive Crude Raw undigested Crudities Raw and undigested humors or rawness or indigestion of any thing Crisis Is the time of the turn of the disease when it either increases or diminishes always observed by the Physitians Critical To the Crisis or such time belonging Cremasteral Muscles belonging to the Testicles Crural Belonging to the Leg. Crucible An earthen Vessel used to melt Metals with Cucurbite A Glass-body with a great Belly used in distillations Cuneform Wedg-like or in form of a Wedg a bone so shap'd Cutaneous Belonging to the skin or skinny Culinarie Belonging to the Kitchin Cuticula The little thin skin under the Cutis or the upper skin Cutis The upper or outward skin of the Body D Dead head The same with Caput mortuum Decapulation A pouring off Defection A failing weakness or infirmity Decoction A boyling or seething Defecated Made free from dregs Deflagration A flaming or burning forth Deliquium As of the salt of Tartar a clear draining also a swooning away or a failing of the senses Delirium A raving madness as in Feavers Deltoides A muscie in the top of the Arm having the figure of a Delta the Greek D. Demersed Drowned Depauperated Made poor or wasted Depraved Corrupted or marred Depurated Cleansed from dregs Depuration A cleansing or making pure Desultory Leaping wavering or inconstant Diabetes The Pissing evil a disease that causeth the party troubled therewith almost continually to piss and in a great quantity a clear and sweetish water Diacodium A Syrup to procure sleep made of the tops of Poppy Diagnosis Dilucidation or Knowledg Diagridium See Scammony Diaphoresis Evaporation as by sweating Diaphoretic That causeth Evaporation or sweating forth of humors Diaphanous Clear and splendid Diaphragma The Midriff that separateth the Heart and Lights from the stomach Diapneon A breathing forth Diapnoe A breathing forth Diarrhaea A loosness of the Belly without inflammation a Lask Diascordium A Cordial medicine made of Scorum and other Ingredients Diastole The rising up of the Heart or Artery the contrary motion of Systole Diathesis The affection or disposition Diluted Rinsed or washed Dilucidation An explaning or clearing Dioptric Belonging to the Perspective or a Mathematical Instrument thorow which they look to take the height of a thing Divarications A varying or severing into parts running up and down as the Veins and Nerves Diversory A diverting place or a place to turn of one side out of the way Diuresis Evacuation by Vrin Diuretick A Medicine that causeth evacuation by Vrin Dogmatic Stiff in Opinion Duodenum The first Gut or Intestine of twelve fingers long Dura mater The hard membrane or tunicle that encompasseth the Brain next the skull Dyscrasie Intemperature as some humor or quality abounding in the Body Dysentery A flux of the Belly that corrodes the Bowels and often causes blood called then the Bloudy flux Dyspathy A contrariety of affection Dyspnoea A pursiness or shortness of breathing and a stopping of the Conduits of the Lights E Ebullition A boiling up Eccentric Without Centre Eccathartic Not purging Eccritic Not critical Edulcorated Made sweet Effervency A being very hot or inflamed Effervescency A being very hot or inflamed Effluvia Things that flow out of the Body as steam and breath thorow the pores of the skin Egestion A casting forth as ordure from the Body or any excrementitious humor Egritude Sickness or not being well Elastick That goeth off with a force like Gun-powder or spreads forcibly forth with a jerk Elaterium A violent strong purging Medicine Elixation A boyling Elixir An Arabian word for Quintessence high Cordials so called Elogie A report in praise or dispraise of a thing Emanations Things that flow or proceed from the Body or its parts flowing forth Embryo The Child before it hath perfect shape in the Mothers womb Emissaries Places that sends forth any thing as the sinks of the Body Empirical Belonging to an Empirick or of knowledg in Physick got by practice only Empiric Such a Physitian who hath no judgment but has all his skill from practice or by experiments Empyema An Imposthume or collection of corrupt matter with inflammation between the breast and the Lungs Empyreuma A smatch or taste of the fire as burnt too or as in most waters newly drawn off by distillation Emulgent Vessels or Arteries or Veins two large Arteries so called springing out of the great Artery which being carried near to the back-bone are inserted into the Reins Also two large Veins which springing out of the Vena Cava under the Ventricle are carried into the Kidneys Emulging Vessels or Arteries or Veins two large Arteries so called springing out of the great Artery which being carried near to the back-bone are inserted into the Reins Also two large Veins which springing out of the Vena Cava under the Ventricle are carried into the Kidneys Emunctories Sinks or cleansing places for the Body Encephalon The head and all its parts Enema A Clister Energy The force or operation or virtue of a thing Enervation Vnnerving or a loosing of the strength a weakning or making feeble Enthymiama Medicines used to express the flowing of the Blood or other humors to any place Enthymeta Medicines used to express the flowing of the Blood or other humors to any place Ephemera Things of a days lasting a short Feaver of a day Epidemical General universal publick Ephidrosis A sudden sweat beginning about the head and breast passing over the Body unprofitable and of small use for that Evacuation of the disease sometimes taken for sweating Epigastric Belonging to the Epigastrium Epigastrium The same with Abdomen or the outward part of the Belly from the Navil to the privy members Epilepsie The Disease called the Falling-sickness Epiphysis Is an addition of some bone of a different description to the true bone to which it is annexed an addition or augmentation Epispasticks Certain Medicines used for the drawing forth of ulcerous matter Epithema Moist Medicines used to bathe or foment the parts affected Epithymum Dodder of Time used to purge