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A43010 The art of curing diseases by expectation with remarks on a supposed great case of apoplectick fits : also most useful observations on coughs, consumptions, stone, dropsies, fevers, and small pox : with a confutation of dispensatories, and other various discourses in physick / by Gideon Harvey ... Harvey, Gideon, 1640?-1700? 1689 (1689) Wing H1056; ESTC R15429 64,822 230

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and therefore are proper means to be used by the Art of Expectation THE distill'd Waters of Borrage Bugloss Endive Cichory Dendelion Porslain Lettuce and the like in taste smell and their other supposed qualities do little or nothing exceed those of River water distilled and operate less in cooling moistning and other requisites than this last Element And a Physician is in nothing more deceived or imposes more grosly on his Patients than in prescribing the distilled Waters of Oaken buds Horstails Plantain Shepherds purse Milfoil knot Grass c. for adstriction and repulsion that quality being chiefly resident in their terrestrial parts which never ascending so high as the Alembic head cannot be thought to pass by distillation wherefore the Prescriber is extreamly blameable for his error of Judgment in not preferring the decoction of those simples whereby their astringent qualities are apparently to the taste communicated to the Liquor in a degree as high or low as answers the proportion of the Ingredients The same error is committed in the distillation of Comfrey Mallows Marshmallows Snails Muscels Earth-worms and of all others whose chief effects are performed by a lenifying smoothing mucilage that can no other way be extracted than by expression or decoction whereas the weight of these mucous Particles is an undoubted obstacle to their rising so high as the Alembic Can any thing be more ridiculous than to distill Nettles ground Ivy Fumitory Agrimony or Speedwel whose superfluous insipid Phlegm is only collected in drops to serve for no other use than to fill up glasses that are to be emptied at the next return of the spring into the Canels One ounce of the Juyce of Nettles will in vertue over-power a gallon of the distilled water a decoction or expression of ground Ivy or Fumitory in the quantity of a spoonful contains more of the specific than a Rundlet of their distilled moisture Poppy water may justly be rejected where one drop of Syrup of Poppy is enrich'd with more vertue than a pint of the distill'd Liquor The deobstruent endowments of all bitter Herbs as Wormwood Succory Elicampane Hoarhound and Germander remain in the bottom of the Still whilst the Liquor that 's separated from them is scarce good enough to wash hands Sorrel Lemon Citron Oranges and other soure materials will sooner be burnt or affected with an empyreum in the bottom of the distilling Vessels than throw up their acidity to the Alembic The distillation of Oxe dung doth better sute with the Imploy of a Tom-t d than with the Profession of such noble Doctors that have particularly inserted it in their grave Dispensatory Can there be so much madness fixt in the belief of any Physick Doctor or decrepid Nurse that Water drawn by distillation from Swallows or Magpyes ever cured the falling Sickness or any sort of Convulsions The number of waters to be distilled ought to be limited to such Vegetables as partake of volatile Particles and others whose fragrant scent is transmigrable with their humidity and the most necessary of these are so few that ten or a dozen may for ready Vehicles and other uses over-suffise To what purpose then do the Augustan Doctors in their Pharmacopoea and in imitation of them others in theirs command near a hundred simple Waters to be distilled unless to make a Well of the Apothecaries Shop to their needless trouble and charge and yet grudge them to reimburs their dammage in pouring of them into the sinck every ensuing year by charging their losses on the higher prizes of such Medicines which they shall have opportunity of selling so that in this sense it is not eleven pence in the Shilling profit but rather twelve pence in the Shilling loss for which the poor Apothecary that pays House-rent scot and lot is singularly obliged to their Doctorships In the framing of the Pharmacopoea Hagiensis I had my suffrage as fellow of that Colledge of Physicians and where it hath been my turn to be twice Dean or President of the said Society as you may read by Name in the printed Copies which are sold among the Booksellers in London as well as at the Hague It was not in any single power to prevail against all the rest of the Collegues to reduce the twenty two only distilled simple Waters there inserted to ten or eleven which in my sentiment seemed abundance for all necessary Intentions notwithstanding that Dispensatory comparatively with others before for smalness of number election and correction of requisite Medicines may challenge the first place with any other of ancienter edition though it hath not escaped many of those errors that all others are culpable of as will be particularly instanced hereafter The simple Waters drawn from the flowers of Rosemary Lime-trees Lavendel Lillies of the Valley Piony and from other cephalick simples forasmuch as their simple vertues do in no proportion balance the charge and trouble of their distillation deserve no rank in a Dispensatory especially in regard they are all contained in several compound Epileptick and Apoplectick Spirits where their faculties and powers are exalted and copiously extracted by the means of Wine or Brandy and may be allayed by the admixture of any temperate simple Water to any degree you please As for Spirits of spirituous Waters of Wormwood Angelica Iuniper Orange-peel Mint Lemon-peel and twenty more of the same class are rather to be esteem'd appurtenances of a Brandy shop prepared to gratifie the Palates of debauch'd Brandy drinkers whereas Spirits drawn from two or three choice Epilepticks and Apoplecticks shall answer all indications more powerfully and agreeably to Nature without such frustraneous Multiplications according to the two memorable Edicts of Philosophers E●tia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitate● Frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest p●r pauciora To leave in the bottom of the distilling Vesse● the most powerful Particles of the Ingredients of Aqua Hysterica after a faint stinking water has been abstracted from them is the greatest Indiscretion whereas the infusing or digesting in Spirits of Wine four or five of the most Energick Simples by way of Tincture a● Aristoloch Rot. Bac. Sambuc Puleg Myrrh and Cort. Aurant would partake more Vertues in half an ounce than doth the distilled water in a pint Neither can I well perceive the pretence of Bryony to the discussing of hypochondriac or as they fasly term them hysteric Vapors being a nauseous violent Emetic and Cathartic which rather seems appointed with qualities to excite and irritate such offensive Ebullitions and Exufflations What wonder the Juyce of Celondine and one or two very ungrateful Spices among the rest can produce in Aqua Mirabilis is not so great a wonder to me as the folly of those that composed it The Aqua Coelestis Imperialis Theriacalis frigida Saxoniae Gilbert● and other compound Waters are most of ●em tautalogical the one with the other and abounding with all the absurdities you will read hereafter in the just
choak these pulmonick Bellows So true it is as some certain pectorals are the life of the Lungs that Steel and all chalybeat Medicines are a certain bain unto them the roughness and adstringent faculties of its vitriolick Salt which they contain in a superlative degree straitning and contracting in process of time the whole pneumatick Engine to a total suppression 6. From the preceding Paragraph flows naturally this observation that where Lungs are hereditarily asthmatick or adventitiously so by universally inspiring a thick smoaky foggy Air about London which from the dripping fits of the Climate in the Winter proves no other all England over Steel Remedies either in a dry or moist form as iron-Iron-waters and Syrup of Steel ought to be regarded with a very squint suspicious Eye and never called in use where the greatest necessity is not the chiefest indicant CHAP. IV. Reciting a farther enumeration of the mischiefs of Steel with a very eminent supposed case 1. NOW if you will suppose a Man or Woman afflicted with any hypochondriac spleeny Distemper or inveterated obstructions of the Bowels either being easily incident into a Couch and being never so little imbecillitated in their Lungs a Steel Medicine exhibited where the acid within the Body is uncapable to divide the Sulphur from the Salt they run no small risque of puiking their gross slimy Humors into their Lungs that will in time coagulate to an Asthma ulcerous disposition of the Lungs and probably a Consumption and Hectic Fever or if peradventure the Humours do not sublime they will be compacted into immedicable Obstructions and most obstinate Infarctions Where such Medicines encounter with Youth their Vigour possibly may subjugate their roughness and menaced Mischiefs which in those that are turned of forty do very frequently ensue either soon after or upon a delay of a few years and may easily be tract backwards to the Steel Original whence they will evidently be found to take their source neither are you here to expect an enumeration of all such like cases which I can give you unless you are armed with Patience of reading a Treatise six times bigger than this will amount unto neither can I without astonishment behold how gredily Syrup of Steel is swallowed down at Paris by most of the Patients of a noised Farrier-Doctor who in the failure of this doth immediately turn to Ass-Doctor by his milkie Diets so that I cannot tell whether I ought properly to say the Farrier upon the Ass or the Ass upon the Farrier 2. Beyond all peradventure the Sulphur of Steel being entirely stript as very few have hitherto yet discovered of its saline particles and their restringent faculties which in most preparations will in a great measure cleave to it must become a most admirable deobstruent neither did I ever yet arrive to any one process that came near it except one which by bringing it over the Alembick renders it soluble The same process hath the same effect upon Antimony and some few other Minerals which since not appertaining to the Art of Expectation will be improper to describe at present 3. It is not on the Bowels only but on the Brain and Nerves a long or oft repeated Steel course manifests its immedicable Injuries Palsies Convulsions and extream weakness of the Joynts I have more than once observed the consequences of it which I can deduce from no other preceding causality then by cementing and binding vicious humours in deep latent recesses where by a long stagnation for some months and sometimes years they acquire a levain so pernicious as to deprave and subvert the animal Faculty enervating the whole systeme of channels that proceed from the Brain and impressing a virulency on the Juyces of the Nerves in which manner and through the same means it bears a very near affinity to the Jesuits bark that hath so oft some years after caused Convulsions and Syncopees though never Apoplectic-fits a denomination that makes Physicians that used it to appear the greatest Block-heads for Fits denote a type and a circuit of beginning ending and returning which an Apoplexy never did Either it is a strong one Apoplexia fortis which according to Hippocrates and all other experienced Physicians since doth infallibly kill or slight Apoplexia levis which for the most part turns to a Palsie See Hippocr Apho. lib. 2. Aph. 42. 4. Imagine half a quier of Physicians of the same stampt treating a Patient decumbent of Leipothymick or rather Syncopal fits interchanging reciprocally with violent Convulsions or if you please spasmodic Paroxysms which sometimes prove periodical These symptoms which are evident to all the World what they are being by them termed Apoplectic-fits a denomination never mentioned by any Author since the Creation exposes them either to be grosly ignorant as appears by what is manifest before concerning an Apoplexy or very sinisterly designing if not in all at least in the Babylonian Leaders whom the rest easily will follow for large compensations or to prevent being by them kick'd out of so honourable an Employ It is probable the whole Chorus not arriving together the first come upon the sight of such an effroyable symptom either being not sufficiently skilful or not taking time to examine into the case might mistake it for an Apoplexy and too precipitantly advise bleeding to make room in the Vessels for the Blood to move and consequently to prevent stagnation and coagulation Now I would put the question a Man or Woman being fallen into a swooning fit Is there one thoughtful Physician among five hundred that would have the courage or so little sense as to open a Vein Did ever any authentick Author in Physick prefer Phlebotomy as a proper Remedy in this case If you reply there may be a Plethory still not in one in a thousand will consent to it in the fit 5. To go on upon the forementioned supposition I very well know that a Physician to free himself from the censure of a mistake or erroneous application of a Remedy will endeavour to justifie himself by inculcation and hammering his Sentiment into every one of the Physicians called in upon their first arrival who either out of a Complement or false conception of the case communicated unto them or untrue relation of the thing or their proper ignorance and unskilfulness being decoyed or fallen into the same opinion are bound to justifie the first Physician and themselves and one another singly and joyntly moreover being blinded by the first appearance they dare not nor will not hereafter see plain lest the standers by should accuse them of hallucination The Disease being at first christned an Apoplexy they were obliged to hold to that word but going soon off and returning with interchanges of Convulsions they perceived plain enough that it was no Apoplexy but to conceal their mistake they judged it necessary to keep to the first Notion and slide it of● to Apoplectic fits a species of impudence uncommon to any but themselves
censure of Venice Treacle and other Remarks upon composites Whatever laudable effects hath been performed by the Aqua Quercetani are only imputable to the Therebinthin the other Ingredients as Sem. Lactucae and agni Casti c. as will appear in the disprobation of the Syrup of Chastity being idle and of no signification Nothing argues greater Stupidity than not to believe there is more vertue in a spoonful of Capons broath than in a gallon of Aqua Caponis wherefore exceptis Medicis nihil stultius Grammaticis What can come nearer to madness than the commending Aqua scordii composita being a meet Phlegm attended with a fainty nauseous smell more noisom to the Spirits than the steem of a Dunghil Epidemic water requires several Animadversions 1. Scorzonera roots retaining little that is volatile yields less of an Alexipharmac and antifebril in distillation than Barley flower or Oatmel 2. The Pyony root possessing the total of its prime vertues in weighty terrestrial parts continues its residence in the bottom of the gourge without parting with more than an invalid steem 3. Besides scents of an ill hew and some strong heating oyly Particles of the Cephalicks I cannot discern any thing material in the Composition for the purpose 4. The Fountain water mixt with the best Spirits of Wine is labour and cost lost in not exchanging it for good Nantes Brandy or Spirit of Wine not rectified So that this empirical medley is much resembling all the rest described in vulgar Dispensatories 5. The faeces or Residence of this and Treacle-water is left possessed of what can be supposed excellent in those Compositions Distilled Spirits of Wormwood retain only what 's the most offensive and nauseous part of that Herb leaving what is most useful as all other bitters in the bottom of the Still CHAP. XVII Of Medicinal Vinegers and Wine also of Emetic Wines 1. WHether for use of the Kitchin or the Apothecaries Shop so many sorts of Vinegars are introduced is but a civil question Elder Vineger the Cooks impropriate to their share leaving Rosemary Vineger Gillistower Marigold Rose S●●il Treacle-Vineger and the rest to the Physick Doctors among whom there is scarce one in a hundred that in the whole course of his Practice ever prescribed a drop unless to smell unto or apply 〈…〉 particular inflamed part in form of an Oxycrat which of late years hath been wholly rejected To what end then is the Shop burdened with them If any young Physickster has an itch to experiment once in his life time whether Squil Vineger deserves those lying Marvels Galen adscribes to it the Medicine may pro re nata be well enough prepared without an Insolation of forty days And when he shall be fully satisfied of its Sublimities he will have no great appetite to essay Vinun S●●illiticum especially in those that are amorous who desire to avoid a stinking Breath and a loathsome Medicine and wherefore then foisted into the Dispensatory 2. Any man of sense will be contented with the sole and safe use of Vinum benedictum without running the risque of a Vinum Helleboratum Rubellum or Antimoniale which too oft have thrown Patients into dreadful Convulsions and let me be their Remembrancer of Hippocrates his Aphor. 1. Lib. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death that so oft has been an attendant of white Hellebore is not so much the consequent of an Hypercatharisis and an extream Inanition or Siccity as of a venemous quality that contorts the whole Systeme of the Nerves and poysons the Brain Why then must this poysonous Medicine take its place in the Dispensatory 3. I cannot without laughter take notice of the Mace that 's added to the Infusion of Crocus Metallorum and the Cloves to the Vitrum Antimonii and yet the Regulus Antimonii which is as great a Devil as either of them is accompanied with neither Mace Cloves Nutmegs nor Cinamon in the Vinum Antimoniale As for the Cloves and Mace either their office is intended to be a corrector of the Antimony or a corroborator of the Stomach if the first they are under a mistake for ten drams of Mace is not so much a corrector to an ounce of Antimony as one grain of Salt-peter If they pretend to strengthen the Stomach then they hinder the Operation of the Medicine which is to weaken irritate and provoke the Stomach to let go its hold of those slimy or choleric Humors that oppress it whereas to strengthen the Stomach is to contract moderately its Fibres by the adstringent quality of those Spices whereby at the same time the humors are bound up and pack'd in close all which is contrary to the intention of vomiting If you are fearful that the Stomach is very weak give less of the Medicine and then my most worthy Kindred after the operation of throwing up the load of vitious Humors approach with a good burnt Claret wherein your Mace Cloves or Cinamon will do you Service Pray consider Suppose you thought fit in your Wisdoms to advise a vomit of warm water and Sallade Oyl should you order Cinamon or Mace to be boiled in it the very Nurses and all the Boys of the Parish would laugh at you What Cloves and Mace in a Vomitory This is thrusting from you and pulling to you all at once This is a Maxim the Rusticks will oppose without the help of Logick Wherefore I do offer to take the blame upon me if henceforward the Apothecaries leave those Indian Aromaticks out of these or the like Medicines Moreover know that Minerals are to be disrobed of their Venom smoothed of immoderate roughness and corrected before they enter into the Body by Tonitruation Sublimation Precipitation or Digestion 4. Have these Physicksters ever had the good fortune to recover sight in a blind man by Eye-bright Wine or to strengthen a weak Brain by Rosemary Wine Vulgar Experience asserts Wine hurtful to the Eyes and Brain both which have too oft been drunk out by that Liquor Away with them for shame out of all Dispensatories I had almost forgot to mention the Inconveniency of the Infusion of Crocus Metallorum that after long keeping it looseth its vertue and oft misseth in its vomitive Operation which is endeavoured to be prevented by letting the Wine stand upon the Antimony and now and then giving it a gentle shake This not restoring it to its former vertue an Oxymel Vomitivum will not only obviate that desect but by means of the Vineger correct the exorbitant faculty of that Mineral quicken it in Operation and attenuate the gross slimy Humors So that in my Opinion all the recited Vomitories ought to be expunged and this remain the only substitute As for the simple Waters all ought to be discarded to eight or nine these medicated Vinegers exterminated except the acetum destillatum and the physical Wines abandoned to those whose Palats will judge them grateful CHAP. XVIII Of the Medicinal Syrups and Conserves 1. WAter vyeth with the
shifting As for example to a great pain in the head or any other part a friendly po●ltis of three or four insignificant herbs a little Bran c. but ought to be prepared in the Patient's Chamber that he may pass away so much time in seeing them sent ●or brought to him and boyl'd in his presence and then applied and knowing likewise what the Ingredients are he will give the more credit to such things which his Grannum used to tell him were very good and soverain In the Gout likewise if the Expectation-Physician presents his Patient gratis with this following nostrum it will not only be well taken but much more veneration will be given to it than if it came from the Apothecaries shop and to the Physician will redound a very lasting diffusive glory and reputation viz. ten links of thred half yard long dipt in Wax of ten different colours each is to be tyed by the Patient if possible or by his Nurse to each distinct Toe of the Feet and to be untied every hour or two and changed to other toes namely the red wax't thred where the green was the blue where the yellow c. By this means a great deal of time will be passed and if the Patient continues tying and untying until a good long fit is expired it will have also another good effect of rendring his back very flexible and being tired at Night prove a means to make him sleep without the charge of a dose of Opium 7. Since it cannot well be expected that I shall exemplify the Methodus medendi together with the Remedies of this rich and noble Art in all Diseases I will only instance it in some few that are most universal A continual Fever after once or twice bleeding which beyond all dispute is of use and truly preparative to a Cure requires a good thin water Gruel or a Barley water with its appurtenances for an ordinary drink Next two or three sorts of Cordials to be taken at different hours for reasons before mentioned Also some few testaceous Powders for other times of Physick Devotion If the Belly hath forgot its Office that may be minded of its duty by a Milk and Sugar Glyster every other day The Spirits of Harts-horn well rectified and the blistering Plaister may be put in use in the declination of the Distemper for then they will prove the least hurtful The Cordials usually consist of two or three simple Waters as of Carduus ben Scabious c. with a fourth part or rather sixth part of Epidemic water and the Julep to be sweetned with Syrup of Gilliflowers Such sort of simple waters mixt with a fourth or sixth part of small Cinamon-water Pearl grinded into an impalpable Powder which Crabs Eyes will equal in all its pretended Excellencies and sweetned with fine white ●ugar all this makes up the Pearl Cordial For your dyet avoid flesh meat and content your self with Grewel Panada c. Nothing is more certain then that this whole course is perfectly Expectation there being nothing in it that makes the least step towards a real true cure so that all those that are recovered by such a Method and Remedies owe the restitution of their health to strenght of Nature and Time. Desume your curative indications from any pretended Theory of Fevers as suppose they are caused by a fermention of the Blood the precited Remedies participate of nothing that can or doth diminish and extinguish the fermentation or if you please gently help it on so as it may terminate the sooner Suppose a Fever is caused by a putrefactive Ebullition those preternatural Particles in the Blood that move it into that violent passion are opposed by nothing that 〈◊〉 contained in those Medicines and most certainly did not Physicians assent to that Opinion they would not so universally have re●ected them and make the Jesuits bark the sole Anchor of their 〈◊〉 in that case What I have more to obiect you may read in another Treatise 8. Can any one without scorn behold such drones of Physicians I speak generally and therefore desire no false Innuendo may be made that after the space of so many hundred years Experience and Practice of their Predecessors not one single Medicine hath been ●et detected by them that hath the least force directly and per se to oppose resist or expel a continual Fever which by their erroneous Applications is too oft provected to malignity Should any by a more sedulous Observation pretend or make the least step towards the discovery of such Remedies their hatred and envy would swell against him as a Legion of Devils against Vertue whole Societies would dart their Malice at him and torture him with all the Calumnies imaginable without sticking at any thing that should destroy and rain him root and branch or which I could give you a very memorable Example were it convenient for he that professes a reformation of the Art of Physick in exposing its Impostures and advancing such Methods and Remedies that are beyond those of the Art of Expectation must resolve to run the hazard of the Martyrdom of his Reputation Life and Estate especially when it s considered that the greatest and best part of Mankind is prepossest with a Judgment that 's imus●d into them by Expectation Physicians to some or other of whom almost every man is linck●d by Acquaintance Kindred Knowledge or Drunkenness 9. Nothing hath ever proved more fatal than this universal Notion that in the small Pox you must always be driving out in giving strong Diaphoreticks or sweating Medicines which in kindling the Fever-●igher that 's usually a concomitant or rather preceding doth convert it into malignant and continuing as such its impossible the virulent Eruptions should ever appear considering the small Pox is a Crisis or critical propulsion of virulent Pustles very commonly of a Febris continua imputris or Diaria plurium dierum ordinarily so termed by Physicians and oft-times of a Febris continua putrida A Crisis is never to be expected but after digestion and separation and then ensues Expulsion so that if you endeavour to expel by sweating before Nature is ready by finishing the digestion and separation you do most certainly anger the Spirits and put them into an high fury and as long as you continue thus you may sooner expect Death than the breaking forth of the small Pox. In this particular it is that Nurses and the careful old Women by their common Expectation Remedies as Harts-horn or plain Posset-drink or a small Fig-decoction in Water or small Beer do oft excel the best of Physicians in their erroneous Methods of driving out 10. Considering further that in many Children and others there is proceding only a small simmering of the Blood which may properly enough be termed a Fermentation an Ebullition being a more violent and impetuous motion which if abated or intirely quieted by cooling aqueous and acid Juleps the virulency is suppressed in the Eruption or