long most of all and is of least use Blacke Pepper is with us in most frequent use heateth much cutteth tough grosse phlegme helpeth the concoction in a cold phlegmaticke stomacke is also good against crudities wind-colicke and cold in any part sinewes or others It is not to be too small beaten for feare of inflaming the blood and other profitable humours of the body it is safelier used in old age than in younger people for whom the too frequent use of it is exceeding hurtfull And therefore it ought not to be so ordinarily without any consideration had either to age or season of the yeere as it is used of every one Let youth therefore take heede how they use too liberally Venison so much peppered and salted in the Sommer-season and to mend the matter after make it swimme in wine It is thought pepper heateth lesse than other spices and this I doe not conceive that other spices are indeed actually hotter but by reason the heat of it is lesse durable and it is not of so terrestrious a substance And for this same cause I suppose long Pepper by reason of a more terrestrious substance and more durable heat is accounted hotter by reason of this durable biting and abiding heat And this I suppose gave the vulgar occasion to call Pepper hot in the mouth and cold in the stomack But let the dullest taste try a small quantity of Pepper and I will appeale to his senses whether it be hot or cold so that I shall need use no other argument to proove it That little hot root which we call Ginger commeth in the second place of spices to be considered And although it be not so intense in heat as Pepper I meane in the degree yet heateth it more by reason of its terrestrious substance It is brought over unto us either dry or else preserved greene in sirup and it is sometimes yea very often preserved after it commeth over being first steeped and boiled in water which notwithstanding yeeldeth much in goodnesse to the former Dry Ginger is very hot and dry and is used to season cold and moist meats as pepper is howbeit Pepper be in far more frequent use either for fish or flesh especially for fish Ginger is good to helpe digestion and to open obstructions to cut and attenuate grosse and tough phlegmaticke humors to discusse winde and helpe to expell it out of the bodie It is better for aged than for young hot cholericke bodies or the like diseases Green Ginger preserved in the Indies when it is yet moist and succulent as it is pleasing to the palate so is it nothing so hot and dry as any other sort and therefore may safelier be of younger people used than any of the other sorts and is good to eat fasting for a waterish or windy and weake stomacke and comforteth the head being good for diseases of the braine proceeding of cold Ginger here with us at home is both preserved in sirup as hath been said already and sometimes also candied to be eaten dry This last approacheth neerest to the nature of dry Ginger and is fittest to bee used of the elder colder and moister age and stomacke That which is heere preserved in sirup is farre inferior in goodnesse to that which is preserved in the Indies And thus prepared they are hardly concocted by a weake stomacke and continuing long there are converted into a tough glutinous substance of the which a late writer bringeth an instance A Bishop of Basile saith he having by the too frequent use of a certaine Minerall water acquired a very cold and moist stomacke to correct this crudity used much this so prepared Ginger notwithstanding his Physitians counsell to the contrary At length he fell into a desperate disease whereof he died His body being opened in the capacitie of his stomacke were found about two pounds of putrified water together with a petty quantity of the aforesaid Ginger some part of it yet continuing still in its owne nature and some part of it converted into a tough blacke glutinous substance sticking to the sides and cels of his stomacke and guts some part whereof hee did also before his death now and then yet not without fainting and swounding often cast up Let others then take warning to use it more sparingly The Clove is a spice brought us from the Molucks in the East-Indies being hot and dry in the third degree It is very much used in the kitchin both for sauces and sticking of meat Cloves comfort the head heart stomack and liver helpe the eye-sight and concoction and strengthen nature They are good against fainting swounding as also against the plague and any infectious disease Besides they are good against all fluxes of the bellie proceeding of cold humors strengthen the retentive faculty and make the breath sweet Of this as of other spices are extracted water oile and other things usefull for the health of mankind whereon I will not now insist But I advise young people hot and cholericke complexions to bee sparing as in the use of all other spices so of this also and of any thing extracted from them The Nutmegge is the fruit of a tree growing in the East-Indies being covered with that spice we call Mace They are accounted hot and dry in the second degree and are good for the same cases for the which Cloves were commended and although they be not altogether so intense in hearing and drying yet are they very astrigent and comfort the noble parts being also very good for moist cold phlegmaticke bodies and cold diseases fluxes c. But still let young hot dry and melancholicke persons carefully take heed what they doe The Nutmeg being yet greene covered over with a greene huske as are our Walnuts is preserved in the Indies and brought us over the which is nothing so hot nor drying as our dry Nutmegges and therfore very comfortable for the head and stomacke especially and may be either eaten fasting in a morning or after meales Mace covereth the Nutmegge partaking of the same nature strengthening all the noble parts being good against cold diseases and against fluxes and spitting of blood There is yet another great fruit brought to us from the same Indies ready preserved called the Indian Nut which is very good likewise to comfort all the noble parts and strengthen nature Cinamon is the inward rind or barke of a tree growing in the East-Indies hot and dry about the third degree and yet in regard of the tenuity of its parts as was before said of blacke pepper is thought not to heat so much as some other spices This noble spice both in regard of the fragrant smell and pleasantnesse to the palat may justly challenge the first place of excellency It comforteth all the noble parts cheereth spirits openeth obstructions both of men and women furthereth the expulsion of the birth sweetneth the breath
and abuse thereof What age and constitution it best befitteth Some thing concerning the menstruous flaxe in women CHAP. XXV Of Sleeping and waking the benefit and use thereof in sickenesse and in health The severall sorts of sleepe and what persons may sleep freeliest and who lesse CHAP. XXVJ Of dreames and that of them there may bee made good use in sicknesse and in health Of Noctambuli commonly called Night-walkers or such as walke in their sleepe especially in the night-season together with the reason thereof CHAP. XXVIJ Of the soule and passions thereof in generall CHAP. XXVIIJ Of lustfull love and what hurt is thereby procured to mankind Whether any may dye of love Some thing also concerning Iealously CHAP. XXIX Of amorous or love-potions called Philtra VVhether love may bee procured by fascination CHAP. XXX Of fascination by sight by wordor voice or yet by spells Of Imagination and strange stupendious effects our Paracelsists attribute thereunto together with the absurdity of the same A digression concerning the weapon-salve with a confutation of the chiefe arguments brought for the maintaining thereof CHAP. XXXJ. Of Mandrakes the nature and vertue thereof and whether this planâ— hath any power to procure love CHAP. XXXIJ Of immoderate and passionate anger the hurt thereby procured to the body in sickenesse and in health and antidotes against it In what diseases best and in what worst and whether any may dye of anger CHAP. XXXIIJ Of sorrow griefe and feare the danger and detriment commeth thereby to the body of man and how hurtfull in sicknesse and in health Whether any may dye of Sorrow and Griefe CHAP. XXXV Of Joy and Gladnesse and the excesse thereof which may also hurt the body Whether any may dye of excessive Joy The conclusion of this whole discourse Questions discussed and handled in this Third BOOKE 1. VVHether in the maligne contagious and pestilentiall Fevers as likewise in the small Pox and Measels and in the Jaundize we may safely let blood Chap. 3. 2. Whether a woman with child may be let blood or purged Cap. 5. 10. 3. Whether age doth indicate Phlebotomy and whether this remedy in time of need may not be administred to young children and aged people Cap. 5. 4. Whether the party phlebotomized will every yeere expect the reiteration of the same remedy Cap. 6. 5. Whether palpitation of any part of the body doth argue life to bee confined to that part and that a veine being then there opened the party should presently dye as is by some of the vulgar conceived Cap. 6. 6. Whether we may safely purge and bleed during the dog daies Cap. 7. 7. Whether in Phlebotomy and purging we are to observe the signe with the Moone Cap. 8. 14. 8. Whether Somnus meridianns or Sleepe in the day time bee to bee allowed of Cap. 25. 9. Whether Leap yeere altereth or infringeth the force of minerall waters for that yeere Cap. 18. 10. Whether any simple by its vertue can procure love Cap. 29. 11. Whether love can be procured by fascination or bewitching ibid. 12. Whether Phansie or Imagination doth worke ad extra or without its owne body upon any externall obiect Cap. 30. 13. Whether any may dy of love Cap. 28. 14. Whether Mandrakes have any power to procure love Cap. 31. 15. Whether any may dye of Anger Cap. 32 16. Whether one may dye of Sorrow and Griefe Cap. 33. 17. Whether one may dye of Ioy and mirth Cap. 34. The Introduction to this VVHOLE DISCOVRSE VVherein is detected the lawlesse intrusion of many ignorant Persons upon the profession of PHYSICKE WEll-weighing kinde Reader and comparing that golden sentence of the sage Solomon that of writing many bookes there is no end and much reading is a wearinesse to the flesh with that of the famous Hippocrates vita brevis ars longa the life of man is but short and Arts and Sciences are long and hard to be attained unto I thought it alwaies the part of a wise man to apply his study to that which might prove most profitable either for his owne private or yet for the publike And if ever this was usefull this age wherein we now live requireth this care and circumspection The multitude of needlesse and unprofitable pamphlets that I say no worse wee see daily to pester the Printers Presses in such sort that it were to be wished there might be some restraint and limitation and not every man at his pleasure suffered to vent the idle fancies of a selfe conceited braine so farre many times from doing any good either in Church or Common-wealth that they prove rather the causes of a great deale of mischiefe Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim But I let passe that which is not in my power to amend and come to the matter now in hand Some few yeeres agoe I stepped forth also my selfe upon the stage to act some part of mine owne profession There I detected and laid open some errours and impostures practised by some ignorant practitioners of physicke in that Semioticall part of this profession which treateth of urine Now Ille ego qui quondam gracili modulatus avena Carmen c. I have now undertaken the handling of an higher taske to wit that part of the Therapeuticke part of physicke which handleth the diet of the diseased which of all other parts of physicke hath most slightly and slenderly beene past over and that as well by the antient as by our moderne and late Writers And since the diet of sound and healthfull people hath beene handled by a multitude both of antient and late Writers both in forraine countries and here at home amongst our selves it is a wonder that the diet of the diseased who of all others have most neede hath hitherto so farre beene neglected Having therefore a long time waited for my elders and better skilled in this businesse and perceiving that no man opened his mouth in the behalfe of the diseased I tooke upon mee to say something rather than to be altogether silent And so much the more was I animated and incouraged to set upon this subject in that I saw it so generally neglected or at least most grossely abused which notwithstanding was so carefully among the antients observed as shall hereafter in the sequell of this discourse more plainly appeare And daily experience doth plainely prove that a small error committed either in the due quantity in the quality in the time or any other such circumstance proveth not a little prejudiciall to the patient And I my selfe have in my daily practice observed this to be true that aliments of the best nature and laudable condition yet taken but at an unseasonable time as toward the time of the exacerbation of the Fever called the Paroxysme and by the vulgar the fit hath after made the patient confesse that sweet meate had sowre sauce And from hence may be evinced the erroneous practice of many
by reason it may be they oftner are called to such desperate bargaines as also in regard they are often called to some of their patients whom they already had marred and yet the vulgars eyes being able to see no further than the outward event their common plea being alwaies this like the Cuckowes song he helped me and such a one not being in the meane time able to discerne what hurt these ill prepared medicines exhibited often without due consideration of quantity quality order and other considerable circumstances produce in the body of man howsoever perhaps at first seldome observed And if one of these should even exhibit to any a deadly poison with an intent to kill and the party should notwithstanding unexpectedly recover the vulgar would I thinke little lesse than deifie such a malicious wicked person We read in Galen of a woman who weary of her husbands company being a leper and carrying a better affection to an other fellow espying one day a fit occasion offered by meanes of a viper drowned in a vessell of wine gave her leprous husband some of this wine to drinke which having thus for certaine dayes continued she found it produce an effect quite contrary to her former expectation her husband thereby recovering his former health Now I pray thee what sufficiency or skill was there in this wicked woman And yet behold here a more than ordinary manifest cure The same Author maketh yet mention of another Leper cured after the same manner in the Harvest time and that by drinking wine wherein a viper had been drowned this verimine much delighting in this liquor and by the reapers in commiseration of his miserable and wretched estate exhibited to him with a full intention to put a period to his miserable languishing life Now what skill or understanding was here in this administration And yet according to the vulgars rule taken from event these reapers ought to have been magnified for rare and skilfull Physitians By the like casualties have often strange and stupendious effects beene produced and yet from a malicious intent in the author of the cure as some by breaking of their heads there following an immoderate effluxe of bloud have by their no lesse intending enemy been cured of inveterate headaches resisting and frustrating the most generous and noble remedies of the most famous Physitians A late writer maketh meÌ„tion of one who beating his braine against a wall was immediatly by meanes of an excessive effluxe of blood cured of an inveterate headach It is recorded that in that famous pestilential sweating sicknesse untill the right cure was knowne by keeping the sicke in a meane neither too hot nor too cold many by reason of immoderate sweating miscarried And yet a certaine young fellow contemning the ordinary cure when he felt himselfe surprized with this Fever crept into a hot oven after the bread was drawne out where having for a pretty space sweate liberally at length came out very weake and feeble as the manner was with such as recovered of such a diseas and the bread that was next baked in that oven reteined still an evill smell of that stinking sweate Now who desireth to make triall of such desperate Empiricall proceedings let him stand to the perill that will fall thereon This same last Spring a young fellow being ceized of a tertian asked counsell of a woman of good account what he might vse to rid him of this ague she wished him to put some sneezing powder within som figs and apply them to his wrists The simple fellow supposed they were more operative inwardly taken than applyed without and therefore eates them up powder and all and being abroad feeling himselfe after somewhat sicke as well he might sate downe upon the ground and cast up and voided downewards such a quantity of corrupt matter that hee thought hee had been now at the last cast And yet without either curious keeping within his warme chamber or yet warme posset-drinke hee both recovered this casting-fit and with all was quite freed from this Fever If any be desirous to save charges let them try such desperate conclusions It were easie for mee to instance in a multitude of the like examples in divers diseases but that I should then prove too tedious and my discourse too prolixe It is then apparent how absurd and unreasonable a thing it is to judge of the sufficiency of a physitian by bare issue and event And this may yet more plainely appeare by a comparison taken from the warres Those who valiantly defend any besieged townâ—or for t but overmatched with a potent enemy are at the last compelled to yeeld to the stronger power yet still doing their best indevour to defend the place wherewith they were betrusted deserve no lesse commendation than others who have at length beene relieved and so at length freed the place besieged Those few forces who in that memorable siege of Ostend so manfully defended that place for the space of three yeeres although at length overmatched by the power of a potent King of Spaine supplied by his Indian Ophir deserved no lesse if not more commendation than that late deceased Prince of Oranges commanders besieged within that famous Bergenop Zoome who maintained that siege in despight of all the Spanish Kings forces untill that manly Mansfield and brave Branswicke purchased the besieged their former liberty Neither were those generous valiant soldiers who in that last and memorable siege of Rochel defended that place so long as they were able to subsist worthy of lesse commendation notwithstanding their yeelding at length being now overmatched by the power of a puissant King of France and all forren succour failing than the inhabitants of the same towne divers yeeres agoe besieged then in like manner by a mighty King of France yet at length set at liberty by meanes of the Polonian Ambassadors arrivall and the election of the Kings brother to the Polonian crown But if a white-livered or fresh-water soldier as we use to say and unskilfull in the managing of martiall matters ignorant how to defend the place carelesse in repelling the enemies assaults c. If such a one I say surrender the place especially if it shall appeare that there was no want of men munition and victualls whereof wee suppose the former unfurnished this Captaine is so farre from deserving commendation that if he have to deale with an understanding Generall it may indanger his best joint And even thus standeth the case betwixt the learned Physitian and the Empericall practitioner But some here object that the most judicious and learned Physitian sometime faileth and is mistaken in his judgement and so may erre as well as another I answer indeed that not to erre at all is a prerogative onely proper to the great King of Kings and never communicated to any of the sonnes of sinfull Adam Now the learned and judicious artist erreth but seldome not
situation thereof being the cause of these differences Many other strange effects of winds may in these Authors be seene which here I willingly passe by having dwelt somewhat the longer upon this point to acquaint such as shall travell into this new world with the condition of the aire and winds of those remote regions CHAP. VI. Of the foure Seasons of the yeere and how they affect the body GOD of his infinit goodnesse to man-kinde after that great and terrible deluge and inundation of the universall world made man a promise that from thenceforward should not faile the severall seasons of the yeere Sommer and Winter Seed-time and Harvest which hath hitherto accordingly come to passe Now these seasons according to severall climats and countries doe much vary and differ Vnder the Line and betwixt the Tropickes they continue more constant and lesse deviation from their ordinary course is to be observed Without the Tropicks there is a greater difference and irregularity therein to be observed Now these seasons therefore according to their unconstant course must needs diversly affect the body of this Microcosme man both in sicknesse and in health and therefore will not be impertinent to say something of this subject Wee will threfore begin with the naturall temperature of the seasons of the yeere as they are commonly seene and observed with us here in Europe The naturall temperature of the Spring then with us here in Europe ought to be hot and moist of the Sommer hot and drie of the Autumne or Harvest cold and moist of Winter cold and drie These among innumerable others are the chiefe alterations incident to our aire and by the which the seasons of the yeere are with us ordinarily divided and distinguished and these seasons are occasioned by meanes of the exaltation or declining of that glorious prince of Planets Now the further these seasons decline frō the afore-mentioned qualities the more intemperate and greater enemies to the health of mankind they prove Our Hipporcrates defines not these seasons after this manner but according to the rising and setting of certaine starres and the chiefe times by him observed are these following the two Solstices the one in Sommer about the eleventh of Iune the other in Winter about the eleventh of December then next the two Aequinoxes the one about the eleventh of March the other about the eleventh of September These times because of dangers about these seasons this old Father would have us to observe The Sōmer Solstice he accounteth most dangerous and the Harvest Aequinox The same Authour againe observeth the rising and setting of certaine starres as namely of the Pleiades Vergiliae rising the five and twentieth of April and setting about the first of November and againe the rising of Arcturus about the one and thirtieth of August and setting about the beginning of March. Besides this same Authour observeth also the rising of the Dog-starre the ninteenth of Iuly and setting againe the twenty seventh of August and with these also he observeth the blowing of the West-wind And this is all the Hippocraticall spheare comprehending such starres and seasons as he thought fit for Physitians to observe But now againe as concerning the temper of these seasons whereas I say the Spring is hot and moist it may be objected that in it selfe it is rather temperate To this I answer that howsoever it be so accounted yet in comparison of the other seasons it may be called temperate And againe it may be called temperate as some say effective by producing the best temper It may againe be demanded if heat and drouth be proper qualities befitting Sommer and cold drouth approptiated for Winter whether the hottest Sommer be not the healthfullest as likewise the coldest Winter To this I answer they are not so simply and absolutely considered Nam omne nimium vertitur in vitium The extreme hot Sommer inflames the humours of the body making it subject to hot and acute diseases and the extreme pinching cold accompanied especially with sharpe piercing Northerly winds disposeth the body to rheumes and rheumatecke diseases as likewise to Apoplexies and many other such like dangerous infirmities The humours in the body of man have pre-eminence and dominion according to these foure seasons for in the Spring blood most abounds in the Sommer choler in the Harvest melancholy and in Winter phlegme and the parts of our civill day answer likewise to these seasons the morning to the Spring the noonetide to Sommer the afternoone to autumne and the night to Winter Now these anniversarie or yeerely seasons doe much differ according to the climat For within the Tropicks the seasons are much warmer than without and under the Equinoctiall Line then Winter is when the Sorrow is perpendicular over their heads by reason that then it doth more powerfully attract and draw unto it selfe divers moist exhalations which descending againe in great abundance upon the face of the earth doth plentifully refresh water the same and this season they therefore call their Winter But againe when the Sun declineth a little the beames not darting downe so perpendicularly as before there not being now that forcible attraction of vapours and by consequent as fewer clouds and lesse raine so heat to the outward appearance being then intended and of greater force than before and this time they call their Sommer as being fairer and warmer than the former quite contrary to that which befalleth us here without the Tropickes as in particular may be observed in the country of Chili in the West Indies Now the situation of places as hath before beene mentioned often altereth the nature of this ambient aire and by consequent altereth the seasons in those particular places although the elevation of the Pole differ little or nothing the which is evidently seen in Peru whereas the whole breadth of the countrie not much exceeding forty leagues in the plaine it neither snowes raines nor thunders and in the meane time upon the Sierra or hils the seasons have their courses as in Europe where it raines from the moneth of September untill April and in the Andes it raines in a manner all Winter And even here in Europe no small difference may thus be observed that oftentimes the high hills are infested with terrible cold tempests when as the adjacent vallies goe many times scotfree as travellers can testifie And of this my selfe was once an eye-witnesse when as in the yeere 1610 travelling from Misnia towards Prague and passing over the high hills which encompasse Bohemia round about on Easter eve at night falling then about the midst of April as likewise all Easter day and the three next daies after it snew continually without any intermission accompanied with so nipping a frost and North-Easterly wind that I have seldome at any time observed a sharper season the next day after the snow fell no more and comming downe into the plaine of Bohemia about
is of a hard digestion and requireth a strong stomacke especially of elder beasts but yet yeeldeth indifferent good nourishmēt The Lungs are of a spongious substance nourish little that nourishmēt they yeeld is but phlegmatick and not of any laudable condition That Livers especially of beasts of full age are of hard digestion and ingender grosse humors and are apt to breed obstructions howbeit such food nourisheth much Livers of younger beasts especially when they suck are far better and of a moister substance and yet are not free from offending weake and tender stomacks and withal from ingendring obstructions And what account can we make of the Splene the cisterne and as it were the very magazin of meclancholick blood but that it will produce such a nourishment The Kidnies are of a very hard digestion yea harder than the Liver it selfe and ingendreth no good nourishment yet the kidnies of the youngest beasts are the best and that of a fat Calfe especially And the older the beast is the worse they are The Vdder of a young Cow if it be not too fat although somewhat hard of digestion yet to a strong stomacke it will not be offensive It is not indeed so good for weake stomackes and phlegmaticke constitutions And all Vdders are inferior to other flesh and the worst are those of elder beasts and therefore the best is to use them but sparingly The Stones ingender a thicke and grosse flatuous blood and nourish well yet of the younger beasts they are best Blood of beasts ministers but a grosse and course nourishment to the body yet some better and some worse Bulls blood was a poison among the antients The blood of an Oxe or Cow howbeit in some place they make use of yet in most places it is altogether rejected Hogges blood is now in greatest request in most countries as being the sweetest and pleasing the palat best And because Blood is of a grosse and course nourishment and withall somewhat dry it is therefore a good custome to mingle with those puddings some fat of the same beast some salt and pepper and penniroyall or other hot herbs which helpe well other defects There are some things that come from beasts yet being no part of the same as Milke whereof is made Butter and Cheese Milke is nothing else save a second concocting and refining of the Blood drawne up into the dugs and there by vertue of naturall heat refined and by a proper faculty of that part converted into a white milkie substance and therefore according to the quality of the Blood so is the milke also Milke seemeth to bee temperate in regard of heat or cold but withall very moist That milke is best which is of a sound beast and that both for whole and sicke persons and that feedeth in good pastures To nourish well milke must be new milkt white and of a good smell of a meane substance betwixt thicke and thinne sweet in tast and free from either sowrenesse bitternesse or saltnesse and the beast should bee of a middle age and feeding upon greene grasse and in the Spring or beginning of Sommer Such milke ingendreth a good and laudable Blood and very fit to nourish the body Now for what bodies it is best together with the manner of the right use shal hereafter appeare In milke there is a triple substance observed the first a thinne waterie substance called the ferositie or whey being of good use both in sickenesse and in health and is of a cooling faculty There is another which swimmeth on the top called the creame of the milke being the most airie part of the same which after it is separated from all the other parts is called Butter and serveth us for the same uses that oile doth in hotter countries being hot moist and moderately used it agreeth well with the stomacke looseneth the belly and is good against divers diseases of the breast The third part of milke is that which is most terrestrious the which beeing prest out and quite separated from the other two substances wee commonly call Cheese the which is somewhat cooler than Butter yet lesse or more according as it partaketh more or lesse of the substance thereof Cheese bindeth the belly is harder of digestion ingendreth obstructions and is a great enemie to the stone Cheese is distinguished according to the milke it is made of the age the art is used in the making Of all others that which is new somewhat salted and made of good Cowes milke ingendreth the best nourishment and moderately now and then used will doe no harme to any My meaning is of such as have not the creame much skimmed off for such as are made of milke much skimmed are farre drier unwholesomer and lesse worth than the others But of this and other things concerning this purpose more hereafter in the diet of the diseased CHAP. XIX Of Fowle both tame and wilde their severall sorts as also of parts of Fowles and of Egges THe flesh of Fowles is of easier digestion hath a speedier passage thorow the body but yeeldeth the lesse nourishment than the flesh of foure-footed beasts In all sorts of fowles they are best that exceed not a yeere in age To make them tender if need be they are to be hung by the heeles two or three daies providing alwaies they hang not till they smell Among all our tame fowle our Cocks Hens Capons and young Chickens are with us not without good reason in greatest request and ingender a good and laudable nourishment usefull and very wholesome for the body A young fat Capon of all others is the best and yeeldeth best nourishment and is easie of concoction Next unto them are Hens indifferently fat and young yeelding little unto Capons for good and wholesome nourishment Chickens are very good light wholesome and nourishing meate in sicknesse and in health They are good for weake stomacks and such as lead a sedentarie life and use but little exercise It is not good to use them too young as is the ordinary custome having hatched unto themselves this false and erronious opinion that the younger any thing is the btter it is in diet And because such things are not for the most part so common therefore partly for this same reason and partly out of an affected singularity many are contented to dwell still in this errour But when they come to be best to wit little pullets then doe our palate-pleasers esteeme them nothing worth Cocks are inferiour to any of the former yeeld worse and lesse nourishment but are hotter than any of the other and loosen the belly Turkies of a middle age and reasonable fat are a good wholesome nourishing food and little inferiour to the best Capon especially the brest and fore-parts and breedeth very good nourishment But their fat is somewhat fulsome And here it is to be observed as
better than old as being somewhat moister and pleasanter in taste The best honie ought to be very sweet pleasant in smell of a cleare yellowish colour indifferent stiffe and firme yeelding but little scumme on the top when it is boiled Garden honie is the best and gathered of sweet flowers it is clarified by adding a little water unto it about the fourth part so scumme it while any froth ariseth or while the water be euaporated which is known by the bubles rising from the bottome and if thou wilt have it more pure put into every pound of honie the white of one egge and afterwards scumme it againe in the boiling Honie is good in divers pectorall infirmities the cough shortnesse of breath pleurisie c as also in the stone and of it with divers liquours are made divers drinkes for this same use and purpose whereof more hereafter in the drinkes for the diseased And although honie moderately used openeth obstructions being of an abstersive and cleansing facultie yet immoderatly used it ingendieth obstructions and so procureth many diseases arising from thence A late Writer allegeth that there was a certaine people in Africa which out of flowers made abundance of good honie nothing inferiour to that made by the Bees There is made of honie both a water a quintessence and divers other drinkes Amongst divers others there is one that hath ever beene in no small request amongst our antient Britons and now known by the name of Welsh which is that famous and wholesome Metheglin the which I will here set downe as I found it in a late published booke of Bees This then is nothing else but a generous kinde of hydromel bearing an egge the breadth of a groat or six pence and is usually made of finer honie with a lesser proportion of water namely foure measures of water for one receiving also into the composition as wel certain sweet wholesome herbs as also a larger quantity of spices namely to every halfe barrell or sixteen gallons of the skimmed must Eglantine Marjoram Rosemary Time Wintersavory of each halfe an ounce pepper granes of each two dragmes the one halfe of each being bagg'd the other boiled loose so that whereas the ordinary mede will scarce last halfe a yeere good Metheglin the longer it is kept the more delicate and wholesome it will be and withall the clearer and brighter There are yet divers other sorts of descriptions of this famous drinke and may be altered and accommodated to severall seasons and constitutions and ages There is to be seene in the same Author a long description of a Metheglin which Noble Queene Elizabeth of famous memory had in frequent use Sugar hath now succeeded honie and is become of farre higher esteem and is far more pleasing to the palat and therefore every where in frequent use as well in sicknesse as in health Whether the antients were acquainted with Sugar or no may justly be demanded Certaine it is they knew Sugar-canes and some Sugar they had which naturally was congealed on them like salt as likewise a certaine kinde of liquid Sugar they expressed out of Canes which they used in stead of honie but that they had the art of preparing it as now it is in use and the severall sorts of it with us in our age used doth no where appeare Sugar is neither so hot nor dry as honie The coursest being brownest is most cleansing and approacheth neerest unto the nature of hony Sugar is good for abstersion in diseases of the brest and lungs Thâ— which wee commonly call Sugarcandie being well refined by boiling is for this purpose in most frequent request And although Sugar in it selfe be opening and cleansing yet being much used produceth dangerous effects in the body as namely the immoderate use thereof as also of sweet confections and Sugar-plummes heateth the blood ingendreth the landisc obstructions cachexies consumptions rotteth the teeth maketh them looke blacke and withall causeth many times a loathsome stinking-breath And therefore let young people especially beware how they meddle too much with it And if ever this proverbe Sweet meats hath often sower sauce was verified it holdeth in this particular I remember living in Paris 1607. A young Clerke living with a Lawyer in the City procured a false-key for the closet where his Mistresses sweet-meat lay and for many daies together continued thus to feast with her sweet-meats and loafe-Sugar whereof there was there no small store untill at length hee became so pale in colour leane in bodie and withall so feeble that hee was scarce able to stand on his legs insomuch that the skilfullest Physitians of the Citie with the best meanes they could use had much adoe to restore him to his former health again And to what I pray you may we impute a great part of the cause of so many dying of consumptions in the weekly bills of the Citie of London Surely often admiring at so great a number dying of this one disease to the number for the most part of thirty at least and often upward I have ever esteemed this one of the principall causes Before I leave this discourse of Sugar I must give the world notice of one thing to wit that there is great store of our finest Sugar and which is most sought after refined and whitened by meanes of the lee of lime the which how prejudiciall it must needs prove to the health may appeare so that here it may well be said Sub melle dulce venenum The toothsomest is not alwaies the wholesomest Our forefathers in former times found honie very wholesome but now nothing but the hardest Sugar will downe with us in this our effeminate and gluttonous age I say no further but let those that will not be warned stand to the perill that will fall thereon I have discharged my duty in giving warning to the wise sober and temperate I know there are some intemperate apitian palates who preferre their bellies before health yea before heaven it selfe Verbum sat sapienti A word is enough for a wise man Vineger is a sauce in no small request for seasoning of meat It is as the word importeth nothing else but a sowre wine used both to season and to keepe meats howbeit farr inferiour to salt For although it preserve meat from putrefaction yet will it not keepe it so a long time unlesse it be often renewed That it is very dry even as farre as the second degree is true but as for the other qualities Galen saith it is composed of hot and cold It is of a piercing nature and apt to dissolve hard stones wherof Hannibal had a sufficient proofe while he made himselfe a passage into Italy thorow the Alps in dissolving the hard rocks by meanes of hot vineger with the losse of one of his eyes It is good to attenuate grosse tough and phlegmaticke humors it is not so good for leane
downewards And againe that in Sommer it is best to purge upwards and in Winter downewards as concerning acute diseases they are most ordinarily purged by vomit by sweat by the guts and by bleeding at the nose except in contagious maligne and pestilent diseases where antidots and cordialls expelling by sweat are of most use and where humours abound or ill accidents occurre some of the aforenamed evacuations may be of good use And this shall suffice for evacuations in generall now come we to particular evacuation and first of phlebotomy so famous a remedy both in antient times and in this our age also CHAP. II. Of Phlebotomy what it is the severall sorts and sundry things therein to be considered IN the body of man of the aliment he receiveth is ingendered blood in the liver and conteined in the veines and arteries and by nutrition communicated to the whole body This blood as it conferreth no small benefit to the whole body so from thence are many mischiefes thereunto procured and that not onely by the excesse thereof in quantitie in quality or both but also by the multitude of superfluous excrements from thence proceeding which often proove the fountaine and well-spring of a multitude of diseases in the body of this miserable microcosme Now according to the repletion of this or that humor so is the evacuation of the same answerable All evacuations then are either naturall or artificiall If naturall and withall beneficiall we are so farre from suppressing any such evacuation that we are rather to further it Artificiall evacuations of which at this time I intend to speake are either generall or particular Generall or universall evacuations I call such as doe in generall evacuat all the humors indifferently both good and bad or such as doe evacuat the bad humors of all sorts and that jointly or severally and thirdly which doth evacuat indifferently from all the parts of the body The first is effected by phlebotomie the second by purgation and the third by sweating The first of these then is phlebotomy the which as it is an instrument used by the Physitian we thus define Phlebotomy is an aritficiall evacuation of humors abounding in quantitie and that by the opening of a veine or artery to this end that the vessells distended and oppressed with the multitude of humors may be relieved or else that noxious humors may be averted from the part affected Phlebotomie and purgation doe both in this agree that both are universall evacutions are great and generous remedies and appropriated to great diseases They differ againe not onely in the instrument but also in the manner and forme and againe that purgation draweth forth by election humors distinguished by their qualities but phlebotomie neglecting the quality respecteth the quantity onely The nature therefore of phlebotomy is to draw indifferently any humor whatsoever is conteined in the veines not making any election of this or that particular and although it draweth from the whole body yet doth it draw immediatly from the next veines and the part next adjoyning to it and secundarily it doth evacuat the whole body Now for our orderly proceeding in this particular it being a matter of that moment we are to consider these five heads 1. In what infirmities of the body this generous remedy is to be used and the severall kinds thereof 2. What veines or arteries are to be opened 3. What bodies may best beare this remedy or are not able 4. How much wee may evacuate how long or how often this remedy may bee reiterated 5. The time when it is to bee used As for the first we have already mentioned a double repletion in the body of man one called Plethora wherein we make use of phlebotomy an other cacochymia wherein we use purging medicines This Plethora againe is double or of two sorts quo ad vasa quo ad vires That which we call quo ad vasa or according to the capacity of the veines is that fulnesse wherein by reason of the abundance of blood the veines are so distended and stretched out that the party himselfe may feele as it were this distention with no small danger of disruption of some veine or sudden suffocation Plethora or repletion quo ad vires according to the strength when as there is such abundance of blood conteined within the veines that nature is not well able to governe the same but oppresseth the strength by that meanes inducing as it were a heavinesse and certaine weight Both these repletions are incident as well to the whole as to the sicke but in health cannot long continue for in a short space the humors are either putrified some veine burst or some defluxion procured the cause of infinite infirmities in the body of man Againe all repletion or fulnesse in regard of the humors conteined is twofold either exquisite and single proceeding of the abundance of good humors onely or else declining from this purity when as with the good some bad are also intermingled called therefore plethora cacochymica as againe when as with abundance of bad humors some good are intermingled we call it then cacochymia plethorica This single Plethory or repletion againe is twofold one properly so called when all the foure humors doe equally abound another called sanguinea or of blood when as pure blood is increased in too great a quantity Againe plethora or repletion in regard of the body affected is either universall or diffused through the whole body or particular when as this fulnesse is setled and impacted upon some part of the body Againe there is one fulnesse in the vessells or veines another in the whole bulke of the body There is also a repletion or fulnesse present actu actually in the whole body or some part thereof another potestate onely in power which is likely shortly to ceize upon the same as when by the suppression of any wonted evacuation of blood we feare a fulnesse in the whole body or when as by the affluxe of some humor to som determinate part we feare some inflammation putrefaction or paine c. Now phlebotomie doth evacuat this fulnesse in the whole body or any part thereof either in any great disease already present or yet imminent A great disease I here understand not onely that which by reason of the greatnesse as some great inflammation or would is esteemed to be such but even in regard of the excellency of the part and some malignitie of the disease for a small inflammation in some ignoble part of the body although arising from the abundance of blood doth not require phlebotomie or any other great remedy In great plethoricall diseases we are to use this remedy especially if the strength bee answerable which is the chiefe indication to be regarded And here we are to observe that the indication of this evacuation is sometimes desumed from the disease it selfe as
in an exquisite Tertian we open a veine for eventilation not for any great evacuation Againe in regard of the cause wee are often undoubtedly to use this remedy as in the suppression of the piles in men and menstruous fluxe in women and sometimes in dysentericall and lientericall fluxes proceeding from excessive heat of the liver The use and end of phlebotomy is not alwaies one and the same for the most part indeed wee use it as a remedy against repletion and then we use it for it selfe Sometimes wee use it for an other end when as we would bring some thing to passe which without this cannot well bee effected as when in the beginning of any disease wee use this remedy for ventilation or breathing of the blood and not for any copious evacuation that thereby concoction may the better be procured putrefaction of the humors may bee inhibited and all other remedies may more commodiously be exhibited Of it selfe and for its owne worke we use this remedy in a double respect First that this double repletion of the which before consisting either in the whole body or in some part of the same may be evacuated and that the humor may bee diverted or turned backe from the part affected or for preventing of a particular repletion The humor is recalled or turned backe two waies first when as it hath a sudden influxe upon any part it being from thence againe pulled backe to the contrary part and againe if the influxe of the humor be without any force or this fulnes be partim in facto partim in sieri or partly in being and partly already bred if it be then derived to the next place Hence have we three sorts of Phlebotomy evacuans or evacuating revellens or pulling backe derivans deriving or diverting as it were turning aside That which evacuateth doth either simply evacuat from the whole body or else from some one determinate part onely if the humor be inherent without any new affluxe But if withall there bee any affluxe of humor then requireth it some derivation to be joined with evacuation Evacuation or evacuating phlebotomie wee use both in sicknesse and in health also if we perceive any plethoricall disposition or disease imminent as in the athleticall disposition especially if the strength doth not hinder Single plethory or repletion of all others is safeliest cured by this remedy the false and bastard not so safely and the more admixtion there be of all other humors the more sparing ought we to be in the use thereof Plethory or repletion proceeding from choler may safelier thus bee evacuated than of melancholy and againe of that safelier than of phlegme by reason that phlebotomy not onely evacuateth the abundance of humors but cooleth the body also The second sort of phlebotomy is that we call revulsio or revulsion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is taken either in a large or strict sense in a large and generall sense it is taken for any aversion or turning away of the humor whether to the contrary part or that which is nearest but properly it is a retraction of the humor flowing unto any part to the contrary place Now all such may be called contrary parts as have a sufficient distance from the part affected And by contrary we understand not onely the contrary part to that which is affected but also to the contrary motion or the terme from whence the humors flow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Artists speak observing as much as may be the rectitude and communion of the veines This is apparant in a Pleurisie where we open the Basilica of the same side which is a branch of vena 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or without a fellow Contrariety in motion wee call up and downe behind and before inward and outward the right side and left But on this I will not insist as not being usefull for us to insist upon all these particulars whereof Galen and our other Physitians discourse at great length This kind of phlebotomy is chiefely used in diseases where the affluxe of is humors is great and violent and the humors in great abundance as especially in the beginning of inflammations and is therefore to be used in the Squinancy Pleuresie Phrenesie Ophthalmy inflammation of the liver lungs and the like infirmities ingendred of blood or the eruption of hot and sharpe humors Neither is it onely of use in humors already flowing with impetuosity but by way of preservation also when they have been accustomed to fall uâ—on any part or yet when as we feare any such influxe as also in wouÌ„ds luxations fractures c having especially respect to that which wee feare will follow to wit some inflammation of the part affected Derivation is an aversion diversion or turning away of humors falling without force or violence upon the part affeâ—â—ed or of such as have already falâ—e upon it but are not yet impacted or setled upon the same to the place next adjoyning to it to the end that the part affected may be freed from the noxious humor Derivation then principally regardeth the part affected and differeth from evacuation and revulsion in that we derive or divert humors yet in the fluxe and not yet impacted into the part not by the parts remote as in revulsion neither by the the part affected as in single evacuation but by the parts adjacent and such veines must of necessitie have a communion with the part affected This kind of phlebotomie we commonly use in infirmities having their originall from long continuing defluxions and after universall evacuation from the whole body by revulsions as in great inflammations after the great affluxe of humors is staied we use it also in some infirmities where other evacuations have not prevailed and that two manner of waies one that by them that which is conteined in the veines of the parts affected may bee evacuated and that that which is collected in the part transmitting by the veines next adjoining to it may be expelled Againe in some healthfull persons it is usefull although the humors now be still and quiet yet being accustomed in times past to seize upon any weake part although without any violence Now because mention hath been made of a plethory or fulnesse we will briefely set downe some signes or markes of both the sorts Of that which we call ad vasa or according to the vessels or veines these bee the chiefe signes a fresh ruddy colour arising either from externall causes as the heat of the Sunne bathing in a hot house great labour and paines taking or from internall causes as a conspicuous tumor or swelling up of the veines together with a notable tension and largenesse of the same a pulse also very full firme quicke and very great Signes againe of fulnesse quo ad vires or according to strength be these there is a naturall or voluntary wearinesse and a lazinesse
so that notwithstanding there may easily be seene such causes as increase blood together with some conspicuous tumor or arising in the veines there following in the body as it were some acrimony and sharpenesse to the sense To draw therefore this Chapter to a conclusion phlebotomy is a most soveraine and excellent remedy not onely in the aforenamed infirmities but also in many other as in all Fevers proceeding of blood as well without as with putrefaction and of any other humor putrified and that both in continuall and intermitting even of Quartanes and head-aches proceeding of blood in the Dropsie proceeding of suppression of blood in Strangury retention or difficulty of urine proceeding of a hot cause and in the Palpitation of heart in health comming without any manifest cause and in divers sorts of obstructions as the Jaundize c. Where these are wanting the strength weake and in the presence of any great evacuation as fluxe of the belly vomits much sweating in young children women with child unlesse in great extremity we are not to use this noble and generous remedy And withall let this rule alwayes be observed that it is alwaies better to use this remedy by way of prevention in the approaching rather than in the presence of the disease Let every one therefore beware how they trust ignorant Empirickes and desperate bold Barber-surgeons to rely I meane upon their judgements in so weighty a matter when there is question of losing this noble elixir of life CHAP. IIJ. Whether in contagious maligne and pestilentiall Fevers and in the small Pox and Measels as likewise in the Iaundize phlebotomy may safely be administred BY that which hath been said already concerning Phlebotomy it is apparent that Phlebotomie in Fevers is a soveraigne and approved good remedy which is confirmed by the common consent of all our judicious and learned Physitians And Galen himselfe is of the same opinion where hee alloweth of this remedy as well in continuall as in intermitting Fevers provided alwaies the strength hold out and the age be answerable But then here ariseth no small doubt whether in contagious maligne and pestilentiall diseases so noble and generous a remedy may be used And it would seeme that the negative is to be holden in that in such diseases commonly the heart the fountà ine of life is assaulted the spirits also infirme and for this cause it would seeme wee should rather use alexipharmaks and cordiall remedies in this case most proper to strengthen and corroborate the vitall spirits and to expell if it be possible this poison from the heart whereas any great evacuation especially of this so usefull for mainteining of life may by the evacuation of spirits rather hinder then helpe forward the cure of such diseases The answere to this question must be by distinction for we must consider that the Pestilence it selfe for I will beginne with the most dangerous setteth upon the body of man after divers manners as sometimes striking suddenly without any shew or at least it is scarce discernible in which case it were a desperate course to attempt any such evacuation but then the onely cure is with antidots to oppugne the disease and by all meanes possible to underprop and uphold the decaying spirits of the patient Againe often and many times and more frequently especially in these our Northerne and cold countries this infection is accompanied with a Fever and often meeteth with plethoricall bodies as living in ease and idlenesse and then I see no reason why phlebotomie should or ought be denied unto such bodies if especially administred in the beginning strength age and other circumstances then concurring And that this hath alwaies been the b practice of the learned both antient and latter Physitians I could make it easily appeare if I were not afraid to spend too much time which by reason of divers matters yet to handle I must husband Now if this hath place in the pestilentiall Fever of all others most dangerous then much more hath it place in other Fevers participating indeed of a certaine malignity howbeit not pestilentiall Of this nature is that Fever which hath now divers times especially of late yeeres swept away many lusty people out of this Iland This Fever is of the nature of putrid continuall Fevers and yet not tied to any one particular kind It is called by reason of the evill quality Febris maligna approaching neare the confines of the pestilentiall Fever howbeit commeth farre short of it in malignity this disease being indeed contagious per contactum onely when as such as are yet free are infected by touching the body that is sicke especially in their sweat and sometimes also by being too neare their breath and therefore wee see it often come to passe that a whole family is one after another infected with the same when as others who come to the sicke by way of visitation goe free provided they be not too busie about them But the pestilentiall fveer infecteth often by inspiration of the ambient aire although they have no commerce with the sicke of the same disease This fever is also called febris petechialis from the little blacke or blew spots like unto flea bits which notwithstanding differ from those of the pestilentiall fever It is also called morbus hungaricus or the hungarian disease by reason it hath been and is very frequent among the people of that nation It is now become a free denison in these our countries the smart whereof hath been of late yeeres experimentally felt here among us Now it may here be demanded whether Phlebotomy may be of any use in this maligne fever The reason why I take upon me to discusse this question is because of the ignorance and error of many people who have conceived so hard an opinion of this so noble and generous remedy in this disease that if the patient die after the use thereof they impute this successe to the use of this remedy and the vulgar often are affrighted at the very mentioning of it and as they are commonly jealous of the best actions of the Physitians and apt to interpret every thing in the worst sense so commeth it to passe in this particular It is true indeed that many after the use of the best meanes doe many times miscary the Almighty who first made man having set downe a period of time for every one which no man can passe and because the skillfull Physitian not being able to dive into the secret counsell of his Maker as being a man and no God useth the likeliest meanes which by reason and his owne and other mens experiences he thinketh fittest to grapple with this strong champion in the which combat the violence of the disease being so great that it will not yeeld to any meanes is it reason that the Physitian for all his care and diligence should be so sharply censured I doe not deny but that
evacuation CHAP. V. To what persons this remedy may safely be administred And whether a woman with child may safely be let blood where some thing also concerning the age fit to be phlebotomised NOw in the next place we are to consider what persons may safely use or not use this so noble and necessary a remedy And we are not alwaies when we deale with the sick to set upon that remedy which the disease doth indicate but must alwaies in the first place carefully consider whether their strength will endure it or no A great disease present or imminent doth indicate phlebotomy if strength age the time of the yeere c do permit But every weaknesse and debility doth not inhibite the use of this remedy The strength then is weakened two waies first when it is oppressed and againe when it is quite dissolved and overthrown Strength oppressed doth not alwaies inhibite evacuation but onely that which is dissipated and prostrated or overthrowne either by the abundance of humors or by their stuffing up ab infarctu as in that Plethoricall disposition whereunto the Wrestlers of old were obnoxious and by interception of the veines in fierce fevers c. the strength is dissipated or prostrated by the dissolution of the substance of the spirits of the musculous or fleshy parts of the body of the spermaticall parts or by the overthrow of their temperature as commeth to passe in Consumptions Hecticke and maligne fevers in great crudities and the like The strength is to be considered according to the triple faculty animall vitall and naturall and are discerned by their severall functions the animall by the functions of sense and motion the vitall by the pulfe and the naturall by the signes of concoction and cruditie although Galen mentioneth onely the vitall as that on which all the others doe depend Strength is altered by meanes of things naturall not naturall and such as are besides nature So then in the first place the temperature of the body hot of a solid and firme substance with large and ample veines may sustaine a large and ample evacuation the contrary constitution either admitteth of a very small or no evacuation at all Againe a hot and moist constitution of body of a soft and thinne substance and often induring great dissipation doth in no wise sustaine any great evacuation A temperature of body hot and reasonable dry with large veines will indure a more liberall evacuation than a body either cold and moist or cold and dry by reason that both these constitutions have but small veines And let this alwaies carefully be observed that such bodies as have small veines and little blood can spare but little if any at all of this so noble and necessary a humor And for the most part in fat folkes the veines are small but if they be larger they endure phlebotomy better than the former Againe severall ages have their strength and naturall vigor for the most part answerable Middle and flourishing age is ordinarily and most commonly lusty and strong abounding both in blood and spirits and by consequent is more able to endure a more copious evacuation of blood But old age decrepit I meane by reason of the defect thereof is to be exempted from this evacuation And children before 14. yeeres of age although their strength in the substance doe abound yet by reason of their soft and tender bodies and by meanes of much evacuation endure a daily dissipation doe therefore either admit of little or no evacuation at all by phlebotomie howbeit we take not alwaies our indication from the age as hereafter shall appeare Againe we are to consider the sex for men generally and most commonly are for the most part better able to beate this evacuation than women such especially as are of a thinne and foggy constitution with small narrow veines And during the time of their menstruous fluxe wee are to abstaine from this evacuation unlesse sometimes in case of necessitie when as it exceedeth in quantity Women with child are likewise unlesse in case of necessity exempted from this generous remedy And here custome commeth also to be considered for such as are altogether unaccustomed to this evacuation using a spare Diet turmoiled with cares and troubles of mind are lesse able to endure this evacuation The contrary is to be understood of such as are thereunto accustomed and feed more liberally Againe things contrary to nature in regard they overthrow the strength do inhibite this evacuation as diseases proceeding from crude and ill humours without repletion as a Dropsie or the like As also great distempers of the principall parts great wounds c. And so doe likewise distension of the nerves paine or gnawing in the orifice of the stomack swounding long-watching immoderate fluxes of the belly spontaneous evacuation of blood so farre as it overthroweth strength or doth suffiently diminish the matter of the disease Neither yet doth it suffice to consider the present estate of the sicke but to forsee also what is likely after to insue By these things wee may then judge not onely who may safely bleed but in some sort aime at the quantity and how often and when we may let blood concerning which notwithstanding wee shall say some thing more at large in the next Chapter But first I will discusse two questions one concerning women with child the other concerning the age and whether age doth indicate Phlebotomy Concerning that therefore which hath been said concerning the sex especially of bleeding women with child ariseth here no small doubt whether a woman with child may safely be let blood or no And great reason there is for this doubt first for that the antient Hippocrates and father of Physitians hath left upon record that there is no lesse danger than of aborsion to let a woman with child blood There is also good reason to succour this assertion for blood being the aliment and proper nourishment wherewith the child is sustained in the mothers wombe if this sustenance be by phlebotomy withdrawne the infant frustrated of its food fadeth and is expelled before the accustomed time of deliverance Now if this question were to be decâ—ded by a jury of women I doubt not but we should have a verdict for the negative unlesse it were composed of some of the wiser sort who perhaps haâ—e sometimes seene this with good successe practised To answer this question true it is that Hippocrates doth totally inhibite this remedy and that as is most probable by reason neither this phlebotomie in women with child nor yet any other was so frequent in his age as it is now adaies As for that which some alledge that the evacuations in his time were so copious and so farre exceeding ours that with good reason he forbiddeth the same I thinke it to be no reason at all for it is not to be supposed that a man of that eminent understanding
experience was ignorant of the limitation of so generous a remedy according to the severall circumstances But with us this controversie is long agoe decided we finding by daily experience that this in many women proveth a most soveraigne and singular good remedy both for themselves and their children as both my selfe and many other Physitians have by daily experience found to be true And besides it is by an unanimous consent of our late Writers of whatsoever nation fully agreed upon and determined But let us now see whether there bee any reason for this practice Wee see many times some women so abound in blood that all the time they are with child they have their periodicall and monethly fluxe as constantly as at any other time and often also in reasonable great abundance which argueth that besides the infants ordinary allowance there is yet a great deale to spare Besides it is not unknowne that some women cannot goe out their full time unlesse they make use of this remedy Againe doe we not see that even towards the later end when they are now nearest their time of deliverance notwithstanding the infant now growing greater demandeth a greater allowance of food than in former times yet are the brests now filled fuller with this whitened blood than before As also doe we not often see some women to void a great quantity of pure refined blood at the nose sometimes in the beginning Reason 1 sometimes in the middle and sometimes towards the later end of Reason 2 their time What prejudice then I pray you can this bring to a woman Reason 3 Reason 4 man in this case if surprized with some dangerous acute disease by the advice of a judicious and understanding Physitian to prevent a further mischiefe she make use of this remedy It is true indeed the issue and event is not in the power of mortall man and perhaps sometimes some have observed some sinistrous accident to have in sued the use of this remedy which may deterre others from the use of it But by the same reason we may reject the most laudable and usefull evacuation in time of greatest need it not alwaies answering our expectation I can notwithstanding upon mine owne experience testifie that some to whom upon necessity I administred this remedy did afterwards confesse they never found more easie and speedy labour than after they had used both this and some other evacuating remedies being likewise freed from divers accidents wherewith they had beene in former times after their delivery molested Others I make no doubt can speake as much Reason 5 upon their owne experience Besides the same Hippocrates alloweth women with childe the use of strong purging medicines in certaine moneths which is yet in my opinion more dangerous and not so in our power to stop when wee please as for phlebotomy it is alwaies in our owne power according to our discretion as we shall see neede require to take more or lesse and to use reiteration if wee shall not see it safe to take our full allowance at the first But let no man here mis-take my meaning as though I would perswade women desperately and unadvisedly to rush upon this noble remedy nay my meaning is so farre from this that I wish them to be very wary and circumspect in the use hereof but when the case without it is dangerous if not desperate then my counsell is that they rather admit of a lawfull warranted remedy which by the blessing of God is in all likelyhood and probability like to doe them good then to lie still in the ditch and cry God helpe mee and yet suffer none to put to their helping hand But it may be the issue will not answer expectation I answer it is better to admit of a doubtfull remedy than to continue in a desperate case admitting none at all Moreover I wish women to be circumspect and wary whom they set aworke not be trusting so pretious a jewell as thine owne and it may be thy childes life also with some idle prating counterfeit Physitian assuming though undeservedly unto himselfe the name of a Physitian but such a one as thou knowest an Artist experienced in his profession and able to consider of all the severall circumstances here to be taken notice of It is also to be observed that it is not here sufficient to take notice of the strength and greatnesse of the disease in the woman her selfe but to consider the strength of the infant also and how much time is past since her first conception And let this rule alwaies carefully be observed that this remedy be freelier and in a greater quantity used in the three or foure first moneths than after Againe although the woman seeme to be strong and lusty yet I wish the quantity to be but small and rather to be sparing so committing the rest to nature than standing too punctually upon thy set quantity adventure to overthrow both the mother and the childe and if there shall seeme an urging necessity of a larger evacuation then will it be farre better and lesse prejudiciall to either party to divide thy quantity and take it at two severall times Besides phlebotomy upon this occasion there occurres yet another in the which phlebotomy is used in women with childe and that is when now their reckoning is at an end and they upon the point of their labour then some Physitians doe advise phlebotomy in the foot to facilitate and further the birth The which course as it hath beene practised by Hippocrates so can I not altogether disallow of it yet I wish him that shall undertake such a taske to beware lest hee precipitate and eject this guest out of his antient habitation before his lease be out and so according to the old proverb Haste might make waste Now before wee conclude this point concerning the persons who are to use this remedy I have yet something to saâ— concerning the age Wee have already said that children under 14 yeeres of age were not to use this remedy Vpon this then ariseth a question whether the age doth indicate this evacuation or no This is the vulgar opinion that the age simply doth indicate this remedy and therefore they stand punctually upon the number of yeeres without any consideration had to the strength of the party here principally to be considered I answer therefore negatively that the age doeth not simply and in it selfe indicate the strength and by consequent the use of this remedy but wee are rather to consider the state and constitution of body for wee see some bodies to be farre stronger at a certaine age than others at the same age Some children are stronger and abler at eight than others at foureteene and if we may upon urgent occasion let the one blood at foureteene why not the other at eight upon the like occasion Againe as Celsus saith if a young man be weake
during the dog daies AS there is a fit and convenient time for every action under heaven saith the wise man so is not time to be neglected in this so waighty a businesse of evacuation by Phlebotomy where especially the life of man lieth at the stake The time is either generall or particular By the generall time we understand the foure seasons of the yeere by the particular the day and houre befitting such a businesse Among all our Physitians it is agreed upon that the Spring is the best and most seasonable time and next to that the Autumne but the Sommer by reason of excessive heat and the Winter by reason of cold are not esteemed so seasonable Againe in the particular times the morning is answerable to the Spring the noone tide to Sommer the afternoone to Autumne and the night to Winter Now in the use of Phlebotomy we consider the time after a double manner one of election another of necessity In election when it is in our power we are to make choice of the fitest time as wel generall as particular in necessity and cases of extremitie and coaction wee must take hold of that which offereth himselfe when we stand in most need Now Phlebotomy is used for a double end either to prevent sickenesse in the whole or to cure diseases in the sicke In prevention where we may have a free election we are to make choice of the Spring as the most temperate time and a day temperate neither too hot nor too cold and in particular the morning is the best and fittest an houre or two after rising the partie to be bled being fasting and having unburdened his body of the fecall excrements and concoction being fully finished Next to the Spring is Autumne in the which if any be to bleed the same cautions are to be observed In sicknes is the case not a like where we are not alwaies allowed this freedome of election Now all diseases are either acute or chronicall as we have said already In chronicall diseases wee are as neare as we can without the patients prejudice to pitch upon the best and most convenient time but in acute diseases the case standeth farre otherwise where we are often cast upon a coacted necessity Wherefore in burnning Fevers in Plurisies in Squinancies and other like diseases if strength permit we are not to deferre this remedy delay here breeding danger but with all speed either day or night at what soever houre not regarding any preparation of the body to goe about it By protracting of time strength is often overthrowne and therefore it will be best at the beginning and if in the first or second day wee find this be wanting we are not to adventure nor yet after divers daies over-past if it be not wanting to incite it But according to the Hippocraticall oracle it is best in the beginning of the disease to undertake such a worke and when the humors are now setled it is best to rest And this is chiefely to bee understood of such diseases as are without intermission In acute diseases with exacerbation whether they admit of remission or intermission we are to make choice of this time of greatest tranquillity And therefore in Fevers with remission we are to take that time as in those that intermit we are then to use this remedy whatsoever houre it be whether day or night for then nature is most at quiet and in regard of strength they then are best able to beare it But when in any inflammatiō or any extraordinary great paine without any Fever we are to use this remedy we are not to wait for any remission but having respect to the greatnes of the cause presently to set upon it and in time of greatest extremity to use this remedy to the end there may be procured a retraction of the humor the other parts transmitting thither both blood and spirits from the part affected Phlebotomy used onely for a generall evacuation from the whole body ought to bee administred in the beginning of the disease and therefore in putrid Fevers it is best to be used at the first according to Galens testimonie Revulsion is used in diseases proceeding from distillation and is best in the beginning in the impetuous fluxe of humors but derivation after revulsion or generall evacuation the affluxe of humors now ceasing By that which hath been said already the fittest and most convenient time for phlebotomy appeareth to be that which is most seasonable and by consequent both the heat of Sommer and the cold Winter-season is here excluded But here ariseth a great scruple in the mindes of the vulgar and ignorant people who are so fearefull of phlebotomy in some seasons especially during the Dog-daies howbeit if they well weigh the premisies it will evidently appeare that in all seasons we are to yeeld to necessitie But the vulgar seeme to have some reason on their side at least the authority of Hippocrates who hath left this upon record and the antients did carefully observe this rule and that as seemeth not without reason I answere it is true indeed we have it recorded by antiquity that during that time it is not so safe to adventure upon phlebotomy or purging and that by reason of the excessive heat of the Sunne in that season And indeed in hot countries this season is often very tedious to the body of man by reason of the dissolution of the spirits and by consequence debilitating the whole body yea during that season the sea it selfe suffering some alteration is more troubled and wines in the cellars during that season doe often shew themselves therewith affected by a new ebullition as it were boiling a fresh And therefore good reason had these antient fathers of Physicke to wish men during these excessive heats to refraine from the use of any great evacuation But let us see whether there be any specificall maligne influence descending upon the body phlebotomised during that season The vulgar yea and some of a more refined understanding are carried away with I know not what superstitious feare of this season be it hot or cold that be they or their friends in greatest extremity of danger by reason of sickenesse in the same yet shall one hardly many times perswade them to the use of any remedy And in this women as they are commonly most pragmaticall and readiest to controll the Physitians prescriptions shew themselves most crosse and opposite In the first place then true it is that this season proveth often the hottest time of the yeere the Sun then entring into the signe of Leo as they call it and the dog-starre then arising upon our horizon the heat is most commonly then increased But that any specificall malignity more than is procured by heat which is a generall cause and an active qualitie is conveied from this or any other starre
of many sorts Againe in purgation we are to consider that which purgeth Nature it selfe or the expelling faculty purgeth yet not simply in it selfe but seconded and set forward by the power and efficacie of the purging medicine and exciting the expulsive faculty to purge away the superfluous humor either upwards by vomit or downwards by dejection Such purging medicines are of two sorts either such as by a manifest quality evacuat any obvious humor and such are ordinary loosening herbes as betes mallowes spinage coleworts and infinite others Againe there is another sort of purging medicines properly so called and by a proper name cathartica and make peculiar choice of one or more certaine peculiar humors called therefore electiva purgantia Now in purgations wee are to consider three things the first doth concerne the medicaments wherewith we purge The second the manner or method how to use them The third the accidents following upon purgation or such things as are to be done after the taking of a purgation Purging medicines as wee have said already are of two sorts either purging by manifest qualities heat and cold without any distinction any or all humors or else one or more particular humors or from some particular part Now although purging medicines by reason of heat attract unto them peccant and noxious humors yet that the attraction is of this or that particular humor proceedeth from a specifical quality or from the whole substance And yet such medicines as together with this specificall propertie partake of a greater heat doe more forcibly and effectually attract the appropriated humor Each purging medicine most commonly evacuateth one particular humor sometimes two seldome three and never all unlesse either the medicine be so violent or nature so weake that it is not able to master them and then it oftentimes worketh so violently that at length it bringeth blood and this the Greekes call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or over purging very familiar to Empiricks women-physitians and such as have not been initiated in the schooles and so trained up in the practise of this profession In these purging medicines then foure things are to bee considered First what humor they are properly to purge whether choler phlegme water or melancholy Secondly by what wayes they evacuate for some purge upwards by vomit and some downe-wards by dejection Thirdly from what parts principally for some purge from the nether belly some from the liver some from the head c. Fourthly after what manner for some purge gently and mildly some againe more forcibly and violently and some keep a meane betwixt both Manna Cassia sirup of Roses purge gently Rhubarb Sene and the like keepe a meane Scammonie Colocynthis strongly It were easie for me here to make an enumeration of variety of purging medicines appropriated to severall humors And although these medicines both weake and stronger draw some from the more remote parts some from the neerer yet have some of them a neerer relation to one and some to another part as Colocynthis and Agaricke most effectually from the head Rhubarb from the liver Aloc from the stomacke c. These milde and gentle medicines by reason of their milde and easie evacuation are rather referred to preparations than purges these other being of a farre more forcible power to attract and draw humors from the remote regions of the body Notwithstanding the judicious Physitian can easily quicken them according to occasions with an addition of a small quantity of the stronger as likewise with some of the milder medicines blunt the edge of these stronger and more violent purgations Of these simple purging medicines divers compounded are made and that in severall formes which are either taken inwardly by the mouth or injected and put up into the fundament or else outwardly applied by way of cataplasme ointment c. Such as are assumed at the mouth are taken either to worke upwards by vomit or downewards by stoole and are according to their formes divided into three severall sorts some liquid as potions made after divers manners some againe solid as pills solid electuaries or confections some of a soster and as it were of a middle substance betwixt both as our ordinary electuaries In the fundament wee use to make injections by glisters and put up suppositories in constipation of the belly and divers other cases But in some cases when the patient is uncapable of any of these or at least refuseth them then are wee sometimes forced to supply this defect by outward ointments cataplasmes epithemes c. and sometimes by masses lumps made of strong purges holden in the hand until they grow warme and smelled to at the nose Of these purgations againe which purge by election or by choice some are called perfect and full which purge away the whole cause of the disease at once another againe imperfect which doth not all at once evacuate the whole matter of the disease Vnder this last is cōprehended first that which we commonly call a minora◠purgation whereby wee lessen a little the matter and humour causing the disease which most commonly is used in the beginning of diseases and againe that evacuation performed by degrees which wee call pe◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereby we gently and by degrees purge away the vitious humour and in stead thereof supply the sicke with good and laudable humours which by meanes of good and wholesome diet is effected Now the next thing we propounded to consider in purgation was the manner how to use these purging medicines or the method of purgation which we may reduce to these five heads 1 whether and to what persons wee may safely administer purging medicines 2 what manner of humors wee are to purge 3 how much how often we are to purge and how farre to proceed 4 the convenient and fit time for purging 5 by what waies or parts or passages wee are to purge And this is the summe of that wee have to say concerning purgation and purging medicines and therefore of these in order CHAP. XI Whether wee ought to purge or no what persons are to be purged and able to indure purgations whether women with childe may safely be purged THat evacuation by purging medicine is to be used in cacochymicall bodies abounding in bad humours hath beene said already But whether bodies living in health may be purged or no may not without cause be questioned for purgations not finding bad humours in the body trouble the good make a colliquation of good flesh and withall induce divers evill accidents I answer this holdeth true of such strong purgations as were used in the time of Hippocrates and Galen but in our milde and gentle purging medicines there is no such cause of feare they being rather in stead of a preparation than of any strong purgation for the which cause being my selfe administred they may safely be used of
corrupt humors commonly called by the name of cacochimia are to be purged and expelled out of the body hath been already These humors are in all foure in number choler melancholy phlegme and serosity or thinne waterish humors These humors doe diversly in the body abound and so produce divers diseases Sometimes one humor alone aboundeth sometimes one or more in an even or uneven proportion and this noxious peccant humor is alwaies to bee purged with appropriate remedies Againe in regard of the quality it is either crude or raw or else concocted and againe either thinne or subtile or thicke or else participating of a meane betwixt both It is againe either still and quiet impacted into some part of the body or raging swelling and moveable Now in all purgations aswell spontaneous and naturall as artificiall this is to be observed that that purgation is profitable whereby such humors as nature would of its owne accord expell bee purged out And againe we are not to judge of a profitable purgagation by the quantity as is the custome among many vulgar especially of our country-people who therefore many times more magnifie ignorant Empirickes who purge away plenty of humors bee they good or bad than better skilled Physitians who purge away but the worst although in a smaller quantity but if the right peccant humor be expelled Humors already concocted are easiliest purged and then next such as swell and are of a furious nature and are of thinne or a meane substance Crude humors still and quiet impacted into any part thicke tough and clammy are not so expelled out of the body and are therefore first by concoction to be prepared Now concoction is nothing else but a reduction of the peccant humor in the body to a right temper and frame whereby it is fitted for expulsion Now of these peccant and noxious humors some are capable of concoction some not Capable of concoction we call such as grow tame and tractable as the humors in putrid Fevers which ought first to bee concocted and then expelled Not capable of concoction are first such as are sequestred from the blood as in the defluxion of rheumes yellow choler in suffusion and some sort of the bloody fluxe of phlegme in the wind-colicke and water in the Dropsie which without expecting any preparation are to be expelled Some humors againe are in fault by reason of the corruption of their proper substance which destroy and overthrow the substance of that part whereon they fal as commeth to passe in the Plague in Cankers and in raging and furious humours called turgentes or swelling The faculty of concoction proceedeth from three causes the imbecillity and feeblenesse of nature the narrownesse of passages and the contumacy or repugnancy of the matter In these crude and corrupt humors natural heat hath no predominancy nor power but externall and adventitious with a debility of the naturall confounding good and bad humors dividing humidity from its naturall siccity In diseases therefore of that nature and kind wherein the humors are putrified and corrupted in the veines and nature hath not the pre-eminence we are not to purge in the beginning but to expect the concoction of the humor which maketh a separation of the good from the bad After concoction whatsoever noxious humor yet remaineth within the veines and by a laudable crise not expelled is to good purpose purged away with Physicke Concoction is by nature it selfe by meanes of naturall heat performed now if nature be feeble and weak and his heat not in a due proportion answerable it is then the Physitians part with fitting and appropriate meanes to supply this defect This supply consisteth in removing the lets and rubs lying in the way preparing the humours to concoction and repairing the breaches made in the strength and naturall heat Concoction then is performed when nature overcommeth and affimilateth the matter making resistance Now since the humour many waies repugneth or resisteth as sometimes by reason of the quality or the manner of substance beyond the naturall course to wit by distemper thicknesse and clamminesse and somtimes by reason of too great a quantity impacted into the part hence commeth it to passe that there is not one onely kinde of remedy fit to prepare and concoct these crude rebellious humours And therefore Hippocrates affirmeth that concoction is performed by contraries and that sometimes it is furthered by hot and sometimes by cold and sometimes by drie meanes and againe sometimes by extenuation sometimes by incrassation sometime by abstinence sometimes by rest c. And thus thicke and tough humours are ratified and made thinner thinne hamours againe thickned obstructions opened and each humour with proper and appropriate medicinces prepared as the judicious and discreet Physitian according to circumstances shall thinke fitting There is then a preparation of the humors and yet another of the body which was the meaning of Hippocrates in these words If any have a purpose to purge the body it must first be made fluid thinne and passable And thus the passages are first to be made slippery large and passable without any impediment which may be effected by meanes of loosening and opening set brothes by emollient glisters and such others meanes as easily open the belly and the small capillary veines and other parts obstructed Now since of purgations some worke upwards and some downewards there must not be in all a like preparation for in purgations that worke downewards it is required that the guts and the small veines be open and free as hath beene said already but in a vomit especially if it be to worke strongly Hippocrates willeth us sometime to bath and anoint the body to use a liberall diet and to rest but when the time of administring the vomit is come then are we to use such meanes as irritate and loosen the humors and make them more easily to ascend upwards But when to prepare the humors how by what meanes and in what bodies this double preparation is to bee performed is the worke of a learned and understanding Physitian but not of any ordinary Empiricke Barber-surgeon ignorant Apothecary Woman-physitian and the like who most commonly exhibite their strong unprepared medicines without regard of any of these preparations But I proceed now to the quantity wherein they erre as much as in any of the premisses The various and divers constitutions of severall individuall bodies breed no small difficulty in the due dose or quantity of the purging medicine But to define the particular dose of these particular medicines is not my purpose but onely to set downe some generall rules of direction concerning this particular â—he indication then of the quantity is desumed from the greatnesse of the disease and the refractarinesse of the same the peculiar and individuall propriety of the body and the strength as likewise from the nature of the part to be purged in the
weake braine women subject to hystericall infirmities indure not vomits easily And to induce this evacuation there is a good strength required in the stomacke especialy if the vomit be strong Now as in other evacuations so in this also wee use in time of need some preparation to facilitate the operation thereof Relaxation of the stomacke by outward inunctions and fomentations I hold suspect for feare of too much debilitating the stomacke after especially in this so nice and effeminate age For an inward preparation to facilitate the operation we use sometimes to suffer the patient fill his stomacke before with divers sorts of food especially such as may cleanse and cut or attenuate as salt meats onions and the like and this is when the matter is tough congealed and stuffed in the stomack where the use of hot herbs Time Savory of Oxymel and the like may safely sometimes be permitted But when the humor is thin fluid and easie to be purged then posset drinke blood warme now and then taken after the assuming of thy vomit will serve the turne Some adde butter which to some bodies wil prove too fulsome Vomit evacuateth cleanseth first the stomack and the adjoining meseraick-veins and next if it be strong the liver splene and great veines and lastly the whole body It serveth for revulsion or pulling back of humors from the stomack and other inferior parts and therefore Hippocrates affirmeth that after great fluxes of the belly a vomit succeeding doth presage good to the patient And by the same reason it is good in the sciatica and all other gouts infirmities of the kidnies bladder fundament c. It deriveth or diverteth the humours from the next adjacent parts into the stomacke It helpeth therefore hypochondriacke melancholy dropsies and other diseases of the mesenterie liver and splene but especially if the matter tend upwards toward the stomack which by bitter belching spaine and heauinesse or gnawing under the short ribs may be discerned Now as of other purgations so of vomits some are milde and gentle some stronger and others againe stronger than any of the former such as the antients used Our Emperickes and ignorant practitioners erre in nothing more than in the rash administration of this remedy to any indifferently present or absent without any consideration either of the body or disease And yet if there be any veine burst in the brest or lungs or the party subject to any hemorrhagie or effusion of blood at nose c. What danger may insue to the patient a vulgar understanding I thinke may easily judge I will not now protract time with instances of such errors but proceed to that which yet remaineth Besides Vomits there are yet some purgations which may be called particular and are injected at the fundament into the guts and such are our gilsters which are appropriated to divers inrfimities and used for divers ends and are composed of severall ingredients and sometimes of one only as occasion and necessity require The use of these glisters among the antient Egyptians was so frequent common that as they used their vomits so did they those glisters three daies in a moneth successively one after another They are used by way of evacuation and sometimes for astriction and healing as in the bloody fluxe Sometimes we use them only to mollifie and supple the guts that nature may have the freer passage Sometimes we use this medicine as a preparative for other insuing physicke They are administred for a number of infirmites of the body but differ accordiâ—â—â—y in the composition and that both in the quantity and quality 〈◊〉 â—he quality some being appointed to purge some to mollifie 〈◊〉 against the wind-cholicke some against the stone strangury suppre◠〈◊〉 urine of menstruous fluxe or in the excessive fluxe of the same 〈◊〉 againe being administred in great weakenesses to nourish 〈◊〉 of many others the matter whereof must of necessity accordingly differ as the learned Physitians well know Againe the quantity must needs differ according to the nature of the disease and party diseased According to the disease as in the Wind-colicke in the suppression and induration of fecall excrements the quantity must needs be small as also in children women with child c. And nourishing glisters must be administred in a smaller quantity than others or else they will purge rather than nourish Such as are injected for the infirmities of the small must bee in a farre greater quantity than in the great guts Besides glisters must bee reteined a pretty while some more some lesse according to the cause for the which they are administred for glisters given onely to wash and cleanse the guts would bee reteined about an houre or more anodine and mitigating of paine somewhat longer and such are given to heale and conglutinat the guts as in the bloody fluxe a longer time than of the former Purging glisters commonly give warning when time serveth and yet if they be too quicke it is not good to give way to the first warning In great weakenesse they may bee kept by application of hot cloth to the fundament for a certaine time If it stay too long it may be helpt by a suppository put up This medicine not onely cleanseth the guts but by consequent often helpeth the head stomacke and other parts adjacent And therefore I wish people not to bee so shy in the use of so soveraigne and so excellent a medicine wherein there is so small offence and in the use whereof there is no injury offered either to the taste or stomacke But when as many times either for haste or else we cannot prevaile with the patient to admit of a glister we make use of suppositories put up into the same place but yet with greater facility and ease they are not onely made of hony hard boiled but also of allum and other matter and sometimes the end of a candle performeth such an exploit and sometimes a violet comfit especially in children and many other things will make an irritation to provoke to stoole But let this caution aswell in glisters as suppositories alwaies carefully bee observed that in infirmities of the fundament the Piles especially fistulaes and the like there be none of those strong powders or electuaries hiera simple or compound or the like vsed unlesse when we have a purpose to open the piles or provoke the menstruous fluxe But let this alwaies be done with great caution and circumspection Now in all our physicall actions especially in evacuations when divers are to be performed wee are to consider the order what is to be undertaken in the first and what in the next place So that when as we have need both to purge and bleed it is doubtfull with which we must beginne And againe if purgation be necessary whether to beginne with a purge upward or downeward by glister or otherwise If these things be
water-lilly leaves violet leaves and flowers and some poppy-heads being very forcible to provoke sleepe by reason of the great sympathy betwixt those two howbeit farre distant and remote parts But in this as in all the rest if it be possible bee advised by thy learned counsell But now we come to speake of the division and diversity of bathes and being of so great use in the body of man it shall not bee out of purpose to insist a little the longer upon this subject All baths then are either naturall or artificiall Of the artificiall first as being most obvious and easy to come by we will speake in the first place In the first place then for the matter of these bathes it is various and divers as water wine milke and oile and sometimes sand but the most common and frequent matter is water sometimes warme sometimes cold and sometimes of a meane temper betwixt both In the body of man these bathes have a triple use or benefit some evacuat and cleanse some qualifie and temper the humors of the body and some supply and fill up that which is decaied Now that they doe euacuat by sweat if one should deny daily experience will evince and Galen himselfe witnesseth unto us but to fill up and supply any thing that is wanting will perhaps finde lesse credit with ordinary understandings which notwithstanding the same author yet in another place witnesseth In the sicke wee commonly use them of warme-water intending or remitting this quality of heat as occasion requireth adding thereunto divers simples according to the nature of the disease and constitutions of the body to be bathed Now a temperate warme bath helpeth forward natures worke in such as have need of moderate humectation and heat and by reseration of the pores of the body refresheth and cooleth and by extraction of fuligionous excrements freeth from internall heat A hot bath helpeth contractions proceeding from cold provoketh sweat exhausteth and draineth the body dry of superfluous moisture This bathing in warme-water acccording to a late Writer is good to bee used in divers infirmities as in a Diarie or owne dayes Fever and in a hecticke fever also sole and of it selfe before it turne to a marasme and not as yet joined to any putrid fever as also for such as have their moisture exhausted with watchings cares dry Diet or medicines of that nature And not in these onely but also in dry distempers and in decrepid old age In Fevers proceeding from putrefaction it is not to be used but after signes of concoction unlesse in a perfect Tertian the drinesse of the humours urge the use of it It is also in use in Quartans proceeding from choler adust In Rheumaticke distillations inflammation of the lungs pleurisie after signes of concoction and in headach proceeding from humours or vapours arising from the nether parts it is of good use as also for the falling off of the haire for Lethargies Phrensies Epilepsie not proceeding from the stomacke or head but from some other part of the body It is also good against melancholy proceeding from sharpe humors paines of the eyes bleere-eyes fluxes of the belly helpeth defects of the voice inveterate infirmities of the spleene and indurations thereof the cholicke proceeding of choler especially in the younger sort But proceeding of a cold cause and grosse humours it qualifieth indeed but cureth it not And it is good against the gout proceeding of choler as also against all extenuation of the body But on the contrary is hurtfull to plethoricall and cachochymicall bodies to Hecticks proceeding from an Erisipelas commonly called S. Anthonies fire and Headaches proceeding from a flatuous matter and it is hurtfull for the inward parts overtaken with inflammation in all diseases of the ioints excepting the above mentioned and for all manner of effusion of blood whether at the nose or any other part of the body And it is yet hurtfull for all such as are inclined to casting loathing of the stomacke weaknesse of body such as are subject to bitter belchings and such as abound with humors howbeit otherwise good especially if any feare of a fluxe of blood That bath which is hotter than the former in provoking sweat is more effectuall but withall doth not communicate that humectation to the body as the former Now there was also an use of bathing in cold water succeeding the former which was not immediatly to be used after the temperate but from this into a tepid or a little warmish and then into cold water But to some bodies this kind of bathing bringeth some prejudice as among healthfull people to such as are yet growing and to children especially as also to women and antient people to small and weake persons It is also hurtfull for the brest procureth hoarsenesse and the cough offendeth the heart the stomacke especially if already weake and feeble And as for the diseased it is principally hurtfull to weake kidnies procureth paine in the guts especially that called Tenesmus and stayeth womens fluxes and it is hurtfull also for humid and cold diseases as likewise for the Fevers Hectick that especially already turned into a marasme The antients used often to enter into another roome where they sweat by meanes of the aire warmed the which they called Laconicum answerable unto which in neerest resemblance are our hot houses or stoves as they are in frequent use in all Germanie although the particular manner of heating this aire differeth much these drie stoves being warmed by the heat of the fire onely but this Laconicum was a moister vapour This vapour then or hot aire the antients used was twofold either dry in respect of the other procured by heat of flints or the like water being cast upon them and the sicke set in the tub and covered with clothes made to sweat or else this was a moister aire procured by a vapour derived from a vessell full of liquour with answerable ingredients and conveied betwixt the two bottomes of a bathing tub the uppermost full of holes where the sicke being set and covered with clothes was to sweat as need required and this with us is also in frequent use Wee use often also particular moist bathes called insessus and semicapium being a bathing tub filled with warme water or other matter with appropriate herbs wherein the patient sits up to the middle or more being prepared for divers uses and ends And these are chiefely usefull for hot and dry bodies The other dry sweatings are fit only for moist cold constitutions abounding with grosse humours and for fat and corpulent people having alwaies a watchfull eye to the strength of the patient But such are altogether contrary to cold and dry and yet more to hot and drie constitutions Now as concerning the time of these bathings and sweatings both generall and particular wee are to consider whether they are used for any necessity in
right use and abuse thereof HAving already at length discoursed of generall evacuations being three in number we come now to some particular the consideration whereof is of no small use as well in sicknesse as in health Now for the affinity it hath with sweat being much of one nature although both at divers passages and in a different manner voided it shall succeed in the next place Of the nature of this excrementitious humour the manner of generation deceit and coozenage of ignorant and erronious practitioners in the judgement by the same and many things which concerne this subject hath beene else-where handled at great length where hath beene sufficiently proved the uncertainty of judging the issue of diseases by this bare signe onely being a signe whereby some diseases only and somtimes may be discerned and yet but a generall one which can neither acquaint us with the strength of the patient a thing of all others in diseases of great moment nor many other particular circumstances wherewith the Physitian ought in so waighty a businesse to be acquainted And there we likewise proved that from thence wee could neither gather any certainty of conception nor yet of the sexe I say neverthelesse that urine is not to be neglected either in sicknesse or in health but withall let other signes not be neglected but have their due desert That urine therefore both in sicknesse and in health which is of a laudable colour and contents answerable doth commonly argue that body to be in best case especially if all other signes concurre as if it be otherwise wee are to conceive the contrary That urine we commonly call best that is of a light golden colour with a meane white coloured even contents and the farther it decline from this golden rule the worse we deeme it as sometimes when it is of an intense red colour it often argueth Fevers or inflammations c. unlesse sometimes by reseration of some small veines the urine be died with this colour And yet the urine of a cholericke man will looke of a higher colour than any other and so if hee shall fall sicke it must needs be of an intenser colour than of a phlegmaticke person and this same phlegmaticke person in health shall have a paler coloured urine and falling into some fever the urine may be also paler than the former and yet the party as dangerously sicke and so I could instance in many other like cases Againe it appeareth sometimes of a blacke colour and portendeth often no good to the party and yet this same colour may often prove criticall and accompanied with like contents It may sometimes againe appeare unto us like pure transparent water without any contents at all signifying sometimes crudity in the first concoction sometimes obstructions with a totall ouerthrow of naturall heat howbeit sometimes it may be accompanied with extreme heat in a burning Fevet with a Phrensie of all others most dangerous c. In generall in sicknesse these colours and contents are very various and changeable according to the nature of the disease and constitution of the diseased on which I will not now dwell nor make any repetition of that which hath beene formerly handled Vrin again faileth somtimes in the excesse being in too great a quanty and sometimes in the defect where little or no urine is excerned In excesse as in that disease called diabete Hâ—drops ad matulam or pot-dropsie whersas by weaknesse of the retentive faculty and want of concoction drinke passeth thorow the body with little and small alteration answerable to that disease in the stomacke commonly called Lienteria being a defect of concoction in the stomacke and guts but with us is but rare As for criticall excretion of urine it is very profitable and helpeth often to terminate the disease Now on the other side there is a frequent defect in the expelling of urine and proceedeth from suppression totall or in part or else by difficulty whereas without great difficulty and paine it is expelled Painfull pissing commeth divers manner of waies to passe as either by the acrimony and sharpnesse of the humour or by the imbecillity or weaknesse of the retentive faculty proceeding often from cold and is sometime occasioned by inflammation ulcer clotted or congealed blood and by the stone c. Suppression of urine proceedeth likewise from divers causes sometimes by meanes of the obstruction or stoppage of the guts and sometimes of the emulgent or sucking veines when as by meanes of imbecillity they are frustrate of their attractive faculty or yet by obstruction It is procured likewise by obstruction or passage of the kidnies or urinary passages and by meanes of the imbecillity of the same By reason of the obstruction of the foresaid passages it is divers waies procured as either by inflammation knob or bunch of either of the these parts or some tough phlegme impacted in and cleaving fast to the place as also sometimes howbeit seldome by reason of some holes and cavities left in the kidnies after the voiding of some stones It is sometimes also caused by meanes of the bladder or parts thereto adjoining comming divers waies to passe as first by reason of the want of sense of feeling by reason of the resolution of the nerve descending from the loines and hucklebone Secondly by reason of the failing of the expelling power of the bladder c. Thirdly by the too great quantity of urine longer than is fit deteined Fourthly by a resolution of the muscles of the nether belly Fifthly by the totall overthrow of the expulsive faculty as in burning Foevers and then proveth for the most part mortall as witnesseth Hippocrates and yet divers other waies commeth this also to passe as by the resolution of the muscle sphincter a stone bunch clotted blood c. And this commeth sometimes to passe by consent of the places adjoining the bladder and urinary passages being also sometimes so shut up that they cannot freely deliver the urine and many times also cannot keepe it long as commeth to passe in women with child All these severall cases are to be cured accordingly and that with a due regard had to their severall causes The totall obstruction of urine proceeding from any cause if long continuing may prove mortall Such remedies as provoke urine we commonly call diureticks or provokers of urine But neither are these in all cases of suppression to be administred nor yet indifferently when there is need are they alwaies without a previous preparation to be used Now in all such obstructions of the urine before we goe about the right cure we are first to procure the expulsion of the urine out of the bladder lest oâ— by the use Diureticke medicines a greater attraction of humors increase the obstruction And therefore in such cases we often use the helpe of a catheter insessions fomentations inunctions glisters
violent motions as riding on a trotting horse c. Such medicines as are properly called diureticke or expellers of urine are of a hot and dry facultie rarefying attenuating and making thinne the humors Now such as are properly of this nature doe not onely extenuat and rarefie the blood but dissolve also rarefie and as it were melt it and make a sequestration of the thinnest serositie coagulating and thickning the residue as we see in curdled milke come to passe and that serosity so separated the kidnies by their attractive faculty draw unto the themselves and from thence transmit it into the bladder and such not onely provoke urine but even ingender it also And such bee especially hot and dry simples seeds especially as of carrots cumin and the like There is another sort of Diureticks milder than the former which doth indeed attenuat howbeit not so forcibly as the former which send it onely towards the passages of the urine and of these there are yet two sorts some being of greater force to extenuate and cleanse as the foure hot seeds namely parsly seed c. Some againe performe this action more mildly and moderatly and with a temperate heat as the foure cooling seeds of melons c so called in comparison with the other foure hot seeds Among these diureticke medicines are also reckoned some which supple and make smooth the passages as marsh-mallow and licorice root and prove often more beneficiall than the former more violent medicines so ordinarily used by Empiricks and ignorant persons Now it is a common received opinion among most people that those violent hot and dry medicines are of all others most forcible and effectuall to breake and expell the stone out of the kidnies or bladder wherein notwithstanding they so farre are deceived that for the most part such medicines not onely by reason of their great heat they communicate to the body but also in regard they send downe too fast uncleanne and corrupt humors doe rather much increase the matter of the stone Such simples therefore as are indued with a temperate heat attenuating tough and clammie humors such as are Asparagus root and the like are for this purpose the fittest Some medicines are thought to have a diureticke property accidentally by scraping and tearing by their roughnesse the superficies or outmost part of the stone as powder of burnt glasse And some are thought by meanes of excessive heat to dissolve the viscosity of the stone and breake it to powder But I thinke thou maiest sooner by such medicines bake it harder as we see brickes baked in a bricke kilne Some medicines by reason of some occult qualitie are esteemed good against the stone And of this kind is the Jewes stone goats blood and many other medicines Acid juices as juice of Lemon spirit of vitriole if they could in their full force come at the stone and not offend the passages betwixt in my opinion were of all others the fittest But to draw this point to an end there is no disease for the which there are more remedies boasted of with the attestation of a probatum est at least as much worth as the oath of one of the knights of the post and yet no disease wherein we see fewer good effects follow As for these hot violent diureticke medicines besides the former inconveniences they prove often causes of excoriations in those tender nervous parts and at length incurable and tormenting ulcers And sometimes when as thou thinkest to have made a great purchase to have procured of some Empiricke or other ignorant person a rare remedy for the stone thou art now falne as we say out of the frying-pan into the fire and thou who before diddest so magnifie thy Empiricke and too much trust to his smoakie promises art often then forced to implore the helpe of the learned Physitian when many times his best skill can scarce allay the extremity of thy painefull disease whereas by wise counsell at first thou mightest both have prevented thy paine and saved thy purse And thus the Proverb proveth often true Covetousnesse bringeth nothing home To conclude then this point of urines I wish that in time of need people make not such an idole of their urines that in time of sicknesse they thinke it sufficient to send their urine to the Physitian it may bee in an inke or oile bottle and without any further to demand of the physitian as of some Oracle not onely the disease but even often all the circumstances thereof but if you would speed well if you will need your old mumpsimus in sending your urine to the Physitian acquaint your physitian with all the severall circumstances of the disease But an honest learned Physitian will bee better able to advise by one view of the patient than twentie sights of the urine It may be others whose worth and sufficiency is confined to such an excrement may like an empty barrell prate apace and make thee beleeve wonders by thy water And be carefull in any case in trustinâ— such cheaters with their rare recits against the stone and if thou be wise be warned by other mens harmes CHAP. XXI Of ordure or fecall excrements and divers things in them considerable this excretion being sometimes too lavish and sometimes deficient NExt unto the urine for affinity we wil say somthing of the fecall ordure an excrement of the first concoction performed in the stomacke And howsoever some may perhaps think the consideration thereof to be of small use yet hath it alwaies beene of great utility both in sicknesse and in health and hath been by our antient Physitians diligently observed and some have written whole Tractats of this excrement aswell as of urine The utility thereof is by Hippocrates aswell mentioned as of the urine and sweat and by him as much commended Moreover if wee shall compare the urine with the fecall excrements wee shall finde that of the urine farre inferior which may seeme a strange paradox to our urine-mongers who will have no signe but the urine of any signification Now the urine giveth onely notice of the state of the liver and the veines and sometimes of the bladder but this excrement besides the liver and the veines giveth also notice of the nature of the mesaraicke veines the stomacke and the guts and finally of the state of the whole belly for the which we take so much paines and for whose sake most men live saith Pliny This excrement is then thus defined the most terrestrious part and purgation of the unprofitable part of aliment in the consummation of concoction separated and many times mingled with many waters It is said to have other matters mingled therewith by reason of choler which doth colour and dye these excrements which if not thus dyed then were they not so good and laudable in quality as is required and some other substances have been some
times observed mingled therewith Wee will then beginne with those excrements which in every respect are accounted best and from thence wee may the better observe and know the deviation of others from that rule The best then are neither too hard nor too soft or liquid and thinne but consisting of a meane betwixt both compact and firmely united without the admixture of any uncouth matter of a pale yellow colour and in quantity answerable to the food received in smell neither too stinking not yet altogether free from all manner of smell nor of too sharpe a quality and which are at the time accustomed without any great paine labor straining or great noise easily expelled Such as decline further from these laudable markes are alwayes accounted worse either in sicknesse or in health And therefore thinne and very liquid excrements unlesse procured by the like diet by physicke or by way of crise are esteemed bad and unconcocted as likewise such as are white in colour and reteining still the quality of the food from whence they proceed and such also as are of a high golden or intense yellow colour by reason of the affluxe of choler into the guts and in like manner we approve not of too pale and frothy and yet worst of all purulent and materie excrements Greene black linid or leaden coloured unlesse by reason of such diet or by way of crises are dangerous and to be condemned and so are viscous and fat ordure by reason they signifie colliguation and wasting Besides whensoever a very bad stinking smell is joyned with a bad colour it is very bad for then it argueth a very great putrefaction Variety of bad colours in these excrements is also very bad as arguing in the body many ill infirmities Wormes on a criticall day with the ordure expelled signifie good but if in the beginning of the disease they appeare it is bad and if they come forth by themselves without any excrements dead or alive in acute diseases it is dangerous There be divers causes of these severall substances of excrements Thicke compact and well united excrements proceed from a good concoction of the stomacke and a temperate heat of the guts Thinne and liquid excrements proceed either from obstruction of the mesaraicke veines or by reason the food is not digested and concocted as in crudities or else is not altered or changed as in the disease lienteria or is corrupted as in belches from such matter may bee discerned Such excrements againe from the imbecillity of attractive faculty Fourthly from defluxion of humidity upon the guts Fiftly from the quality and nature of the food and such other things as loosen the belly as prunes caffe and the like Sixtly drinke descending towards the guts when as it is not carried thorow the mesaraicke veines to the liver and attracted by the reines and ureters Soft excrements proceed also from divers causes 1. From the moderate moisture of the guts 2. From the mollifying Diet as mallowes lettice and the like 3. They proceed sometimes from the admixture of divers humors proceeding from the liver or other parts as likewise from the admixture of some fat with the ordure as in Pthisickes Hecticke fevers turned to Marasmes c. And it is the opinion of Galen that in pestilentiall Fevers the egestions are almost alwayes liquid by reason of this fat substance Hard egestions againe proceed likewise of divers causes 1. By reason of immoderate heat proceeding of great labour from bathing or some other externall cause 2. By use of diureticke medicines by which meanes these excrements may bee dried up 3. By reason of astringent diet as medlars quinces sloes and the like 4. The long continuance of the excrements in the guts may likewise occasion the same the small veines implanted in the guts attracting all the moisture from the excrements and the guts by this long continuance acquiring a greater heat 5. By means of the dry constitution of the guts and the like distemper of the whole body I could here likewise insist on many other particulars concerning the mixture of severall sorts of excrements and causes which to avoyd prolixity I willingly passe by But the question may here be asked how often and when is the best time for this evacuation in health I answer that as wee can hardly certainly determine mens particular occasions constitutions and individuall proprieties and natures no more can wee absolutely set downe any verdict concerning this businesse yet is it best in time of health to inioy this benefit at least once if not twice aday howbeit I am not ignorant that some both in sicknesse and in health have continued divers daies yea sometimes weekes without the use of this evacuation I confesse indeed such as were able to absteine from all manner of sustenance for divers yeeres together needed not either this or any other evacuation examples whereof I have produced some already But in ordinary healthfull bodies this is alwaies the best and so answerable also in sicknesse and who so decline from this rule it commonly fareth not so well with them I deny not but there are some individuall constitutions who better indure the want of this benefit than others Neither yet is there any set quantity to be determined for good and laudable nourishment as egges and the like ingender fewer excrements than herbes browne bread and the like The best time is the morning and if it may be conveniently in the evening also before going to bed will prove beneficiall But it commeth many times to passe than in Fevers especially and hot acute diseases the body being bound and as it were locked up there arise and ascend up into the braine divers hot vapours the cause of no small annoyance not to that noble part only but to the whole body there must be therefore a speciall regard and care had to expell these excrements especially by opening and loosening diet and if that will not prevaile by lenitive and milde gentle evacuations suppositories and glisters Againe it commeth so sometimes to passe that nature is too forward in this kinde of evacuation as commonly in fluxes of all kindes proving often very pernicious to the patient Now these fluxes are of divers sorts as first that wee call diarrhaea the mildest and safest of all the rest and next dysenteria proceeding of divers humours but ordinarily with the admixtion of blood and therefore called commonly the bloody flâ—xe or fluxe rather which if not carefully in time look'd unto proveth often dangerous if not deadly Besides there are yet other dangerous fluxes call'd Lienteria and Caeliaca where the parts appropriated for concoction being interessed by these fluxes the body is frustrated its of proper nourishment All these fluxes in due and convenient time are by the advice and counsell of the wise and judicious Physitian by proper and convenient remedies to be cured but now
therewith but prosecute that I have undertaken This grief and sorrow then if too much yeelded unto will to some procure irrecoverable Consumptions will dry up the braine and marrow of the bones hinder concoction and so procure crudities by meanes of want of rest and by consequent prove a cause of many dangerous diseases Now as the excesse is hurtfull to all so to some farre more than to others especially to leane spare bodies dry braines persons inclining to melancholy And women especially if with childe young children who be reason of their sexe and age are lesse able to resist such passions and some by naturall constitution very timorous are more liable to danger by reason of feares and sudden frights than other people It is therefore a very unadvised course most commonly to affright children with bug-beares hob-goblins and the like for there is many times thereby such a deepe impression of feare ingraven in their tender senses that howsoever it doth not bereave them of their lives yet are they so possessed with an habituall feare that they are scarce ever freed therefrom at least untill they atteine to ripe and mature age And some that are yet of a more tender constitution are sometimees ceized with some sudden and dangerous disease if they escape death as Paralyticke Epilepticke Apoplecticke and convulsive fits as I could easily instance but that I cannot dwell upon it Of all others it is most dangerous for women with child and that not only for feare of present aborsion but even for some future feare of some hurt may befall the tender fruit of her wombe I have knowne some little better than meere naturalls by reason of the mothers fright during their ingravidation It hath beene often also observed that even upon men of mature age and judgement the strong apprehension of some future danger hath in them produced strange and sudden effects A late Authour relateth a storie of a young Gentleman whose haire was in one night turned white The Gentlemans name saith he was Didacus or Diegus Osorius a Spaniard Who falling in love with a Gentlwoman one of the Queene of Spaines attendants this Gentleman according to former agreements was got up into a tree growing within the precincts of the court but bewrayed by the barking of a dogge was by the guard laid hold on committed to prison and in danger to have lost his life for attempting any such thing within the precincts of the court The next morning the keeper found this Gentlemans haire turned to a perfect white color as the antientest mans in the countrie and yet their haire in that countrie is ordinary of a blacke colour the which the King first hearing related and seeing it so indeed it wrought such an alteration in his minde that not onely freed hee him from his punishment but restored him to his former liberty affirming that it was punishment enough to have changed the flower of youth with white old age There is in the same Author a like accident happening in the cour of Charles the fifth Emperor whom the Emperor himselfe could scarce beleeve to be the same party that was committed to prison the night before and granted him likewise a gracious pardon And many strange accidents are there out of divers Authours related which for brevity I here passe by Now as other passions excite and stirre up some particular humour as joy stirreth up the blood and anger choler so doth feare and griefe stirre and move melancholy But it may then be demanded whether such passibe contrary to all sorts of people and whether one may ever give way on s thereunto I answer some people are more privileged than others provided alwaies that it be not in excesse and such are principally grosse fat and foggie people with full bodies and such as have their spirits hot moveable And in such people sadnes feare and profound cogitations and cares do somewhat blunt the edge of those hot and fiery moveable spirits and withall do extenuate and take away some part of that bulke of body wherewith they are so burthened the which both Greeke and Arabian Physitians doe with unanimous consent witnesse Such as are of a contrarie constitution of bodie braine or both as wee have said already are by all meanes possible as they love their lives and healths to shun and avoid these passions But in sicke persons especially which is that I here principally aime at there must a singular care and regard be had that as little distaste as possible be given And herein that golden rule of Hippocrates hath chiefely place that it is not sufficient for the Physitian to play his part but the assistants also and attendants and all other things must also be answerable The sicke wee know by reason of his sicknesse hath sorrow enough especially if the party be of a feeble fearefull and pusillanimous spirit the phansie still framing unto it selfe new feares of some bad and sinistrous event And thus wee see through rashnesse and indiscretion of some about the sicke sometimes by relating to them some evill tidings and sometimes putting them in needlesse feares without any sure ground or yet when there is just cause of feare in the sicke yet being indiscreetly revealed to him either by the Physitian or others or yet at an unseasonable time as about the time of rest or before meales may much prejudice the sicke And therefore I advise all those whom it concerneth to be very vigilant and circumspect whom they suffer to come about the sicke wee finding by daily experience that many times ignorant and unadvised people prove the causes of infinite evills to the sicke and that sometimes by disswading them from a laudable and legall course for the speedie recovery of their health prescribed by learned and wise counsell especialy if their shallow capacities be not able as seldome they are to dive into the depth of the Physitians intentions and sometimes also by erring in the maner above-mentioned Such constitutions of body as we named heretofore are not hereby so much wronged providing we goe not too farre My meaning is not here notwithstanding that which hath beene said to forbid any that true sorrow for sinne and a true compunction of heart for offending the Majestie of the Almighty God the which will be so farre from producing those effects of worldly sorrow that on the contrary it will purchase to thy soule more solid comfort and content and more inlargement of true heavenly joy to thy drouping and sorrowfull soule than all the silver and gold of Ophir and both the Indies and all the gracious gems and jewells ever gave to the greatest upon earth that possessed them yea if it were yet possible they were all in one mans possession And as the wiseman saith that Even in laughter there is sorrow so may I as well invert it that even in this godly sorrow is joy in the holy